Near the door a ferret-like man with a drooping mustache approached him from the shadows of a nearby building, where a dozen cyclo drivers and hustlers lazed. The thirtyish hustler was smiling with a too-easy familiarity, as if searching for a tawdry camaraderie. He wore a long-sleeve, silk-flowered shirt, and a large hoop earring in his left ear. A gold bracelet drooped from his wrist as he reached out and tried to touch Condley’s shoulder.
‘You want blow?’ the man asked. ‘Very good, number-one reefer.’
‘Khong can,’ said Condley. I don’t need it. He pushed away the man’s arm, having surprised him by answering in Vietnamese.
‘Oh,’ said the hustler, recovering quickly and himself switching to Vietnamese, offering opium instead. ‘Anh muon a-phien khong?’
‘Fuck you,’ answered Condley, reaching for the door.
‘You want fuck?’ The hustler laughed mockingly, joined by his nearby friends. He called again as Condley pushed open the door. ‘I got very good taxi girl for you, number-one good time, no problem!’
Walking inside the club, Condley immediately noticed Francois Petain, dressed in a gray suit and a red silk tie, at a corner table near the rear of the room. The soft-featured Frenchman was holding court before a half dozen people, his large hands waving grandly in the air as he entertained them with a story. Van sat next to him, wearing a tantalising black sheath dress. She was smiling, seemingly dazzled by his narrative, as if she had never made the phone call that had roused Condley from his sleep.
It was clear that this was Petain’s show and that the others, who were laughing hilariously, were enjoying it immensely. The table was cluttered with a stack of Heineken, Foster’s, and Tiger beer cans, as well as Perrier and Orangina bottles and a half dozen empty wineglasses. Van noticed Condley first. Petain, following her gaze, stood up and waved, surprising him with an open smile.
‘Ah, Monsieur Bone Picker has arrived.’
Condley sauntered to the table, glancing quickly at Van for clues. She looked at him and then away, her arms folded across her stomach and her face stiff, as if she had suddenly become catatonic, paralysed by either fear or indecision. He grudgingly shook the Frenchman’s hand. ‘The merchant of aromas. The seller of smells. Are you staying rich?’
‘Of course I am staying rich!’ Petain glanced mischievously to the others at the table, as if sharing a secret. ‘People will pay millions just to smell a certain way. Amazing, yes? But true. It’s like Coca-Cola. Why does anyone need to drink fizzy brown water with sugar in it? And yet they are happy to pay billions. A few drops of perfume and my customers feel like royalty.’
‘What a service you’re providing!’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Petain with a false sigh. ‘I think I am the Mother Teresa of the upper classes, saving countless lives from emptiness and ennui.’ He examined Condley’s dampened clothes. ‘You are well-dressed, as always.’ The entire table chuckled, as if on cue.
‘Just my little way of showing how much I respect you, Francois. But I can always change my clothes. And you will never stop being a jackass.’
Petain smiled, raising his eyebrows as if enjoying the exchange. ‘As I said before, it is a pity that you become so emotional.’ He gave a little shrug, looking at the others at the table as if Condley were hopeless. ‘Please,’ he said, motioning to a nearby waitress. ‘Have a seat and join us.’
‘I’ll stand.’
‘And you are finding not so many bones in Russia, I hear?’
Condley glanced quickly again at Van. She looked away, as if dismissing his unspoken allegation. ‘No bones in Russia,’ he said. ‘Only Colonel Pham’s little family reunion.’
‘Quite a family, yes? And so it is with the Vietnamese. They did not ask for it. The world simply came to them. Russia, France, America, China, Japan – what is it that draws them here? So many different people with their memories, no? It is a very complicated country, Viet Nam.’ Petain waved his long fingers into the air. ‘Whatever you want you will find, as long as you are willing to look for it. And as long as you are willing to pay the price for finding it. And if you do not want to see it? Poof! It isn’t here.’
‘And what you see are customers,’ muttered Condley.
‘No, I see only beauty,’ smiled the Frenchman. ‘The rest of it I do not want or need.’
The waitress brought a chair. She was startlingly beautiful and was wearing a black sheath dress that stopped just below her thighs, not unlike the dress Van herself was wearing. Her long hair shimmered under the glow of the chandeliers and fell across her face when she pushed the chair into the table. Petain casually brushed her hair from her eyes with his fingers, an act of deliberate ownership. And then he slowly pressed a twenty-franc note into her hand, thanking her for her trouble.
‘Merci, my dear.’ He turned to Condley as she disappeared. ‘You should really sit with us.’
‘I’m on my way out the door, actually.’
Petain nodded toward the departing waitress. ‘Would you like to bring that girl with you? It could be arranged.’
‘I can personally guarantee that she is an immensely pleasurable experience,’’ said a round-faced, balding man sitting just across from Petain, whose accent Condley recognised as British. The others at the table laughed, except for Van, whose eyes were now avoiding Condley’s.
‘She’s what we call a semi-pro,’ said another, whose accent marked him as Australian. ‘You know, it’s not her job, but she has a certain talent and doesn’t mind having a go at it. And I’d say her jewelry is pretty good evidence of her competence.’
‘For the right financial incentive,’ chuckled Petain. ‘And there you have it, no? The foundations of a capitalist economy, boiled down to the ultimate microcosm. Money and pleasure in a black silk dress.’
They laughed some more, congratulating Petain on his wit. As they laughed, Condley studied Van’s avoiding face. ‘A black silk dress. Kind of like yours, Van?’
‘Do you like it?’ teased Petain. ‘I bought it for her.’
‘You mean you bought her with it.’
‘Why have you never learned to accept the reality of your environment, Monsieur Bone Picker? Why must every fact of life become an argument?’
Condley stood nakedly before their laughing eyes, unshaven and ill-dressed, suddenly so weary of it all that he no longer even had a good retort. ‘Because I’ve seen it all before. And I know how it’s going to end.’ He gave Van one final look and then turned to leave.
‘Cong Ly, wait!’
She was standing at the table next to Petain, looking around the room, biting her lower lip. Her head was high in the air, as if she was measuring her chances without its false but glorious ambience, or perhaps taking it all in for one final time. Deciding, she glanced for a moment at Francois Petain, and then nodded to Condley.
‘I’m going with you.’
‘Of course she is,’ said Petain, holding his amused grin and nodding to his friends as if the moment had been preordained. ‘These things must inevitably end, you know?’
‘I am the one who is leaving. It was not your decision, Francois.’ She bit her words off, throwing them at him like knives as she moved slowly past the cluttered chairs and stood next to Condley.
‘Ah, melodrama!’ chuckled Petain. ‘She is like you in that sense, is she not? Too filled with emotion. The two of you together will be a disaster.’
‘I’m not here to replace you, Francois. She just needed a ride.’ Condley took her hand, uncertain of where the moment was leading him but instinctively wanting to protect her. ‘See you later.’
‘You can keep the dress, Van,’ said Petain. ‘It looks very nice on you. Too bad about the rest of it.’
She began tugging Condley’s arm, pulling him toward the door. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, not looking back at Petain.
The waitress had returned with a new round of drinks. Petain put an arm around her waist, pulling her to him. He called to them as they left. ‘With your emotions, the
two of you will wear each other out within a week.’
* * *
The hustlers and the hawkers called lewdly to them as they left the East Wind, Rain. It began to rain again, light, pulsing breaths of it, as if a garden hose were twirling from high above. Without speaking, he put his poncho over her bare shoulders and squeezed it around her until it covered her. She grabbed his right arm in both of hers as they walked and put her head on his shoulder. After a few more steps he looked down at her face. She was walking with her eyes closed, letting him guide her to wherever it was that he wanted to go. He touched her cheek with his fingers. Finally she opened her eyes and looked up at him with a tragic confusion.
‘In Viet Nam it takes a long time for someone to say they are in love. But then they are in love. Yeu, I mean, not thuong. The kind of love that is forever. I think in the western countries they start out saying they are in love. And then they try to decide if it is true. So it is a different word in another language. Love and love, but different. Isn’t that true, Cong Ly?’
‘What happened?’
‘Khong co sao. Never mind. Thank you for coming.’
‘You don’t want to tell me?’
‘I am ashamed to tell you.’ She looked away and then back at him again. ‘All right, I will tell you. He offered me to his friend. For an evening. For an evening, Cong Ly!’
‘Forget it, Van. It’s over.’
She was crying. ‘You know my culture. What am I going to do? I’ve been with a foreigner. A rich man! People know this. Now I will be laughed at. And maybe worse.’
‘You shouldn’t be thinking of that right now. You left with your dignity in place. That’s important.’
She pulled him more tightly to her, clutching his arm as if it were a life preserver, saying nothing. A cyclo passed them, creaking slowly by, and then a string of motorbikes. Her tears mixed with the rain, and then they stopped.
‘So,’ she finally said as they walked along the dark, wet sidewalk. ‘Are we together now?’
Her nearness, the strength of her grasp, and even the very warmth of her body were overwhelming. It was not logical to think that they could ever find happiness together. But he could not stop himself from wanting to fall inside this moment and keep it, at least until it ended.
‘No,’ he finally answered, nonetheless pulling her into him as they walked. ‘Not a good idea, Van.’ But finally he stopped in the darkness, with the rain falling on them and the motorbikes beeping at them from the roadway, and kissed her for a very long time.
In minutes they reached the Vien Dong Hotel. Standing outside the door, she looked directly into his eyes. Her tears were gone. There was a strength in the firmness of her lips. ‘Take me to your room.’
‘No.’
‘I know you want to make love to me, Cong Ly. I knew it the first time I met you.’
‘Let me say this as a friend, Van. You have to be careful with yourself. You can’t jump from one man to another.’
‘I decided to leave Francois weeks ago. But I wanted to wait until you came back.’
How many women had he been with since Mai died? He could not even count. But it had never been complicated. ‘I need to call you a taxi.’
‘Later.’
She held him silently as the elevator ascended, pressing her head into his chest. They made love for hours on his rumpled bed, and then she fell asleep in his arms. As the motorbikes began whining underneath his window and the sky began to gray with the first hint of dawn, she awakened, grabbing his wrist and staring unbelievingly at the dials on his watch.
‘Oh, this is very bad. Now I will have to tell my mother!’
‘Should I come with you?’
‘And then what?’
She sat on the edge of the bed, watching him. As she looked down, her hair fell forward, resting on her high, rounded breasts. She ran a finger along old shrapnel scars that still pocked and gouged his legs.
‘What is happening to me?’ she said. ‘I’m very afraid. Are you going to leave me?’
‘I can’t leave you, Van. We aren’t even together.’ He saw the hurt in her eyes and took a few strands of her hair into his fingers, gently pulling until she had turned her face toward him. ‘This is why I didn’t want to make love to you. I like you too much.’
‘You like me too much? Then why don’t you want to love me?’
‘You’re too young.’
‘No, Cong Ly! In Viet Nam, I am almost too old!’
She was right about that. In Viet Nam, women were usually married by their early twenties. ‘OK, I said that wrong. You haven’t seen enough. You’ve been through a great deal with Francois, and you need to calm down before you decide to be in love with anyone else.’
‘Maybe we will be in love?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But not yet.’
‘That was honest,’ she said. ‘So I don’t feel bad.’
He watched her for what seemed to be a long time. She avoided his eyes, her fingers still playing along the edges of his scars. Finally something broke inside him, so real that he almost heard it.
‘No promises?’
She gave him a little smile, as if accepting a truce. ‘No promises.’
‘Would you like to go to Bangkok?’
She looked at him as if he had offered up a dream. ‘Of course!’
‘Can you get a visa?’
She had obviously thought about visas many times before. ‘I know a man at a government travel agency. A friend of the family. It is difficult, you know, because of the political situation. Almost no one can travel outside the country unless they are part of a political group. But there are ways. My father is trusted, so that would help. And it will cost me a hundred dollars. Under the table, you understand? But, yes, it is possible to get a visa.’
‘Can you get a visa today?’
She smiled impishly, her face filled with an unfathomable excitement. ‘Do you have an extra hundred dollars?’
‘Yes,’ said Condley, shaking his head and forcing himself out of bed. ‘But you’ll have to move quickly. Be the first person in line at your friend’s office. The flight leaves at three o’clock this afternoon.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dzung pedaled slowly in the early-morning traffic, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He was following the new routine created by Manh, a daily journey past the Interior Ministry building before he headed to the Rex Hotel. If Manh was standing at his window in Room 212, looking down at the street, it meant that Dzung was needed on that day for further training, and so he would stop and go inside. If Manh was not in the window, Dzung would continue on to the Rex.
Nearing the building, Dzung felt a small relief when he saw that the window in Room 212 was empty. But as he pedaled past, he saw Manh waiting for him on the curb just outside. ‘So, Dzung!’ called Manh. ‘Over here, over here!’
Manh seemed electric, his eyes filled with excitement. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. His head was cocked to one side, just as he always imagined the gangsters in the old movies held theirs. His arms were folded across his chest. He was leaning against a white, unmarked van. And now he put both arms up into the air, as if the force of this gesture was itself stopping Dzung’s cyclo.
Dzung slowed his cyclo and then halted next to Manh. Watching the Interior Ministry agent with an intuition honed by decades of subservience, he felt suddenly breathless. Manh was bouncing on the toes of his pretty leather shoes, as if ready to spring into action. A line was being crossed. A time had come. A moment had arrived. Something was going to happen.
‘Get into the van,’ said Manh, sliding open the side door.
‘What about my cyclo?’
‘We will take care of your cyclo. Get inside. Hurry up!’
Dzung climbed from his cyclo and crawled into the van, moving to a rear seat. Manh followed immediately, sliding the door closed behind him and taking the seat just in front of him. By the time the driver had put the van into gear, a young man
had run from the Interior Ministry building and jumped onto the seat of Dzung’s cyclo, then pedaled it away. Dzung watched forlornly as the van pulled out into the traffic and the young man disappeared with his cyclo. The young man was wearing well-pressed slacks and leather shoes. He was not a cyclo driver.
‘Where is he going with my cyclo?’ he asked quietly.
‘I told you, don’t worry about the cyclo,’ said Manh, leaning back in the seat and peering out the window. ‘Would you rather that we left it on the street?’
‘No. But where are you taking me?’
‘Calm down, mister big-time soldier. I thought you had nerves of steel.’
‘My nerves are fine. But my brain is very curious, Manh.’
‘We are taking you someplace,’ said Manh carefully. ‘And if you succeed in what we are asking you to do, we will return you to this place. And then you will be reunited with your precious cyclo.’
‘What about my family?’
‘They will be told that you have been detained for interrogation in a remote location.’ Manh shrugged. ‘A routine political matter.’
Dzung thought about all this as the van made its way north and west along the crowded streets. He had fired off thousands of rounds of ammunition in the past several weeks, always using the same pistol. His training under Manh’s direction had been exact. After the first week on the firing range, they had moved to a cluttered, darkened warehouse building. Day after day, Dzung had been required to run quickly toward a wide array of different targets in the dark, through debris and knee-high obstacles, and then empty a full magazine into each target from very close range. The magazine was emptied the same way each time – two bullets to the heart, three to the head, two more to the heart. The targets and the obstacles had varied, but his approach and escape had always been the same. After firing a full magazine he would immediately conceal his weapon inside his clothing, race for a short distance away from the target, and then begin walking slowly, as if he were just appearing at the scene.
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