Ly Lan

The Ghost

"I tell you this, but don't be frightened. You are haunted by a ghost."

Miss Linh bites her lips as if she wants to take the words back. She waits for my reaction, but I'm not frightened. A ghost is the spirit of a dead person. A dead person can't rob me, murder me, or slander or imprison me. So why should I be frightened?

"I tell you this not because I have any desire for profit, but to warn you. This is a debt from a previous life. You must drive it away."

I laugh. Among the six billion people on the planet, this ghost has chosen me. How can I have the heart to drive it away?

But my mother is worried. "You look pale." She tells me. "Your soul and body seem not together. You seem lost, even when you are with others." To cure me, she takes me to the pagoda. We bring flowers and fruits. I prostrate myself before the Buddha, then join the others sitting cross-legged, listening to the sutras.

"Antapha baphathuat datapha datmatapha batarami..."

My mother asks me to repeat the words. "These True Words purify the three karmas," she says. I repeat them; it appears that pagodas on mountains are lofty places, sutras in Sanskrit are sacred. It doesn't matter if I read them without understanding their meaning. The sutras are not for me, they are for the ghost.

"Batarami maphadata mahadatapapha...."

Listening to the sutras the ghost may be purified and freed from suffering. Or it may come to itself and leave me to stay on and lead a peaceful life at the pagoda. After the sutras I walk in the garden then eat lunch at noon before returning to chant the sutras into the evening. The plan is for me to stay for a few days. The pagoda is nice. From the back of the garden in the evening I can see the sun set in the reddish western sky, then the skyline gradually turns a deep purple.

But, on the second day, my younger brother comes and angrily takes me home. He shouts at me: "You fast and pray like an ascetic,; you will surely see your grave. His recommended treatment is rest and invigoration. Meat, fish, chicken, duck, milk, eggs, cream...and a can of beer each day is his regimen for good health. He returns from work the next day announcing: " My office is having a weekend in VungTau. You go there with me swimming, sun-bathing, eating fresh seafood, I bet you'll feel better."

My mother prepares for the trip. But on Thursday the war in the Gulf bursts out. Friday evening, the entire family sits in front of the TV set.

"E- game," my youngest sister cries. My mother ignores her, complaining the prices going up make her dizzy. "Those well-fed know little about war yet. Let them learn," my brother interjects. My father corrects him: "Nobody really knows. You and I just have the experience of surviving the war. Only the dead know what war really means." My younger brother announces: "I bet with the chief of my office that Iraq can't last more than a week."

He won a carton of beer yesterday. At the US ultimatum, people in his office bet whether Uncle Sam would fight. It fought. My younger brother won. He drinks beer and smiles at President Bush on TV.

I go to bed early so I will be able to get up to meet the bus which departs for Vung Tau early the next morning.

****

The sea is oily. It foams as if it was boiling. I want to lie down but the beach is dirty. My younger brother hires a cot and an umbrella for me. He swims with his girlfriend then drinks with his colleagues in a restaurant. The chief of his office offers me cashews and coke. I had been filled with nausea on the bus, there is still a bitter taste in my mouth. I eat a cashew without tasting it. But the coke makes me belch and I feel a bit better. My younger brother's girlfriend invites me to go swimming. I can't swim. "Come on, come play in the waves for fun," she teases me. "Thanks, but I'm too lazy, " I tell her. "Lazy?" The girl laughs. I smile too. I plan to go along the beach to the other side of the mountain and rest there.

But the chief of my brother's office comes again, this time he offers crabs and other seafood delicacies. I thank him, eating my crab attentively to avoid responding to this flatterer whose breath reeks of beer.

"Chief, may I have a cigarette?"

I look up at the speaker. Immediately, I look down to the sand. The chief is annoyed.

" No."

"Then, chief, let me have me five hundred dong to buy a cigarette."

"What?"

" Chief. Five hundred dong is just the cost of a cigarette. Have pity an unlucky me. Miss...."

I reach into my bag, the chief stops me. He takes out of his pocket a pack of cigarettes and gives one to the man. I'm determined to look straight into his eyes.

"You are....?" I ask.

"Hoang." he answers. "And you are...?"

"Forty." the chief answers. His face is rough and without shame; his look is savage and cruel. He speaks in a snappish tone. I again look at the sand.

"No problem."

" Please go away."

He moves a short distance on his one leg and stick, then stops and looks back at me. The chief asks: "Acquaintance?"

Does a beggar acquaintance devalue my personality; I feel no need to satisfy his curiosity. I shrug my shoulders. The chief suddenly turns, grabbing the hand of a boy selling nuts. He stretches his fingers, letting his sun glasses fall down on his face. "I picked it up for you," the boy tells him. The chief tells me to take care of my things, beggars and pick-pockets are everywhere. "Thanks. No serious losses yet."

The chief stands up and tells me to go on inside the restaurant. My younger brother is there sitting at a table. His face is fairly red. The men around the table are in the midst of a noisy debate. "Who bets on Iraq's side?" " Will Israel play the game?" "Modern war is resolved in three days." "No, I bet this war lasts at least one hundred days."

Are they war analysts, strategists, gamblers or drunkards? I tell them sorry, but I am off to visit the neighboring pagodas. They try to call me back, my younger brother shouting: " Let her be with her ghost. Cheers!"

****

Who is my ghost? I have tried to recall all the people I know or have known over the years in order to see who it might be who died and turned into a ghost to haunt me. There are many old acquaintances whom I haven't heard from for decades. Classmates at high school, old neighbors.... and countless men and women I once knew but have since forgotten. Is the beggar named Hoang among my acquaintances? I can't say for sure. Is the ghost a lost soul following me by chance or is it the soul of one who once loved me but was forgotten? Am I so indifferent?

I stare at the empty space before me and beg... "Ghost, who are you? Speak, please..." I hear my voice. I realize that I'm acting crazy and recover my composure.

The stairs up to the pagoda on the mountain are steep. I climb fifty steps without stopping, nearly breathless. In the mountain there are caves where monks retreat and hide from the world to purify their hearts in seeking truth or the soul's salvation. I know of one of these caves because my mother took me there once, a long time ago. She brought me to collect the remains of my grandfather for cremation. Rats may well have been the only living things by the side of my grandfather during his last minutes in this world. We found his bones, new and clean, here and there scattered in the cave.

"Please come into the Pagoda, Miss." The voice startles me. She seems to walk right out from the cliff face, her face wears a smile of complete peace and contentment. Is or was she my acquaintance? Her look is very friendly. "Come on, today the pagoda makes offerings of rice gruel for all souls," she says.

I prostrate myself and make my offering to the Buddha. There are small dishes of sticky rice on the ground in front and all along the sides of the pagoda. The woman puts small bowls of gruel next to the dishes of rice. These are for the lonely souls and wandering spirits. I grab her elbow.

"I'm really sorry, but who are you?" I ask.

"I was at the Mercy Orphanage."

"What's your name?"

"Hoa An."

I remember. My mother used to give alms and take me to the pagoda there to pray for my father at the battlefront. I was a little girl then, well-dressed, holding two big bags of old clothes and toys, standing in front of a dozen children my age. They stood at the end of the room, leaning against the wall, staring at the visitors. My mother pushed me forward. "Come and play with your friends." I took some steps forward and gave a bag to a small girl. Her hand just touched it, then her face changed color, horror filled her wide opened eyes. She threw the bag and dragged me to the corner, pushing me beneath the table. The sound of an airplane grew nearer then died away. The adults pulled us out. They explained it. The child was afraid of planes, the only survivor in a bombardment during a mopping up operation. A soldier picked her up out of a heap of corpses. She was named after the abandoned village. Hoa An.

"Why are you here?"

"It doesn't matter where I am," she smiles. In her coarse clothes she looks like any other peasant woman with her hair twisted into a bun.

"How have you been?"

"I've been doing chores for this pagoda and growing manioc up on the mountain."

After twenty years of swimming in the ocean of misery she still remembers me. But I couldn't recognize her. Sad. I am bad; I don't even recognize the ghost who haunts me. That day, I stay up on the mountain till evening with Hoa An, harvesting manioc. There are no visitors: the pagoda is not marked on tourist maps. When darkness comes, we hear the rhythmic sound of the bells and the wooden fish clanging as of to emphasize the quiet.

We are having dinner in the back room when suddenly I hear my name called noisily from outside the pagoda. It is my younger brother and his companions. I say good bye to Hoa An in haste so the pagoda's peace will not to be broken. Outside, my brother grunts at me: "You are really haunted."

It is dark as we climb down the mountain and the way is difficult. My younger brother has a flashlight, I follow the round light as it falls on grass and bushes. Strong winds blow, I shudder. The boys begin telling ghost stories, joking and laughing on the way down the mountain. The evening is cool. They say there are lots of ghosts in our country. After decades of war, who could count all the bodies killed in action or in accidents. Dying innocent, they become ghosts. Young ghosts, the souls of the thousands of young soldiers who died unmarried, who never loved, never kissed a woman, who died as young boys, who had no great desire to go to Heaven, who still desired a life in this world. Now they haunt young girls or unmarried women alone in bed. The chief raises his fist. "I will settle the matter with that ghost."

When we return another group of my younger brother's friends are gathering in the reception room. The words burst onto the screen "War in the Gulf". The chief rushes in. The Americans landed? He bet the US troops would land today. My younger brother's girlfriend smiles at me. "Come here. See who will pay the bill tonight." "Thanks, but I'm tired," I tell her.

It is my younger brother who escorts me to my room. He has drunk a lot but he's not completely drunk. "Don't be frightened, sister," he drunkenly tries to comfort me. "Your brother is here. Have a bath and go to bed. Pay no attention to what they say. Don't answer the door, except if you hear my voice."

After my bath, I crawl into bed, homesick and lonely. Last night the whole family sat in front of the TV set. It was the first time in years we'd all talked about one topic. Though he had been a soldier, my father never talked to us about war. He had fought in battles for twenty years, at least. But he was a defeated soldier. The war ended, he went to the re-education camp for six years. During those hard times, my eldest brother joined the Young Pioneers because his Law School had been dissolved. Later, he fought in Cambodia. He returned on one foot, eighteen scars on his body, lots of citations and medals. Perhaps, thanks to those citations and medals, he got to go to the university. Four months later, my father also came back home. All three men in my house drink. My father drinks with his old friends. My eldest brother drinks with his young comrades. My younger brother drinks with his chief and colleagues. All those years and they had never talked about the war. If war just means fighting, I know nothing about it, though I was born and grew up during the war. Yet, if war means women's sorrow, misfortune, helplessness.... these were absorbed directly into my bloodstream from the time I was in my mother's womb.

I hear a knock. Then another.

Someone is at the door. I remain in bed. The door is locked. "Open the door," a voice tells me. "I come to kill the ghost." I put a pillow over my head. My younger brothers's voice is outside. "Open the door, sister. Your brother is here." I open the door and the smell of beer rushes into the room.

My younger brother staggers to the bed and throws himself on it. He slurs his words, dragging his tongue. "No worry. I'm here."

The chief is holding a long gun, standing in the middle of the room shouting. "Ghost, face the wall."

The hotel manager is there man trying to stop him.

"Don't joke, chief."

" I'm not joking! I said I would settle the matter with that ghost. I'll kill him."

"But he was killed. He died already."

" Let him die again. Get aside, get out of my way."

" See."

I step back to the window that opens onto the garden. My younger brother crawls onto the bed laughing. "No worry, sister. It's a toy gun." He repeats the words reassuringly. "A toy gun...., " laughing. The chief raises the gun aims and shoots. "Bang!"

My heart is broken. I fall. They are all standing there laughing and then they're gone.

The door is closed. Leaves are still falling in the garden.

Trans. By the author with Kevin Bowen