Drunken Love by Que Son (to read list TXT) 📖

days at sea, she had fought with all her might, with whatever strength she had, against the violation of her body, but she lost the battle, and now she felt worthless, and wished she were dead. She thought about Adam and said to herself I am not worthy of him anymore, so I will not look for him, because I cannot come to him with a dirty body like this.

 

One month, then two months, and Eve slowly recovered. The life instinct in her began to come back, reality returned and confronted her with demands. She remembered that she had a debt to pay, that she had to contact her family to tell them she had arrived in Thailand and was now waiting for permanent settlement in a third country. She started to make dresses for people in the camp, saved money, and sent it back to her mother to pay off the debt of the passage. Once in a while, the camp officials called the women who had been raped to the camp's clinic for periodic checkups and blood tests to see if they had contracted any diseases from the incidents at sea. And on those days, names of the women were announced with a loud speaker and the whole camp would hear and people knew who had been raped. Eve felt as if she was being violated again and again. Being alone and needing protection, Eve asked two teenage orphans, a boy and a girl, to live with her in her hut and she provided them with better foods from the money she made.

 

Eve thought that news of her escape must have reached Adam; so on many occasions she went to the Red Cross office in the camp to inquire whether anyone was looking for her. And every time, she was disappointed. No words from him. The Red Cross office also helped people find friends and relatives overseas and three times she went there with the intention of filing forms to look for Adam but three times she turned around, abandoning the idea. She did not forget that he had rejected her and how her pride was wounded badly by the rejection. Besides, she did not feel clean and would be very ashamed if he knew she was raped, and no longer a virgin. Better go on with my life and keep the memories of him locked away in a corner of my heart, she thought.

 

In the camp, Eve kept to herself, having for company the two orphaned teenage boy and girl that she shared the hut with and took care of. Not a day went by without her thinking of Adam and not a day she did not hope to get a letter from him, even though she knew the hope was futile. She thought that perhaps Adam knew she had escaped and knew where she was but did not write because he did not care about her anymore. As months went by, she tried to chase the thoughts about Adam out of her head and tried to live as normal a life as she could while waiting for resettlement. Paperwork and interviews by the United Nations officials and by the US immigration had completed, and she now only had to wait for the day to board an airplane for America. Because Adam was now in America, the thought that she was going to be under the same sky with him gave her some consolation, even though they might not meet again. She had no plan to see him even if it was possible--because the shame of the rapes and the wounded pride.

 

Young men in the camp sometimes approached her and made advances but she rejected them all. Memories of Adam were still too much on her mind; besides, she had no feelings for any of the men in the camp. But one day someone appeared and the first time she saw him, a chill down her spine and caused her unexplainable fear. That someone was a young man about her age who arrived in the camp a year after her and lived in the same area of the camp with her and she knew he was having his eyes on her. He sent her gifts of fruits that she refused to accept, and she always tried to avoid him, afraid of getting into conversation with him. She felt as if he was a creditor going after his debtor, her, and she was scared. His name was David.

 

After seventeen months in the camp, she was informed by the camp’s officials that the date for her settlement in America was set. But two weeks before departure, she fell sick with malaria, but there was no one around to care for her. The two teens she was living with could do nothing to help. David, who had been following her, took the opportunity to come near and cared for her. He would fed her, sought medicine for her, watched over her, and while doing all this, he told her he loved her. Eve had no reaction when she heard him say that. But despite having no feelings for David, she received the care from him with gratitude, telling herself that one day she would repay his kindness in someway. At last she recovered, and on the day she boarded the bus for the airport, David said to her that he wanted to marry her and that he would look for her when he arrived in America perhaps only a month or two after her. Eve said she first must wait and see how things turned out for her in the new land before she considered his proposal. And they exchanged addresses and telephone numbers. David had entered the picture, and he appeared to be a nice man and love her sincerely. He was the man close to her and had shown he cared for her, and he knew what had happened to her on the sea and knew how she had conducted her life in the camp and seemed to accept all that without conditions, and she became more and more convinced that he might be the man she would be spending her life with. But she felt conflicted, because she had no feelings for him except gratitude.

 

On the last days of her stay in the camp, David was constantly by her side. He asked her about her past; and she told him about Adam, how she loved him but had been rejected by him, about the years waiting for him, about her desire to become his wife. And she added that she now did not think about looking for Adam anymore even though they were about to be in the same country. David was comforted to hear the part about her not looking for Adam, but at the same time, he was sad that she did not seem to have the same feelings for him that he had for her.

 

Eve landed in New York and was greeted at the airport by a younger brother who had been living in the US for two years. On the way to the city from the airport she was shocked to see a landscape devoid of people, all she saw through the windows of the taxi cab were highways, cars, and houses in the distance behind the shrubs. She was used to live in an environment where people and noises were around and in her face almost twenty four hours a day. Here in the US, all was silent. Even the cars on the road did not make any noise, or very little noises. Eve carried with her a large plastic bag with the initials ICM on it, indicating that she was a refugee, that contained all the important papers and some clothes. The new environment was totally alien, resembled little what she had used to back in Viet Nam. Here things looked ordered and cold.

 

The brother lived in a basement apartment in East New York and after a few days taking her around to shop for clothing and other essentials, he disappeared. He would be gone for days and when he came back he said he was away working. Most of the times she was alone in the basement, seeing no one, talking to no one, and had no courage to come out to explore the neighborhood. The people looked intimidating to her whenever she glimpsed through the half-window of the basement and saw them walking by. She spent the time by reading the books her brother threw all over the apartment, cleaning up the place, and cooking whatever there was in the refrigerator. And she wrote letters to her family, relatives and acquaintances, some back in the old country, some here in the US. Sometimes the phone rang and it was brother inquiring if she was ok, and sometimes it was his friends and they were surprised to hear a female voice. Sometimes she thought about Adam, but chased the thoughts out of her mind whenever they appeared. Disappointment and sadness always came over her whenever she thought of him. Now she was in the same country with him but she had no idea where he might be, she did not have his address, and even if she had, she wasn't sure if she should contact him. Better not, she thought. The last time she heard anything from him was that rejection letter to her when she had still been in the new economic zone in Ca Mau, and it had been two years and still felt like only yesterday. The wounds he caused her were still fresh. And she continued to feel bitter. What would he think and how would he felt if he knew she was now in America, under the same sky as he. Would he look for her? She wished that he would, but still, she felt conflicted. The love she had for him did not lessen with distance and time, it was still as strong as the first days she knew him; only this time, hurt pride was added to the mix. Sometimes she thought that if she had had his address, she would write to him, to try one more time to find out if he still loved her and wanted her. If he did, she would go and find him even if with reservation and caution, because she missed him, and wanted to see his face again: it had been four years since they last saw one another, and two years since the last contact. Perhaps he would not mind that she was no longer a virgin, and he would accept this soiled body if he really loved her, because it was not her fault. If that was the case, then she would come to him, and become his wife, as she had wished since the day she fell in love with him.

 

But nothing happened. In stead, she received letters from David almost every week. He wrote that he missed her and wanted to see her when he arrived in the US. She put the letters aside, feeling confused, not knowing what to do.

 

Every three or four days, her brother would come home and took her out to see a some of the sights of New York and she felt better to have some fresh air and saw the faces of other people. But at nights, sleeping alone in the basement she was fearful, and nightmares of the rapes frequently came back to wake her up in cold sweat.

 

Then one month after her arrival in New York, she received a call from David who said he had arrived in the country and was now in San Jose and asked her how things were where she was. She told him it was terrible where she lived, that she was a prisoner in her own home, and she felt scared most of the time. He again proposed to her and suggested that she came live with