Sujet national, septembre 2005, série L, LV1: Lê Thi Diem Thùy, The gangster we are ali looking for, 2004 .

« Sujet 1 ♦ Sujet national, septembre 2005, série L, LVI When Mel approached us at the airport, we heard a faint rattling 1: a ring full of gold and silver keys hanging from his belt.

With each step Mel took, the ring swung and rattled by his sicle.

The keys were new to him.

Mel was tall and thin, but the ring looked fat, important.

Mel caught the ring and pushed it into his pocket.

This silenced the keys for a moment.

He shook everyone's hand 5 -including mine -and laughing nervously said, "Welcome to America." He then waved his hand in the air and when I followed it with my eyes, I saw a poster of a man and a woman at the beach, lying on striped towels, sunning themselves between two tail paim trees.

Above the paim trees were large block letters that looked like they were on fire: SUNNY SAN DIEGO.

The man was lying on his stomach, his face buried in his folded arms.

The woman 10 was lying on her back, with one leg clown and the other leg up, bent at the knee.

[ ...

] After Mel and his mother took us to the room in Mel's house where Ba, the four uncles and I would ail be sleeping, they wished us goodnight and left us aione, closing the door quietly behind them.

They stood in the hailway and we could hear them taiking.

Even without understanding a word of what they were saying, the tone of their voices troubled us.

Had we been able to understand, we 15 might have heard the following: "I feel like I've inherited a boatload of people 2• I mean, I've been living here aione and now I've got five men I've never met before, and what about that little girl?" "Dear, you know your father wanted them here." "Here in America, sure, but not here with me." 20 "Well, it's worked out that way.

If your father were here -" The woman started to cry.

'Tm sorry, Mother.

I'm so sorry." We heard their footsteps move clown the hailway toward the living room.

Inside the bedroom, we ail remained quiet in our places.

Ba was standing with his back against the 25 door.

The four men were sitting on the two bunk beds and I was sitting on the double bed, my knees pulled up near my chest.

One of the uncles took a deep breath and lay clown on the bed.

He was still wearing his shoes and let his feet hang off the edge of the bed so he wouldn't get the covers dirty.

Ba stepped forward and explained to the four men and me that Mel had bought our way into the 30 United States.

He said that Mel was a good man.

We heard without reaily listening.

We nodded.

Ba said that Mel had let the people at the airport gates know that it was OK for us to be here.

"If 1.

rattling: series of short regular knocking sounds.

2.

In the late seventies and early eighties, thousands of Vietnamese fled their country by boat and found temporary refuge in neighbouring countries.. »