No English At the Table

BY Nghiem Tran

“Ba may ve bay gio.” It was a Vietnamese phrase used as a caution, threat and order to come to attention. It was often said in that home and always by his mother. In English it meant: “Your father will be home presently.”

Terry covered the phone’s receiver, and acknowledged his mum’s warning with a “da, da,” the equivalent of the teenage eye-rolling “yeah, yeah,” but said in Vietnamese – the only language spoken between him and his parents. He checked the empty front driveway before he returned to his conversation. “Craig, I have to go, Dad’s gonna be home soon. What? You said you were gonna watch that with me. Bastard! Nah, I can’t come. I’m going to the dentist.” Terry didn’t need to look again to recognise the car engine. Nothing inspired dread more than the sound of the Corona pulling up in the driveway. In one last offer of salvation, Terry’s mother, with a glance at the doorway, stated the obvious: “Ba may ve bay gio.”

“I have to go. Nah, nah, I can’t come. Dad’s taken leave just to take me to the dentist. Such a waste of a strike. Bye! Bye! Gotta go!” Like a baboon caught in a bushman’s trap because it refuses to relinquish the bait, Terry slammed the phone back into its cradle with the vigour that failed to compensate for the tardiness. But the hunter was already upon him and firing.

“Again? Your teachers report that your constant prattling prevents you paying attention. You spend all day talking yet you can barely pronounce a sentence.” His father was right; Terry was having difficulty formulating an appropriate response.

“Ty!” – his mother’s bugle call of his Vietnamese name announced she was joining in the scolding – “Your father is right. I told you to get off that phone! Now help me serve lunch.” Having feigned her attack, she opened a path of escape from his father. “Cut the chilli for the fish sauce and set the table.”

Ten minutes after they sat down to eat, Terry’s mother spoke first. “Ty, so why is there no school today?” Terry put down his rice dish and rested the ends of his chopsticks upon the fish sauce plate. He needed both hands for this one. He gathered together the tattered shreds of his Vietnamese vocabulary in preparation for the epic task of describing the words Union and Strike for which he knew not the Vietnamese. For his mother’s sake he commenced his daily mealtime impression of a nominal aphasiac, a person whose brain damage manifested in the loss of language ability when it came to finding words to utter.

“Uh, mum, the teachers are not working today because they are fighting, no, arguing with um the er council, no, no, the bigger one, ah, government! Over the government not paying enough money for when a female teacher gets, gets, the, having a baby and need to stop work for a few months. So all the teachers agree to go together to stop work and go city to do that thing where they shout and yell about it.”

His mum interrupted his linguistic thrashings. “Oh yes I understand,” and to prove it she, too, plumbed the depths to test her English, “Ah..…union…strike.” “Yes! Union strike! Yes!” echoed Terry with the gasps of a feeble swimmer reaching a pool’s other wall. His father reminded him of the rule he had broken. “No English at the table.” “Ah…teacher…Union strike…maternity…leave,” continued his mother, as the rule only applied to Terry, and with the perfunctoriness of an exotic tongue’s native speaker, “The Vietnamese words for it are ‘Teacher Union Strike’. We had a union strike in my factory that time they retrenched the two Greek women, remember?” “Teacher Union Strike,” repeated Terry in a futile effort to remember something which would be forgotten long before its need arose again. It would leave an impression, like the velvet-lined hollow of a lost chess piece in the box. When next presented to him it would allow recognition and understanding but would remain inaccessible for his own use.

His teachers had explained other facets of the strike that would have interested his parents, but it was just too much work. Instead, like always, Terry finished the meal in silence while his parents shook their heads over what to do with such an inarticulate son.

On their way to the dentist, Terry’s father besieged the wall of awkwardness built during their frequent time apart. “Ty, do you want the radio on?” “No, father.” Terry spent the rest of the drive’s silence forming sentences from the registration plates of the passing cars.

Doctor Nguyen had not been chosen for his skill with the drill but rather for the language shared with Terry’s parents. His professional faults included having a head that wobbled, unsteady hands to match and a tendency to go overtime, to the detriment of waiting patients. This last item turned a trip to the dentist into a day-long activity and stirred even Terry’s father to mutterings of going elsewhere.

“Your father says your teeth are hurting you. Where?” Glancing at his father, Terry explained, “er teeth of me at far back it are starting to come up out of the meat on the…um… um…top–” “It is okay, say it in English,” said Dr Nguyen. “Doctor, I encourage him to speak Vietnamese not only out of respect to adults but also to exercise his native language. You can see he needs the practice.” “You are too hard on the boy. Very well. So continue, Ty. When does it hurt?” “Er, sometimes it starts when I have done nothing and it… like… the pain is on the meat above and under and… um, it goes up and down in hurtyness… like boom boom boom…more on the left side… I eat medicine and hold ice in my mouth and it goes less for a bit… but it still at there for many hours long… I…um…”

In a rare moment of impatience provoked by the two-hour wait with only one hour of reading material, Terry’s father granted Terry clemency and spoke on his behalf. “Doctor, his wisdom teeth have erupted, at least in the lower jaw, but the pain is present on the upper region as well. The throbbing is more frequent and intense on the left hand side. We tried the usual remedies of analgesics and ice but it only reduces the pain slightly. If I hadn’t noticed how quickly we were using the ibuprofens he wouldn’t have spoken.”

Dr Nguyen prodded some swollen gums for five minutes to give Terry’s father his money’s worth in purchased pain. The diagnosis was that Terry’s wisdom teeth had decayed in their infancy and required an X-ray before likely removal.

30 minutes into the drive home, Terry’s father voiced what initially appeared as an effort at conversation. “They say that wisdom teeth come up when you are wiser,” but it was merely a rhetorical criticism, “yet I don’t see you displaying any maturity.” Terry wanted to reply, “Yeah, well, the saying is stuffed in English too. But they’re rotten, so maybe it’s right.” He instead settled for “Yes, father,” and continued staring out the side window. As such, the yell of “Ty!” by his father startled him more than the unexpected car collision.

The traffic in front had stopped suddenly. Their car braked in time. The one behind didn’t. “Are you okay, Ty? Did you hit your head?” To show that it was still working he shook it. “You didn’t bite your tongue, did you?” “No harm, father.” “Stay in your seat. You could have whiplash.” “I okay, father.”

Terry’s father waited politely for the other driver at the point where their cars merged. Most of the damage was to the other car’s front grille crumpled around the Corona’s tow ball. The other driver ended his phone conversation, flicked his cigarette away, clambered out to stand over Terry’s father and proceeded to lay blame elsewhere. “What the fuck are you doing stopping like that?” “Excuse me. I am sorry,” said Terry’s father indicating the traffic, “this accident, not my fault, I need to stop.” “Look what you did to the front of my fucking car.” “No. I must stop. You car bang my car.” “You’re paying to fix this.” “Ah. No. Is not right. Ah. You bang my car from back. You fault.” “You better fucking pray you didn’t fuck up my radiator too.” “Ah, Sorry. No. No.” The traffic had moved on by this point and the lanes on both sides were now slowed simply due to passing drivers gawking.

“Hey mate,” said Terry from behind the man. The latter turned to be shown a note that said “GYU 756, KPB 784” “What’s that?” “They’re the regos of two cars that saw the prang. They’ll say you ran into us. Probably saw you talking on your mobile too. But I reckon the cops can check that sort of stuff with your phone company anyway.” The man grabbed Terry’s wrist and took the sheet from Terry’s compliant fingers. “That was your copy,” shrugged Terry, “anyway that’s easy to remember. Starboard side: Gosh you’re 75, in six years you retire. GYU 756. Port side: Potassium and lead’s chemical symbols had to be remembered before year seven or eight but I couldn’t till form four. KPB 784.” “What?” “You know, like, potassium is K, right? and lead is, oh forget it, you probably didn’t go to school anyway. There’s no point talking about it now. We’ve got insurance so even if it was our fault, which it’s not, you would have to get the RACV to fix your car.” The man intensified his grip on Terry’s wrist and pulled him closer, “You little smartarse. I’m not talking to no fucking insurance company. I should bash your head in right now.” “Yeah I know you can. But I’ll lag. You reckon people in the shops over there aren’t watching? Now write your name and phone number down and the RACV will call you or the cops will first. It’s an offence to not give details after an accident. Let go of my arm before it bruises enough to look good in photos for the cops.”

The man released his grip and backed away snarling, like a wolf that had chased a rabbit into the shadow of a bear. He snatched the notepad, wrote his details down, threw the pad on the ground and menacingly pocketed the pen. “Yeah, keep it for when you get your pen licence. There is an old Vietnamese proverb for this occasion. It goes,” said Terry, picking up the notepad and lowering his voice so his father wouldn’t hear, “Fuck your mother.”

The guy clambered back into his car, backed it out and drove away with metal dragging on asphalt. Terry picked up the broken grille and other debris, tossed it into the car and motioned to his father that they should leave. As they drove, Terry spoke, “Father. When we get to house. If father want I will call to talk at insurance of the car.” His father nodded.

That night at the dinner table, Terry’s mother asked, “Ty, your father said you made him proud today. What was it you said?” “I, er, didn’t say proud,” stammered his father, “I just said he performed well today. But tell us, what did you say? It was too fast for me to, it was too fast.” “Well, um, father and mum I said him the numbers of the other cars. I remember because of this game in head I play. er…like… ah…the car number…” “Ty, it’s okay, just go slow for your mum, explain it in English. However, leave out the profanity. I don’t like it when you swear.”