NOOGIESBRAIN

Ecole Française Colette on Ho Xuan Huong Avenue in Saigon is a massive two-story adobe structure. It is painted orange and has green wooden shutters. Beyond the green metal arched gates, the courtyard is covered in pea gravel. There is a bust of some unknown man’s head on a stone pillar in the middle of the courtyard.

When I was a student there, it was only a one-story building. And I don’t remember it being painted a cheerful orange but rather a faded and jaundiced horse manure color. The hallways between the classrooms were always dark and scary. On the occasional few times that I was allowed to use the bathroom, I would run quickly and squat over the latrine, hoping for fast release because noises echoing from the ceramic tile walls were surely from the dead, as legend had it.   

Colette, before it was a school, was a hospital. The lore was that so many soldiers died there at the hospital that their spirits still haunted the building. Some were benign yet others were to be feared because they had died violently and were seeking revenge.

The war in Vietnam precipitated that some schools be combined or shut down. Colette was not shuttered but they changed to a two-session school day. Some students attended the morning session and some, like me, went in the afternoons. 

Sometimes I got to school with our nanny, on a pedicab, or cyclo. My best days were when my favorite cousin would come pick me up and take me on the back of his motorcycle. I still can’t believe that my mother allowed that. But it was exhilarating for me as a kid to be on a real motorcycle, not one of those putt putt mopeds.

School went from two in the afternoon to six in the evening. I was usually picked up by my mother or my nanny. 

A week after my friend Suzanne, who had been kidnapped and had gotten part of her ear chopped off, their wires got crossed and neither my mother or my nanny came and got me. 

I waited in the schoolyard with all the other students. But no sign of them. The number of kids dwindled and the custodian came and ushered the few us left out of the yard so he could lock the gates.

Outside of the gate, I waited with some older girls remaining. As the group slowly thinned out and the sky darkened, the cold of fear started creeping up my limbs. I approached an older girl and begged. “Big sister, can you stay with me? I don’t know where my mother is.” She agreed and comforted me but eventually her ride came and she left too. 

I was alone in front of these huge metal gates in the dark. The same gates which kept the ghosts confined to the building. The same gates where some random criminal had dropped off my friend Suzanne with part of her ear missing. The same gates where Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk had self-immolated in protest of the government’s persecution of Buddhists.

I was paralyzed with fear that I would be kidnapped next. There were stories all over Saigon about what criminals were willing to do for the ransom. The general consensus was that it was a lucrative business for them and they were not moved by pleas of mercy from their victims.

I had heard talk of people losing fingers, hands, and toes, but seeing for myself Suzanne’s left over ear made it hard to breathe that evening, while I was alone in the dark. 

I started to walk away from the school towards the direction of one of my aunt’s house. The sidewalk was completely pitch black. I was sobbing with every step. I hugged my schoolbag to my chest to stop shaking. I concentrated all my senses to pick up any odd sounds or movement and prepared myself for escape should I need it. I prayed my legs would work. I remember being startled and then relieved when I walked into some overhanging limbs and the foliage brushed my face. 

I was desolate. I felt abandoned and unloved. How could they forget me? Fear was joined with bitterness and deep hurt. I had always felt that I was the least favored child of the four. Would they pay the ransom if someone took me? Would I be sold to some codger to be a child bride? Would I become a prostitute like my tutor was always implying?

When I finally entered my aunt’s house, still crying, I wasn’t met with hugs or relief. That’s not the way they did things. She did, however, put a large bowl of rice with meat and veggies in front of me and said, “Eat!” 

And I knew people DID care for me.

In Saigon, Vietnam, I attended a French kindergarten named Croix Rouge which literally translates to Red Cross. The teachers, both French and Vietnamese taught in French. But mainly we played. I don’t really remember much of my kindergarten year, I’m assuming because it was not memorable, neither positive or negative.

I do however, recall my first-grade experience in Vietnam as clear as day itself. Children had to take an entrance exam to enter elementary school. And apparently, I was as bright as an old penny. My mother was coerced into hiring a special tutor for me, and not incoincidentally, it turned out to be my first-grade teacher. Private lessons were held at her second-floor little apartment, to supplement her teaching salary.

When I said we played in the French kindergarten, I am saying I did little kid stuff. Perhaps I played tag or with dolls. Maybe I colored? Probably sang some silly songs. I don’t remember it being a stressful time.

That all changed significantly in the first grade. The reality of real school for me was frightening, abasing, and demoralizing. The very first day of class set the horrific tone for the upcoming term.

My illiterate nanny was to take me to my first day of school. All students were required to have identity cards, with their passport-sized photo attached to it. I remember we were running late that morning. And as we dashed out the door, she remembered the ID card. She found the card but the photos were not attached yet. She ran around the house in search for glue, but finally ran into the kitchen, with me following closely behind. She opened the rice pot and scooped out a fingerful of cold rice, which she smeared onto the back of the photo. Tada! Glue! She hammered on my face’s likeness with her fist to ensure a seal.   

My mother sent me to my first day of school, armed with the requisite cahiers notebooks, my yellow, zippered pencil pouch with pencils and quill pens, and my little plastic ink pot, which always leaked black ink over everything. My nanny and I caught a cyclo to the school. There she dropped me off, no hugs, no kisses, no waves, no pictures, just go.

In class, on the VERY first day, we were told to get out a textbook and take turns reading out loud. I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO READ. I guess playing tag and dolls does not automatically instill reading skills into your head at age 5. So when it was my turn, I stood at my desk, and stood. I kept standing silently, disgraced before the whole class. I couldn’t figure out how all the other girls knew how to read!

I also did not know how to write. Sure, I knew how to spell my name but these other girls in the class were writing whole essays in cursive with the quill pen and ink.

There were no recesses or bathroom breaks at my all-girl school. And of course, it was widely rumored that the school was haunted because it had once been a hospital where many people died. To go to the bathroom, you had to raise your hand and beg for permission. You would then tear some sheets of paper out of one of your notebooks and slink quietly out of the class. But my malevolent teacher denied me the opportunity to relieve myself. So I kept sitting at my desk until I quietly wet myself. And I stayed that way the rest of the day.

My nanny met me at the gate of the school that afternoon. She was already sitting on a cyclo. When she found I was wet, she scolded me loudly, so everyone around us could hear. She made me take my underwear off, right there on the footpad of the cyclo. And furiously hiked up my dress so everyone could see my bare bottom. I rode home, sitting on the plastic covers of my notebooks.

That was Day One.

On Tuesdays, we had Vietnamese lessons, since it was a French school. That teacher was a young Vietnamese man. He gave us all kinds of assignments, apparently, of which I was unaware of. One by one, we were called to stand to his right as he sat at the big wooden desk facing the class. The other girls were reciting from memory full chapters of SOMETHING. I didn’t know what the heck was going on. When I was called, I stood next to his desk, with my hands clasped behind my back, silent. And stood and stood until he cussed me out and screamed at me to go back to my seat after he rapped my knuckles with his green plastic ruler. The rulers we had in Vietnam had 4 sides to them, not flat as in America, so the edges really hurt on my knuckles.

That was Day Two.

So Day Three comes around, and guess what? I have my first tutoring session. I walk up the stairs to a well-lit little apartment that even has a balcony. I am told to sit at the small table. I sit and sit and finally my teacher comes out. She is barefoot. She has a silky short-sleeved pajama set on. She is no longer polite or nun-like. She barks at me to start reading from the textbook. I stumble as best as I can through the jumble of unfamiliar letters. I am doing a terrible job. She swoops her hands across the table and pushes all my books and notebooks crashing off the little table. She grabs one of my wrists and says, “How can you even read with hair like that? You can’t even see! No wonder you’re so dumb!” She drags me onto the balcony and magically produces a pair of scissors and goes to town on my bangs. My China Chop hairdo now looks more like Insane Jane’s style but hey, at least I’m no longer so dumb.

She looks at my fingernails and scolds me that they are filthy, like a whore’s nails. She rants about me being nothing but a slut. She takes out some nail clippers and starts whacking off my nails but cuts too close to my nail bed on some fingers so they start to bleed. 

When my mother comes to collect me that evening, the teacher is all sweet and pious. She even drapes her hands casually on my shoulders as she tells my mother how much I have improved. My mother hands her some money and thanks her.

In exactly two weeks from today, it will be my husband’s one year death anniversary. 

In my culture, we would acknowledge his passing by paying respects to him by cooking his favorite dishes, setting up an altar with his photograph, lighting candles and incense while we speak to him. Only after the incense has extinguished do we get to touch the food for ourselves. 

But here in middle America, no such thing will happen.

People will comment such trite things to me, such as, 

“I can’t believe it’s been a year, how are you doing?”

“He was such a great person.”

“I’m sure he’s looking down from heaven and smiling at you.”

Whatever.

It’s been a year fraught with grief, sorrow, loneliness, but mostly anger.

Anger illogically directed at him for dying. He had promised me at least twenty more years with him. Anger at cancer. Anger that there was no cure.

A lot of anger stemming from the weird relationship he had with his adult children, who he praised all the time as if they hung the moon. Angry at him for his delusional pride in them, thinking they were oh so smart and accomplished thinkers and trailblazers. 

Parenting does not come with any instruction manual. We are all winging it, some more successfully than others.

I’ve always parented based on my gut feeling. I feel I intuitively know my kids very well because they were attached to me in utero. Sometimes psychically even, for example, when I knew my oldest had pneumonia before he had even been seen by any medical professional.

What is the correct way to parent? Is it just as harmful to give your kids everything, as it is to withhold things from them? Does it do them harm when you praise them for something that doesn’t need to be praised?

In Costco a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but hear this mother talking to her little kids as if she were having an adult conversation with them but done in a sing-songey voice. She was explaining to them every damn little thing: “that is a banana, we don’t eat chips, we’re looking for only organic.” Yadda yadda yadda. I wanted to punch her lights out.

It’s not that big of a deal that your five-year-old knows what a damn banana is. It does not mean he has Mensa IQ.

Anger at my husband is accompanied with resentment. When we discussed his will and I asked to be removed from it to avoid any conflicts with his children, he said I didn’t have any faith in him. He said he was hurt that I would think he had raised anybody who would be spiteful and ugly.

For the last year, I have had to contend with his “faultless” kids in so many ways, that my anger at him has repeatedly fucked with my blood pressure, my stress level, my sleeplessness. These people have no respect for others or any social graces. I am so mad at him for thinking that they are exceptional people when they are actually loathsome. I’m so mad at him for being such a smart person but so dumb when it came to his kids.

I’m so mad that the harmful things done to me by his children has tainted my relationship with him. I know this is wrong and I am trying very hard to let go of this anger. I have officially erased them from my mind. I am not anticipating actually receiving anything from the estate.

I have  the car that he loved to drive. And I have some of his cremains, thanks to the funeral home. (His children forbade me to have them.) I have some photos and I saved all of the texts and emails and notes that we exchanged. And I have my memories. In exactly two weeks from today, I will look for him among the stars in the night sky that he used to name for me. I will celebrate him as my childless husband.

Holly was great. A
Great Dane. White
with black spots.
Statuesque, legs 
like a thoroughbred’s.
Brainy as Albert, if
He had been a dog.
Regal, no pretensions,
Humane more than humans.

Kids in the creek, 
Logs came unjammed.
A torrent of water —
Kids under the deluge.
Smallest one sunken.
Dad came arunning,
reached for a kid,
Dad lost his footing,
plopped in the mud.
Dad held a branch,
water too quick 
Kids reached their arms —
Grabbed nothing but air.

Into the creek came Holly.
Planted her feet,
Sluiced her whole head,
Smallest kid gasped,
Dad grabbed his collar,
while Holly got others.
Holly was great.
A great Great Dane.

There was a picturesque little house on a high slope near the Swiss Alps. The little house had a steep pitched top so the heavy snows of winter would slough off instead of caving in the roof. It had been built by a young and hale man with calloused hands and a strong back. His name was Aurel. Aurel had built the house so he could bring home a young bride, for without a house, there would be no bride.

After Aurel’s young bride, Greta settled into the little house, she went about making it a home. She planted beautiful flowers in pinks and reds in the planters that she hung from all the windows. She sewed curtains in a blue plaid cloth. And she painted a big yellow sun motif on the heavy wooden front door. She baked the most delicious strudels and made his favorite dinner of sausages and apples.

They were a happy couple. Aurel built beautiful clocks that had birds and forest animals that he carved out of wood. And Greta harvested wild berries from the forest to make jams. Every first Saturday of the month, they would load the wagon up with Aurel’s clocks and Greta’s jams and go to town to sell their goods. 

One first Saturday of the month in October, after they had set up their stall, a customer came and inquired about Aurel’s clocks. He was so excited to tell the customer all the unique features of the clocks and kept her engaged for a long time. Greta tired of hearing about the clocks and ventured away to see other stalls and visit with neighbors. She noticed a new stall because it had a red awning instead of the usual drab canvas one.

As she approached the stall with the red awning, her eyes widened in awe of the varieties and amounts of candies and sweet goods. Her favorite was black licorice and this stall had it in long strings, short sticks, curly ribbons, bowties and little buttons. She looked back at their stall, Aurel was still talking about his clocks. She dipped her hand under her apron into her right pocket and pulled out some coins. Surely, a few coins wouldn’t be missed. She bought one of each shape of the licorice and hid the paper bag under her apron.

That evening, after they had sold every last clock and jar of jam, Aurel hugged his wife and said, “My wife, we have done well today, I think I will get you something. Look around, is there anything that you fancy?”

Greta pretended to scope out all the stalls and then said, “My husband, I think someone is selling licorice. Perhaps you can buy me some?”

Aurel said proudly, “I will treat my wife with a sweet.” But when he came back with only one bowtie, Greta said, “Your wife is only worth one licorice? Don’t you love your wife?” Aurel quickly ran back to the candy stall and bought more licorice.

From that day on, Greta would question Aurel’s love for her on a regular basis and Aurel, desperate to keep a wife by making her happy, would ensure that the little house always had a steady supply of black licorice. 

Greta stopped harvesting berries in the forest. She stopped making jams. She stopped watering her flowers. She stopped sewing curtains. She stopped baking strudels and cooking sausages. All she did day and night, and night and day, was eat black licorice. Soon her teeth turned as black as coal, her tongue like a serpent’s and her waist outgrew her apron strings.

Aurel grew increasingly alarmed at Greta’s condition but every time he would comment on her past accomplishments, Greta would berate him and insinuate his love was not true. Aurel would hang his head and go buy more licorice as she dictated.

Greta kept consuming the black licorice and nothing else until one day she turned into a sphere. She could no longer perch on a chair. She rolled off the bed. Her arms and legs were swallowed up by the sphere that was her body. She couldn’t stay still in place. For she was now a ball.

“My wife, what will happen to us? You no longer make jams to sell. Every clock I make and sell, I spend the money on licorice. We have to buy less licorice.”

At this, Greta was enraged! She yelled at him that she was his number one priority, that his job was to keep her happy and that meant getting rid of the house if need be. The house that he built with his very own calloused hands and strong back? Aurel hung his head and sobbed. What had happened to his happy family? 

Greta sneered at him and called him a weak crybaby. She announced she was going out to get more licorice and emptied the money jar. Aurel begged her not to take all the money but she wouldn’t listen. She stormed out of the house.

Aurel sat in his little house dejected. Then he heard an eerie sound that he had never heard before. He went outside and looked. 

“AUUURELLL, HELLLLP ME OOH!”

To his shock, Aurel saw that Greta was rolling down the mountain at increasing speed as she was yelling, “AUREL, HELP ME OOH!”

And that is where “Yodel lay he ooh” came from. True story.

Hey, you, or me. This is you, or me, forty years later. You, and me, we, are presently ancient, old, short of being cadavers. And we are here to tell us, in our vast quantity of acquired knowledge and wisdom, that we shouldn’t have wasted any time resisting the cultural lessons that Mommy and Daddy were laying on us and fretting about the stupid stuff.

How stupid, we ask ourselves? Well….for one thing….

…pretty sure Velveeta isn’t food of the Gods. So you shouldn’t have thrown a fit in the IGA dairy aisle coercing Mommy to buy the whole two pound rectangle of rubbery goo. Mommy is smart, she knew it wasn’t a food! Plus, she’s an incredible chef, who’s always up on the latest famous chef or new technique in the kitchen. So no, you should appreciate that she did not agree to feed you a hotdog every day of your second grade.

I know it was hard coming from another country and that you just wanted to be like all the other kids, to fit in. Remember praying to be blonde? All those times in the tub and in bed where you rubbed your arms so hard, wishing that friction would give you arm hairs. 

Well, so now you, me, we know that being blonde isn’t everything, right? And people actually PAY to get shaved, waxed, or lasered to be hairless! Even some men want to be hairless now. We should be really glad that our skin is as smooth as a baby’s butt.

Now, for some of the more important lessons, tsk, shame! 

You should cringe at yourself every time you thought your parents were embarrassing. You should be thankful that they made you speak Vietnamese at home. Those early Saturday morning lessons, which you HATED, when you had to read Vietnamese out loud to Daddy, have proven to be entirely useful, for now, when you are at a nail place, and the workers can’t figure out where you’re from, you act oblivious and stay quiet, but you’re catching every word that they are saying. You’re like a spy, eavesdropping. And sometimes, when there was an unkind thing said about you, you catch them by surprise as you burst into your Vietnamese and watch them just shit their pants. You are so proud that you are somewhat fluent in your birth language.

You should be able to laugh now at how our parents made us stay home on weekends “to watch the house” instead of carousing and cavorting with our classmates. Waiting and watching to defend our home against communists or burglars was uneventful. 

Carousing and cavorting in Carbondale was also uneventful. The culture shock of landing in the middle of nowhere in the corn belt DID make us scratch our head and question Daddy’s decision to uproot us. Sure, it was a university town but there was nothing else redeeming about the place until the grand opening of the Walmart. Boy, was that a special day! Mayor showed up, cut the red ribbon. 

You should really appreciate how Daddy always planned trips to interesting places, immersed us into cultural and global events, performances, and museums so that we wouldn’t grow up to be total rubes. 

You should be thankful that your parents were strict with you and your siblings because, come to find out much later, Carbondale was the gateway for drugs crisscrossing the country because of its location smack in the belly button of America. You are thankful you are not a meth head and you have all your teeth.

You should be super grateful that you know of your history, your culture, your SELF, why you are the way you are. And it’s because Mommy and Daddy made every effort to retain their culture, even in their adopted land. And that’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

So go apologize to them and stop acting so high falutin’, cos you don’t know everything.

And throw out the Velveeta.

From Charles Osgood:

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove.

Here to come
As we live
Together with
Joy, you and me
Eternally happy and
Devoted we will be
Me, your moon, you my
Sun, emitting love.

Spinning through space and
Hopping over stars, we
Would be doing at will
Public displays of affection for some
To see and moan in disgust at our new
Behavior of pleasures
For we have nothing to prove.

This too will be a long and quiet day. Sometimes insufferable. No agenda, no appointments, no deadlines. She stares at the ceiling and notices a spider’s silk thread waving. She follows it with her eyes, not moving her head. And makes a note to Swiffer the corner near the bathroom.

Out of habit, she still wakes at dawn. She makes her bed, the number two task of the day. The sheets are pulled taut, the corners square, the top smooth. She skips the coin bouncing.

She dresses in well-pressed and starched dungarees and a button-down shirt, the cuffs buttoned. Brown leather belt in place. She steps into her highly polished loafers. She sweeps a brush over her short-cropped grey hair.

In the kitchen, she looks out the window as the water heats. Partly cloudy and humid today. She takes the Folger’s out of the cabinet and spoons a heaping teaspoon into a mug. The kettle whistles and she pours the hot water into the mug. She stirs the coffee and watches the liquid swirling. Then she stirs in the opposite direction and watches the little bit of foam at the top reverse itself. She pulls the spoon out of the mug but is still entranced by the swirling liquid. She watches until it stops moving. She takes a sip and looks out the window again and then sighs.

“Here, Kitty Kitty Kitty. Breakfast time!” She calls into her backyard from the little stoop and waits. She puts out kibbles and water for the feral cats who frequent her backyard. She makes a mental note, the weeds need mowing. But it’s only Tuesday. Friday is mowing day. If they get too tall, the push mower will be a struggle. If she mows before Friday, she will have to rearrange all the rest of the days of the week. She does not relish upsetting her routine.

She lights a cigarette and stares at the weeds, her eyes unblinking until she feels a cat rub against her leg. “There you are, you little skunk.” She does not pet the cat. Any of the cats. They don’t like being handled, she has learned from experience.

She goes back inside the house and into the sitting room. She settles into her recliner of worn brown vinyl upholstery and picks up the open book. But she can’t get motivated to start reading. Instead her eyes take in the small front yard that slopes downhill to the mailbox. Weeds there too, but not as bad as the back.

From her recliner, she can see practically all the way down the length of the street. Every morning, her neighbor Art walks by on the other side of the street with his big black dog and his pooper scooper. It seems cumbersome to have to walk with the scooper because of its long handles but it serves its purpose, because on the walk back on this side of the street, when the dog squats beside her mailbox, Art puts the shovel like part under the dog and catches the poop. Then he walks over to the storm water drainage and shakes the dog’s business into the sewer. That damn dog! Always beside her mailbox. Art only got the pooper scooper after she berated him on how to be a good citizen to someone who had served their country.

Marnie goes by with the twins in the double stroller and waves to her from the street. She raises a hand in return. She is glad younger families are moving into the neighborhood, giving it new life and cheer. She feels partly responsible for this because her tax dollars have gone into improving the elementary school.

With a cigarette dangling from the side of her mouth, she puts a record on the turntable. As the beginning strains of Turandot comes on, she rests her head on the back of the recliner and closes her eyes. She inhales deeply and feels the smoke fill her lungs. She remembers the time she saw the live performance at the Met in New York City. She was proudly wearing her dress uniform. And people were yielding to her at the bar and the line to the bathroom. Those feelings of pride and appreciation that night have long disappeared.

She walks to her mailbox but no mail. She looks both ways up and down the street but no one is in sight to wave to. Partly cloudy and humid today.

She enters the house, adjusts the fan so it’s blowing directly on her and sits again on the recliner. She dozes.

She wakes with a start and moves clumsily to the desk in the corner of the room and takes some papers out of the top drawer. She rereads her Last Will and Testament. She is confident everything is in order. 

She picks up the phone and calls the doctor’s office. “Yes, I’d like to cancel my treatment this Thursday. I will be gone.”

She turns the knob on the gun safe and removes her service revolver. She settles into the recliner again and thinks, damn, those weeds out back are really gonna be bad. She puts the gun to her right temple and pulls the trigger.

My mommy’s name is Mit
Aloud not mitt
But meet
At birth, fat as a fruit
For which she was dubbed

A jackfruit, with skin all prickly
A giant green grenade
Machete or butcher knife
Reveals the guts, yellow blobs
Like eggs gone wrong

The pods give flesh smooth and sweet
Al dente, come la pasta per favore
I chew and swallow succulent mit
Remember days of childhood joy
Mit gives me seconds of mit, a treat

My throat constricts
My breathing labors
Inside my head the itch advances
Alas, I have developed adversity
To eating my mommy Mit’s mit

You asked me what I wanted
I said Raisin Bran
You came back with Rice Krispies
Why did you ask then?

You stood over my breasts exposed
Me, the mechanical cow
The machine whirring
My nipples, deflated balloons, you exclaimed “wow!”

Roused me out of bed 
Because you needed an activity
Laundering sheets at 5am was 
What you picked as charity

“We’ve tried to love you
Cos he chose you”
Glad to hear your efforts
Were dialed in at zero

No broken blood vessels
Strained from your rheumatic eyes
No longer needed is 
Your nice disguise

Suzanne is the rich girl. She arrives to the school and gets picked up in a chauffeured big black car. Her dresses are always chic and immaculate, the envy of the other girls in the class. Her hair is stylishly cropped in the latest Parisian trend.

The thirty-six little girls in the class sit dutifully quiet, hands clasped on their little desks, awaiting their first torment of the day. They know the rules. No speaking, no chatting, no laughing, no jokes, no camaraderie. There are no established friendships among this crowd. There is a distinct and understood hierarchy that has been set by the young woman standing in front of the class in her white ao dai. She is their teacher and she has perfected the gift of demoralizing and shattering young souls down packed, by pitting them against each other.

She swings around from writing on the chalkboard, her arm with the piece of chalk still raised mid-air.

“WHAT?” she yelps sharply.

Silence.

The little girls silently squirm in their seats.

“I KNOW I heard something.”  The young teacher‘s eyes surveil the room, they narrow and then they concentrate on one girl like a heat-seeking missile. Oh, good, the teacher thinks to herself. This one is easy. She grabs a new piece of chalk and walks to the girl’s desk. She holds her hand outstretched. The girl’s eyes have started to tear. 

“Take it!” The girl reaches for the chalk with her little hand. “Put it in your mouth. Maybe next time, you’ll be quiet.”

Tear are streaming down the little girl’s face as she puts the chalk between her lips. The soft sediments of the chalk stick start dissolving in her mouth and she gags. Spit is escaping at the corners of her clamped lips. 

She feels a poke on her left arm. She turns her head and sees Suzanne. Suzanne holds a small piece of paper in her hand under her desk. She looks up to check if the teacher is still at the chalkboard. Then she signals for the girl to use the piece of paper to wrap around the chalk.

The girl does as suggested and is able to withstand the rest of the day without vomiting the calcium carbonate.

The little girl is elated and tells her family about the new friend she made in school that day. She’s the rich girl! And she didn’t look down on her, she HELPED her! Maybe she’ll be able to ride in that big black car someday instead of going to school in a cyclo.

But the next day, the seat next to hers is empty. She waits but Suzanne does not appear all day. Or the day after that. Or the next. Rumors start circulating in the schoolyard that Suzanne has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. The little girl knows kidnapping is rampant in Saigon. It is an everyday occurrence and topic of conversation. She cries for her newfound friend and pleads to Buddha to keep her safe.

Weeks after her disappearance, Suzanne is dropped off at the school in the middle of the day. She enters the classroom silently. She is barefoot. She is disheveled. Her dress is filthy. Her face and hands are covered with dirt and grime. Behind her once chic Parisian hair, the top part of her right earlobe is missing. 

Suzanne never speaks again, even without chalk in her mouth.