The waiters quickly went about their work, laying out appetizers on each plate and six steaming, heaping dishes in the center of the table: seafood, crab, duck, beef, chicken, and pork, along with bowls of steamed rice, all prepared to perfection, to be shared family-style in the Vietnamese tradition. Another bottle of wine found its way to the iced canister next to Francois. He wrapped a towel around it and poured ceremoniously for the others and then for himself. At the same time he gestured toward the plates of food.

“Everyone, please! Really, help yourselves!”

Colonel Pham needed no further encouragement. He jumped onto the food, followed by the others, and began eating greedily, devoid of the etiquette Francois was carefully following. As Condley filled his plate he studied Van’s mother. She caught his look and returned it with a courteous smile, then offered him the plate of beef. He took the plate, thanking her, and decided that he might perhaps draw her out and began speaking to her in Vietnamese.

“You are also from central Viet Nam?” he asked, knowing that the colonel himself had been born in Tam Ky, just south of Da Nang.

“Yes,” she answered almost shyly, taking rice into a small bowl.

“You have other children?”

“I have eight children,” she answered, glancing over to Van, who was talking earnestly with Francois. “Van is my baby.” She looked now at Colonel Pham, perhaps for support, then back to her rice, as if attempting to end the discussion.

Condley continued, not having picked up on her unease. “Do your other children live near you?”

“Three are here,” she said. “Two are in Da Nang.” She blinked and Condley saw she was fighting with her emotions. “Three are dead.”

Condley then comprehended that he had gone too far. In this new Viet Nam, any conversation, even any gesture, could bring back some scar from the past. He had relaxed too quickly after his exchange with Van, and now he knew why Colonel Pham had never brought him into their home.

“Two girls,” she continued. “One boy.” She had stopped all motion and was looking into her plate, hiding her tears in order to compose herself. Finally she looked back up at him, the tears gone and her face firm, and moved a hand through the air to simulate an airplane on an approach path, and finally threw the hand upward to indicate a bomb.

“Linh My. Ac lam,” she said, continuing to look him directly in the eyes.

American soldiers. Wicked. It was from a memory, said for perhaps the millionth time in order to push away her grief. But to say it here, now, and to him was pointed, painful, even holding him somehow responsible.