Scorched Earth by Fred A. Wilcox

Author:Fred A. Wilcox [Wilcox, Fred A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60980-340-7
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2011-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

The Last Family

Occasionally I saw these [genetically deformed] children in contaminated villages in the Mekong Delta; and whenever I asked about them, people pointed to the sky; one man scratched in the dust a good likeness of a bulbous C–130 aircraft, spraying.

—John Pilger

On the outskirts of the city of Danang, women in conical hats tend rice paddies, bending in calf-deep water to plant new shoots. Brown cows and steel-gray water buffalo graze this ancient landscape, at peace now after centuries of invasions, uprisings, and war. We cross a narrow bridge, turn into a dirt road, and walk a short distance to a small, remarkably barren house, its walls scarred by monsoon flooding, and only the most rudimentary furniture—a low glass-covered wooden table, small red plastic chairs, no television or family shrine. It is the kind of home that one might find in the most destitute areas of Appalachia or on impoverished Indian reservations.

Nguyen Thi May sits on the floor, a twelve-year-old boy sprawled on her lap; her sixteen-year-old daughter, Trinh, leans close by her side. Until a recent operation on her legs, paid for by World Vision Vietnam, Trinh could not walk; now, her mother explains, she can move about “a little.” The girl’s skin is wrinkled and dry, like bark that might just peel away when touched, or catch fire in the Vietnam heat—we would later see a boy with this same condition, called x-linked ichthyosis, at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. When her mother bathes her, Trinh’s skin peels off, turns white, and then darkens like red wine. Trinh will never attend school or learn to care for herself, and while she smiles and waves one hand at her visitors, most of the time she stares about the room, expressionless.

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