and in the other, two helmets. Still today I try to remember his first words, in vain; at that precise moment, I was probably somewhere else, maybe on the moon. Vietnamese mothers tell children that a woodcutter lives there, sitting under a banyan tree, playing a flute to entertain the moon fairy. Chinese women show the shadows that form the silhouette of a rabbit preparing the recipe for immortality; Japanese women sew for their daughters
hagoromo
, feathered robes like those worn by the fairy who has departed the Earth for the Moon, leaving behind her a besotted emperor. He asked his army to take him to the summit of the highest mountain so that he could be closer to her.
Luc took me into those fairy tales by covering me with his down coat, its sleeves coming down to my knees. âI beg you, please donât protest,â he said, bending down to do up the zipper. I locked the door behind us with the vertigo of an astronaut. Iâd read that they sometimes suffer from vertigo in space because they lose the notion of up and down. Worse than that, I had also lost left and right.
thoát
freed
I CLIMBED AWKWARDLY ONTO the scooter behind him and we drove across Paris to his motherâs residence. She wasnât expecting us. She no longer expected anyone. She didnât sing now and didnât care about the person she saw in the mirror. I wondered if she was approaching the state of nirvana, where the soul quietly leaves the body, free of all desire, insensitive to all suffering. Just as Luc was asking me if I was frightened, she placed her hand on my head and started to stroke my hair, slowly, constantly. All around, the walls were covered with photos, including one of her in a bright red T-shirt with a royal blue heart on the chest, sitting at the piano with, in the background, dozing children temporarily freed of their lame bodies.
mỠcôi
orphan
HER HANDS WERE WEAK NOW , but they still expressed so much gentleness, perhaps because her gnarled fingers had written hundreds of letters to her orphans, never discouraged though she had yet to receive a reply. All through his childhood, Luc had to share his mother with those ghosts that haunted her. At first, she stopped every Vietnamese woman she ran into on the streets of Paris to ask if she knew the orphanage. If by misfortune the person had lived in the same district, she would be invited over and asked a thousand questions. One day, a lady had told her that the house had been confiscated and redistributed to five families. The children had been chased away when the property was first being divided. Before the lady could describe the silence that reigned in the neighbourhood during the operation, Lucâs mother had stood up from the table. As of that day, she had refused to speak to any Vietnamese, for fear of encountering another one who would confirm the dark destiny of the children. She had also kept Francine and Luc away from possible contact with them.
cá kho
caramelized fish
FRANCINE CAME TO ME excitedly, like a little girl disobeying an outmoded and emotionally restrictive prohibition unjustly imposed by her mother. The week before we first met, in the window of her local bookstore, the cover photo of
La Palanche
âa terracotta bowl half sunk in embers and containing a caramelized fish steakâhad moved her to tears. The aroma of fish sauce had struck her as if she were still standing in the kitchenette of the orphanage just as the cook was pouring some into the piping hot mixture of sugar, onion and garlic. That same day, Francine had given the book to Luc. Like her, he had smelled immediately that violent and inimitable aroma that their mother preferred to any other. She fixed that dish at least once a month, with blanched cabbage or sliced cucumbers and steamed rice. As soon as he was able, Luc escaped from the house when
cá kho tá»
was being prepared. He didnât know which he hated more, the smell of
hagoromo
, feathered robes like those worn by the fairy who has departed the Earth for the Moon, leaving behind her a besotted emperor. He asked his army to take him to the summit of the highest mountain so that he could be closer to her.
Luc took me into those fairy tales by covering me with his down coat, its sleeves coming down to my knees. âI beg you, please donât protest,â he said, bending down to do up the zipper. I locked the door behind us with the vertigo of an astronaut. Iâd read that they sometimes suffer from vertigo in space because they lose the notion of up and down. Worse than that, I had also lost left and right.
thoát
freed
I CLIMBED AWKWARDLY ONTO the scooter behind him and we drove across Paris to his motherâs residence. She wasnât expecting us. She no longer expected anyone. She didnât sing now and didnât care about the person she saw in the mirror. I wondered if she was approaching the state of nirvana, where the soul quietly leaves the body, free of all desire, insensitive to all suffering. Just as Luc was asking me if I was frightened, she placed her hand on my head and started to stroke my hair, slowly, constantly. All around, the walls were covered with photos, including one of her in a bright red T-shirt with a royal blue heart on the chest, sitting at the piano with, in the background, dozing children temporarily freed of their lame bodies.
mỠcôi
orphan
HER HANDS WERE WEAK NOW , but they still expressed so much gentleness, perhaps because her gnarled fingers had written hundreds of letters to her orphans, never discouraged though she had yet to receive a reply. All through his childhood, Luc had to share his mother with those ghosts that haunted her. At first, she stopped every Vietnamese woman she ran into on the streets of Paris to ask if she knew the orphanage. If by misfortune the person had lived in the same district, she would be invited over and asked a thousand questions. One day, a lady had told her that the house had been confiscated and redistributed to five families. The children had been chased away when the property was first being divided. Before the lady could describe the silence that reigned in the neighbourhood during the operation, Lucâs mother had stood up from the table. As of that day, she had refused to speak to any Vietnamese, for fear of encountering another one who would confirm the dark destiny of the children. She had also kept Francine and Luc away from possible contact with them.
cá kho
caramelized fish
FRANCINE CAME TO ME excitedly, like a little girl disobeying an outmoded and emotionally restrictive prohibition unjustly imposed by her mother. The week before we first met, in the window of her local bookstore, the cover photo of
La Palanche
âa terracotta bowl half sunk in embers and containing a caramelized fish steakâhad moved her to tears. The aroma of fish sauce had struck her as if she were still standing in the kitchenette of the orphanage just as the cook was pouring some into the piping hot mixture of sugar, onion and garlic. That same day, Francine had given the book to Luc. Like her, he had smelled immediately that violent and inimitable aroma that their mother preferred to any other. She fixed that dish at least once a month, with blanched cabbage or sliced cucumbers and steamed rice. As soon as he was able, Luc escaped from the house when
cá kho tá»
was being prepared. He didnât know which he hated more, the smell of
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