flashquake Nonfiction
Third Place

flashquake
Giving and Receiving
by Lyssa Friedman

The pain is unbearable. Puff, the doctor says. Blow. But how can I concentrate with that woman screaming? It hurts, she yells. Yes, it hurts. But have some dignity.

Vinh said, Don't worry. I'm careful. The first few times I delivered lunch to his art shop on Trang Tien he counted out his dong notes without looking at me.

Then one day, I looked right at his eyes, the way Americans do. Where did I get the courage? I felt as if I was seeing the sunrise at Cat Ba again, like when I was a little girl.

You're a pretty little one, he said, too pretty to carry bowls of pho. Come work for me. He handed me two 10,000d notes. I tried to give him change, but he pushed me away. I tip, he said. Like Americans.

Vinh knew plenty of English. He taught me behind Tran Quoc Pagoda, on the island in Hoan Kiem Lake, where we went at dusk. How are you today? Have you seen the lake? Twenty dollars, please.

When your English is better, he said, you'll sell with me. But I enjoyed sweeping up and watching Vinh lock the doors. Then we walked, close but not touching, to the Pagoda. Those five minutes seemed to take hours. I had to stiffen my arms at my sides, so badly did they want to fly around Vinh's neck.

I didn't like lying near the temple. But no one will see us, Vinh said. Besides, Buddha will smile as you sing into the moonlight.

A few months later Vinh said, nuzzling my thigh, You're getting fat. Soon after I felt something move in my belly. One day after closing Vinh handed me the rest of my pay. I'm sorry, Little One, he said.

The noodle shop didn't care as long as I completed my deliveries. My feet swelled. It became harder to walk with soup dangling from my shoulders.

Then Anh, from the basket shop, asked what I was doing about the baby. My aunt runs a hotel on Hang Trong, she said. Rich Americans adopting babies. She wrote Mrs. Thuy's name on a slip of paper.

I found the Claudia Hotel. Mrs. Thuy hurried me into the back, past the Americans with their lucky babies. What are you doing here? she said. This is a respectable hotel, not a brothel.

I started crying, thinking, If my parents were alive, this would kill them, and remembering Vinh, whom I longed for every night.

Anh sent me, I said. Mrs. Thuy handed me a handkerchief. She scribbled the name of the hospital. Sign yourself in under a made-up name, she said. After delivery, leave. They will bring the baby to an orphanage for adoption. It will be as if you never had it at all.

Puff, the doctor says. Blow. This is my pain, not my baby, and I will bear it. Then I will start again as if these months never were.

But first I will offer cakes at the Pagoda and pray that even as I bid this baby goodbye another woman says in English, Hello.

The plane descends into Noibai Airport. The anticipation rises from my toes into my abdomen.

People ask questions. Why adopt from Vietnam? But we cannot distill the conversations that took place over years into an easy answer. "Do you want children?" over dinner. "Perhaps," at breakfast. "Now?" one summer. "Maybe," the next winter. Why adopt from Vietnam? Because this was the scenario spread before us when we both said, "Yes."

When they ask, "Have you thought of names?" I imagine how the pregnant woman feels when a stranger touches her belly, for this is the most personal question.

We are an Ashkenazi and a Sephardic Jew, I say, avoiding a direct answer, as if placing a hand over my abdomen and turning aside. Ashkenazi's name babies for the dead, Sephardi's for the living, an honor and a kind of immortality, so the namesake's qualities carry into the next generation.

We name after the first breath is drawn, I continue, for that is when the soul enters, so that God and her community know who she is. We don't yet know her soul or the name the orphanage gave her.

We will lay her Vietnamese name alongside those of our relatives, living and dead, add our sense of her soul and our American accents and arrive, as if writing poetry from the magnetic words on our refrigerator.

Soon Mrs. Thuy's helper will meet us in Hanoi. We will go to the orphanage and offer inexpensive trinkets, baseball caps and perfume, which label us rich Americans. A woman will place a bundle in my arms.

At the provincial building, an official will read a proclamation. With a flourish, the Giving and Receiving Ceremony will be complete. Congratulations. Lucky baby.

People criticize. American children need homes. Yours will have Asian features, a Hebrew name and white parents. Will you honor multiculturalism? Or maintain color blindness?

But like much of parenting, no decision is completely right or wrong. We have made a choice which we will live within, the way the Buddhists teach.

A woman sets sail at daybreak for her final journey. Her family watches on the beach, tearing their clothes. They know it is time for her to go, yet they grieve. The woman smiles wide as the rising sun. She turns her back, plants her feet on deck and stares into the distance.

The family, crying, watches the boat recede. They wave. The vessel shrinks until it is a speck under a sun now high in the sky. It slips below the horizon. Goodbye, they say. Goodbye.

Just then, a crowd gathers on another strip of sand. Look, they say, pointing to something barely visible on the horizon. The image takes shape. A boat. All day they wait until they make out the form of the standing woman, gazing forward. They embrace, crying.

Look, they say. She's come.

© 2002 by Lyssa Friedman

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