The Emperor of Gladness

On Christmas Eve, Grazina suddenly remembers that she is supposed to visit her son, Lucas, and Hai is stunned to discover that he is not a figment of her imagination after all. Grazina gives Hai an old set of scrubs to wear so he can pretend like he is her carer. She quickly cooks a dish of stuffed green peppers to take with them and tries to call Lina before she leaves, but Lina doesn’t answer.

Hai and Grazina arrive at a luxurious condo in a gated community where Lucas, a man in his sixties, lets them in. Lucas’s wife, Clara, extends a forced, warm welcome to Grazina, wincing at the casserole. The children, Josh and Abbey, are visibly distant; Abbey steps away from Grazina, commenting that she “smells like pee” (239).

Throughout dinner, Lucas and Clara make dismissive comments about Grazina while the children are outright rude. When Josh comments on her smell again, Lucas instructs Hai to take Grazina to the washroom. Hai tries to console a despondent Grazina, but she defends her son and grandkids.

Once Grazina is back at the table, Lucas tells his children that Grazina was once married to a war hero named Filip Lucas, who died in the war; Lucas is his son and not Grazina’s late husband Jonas, who fathered Lina. Lucas blames Lina’s drinking on Jonas’ genes. Lucas also reveals that his biological father was a great swimmer and taught his mother how to swim in a lake one summer. Unfortunately, he was shot and killed on the Eastern Front when Grazina was pregnant with Lucas.

Lucas asserts that he will take care of his mother and suggests that she move into a home nearby. When Grazina hesitates, Clara and Lucas state that they will help her sell her current house and use the funds for her care. Grazina reluctantly agrees.

The cab ride back home is quiet. The moment they get home, however, Grazina strips down and begins to scrub herself violently in the bath. Hai tries to calm her down even as she proclaims that she is going to get clean. Hai reassures her that she is a clean person as Grazina asks him, “Is my body a nightmare?” (250).

Grazina muses at what her life has come to—she escaped Europe and raised her children, only to have them be strangers to her now. She reflects on how just a little peace is enough in one’s life: “If you can be nobody, and stand on your own two feet for as long as I have, that’s enough” (251). Hai asks her whether she will move into the home Lucas suggested. Grazina confesses that she’s scared. She wants to live well a little longer. As Hai and Grazina prepare to eat the untouched casserole of peppers for Christmas, she tells him in Lithuanian that he is her friend.

The HomeMarket crew heads together to watch BJ’s wrestling performance. On the way, she tells them that they have been instructed to put pizza bagels on the menu; they need to master this before the regional manager comes back to visit the next month. Hai wonders if they are losing money, but BJ dismisses this, claiming they are expanding.

BJ is excited when she gets a text informing her that DJ Red Card, an unofficial talent scout for the WWE, will be at the show that day. She registers herself under the wrestling name “Deez Nuts,” which some kids have graffitied on the side of the HomeMarket van. Hai is surprised to learn that Maureen will be a part of BJ’s act as well.

“Deez Nuts” is announced, and BJ appears on stage. She puts up a good performance initially, but things go downhill when she announces that Maureen will be joining her. Maureen comes out dressed in a kilt and begins to play the banjo. The crowd unanimously boos Maureen and BJ, and it only gets worse when BJ fights against and defeats a crowd beloved older wrestler, “Miss Magician.”

After the match, BJ cries in disappointment in the van while Hai tries to console her. BJ perks up briefly when Maureen brings DJ Red Card over, but is despondent again when she realizes he is only there to sell her some weed. BJ decides to stop for pizza on the way home, and everyone agrees. However, the young girl who comes out to the parking lot to deliver the order is livid when she realizes they are HomeMarket employees. She flings the pizza at the van, accusing them of trying to steal business away from her father’s sole establishment by putting pizza bagels on the menu.

Maureen and Wayne head home. BJ, Hai, and Sony discover a man in the parking lot, bedraggled and half frozen to death; he doesn’t have a home, and he lost one of his better sleeping bags that he uses to tide himself over on such cold nights when it blew down into the river. They take the man in and help him warm up while they feed him a hot meal. When the man praises BJ’s corn bread, Hai notices BJ’s eyes glisten with pride.

Hai accompanies Sony to visit Aunt Kim in prison on Tết, the Vietnamese New Year. Aunt Kim is surprised, but not displeased, to see Hai; however, she begs him not to tell his mother about her circumstances. When Sony is out of earshot, Aunt Kim confesses to Hai that Sony’s father has been dead for four years; he was found in a burnt car in a forest outside Brattleboro, the accident possibly caused by a gas leak when he was smoking. However, Sony doesn’t know this.

After they leave the prison, Hai and Sony discuss how Hai has given up on his dream of becoming a writer, and how Sony struggles with keeping some things in his mind, including how to be good. Hai drops Sony off at his group home and then makes his way to his mother’s place, having promised Grazina he would visit his mother. However, he is unable to go inside and calls her on the phone instead. Hai watches his mother’s silhouette through the window, kept company by one of her Vietnamese colleagues, as they talk on the phone. She reminds him to cut a bit of his hair as part of the Tết customs, and tells him that she is proud of him for having made something of himself.

Hai rides back to Grazina’s, delirious by the time he makes it back. He calls out for Uncle Minh, Sony’s father, and his grandmother. Hai slips on ice and collapses in front of the house; when Grazina comes out asking who he is, he claims he is “Hai Sergeant Pepper” (289) and is taking them to America. Grazina helps him inside, perceiving him to be a soldier helping her during wartime, and Hai sobs to he about how he doesn’t know how to quit the pills. Inside, Hai hands Grazina a pocketknife to do “surgery” on his hair, as his mother said that “it would take all the weight off” (290).

In a motel off the highway, a boy, presumably Hai, sleeps with a man named Tom. Tom is a war veteran of Dominican origin and is a regular at HomeMarket. He lost his ear in the war but doesn’t wear a prosthetic because none of the existing ones match his skin tone. He tells the boy, “They don’t make ‘em in Dominican yet” (292).

After a week of rain, March arrives. Grazina gets worse over time, with new episodes of inexplicable crying and laughing appearing as well.

One day, the regional manager, Mr. Vogel, arrives at HomeMarket. He is irritable and angry about the pizza bagels not being advertised prominently enough, and addresses BJ as “Cheryl.” He berates BJ and the team about how they are facing increased competition with a new McDonald’s that has opened up across the street, and is appalled to discover how much sugar there is in their corn bread.

Mr. Vogel asks to speak with BJ privately in her office; on his way in, he snatches up the origami penguins that Sony leaves on each table and throws them all in the trash. Maureen rushes to help an upset Sony pick them out again while a livid Hai proceeds to eavesdrop on Mr. Vogel and BJ. He hears Mr. Vogel apologize to BJ for his rudeness and tells her that she needs to fire one of her employees next month; she can blame it on him.

Hai heads to the walk-in freezer for some alone time and finds Maureen in there, who confesses to him that she is worried about a lump she discovered in her chest some months ago. Russia comes to get them, reminding them they have a birthday booking at 12. The HomeMarket crew carries out a birthday cake and sings the birthday song to a thrilled six-year-old.