‘Có thể chỉ có một cô gái … It may just be the one girl. She would be valuable enough by herself to warrant the trouble of a journey.’
But the woman said she had seen nothing. She told me she would call her husband who worked on the border crossing.
‘Men with a girl,’ I said to him, or many girls, as many as a dozen, may have been here yesterday.’
He nodded.
I paid him the same amount I had paid his wife. He felt he may have seen something like this – maybe a truck – the day before.
‘But I will get my brother. My brother–’
‘No.’
‘Please, Sir, my brother is a police–’
‘Alright, get him.’
The brother was a forty-year-old man the size of a ten-year-old child wearing military fatigues and dog tags and was obviously not a policeman. The first man spoke in his ear.
‘Vâng … Yes, I think I saw those girls.’
‘Or was it just one girl, with two men.’
‘’vâng, vâng, tôi nhớ rồi, chỉ một cô gái và hai người đàn ông … I remember now, just the one girl and the two men.’
‘How did she look?’
He furrowed his brow.
‘Like a Vietnamese girl.’
‘Was she ugly?’
‘Yes.’
‘The girl I am looking for is very beautiful.’
‘Nhưng, tôi nhìn thấy không được … But I did not see her face very clearly. Perhaps she was beautiful.’
‘She is very beautiful. There could be no mistake. How old was she?’
He stared into my eyes.
‘A small girl,’ he said vaguely, ‘young. But please, sir, I should be at work, to stay here and talk to you …’
‘Damn it,’ I said under my breath and took out a 100 000đ note.
‘How old was she?’
‘Mưới hai tuổi … Twelve.’
He stared at me to gauge my response, and I thought of Peter Pan back in Saigon and the way he would feel me out and make vague stories firmer according to my desire.
I spat.
‘That is not the girl I am looking for.’
‘Chờ một chút! … But wait, I have a cousin who–’
‘No bloody cousins,’ I said in English. I was furious. ‘Go to hell, the lot of you.’
I walked back to the car where Minh Quy sat with the driver. I pointed to a place on the map, hardly knowing where, only that it was north of here, and I got in and slammed the door.
‘Go there and don’t say a fucking word.’
That night we slept in the car between towns.
24
If the men I pursued were truly going to the Chinese border they had come through Thanh Hoa.
The men of that province sat in the cold dusk smoking bamboo pipes on the edges of the roads in coats against a biting wind from the north and when we got out of the car to piss they stared at us like men from another world who could neither threaten nor aid them.
I had the car stop at the top of a dirt road in Yen Hoa Village.
‘Why are we here?’ said Minh Quy.
I hardly knew how to answer. I did not walk down the road alone tonight. Only stood at the top of it and stared into the dark.
There had been floods. And yesterday a wind had put what rice there was on the ground before harvest. In the mountains in the northern distance there was fire. From the south came faint strains of song that seemed to have no source: a girl singing beneath a banana-leaf roof, keeping out of the cold, else a jukebox in some back-road bar.
‘We must keep on,’ said Minh Quy from the car.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘We are losing time.’
‘Yes.’
I stood up and wiped my eyes.
‘Đi … We go.’
25
We ate a dinner of soup with stale bread in a city whose name I have forgotten at a hovel of an eatery surrounded by communist tenements. Now I had to choose between borders. There were four towns the kidnappers could be heading toward to cross into China. Three major crossings, two out of the way, and then the unofficial ones across rivers and streams, some that you took high up in the woods, else must be crossed at night. The three were Mong Cai–Dong Hung and Dong Dang–Ping Xian in the far east, and Lao Cai–He Kou straight up into central Yunnan. The lesser used crossings were at Puzhai and Xui Kou.
Where they would try to cross depended on where they intended to do their business. The wild South West China border towns of He Kou and Ruili, or straight up to Shanghai, in which case I should go to Xui Kou. I prayed it would be to a small town first. I prayed for the existence of that Vietnamese trading floor I had imagined when I was back in Saigon. I knew the way to He Kou. I had done a story up there on a hill tribe rebel some months ago. The road to there went up through the wilds of Sa Pa. The highland tribes of that country remember ancient and modern grudges, battles with the French, the Chinese, the Americans, even the Khmer and older nations that history has forgotten. The back roads and the fields are strewn with landmines and the forests conceal wolves and Indochinese tigers, but the country’s wildness and obscurity meant safe passage for traffickers of girls, drugs and guns. So let it be that. At He Kou a trafficker could move amidst the most corrupt officials in China, and even if no bribes had been paid, I was sure they could cross the Hong He in the night out of view of the checkpoint.
Beyond He Kou, beyond the mountains of Yunnan, she would be lost to the cities of the plains of greater China.
In Sa Pa the morning mist was all about us on the rice terraces and girls with rainbow coloured coats and scarves and red wind-burnt cheeks appeared out of the mist carrying cords of firewood on their backs. There were bandits up here in the high passes, and rumours of snipers who took out tyres from vantages in the forest then came down to rob and kill, so we did not stop on the road.
The mist held all the way to the dusty He Kou crossing.
I made our driver stay in Lao Cai town and Minh Quy and I walked to the checkpoint on the Red River. A pockmarked sentry with a military helmet and the face of a peasant – sunken hollows under sharp cheekbones – asked us what we were doing and made a cursory glance at our documents. We were tourists. We were attempting to walk across northern Vietnam into China. He spoke broken Mandarin and better Vietnamese.
‘Bạn không có những tài liệu vệ Trung quỏc … You have no papers for China.’
‘Lấy giấy tờ, chung tôi co tiền … So get us papers,’ I said. ‘We have money.’
‘Một triêu đồng … One million he said. But you must come back tomorrow. You are too late. The border is closed.’
‘Nó không thể … It cannot be,’ said Minh Quy. ‘Perhaps a little “grease”?’
The border guard looked down at the wad of notes – near 200 000đ – and pocketed them.
‘Có một đại tá … There is a colonel who will come later tonight. Perhaps he can do something.’
‘When does he come?’
‘Later.’
There was a small concrete shelter next to the sentry box and I said we might sit there a while.
‘While we wait for the colonel.’
The border guard laughed.
I sat on a plastic stool looking at the muddy road and down the bank to the red water that divided China and Vietnam. A couple of trucks came to the checkpoint with timber chained onto their decks so there was no room to hide girls. The border guard turned them back. We could get papers in Lao Cai, but, if the men who had Thuy were here I did not know which side of the border they did their business and I wanted to interview this guard and to see how things worked at this checkpoint.
In time the guard came and sat with us. I offered him a cigarette and asked him his name.
‘Hung.’
‘Bạn đã làm việc ở đây được bao lâu rồi? … How long have you worked here?’
‘Ở đây ha? … Here, at this borde
r? Six months. But in the police, twelve years.’
A man on a motorcycle pulled up at the crossing and Hung turned him back and returned to the shelter.
‘Twelve years. You must have seen a lot in that time in a town like this.’
He gave a wry smile
‘Đung.’
‘Have you ever seen anyone try to get tiger parts through here?’
‘Có thể … Perhaps. ‘Các bạn nhà báo không? … Are you reporters?’
‘Không, chỉ du lịch … No, only travellers,’ I said. ‘Only curious. Though Minh Quy here is a tour guide.’
I took a pair of tin cups out of my rucksack and rubbed them clean with a lens cloth and poured from a bottle of cheap cognac I had brought from Saigon.
I nodded toward Minh Quy.
‘He and I will share.’
‘This is rice wine?’
‘Much better.’
The man nodded.
‘Truly Chinese rice wine is poisonous.’
‘Agreed.’
I raised my cup.
‘Truly, friend, you must have seen some action at this border.’
‘I have,’ said Hung throwing down the entire contents of his cup and grimacing. I poured him another and checked the bottle and hoped he would slow down.
‘They say weapons and drugs come through here.’
‘Not at this checkpoint.’
‘No. Of course not. But perhaps there are older roads either side of the checkpoint. Other ways to cross.’
Hung shrugged.
‘Cái này chỉ là nghe nói … This is merely hearsay,’ I said. ‘But they say girls pass through, also. Girls for the brothels in the big cities in China. Well what a thing? I do not know what I would do if I saw such a thing.’
‘Who says this?’
I shrugged.
‘People. Newspapers.’
‘I would not believe anything I read in a newspaper out of Saigon.’
‘Well,’ I tried to bait him, ‘Chinese newspapers say it is only the Vietnamese who traffic girls through here. But I do not believe it. I would bet men from all sides are involved.’
‘You are very interested in these girls, friend.’
‘Who would not be interested in the idea of a truckload of pretty girls?’ Minh Quy smiled. ‘Here.’ He poured us all another drink and glanced at me and spoke English.
‘Slow down.’
The border guard grinned.
‘And yet,’ I said, ‘I think the girls would not look so fancy by the time they got here. They are kidnapped. Starved and dehydrated.’
‘Friend, you would have to clarify what you mean by “kidnapped” to make what you say have meaning. There are stolen wives who end up happier than Saigon wives. And if a father sells a daughter, then that is his affair.’
‘It is against the law.’
He smiled.
‘The law of Saigon does not always reach here.’
I look across at Minh Quy and saw his eyes silently pleading with me not to express surprise that a government employee had said such a thing.
I nodded.
‘If a truckload of girls was to pass through here, would it typically be going to He Kou only, or on to Kunming or Ruili, or somewhere further?’
‘Who are you, friend?’
‘I am sorry. I am only curious. What could I do about such a situation, anyway?’
The border guard threw down the last of his drink. I wanted to tell him he was wasting it, drinking it like rice wine as he did. But relations were already strained.
‘Nothing, friend. You could do absolutely nothing at all. And now, I think, it is time for you to go back to the town and wait until tomorrow. The colonel would be here by now if he was coming. It is nearly seven and no one in greater authority than me will come. You will go back to the town.’
I showed him Thuy’s picture.
‘Bạn đã nhìn thấy cô ấy không? … Have you seen her?’
‘Không … No.’
‘She may have come through here as recently as this afternoon. With men. Maybe two men: one middle-aged, one young.’
‘I have not seen her.’
‘And you will not let anyone through the border?’
He glared at me.
‘I apologise. But where do people cross who want to avoid border guards?’
‘Không the … It does not happen.’
‘No, of course not,’ I smiled, bitterness getting the better of me. ‘Ở đây có khach san không? … Is there a guesthouse nearby?’
‘Có thể … Maybe. I have never looked. There are some in the town.’
We walked off to a nearby cafe with a view of the checkpoint. We saw men on motorbikes returning home to Vietnam with empty panniers and ganh poles and a few young army grunts. All were turned back, despite their pleading. The night was cold.
‘He may be straight,’ said Minh Quy. ‘And even if he isn’t, this is a very public checkpoint. Without doubt there are other ways to cross the border.’
We walked back into Lao Cai town and our driver was not at the hotel where we left him. I tried to call him and his phone was switched off or out of range.
Minh Quy squatted and spat.
‘Bastard.’
But I was happy.
‘I hope someone shot him for his car.’
In the town in the dusk middle-aged men sat against stone walls with their heads in their hands, one was struggling to keep dry a mat of tobacco he was selling under an arc light. A little boy played in a weed-ridden rice field below power lines. An old woman wrapped in scarves hauled water from a well for the evening meal and the air was coarse with the smoke of cooking fires. We walked until we found a cheap place that would put us up. These border areas were haunted by kidnappers and I looked with suspicion at a man smoking in the house yard with two little girls at his feet. But then one of the girls hugged the man like a father and I wondered once more if I was going mad.
I gave 200 000đ to the wary middle-aged woman who answered the door of the spartan guesthouse and served us thin robusta coffee. The woman switched on a tiny television set in the corner of the lobby. Freezing rain began falling in the blue dark outside, all along the war-haunted roads and over the Hmong villages and on the mountains of China.
A moustachioed man in a rough coat burst in the door, glared at us and exchanged a few sharp sentences with his wife. He took a bolt-action rifle off his shoulder and sat it on a rack above the television.
I was hungry and there seemed to be nothing to eat in the house. The woman poured more coffee. She sang scraps of old song: an unpretty chant that broke off into breathy humming where her memory failed. But just when I thought we must put our coats on and go looking for dinner the woman bought out a claypot fish stew with chilli and scallions.
The man sat down to eat and invited us to do the same and he pointed to a bottle of rice wine surrounded by thimbles.
‘Uong đi … Drink.’
‘Cảm ơn … Thank you. Perhaps later.’
I hoped he would not insist. I looked out the window to a truckload of salted hides.
‘Anh là thợ săn hả? … You are a hunter?’
‘Đung roi … Yes.’
‘What do you hunt?’
The man shrugged.
‘Deer, pigs, monkeys. Whatever the forest holds.’
The man looked at Minh Quy and then back to me.
‘What is your business here?’
‘We are looking for a kidnapped girl.’
I took the photograph out of my wallet and handed it to him.
The man looked at the picture then handed it back.
‘Girls are not kidnapped here. That is a myth that the government in Saigon uses to justify bullying us.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But I have suspicions. I believe there is a slave market close to here.’
‘A slave market!’ The hunter laughed.
I nodded.
‘And I believe thi
s girl may be taken there in the coming days. She has been traded through it once in her life already.’
‘Who is paying you to do this work?’
‘The girl’s parents,’ I lied, and at once the man guessed I lied, for the parents of girls in the catchment of kidnappers do not have money to pay investigators from Saigon who are accustomed to the fees paid by wealthy Western women for reports on their husbands’ business trips.
The man picked up the photograph again. Held it to the dim incandescent light in the centre of the room.
‘Đep lam … She is very beautiful.’
‘That is not my concern.’
‘It is one of your concerns. It makes your chances of taking her back off whoever has taken her much less.’
‘I am not afraid.’
The man smiled mirthlessly.
‘There are no kidnappers here. But there are young and bored police and gangsters who will take offence to you. Are you armed?’
‘No.’ And I zipped up my coat so he would not get a glimpse of the revolver in the inside pocket.
‘Why not?’
I smiled.
‘I might kill someone.’
‘Nguoi nuoc ngaoi! … Foreigners!’ he laughed. ‘When did you stop breeding men in your countries? If you survive the failure of that policy, come back and see me. I can arrange something for you.’ He pointed to the rifle that sat above the television set.
I thanked him.
‘But I think that an auction of girls will shortly take place in this border country.’
‘What makes you believe this?’
‘I have sources.’
‘Have you spoken with the police in town?’
‘I am not a fool.’
The man smiled and began cutting corns from his feet with a pocket knife.
We ate and he drank. The hunter fell asleep in his chair, then rolled onto a hard flat bed.
The woman stoked a stove and took two thin pillows and two blankets to the stairs.
The Darkest Little Room Page 12
