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The Giay hut held four generations of extended family, from the old man who sat motionless before the fire to the newly mobile toddler, negotiating with difficulty the lumps and bumps in the packed dirt floor. Mai, a lovely round-faced woman with a cheerful smile, was the backbone of the family. She was my age and had five children, and managed the entire household with a firm and unhurried hand. When evening came she showed me to a cubbyhole where I unrolled my sleeping mat. I retired early and luxuriated in the unexpected privacy until the rest of the household shuffled off to sleep. I suddenly discovered that a scant half-inch of rotting plywood separated me from the grandfather's bed. He hawked and spat until his coughing fits merged imperceptibly with his saw-toothed snores. Several times that night I heard him try to rise, followed by the sound of patient footsteps as someone came to help him to his feet. In the morning he shuffled over to his rattan stool beside the fire and spread his knees to dry his pants. A young woman brought him a toothbrush, hand cloth and a basin of warm water. He methodically scrubbed his face along the hairline, inside his nostrils and across his teeth. He used the battered toothbrush to groom the wispy hairs protruding from his chin and swab out his ears. When his toilette was completed he rinsed his mouth with a handful of basin water and spat it into the corner. He shuffled past the family altar and swiped the cup of lukewarm tea set there for the spirit ancestors.
He was seated first at mealtimes, served the tastiest tidbits from the table and given pride of place beside the fire. He had little to his name except a lifetime of service to his family and this, apparently, was enough. They begrudged him nothing they had to give and offered him respect without a hint of obligation. I thought of the wealthy elderly back in America with their retirement accounts, their lobbying clout and their empty, echoing homes. For all their financial independence and health insurance coverage, their lives seemed a poor shadow of the twilight years of this old patriarch, idling poking coals under the cooking wok with his cane.
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