Gods Go Begging Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the single being with two bodies. They are surrendering simultaneously to the living, dying thing above them, beneath them, between them. In their ears are the voices of two recumbent males, two separate tongues whispering promised things into the cooling darkness of two bedrooms, worlds apart, and into two sets of symmetrical, unremarkable ears.
    “When the war is over for me, we can open up the restaurant,” said a deep baritone that resounded with the elongated drawl of the Louisiana river delta and the bayou. “This time my paychecks will be sent directly to you. That way I can’t spend it all like I did on my last tour of duty. This time, when I leave the Nam, I’ll rotate out at Fort Lewis and jet straight on down to you, Persephone. I ain’t gonna re-up again, I promise. No more U.S. Army for me. I’ve had it. I’ll even do the cooking every other day. You know my crab cakes are the best.”
    These joyous, chameleon words always made Persephone so sad. She had seen through his promises to the true color of his feelings. A. B. Flyer had seemed almost anxious to go back to Vietnam.
    “When the war is over, I will march victoriously down Lê Loi Street with my comrades.” It was a soft Thuong dialect from the Central Highlands, the voice of an excited, nearsighted young man about to leave for Hanoi. “I will return and reclaim my bride when the new order has come to power. And I will protect your family and the Tu Do Café, I promise.”
    The two women’s spirits met as they strained to reconstruct that final glimpse. Was it on the gangway? Was that Amos smiling through that small window of the airplane that would take him so far to the west? Was it the front door of the Tu Do Café? Was it a hasty salute, or had it been a final wave of Trin’s hand when the cadre leaders came at midnight to take him so far to the north?
    Neither woman had ever seen or heard from her man again. There had been a few letters from Amos, but they had been strange and rambling. His last letter had gone on and on about bebop ballet at the Pas de Calais. Try as she might, Persephone could not decipher the meaning of it.
    They both knew in their minds, if not their hearts, that their men were dead. Neither woman failed to fall asleep each night without wondering how her husband had died. Neither knew when they were killed or under what circumstances. Sergeant A. B. Flyer was listed as missing in action somewhere near the Free Fire Zone where Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam converged.
    Twenty years after his disappearance, the army moved him from the missing-in-action category to the missing-and-presumed-dead. Persephone had received some of his personal effects, but aside from that final letter, nothing from his last days, and nothing truly personal to him. The things that came in the mail were from his hooch in Dong Ha. There were letters and books, things that Persephone had sent to him. There had never been a grave site to visit; there was nowhere to place a bouquet of flowers.
    Along with most of his company, Trin Adrong had never been found. His entire battalion had been annihilated somewhere in the highlands. A small, unmarked package of his belongings had been left at Mai’s home in Saigon just before it fell. There was no information in the package, just a few small personal items that were charred black and smelled of cordite and damp earth.
    There had been a pair of melted Russian-made wire-rimmed spectacles, a melted Chinese watch, and a small Catholic Bible whose cover had been removed and replaced with a cover from a book of Chairman Mao’s bad poetry. Communist or not, Trin would always be a Catholic. Trin and Mai had been married by a priest. Inside the package, Mai had also discovered a single bloodstained scrap of paper with some strange incomprehensible writing hastily scribbled on it. The yellowed paper had been wrapped around a small, smooth sliver of dark-green jade.
    Though she could not read the printing, Mai