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1875 Viet Thanh Nguyensomething I%u2019ve always wanted to know.%u201d When their father looked up, Vivien said, %u201cWhy give your children with your next wife our names?%u201dThis was the question Phuong had never asked, fearing the answer she always suspected, that she and her brothers were no more than regrets born into flesh. Vivien%u2019s forthrightness, however, did not appear to surprise or daunt their father, who merely raised his glass and said, %u201cIf you hadn%u2019t come back to see me, I would have understood. But I knew you would come back to see the one I named after you.%u201dVivien glanced at Phuong, who maintained a stoic expression. After all, it wasn%u2019t Vivien%u2019s fault their father behaved the way he did, playing favorites and pitying himself. %u201cSo here I am,%u201d Vivien said. She returned her father%u2019s gaze and clinked her glass against his. %u201cAnd here%u2019s to us.%u201d%u201cOne hundred percent,%u201d Mr. Ly said.%u2022 %u2022 %u2022In all the years that Mr. Ly had worked as a tour guide, he had never asked Phuong to accompany him. Although she had never asked and had never thought of asking, she realized the next morning on the tour bus that she would have liked to have been asked before now. Vivien did not seem to appreciate their father%u2019s special regard for her, or her fortune in even being a tourist on this day, the boys left behind at school and Phuong%u2019s mother busy at work. Instead, Vivien focused her attention on the crowded conditions of the aging bus, whispering complaints into Phuong%u2019s ear about the long-haired, budget-minded backpackers who jammed into the thinly cushioned seats and made their father%u2019s company a success. Then, embraced by clammy weather once they stepped off the air-conditioned bus at Ben 35Dinh, Vivien could only mutter that this was not exactly her idea of fun.%u201cI don%u2019t even like camping,%u201d Vivien said as the sisters trailed behind the other tourists, winding their way through the eucalyptus trees and bamboo groves where the fabled tunnels of Cu Chi were preserved. %u201cI%u2019d rather be in a shopping mall or a museum, but even the museums don%u2019t have air-conditioning here.%u201d%u201cFather wants you to see him at work,%u201d Phuong said patiently. %u201cHe%u2019s good at what he does.%u201d%u201cDon%u2019t tell him I said anything, okay? I don%u2019t want to hurt his feelings.%u201d%u201cSo we have a secret?%u201d Phuong teased.%u201cSisters have to have secrets,%u201d Vivien said. %u201cOh, my God. What is it, thirty-four degrees?%u201d%u201cThis isn%u2019t so bad. It%u2019s not even that hot.%u201d%u201cI%u2019m being bit. I can feel it. Look at my legs!%u201dVivien%u2019s shins and thighs were studded with the pale bumps of fresh bites and the red kernels of fermenting ones. For a pediatrician and seasoned traveler, Vivien had proven woefully incapable of caring for her own body. While Phuong wore gloves extending to her upper arms and nylons underneath her jeans, her sister wore brief shorts and a T-shirt that exposed her bra straps and the waistband and thong of her panties, which today were lavender. Despite her bared skin, Vivien neglected to use mosquito repellent, and she complained whenever the weather was hot, which was, according to her, nearly every second of the day and night. Her sister%u2019s vulnerability was alternately a source of annoyance and a source of endearment to Phuong, rendering Vivien less intimidating and perhaps more deserving of the secret Phuong longed to entrust, what she had never told her family and what only Vivien could understand. One day Phuong too would leave this place, for Saigon was boring and the country itself not big enough for the desires in her heart.%u201cThis, ladies and gentlemen, a punji trap.%u201d Mr. Ly spoke in English, beckoning for the group 4045Explain Mr. Ly%u2019s answer to the question Vivien asks in paragraph 33. Do you think the response confirms or dismantles Phuong%u2019s theory?44Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.