Brothers and Ghosts by Khuê Phạm

Author:Khuê Phạm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC123000, FIC045000, FIC051000
ISBN: 9781761385568
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2024-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

KIỀU

Uncle Sơn leans forward towards the Star Trek-like dashboard of his car and switches on the radio. A woman’s voice, as soft and sweet as a sixteen-year-old’s, is crooning a cheesy Vietnamese pop song. My father, in the passenger seat next to him, starts humming along softly.

‘I know the song, but who’s the singer, Sơn?’

‘Her name is Lê Vân. She’s a big deal in Vietnam right now. She used to be an underwear model, and there are still a lot of sexy videos of her on YouTube. But now that she’s dating the head of the state oil company, she’s had to change her image. She gave a concert here in California a few months ago and it was sold out!’

‘Really? Stars like that never come to Berlin.’

‘That’s the advantage of living here. It’s like Vietnam, but without the grime, poverty, and communism.’

Uncle Sơn laughs, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. We’re riding in a yellow Mercedes SUV so big and pretentious that climbing into it in the parking lot was almost too much for me. He had insisted on picking the three of us up at the motel, exclaiming ‘You rented that junker?’ when he saw our black Chevy. Typical Vietnamese, I thought to myself. This need to constantly flaunt that you have made it. The yellow polo shirt he’s wearing is only a half shade off from the hue of his car.

We’ve been in Little Saigon for a week and a half now, and today is the first afternoon we are spending alone with Uncle Sơn. Everyone else has to work. He was almost apologetic about it in his WhatsApp message. Unlike Germans, the Vietnamese are herd animals; the larger the group, the more comfortable they feel. I’m also quite happy to be surrounded by others all the time; it distracts me from the unresolved problem of my pregnancy and makes it easier to play the role of the shy niece who is always smiling. My relatives don’t expect me to say much about myself or share an opinion; it’s enough for me to just sit there and say ‘Yes’ or ‘Mmmh, delicious’ from time to time. It gives me the feeling of travelling along on a journey whose direction I have no control over, a small part of something much larger.

‘The communists had noble goals,’ my father says after a moment. ‘They just never got around to implementing them.’

In the rear-view mirror, I can see Uncle Sơn rolling his eyes. ‘Are you still defending these people? After they came to power, there was nothing but corruption, re-education camps, and people trying to escape. Believe me, anh, I lived through it.’

‘You saw families like ours lose everything after the war. But what about all the other families? The ones who lived in the North? Or those who were torn apart for decades because of the partition? Say what you want about the communists, but at least they reunited the country and secured its independence.’

Uncle SÆ¡n shakes his head, looking upset and resigned at the same time.

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