‘All sorts of things. Desire to travel. Desire to shop. Sex.’
Jeffrey swallowed. He poured the thick golden honey over the ice cream and strawberries.
‘War trauma is what old avant-garde artists are obsessed with,’ Trung continued, complaining. Jeffrey kept listening. Sitting beside his friend, he dug into his ice cream.
‘But history remains important,’ insisted Jeffrey. ‘You can’t just ignore memories.’
‘Oh, you and your white-boy guilt.’
Trung glanced at the vanilla ice cream, garnished with strawberries and drizzled with honey. He took the bowl from Jeffrey’s hands.
‘I want to create a European text,’ said Trung. ‘Make a journey to the North, that’ll be my revenge. Maybe I’ll take Flaubert as my starting point.’ He spooned some soft ice cream into his mouth. ‘Or Balzac?’
Trung looked into the ice cream bowl. He removed a strawberry, then held it out in front of Jeffrey’s nose.
‘Open your mouth.’
Jeffrey was startled but did as he was told. Trung lowered the fruit, dribbling honey, into his mouth. The strawberry felt cold on his tongue. He chewed slowly.
‘I don’t like strawberries,’ Trung said. ‘Where were we? Oh, right, Balzac. What do you think about Sarrasine?’
I closed the book. Reading page after page filled with Trung Nguyen’s dreams, his passionate (self-)obsessions, felt like listening to a sermon. I hated each time Trung showed up in the novel’s pages. I enjoyed all the parts when Karina appeared, because the man would be absent.
Because Trung would be absent.
Look for what is absent.
After staring at the computer screen for a long, long time, I typed in Isaac Ginsberg’s email address. I asked a short question:
Who is Trung Nguyen?
*
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Who is Trung Nguyen? Your question is not quite right, but this time it’s not because you don’t know. Ask me what you really want to ask, or maybe, make me a declaration. I’ll tell you everything. But out of fairness, I’ll answer your question briefly now. Trung Nguyen is indeed my friend, an actor. He wants to direct Sarrasine.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Why did Karina show up in San Francisco?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Asking this question requires you to take a step back. But the question can mean two things: one, that you really are desperate; two, that you know the answer. Are you still keen to play semiotic games?
I didn’t answer the email for weeks. I hoped my silence was a sufficient answer. But then he prodded me once more:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sorry, I’m compelled to write to you again after rereading your messages. She’s afraid of heights? How interesting. Did you walk around the Palace of Fine Arts? Go to Lombard Street?
And in the end did she take you to Mission San Juan Bautista?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Yes, to everything. How could you possibly know?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
With no disrespect intended, have you ever seen Vertigo?
*
She left me one morning in San Francisco. When I opened my eyes, she was no longer at my side. She left behind a note:
Darling,
I adore you, but I can’t be with you. If you want to meet me one last time, come tonight to Mission San Juan Bautista. If you don’t find me, that means I’ve already gone. I have to catch a plane, and definitely not to Kansas.
I tried calling, but only reached an answering machine. Like a madman I contacted a car rental agency and soon was driving two hours to the destination Karina had mentioned.
Of course, I didn’t find her.
Only years later, after Isaac Ginsberg’s final email had given me a slap of reality, did I realise why Karina had asked me to go. There, in Mission San Juan Bautista, my story should have ended.
Everything was scripted, very clearly from the start. Karina deliberately left little clues, all those coincidences. She wanted to be caught out.
I don’t know who to blame for my suffering these last three years. The clues that I read too late, or myself, who never gave up the story even when it was over. I only know that I’ve never been able to blame Karina, my true love who possesses everything.
Except, perhaps, a sense of compassion.
Turn to the next page.
Yes, this story ends here. Don’t say you weren’t warned beforehand. And because you’re stubborn, you ask:
Then what happened to Husein? Is he still looking for Karina?
Nobody cares about Husein, but you, it seems, are very sweet. Find out for yourself.
If you want Husein to stop his futile search and straighten out the chaos that is his life, continue on to the next page.
If you want him to keep looking for Karina, turn to page 296.
After San Francisco, there was no way home. My obsession with Karina destroyed everything. One night my wife exploded, reciting a litany of the sins I had committed since our wedding (being a workaholic, constant daydreaming, forgetting birthdays, never taking her out socially, indifference to her parents, chronic impotence, blah blah blah).
But maybe I needed to believe in reconstruction, as San Francisco did after the quake of 1906. No one is the same after a disaster, but I had decided to return to square one. Going back home is returning to what belongs to you. There’s nothing extraordinary about it, but at least it’s yours.
So that night I apologised to my wife, hugged her tight and wiped away her tears. I bought us two tickets for a vacation in Bangkok. After that I struggled to be a good husband. We’ve been blessed with two delightful kids. Yes, sometimes I stray, but I do it for the sake of our household. Otherwise I’d die of boredom. Karina is hardly the sole master of disguise. My efforts to mimic what is considered happiness have been so strenuous that in the end, I think, I have truly become happy.
What is it now?
Still not 100% satisfied?
You have to learn to take responsibility for your choices. OK, fine. But you can’t say you weren’t warned. Turn to the next page.
You really do resemble our friend, after all.
Saigon, 2008
After San Francisco, there was no way home. My obsession with Karina destroyed everything. One night my wife exploded, reciting a litany of the sins I had committed since our wedding (being a workaholic, constant daydreaming, forgetting birthdays, never taking her out socially, indifference to her parents, chronic impotence, blah blah blah).
She gave me one more chance to patch things up. She planned a vacation, our first after two years of marriage, seeing as we’d never gone on a honeymoon. I said yes, in order to avoid hurting her pride. But by that time everything was clear to me. I didn’t want to save anything, including myself.
My wife wanted to go to Bangkok, but I suggested another city. Even on my last chance with her, I sabotaged her plans. We landed at Tan So Nhat International Airport, in Ho Chi Minh City.
There, I traced the touristy streets of Hay Ba Trung that Jeffrey passed through in Isaac Ginsberg’s novel. I looked for signs, though not what lay behind them. A coffee shop on a street corner stopped me in my tracks. It was a local equivalent of Starbucks, but its name leaped out at me. Trung Nguyen Coffee.
Later I learned that there were many Trung Nguyen in Vietnam. You can even buy Trung Nguyen coffee beans to take home.
And of course, Trung Nguyen, whatever his real name is, wants to direct Sarrasine.
I left my wife, who was still busy looking for souvenirs, in Ben Tanh Market. You can imagine how furious she was. But this was nothing compared to my
previous crime. I had left her long before, in San Francisco, three years ago.
Entering the shop, I ordered a cup of coffee, seeking protection from the terror of a face that appeared in every mirror.
Continue on to page 299.
Hello, Los Angeles.
Jakarta in the nineties. You marvelled for the first time at the avenues of Pondok Indah; they delighted you – the empty, clean, quiet streets, the rows of palm trees, the nice cars, and the multi-storey houses. Here dwelled the rich. There were no traffic jams, and pollution had yet to spread depression. Now, in Los Angeles, a far more spectacular Pondok Indah, specifically designed for drivers, you finally see the Mecca to which Suharto’s New Order had oriented its prayers. You’ve read that Jakarta is one of Los Angeles’ sister cities. It makes total sense to you, especially since relationships between siblings come in so many forms. Take your relationship with your sister, for example, with its mingled loathing and longing. Jakarta, city of your childhood, is a Third World Los Angeles.
Neither Los Angeles nor Jakarta is friendly to those who can’t afford a car or who don’t know how to drive. You’re in the second category. You should rent a car to get around the city, but, woe be unto you, you can’t. Loads of people in New York don’t know how to drive, and that just makes them true blue New Yorkers who grew up in a subway culture. In Jakarta, you shook your head shyly when asked if you knew how to drive. It’s clear cut, either you do or you don’t. Nobody gives a crap about ‘a little bit’ or ‘studied once’. It sucks how Los Angeles reminds you of things that you’ve always treated as congenital defects. Unlike New York, in this city you can’t sit and mind your own business on the subway and get where you need to go quickly. New York, New York, if I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere. Bullshit. You can’t survive outside of New York. Here you have to wait for unreliable buses. Maybe if this had been the first city you visited in the US, you’d be more forgiving.
When Bob skypes you from Frankfurt, you moan non-stop about transport. He urges you to be patient. He’ll arrive Saturday and then you’ll rent a car. In the meantime, you order taxis through the hotel to go to the beach, see a movie, and visit the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Los Angeles definitely awakens memories – and the trauma – of growing up in Jakarta. Not being able to drive in Jakarta puts you in your place, a place for the hoi polloi, a place unfriendly to women. You still remember how it felt to be jostled on the bus and to have a man deliberately rub his penis against you from behind. Los Angeles cabs make you think of taxis in Jakarta. Once you were earning a salary, you took them more often than the Metro Mini. You felt as if you’d received a boost in class status. It meant building a world freer from stares, catcalls and unwanted contact.
You look forward to Bob’s arrival. But on Saturday, a week after you left New York, he doesn’t show up. The day before, you sent an email, asking when he would get to LA, but he didn’t respond. At first you assume he’s busy. Oh well. Another day of sightseeing without wheels. When Bob doesn’t arrive on Sunday either, though, worry sets in. You call your mother-in-law in Minnesota and Angela in New York. They haven’t heard from him either.
Three days pass. You’re reaching the conclusion that something bad has happened. Your husband is missing. Vanished. There’s no gentler way to put it. You hurry to the police.
You report your missing husband calmly. Amid all this you check in with yourself about your feelings. Worried? Absolutely. Sad? You’re less sure. The feeling is actually quite rotten. You only know that you can’t stay quiet. And in the police station, you hear about a club that will change your life.
Continue on to page 317.
Over the course of two days, in various locations, you hear Husein’s stories of this female fraudster. You piece them together as you sit side by side on the cable car, walk the path below the Golden Gate Bridge, and enjoy roast duck together in Chinatown. You’ve never met anyone so obsessed. Does he still nurture the story about Karina in his mind? Who is Karina, really? For Husein, it doesn’t even seem to matter any more.
‘Why are you sharing your stories of Karina with me?’
‘Maybe because you look like a traveller in search of stories.’
He’s probably right. You’re so absorbed in his tale that you don’t stop to ask why Husein has so much time to wander the city with you. Neither do you ask why he always wears a grey suit and fedora until two young men, who look like card-carrying fashionistas, greet you on the road. One wears a corduroy jacket of mustard yellow paired with maroon slacks; the other sports pinstripe pants, suspenders and a white shirt.
‘I like your style,’ says the owner of the corduroy jacket.
‘Nice shoes,’ his colleague compliments you.
You merely smile, while Husein offers praise in turn.
Suddenly it seems as though you’ve joined a costume party.
‘Do you both feel like you were born in the wrong era too?’ asks Señor Corduroy. ‘My boyfriend loves 1920s fashion. I’m more into the sixties.’
‘Sometimes I dream of having a time machine,’ Husein says.
To find Karina again, you think to yourself.
‘But I really can’t imagine living in the sixties though, and going through the Stonewall Riots,’ Señor Corduroy responds more seriously.
‘True,’ nods Husein. ‘The sixties were hard times for Singapore.’
‘Have you been to the vintage clothing store down the road?’ asks Mr Pinstripes.
He points the way to his favourite shop. Husein tips his fedora and thanks him. The young couple go away, hand in hand. They look happy, even if they do appear to have stepped out of different decades.
‘We’re not going to that shop, are we?’
‘Why not?’
The store in question is close by. As you step inside, you’re greeted by the musty aroma of second-hand clothes mixed with scented candles. The rhythms of jazz from an LP remind you of the Hotel Madeleine. You peruse a rack of coats and jackets, but lose your enthusiasm when you see the three-digit price tags, and wander off to another corner to browse some antiques, from typewriters to 1970s Kodak cameras. Husein follows, but then stops. You turn and see him standing before a carved mirror hanging on the wall. The mirror reflects the image of a mannequin facing the window, a wig with straight bangs set on its head. Husein looks pale.
Karina. The name ambushes you. Damn. So this is what it feels like to be stalked by a ghost. After San Francisco, Husein has never seen his own face in the mirror. Karina always takes control, spawned offspring.
Which woman does Husein see? Karina Lam, Karina Le or Karina Lee?
You try to come up with the most precise term for Karina. She’s a consummate con artist, claiming to be a different person with each man who falls victim to her charms.
She’s an impersonator, not a con artist, Husein protests to you repeatedly.
Yeah, sure, as if that makes a difference, you mumble.
You take a deep breath when you leave the shop. You feel like you’ve just emerged from a booby-trapped playground in which Husein has hoped to discover a time machine. But, as if suddenly remembering something, he goes back inside, asking you to wait a while. You shrug and enter a nearby chocolate shop.
Two days isn’t long, but you already feel intimate with Husein. Aside from the story of Karina, you share fragments of another tale with him. You tell him you’re married. There is much you omit, including the fact that you’re on honeymoon, and that your husband is more than twice your age (you don’t want him to make groundless assumptions). But the story of Karina the impersonator, an ever-present third person, has brought you together. Occasionally Husein refers to her as ‘the kidnapper’. He feels as if his body and soul have been abducted, shackled in a cave, and left to sleep on and on without seeing the light, like a bat.
At one in the morning, after your second full day in San Francisco, you return to your hotel room, exhausted and with blistered feet. The city’s hilly t
opography has made walking in the red shoes torture. You conk out without trying to call Bob.
‘Late night?’
Bob’s face fills the computer screen. In contrast to the venerable Hotel Madeleine, Bob’s hotel room in Frankfurt has minimalist decor, its colour palette a stark white. Bob is neatly dressed because he needs to head out to dinner soon with colleagues, fellow academics. You rub your eyes. It’s ten in the morning. Bob has already tried to reach you a few times but you’ve only just woken up.
‘Yes, I went to the theatre.’
‘Oh. What did you see?’
‘Miss Saigon.’
‘There’s a production of Miss Saigon on?’
‘Eh, yeah … sort of an amateur production.’
‘Did you go on your own?’
You lie. You weren’t alone, and you didn’t go to the theatre. You feel a little guilty, but you don’t want to make Bob anxious by telling him that you’re wandering the city aimlessly with a man you met in your hotel. It sounds bad, but really, nothing has happened. Before long you and Bob will be together in Los Angeles. Husein will only be another scrap of your story, a stranger who became a temporary companion, whom you’ll never meet again. On a journey, we often meet others who never enter our personal histories because we take no note of them.
Maybe. You hope so.
‘What have you seen so far? Do you like San Francisco?’
‘I’ve just been walking around. I feel kind of bored.’
Who knows why that pops out of your mouth. You don’t feel bored at all.
‘OK, I’m just about to go to dinner,’ Bob says. ‘Take care of yourself over there, hon.’
The Wandering Page 26
