Ly Tran - House of Sticks

Summer 1993. Ly in front of 1725 Bleecker Street with her first bag of potato chips.

A DIN OF NERVOUS voices, a shuffle of restless bodies, a dome of bright blue tarp.

It was nighttime. I was hungry, fretful, struggling out of my mothers arms. My father had gone to trade a ceramic bowl for eggs with soy sauce. We sat on narrow, overcrowded benches waiting for him. My senses were just beginning to activate, some more than others. Vision dominated. And smell. I remember the strong odor of eggs drenched in soy sauce as my father entered the tent and carried the food back to us. And the vague presence of blurry faceless people all around.

I dont remember my three brothers being there. I knew only that we were not in a familiar place. And that shock of unfamiliarity is perhaps what has preserved this earliest memory of mine, sitting on a bench in a tarpaulin tent in a refugee camp in Thailand. I was three years old, only vaguely conscious of the world around me. But in that singular moment, it was as though a light had flickered on in the uncharted rooms of my mind. I have no recollection of the moments before, of how I got there, or of what came after.

But the blue remains. I can almost touch it, a country of blue as big as Antarctica, frozen in the geography of my consciousness.

And the eggs. I can still taste those eggs. Rubbery whites infused with soy sauce and a creamy yolk at the center.

I know from what my parents have told me in the years since, that we stayed in that camp for three weeks. Then we boarded planes that took us from Thailand to Denmark, from Denmark to France, from France to America. From that time, I remember only hazy glimpses of airports and an isolated sensation of burning coldness, but nothing lasting, nothing of shape. My father tells me that on the plane ride from France to America, hed awakened to find that I was gone. Panicked, he and my mother searched the plane, approaching the stewards and stewardesses in their broken English. Ah, esi kew me, where ees bay bee? They cradled an invisible baby in their arms.

Turns out, I had waddled down the aisle to an empty seat and curled up at its base to sleep.

I, of course, have no recollection of this. I was asleep.

But sometimes, I think I remember it. I see myself as a toddler, walking down the aisle beneath the unseeing gaze of strangers. I remember dim lighting and a sudden sensation of dizziness. Of crawling into a quiet, empty space. Then I feel strong arms encircle me and carry me back to my family. I feel the weight of sleep descend upon me once again.

Spring 1993. Thinh, Phu, Long, and Ly with Ba.

Winter 1994. Ba at the sewing machine, making silk paisley ties.

Nc M

WE ARRIVE IN THE blizzard of 1993, coming from rice paddies, mango trees, and the sun to February in the Empire State. We feel sick from turbulence and three weeks of travel, with that nauseating airplane smell, a combination of pleather and cleaning product, clinging to our hair and skin. Thinh, Phu, Long, and I step off the plane, ahead of our parents, holding clammy hands. Were here.

My mother is flushed with excitement. She rushes up to a confection stand and gives the man behind the register five thousand dong. Gandy, she says to the man brightly, for my childs. Before the man can reply, my father slaps her hand away and calls her an idiot. The five thousand dong falls like a feather to the ground. I dont understand whats happening. I wait for the candy, but it never comes. Thinh, the oldest of my brothers, grabs my hand and leads me away. He knows something I dont.

Our sponsor, an old family friend who fought in the war with my father, was supposed to meet us, but we dont see him anywhere and have no means of contacting him. Its up to my father to figure out how to get to the address hed given us. Outside the airport, a blizzard rages. The map is in your mouth, my father tells himself, reciting a Vietnamese mantra, as he stops strangers to ask for directions in his broken English. He produces a small piece of paper, upon which he writes the instructions they give him: Tek A tren tu Brotway Junksun. My mother stands by, smiling and bowing to the people who try to help us. We come back into the airport to figure out next steps and to escape the cold when a man runs up to us holding a sign.

Weve been looking for you all over the place, he says in Vietnamese, breathless. We checked the arrival time, but your plane must have been delayed because of this weather. My goodness, how long its been. You two have not changed. How was the trip? Then, looking at me, I didnt know you had a fourth child! How old are your children now?