The House on Dream Street

by Dana Sachs

  Falling trees had pulled down so many power lines that the city had shut off electricity. Our way through the streets was lit by the moon, flashlights, and candles. Without electric fans or air conditioners the entire population had moved outdoors in search of a breeze, hauling tables, chairs, and even folding metal beds along with them.

  Phai walked through it all without emotion, as if the sight of people eating their dinner in the middle of the sidewalk was the most natural thing in the world. Our path was so circuitous that we walked in single file. Phai led the way, weaving carefully around children tossing balls, old men playing chess, and even older men already curled up in bed and snoring. Every so often, he’d pause and look back at me, his face full of concern, checking to see if I’d made it through some particularly narrow space between the side of a building and the trunk of a fallen tree. In addition to the scavengers hacking away at the branches, children were using the trunks as giant jungle gyms. Because the road itself was often blocked, people with motorbikes and bicycles were up on the sidewalk, too, trying to maneuver their vehicles past.

  After half a mile or so, we reached Hoan Kiem Lake. Hanoi is a city of lakes, brought about over the centuries by the Red River’s myriad floods, expansions, and diversions. The lakes invested the crowded neighborhoods with light and air and a sense of space that made quite livable what would otherwise be a fairly claustrophobic urban environment. I’d never seen a lake in Hanoi that wasn’t necklaced by benches and circled by people out enjoying the view. People fished in them, swam in them, and waded out into them to harvest wild rau muống, a waterborne vegetable that could add a few extra vitamins to a bowl of rice.

  Hoan Kiem Lake wasn’t Hanoi’s biggest, or its deepest. It wasn’t even the cleanest. But it represented the spiritual heart of the city. It was possible to stroll its circumference in less than thirty minutes, but the role that it played in Hanoians’ sense of their city—both historically and in the present day—was enormous. The lake drew people toward it as a body draws breath. I had seen the crowds at the lake on Liberation Day, thousands of revelers on their bicycles and motorbikes, moving slowly, packed tight, endlessly circling the lake. During the wedding season, I’d seen professional photographers snap shots of brides and grooms on the green lawns beside the water. Traditionally, at midnight on the first night of the Tet New Year celebration, the most significant moment in Vietnam’s year, the smoke cloud of a million exploding firecrackers covered the lake like a blanket on a newborn. Hanoians didn’t even call Hoan Kiem Lake by its proper name, but used a shorthand term of endearment, bờ hồ, “the shore of the lake.” No one had to ask, which shore? which lake? Bờ hồ wasn’t merely the heart of the city, but its lungs, and mind, and soul as well.

  Bờ hồ was quiet tonight, its wide sidewalks nearly empty. A few young couples walked hand in hand, or sat on benches looking out over the water. I hadn’t thought of Hoan Kiem Lake as a particularly romantic spot, but now I felt embarrassed for having proposed it as a destination.

  Phai fit in well here, even if I, the American, didn’t. His outward appearance had changed dramatically over the past few months. Abandoning the T-shirts and work pants, he now wore neatly pressed shirts and belted, baggy trousers. It was a look that was very much in vogue among Hanoi’s smart set. Personally, I didn’t like the flashy new outfits, but I did understand the significance of Phai’s new look. He had decided to aim for something more ambitious than fixing motorbikes for the rest of his life. He was, wishfully or not, willing himself out of manual labor and into the middle class.

  Now that we had plenty of space in which to walk, it was hard to tell that Phai and I were even together. There was still so much distance between us that another person, or two, might have fit between. He walked silently, his eyes on the ground, and I was beginning to worry that I’d done something to offend him. Then I heard him say, very quietly, “Duyen.”

  I said, “Yes?”

  “Do you remember when I told you about my friend in Moscow?” he asked.

  “The one you’re going to marry?” I asked.

  He shrugged, kicking a small branch out of our path. “I said maybe.”

  The Moscow pen pal had made me jealous, but I had also felt relieved. I still didn’t know what I wanted from Phai, but I was sure I wouldn’t marry him, and I didn’t want to hurt him, either. I didn’t mind the pen pal, so long as she stayed in Moscow.

  We passed a fallen tree, its root system exposed to the air, its branches deep in water. “Is she coming home?” I asked. As soon as I asked that question, the jealousy returned. How would I feel if Phai suddenly showed up at Tung and Huong’s with a girlfriend from Moscow?

  Phai shook his head. For a long time, he didn’t speak. The hot air in my lungs suddenly felt heavy and useless. When I exhaled, the breath came out like a gasp, and its force surprised me. The sound made Phai look over. “You’re driving me crazy,” I told him in English.

  “What?” He looked confused.

  “Totally bananas,” I said, articulating every syllable with the precision I used when speaking to my students.

  “Is that English?” he asked.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t look at him.

  “I don’t speak English.” His tone was polite.

  “I know that already,” I said in Vietnamese.

  Phai said, “I wanted to tell you. I got a letter from her a few days ago. She’s getting married.”

  I stopped and looked at him. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Phai paused, shrugged, then started walking again. “She’s getting married to a guy she met in Moscow. That’s all I know.”

  For two years, Phai had considered the pen pal his destiny. And now, in a single letter, she’d effectively ceased to exist. Now what?

  “Are you upset?” I asked.

  Phai ran his fingers through his hair, and his laugh sounded less distraught than confused. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just that we’ve been writing these letters for such a long time, but I hardly even knew her.”

  Neither of us said anything for a while. I think we were both trying to come to terms with his sudden freedom. What if I did something I’d later regret? Still, I felt like an obstacle had been removed, and I was surprised by how light and happy I felt.

  “Let’s go get a lemonade,” I said.

  We headed beyond the end of the lake, then turned down Hang Gai Street. The sidewalks were empty and we walked closer together. Something had changed between us in the past few minutes, but neither of us said a word.

  The power was still out on Hang Bong Street, and the only light poured down from the glowing moon. It was nearly ten o’clock. Parents sat whispering to each other, holding their sleeping children in their arms. An old woman squatted at the edge of the road, brushing her teeth with one hand and holding a cup of water, for rinsing, in the other. Phai’s rubber sandals softly slapped the pavement.

  The café was eight or ten tables scattered along a wide swath of empty sidewalk. We pulled two low wicker chairs together and ordered drinks. Phai picked up my hand, not acknowledging the gesture. He suddenly became chatty, as if nothing more concerned him than the prospects for the cleanup after the typhoon. I couldn’t focus at all. The more I tried, the more I found myself mesmerized by the way his thick black hair nestled like the tail of a cat around his ear. Phai’s eyes swept the road, scanned the trees, settled back on the road again, looking in every direction but at me.

  “Phai,” I said, interrupting some observation about how long it might take a single crew of road workers to clear each fallen tree.

  His face turned to mine, and I leaned close and kissed him on the lips. He pulled away, looking at me in shock. Then he dropped my hand and covered his face.

  “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” I gasped, watching him rub his hands across his temples. I felt mortified, as if I’d made a terrible mistake.

  “No. It’s okay,” Phai finally said. He looked up at me again. “I to
ld you. I don’t know about these things.” He took my face in his hands and pulled me toward him.

  When I woke up the next morning, I lay beneath the covers, watching the sunlight shine through my pink sheets. I needed to think back over everything that had happened the night before. I didn’t see a way to back out now. At home, an exchange of a few kisses could be forgotten, or retracted, without causing too much damage. Even here in Vietnam, a man might have moved past a brief physical encounter with a foreign woman, viewing the experience as one more adventure among a string of them. Not all Vietnamese men seemed as vulnerable as Phai did. A couple of my American women friends had had brief affairs here, and their reports were dismal. The “events,” as they called them, had lasted an average of five minutes, and the men had offered their partners about as much affection as might be bestowed upon a tree or a chair or some other inanimate object. I’d planted my affections on Phai, a man who, at twenty-nine, had not only never had a girlfriend, he’d never even kissed a girl. Maybe he hadn’t been entirely truthful about his history. I doubted it, though. Even in Vietnam, which was more traditional than the United States, sexual ignorance was not the sort of thing a man would lie about. He’d be more likely to lie about exploits he’d never actually had. But that wasn’t the reason I believed that Phai was telling me the truth. I’d always trusted Phai. Now that I’d kissed him, though, I had another reason for believing him. His kisses were lovely, sweet, and uncertain, as if he was tentatively exploring something absolutely new. It would be extremely difficult for a kiss like that to lie.

  If either of us were to become callous about this affair, I realized, it would probably be me. Despite my sudden fear that he would break my heart, I would more likely be the one to hurt him.

  Such possibilities, however, bore no relation to my present condition. I felt a debilitating need to see him. My hand slid across my cheeks and over my lips. These lips touched his lips, I thought. So many times already. First in the café, and then when we reached the front door of my house, again and again. I had no idea how long we had lingered there. Mosquitoes bit constellations around my legs. Rats zigzagged down the sidewalks, quite close by. When I finally pulled myself away from Phai, it was not out of fatigue, but from a different motive. For the first time since I’d known him, I could look into his eyes without needing an excuse to do so.

  A sliding metal gate had sent a screech into the night, and our two heads had jerked around at the same time. We both suddenly worried that a neighbor might see us. Worse, Tung and Huong could catch us. I doubted they would turn us in to the authorities, but they’d be angry. My visa to stay in Vietnam did not include the possibility of having a Vietnamese boyfriend, and my doing so could cause problems for them. Phai could be arrested for having intimate contact with a foreigner. And I could be kicked out.

  We pulled ourselves apart, and I opened the gate in front of my house. Upstairs where Tung and Huong slept was dark and quiet. Phai gave me a reassuring smile, pulled his bicycle out of the living room, then carried it down the steps. Without a word, we waved good-bye.

  When I finally ventured downstairs the next morning, the front doors were shut. Nga’s dresses still hung where they had been placed for the night, even though it was well past the time that her shop usually opened. Although it was dim and silent, the room was full of people. Tung’s parents, Huong’s parents, and assorted siblings were drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Tung was in one of the armchairs, staring at the wall. Huong sat between her mother and Nga on the couch, holding their hands.

  My first thought was that Huong and Tung had seen me kissing Phai. I stood for a moment on the stairs, bracing myself for rebuke, but no one said a word. Huong’s brother Phuong sucked on a cigarette and stared at the floor. Only Nga seemed to notice me, but she said nothing. I hurried down the stairs and out the door.

  By the time I came home late that afternoon, Huong was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Someone had switched on a light. Tung was holding an open bottle of rượu, homemade rice wine, and pouring shots. Without saying a word, I went up to my room. I knew now that their problem didn’t have a thing to do with me. No matter how indiscreet I might have been, a few kisses between a local and a foreigner would not throw an entire extended family into turmoil. Had someone died?

  The phone rang at about seven, and three buzzes on the bell in my room indicated that the call was for me.

  “How’s everything going?” asked my sister, Lynne.

  Her voice had traveled all the way from California, and now it sounded so close that I almost cried when I heard it. I paused before answering. I’d long ago written home about Phai, but the attraction I’d developed for a Vietnamese motorcycle mechanic did not translate well. Once, after receiving a particularly fervent declaration of my feelings for Phai, my friend Grace had telephoned. “So,” she’d begun, making her amusement quite obvious in the tone of her voice, “did you two do the monkey yet?”

  “Grace!” I’d shrieked across the ocean. Slang that sounded funny and racy in America came across as obscene and cold here in Vietnam. Within the context of quick and easy American sexuality, our slow and careful courtship seemed quaint, even prudish, though it seemed to generate more heat than any one-night stand. The prospect of actually doing the monkey, as Grace would have it, had seemed not only overwhelming, but also surprisingly irrelevant.

  Now, with my sister, I tried again. “Last night,” I began, “I kissed him.”

  “Who?” asked Lynne.

  “The mechanic.”

  Someone in the house picked up the phone and began speaking loudly. I recognized the voice of Mr. Huey’s translator, Tuan. I hadn’t seen him or Mr. and Mrs. Huey since the couple’s departure for Saigon two days before, and Tuan’s voice signaled an end to the peace I’d enjoyed during their absence. Once again, they would tie up the phone day and night.

  I waited for him to realize that I was on the phone. When he continued to speak, I said in Vietnamese, “I’m on the phone. Hang up.” After a long pause, the line clicked.

  “Are you still there?” I asked in English.

  “Yeah,” Lynne said. “How did it happen? What happened? How do you feel?”

  I paused. “We went to the pagoda,” I said, and then the translator picked up the phone again.

  “Get off the phone,” I said, my tone getting sterner now.

  He rambled on for a few seconds, then hung up.

  “We went to the pagoda,” I repeated. “I really like him.”

  The voice came on again. “Get off the phone,” I yelled. He kept talking, for longer this time, neither responding to my complaint nor yielding to it. “Get off the phone!”

  When he finally hung up, Lynne said, “If he picks up again, I’m just going to hang up. I’ll call another day.”

  “Will you call me soon?” I asked. I felt like I was pleading.

  The translator picked up again. Beneath his sharp, guttural syllables, I could just make out the voice of my sister. “I’ll call again. I love you. Bye!”

  I hung up the phone and sat staring at it for a few seconds, trying to control myself. Then I raced down the stairs. Tung was standing by the phone, his eyes locked on the translator, who was speaking to someone in Chinese. The rest of the family was watching the two of them like an audience at the climax of a film.

  “Why is he so rude?” I asked. “I was talking to America.”

  Tung didn’t even look at me.

  “He can’t just ruin my call like that,” I said, raising my voice so that they would pay attention to me. “He doesn’t even live here,” I added.

  Without taking his eyes off the translator, Tung muttered, “Duyen, be quiet.” Huong, her face a sheet of anxiety, gestured for me to stop.

  I pushed my voice even louder. “Was he quiet?”

  Tung turned and looked at me. His face was so full of fury that it scared me. “Go upstairs,” he ordered, and he indicated the way with a clenched fist.

  I turned an
d walked back up the stairs. For a long time, I sat on my bed, doing nothing. I was angry, but worse was the feeling that I’d misunderstood something essential about my place in this house. Over the past few months, I’d come to think of it as my home and Tung and Huong as my family. What Tung had said to me, the look on his face, the way he’d held his fist, told me that I wasn’t family at all. I was an outsider, a pest, just someone who gave him money. It was time, I thought, to find a new place to live.

  Early the next morning, I prepared myself to go downstairs and tell Tung and Huong that I was moving. But Huong got to me first. I heard her rattle the door at a little after eight, and when I let her into the room, she looked so pale that, instead of keeping a cool distance, I immediately took her hand. She smiled, but looked as if she could cry at any moment. “Please forgive Tung,” she said. “Something terrible has happened.” She walked into the room and sat down on my bed.

  When Huong cleaned the tenants’ rooms, she picked a time when we were out. Once or twice a week, I would come home to find clean sheets on my bed, a mop-slick floor, and my toilet seat dripping from a generous dousing of soapy water. On Thursday afternoon, a few hours after the Hueys left for Saigon, Huong had picked up her wash bucket and an armful of clean sheets and towels, then trudged up the stairs. She started at the top, in the room where the two Chinese women were staying. Then she cleaned my room. Then, finally, she moved downstairs to the Hueys’.

  By the time Huong reached the Hueys’ door, the sun was low in the sky. After a morning made fresh by the storm, the heat had returned. By five in the afternoon, the sweat was rolling down her face. She pulled the keys from her pocket, unlocked the door, and, before doing anything else, turned on the air conditioner, which sat in the wall just above the door. For a few sweet seconds, she stood there with her eyes closed, letting the cool, artificial air blow down into her face. Then she opened her eyes, switched on the light, and turned around. Except for the furniture and the pot the Hueys had used to boil their rice, the room was empty.