Goodbye, Vietnam Read Online Free PDF

go. I kept looking back over my shoulder so I could make out the shapes of my mother and grandmother. It was dark and we had to move slowly, feeling our way as we went. I had never been on a boat, and the rolling motion felt funny. You put a foot where you thought something solid was but nothing was there to meet you. I could hear the sound of the small waves slapping against the boat, letting us know the water was out there. I tripped over a broken plank in the deck and bumped my head.
    “Mai,” Kim called to me, “look.”
    When I found her, Kim placed my hands on a large metal can. It was warm to the touch. We could see a grill on top and red embers inside. We called out to the others that we had found the stove.
    Kim’s mother was pleased. “Good, we will make a place for ourselves here.”
    There was a sound of sputterings and deep coughs from the engine. “Hurry,” Kim’s mother called. “Spread out your things to mark your place. Once the engine starts they will herd everyone aboard and cast off so as not to waste fuel.”
    My mother seemed unsure. “It will be better to wait for my husband to choose a place for us.”
    But Kim’s mother had already begun to settle into the spot she had chosen. I had never heard a woman give orders except my grandmother, and those were always given in a whining voice, not as a man gives orders. Still, everything Kim’s mother said made sense. I decided to arrange our things as well.
    The sounds of the engine grew stronger, stopped, started again, wheezed, stopped. A long silence and then the whole boat shook with the sound of the engine. There were cheers from the shore and excited shouts from the crowd as they all tried to rush up the narrow gangplank at once. As people poured onto the deck, they were herded into the hold.
    “Why are they making them go down there?” mymother asked, worrying that we had made the wrong choice.
    “If everyone stays on deck the boat will be unstable,” Kim’s mother said. “People are needed in the hold as ballast. Besides, all the people would not fit on the deck. Now we must be very quiet so we are not made to go below. Once the hold is full, we will be safe.”
    The people onshore were desperate to get on deck and would not stop pushing. Suddenly there was a splash, followed by shouts. “My husband!” someone was screaming. “My husband has fallen into the water!” For a moment there was silence, and the movement of the crowd seemed to come to a halt. Then it began again and the woman’s screams were lost in the rush of people crowding onto the boat.
    Although I could no longer hear the screams, they echoed back and forth inside my head. I would have run from the boat, but people were pushing in against us from all sides, trying to find a bit of space. Our own space became smaller and smaller. “Lie down,” Kim’s mother told us. We lay down on the deck, hoping to keep enough room so we could stretch outat night and sleep, but it was no use. There were too many people. I felt someone sitting on my legs and quickly drew them up, losing the little extra space I had. Someone stepped on Thant. He cried out, and when my mother picked him up to comfort him, Thant’s space was lost to us. Soon we were huddled together with barely enough room to move our arms. Still the people came. I felt the breath and smelled the smell of strangers all around me.
    The boat had been rocking gently. Now the engine gave a great wheeze, and I felt a lurch as the boat moved away from the wharf and made its way out into the harbor. There were terrible cries from those on the wharf left behind. Once the boat began to move, the jostling for space stopped. The movement of the small ship out into the darkness of the sea silenced everyone. We all held our breath, waiting.
    Anh said, “Will the sea stop after a while? Will we fall over the edge?”
    “No,” I told her. “There is land on the other side of the sea.” I tried to recall the picture on the