Prologue

      SHE WAS FREE at last. She gripped the railing of the now-abandoned fishing boat, its plank deck heaving beneath her feet. In the noon light, the distant island seemed to bob like a mossy green canteen on its side.

      The captain and navigator, an old fisherman from a southeastern seaport of Vietnam they had escaped from a week before, had plunged in first. Others followed. The shoal of their black heads dipped and rose in the waves as the pouches and satchels strapped to their gaunt, sunburnt backs dispersed. A flock of seagulls circled and settled upon the crests to pick at the feast afloat on the South China Sea.

      The woman looped the straps of her red shopping basket around her shoulder. She was glad her few possessions were in tightly sealed jars and plastic bags. When she hoisted her leg onto the railing, she noticed someone had scratched the date on the wood. Bidon 18-12-1980. She slowly raised herself and pulled up her other leg. She crouched there, feeling the pitch and wallow of the boat. As her body moved, she balanced herself and stood up.

      White sand encircled the hilly island like a strand of luminous odd-shaped pearls. Farther inland, thatched roofs nestled beneath coconut palms that bowed toward the sea. She breathed in deeply, clasped her hands, and gazed into the water. She felt suddenly light.

      She dove into a reflected sky.

      As she submerged, the woman arched her back and lifted her head skyward to surface but slipped back instead. The ocean coursed through her body and pulled her down. The murmur of the sea lullabied her. She relaxed her grip, and the straps of her basket rose from her shoulder, scattering pictures of a husband on a bridge that hung across a river like a crescent moon and a daughter named after a blossom of the Lunar New Year. The ocean tugged at the woman’s fingers and spread her arms. She soared through the clear blue sky.

       Pearl of the Orient

      WHILE SAIGON SLEPT at noon, Maia Trieu returned with her father’s ashes. Her flight on the Boeing 707 from Los Angeles with a layover in Bangkok bore citizens of free nations. As she deplaned and bussed across the tarmac of Tan Son Nhat International Airport, she was caught in the intertwinement of yellow rice paddies and abandoned bunkered hangars, fusing in the summer heat of 1991.

      Across the aisle, a man murmured about the humidity and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. When he pushed his dark hair off his forehead, she saw gray-green eyes, and her hand reflexively reached for the jade locket around her neck. The jade’s muted color did not spark like the man’s eyes, but the locket felt large and important on her. She gazed out at the midday mirage. Sunrays flickered on the hot asphalt runways and glimmered off wet rice paddies. Thirteen years earlier, she had escaped the country with her father, crossing the South China Sea in an overcrowded fishing boat to find asylum in America. Her hand clasped the octangular jade locket. Ba, we’re home.

      “That’s a shame,” the man said, looking past her through the window at the bunkered hangars. “A terrible shame.” He peered through his camera and snapped several pictures. Besides a few Asian businessmen, the visitors were mostly Europeans, some from the newly unified Germany. The gray-eyed man of mixed ancestry was traveling alone. He looked at her. “Viet kieu?” he asked. His voice had a distinct American intonation. Except for a lightning bolt tattoo on his upper left arm, he fit the profile of an innocuous tourist. Beneath his relaxed exterior, she detected something else.

      The trolley stopped at the terminal, and attendants in light azure áo dài pulled the glass doors open, greeting the visitors with the words of the yellow and red banner fluttering above. Welcome to the City of Enlightenment!

      Rainclouds massed from the distant Western Range and lingered for the anticipated afternoon storm. The visitors left the stifling heat and entered the air-conditioned terminal.

      “I’m JP Boyden,” the man introduced himself and smiled. “And you are . . . Pearl . . . of the Orient?

      “Maia Trieu,” she offered her name matter-of-factly.

      “Trieu? The maiden warrior from the third century A.D.?”

      She shook her head, but he was already swinging a long imaginary sword and reciting lines from the legend of Bà Triệu in a resonant bell-like tone on riding the storm, slaying the behemoth, and rescuing the drowning in the Eastern Sea.¹

      Just then two oversize backpackers jostled past and knocked her off balance. JP Boyden grabbed her by the waist to keep her steady and held her close as the herd of travelers rushed by. “Why hurry?” he whispered. “Fast or slow, the checkpoints will be waiting.” She pulled away and pushed through the crowd, but not before seeing a glint in his eyes.

      At the checkpoint, she placed her