by Robert Roth
A feeling of guilt sickened Kramer, and he wondered how she could even look at him, an American, without spitting in his face. He felt choked as he asked her, “Did the Americans kill him?”
She stared down at the table. “No, the South Vietnamese.”
Kramer felt as if he was torturing her, not even guessing that she actually wanted, needed to talk. He kept telling himself that he should leave, but he couldn’t. He wanted to be able to look at her, to hear her voice. “You must hate them very much.”
She shook her head. “I hate no one. . . . My brother, I love him also. He fight with the South Vietnamese.” The proud, superior expression had long since left her face; but her beauty stemmed from more than this, and she retained it. It seemed to Kramer that he was somehow the cause of all her suffering, and he wondered why she allowed him to make her relive it. He made up his mind to leave, the last thing he wanted to do. Just as he was about to stand, she began speaking again, and he knew that he must wait a little longer. “You see why my son must not fight?” He nodded, and she continued, “His father, he never saw him. He always ask me where is his father, and I tell him he will someday come home. One day someone come with a message for me, the first time in a year. My husband says he is coming home for the birthday of his son. He will be four. I think I will surprise my son, but then I have to tell him. He ask me if he can have his birthday now instead. I tell him no, he have to wait. We both wait. Two days before the birthday of my son, I go out to buy things. They are waiting when I come home. They ask me where is my husband. I tell them I do not know. They do not believe me, but they leave. I know they still watch. Someone tell them. I could do nothing. I wait. I know they wait also. I can do nothing. When is his birthday, my son ask me where is his father, and I am crying and he ask me why also. I cannot tell him. It get dark, and I take my son to his bed. He is crying because his father did not come. I wait, and I hope he will not come. Then I hear them shout, and the guns. . . . I know is too late.”
As she had told Kramer this, she seemed always in control of herself, yet on the verge of tears. He wanted to reach out and touch her face, to make her stop. But he couldn’t. She was now looking down somberly at the table. Kramer had little desire to talk, but he was afraid she would leave him if he didn’t. “Is your son all you have left?”
She nodded, but then said, “No, my aunt, she take care of him.”
“They live in the house you told me about . . . on the Square of the Four Dragons?” She nodded. “You must want to go back there very badly.” Again she nodded. “Why do you stay here?”
“For money.”
“Is money so important?”
“With money I can send my son away when he is older.”
“You were wealthy once, weren’t you?” Again Tuyen nodded. “Didn’t your father leave you any money?”
“They take it away. They say he stole it from the country. . . . Then they kill him.”
“Did he steal it?”
“I do not know. . . . It makes no difference. I love him very much. . . . When he die, I have enough to buy this, no more.”
“You could have gone to France, couldn’t you?”
“Maybe . . . maybe I could have go, but I tell myself I cannot. Ahn, my husband, he is dead. I meet him at the Sorbonne. Our families they know each other, but I never have meet him before. Before I meet him, I want to go back to Vietnam. Soon I did not care. He take me everywhere in Paris, and we were very happy, more happy than I have ever been in my life. When we come to Vietnam, our families they let us be married. But soon there are many bad things. He says he must fight because the government is bad. I want to go back to Paris, but he say no. Two more times I see him, then no more.”
There was a few seconds silence before Kramer said, “The war can’t last forever.”
“Always I tell myself this, but I do not know. Sometimes I try to remember when there was no war, but is hard.”
“You can remember Paris, can’t you?”
A faint smile appeared on her face as she answered, “Yes, we were happy. At first I always wait for it to end, but soon I forget it will. Everything was so beautiful — the cafés, the flowers, the sky. Ahn, he knew it would end, but he too was happy.”
“Someday you’ll go back, and it’ll be beautiful again.”
Tuyen slowly shook her head. “No. It cannot be . . . only when I think of it. Maybe this is why I do not want to go back. What I remember is mine. Is beautiful, and can not be taken from me. Maybe if I go back, I will see is no longer the same. . . . Hue will be the same. Is more beautiful. There I was often sad, but always it was beautiful. . . . It will be the same.”
“Someday the war will be over and you can go back.”
“No, I will not wait. Very soon I have enough money. Never will I need to take the money of Americans.”
As she said Americans, it was clear to Kramer that the word also included him. His tone somewhat hardened as he asked, “Is our money so bad?”
Tuyen again lowered her eyes to the table. “You do not understand. . . . I am prostitute. There is no difference.”
“Why, because you own a bar?”
“Yes, there is no difference. I hate them and I take their money.”
“So that means you’re a prostitute?”
“Is the same. They try to touch me. They offer me money. To them I am prostitute. My brother, he also would think so, maybe my son also.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Tuyen looked at him questioningly while saying, “Bullsheet?”
“It’s not true. Do you think every bar girl is a prostitute?”
“Yes, I see them.”
“All of them?”
“Many of them.”
Thinking, ‘What fucking difference does it make,’ Kramer asked, “What about those that aren’t? Do you look at them as prostitutes?”
“Yes.”
She had now lost some of her mystery for him, and he began to take her for granted. “Let’s just drop it.”
“Drop it?”
“Forget it.”
“How can I forget?”
“I mean let’s talk about something else,” he said irritably.
Kramer’s tone offended her. “Is late,” she said as she started to get up. Without thinking, he reached for her hand. A shocked look came across her face, but it quickly changed to a cold stare as she got to her feet. “Wait. I’m sorry. . . . Please sit down.”
“Really, I am very tired. I think I should go home.”
Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to keep her there, Kramer asked, “Is it all right if I walk with you?”
“I do not care.”
They walked towards her apartment in silence, her words, “I do not care,” repeating themselves in Kramer’s mind. The knowledge that tomorrow he would return to An Hoa and all that had happened would come to nothing caused him to resent her even more. ‘Won’t even get a piece of ass,’ he kept telling himself.
“You are quiet now. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing much,” he answered coldly. She remained silent and he began to regret the tone he had used. “I was thinking about tomorrow. I have to go back to my unit.” She chose to remain silent, and he again felt like a fool. Kramer now wanted to be rid of her. He pointed to a cardboard and thatch hovel that adjoined the sidewalk. “Your father worked for the government; what did he think of things like that?”
“You would like my father.”
Her tone, and the sad sincerity of these words cut him as no insult could have. He tried to figure out why he had wanted to hurt her, hating whatever was inside himself that caused him to do so. Her profile passed before a candlelit window. He wanted to stop and put his arms around her, apologizing for what he’d said. Instead, he merely replied softly, “I would. I’m sure I would have liked him,” and as he said this he realized that nothing else she could have told him would have shown more affection. He knew that soon he would leave her at her door and never see her again; but
the realization that she did like him caused a warmth to rise within him, and with it the need to say something nice to her. “Someday I’ll go to Hue. Do you think it will seem as beautiful as you described?”
“More beautiful. I cannot describe it.”
“Tell me about it again.”
Tuyen hesitated before saying, “Is said that the city of Hue is a lotus flower that grew, as something beautiful, from the ground where there was nothing. All symbols and things from the past are kept there. Is not like Saigon, where money is important; or like Hanoi, where the government is everything. You walk in the streets and there are flowers everywhere, and the buildings they are Vietnamese and beautiful. The roofs they slant to the ground and are made of bright tile. There is a river that is near the Imperial Palace. Is far across and lovely to see, and is called the River of Perfumes. Many times I have walked along it.”
Tuyen stopped talking and faced Kramer. They were at her door. It began to drizzle, and as she looked up at him there were drops of water on her face. All the sad mystery had returned to her. He wanted merely to stand there looking at her face, fearing the inevitable words that would ask him to leave. “Is late. I am very tired, really.” There was a tightness in his stomach as Tuyen said this, but the way she trilled the l’s in “really” caused him to smile. “Really,” she repeated, without knowing why he was smiling. Kramer wanted to put his arms around her, to hold her close to himself. She too began to smile, but self-consciously, “Maybe you come back some time.”
The smile left Kramer’s face. “No . . . tomorrow I go back to my unit.”
“Maybe you step on another booby trap.”
“Then they’ll send me home, not to Da Nang. . . . It’ll be my third Heart.” She made no reply, and he asked without any hope of her agreeing, “Maybe I could come in for a while?”
Kramer wondered if he was imagining the added sadness in her look as she said, “No, I am very tired, really.”
“Just until the rain stops?”
She stared up at him, offering neither words nor a look that would answer his question. Again he wanted to put his arms around her, and only the fear of insulting her prevented him. She turned and moved towards the door, away from him. A tenseness rose within him as he watched her open it. He wanted to step forward and hold it open; but he couldn’t make himself do this. He stood helpless, waiting for the door to close, almost admitting to himself that what had happened had been something different — not a game or a contest.
The door didn’t close, not until he finally stepped through its darkness and shut it himself.
He stood just inside the threshold, listening to her footsteps move across the concrete floor to the center of the room. There was a click as she pulled the cord of a lamp that hung from the ceiling, and a soft light glowed from within a rice paper shade. Kramer glanced at the table with the candle, the pack of Salem cigarettes, and the two pictures on it. From where he stood, he could see that one was of an older man, her father, and the other a young man, her husband. His thoughts again flashed back to those hurtling moments when he and his platoon were advancing towards the tree line under fire. This time he made no attempt to fathom them, but instead tried to drive them from his mind. Only when he turned towards Tuyen and saw that same proud stare was he able to do this, no longer wanting to ask why risking his life to kill was the only thing he’d ever done that had made him feel alive. He stood facing her, trying to think of something to say but unable to. Finally, he turned from her and walked towards the only window in the room. He lifted the red silk curtain. It revealed nothing but darkness and a few flickering lights. He turned around only to again meet her silent stare. “It’s still raining.”
Tuyen had been wondering why she had asked him in, but she found the feebleness of his attempt to start a conversation humorous and almost broke into a smile.
Kramer reached in his pocket for a cigarette, then asked her for a light. She walked over to the carved dresser and removed a box of matches. As she handed them to him, she asked, “You do not have a lighter?”
“No, it was stolen.” Kramer gave a short laugh before continuing. “They must have gone through my pockets on the medivac chopper. They took my watch too. They were nice enough to leave my wallet though. Took twenty dollars out of it, but put it back in my pocket.”
“You have on a watch.”
“It’s a new one. I bought it at the hospital today.”
“You did not buy a lighter?”
“No. I’ll stick to matches for a while . . . in case I get medivacked again.”
“Many times I hear them say the Vietnamese are thieves.”
“Stealing’s an international custom. . . . Do you have an ashtray?”
She took a finely painted china dish from her dresser and held it out to him. Kramer hesitated before taking it. “Is all right. I will wash it.”
He handed her the matches and she walked back towards the dresser with them. Kramer felt awkward standing, so he sat down on the straw mat in the center of the room, hoping Tuyen would sit down next to him. Instead, she sat on the mattress a few feet away and facing him. Tuyen noticed his muddy boots upon the mat. At first a little irritated, she then realized she couldn’t have expected him to take them off. As they exchanged glances, she became uneasy, thinking that it was Kramer who wanted to talk and yet he had nothing to say. Again she wondered why she had asked him in, or even chosen to speak to him — perhaps to make one of “them” know? It was she who finally broke the silence. “Is you who want to talk, and you say nothing.”
Kramer had been thinking the same thing, restraining himself from using the glib little lines that kept suggesting themselves. Still her accusation irritated him. He felt like asking her, “What was I supposed to say, that I wanted to fuck you?” but instead he said sarcastically, “I thought you let me in because of the rain.”
“The rain, it can last for days.”
Again she noticed the muddy boots. She stared at his face, almost daring him to say something. At first this incensed Kramer, but he was able to control his anger and asked her jokingly, “What was your name again?” Thinking he was making fun of her, she said coldly, “You know this.” The stupidity of his attempt at a joke sickened Kramer, and he was also frustrated by the realization that his refusal to fall into a predatory, seductive role left him speaking nothing but childish inanities. He wanted to explain or apologize, but her uncompromising stare made this impossible. “Tuyen, I know,” he said in a bored tone.
No anger in her voice, and even some regret, she said, “I think maybe you should go.”
Kramer caught nothing but the words themselves. A jaunty expression appeared on his face as he said, “I thought we were going to talk.”
Seeing this expression, she found it hard to believe she had ever seen anything else in his face. What had she seen? She just wanted to be left alone, and forced herself to assume the same tone as Kramer’s. “We have nothing to talk about. You should go.”
Kramer saw the entire, unreal scene exploding in his face. A few minutes ago he had anticipated against belief something beautiful, but the moment seemed to have shattered before him and he knew it was his fault. He knew this, and yet he couldn’t even control the tone of his own voice. “We’ve got lots to talk about.”
The thought, ‘Why won’t he go?’ kept repeating itself in Tuyen’s mind, and she said in an almost defeated tone, “What? What is there to talk about?”
‘Nothing,’ Kramer thought to himself, but he refused to admit this to her. For a fraction of a second he again remembered the advance on the tree line, and his thoughts reduced to a single word. It kept him from saying anything else, and it was all he could do to keep it from passing through his lips.
“What is there to talk about?” she repeated in a cold, defeated tone.
He could no longer control his own lips, and he spit the word at her in hatred. “Suicide! Let’s talk about suicide. . . . Tell me about it like you told me abou
t Hue.”
Tuyen merely stared at him, first questioningly but then with more warmth than she had ever shown him before. ‘Maybe this is why. Maybe this is what I saw in his face.’
Now Kramer possessed the questioning stare, wondering why there was no hatred in her eyes. Only now did he think about what he had said, wondering why he had said it and what it explained to her about him, realizing that he had finally admitted that he was the weaker of them, but also that she must have already known this.
When Tuyen finally spoke, it was in the calm, beautiful tone she had sometimes used before, but there was even more understanding in her words. “You think about this many times.” The docile look on Kramer’s face before he lowered his stare to the floor told her that she was right. “I also used to think about this, even when I was a little girl. My life it seemed very long and too hard for me.”
“You don’t think about it anymore?” he asked weakly.
“No, it has been many years. My life, it no longer seems long. Sometimes I am even afraid I will die. Someday it will be the same for you.” Her words and the tone she used made Kramer even surer that she possessed an understanding that he somehow lacked. He believed that through her he could gain it. Glancing up from the floor for only a second, he said softly, “I’m not sure I understand you.”
“No, and there was no one for me to understand. Someday you will see.”
He couldn’t make himself believe she was incapable of explaining. “See what? . . . Tell me.”
“I cannot. . . . I — Maybe now you think of your life as a clock, each day the same and separate. Someday you will see is not true. . . . A life it cannot be divided into hours or days. There is no time, only life. There is nothing beautiful if you divide time. When you are happy, these days they leave you quickly. Sadness sometimes stays and seems never to end. . . . It cannot be explained.”
Kramer continued to stare at her, but she remained silent. “Please, I want to listen to you.”
“There is no more I can tell you.”
“Anything, it doesn’t matter,” he answered, while thinking, ‘I just want to hear your voice.’
