Papi and Me

by Ricardo José González-Rothi

A sixteen-degree forecast for North Florida was about the only type of day one would dare wear a herring bone wool sports coat and not look out of place. As I peeled the plastic bag off the hanger and pulled it from the closet, I noticed the handkerchief in the breast pocket.

The prior summer, I had found myself consoling a despondent mother, making funeral arrangements, and sorting through my dead father’s belongings. He had owned the jacket for over thirty years, probably only wearing it three or four times. Sporting hand-crafted leather buttons, wide lapels, and stitched lining, Papi boasted about “the thick and precise weave, that it was handmade in Scotland... .” He had bought it on sale at Schlessinger’s, paying cash. It was the only nice thing my father ever bought for himself since we came to America.

Forty-five years earlier we had become steeped in a not unfamiliar trajectory for refugees, ten adults and six cousins crammed into “the uncle’s house in New Jersey” and cozily sharing a single bathroom—one sink, one toilet. Since our having left Cuba, Papi worked temporarily as a dishwasher at Steak-n-Shake, then leveraging his thirty years’ experience as a grocer, he was hired as head cashier and bag boy in someone’s Latin market. We had no car. Every day, he stood at the bus stop at Bergenline and 85^th. He opened Kiko’s six days a week, worked on his feet twelve or thirteen hours each day for a not-to-boast-about hourly wage. The owner made good money. My mother, a former school principal in Cuba, worked the graveyard shift cleaning bedpans and surgical instruments in a community hospital. She and Papi saw each other during the week like passing ships, and it was during weekends that we spent time together as a family. That would be the rhythm our lives in New Jersey for several years.

My father thrived on the simplicity of life. I remember a few months after we arrived in the US, when on a bus to southern New Jersey, we passed a cornfield. He stood up from his seat marveling at the orderly rows, the tall stalks, the deep green leaves. I think it reminded him of the remote farm where he grew up with four younger brothers and two sisters whom he left behind when we came to the United States. He was mortified and greatly embarrassed, when in his excitement while looking out the back window, the bus driver barked in New-Joisyish English “Hey, you! Sit down bac dare!” Papi didn’t understand what the man was saying and was greatly embarrassed and offended as other passengers looked up. It wouldn’t be the last time he would be embarrassed about not speaking or understanding English. Despite efforts by me and my brother to teach him, he struggled. It was hard for a man in his mid-fifties with barely an eighth-grade education to learn a new language. He couldn’t understand why people would become frustrated when he struggled with his “Inglich”, which made him that much more self-conscious. For almost ten years he depended on one of us to accompany him to the bank to translate when he deposited his paychecks.

My father had immaculate handwriting, and even with a disabling lack of sensation in his fingers such that he could no longer button his shirts, he wrote monthly to our family back home. We, in turn, rarely heard from them. When I would inquire, Papi would propose that the mail delivery in Cuba was poor or that they couldn’t afford the stamps or that the government intercepted the letters. There was probably some truth in all his explanations, but I suspect these were in part a justification, his way of coping with unrequited replies. I think he felt responsible that they stayed behind and that he left, duty-bound, with his immediate family. I recall him sitting pensively by a window one evening, with a paper pad on his lap, while he wrote to his siblings in Cuba. It was before Christmas, an urban-grey New Jersey day, and it was snowing heavily. It must have been painful for him to be away from his siblings, longing for the Cuban sun, and knowing he might never see them again. 

Papi was ecstatic one day when early in my senior year of high school he approached me with a proposal that if he could save enough money, I could partner with him and buy “our own grocery store.” Dreading the effects of my response, I had to be frank and told him that what I really wanted was to go to college and eventually study medicine.  Facial muscles betrayed his disappointment, and with a forced smile and a deflated nod, he acknowledged my response, never to bring up the topic again.

My father continued to work until he was seventy-two, when his knees no longer allowed him to stand for long periods of time. He helped me through college, and then through medical school. Several years ago he stood beside me for a photo when I was honored by students I taught as Professor of Medicine at a school where I would eventually establish myself as a senior faculty member.

The summer he died, I had sorted through his personal belongings. I folded the herring bone jacket and put it in my suitcase along with his old wallet and his penknife. Inside a well-creased envelope, postmarked May 1973, was a five-page letter I had written him thirty-four years earlier upon graduating from college. Written longhand in Spanish, I had detailed how much I appreciated him and all the sacrifices he made for me and for our family. I told him that I loved him, that I hoped I could make him proud of me some day. I also let him know that every time I wrote out my middle name (his first name), I would remember to think of him. It was the only letter I found in his belongings. I flew back to Florida.

On this cold February morning, months later, while getting dressed to make hospital rounds with my residents, I slipped on Papi’s wool jacket. It fit, looked and felt right. I noted a small, hard bulge over the breast pocket. When I pulled the handkerchief from the pocket, a peppermint wrapped in plastic fell onto the bed.

Standing in front of the mirror, wearing my father’s jacket and holding peppermint and handkerchief in each hand, I chuckled. Papi always insisted that it was impolite to cough in public, and he never forgot to remind us that if we went out, we should always take a mint in case we felt the urge to cough … and yes, in the event we coughed, we should always have a handkerchief to cover our mouth.

Being a lung specialist, many of my patients struggle with incessant coughs. How ironic was it to have found myself, so ensconced in the academia of it all, that I had forgotten all about peppermint and cough.

My father had simple likes, but he was also a complex man. He carried his emotions deeply and quietly. Complaining about the hardness of life was never part of his vocabulary. He was well-liked by the countless customers he served as a grocer and businessman for over sixty years of his profession, both in Cuba and in Kiko’s market.  It was not unusual for me to see my father interact with strangers over the years, even those who could not understand his broken English, and universally they always seemed to find my father likeable. At home, Papi rarely showed exuberance in his emotions, except for those times his granddaughters would tickle him mercilessly. In my fifty-seven years around him I never actually saw my father cry. I am sure he cried, but if he did, it was not in his nature to shed tears publicly. This was not something I would inherit from him. I wonder sometimes if things between Papi and me might have been different. We might have had a great father-and-son grocery business.

As I stepped into my car on the way to work, I conjured a hint of his Old Spice aftershave ... and I could almost feel the warmth and familiar grip of his two muscular arms wrapped around me from behind, just like he used to do when I was little.

I approached the on-ramp on the highway. Looking on the rearview mirror, I thought about my middle name.

An academic physician for over three decades with a primary emphasis on scientific writing, Ricardo José González-Rothi is a relative newcomer to creative writing. Silver hair and a busy career have not deterred him from his love of the written word and the magic of the tale. He has had fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry featured in Acentos Review, Heal Literary Magazine, Gainesville Magazine, and the journal Chest.

Defining Childhood

by Jeanne Powell

A motherly looking woman shuffled slowly along the hall ahead of me, herding five children of varying ages towards the school registration office. The sound of her walk was a “slide, slide” rather than the “clunk clunk” of most moms at school. She didn’t seem to know or care that her pink striped top was strikingly mismatched to her yellow floral skirt. Seeing her, I instinctively knew which style of shoes she wore even before I saw them poking out from her long hem. Our whole school called them “Cambo shoes”, so I did too.

Puzzling words were a constant part of my everyday life as a kid. Teachers gave weekly vocabulary assignments with instructions to define each word and then use it in a sentence. When new words appeared in life, just like in school, my young brain set out to define and assimilate them.

Cambo shoes: Simple rubber sandals with a V-shaped strap at the top. The new students and their families wear Cambo shoes even when it’s cold outside.

Stockton, California was a typical suburban city, sprawling with new development in the early ‘80s. The Southeast Asians who took refuge in Stockton were just another group to assimilate and bring novel concepts into my world. There were many cultures and races around me, but given that had always been my experience, I never saw it as anything but normal. I believed that surely every town was as colorful as mine.

Southeast Asian: A way to sum up all the people who came from Cambodia, Laos and other faraway places that I’ve never heard of. The Southeast Asian kids at my school are super good at art.

My parents did not speak racist words, nor did they bring it to my attention that other people did. People looked and acted differently than I, but I understood they were mostly like me in every other way. Growing up, I don’t remember being aware that I should consider anything about a person besides whether or not they were kind.

And so, in 5th grade, when the disheveled, quiet, dark-eyed students with unusual names started filling our classrooms, I saw it as a promising opportunity to make some new friends. They arrived in groups, enrolling all at once. “Refugees” was the word my teacher used. I deduced its meaning and other new words that arose from their arrival from the context of my experience living among them.

Refugees: Children from Southeast Asia who don’t speak English, have scars and old clothes, and are shy but nice. The refugees left our classroom every afternoon for ESL class.

ESL class: The pretty room with the really friendly teacher where new students go to learn English. Helpful schools have ESL class for students who just came from another country.

Although there were many races at my school, differences besides coloring were hard to spot in kids I’d been with since kindergarten. Most of the student body spoke English and dressed similarly. The new kids wore their clothes many times before washing them and were often sent home for having head lice. I understood the troubling scars on their bodies to have a backstory, but my realm of experience could not grasp how or why. All I comprehended came from news’ snippets about Cambodia, Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge, overheard as I set the dinner table.

Pol Pot: A certain type of pole and pot which a bad king uses to hurt people in Cambodia. The mean fighters hit people with a Pol Pot.

The images I glimpsed on the six o’clock news became more real to me as I got to know the refugees. Those being hurt on TV looked like my friends. I sat, eyes glued, awareness expanding, purposely listening to Peter Jennings for the first time in my life. I began to pray for the Southeast Asians every night as I lay in bed, wondering why anyone would want to kill good people.

Correction: Pol Pot: The name of a terrible man who leads soldiers called “Come Here Rouge” to kill people in Cambodia and make the whole country communist. The terrible fighters hurt people because Pol Pot made them.

Communist: A kingdom where everyone listens to the king. Pol Pot will be glad if Cambodia goes communist and he is the king.

Certain “old” students, who weren’t well-received themselves, made jokes about our new students. They were mean to the refugees the same way they were mean to everybody else, pointing out anything which was unusual.

It was true that the Cambodian kids behaved differently than the rest of us. They sometimes squatted in an odd sitting position as they talked and didn’t look adults in the eye. They forgot to add an “s” onto words to form plurals, received a “free lunch” ticket in the morning and got to ride the bus to some far-off place called “Government Housing” after school. The important thing to me was that they wanted to be friends.

Government Housing: Big, fancy houses where government officials used to live.  The refugees needed a place to live, so Congress said they could have their Government Housing.

The Cambodian girls shared their favorite game called “Chinese Jump Rope”. It quickly became very popular with all the girls. Set was one of the best Chinese jump-ropers, outgoing and confident in her expertise. I was lucky that our teacher placed her desk right next to mine. As it turned out, we were a good team. I assisted her in class and she helped me advance my skill on the playground. We became fast friends, getting by mostly without words.

I memorized the songs full of foreign words which were to be chanted as precise jumps and turns were taken. I didn’t even try to understand the meaning of those words. They were just fun.

The new girls skillfully showed us how to weave rubber bands together to make the rope. Come recess, the blacktop, which had once been filled with Four-Square games, now had classmates standing in groups with a rubber band rope stretched around ankles, knees, and hips to create differing heights. The Cambodian girls were inarguably the best at it, but we American girls were having a ball trying to improve.

Chinese Jump Rope: The best game in the world! I would like to play Chinese Jump Rope all day!

Many Southeast Asian boys proved to be great, agile athletes, spending recesses on the basketball courts with the other boys, engaged in “Americans” verses “Asians” game. It was a quick way to pick fair teams. No one seemed to mind the politically incorrect team names because each group was proud of its nationality.

My mom said she was pleased that I had made friends with the refugees. I noticed that her smile was always a sad one, lips closed and eyebrows furrowed in sympathy, when we spoke of the new students.  

“I’d really like to meet Set someday,” she said. So I knew that when I asked Set to come to my house, Mom wouldn’t mind.

Set asked permission, but the next day she returned with news that her mother wasn’t sure. I didn’t understand. At home that night, my mom explained to me that Set’s mother must be very nervous to send her daughter, with strangers, to a home she’d never seen. Mom reasoned “It’s hard to trust people with your precious children when you come from a place of cruelty and war.”

I should “give it time because they just got here,” she said, but I was still perplexed.

War: Good guys fighting and killing bad guys in another country. Also, a card game to play with Grandma. People will be happy when the war is over.

Set begged her mom for several weeks until she finally gave the excuse that there was a logistics problem. “My mom no car,” Set told me one day.

I offered that she could walk home with me, and then my mom could drive her home later. There was no communication between our mothers because neither could understand the other’s language. We girls planned everything.

Set and I couldn’t stop smiling as we walked to my house. The path home was lively as always, with dozens of kids on either side of the street. Many went out of their way to say hello to Set. She responded kindly to each. I felt honored that she was going to my house. We joyously sang Chinese jump rope songs with a literal hop in our steps as we passed manicured lawns and freshly painted tract homes.

We were mid-song when a sixth grade boy, who always walked alone, yelled at us from behind, “Go back to where you came from, Chink!”

Suddenly concerned, I walked faster, unsure of what to do. Set matched my speed.

We were rescued by a group of boys walking on the other side of the street who played “Asian verses Americans” basketball. They, stopped and faced us as one shouted back at the bully from across the street, “Shut up and leave her alone!”  

I knew we were safe because the insulting boy was far outnumbered by peers with integrity. Set looked at me. I rolled my eyes and shook my head so she’d understand to ignore him. I hoped Set hadn’t understood his rude words. I didn’t even comprehend that last part myself. We started singing again as we rounded the corner to my street.

Chink: A word someone with no friends calls a person who does have friends, when they want them to leave. The strong boy punched him for yelling “Chink” at the nice girl.

I pointed to my house and together we ran up the lawn to our porch. Set stopped at our front door to remove her Cambo shoes. “You can leave your shoes on,” I assured her.

Panic and confusion crossed her face as she quickly shook her head no. “Ok, that’s fine,” I shrugged as she slipped them off and placed them neatly on our step.

Mom was waiting with new pack of rubber bands and cookies as a treat. “Hello, Set! It’s so nice to finally meet you!” she said with her usual cheery tone to my barefoot friend.

Set lowered her eyes and gave a slight, unsure smile as she put her hands in front of her like she was praying. Mom smiled back, “Thank you.”

I gobbled three cookies while Set nibbled one half as we sat, cross legged on the floor of my bedroom, adding an extension to our current rope. “I like you house,” Set told me.

“Thanks,” I responded without considering hers might be different.

“I like you bedroom,” she added.

“Thanks,” I said again as I looped rubber bands.

“I like you mom.”

 I looked up, beaming, “Thanks. I’m really glad you came over.”

With our rope long enough, we headed out to start our game. Outside, we easily gathered up some neighborhood girls and my sisters. Time flew. Set wowed us all with her expert moves until the sky dimmed and neighborhood dads began to pull into their driveways. I reluctantly gathered up the rope as our playmates said goodbye.

Mom drove us to the other side of town, where Set lived. It was a run-down apartment complex, situated in a series of apartment complexes. As we pulled up, I was shocked by the number of people packed into the small area. Grown men were squatting with their rears almost touching the ground, engaged in animated conversations. Very young kids were running on sidewalks and patchy-brown grass and dirt areas. It seemed that no one was watching them. Some people were napping right there on the sidewalk. Everyone was disturbingly thin.

Correction: Government Housing: A crowded place where hungry people live in small apartments that look old.  I’m glad I don’t live in Government Housing.

Set beamed as we pulled up. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure. Mom put the car in park, took a deep breath, and smiled back at us. “We’re here,” She said, more sing-songy than usual.

I took Mom’s lead and reluctantly got out of the car for my friend’s sake. The men’s foreign, loud conversations sounded like yelling and were high-pitched for male voices. Their words were like noises from the backs of their throats. Mom stood with her shoulders back, smile fixed, as her eyes darted around. “You girls walk ahead of me.” Her happy tone sounded more relaxed than she looked.

We followed Set as she wound around the unkempt building, through groups of men, who occasionally paused to stare. We climbed up dirty, outdoor, concrete stairs. I saw a few boys I recognized from school and felt more at ease.  We passed dozens of Cambo shoes lined up next to doors. I marveled that every pair of shoes represented a displaced resident of that apartment. They were tiny and large, wide and narrow, all well-worn and precisely placed. Set stopped next to the row of her family’s shoes, slid off her own, situated them neatly, and opened the door.

A woman gasped with excitement before she appeared right in front of us, obvious relief on her face. She gathered Set up in her arms and held tight. Set gently broke her mother’s hug and introduced us, in Cambodian. Her mother smiled slightly, lowered her eyes and prayed with her hands like Set had done at our house. Mom returned the gesture, so I did too. Set turned to us and said, “You meet my family,” and ran inside.

I started to follow her in, but Mom’s hand stopped me. I looked up as Mom nodded her head to the side towards the shoes and motioned towards my feet. She slipped off her own shoes. I stepped out of my penny loafers and placed them neatly next to Mom’s.

Stepping inside, I was shocked at the mass of people in the small space. There were no chairs or table or couch or TV. Many people, even elderly women, were sitting on the floor. A make-shift additional kitchen of electric skillets was set up, sizzling with food which didn’t look like nearly enough for that big group. The scent of overpowering spice and fish was like a punch in the face. It took all I had to maintain my polite smile.

Set proudly pointed to her cousins, siblings, and grandparents as she said their names. Each prayed their hands at us, and we returned the greeting. Sleeping mats were strewn about the floor. Set proudly pointed to hers, “This my bed.”

Mom and I both commented on how nice it was. It was obvious by the way Set’s face lit up that she was so pleased we were meeting her family. And, it was more obvious, by the awkward silence, that all the adults in the room were uncomfortable with us inside their home.

After a few uneasy moments of staring at each other without speaking, Mom said we needed to leave to “go get dinner started.” We put our shoes on and said our goodbyes. Mom held my hand tightly and maintained a polite smile as we walked quickly back through the dozens of grown men chatting loudly in their squat position circles.

Sleeping mat: A thin, hard blanket to use like a bed. My dad would not want to sleep on a sleeping mat.

I had so many questions for my mom on the way home that evening, but mostly I worried that my good friend lived in such spare conditions. Mom explained that Set’s family came from an even worse situation, and it was a good thing that they got to live there. She told me that even though it wasn’t perfect, they were safe and they had family.

“Didn’t you notice how happy Set was?” Mom asked. I told her I had. But things seemed so unfair.

Correction: War: Fighting which makes people have to live in another country with almost nothing except their clothes and hopefully all of their family. I pray there is never a war in America.

The plight of those caught in war was no longer about names in a newspaper but about people whose homes I could enter. They were friends of mine who had shown courage and kindness at school, trying hard to learn lessons in a language they barely understood. My friends were in the midst of a lifelong struggle. The group of people in my circle, the “us”, I was accustomed to, expanded. Set was in my “us”, and since she loved her family, now they were too. My innocence cracked as I struggled to process the distressing reality.

Set stopped coming to school suddenly, and a few days later our teacher told us that her family had moved. I had no warning, and I’m pretty sure Set didn’t either.

Decades later, I recognize the unintentional imprint she left on me, and I am grateful. Diversity comes in so many forms, shifting perspectives and linking people in big and small ways, changing the strange to the familiar.

It’s hard to believe I once called those sandals “Cambo shoes.” I wear flip flops almost every day now, too.

Jeanne Powell is a rookie writer who, at forty-three, is finally finding time to finish the book that has been building momentum in her head for decades. She has written various essays over the years, which are now being dusted off and polished. Jeanne lives in the beautiful Texas Hill Country with her husband Randy, teen kids AJ and Amber, two dogs, and abundant wildlife all around. A former elementary school teacher, Jeanne’s degree is in Child Development. She is also a certified Reiki Master and Life Coach. “Defining Childhood” is her first publication.

Black Market Pall Malls

by Emily Rich

2015 Essay Contest Winner, Theme: “War and Peace”

Colonel Troung was getting up from the desk again, excusing himself with a polite bow, pulling at the creases of his threadbare trousers as he stood.

“Why don’t you smoke at the desk like everyone else?” I asked. I was worried about falling behind on our cases. “It won’t bother me if you do.”

The colonel’s eyes scanned the long folding table “desk”: took in the neat pile of manila folders, the inkpad for taking fingerprints, the stacks of loose forms anchored by a stapler, a hole punch, a small piece of cinderblock.

He gave an apologetic smile. “No ashtray,” he said. “Too messy,” and stepped outside into the dusty heat.

The year was 1989 and the official ends to the conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were years in the past. But the borders still teemed with camps of refugees who didn’t want to return home. Most lacked proof of official ties to the ousted regimes and would be denied asylum by Western countries only willing to take in the politically persecuted.

My job, as a caseworker for the quasi-governmental Joint Voluntary Agency, was to interview the displaced and mold their individual hardship stories into narratives that would impress the American Immigration officers stationed in the camps. Colonel Troung was my interpreter.

The colonel’s arrival had signaled a change in the nature of our work at JVA. That year, in a gesture aimed at normalizing relations with the US, the Vietnamese government released thousands of former South Vietnamese bureaucrats and army officers who’d been sent to re-education camps after the Fall of Saigon.

Many of the newly freed fled the country immediately, some by boat, others across land through Cambodia, paying “snakehead” refugee smugglers to get them into Thailand, into the camps where I worked. Colonel Truong was in the latter category.

 He had been a rising star in the South Vietnamese Army, had been sent to Fort Benning to train with Americans, had been awarded the Silver Star of Bravery by American forces during the war. He was what we caseworkers called a “water walker,” someone who would be awarded US refugee status, no problem at all.

Because of his excellent English, he was offered a six-month stint as an interpreter for our organization. So now, the military wunderkind-turned political prisoner-turned refugee, was sitting on a folding chair next to a twenty-four-year old caseworker in a bamboo hut on the outskirts of Aranyaprathet, Thailand.

At first, I viewed Colonel Truong with suspicion. I’d been a history major in college and had studied about the war, how it was a mistake, how the South Vietnamese government was corrupt and undeserving of American attempts to prop it up. The idealistic just-out-of-college me had come to Thailand to help the victims of the war, not the perpetuators.

In return, Colonel Truong was nothing but gracious and respectful.

He admired the seriousness I applied to my job, he said. He advised his fellow education camp parolees to wait until they could get me as a caseworker. He was patient, with kind eyes and a gentle manner. With his oversized head and thinning combed-over hair, he reminded me of an elderly Asian Linus from the Peanuts cartoon. More like an egghead physics professor than an American-trained warrior.

He was also a nervous wreck. He would spring up suddenly from our little folding table desk and pace the dirt floor or gaze out the cutout windows of our bamboo wall. His hands shook and his legs were constantly moving even when he was deep in conversation with a refugee applicant.

Sometimes, between interviews, he would tell me about his decade in captivity, about the forced marches, the compulsory labor, the disease and starvation that did in fellow prisoners on a daily basis.

“I was once so hungry I ate another man’s vomit,” he told me, and then laughed awkwardly, embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry,” was my inadequate response.

He seemed to want something from me during these conversations, some sort of recognition of the unique horror of his situation, but I was unable to see him as anything more than one more story in the endless tales of hardship and brutality that were recounted before me on a daily basis. Before my stint in this camp, I’d spent three months stationed outside Khoa-I-Dang camp, interviewing Cambodian survivors of the murderous Khmer Rouge. Imprisonment, forced labor, starvation, it was all part of the cruelty unleashed by the senselessness of war.

One time between cases Colonel Truong unfolded a black and white photo of himself in dress uniform wearing the Silver Star. It was an eight by ten photo, an official portrait, creased heavily at the folds. He told me he’d taped the portrait to his calf before he fled Vietnam. Other than the clothes on his back and gold to pay the snakeheads, it was the one possession he had brought with on his escape to Thailand. It was his ticket to the US, and he knew it.

In the picture, he is crisp and pressed, grinning with pride. In some ways I could see the familiar Colonel Truong: the wide forehead, the dark eyes, the sharp nose that reminded me of an Indian arrowhead. But in other ways he looked different. His face in the picture is young, angular. His eyes are brilliant, energetic and alert. His smile is cocky and self-assured. Could such a man be capable of anything in a time of conflict? I wondered. Bravery, heroism, cruelty, atrocity? What would have happened had the war turned out differently and he could be jailer, not prisoner in its aftermath? The idea of it made me shudder.

Because he worked for us, Colonel Truong didn’t have to live in the refugee camp anymore, but he was not allowed to leave the cheap hotel compound where the JVA workers stayed. There were five other interpreters in situations similar to his, and the group of them kept to themselves after hours.

There wasn’t much to do in Aranyaprathet in any case. On Sundays, our only day off, the other caseworkers and I liked to wander about the local open-air market. Once, while meandering through the tables of piled sarongs, tin cookware, plastic strainers, and serving utensils, I passed something that caught my eye—a kitschy, ceramic hula girl attached to a turquoise lagoon ashtray. It was the kind of thing I thought was “campy;” something I might have displayed ironically in my off-campus apartment back home. I bought it for Colonel Truong.

I plunked it down on our folding-table desk Monday morning.

“Now you have an ashtray!” I exclaimed, happy with myself.

          I guess I thought he would react with amusement, but he said nothing about the ashtray’s silliness, only thanked me with a bow of his head and a slight smile. As if I’d given an order for him to accept it.

From then on he smoked at our workstation and did not take breaks outside.

Colonel Troung smoked throat-scorching Krong Thip brand Thai cigarettes, one after another. American cigarettes were banned in the country at the time.

“Can I try one?” I asked once. I wasn’t a regular smoker, just curious.

I took a drag and wheezed it out immediately. It was like inhaling field hay infused with Pine Sol.

“These are terrible!” I coughed. “What type of cigarettes did you smoke back home? Were the Vietnamese brands as bad as these?”

He sort of chuckled, and his eyes took on a far-off, remembering look.

“During the war I smoked Pall Malls,” he said. “American brands are always the best.”

Day after day we interviewed refugee applicants. Usually they were single men, but sometimes whole families would array themselves on the wooden bench in front of us. Western aid groups provided them with decent clothes and they would sit straight and proper as if in a church pew, children scrubbed and combed, parents clutching Ziploc baggies of what few documents they had. The hopefulness in their eyes never failed to break my heart.

One time a young father who couldn’t keep his story straight was trying our patience.

“The town he says he was born in is in the North,” I said. “But he claims his father was in the Army for the South?” I was trying to pin him down on specifics. When did the family move? What was his father’s rank? Where was his father now?

The man stalled. In the silence, an oscillating fan whirred and ruffled the stacks of forms on my desk.

The man’s wife said nothing but held her eyes on me with a beseeching look. Their three young children focused silently on their hands folded in their laps, as they’d no doubt been instructed to do.

Colonel Truong broke from interpreting my questions and began lecturing the young man in Vietnamese. His tone was stern but soft, in a caring, fatherly sort of way. The man bowed his head and frowned.

          The interview was over. We fingerprinted everyone and placed their file on the stack to go to Immigration. Colonel Truong pinched the top of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He was crying.

          “They will never make it to America with that story,” he said.

          He was normally so stoic and this show of emotion unnerved me. Did he mourn for the tragedy of this one family? For the young father who reminded him of his own lost youth? Or for the whole sorry state of his countrymen, crammed on a foreign border, raising up children in the hopeless dusty squalor of refugee camps with only the slightest prayer of escape? Colonel Truong had been granted his freedom and a shot at a new life but until that moment I hadn’t understood how irretrievable was his loss. These were his people and this was the tragedy he was destined to carry with him even as he made a new life for himself in the States. A generation lost to war.

          I was a rule follower in those days; not someone who would, for example, go to the black market areas of Bangkok and pick up a carton of smuggled American cigarettes. But I knew plenty of co-workers who would. Every smoker on the JVA staff had a supply of Marlboros or Camels or some other American brand. On a Friday when Tan, our Thai driver, was going into the city for supplies, I gave him money to pick up two cartons of black market Pall Malls.

          On Monday, I pulled them from the plastic bag beneath my chair and handed them to Colonel Truong.

          “I thought you might like these better than the Krong Thips,” I said, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

          His hands trembled as he held them out to receive the gift. His mouth slackened, his eyes moistened. He seemed in awe.

          “My old brand,” he said. “You remembered.”

          He held the cartons before his face, marveling at the crimson packaging, the regal lettering. Pall Mall. I watched nostalgia overtake him as he travelled back in time, as he became again the young promising officer working for the Americans, anticipating a bright future carrying him, carrying his country up and up and up.

         

Emily Rich is the non-fiction editor of Little Patuxent Review. She writes mainly memoir and essay. Her work has been published in a number of small presses including Little Patuxent Review, Welter, River Poet's Journal, Delmarva Review and the Pinch. Her essays have been listed as notables in Best American Essays 2014 and 2015.