What We All Long For by Dionne Brand (most important books to read txt) 📗

hinted at a few weeks ago. Her brother was once again trying to focus the drama of the family on himself, and that could not be wholly good. For him perhaps, but not for everyone else.

Binh was a mercenary trained in the trenches of childhood to get his way. And in the particular war waged in the Vu household, his way was sucking up all the attention. He perceived, like all his siblings, the vacuum left in his parents by that night long ago in the bay on the Vietnamese coast, and in his efforts to fill that unnamed space he went to great lengths. Not knowing precisely what was necessary, he tried every angle. Recently he had assumed more and more of the responsibility for the restaurant. Lately it was packed at night with his friends occupying several of the tables toward the back all evening long. His interest in the restaurant had been spasmodic—usually around some bright idea for a karaoke machine, or small jukebox machines on the tables. Tuan would shoo him away, telling him he had no head for business and asking him how those ideas would make money.

Binh had been sent to the University of Toronto to do business and had left with all the credentials of an M.B.A., namely a distaste for the straightforward and honest, a mistrust of social welfare, and a religious fervour for what was called the bottom line. His education had enhanced his penchant for ungenerousness and solidified his resolve that only he mattered, though he had also been indulged at home beyond the bounds of favourite son. Since he was, in effect, two sons, the one lost and the one found.

But it was a difficult task to stand in for a mythic tragic brother who, not having to do anything, never failed at anything. And who, not having a physical presence, could never be scrutinized for flaws and mistakes. That mythic brother grew in perfection, it seemed, as Binh felt himself struggle for adequacy.

Binh was that strange mix of utter overconfidence and insecurity, utter ruthlessness and squeamishness. So while he invested fifteen thousand dollars in a shipload of migrants from Fushen to British Columbia, he did not want to know the details or, of course, be named if they were discovered. Though if they were not discovered, and even if they were, he stood to make a profit of three or four hundred per cent on his investment. His was not the lion’s share in this enterprise. He was a small investor. But he stood to make even more if some of those migrants found their way to Toronto, from which he and several colleagues would arrange their transportation to New York City with proper documents. He also had a small investment in a home-based Ecstasy manufacturing plant, which distributed to high schools and raves. Binh, like all businessmen who run multinational operations, could swiftly pull his money out of one concern or another and invest elsewhere. For safety, and because he did love electronic gadgets if he loved anything, he ran a small electronics store in Korea Town on Bloor Street.

The day Tuyen moved out of the house, Binh stood outside the kitchen door waiting for her. She was heading down to the garage to borrow her mother’s car.

“I didn’t think you’d make it,” he said, grinning at her.

“Well, I did.” She was surprised by the almost complimentary sound in his voice.

“Hey, I can drive you if you want.”

She felt a softening toward him and a relief. At least he understood her need to live on her own.

“Thanks, I can drive myself.”

“Ma said I should drive you, no big deal.”

She didn’t feel like struggling any more, she’d withstood the crying and the badgering and at least Binh hadn’t tried to dissuade her, so she let him take her, and her garbage bags full of clothing, to her new place above the store.

On the drive downtown they said nothing to each other, and Tuyen was grateful for that. It occurred to her that the silence between them was more than silence. It was a leave-taking. It would be solely up to him now to carry out whatever other duties of translation remained.

“This is a dump,” he said when they arrived.

“No, it’s not. It’s great. Look at the ceilings.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t go saying it’s a dump, okay, Binh? I don’t want them going more crazy about it.”

“You should stay home, save some money, and get a condo. That’s what I’d do.”

“I’m not you.”

“Guess not. So, later. I’ll take the car back to Ma.”

He handed her the last garbage bag and picked his way down the staircase, squeezing past an old stove on the first landing. Tuyen felt the faintest stirring of fear watching him go. Then she realized with a kind of joy that she was about to be alone, and with unusual friendliness, she called after him, “Bye, Binh!”

Today he still lived at home devotedly. In fact he, unlike Tuyen, had no feelings of restriction at home or urges to find himself. He was himself under the adoring eyes of his father and mother and the watchful knot of his two older sisters. He came and went as he liked, he bought a BMW, and if he had girlfriends, he stayed at their place when he needed privacy. His spiritual motivation, if he was aware of a spiritual side, was to so please his father and mother as to seal that opening in their hearts left by his mythic brother. Yet over the course of his life so far he had not been able to come to that project without a deep-seated resentment. That their love was not given wholly and unadulteratedly, he felt, made him return it in kind. Then too, his lost brother had been a child, and as a man now he felt shame about his resentment for a child. How could he match such perpetual innocence? How could he compete?

Neither he nor Tuyen, nor Ai nor Lam,