He said, “Sophia, in a past life you were married to a brave samurai warrior. It was the time of the feudal wars and your husband was a great regional lord. Your only son insisted on fighting beside his father although you pleaded with him not to go. Both died in battle. In this life, you will be reunited with them.” He shook his head in a flourish of regret. “Sweetheart, I guess you just weren’t ready to say good-bye.” Then he leaned forward from his velvet chair and in a low conspiratorial voice said, “In this life, you will have twins. One will be your former son and the other will be your former husband.”

I wish I had asked, What about my father in this life? Where is my Ba now? I am a dog chasing its tail.

In the very beginning, my Ba, Duc Nguyen, met my Ma, Kim Le, in the season of mangoes and milk fruit so ripe they were thudding to the ground faster than people could pick them up. Sàigòn smelled animal that year. The air was sugary-sweet and pungent like sex and sewer ladled together. People were aware of their bodies like never before: the sheen of sweat on skin, salt on the lips, the hot rub of inner thighs slapping against one another sashaying down the sidewalk. Young school girls in filmy white áo dài moved through the streets like flocks of doves radiant in the hot white sun. Desire made the residents of the city hungry all the time, insatiable.

It was lucky then that Ma was working at the most popular noodle shop in town. Pho Ngon was famous for its irresistible broth brimming with star anise, cloves, roasted onions, and most coveted, the beef bones filled with the juiciest of marrow. Ma should have been studying for her college exams but she was waiting tables that summer to make her parents mad. They were bourgeois Francophiles. They couldn’t believe that their daughter would choose to be a servant and, even worse, a servant to commoners.

The restaurant was a simple street-side affair. There was a wooden counter, some plastic stools, and the open air. The patrons hovered over their bowls with their backs to the traffic. For fifteen delicious minutes they were oblivious to the smog and horns and the curses of the streets. They ate in a delirium of passion, slurping noodles and smacking their lips. They sucked the marrow out of the bones the way they wanted to inhale the best out of life. They tossed the bones to the ground once sucked dry. This, they said, is the way to live, especially when the world was in a state of such uncertainty. Stray dogs came in packs to feed at their feet. It was the kind of place so democratic anyone could go: cyclo drivers and prostitutes, merchants, and Sàigòn’s chief of police.