The Ghost

“I tell you this, but don’t be frightened. You are haunted by a ghost.”

Miss Linh bites her lip as if she wants to take back her words. She waits for my reaction, but I’m not frightened. A ghost is the spirit of a dead person. A dead person can’t rob me, murder me, or slander or imprison me. So why should I be frightened?

“I tell you this not because I have any desire for profit, but to warn you. This is a debt from a previous life. You must drive it away.”

I laugh. Among the six billion people who live on this planet, this ghost has chosen me. How can I have the heart to drive it away?

But my mother is worried. “You look pale,” she says. “Your soul and body seem not together. You seem lost, even when you are with others.”

To cure me, my mother takes me to the pagoda. We bring flowers and fruits with us. When we arrive, I prostrate myself before the Buddha, then join the others sitting cross-legged and listening to the sutras.

“Antapha baphathuat datapha datmatapha batarami...”

My mother requests that I repeat the words. “These True Words purify the three karmas,” she tells me. I repeat them. Pagodas on mountains are lofty places, and sutras in Sanskrit are sacred, so it doesn’t matter if, when I read them, I don’t understand their meaning. Anyway, the sutras are not for me; they are for the ghost.

“Batarami maphadata mahadatapapha...”

Listening to the sutras, the ghost may be purified and freed from suffering. Or it may leave me, deciding to lead a peaceful existence at the pagoda instead. After finishing the sutras, I walk in the garden. At noon I have lunch, then chant more sutras into the evening. The plan is for me to stay a few days. The pagoda is a beautiful place. In the evening, from the back of the garden, I watch the sun set deep red in the west, then the skyline gradually turn a dark purple.

But on the second day of my stay at the pagoda, my younger brother arrives and angrily drags me home. He shouts at me, “If you fast and pray like an ascetic, you will surely see your grave!” His recommended treatment is rest and invigoration. Meat, fish, chicken, duck, milk, eggs, cream ...and a can of beer each day—this is the regimen he suggests for good health. The next day he returns from work, announcing, “My office is having a weekend in Vung Tau. Come there with me; we’ll go swimming and sunbathing, eat fresh seafood. I bet you’ll feel better.”

My mother is busy getting ready for the trip, but on Thursday the war in the Gulf breaks out. Friday evening, the entire family sits in front of the tv set.

“E-game,” my youngest sister cries. My mother ignores her and complains of how the prices going up make her dizzy. “Those well-fed people know little about war yet. Let them learn!” my elder brother interjects. My father corrects him, saying, “Nobody really knows. You and I have the experience of surviving the war, but only the dead know what war really means.” My younger brother announces, “I have a bet with the chief of my office that Iraq can’t last more than a week.”

He brought home a case of beer from his office yesterday. When the u.s. issued its ultimatum, people in his office wagered whether Uncle Sam would fight—he fought and my brother won the bet. My brother now drinks beer and smiles at President Bush on tv.

I go to bed early so I will be able to get up to take the bus that departs for Vung Tau at dawn.

At Vung Tau the sea is oily; it foams as if boiling. I want to stretch out on the sand, but the beach is dirty. My younger brother rents a cot and umbrella for me. He dives into the surf...