Sand in the Wind

by Robert Roth

  Kramer quickly finished his drink. He started to place the glass down on the bar, but his hand froze a few inches from the surface. She was there, a few feet in front of him, as if she had always been there and he’d refused to see her. Her face carved with that same coldly superior expression, she stared across the room, seemingly unconscious of him. Thoughts raced through his mind. Had she seen him, and if so, why did she refuse to look at him? He decided to leave, but instead sat staring at her face, trying to take it apart feature by feature, wondering what he saw in her that he’d never seen before. Unable to explain her effect on him, he tried to dismiss it by telling himself that she was ‘just another bitch.’ But then an old realization returned — bitches had always attracted him, often instilling a hatred, yet always keeping their attraction. For the first time he began to feel superior to her, looking at her as some frustrated object to satisfy a man’s, a certain type of man’s, sexual desire.

  But as he continued to stare at her face, he attributed to it a mysterious type of intelligence, a knowledge of something of which he felt ignorant. He’d rip it away from her. Rip what away? ‘Nothing! She’s just another bitch.’ But not like any bitch he had ever known. Her face — what was there about it? Baffled by the intensity of his own reaction, he knew that no other face had ever affected him as hers had, and unlike any other he had ever seen — ‘For some goddamn reason’ — it would refuse to fade within his memory. Unless — he’d change it, within his mind, see it helpless, pathetically helpless. And there was only one way this could happen. ‘If I could — I will! I’ll fuck the living shit out of her and walk away.’

  She continued to gaze across the room. It seemed to him that this was a cold refusal to see him, to admit that he was there. He mulled over the different ways he had planned to get her attention, the things he had decided to say to her. But the immature excitement that had been connected with these thoughts during the day was now absent. Instead, he schemed with a destructive determination that ruled out any kind of results except sadistic relief, its object being to leave her in his wake, forgotten, reft of all mystery.

  He pushed his glass towards the edge of the bar indicating he wanted another drink. The only other girl behind the bar was standing a few feet away talking to a customer. His eyes returned to the woman standing in front of him. This was his chance. She still seemed unaware of him, but to his surprise she slowly turned towards the bar girl, spoke her name, and then indicated without saying a word that Kramer wanted another drink. As the bar girl walked away with his empty glass, Kramer nodded to the woman to thank her. She returned his nod with an almost imperceptible nod of her own. Sitting with the drink in his hand, Kramer found it impossible to merely call her over. Instead he kept staring at her. At first she gave no indication that she realized he wanted to speak to her, but she soon stepped forward and stood against the bar.

  He finally asked her in French what she was looking at. Instead of answering the question, she asked where his friend was. He looked up and said that Donaldson had been bad, so he had put him to bed early. She remained silent, giving no indication that she saw any humor in his reply. He asked her if she owned the bar. Still refusing to look at him, she answered with a nod. In poor French, he tried to ask her if owning a bar was what they had taught her to do in school. As he finished speaking, Kramer realized that she might take this question as an insult. Her tone gave no indication she had, but her reply did. She told him they had taught her to speak French.

  Kramer found the remark more amusing than cutting. “I need more practice.”

  “Then you should be in France, not Vietnam,” she replied in French.

  He chose to ignore her implication. “I’ve always wanted to go to France.” His purpose in saying this was to get her to look at him. It would be a sort of victory over her.

  “Then you should go,” she answered, implying that he should not only leave Vietnam, but also her bar.

  Her bitchiness began to irritate him, but he sluffed it off by asking, “How can I?”

  “Fight with the French.”

  He realized her words had been intended as an insult, but there was so obviously a sad quality in the way she had said them that he felt as if he had been the one insulting her. His guilt caused him to try and picture the expression on her face when she had spoken. He continued to want her to look at him, but no longer as a symbol of his will conquering hers. His desire to see her face was now founded upon a compelling curiosity about her. He spoke again, not to make conversation, but merely to receive an answer. Had he been aware of the feeble sincerity of his words, he would have regretted speaking them. “Did you ever want to go to France?”

  Aware of his change in tone, she was surprised enough by it to finally look down at him. It was Kramer’s eyes that were now turned away, staring blankly at the glass between his hands. “A long time ago,” she answered slowly.

  At first her words were meaningless to him, but he then recalled them and his mind translated what she had said into English. He raised his eyes to meet hers. There was no coldness in her look. But gradually, as if by reflex, her stare hardened. He suddenly felt weak in comparison to her, and only by a conscious effort was he able to harden his gaze. “Why a long time ago?”

  “I will never go back.”

  Kramer noticed that she had seemed weaker when she had spoken, her stare less piercing, and for this reason he desired her to speak again. “You were in France? . . . How long were you there?”

  She was looking directly at him, but while she spoke her mind seemed far away. “Almost a year. . . . I went to the Sorbonne.” Before he could ask her another question, she turned and walked slowly to the end of the bar.

  Only two other Marines were left in the bar. Kramer sat nursing his drink. ‘Wouldn’t you know it? . . . Guess every fucking whore and barmaid in Vietnam spends a year at Sorbonne.’ Kramer laughed to himself, knowing that as much as he’d like to, he wouldn’t be able to laugh her off so easily. Believing and surprised by her words, Kramer refused to admit to himself that he wanted her somehow to be different; wanted to hear things such as he’d just heard. There was no question of his leaving without trying to speak to her again, but she refused to walk near him. The bar would be closing soon. He ordered another drink, first gulping down the liquor still in his glass. Scotch was now the last thing he wanted, and he had trouble swallowing it.

  Soon he was the only Marine left in the bar. One of the girls came over and told him they were closing. He nodded as if agreeing to leave, but continued to sit nursing his drink. When only one bar girl remained a naval officer walked in to pick her up. The woman nodded to her, leaving herself and Kramer alone in the bar.

  She was standing a few feet away from him when she said softly in French, “We are closed.”

  Kramer wanted to say, “I’d like to talk to you,” but was unable to.

  “I have to go home.”

  He began speaking with a jaunty air, but by the time he finished the sentence his voice trailed off into a self-conscious request. “I thought maybe you could tell me about Paris.”

  She came very close to laughing in his face, but for some reason caught herself. “I cannot tell you. You have to see. . . . It is a beautiful city.”

  “You could tell me about it.”

  There was a calculating expression on her face as she looked down at him and asked, “Is this what you want, to hear about Paris?”

  “Yes,” he answered, while thinking, ‘No, but I want to hear you talk about it.’

  Not believing his answer, but now curious about him, she began describing the Seine and the broad avenues. Her words were lost to him as he watched the faraway expression on her face, staring at her dark eyes which had lost their hardness as soon as she began speaking. This hardness soon returned, and by the time she had finished, her eyes were again focused on him in a cold stare.

  It was now Kramer’s face that possessed the faraway look, and he said, “They say it’s the most
beautiful city in the world.” She shook her head slowly in disagreement. Surprised at this, Kramer asked, “What is, Saigon?”

  She met his question with calm arrogance. “Saigon is ugly.”

  His face indicating weak apology, Kramer said, “I thought maybe you were born there.” She shook her head. “Where were you born?”

  “Hanoi.”

  “How did you come to Da Nang?”

  “My father worked for the government, the French. When they divided the country, we fled the Communists.”

  “You came to Da Nang?”

  She shook her head. “No, Hue. My mother did not want to leave Hanoi. Hue is closer.”

  “You must have been very young.”

  She looked questioningly at Kramer, then answered, “Sixteen.”

  “How old are you?”

  “You think I am very young. I am thirty.” Kramer stared at her in disbelief, and she asked, “How old did you think I was?”

  Still surprised, he lied, “Twenty-four, twenty-five, like me.”

  “Now you think I am an old woman.”

  Kramer studied her face. She seemed even more striking than before. “No, a beautiful woman is most beautiful when she’s thirty.”

  While Kramer judged his own comment as childish, she replied, “I think you are right.”

  There was a pause before Kramer asked, “So it’s Hanoi you think is more beautiful than Paris?”

  “They are very much alike. Perhaps I liked Paris because it reminded me of Hanoi. . . . The French liked Hanoi more than any other city in Vietnam.”

  “You sound like you want to go back.” She slowly shook her head. “If it’s so beautiful, why don’t you want to see it again?”

  “I like Hanoi, but it is very French.” A proud and distant expression appeared on her face. “Hue is the most beautiful city in the world. When we left Hanoi, I was very sad. My father told me Hue was more beautiful. I did not think this was possible. When I first saw Hue, it appeared more beautiful than even my father had said. Much of Hanoi was built by the French. Hue is Vietnamese, very old and beautiful. It was the ancient capital of Vietnam, and it made me very proud.”

  She paused, and Kramer said, “But Saigon is the capital now.”

  “It is ugly, like pictures I have seen of the United States. The buildings are American, not Vietnamese, like New York.”

  Amused by the inappropriateness of the comparison, Kramer refrained from commenting on it.

  Before, she had been content to speak French and let him struggle to understand her, but now as she talked about Hue, she felt a sudden need to make herself understood. She abandoned French, and instead spoke in perfectly understandable English. Though there was an urgency beneath her words, it remained hidden and she retained the same proud, calm tone. “Hue, it is the ancient capital of Vietnam. The buildings are very old and beautiful. At first, when I walk among them, it seems I am in the past, before the French have come — hundreds of years. All the stories I have heard of the ancient empire seem to be living. I see them in my mind and believe them. Then I know all the French have bring is nothing.” She noticed a slight smile on Kramer’s face and immediately paused, thinking that he was laughing at her. Irritated and sorry she had begun talking to him, she said with a calm assertiveness, “Is true. I never hear one person say is not. . . . Everyone who see Hue say is the most beautiful city in the world. When I go to Paris, I think I will see things more beautiful. But I never see them. Paris, is beautiful, yes; but like Hanoi, only very dirty. I go to the Versailles Palace, and I like it very much; but for me the Imperial Palace in Hue is even more beautiful.”

  She told him of her house less than a mile away from the Imperial Palace, how it stood upon a corner of the Square of the Four Dragons. Each side of the square was guarded by a bronze dragon upon a marble base, and they all looked inwards towards a huge, stone Buddha. The Buddha faced towards the south, and around it were concentric squares of brightly colored flowers. She told him how she would sometimes wait before dawn, looking out her window as the sun’s light increased in intensity allowing each flower to gain its natural brilliance.

  At first Kramer had merely wanted to hear her voice; but as she continued speaking, he began to picture the things she described. He could see the vaunted grandeur of Emperor Khai Dinh’s Tomb. Each of its details appeared before him, her very words illuminating them like rays of light cast within a shadow-darkened room. Her voice came to him as if he were actually standing within the timeless marble halls she described. The light of a thousand candles reflected upon columns of smooth, patterned stone. Gentle smells of hidden incense hinted of forbidden temples. Shards of brightly colored porcelain swirled in intricate frescos upon the walls that surrounded him — telling the story of her people, their suffering and their triumph. And above it all, a gilt bronze likeness of Emperor Khai Dinh himself passively surveyed his vain, self-justified compromise with death.

  She told him of the Imperial Palace. Its roof of orange tile curved gracefully against the sky, each corner protected by a huge stone dragon. He stood amidst the sacred urns of brass and porcelain. Ancient teak columns cast their shadows upon floors of brightly painted tile. The surrounding gardens and ponds added to the still grandeur of the palace itself. And the solemn beauty of all she described stood eternalized by an encircling wall seven feet in thickness, this wall in turn protected by an emerald-hued moat.

  As Kramer listened, he realized that however beautiful these things she described, much of this beauty would have been lost to his own eyes. He knew that it stemmed as much from the way she was able to see things as from the objects themselves. Her eyes were directed towards him, yet he knew she was not seeing him. He was fascinated by the way she held her chin, giving herself a quiet pride, now with no sense of haughtiness. Her lips moved slowly and with an assurance that somehow lent her words an aloof intimacy. But it was her eyes that astonished him, possessing a soft, black depth he could not make himself believe existed. He tried to tell himself their appearance was due to the lighting in the bar. Never darting, they moved with a slow scanning motion, seeming not to focus, yet capable of piercing all that surrounded them. He imagined them to be seeing so much more than his own eyes, and he felt blind in her presence.

  When she stopped speaking, Kramer remained silent, hoping to again hear her voice, remembering its proud yet sad quality. But she remained silent, looking directly at yet through him. A long moment passed without words before Kramer spoke the one coherent thought in his mind. “You never told me your name.”

  “Tuyen,” she answered, then hesitated before asking in the manner of an afterthought, “Your name is?”

  “David.”

  For the first time that night, something close to a smile appeared on her face. “I know him.” Kramer looked at her questioningly. “He is in the Bible. We read it in school. . . . Is a lesson. I have to.”

  “Oh,” he answered, wanting to hear her voice, not his own.

  “I really like him,” she said, trilling the l’s in “really.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He sings and plays music and writes poems. He is good, and yet he kills a man to get his wife. He seem real, not like the others.”

  Again Kramer became intrigued by her way of looking at things; to be told something about his own name that he’d never realized before, something so obviously true as to amaze him with his ignorance of it. ‘Maybe she’s a Catholic,’ he thought. ‘They fled the Communists.’ “Are you Buddhist?”

  She shook her head. “I am —” she paused while trying to think of the right word “— atheist.”

  Again he waited for her to speak, wanting to hear her voice and yet unable to think of any questions. Finally she said, “I think I should go home.”

  This was the last thing he wanted to hear, yet there was never any question in his mind of trying to get her to stay. He followed her to the door and watched as she padlocked it. Kramer had no intention of walkin
g with her, but she started in the direction of the hospital and he followed. He now realized for the first time, that since her description of Hue, she had been speaking English. “I thought you couldn’t speak English.”

  “I say I do not speak English.”

  “Why not?”

  “Is ugly.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She looked at him as if to ask, “What is there to explain?” then said, “Is an ugly language, like German.”

  They were no longer walking between the disheveled shacks of the bar district, but instead along a street of drab concrete buildings, “American buildings,” she told him. Tuyen stopped in front of a door to one of them. “This is where I live.” He made no effort to leave. “I think you should go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Wherever you should go. . . . I am tired.”

  “I thought maybe we could talk awhile,” Kramer suggested, and this was exactly what he had in mind, nothing more.

  “Is late,” she said coldly.

  “I’m going back to An Hoa tomorrow.” She shrugged her shoulders indicating this meant nothing to her. “Maybe I could come in for a few minutes,” he suggested with no hope of her agreeing.

  Without answering him, Tuyen unlocked the door and stepped inside. As he followed her in, she said, “For a minute.”

  Tuyen walked towards the center of the room and pulled the cord to a rice paper-shaded lamp hanging from the ceiling. Kramer’s eyes scanned the sparsely furnished room. The concrete floor was highly polished and immaculate. A red silk bedspread covered a thin mattress and the pallet it lay upon. The room’s only window was curtained with this same material. A narrow, silk-screen painting hung on each of the walls. In the corner stood a carved, black enamel dresser. On the opposite side of the room was a small table with two pictures on top of it. In front of the pictures lay a pack of Salem cigarettes and a candle. Kramer noticed Tuyen take a quick glance at the table before saying, “Is late. Maybe you should go.” He remained silent, so she walked to the door and held it open for him. As he walked through it, he made no effort to hide his disappointment.