The following short story was originally written in Vietnamese by my friend Nguyễn thị Tư (Tu McAmmond). She has graciously given me permission to post her English translation on my blog. If you found Tư's work as gripping as I have, read more at the online magazine Tạp chí Da Màu:
http://damau.org/archives/8441
Không Ai Yêu Thương Tôi
(Nobody Loves Me)
based on a true story
http://damau.org/archives/17574
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Nobody Loves Me
The day my birth mother arrived from Vietnam, I told her my name was Daniel. I taught her how to pronounce it as best I could. I said, “You have to say it right. Otherwise, white people will laugh.”
“Which white people?” she asked.
“Henry, for example,” I replied. Henry had been living in the house for more than six months before my mother came.
But my mother didn’t call me “Daniel.” She preferred “Phúc.” I didn’t protest at first but I was irritated. That name had been erased from my mind a long time ago. It was not on my driver’s license, health care card, bank card or passport. The name “Phúc” was one that people in this country would look at and want to write with an “F” and “ck.” Each time they said it, they would wink at each other and a knowing smile would cross their lips.
When I first arrived in Canada I naturally knew nothing about that. I was only eight years old and it was like walking onto another planet. My English was limited to the few words I had gleaned in the refugee camp. So when somebody called me “Phúc” which they pronounced “Fuck,” I saw no problem in that. A while later, I noticed that one of the ‘tough kids’ would stand beside me in the schoolyard and call out my name in a loud voice. Everybody would laugh. I would stand there feeling stupid and inadequate. When I got home, Lucy, the daughter of my adoptive Canadian parents, explained the meaning of the word. I was horrified. From that day on, when my name was pronounced in an English way, I would roll my eyes and pronounce it in Vietnamese: “Phook.” The kids in school, however, wouldn’t leave me alone. They liked to pick on me and use my name like a club with a nail in it. I developed an abiding hatred for that name but I had to use it until I was eighteen. When I applied to become a Canadian citizen I immediately got rid of the name Phúc, and also my last name Trần, and even my middle name Văn, saying goodbye forever to such things as “Trần Văn” and “Nguyễn Thị” which identified me as a Vietnamese immigrant. I carefully traced out my brand new Canadian name that I had held in my heart during all of my high school years: “Daniel Thompson!” Thompson was the name of my adoptive Canadian parents and Daniel the name of the prophet in the Old Testament who was thrown into the lion’s den by the king, but was saved by a miracle from God.
My mother, however, wanted to keep the name “Phúc.” “That’s the name your father and I chose for you when you were born,” she grumbled. “But now my name is Daniel and not Phúc,” I retorted sharply. “Da-ni-el. Do you hear me?” “Okay. Đa-nheo,” she growled. “But why is Đa-nheo any better than Phúc? Phúc is easy to say and it has a good meaning.” Once more she went on and on about the meaning of the word ‘Phúc.’ Her words fell on deaf ears. Then my mother went back to her real concern: my marital status, the topic she had tortured me with every day since we were re-united. “You’re turning forty. I’m worried. You’re my only child that hasn’t settled down. And how come Henry is the same? Both of you keep on procrastinating.” She sighed. “At your age, I already had ten children and two grandchildren! You know, Phúc… Okay. Daniel…” her voice trailed off. “I’ve been thinking about the daughter of Mr. Trùm Đương, the chairman of our church board back in Vietnam. She’s a perfectly suitable wife for you: beautiful, hardworking and well spoken…”
“God!” I said under my breath. But my mother didn’t let up. She used a river of words and sentences that were beyond my knowledge of Vietnamese. I wanted to scream and run out of the house. Forever. My mother still turned the knife in my wounded heart.
For the past three months, since my mother’s arrival, I felt anxious and agitated. I wanted to be left alone but that didn’t happen.
I had left the Thompson family as well as the Protestant church in that community and ended up in Calgary hoping for a peaceful refuge in a big city. Then I had been able to sponsor my mother. The documents were complicated by my change of name so it took more than five years for her to arrive. I wanted to take care of her. My father was deceased and my siblings all had their own children to look after. I hadn’t imagined that her presence in Canada could make my life so miserable. Was she really my mother? Why wasn’t she like the mother I thought she should be? I didn’t know that my mother talked so much and had not expected her to put her nose into my private life the way she did. She drove me crazy. I had got used to the tactful Canadian way of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. I wanted to be able to shut my mother’s mouth. I couldn’t stand it any longer. It would have been better if I hadn’t brought her to Canada at all.
I should have continued on my lonely journey through life! For over 30 years, starting when I was a lost child crossing the ocean to come to Canada, I had to deal with my life by myself. Alone. Many nights I would lie in my bedroom at the Thompsons and tears would wet my pillow. I thought about the family I used to have in a dreamy place called Vietnam. I used to have a mother and a father as well as three brothers and six sisters. I didn’t really miss them – only my mother. For a long time, I dreamt of seeing her again. And now she sat in judgment of me every day. Right in front of me. All day! And she never let up! My mouth was dry. I could feel the pain in my chest where my heart used to be. My mother would never, ever understand me. I could see that between me and this woman a monstrous gulf had arisen. A chasm that could never be crossed.
“Who are you?” I asked myself. I struggled with the question that never stopped churning in my mind. It came back over and over since that one black day. It was a summer morning. I was at the bus stop going to work when an unshaven white man appeared from nowhere. “You fucking blackhead! Go back to where you came from!” He paused then continued: “Cocksucking fag!” The man’s voice was harsh. He shoved his face right up under my nose. He smelled of beer. My breath stopped. The silence around me was like thunder. The passengers were looking at me sideways with their heads down. Pity? Curiosity? Hatred? Head and shoulders bowed, I went to my seat on the bus like a bird with a broken wing. I felt totally numb all the way to the workplace. “Who are you?” “Who are you?” The chorus echoed in my mind. Behind it I could hear the laughter of a mocking crowd. “You’re a fag! Look at you! Ha! You thought you could hide what you are! Is it that obvious? A sick man! Dirty! Who are you? You’re an Asian blackhead. Blackhead and gay! Yuck! You thought you could hide in the bushes. Your hair has been dyed light brown. But look at your eyes, your nose, your skin! You’re still a boat person from Vietnam! It’s obvious. You said your name was Daniel Thompson! Give me a break! You are Trần Văn Phúc. That’s it. Trần Văn Fucked Up! You can’t run away from the truth.” I shivered. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson didn’t want to accept me. People didn’t want me to be in their community. They wanted to kick me back to my homeland. But where is my homeland? Bitterness swept over me like a winter blizzard. For a long time I had believed that Canada was my homeland. I grew up here. I breathed the air here. I learned English with no accent. I dressed like the people here. My name had no trace of Trần Văn, Nguyễn Thị.
“That’s true! You were born in Vietnam but you know nothing about the country. You can’t even speak the damn language.”
Who could believe that a child who left his homeland when he was eight years old could have completely lost his mother tongue? Ask me! I swear to God that my Vietnamese is totally gone. When and where it vanished, I don’t know. After ten years in Canada I went back to Vietnam as a deaf and dumb person. When I arrived at the airport in Hồ Chí Minh City, a cry burst from my mother’s lips. “Phúc! My God, here’s Phúc.” My mother jumped over to me and grabbed my arm. I couldn’t actually say or understand anything. My mother, my brothers and sisters couldn’t believe it. Ten years in the Thompson family had robbed me of everything I had built up in eight years in Vietnam. A crowd of curious people surrounded me. They showered me with compliments.
“You look as handsome as a white man! You speak English like a white man! You’re tall. You don’t look like anybody in our family.” (My mother said that this was because I ate cheese and drank milk.)
My skin was pale and smooth like a girl’s. My hair was light brown. I was wearing a simple short-sleeved shirt. Everyone was shocked to see that my frayed jeans barely went past my knees and had two carefully placed holes right on my buttocks!
“Fashion,” I said, showing that I understood what people were thinking.
On the way by car to my family’s home in Bà Rịa, I had to pee. I asked them to stop the car but nobody could understand me so I had to agonize in silence. I stayed in Vietnam for four months to try to get back the language I had lost. The day I left for Canada, I could speak a little and understand some things but I never was able to get back my accent in the language. Every time I opened my mouth to say a few words in Vietnamese, I could see, out of the corner of my eyes, that my sisters had to hold back their peals of laughter.
I was the only Vietnamese person in the small town of Rock Creek in British Columbia. As a matter of fact, I was the only Asian student in the school. I tried in desperation to lose my skin and grow a new one so I could fit in, but I couldn’t. I remembered the day I arrived at the small Kelowna airport. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and their daughter Lucy had come to take me to their home. A gaggle of reporters was waiting with a Vietnamese interpreter. I stood there, dumbfounded. That was the first time in my life I had actually seen white people. And it was also the first time I ever felt like an important person.
The reporters were competing to talk to me first and to ask about the seven days and seven nights on the ocean in a small boat. I learned later that there were 128 people in our boat when it drifted to the small island of Kuku in Indonesia. We had almost no food or water. All of us were so weak we almost died. The reporters wanted to know about the four months in the refugee camp in Ga-Lang. They asked me if I had been lonesome for my parents and my brothers and sisters who were stuck in Vietnam. They asked what I thought about going to live with my new Canadian family. Mrs. Thompson hugged me and kissed me. Cameras clicked and whirred. I didn’t remember when my poor Vietnamese mother had hugged me and kissed me like that. And that was the very first time I was aware of the very nice but indescribable smell of a white woman – cologne? perfume? soap…?
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson drove me home in their big blue car. I was lost as I looked at my new home: milk cows and, what seemed to me, an infinite piece of land beside the river. I later learned that the town of Rock Creek had only thirty families in all. I was surprised to see that each house seemed to sit alone, by itself, and not be close to any other house like in Vietnam. The neighbours came to see me, “the refugee boy!” They said that the strange woman, who came dressed in all white, was from the health department.
When she looked at me, I will never forget her scream: “My God! His head is a nest of big, fat lice!” They shaved off my hair, sprayed disinfectant over me and then sprayed all my things and even the house. Lucy looked at me in terror and refused to come near me. I also had to swallow huge pills to get rid of the intestinal worms in my belly.
For the first few weeks, I hid in my room. I only came out at mealtime. I couldn’t eat what they called potatoes or cheese. I had a craving for rice and noodles. I wanted the fish sauce that I was used to. Lucy told me later that every time she came to my room, I was crying. Mrs. Thompson was worried: “I wonder if he can be mentally retarded because of the long trip and the loss of his family.” She took me to the hospital. The doctor encouraged the Thompsons to let me do activities outside. So after school and on weekends, Mr. Thompson taught me to ride horses, chop wood and milk cows. Every Sunday, I went to church to study the Bible and learn to pray. My constant crying slowly abated but I was still lonesome for my mother.
One day, it struck me that life in Canada was more comfortable than in Vietnam. Memories of my childhood there were fading bit by bit like fog in the rising sun. I vaguely remember the tiny thatched house surrounded by rows of vegetables and a hedge and especially the bowls of rice mixed with bananas or corn that never seemed to fill me up. I remembered the distant sound of church bells ringing early in the morning and late at night. At noon, in summer, I would catch spiders and try to get them to fight. And some other things I would never forget: how much I longed to play marbles with the boys in the village or go walking to gather crickets in little cans. But every time I left the house my father would beat me for doing so. I was the youngest in the family so I was beaten more than any of the others. I remembered that my father tied me up to a pillar once and used a knife to cut my feet until they bled as punishment for using those feet to walk away from the house. That happened, I think, on the day I went to see Bruce Lee on a neighbour’s television set. I was scared to death. At school, I remembered the nun twisting my ear when I couldn’t learn the “Lord’s Prayer” by heart or when I didn’t remember that seven times seven was forty-nine.
That was homeland for me. I didn’t want to talk about it or remember any of the pain. So it gradually faded from my thoughts. And soon I became the pride of my new family. Mrs. Thompson loved me so much that Lucy started to be jealous. I did well in school and was first in my class every year. In grade twelve I was chosen for the national junior hockey team, a great honour. I even got to play against the Russians. I was also talented in cooking. People said that when I presented food on the plate it was a work of art. I was handsome, well dressed and refined. At my summer job as a waiter, I always got the most tips. A number of girls showed in subtle and non subtle ways that they found me very attractive. I did not respond to their advances. I began to recognize the terrible thing that would cling to me then and in the years to come.
When I was in Canada for two or three years, I suddenly realized that my feelings were unusual. When the teacher put the students into study groups, I would do my best to be placed in an all-boy group. I avoided the girls. It wasn’t really hate or even dislike, I just didn’t want to be near them. In high school, I was irritated when people would match me up with one of the girls in my class. Then one day, I noticed that I was attracted to other boys. At night, my dreams were about making love with one of them. I was terrified. I wanted to run and hide but at the same time I wanted the dreams to return. I didn’t know if I was really a man or not. I went to the store pretending to buy a magazine about sports but in fact what I liked was to look at the pictures of naked women in Playboy and Penthouse. I wanted to change the feelings that disturbed me and become interested in women. A girl who was in the school play with me and whose parents were away one day invited me into her bed. I proved to myself that I could behave like any other man. That, however, only increased my secret attraction to men. By the end of grade twelve, my sexual desire had become a flame. One day I received a signal from John, an elementary teacher who had moved there from Toronto. John was five years older than I was and went to the same church. We had a lot in common: hockey, motorbike riding, jogging and nature photography. John and I met almost every day. When I took John home, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson liked my new friend very much. Poor Lucy was very attracted to ‘this wonderful person’ but John always treated her as a ‘friend’.
John and I never tired of exchanging ideas. I admired John’s worldly and scientific knowledge and his many social skills, worlds away from the shallow and giggly girls in Rock Creek. Then one day, John and I took a bite from the forbidden apple in a secluded clearing beside the stream. From then on, we were unable to prevent or even slow down the inevitable. One day, we even expressed our affection in the storage room in the church! All that summer, I lived with an oppressive feeling of guilt. I had spent many years going to the church and believed that homosexuality was a sinful act. It was against nature and depraved - an affront to God. I made every effort to avoid John, giving the excuse that I was getting ready to go to university. I asked God to remove this terrible sin from my soul. I thought about transferring my university registration from Engineering to Chinese and Spanish so I could become a missionary and talk about God to poor people in distant parts of the world. Only then would I have the strength to remove the shackles that bound me to my satanic ways. However, my determination would only last a few days before I phoned John once more. We couldn’t stop meeting. My hope was that the feelings, so generally condemned, were only temporary and that eventually I would change. I didn’t want to continue as I was or accept what I was doing.
When it was least expected, misfortune struck. I was in my second year at university. During the winter break, I came home from Vancouver. John and I were decorating the church for Christmas. The minister’s wife who was also the deaconess caught us French kissing in the kitchen. Homosexuality was the one unforgivable sin. And to dare to do it in God’s house in broad daylight! That was the greatest affront to God that had ever been heard of in that town’s Pentecostal church. It was worse than any of the sins listed in the Ten Commandments.
I would never forget the dinner at the Thompson house that evening. Lucy’s face was a black thundercloud. Mr. Thompson was devastated but said nothing. Mrs. Thompson, her face tight with shock, disapproval and shame, said with her eyes lowered to the table: “Everyone has the right to choose his lifestyle but he has to fear God.” I knew that what I had done was like a knife through the heart of the woman who had, in every sense of the word, become my real mother. I almost burst into tears because of the chill in her voice. I realized that it was the end of any feelings of affection that the Thompsons had for me. I had disappointed them beyond forgiveness.
Deep down inside myself, I wanted to argue that I had never intended to choose that lifestyle. I had never wanted to be gay. I had tried with all my strength to repudiate the feelings but could not control my sexual orientation. The minister explained to me that Satan had to be responsible for what had happened and I needed to cooperate to get rid of that satanic presence and not allow it to keep any foothold in my life. I was forced to report to God and the minister all the sexual thoughts and acts that had been hidden away in my life.
The exorcism ritual took place in my bedroom where Satan and his disciples had tempted me, starting with masturbation and the sexual dreams about men. I was lying in bed holding a cross on my chest. The minister and all the selected, pure elders of the church lay their hands on my body. They said their prayers. The minister called Jesus by name as well as the archangel Michael. One of the elders spoke in tongues. It sounded as though he was calling on the souls of the dead to come to his aid. I was filled with panic. I felt totally vulnerable. I believed that there were many devils fighting for my soul. The minister prayed saying: “Only by faith will he overcome their terrible temptations. May God have mercy on his poor servant.” The minister prayed in a sad, dramatic voice as he sprinkled holy water over my body. All there was in my mind was the image of John and a murmuring voice in my ear: “Don’t be afraid. Just enjoy what you have. Are you not satisfied? Don’t you remember the ecstatic moments we had together? Be yourself. Don’t waste time trying to fix what is not broken.” I struggled to get up and get out of the bedroom. Immediately, many hands violently pushed me down. The prayers became louder and more insistent. Suddenly, someone shouted out: “Look there! Satan and his demons.” The chaotic voices and movements increased in vigour. I was sure that everybody had seen the devil and his followers. They must have been dancing right at the end of the bed! I breathed hard. I had been taught that devils were black with horns on their heads and tails waving behind them. They carried shackles with which to bind me. I waited for the smell of burning sulfur and their screams like a chorus of the damned. “Get lost! All of you!” I uttered a high pitched scream as I struggled to sit up. Again the hands violently pushed me down. “You, Satan and your followers! Get away from the soul of God’s servant here! Come to us, Jesus, with all your love and power! You saved the prophet Daniel from the lion’s fangs. Now please think of this servant, who is also Daniel. Help him to get away from the pact he signed with Satan!...” The minister’s voice had overpowered the other chaotic noises. I curled up in an L shape, sweating, ice-cold. The holy water continued to be sprinkled on me. The devils were making noises, negotiating with me. They did not want to go back to the dark hell filled with scalding oil that never ceased burning the sinful souls for all eternity. They tried to climb back inside my body. Then I lost consciousness.
John also had to submit to the same ritual two days later. I thought that it was finished. After that, I didn’t expect that John and I would be treated differently by people in the church. The parishioners, however, expressed their hatred and fear every time they saw me or John. I lost the responsibility of cooking for the Christmas party. John’s duty of playing the piano on Christmas Eve was entrusted to another person. John and I had blackened the whole congregation and could never be forgiven. We no longer were permitted to serve in God’s house. Without a word of goodbye to each other we went our separate ways. I moved out of the Thompson house and went to Vancouver. After my graduation from university, I found a job in Calgary on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. That would be my home from then on.
Twenty years have gone by since I left the Thompsons. And for twenty years I have been living two lives. In public, I’m a respected and successful coach for a junior hockey team in Calgary. Two of my players have been chosen for the national team. They’re sixteen to seventeen years old. They idolize their coach. Their parents have high respect for me. Nobody knows I’m gay. I not only train the young players but I also give them personal advice in times of difficulty. Outside of my work, I return to my secret and private life, the world of the homosexual. After John’s departure, I have no longer been able to truly love anyone else. The emotions, the feelings and the fire have never been resuscitated. What took place in that church was the final blow that knocked me out. My direction was lost. Every once in a while I have considered suicide but I didn’t want to hurt my mother. I still try, to no avail, to change my own feelings. I keep on studying different life philosophies. The more I read and reflect, the more I’m confused and disoriented. I can’t decide on the causes of homosexuality, the damned thing that has clung to my life so that I’m unable to look other people in the eye. For me, it’s completely natural: you’re born like that, period. I don’t blame anyone or anything. But absolutely, it’s not for me since I never chose that path. My mother? Satan? Biological factors? Psychological? Social causes? What else? I’m fed up with questions and circular analyses. At every turn, people invite gays to come out of the closet and tell them to be themselves. I say nothing. Once in a while, the media make a report on some coach who has been arrested and accused of sexually abusing his players. Although people have no proof, they still label the coach as both gay and guilty. Thinking about prejudice and hatred directed at homosexuals, I draw back and do not dare make my feelings public. I prefer to suffer the irritations that come with living a double life. And that includes devious answers given to my mother. I dare not think of what would happen to my name and position if I once more opened that secret curtain.
****** ****** ****** ******
“What would bring you to this? My God!” My mother’s voice was hoarse. “I gave birth to ten children with all their parts. And you too have what you need to be a man. No. It can’t be. How long have you carried this disease, Phúc? I went to church and heard all the gossip about Henry living in the house with you. I didn’t believe it. I thought Vietnamese people were often jealous and slandered other people. That can’t be a natural thing. You tell Henry to move out. He’s the one who tempts you and leads you down this sinful path!”
My mother sniffed, moaned, and went on like one gone insane. “The devil has a foothold in your soul. Come with me to see the priest! Only our own holy Catholic priest can save you now. He will cleanse your soul. Phúc, please listen to your mother. When you were born, you were baptized. Your saint’s name was Joseph. How dare you betray the real God and follow a wicked religion!” My mother continued with no pause.
No. I definitely would not go to see any priest. Etched in my memory was the exorcism ritual in the Pentecostal church. My mind went back to the image of a drunken white man approaching me and saying: “You fucking blackhead! Go back to where you came from! Cocksucking fag!”
“You will be back to normal. You will have a wife and children like other men. Mr. Trùm Dương’s daughter… . This New Year holiday, why don’t you go back to Vietnam to marry her. That’s the only way now. Phúc, listen to me. If everyone knew about this, how could I live it down? Phúc! Forget about the name Daniel. It sounds terrible…” The woman who gave birth to me didn’t stop moaning.
Tears welled up. I bit my tongue so that I would not cry out in anguish. I thought about the song that I had heard the night before I left the Thompsons. The blues music that was banned by the Pentecostal church: Satan’s music. That cassette was the last gift from John who gave it to me in secret in the church on that fateful day. Not until the night before leaving that dear but bitter town had I heard B.B. King’s song. I had wept out loud in the quiet room when the voice of the black singer pierced the night: “Nobody loves me but my mother and she could be jivin’ too.”
The author in her profile pic for Da Màu magazine
