The Book of Salt

Lattimore tells Binh that the Mesdames are about to embark on a journey back to America. However, Binh has known this for a month. He is surprised that Stein lectures as well as writes and that word of the women’s trip is in the newspapers. Binh and Lattimore sit for their photograph together. Binh sees Lattimore’s deep interest in the literature of Stein as proof that Lattimore is his scholar-prince.

The women bring Binh a letter from Anh Minh on a silver tray, but Binh assumes they are formally firing him for his theft of the notebook. They seem surprised to see his actual name written out on the envelope, which again underscores that they don’t see Binh fully as a person, but rather as their servant first.

Anh Minh’s letter urges Binh to come home: “No matter what he may have said to you, he is our father, and he is going to die” (229). Binh acknowledges that he has been saying all along that his father was dead already because the only way Binh could sleep at night was by imagining the Old Man in his coffin. Anh Minh writes that Binh’s father has suffered a stroke and that their mother has passed away.