by Di Morrissey
‘Whatever you say, chef.’ Sandy smiled.
Halfway through the evening Ho walked in the front door of the cafe, eschewing the back door he normally used, sat at a table and picked up a menu. He was dressed in casual pants and a long-sleeved white shirt.
Sandy played along, greeting him and putting a tumbler of water on the table, asking him what he’d like.
Ho ordered three dishes including the special Thai-fry. Sandy went into the kitchen. ‘Anna, drop everything and get these out there as fast as you can. A fussy customer.’ She didn’t say who it was.
Anna had a cotton scarf knotted over her hair, her face was shining with perspiration, but she seemed to be enjoying herself. ‘Hey, right. I’m onto it,’ she said, and chopped the carrots even faster.
Ho watched the meals and snacks come out of the kitchen noting the waiters were moving more quickly than they ever had before, as if they were competing with each other. Sandy watched him as the waiter put his food in front of him. Ho poked through the Thai-fry with a chopstick, breaking open a fritter and sniffing it. He tasted each of the dishes, chewing slowly, but left most on his plate. He asked to pay and for a bag to take the food away with him.
Sandy handed him the doggy bag and waved aside his money. ‘It has been an honour to serve you, Ho. I hope the food was acceptable. Anna is trying hard, but your presence in the kitchen is missed greatly.’ She spoke in Vietnamese, trying to strike a balance between politeness, but not kowtowing to him either. ‘I have asked Mr Carlo not to offend you, or to upset you in the kitchen in the future should you agree to return to your chef duties.’
Ho looked mollified and announced he would think about it.
She smiled and said, ‘I will see you tomorrow, Ho. Good night.’
Outside on the street Sandy saw a young man standing by the mini van just as Carlo had described. Ho handed him the food bag. The boy gave a slight bow and drove away.
When the main rush was over and Anna came and joined Sandy for a coffee, Sandy told her about Ho.
‘Really! The cheeky old thing, sitting there and ordering my special. God, I hope he liked it.’
At that moment Carlo sauntered back into the restaurant. Anna told him what had happened with Ho.
Carlo shrugged. ‘Who cares.’
‘Well, what have you been doing with yourself?’ asked Anna.
‘Babe, this country is ripe for the plucking and with the contacts I’ve made, I reckon I can do it.’
Sandy looked askance. ‘I don’t think that’s quite the right attitude to take, Carlo.’ She thought how little Carlo knew about Vietnam and suspected that he was way out of his depth and she wondered if Anna thought the same.
10
CARLO WAS SPENDING LESS time at the cafe, but when he was around he preferred to hold forth at the bar as mine host. Sandy asked Anna where Carlo was going and what he was doing but she knew little.
‘He says he is meeting people and being introduced to the way things are done, that’s all I know,’ said Anna. ‘Though he has said he wants to go to Hoi An. I hope he doesn’t do too much without me.’
‘I can’t see why he wants to go to Hoi An. Sure it’s a big tourist town, but I can’t see that it would send Carlo into raptures,’ said Sandy. ‘Nothing in it for him.’
‘I’d love to show him some of the places we know about. Maybe go up to the hill country,’ said Anna. ‘There’s still so much to see here.’
Sandy heard the wistful note in her voice. ‘Listen, if you want to take off for a bit with Carlo, we’ll manage. Ho is back and we can get one of the waiters to do a double shift,’ said Sandy.
‘No, no. I like working in the cafe. Ho is letting me watch now and I’m learning heaps. I’m going to the market with him tomorrow morning at some ungodly hour. It’s just that, well, a short romantic break with Carlo would be nice,’ sighed Anna.
‘Listen, why not take a couple of days and whizz down to Halong Bay? He wanted to see the factories in Bat Trung. Take him to see Mr Thinh; he will know who are the more reliable pot people,’ suggested Sandy.
Anna laughed. ‘Pot people. I never thought Carlo would be into making his fortune out of garden pots.’
‘Maybe not a fortune, but it’s a start. Anyway, I never thought he’d make a fortune out of importing pasta and olives,’ said Sandy.
‘It’s not just the food side of the business. The wine side of it is lucrative,’ said Anna a little defensively.
Sandy knew Carlo’s father really ran the business and so far none of Carlo’s big schemes had ever come off. But if he was smart, maybe he would do well exporting from Vietnam provided he found the right merchandise at the right price. ‘Okay, whatever. But go down to Halong. Kim has some good contacts down there too. He’s coming in at lunchtime – we’ll pick his brains.’
Kim bowled in with a flourish of roses and gave both the girls a quick hug. ‘Put them by the cash register so you see them a lot,’ said Kim, then scanned the room and smiled. ‘Say, business is booming: not a spare table. Barney will be pleased.’
‘Yeah, we hope so. We’ve saved a spot for you in the back courtyard if you don’t mind sitting in the B section,’ said Sandy.
‘Hey, I’m not going to quibble. Can you sit and chat a minute, Sands? Haven’t seen you since you took over. How’re you enjoying being in hospitality?’
‘The flow of good coffee is nice,’ said Sandy and led Kim to the rear of the cafe. ‘To be honest, Kim, this experience has cured me of wanting to run a food place, if ever I did. But Anna seems to be loving it.’
‘How’s the Italian lover-boy doing? He’s noticeable by his absence.’
Sandy looked at Kim’s sympathetic face and thought what a good pal he had become. Then it occurred to her that Kim hadn’t talked much about his personal life since she’d left HOPE and she wondered if he’d found a new girlfriend after his last ill-fated love affair with a Brazilian volunteer. He was such a nice person, attractive in his mix of Korean and Hawaiian blood. Stocky, olive skinned, a great smile and dark warm eyes. ‘I have to confess, life is smoother when Carlo is busy. He’s hooked up with some business people.’
‘Didn’t take him long to make contacts.’
‘He says they do business here and in Saigon too, I believe. Tentacles everywhere.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘You name it,’ said Sandy. ‘Construction, transport, import, export and they seem to have lots of fingers in lots of pies.’
‘Sounds like people Carlo would find useful. Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude about Anna’s boyfriend. But he just has a manner . . . well, you know what I mean.’
‘I do. Don’t worry about it, Kim. Actually it’s nice to share thoughts with you. I don’t like to upset Anna, as she thinks the sun shines out of him. I’ve always thought she could do so much better, but there you go. We all know couples and wonder what one sees in the other.’
‘That’s for sure.’ Kim gave her a quizzical look. ‘And what about you, Sandy? No one on the horizon?’
‘Not even looking, Kim. I don’t want to get into a relationship when I’m about to leave the country.’
‘Are you?’ He wondered about Sandy’s hanging around in Vietnam after her contract with HOPE had finished. Most staff took off home or went for a holiday. She didn’t seem in any rush to leave, and the visit from Anna gave her a reason to stay on longer. Sandy was so capable, efficient and compassionate, and he suspected she didn’t appreciate how beautiful she was in her casual blonde Australian way. If Sandy tried she could have any man she wanted, he thought. Even me. He knew Sandy liked him as a friend and colleague. She would probably be quite shocked if she knew how easily he could fall in love with her. But rather than lose her he stayed in the role of close confidant. ‘What about the Frenchman? Heard from him?’
‘Jean-Claude? Yeah, sort of. He’s gone to Cambodia and Laos. He’s busy with his life and business.’
He smiled at her and changed the subject.
‘Do you want me to sound Carlo out? About contacts, what he’s doing? If I can help, let me know.’
‘Thanks, Kim. I don’t want Carlo to rush into some mad business scheme. Though it’s hard to tell Carlo anything. He’s been in the country ten minutes and thinks he’s got a handle on everything. Not that I want to stifle his entrepreneurial dreams. In fact, he could be onto the good idea of importing garden pots and ornaments into Australia. But he needs to cover all the fine details.’
‘Sandy, worrying about Carlo and his business prospects shouldn’t be high on your agenda. You have enough on your plate,’ said Kim gently.
‘I’m thinking more of Anna. She’s my friend.’
‘She chose Carlo,’ he reminded her.
‘I think he chose her and he’s bulldozed right over her. Anna’s too nice for her own good. Always making excuses for him.’
‘Well, that’s something you can’t control either. The scales will fall from her eyes eventually,’ advised Kim.
‘I just don’t want her to get hurt. But you’re right: I do have enough to get on with. Especially if Anna is taking a couple of days off.’
‘I’ll help in the evenings if you want.’
‘Thanks, Kim. You’re such a good mate. I’ll yell if we need help.’
‘Any time.’
Anna found going to the markets with Ho a more stimulating experience than wandering around the Hoi An markets with Sandy snapping photos of the colourful scenes. Ho was well known to the Hang Da market stall-holders who shouted out to him, asking questions about the attractive Viet Kieu with him. He called back that she was his assistant who had come from Australia to learn how to cook real Vietnamese food. Anna knew she was being discussed and was quite surprised to see Ho almost grinning, enjoying the attention.
He drove a hard bargain and showed Anna how to test which vegetables were fresh. He taught her how to tell the difference between seafood caught the night before and that which had been there several days. Fruit was chosen carefully. Ho turned and inspected each piece as much for its aesthetic qualities – shape, colour, appearance – as for the ripeness and taste. He kept aside five mixed pieces to put on his personal altar, then he moved on to the spice section. Food needed the right spices, the right ‘music’ to go with dishes, he told her. Depending on the lunar month, food required certain spices. Anna had never seen such an array. Ho rattled off several combinations: ground beetle essence and shrimp paste for rice noodle soup, mandarin peel and fennel with clamworms, oysters and clams from the river with sweet knotweed. His favourite combination was cinnamon, chilli, basil, lemon juice and shrimp paste.
But, he told her, it was wrong to put incorrect herbs with certain foods. Dog meat must have galangal, sweet rice paste, basil, coriander and shrimp paste. Anna still couldn’t cope with the idea of eating dog and Ho quickly assured her they never served dog at Barney’s. He was bemused by the small things that caught Anna’s eye, like cooked food being sold in ‘take-away’ containers of folded or woven banana leaf.
On the way back to Barney’s, Ho stopped at a com binh dan – a streetside eatery – for a bowl of savoury rice gruel. Between mouthfuls Ho commented on the growing trend of families, workers, students, people from all levels of society, to eat at these ‘fast food’ places.
‘When I grow up everyone eat at home. It tradition. People no have money eat like this,’ he said. ‘Now people got money. This new way to eat.’
‘But isn’t all the family eating at home important?’ asked Anna.
Ho shrugged. ‘For festival and special time. Me chef, I want people eat outside places.’
Anna laughed but didn’t ask Ho about his dream of owning his own restaurant, especially as things had just settled down after the blow-up with Carlo. She didn’t want to raise another touchy subject.
After the markets Ho returned to Barney’s and Anna decided to spend an hour or two exploring before getting ready for her next shift. She wished that Carlo was with her, but he had dashed off early that morning to visit the ceramic makers in Bat Trung.
‘Back this evening, kid. We’ll catch a bit of moonlight then, right?’ he’d declared brightly on seeing her disappointment at the sudden trip. Anna had wanted him to visit Mr Thinh’s pottery factory but he had dismissed the suggestion, saying that his contacts knew best. Nevertheless, he had agreed with her suggestion that the two of them get away for a couple of days to Halong Bay – as long as she organised it. So Anna had contacted Captain Chinh, and booked the Harvest Moon for the middle of the week, when it would be quieter and the trip would be more romantic.
She wandered into a district she didn’t know well – leafy trees, French colonial architecture, a few offices housing overseas companies and expensive expat homes behind wrought-iron fences. There was an elegant French bistro, a few local food stalls and a motorcycle repair shop spilling across the sidewalk. Then she spotted a discreet sign above red-framed wooden doors – La Porte Rouge. In the window there was a display of carved wooden posts with abstract symbolic faces and she realised she had stumbled across Charlie’s gallery. However, the door was locked and a handwritten sign announced it would open at two.
Nice hours for some, she thought. Oh well, she’d come back another day.
She hailed a cyclo that had been following her down the street and asked the driver to take her to West Lake. Once through the Old Quarter, Anna pointed to the causeway between two lakes which was lined with trees, pagodas and small parks. A myriad of open-air restaurants were serving the local delicacy – West Lake shrimp cake – so Anna settled at a table and placed an order. She was sipping her favourite jasmine tea and had closed her eyes in blissful appreciation when someone stopped beside her. Turning, she recognised Rick Dale.
‘Sampling the opposition?’ he asked.
‘I suppose I could say it’s research,’ she laughed. ‘I was just exploring. Near Charlie’s gallery, in fact, but it’s closed.’
‘Charlie and his wife have gone to Sapa for a few days and Miss Huong is on a field trip. I’m due to open up at two. Another staff member is coming by to continue some work for them.’
‘So you’re minding the shop? Would you like to join me? I’ve ordered a shrimp cake. Probably far too much for one person.’
Rick pulled out a chair. ‘Lovely. I’m helping to authenticate some old writing on several artifacts. I’m not much of a salesman, but I’m happy to be there for them. Where’ve you been?’
‘The markets with Ho, our chef. That was quite an experience. I can’t believe how different food, cooking and eating are here compared to home.’
‘Yeah, fast food takes on a whole other meaning. The food is so healthy here. Toss in some fresh greens, homemade noodles, peanuts or tofu, a few bits of meat, chicken or shrimp and you have a fantastic meal in a minute.’
‘Don’t forget the spices for flavour. I had a lecture about what goes with what from Ho this morning.’
‘So you don’t mind chilli, nuoc mam, ginger?’
‘And the rest. No. I’ve developed a real taste for this food. Must be in my blood, I guess.’ She gave a small smile and Rick studied her and seemed about to say something, but changed his mind. ‘Where were you going?’ she asked.
‘Oh, a few errands. And I was planning on a bite to eat, so this is opportune.’ He ordered a coffee and asked, ‘How’s it going at the cafe? Has your friend Carlo found enough to keep him busy?’
‘We had a bit of a hiccup with the chef, but things are running smoothly for the moment. Carlo has gone down to Bat Trung: he’s interested in exporting ceramics to Australia.’
‘Yeah, he mentioned that. Said he had contacts. He seems quite enterprising,’ said Rick casually. ‘You said at that art show where we met that you weren’t so interested in art.’
‘Not knowledgeable. That’s Sandy’s field.’
‘You can get sucked in. Especially in a place surrounded by art. Everywhere you look you see art here. From the colours of buildings, to the f
ood displays, to the decorations on pagodas, and the clutter in the streets. Then in the hill country Miss Huong finds carved burial markers. Even wooden steps up to a house on stilts have a story carved in every step. It’s a land of stories. There’s a story behind the shape of mountains, lakes, how a piece got its colour.’ He stopped, slightly embarrassed. ‘I suppose it’s like your Aboriginal legends where everything in the landscape has a story about how it got there from the creation time.’
Anna looked at the shrimp cake which was put on the table. ‘I have to confess I don’t know much about Australian Aboriginal history and stuff. I’m a city girl. Where in the States are you from?’
‘California. And if you’re going to ask if I know much about Native American history, I don’t. I know more about Buddhist art and history.’ He took a bite of the fried shrimp cake. ‘I bet it’s fun for you to be finding out about your Vietnamese heritage. Is that one of the reasons you came over here?’
‘What makes you think I need to know my Vietnamese heritage?’
Rick was surprised at her defensive tone. ‘Oops, sorry. I just assumed. I know one shouldn’t, but as you’re part-Vietnamese I thought you were exploring the country’s culture.’
‘I’m learning to cook traditional Vietnamese food. That’s enough.’ She sipped her tea. ‘I know very little about my mother’s family here. I suppose my father has some details.’
‘I have a friend who was adopted and can’t trace his biological parents. He got married and adopted a little Chinese girl, and there are no records about her either. She was abandoned in a gutter. It rips him up. He’s always saying if there was any way he could find anything at all about his family or hers, he’d do anything to know.’ He paused and added gently, ‘One day your children might want to know about their grandmother. Don’t you think you owe them that?’ When Anna didn’t answer he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m being presumptuous. Is it a painful story?’