Adventure at the Saigon school for Americans

Guest writer Kay Merkel Boruff shares a story of the Phoenix Study Group

This week’s “Story of Vietnam” is an excerpt from her 2018 book, Z.O.S. A MEMOIR.

Kay’s first grade, 1968

September 1968. I counted the little reading books and made stacks of the math texts. At a recent cocktail party, Janet, the Phoenix Study Group principal, had laughed that she had wrecked her husband’s company car that afternoon.

I said Merk would kill me if I wrecked his MGB.

She said she wasn’t even late to her bridge game and her seven-year-old son Jonathan had something to write home to his grandmother, something other than stories about Buddhist priests’ immolating themselves and local bombings.

We chatted like two college chums. She commented on the pin Merk had given me. I said I read that Shoguns grew their fingernails several inches long and wore similar jeweled fingernail guards like my pin, to represent they had the luxury not to lift a finger. I said I’d seen lots of local men with one long nail, was that some sort of reminder of past royalty or wealth? No, she said, probably it’s to pick their noses with. I choked on my bourbon.

Janet was a woman comfortable with, and comfortably spreading into, middle age.

“How’s it going?” my husband Merk said.

Kay’s Memoir

“I’ve almost unpacked this box.” I finished counting the last French primers. “Maybe I can paint the walls or at least make a bulletin board.”

“We’ll do something to make it livable,” he said. He knew I had to be occupied with an art project. It helped soothe my nerves. He did anything to make me happy, even though we were trying to limit our expenses until he was upgraded to captain.

The ceiling fan whirred above Merk’s head, making slow arcs like an old dog circling and settling into a comfortable position. I loved the sound the fan makes. It relaxes me. It amazed me how much the lazy air cools off the unbearable afternoons. I’d managed to stop grimacing, ignoring the worm-looking larvae and the wiggling termite movement in the boxes. I didn’t want Isabel to think I was a helpless Texas debutant. My pile of discarded books grew.

“Are you ready for the last box?” Merk said.

I smiled at his orderly piles of dirt and trash. “Sure. Most are ready to be pitched.” Once when we were dating, so intent on his fanatic German orderliness, he put away his tools when it dawned on him he hadn’t completed his job.

Hearing an unusual tick to the fan’s movement, I looked up. He bent down to shake some dirt off an eraser. The fan crashed to the floor, inches away from him.

“Shit! Merk! Are you okay?” Ignoring the dirt on my hands, I put my arms around his neck and held him tightly. “The damned thing almost cut off your head.” I nuzzled my lips at the base of his neck and laughed in his ear. “I can see it now. ‘Air American pilot decapitated in a school room.’ How embarrassing. I guess that’s better than dying in a bar or a geisha house.”

“Kay,” he whispered in my ear, “you know how I’m going—on the upstroke, with an elephant on my ass.”

Janet came running in. “What happened?” She stopped abruptly and looked at the fan on the floor. “Thank heavens the children weren’t here. We do plan our excitement well. Is everything all right?”

“Merk didn’t lose anything important. Short of weeing in my pants, I think we’re okay.”

“Merk, you thought Kay had such a gravy job. And you’re the one with hazardous duty pay.”

“Well, never a dull moment,” Merk said.

Janet reached to pick up the heavy fan, and she and Merk moved it to the side of the room. “I have a floor fan, Kay. I’ll bring it for your room tomorrow and tell Cao Linh when I leave to repair the fan. If you two kids don’t need my help, I’m off to a bridge game.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“No more fans to drop, we’ll be fine,” Merk said.

When Janet had gone, I said, “Can we stop for the day and try to make a bulletin board at home tonight? I can start reading the teacher’s manuals. Janet said my [first grade] class is the largest of all eight grades. Guess that makes me the best teacher.” I rolled my eyes. “I do pray all the kids learn to read. I’ll die if they don’t.”

“You’ll do fine. You’ll see. Don’t panic . . . yet,” Merk smiled and kissed me on the ear. “You can do Halloween parties and Valentines and all that good stuff. Besides it’ll give you practice.”

“Oh, no. Show and tell. Eating glue. Wetting pants. Thank goodness there aren’t any coats. I’ll never forget my precious fifth-grade student who needed her scarf tied and coat buttoned every single day. Her Japanese mom spoiled her. A big fifth grader.”

My frown changed to a smile. “I did love Michiko. I still have her mom’s Buddhist prayer book.”

We left and stopped at the market and brought wood and paint to make my bulletin board. After dinner, Merk cut and smoothed the rough edges of the board and opened the can of yellow paint. I applied several coats.

“This should dry in a day or two. Or at least by the opening of school.” I looked at the afternoon clouds gathering for the daily shower. “By Halloween?”

Kay was grateful that her first graders did learn to read. But she was even happier when, in January of 1969, a new teacher, Margaret Lechtman, took over that young class and she got to move to a 5-6 grade class.  

Thanks to Kay for sharing this excerpt from her memoir, ZOS. If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment, letting her know.

“Stories of Vietnam” highlights the many stories of Vietnam that exist in the American milieu—from stories about the country, to the American War there, to tales of travelers, and Kat Fitzpatrick’s own family saga.

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