Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

by Andrew X. Pham

At this, joy bled from Mom’s face. The house was her greatest treasure, their milestone in life, their monumental accomplishment. Banks didn’t make home loans. The house meant security, a departure from their difficult past. They couldn’t sell it because that would look suspicious. They had started out with nothing and now they were about to lose everything. “No.” Dad shook his head. “Let it go. The government will confiscate it. I don’t want you implicated in our escape. We won’t be back. If we return, we are as good as dead.” Dad knew if we waited till next spring, he stood a fair chance of being discovered and executed. The cops swept through the neighborhood regularly and dragged people off to labor camps. Properties were “seized” and “redistributed.” If they took Dad, they would send us to live in jungle hamlets. Mom nodded, saying over and over that he was right. She was a smart and resourceful woman who had bribed the prison guards to keep her husband alive, making sure he had the little food and medicine he needed to survive the jungle. Besides rescuing him, she had worked with her brother to find seven fishermen with a boat willing to risk the high seas with us. The crew were young men from Phan Thiet, the oldest twenty-five, the youngest seventeen. Phan Thiet was my mother’s hometown so it was the safest place to recruit, but it was also my father’s former government station, the place where he was most likely to be recognized. They had been planning for months. ...