Monday, October 10, 2011

Oversoul:High Tide

Three days before the fall of Saigon my father scooped me and my sister up and deposited us on a military plane headed for America. We were in the company of Auntie Anny, she isn't really our aunt, only a friend of our mother, but we called her auntie like we called Uncle Kong uncle. Our mother had already fled the country several weeks earlier, she was only able to take our brother since he was the only one with a birth certificate -hence, a required document in the application of a passport. His birth had taken place in a hospital whereas ours were at home with midwives, that special treatment hadn't resulted from his being a boy but that of our mother's experience in childbirth, David being her third. Our mother was never partial in that traditional sense, in fact, she was known for a flair of fairness with a touch of feminism.

Our mother had taken our brother to Taiwan, given it the only country that had granted her their visas.

In what manner had we lived those weeks during her absence I cannot recall. I can only suppose the house having run on an automated system set long before my birth. The servants were competent enough to keep the motor running but we were mostly left to our own device. The tutors had been dismissed, we had no visitors, our father was still in town but he was more of a ghost than a parent during those last days, and we were just 2 kids amidst a falling city, half forgotten.

On the day we left, the airport was crammed with people - and I later learned, from books and movies, that those people were all there in desperate hope to leave the country, and they were there everyday, until all the planes left with the last of the GIs. I never once realized how fortunate we were, maybe it was because my heart with filled with a numbing kind of panic when our father said Goodbye; or, maybe it was simply because I was 11.

I'd never liked Auntie Anny, especially after she'd started bunking with us the year before, she was the only one of our mother's entourage who had had to live with us and I never understood why, and there I was, stuck with her, under her care. And I knew she was the boss once we were airborne. It's hard to say what I felt that day, and whether we'd realized we'd become orphans, the orphans of war?

Though our parents were very much alive but they weren't there, and we had no idea when we were to see them again. As if we'd known there were no plans in store for us so we never questioned.

Of my entire childhood there was but one constant, that of a steady stream of blankness, but it cannot be compared with what I felt that day on the plane, the void was so complete that I felt safe, safe in the cocoon of the black hole.

We flew for a very long time and landed in Guam, there were tents already set up, each a different function, my favorite the cafeteria, it was the first time I had scrambled eggs. And it was months later that I understood we are what they call the refugees.

The camp ground was extensive, we were allowed to roam and explore to our hearts' content as Auntie Anny's heart wasn't into us. We idled the days away, it was like one long summer holiday, except we are far away from our beach house, and that it wasn't a holiday after all, because we didn't know when school might begin again.

A week later we ran into our real aunts, Aunt Sylvie & Christy, Aunt S was a godsend, she doted on us with hugs & kisses & sweets -my sister & I had the biggest lollipop we'd ever seen, and not to share because we each had one of our own. She cared for us by making sure we ate and had clean clothes, and we felt like children once again.

But still I was often glum, seeking only the company of myself. Tramping around being my only pastime I covered the entire camp ground at least 10 times over, but never seeing anything as I walked. Those were my unseeing days.

My other favorite diversion was the beach, where I lingered

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