Then we take off one another’s clothes. It is the most erotic and scary thing, undressing like this, for the first time, in the bright and sober silence of morning. All there is, is the sound of our breathing.
By the time we are naked there is a growing sense of urgency, yet still this clarity, this intensity, to each sensation: the smooth, warm skin of his shoulders and back; his thick, dark curls. My breasts sliding over his chest, his stomach, his thighs. The beautiful smell of his sweat. His cock, salty and hard; his soft, deep moans. The dog outside, yapping and yapping. His tongue stroking me; hands, holding me, like I’m weightless. Moving all over one another until we are face to face again, fucking, looking into each other’s eyes, and a rhythm begins, exquisitely good, and there is no going back.
Afterwards, sharing a cigarette, I show him my shaking hands – my whole body is trembling.
He smiles. ‘I like to make your hands move like this.’
I laugh breathlessly. ‘Yes. I like it too.’
FOURTEEN
The rains start suddenly. Short, heavy downpours that are over before you’ve made cover, or storms that go on all afternoon, like the sky is falling in. The air stays warm; steam rises from the roads; everywhere, the sweet smell of wet bitumen.
During a midday shower, I sit on the brown couch across from Hien sorting a month-old pile of check-in forms into alphabetical order.
She pours us tea and narrows her eyes at me. ‘I think Miss Ella very happy.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Before, your face —’ She makes a woeful face. ‘Now your face look like —’ She beams.
I laugh.
‘Miss Jenny tell me your boyfriend love you very much.’
‘She barely spoke to him!’ I protest. ‘I don’t even know what he thinks. Anyway, he’s not my boyfriend.’
It is three days since I woke in his bed and I have been replaying it in my head ever since, over and over, but already the words and images are becoming less distinct, less certain. I have no idea what happens next.
Hien scrutinises me. ‘Miss Ella happy – I think your boyfriend love you very much.’
I smile and push aside the sorted papers, reach for my tea. ‘How long have you and Chau been married?’
‘Thirteen year.’
‘Where did you meet?’
‘We neighbour for each other.’
‘Did you love him from the first time you met?’
She snorts. ‘No! He friend with my brother. Very crazy!’
‘So what happened?’
‘Chau grow up, become handsome man. We go dancing together and always talking. He play piano very well, have a good job. His mother and my mother good friend with each other. Chau say to me to marry and I say yes!’
‘It was nice to meet him, and your beautiful children.’
Hien frowns. ‘Mai study very hard. Long too lazy.’
‘Long looks like you,’ I say. ‘Same-same eyes and mouth.’
‘Look like his grandfather.’
‘Your father?’
She nods.
‘He must be handsome too.’
Her face is impassive. ‘My father killed in American War. Long time ago.’
‘Oh, Hien, I’m sorry.’ I look steadily at her but I have a closing-in feeling. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘He visit his mother in Bien Hoa province. She very sick. He come early in the morning. Something under the ground,’ she points down, ‘go bang!’ She shakes her head vigorously, as if scaring flies. I see a tiny spangle of tears.
‘I don’t understand anything about the war,’ I say, quietly. ‘I think about it and I don’t know why it happened. It doesn’t make any sense.’
The dominoes are going to fall, they said. If Vietnam goes down, Laos will too; Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia. The Communists will take over the world! And, better to kill a snake outside before it gets into your house, they said. So, kill, boys, kill those slippery gooks, bag as many as you can. Give us your best body count!
Hien shrugs decisively. ‘Long time ago. Now, no problem. My father happy – his spirit, happy.’
‘Do you have a photo of him?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Could I see it one day?’ I wonder if it is a weird request but she just nods. Does she have a shrine to him too? Little things to remember him by? I want to tell her that my father was there too, in the American War, and that I don’t know where he is or even if he is still alive, but I am too ashamed. What did the US and Australia bring to Vietnam but death and destruction? Sometimes I feel like I will choke on the not-telling. ‘What about your mother?’ I ask instead.
‘She live in Saigon with my sister family. She very well, still ride motorbike.’
‘I’m sorry about your father, Hien,’ I say again, but she has moved on.
She turns on the radio to one of those screechy Vietnamese love songs then sings along while together we fold a stack of hotel pamphlets. From time to time I look out at the rain and imagine a mine exploding, the deafening sound, the smoke, bodies breaking apart, blood gushing, hot and sticky, sweet and metallic. Twenty-five years ago it was a daily occurrence; Hien must have been just a little girl.
I sigh loudly, trying to expel the image; trying, like Hien, to move on. When will I move on?
The rain stops. I go outside and buy two banh mi stuffed with pickled vegetables, thick grey paté, herbs, chilli, and slices of the pork sausage that reminds me of Book’s dinner. We eat and listen to the radio news. I pick up the occasional word or phrase but not enough to make it make sense.
I try to teach my class how to play Hangman on the blackboard but it doesn’t quite work so I resort, guiltily, to the red book. Twenty minutes before class is up, I ask them to close their books and we just talk. We chat about the seasons and how they shape our lives. Lan, a young women with a quiet voice who is a waitress in a big city hotel, tells me the rainy season is called mua mua. I practise saying it; it sounds like a loving murmur. Chien, the Vietnam Airlines air steward, talks about his family losing their entire rice crop in the great delta floods of 1961. Someone asks about the Australian climate and as I’m describing Melbourne in autumn it seems mercifully distant, as if all that were far behind me.
After class, Co Ngoc and I ride to the pho chay shop to meet her boys for their monthly lesson with soup. Co Ngoc is wearing a grey woollen beanie to protect her bald head from the rain; she has a cold and her nose is red. I ask her if she is getting enough rest, she works so hard, but she says she doesn’t like to stay in bed, she feels better when she is busy. I make a mental note of this. Co Ngoc is the antithesis of my mother and I have to be different from my mother, I have to make sure that I am different.
Madame Nhu puts us at the biggest table and over the course of half an hour five stringy boys amble in: Anh, Dao, Chinh, Duc and Hoc. Co Ngoc says it’s a good turn out. Thanh is in hospital and Quy and Dung haven’t shown themselves for days. We order soup and tra da and Co Ngoc sets about introductions then establishes rules: the boys are only allowed to speak in English but, wherever possible, I may speak in Vietnamese.
It is fun! We slurp our noodles and spend nearly two hours asking one another questions then striving to answer and be understood. Early on we determine all of our ages, where we were born and how many siblings we have. Then we talk about our interests and hobbies. Duc, who has a burn scar covering the left side of his face, loves rock music, especially Guns N’Roses. He asks if I could help him transcribe some of the lyrics; ‘November Rain’ is his favourite because it is about love and it is sad. Chinh is the youngest, the soft-spoken one. Occasionally, Anh leans over and cuffs him fondly on the head. Chinh talks quietly about his paternal grandmother, who raised him until her death two years ago from dysentery. She taught him how to cook, and now he cooks for all the boys over a little kerosene burner in their shared room: soups, noodles, rice paper rolls. Chinh hopes one day to be a chef. Just like my father, I think, and it makes me fe
el extra fond of little Chinh.
They are all bright-eyed boys, street smart like Pham but with a different kind of openness. I see it in the way they look at Co Ngoc, with loving doe eyes, and their attitude of playful irreverence. She, in turn, sits back like the den mother, listening to them talk with a look of buttery satisfaction, interrupting only to help with a difficult concept or to tell one to stop being silly.
Eventually we finish up. There are loud farewells on the street. I see their bravado returning. I cycle off into the twilight, already looking forward to next month.
When I get back to the hotel, Hien greets me with a sly grin, waving a piece of blue paper in the air as I wheel the bike in. ‘Your boyfriend come here on his motorbike.’
‘Really?’ I ask her. ‘What time? What did he say?’
She laughs and tells me she doesn’t remember. Anyway, the note, on Blue Dragon letterhead, is enough: Ella, I have not seen you lately at this very excellent new bar. We have now an oven that works and so the pizza can be hot. Will you come? Each night, I am looking. Ariel.
‘Hien, thank you!’ I gush, as if she has arranged the whole thing, then I run all the way up to my room, four steps at a time.
When I burst in, cockroaches scatter across the floor, scurrying into their hidey holes. I open the doors to the balcony. The air is damp and still; overcast. I can hear the morse-code taps of the kids on the street below playing shuttlecock.
I will go tomorrow, Saturday; tonight would be too soon.
I put the note on the bedside table where I can see it, keeping a careful distance between it and my father’s remains. The note is real. Ariel is real.
I light some incense and put away clean washing. I smooth down the sheets.
He wants to see me again. Each night, he is looking!
‘He was pretty laid back. Possibly stoned. Would John Denver be stoned?’ We’re at Cappuccino having our western food fix and Dave has been telling Suze and me about the Liberation Day gig. They’re laughing but I’m only half-listening. In an hour I will see Ariel. I take small mouthfuls of mushroom soup, sip the raw and chalky house red.
‘How’s about that other man of our times, that legend, Mr Muhammad Ali?’ Suze says. She has a fresh yellow rose pinned to her short scruffy hair, and smudgy red lipstick.
‘Well, yes, an incredible man.’ Dave smiles. ‘Isn’t he here to personally solve the MIA issue?’
‘What’s he doing?’ I ask, suddenly tuning in.
‘He’s here as peacemaker. He’s going to find a way to resolve the whole MIA problem. You know, provide a bridge between the nations.’
‘How?’
Suze shrugs. ‘What can’t that man do?’
‘Apparently he’s been performing magic tricks in front of crowds of people outside Bac Ho’s mausoleum,’ Dave says. ‘I’m absolutely serious. They say the people were mesmerised.’
‘Fucking A!’ Suze says. ‘It’s Bac Ho’s birthday next week. I’m going to have a party.’
I nod vaguely. ‘But the MIAs, Muhammad Ali, what is he suggesting?’
‘Nothing new,’ Suze says. ‘It’s a goodwill mission. He’ll talk to people and perform his magic tricks.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s like you’re opiated,’ Dave says to me. ‘Just drifting in and out.’
They dragged it all out of me earlier – my night with Ariel – the rain, the joint, the morning after.
‘He’s right, honey,’ Suze says. ‘You’re all hazy. Let’s go find your young Parisian.’
We walk into the Blue Dragon. ‘Revolution’ is playing. It’s busy, I can’t see him, but now we’re here I am suddenly sick with nerves.
‘What is it with this fucking music?’ Dave mutters. ‘It’s 1994, for fuck’s sake.’
‘The Beatles are all right,’ I say.
He looks at me and shakes his head. ‘I’m going to the bar.’
Suze and I sit down. ‘Hoang said he might come,’ she says, lighting a cigarette. ‘But I’ve got to tell you, I’m so jack of these rendezvous. Last week he called me to come meet him at midday. I couldn’t say no, I wanted to see him. I felt like a whore.’
‘You could stop,’ I say, carefully, ‘if it’s making you unhappy.’
‘I don’t have the resolve.’ She sighs. ‘Why do we do these things to ourselves? It’s like I can see all the pitfalls but I step out anyway, you know? Am I determined to be unhappy?’
I squeeze her hand. ‘I know. I really know. Maybe you need a plan, a time frame …’
I look up. Dave is walking back with Ariel. They’re laughing. I go hot all over. ‘Shit,’ I whisper to Suze. I put my hand over my churning stomach. I am wearing a black, cotton sleeveless dress with embroidery across the breast.
‘Bon soir.’ He kisses Suze, who is nearer, then looks at me and hesitates – déjà vu. ‘Hello,’ he says, smiling, then leans in and kisses both my cheeks. I breathe him in.
‘Good game yesterday,’ Dave says to Ariel, who sits down in the chair next to mine.
‘No, this was a very bad game.’
‘I think your mind was elsewhere.’
Ariel smiles.
There is a pause and I feel I should say something but I am mute. Suze stamps on my foot under the table and then asks Dave something about work so I have no choice but to face Ariel.
‘I got your note,’ I say.
He drags his chair closer to me, as if he’s been waiting. ‘I have been hoping to see you,’ he says, quietly. ‘Dave is right, I have been distracted.’
I exhale. ‘Yes, me too.’
We start smiling then, and it is good, good, good.
‘I can leave here in one hour,’ he says. ‘Will you come?’
‘I don’t know … what do you think?’
‘I think you will come.’ He looks at me now without smiling and it’s like he is touching me, here in the bar.
I laugh. My chest rises and falls.
He moves back a little.
‘There’s a party tonight out at An Phu,’ says Dave. ‘Anyone interested? The dress theme is tropical, which I find completely bizarre. While we’re at it, why don’t we all pretend we’re in Vietnam?’
‘Not tonight,’ I say.
Ariel shakes his head.
Dave smiles. ‘Suze?’
‘I’m going to hang out here for a while, Hoang might stop by.’ I smile at her. She rolls her eyes.
‘My boss has arrived,’ Ariel says, standing up. He wanders back to the bar.
Dave throws his skinny arms around Suze and me. ‘Okay, lovesick puppies. What do you want to drink?’
Back at Ariel’s apartment, we take things slowly. He gets beers; I take off my shoes; the landlords’ rat dog scratches at the door. He puts on Edith Piaf and the music transports me, momentarily, back to Buffalo Bill’s. I remember how adrift I was then, how aimless. Things are much better now, I tell myself, firmly. Being with Ariel is a whole new beginning.
We sit on the couch and talk and this time the space between us, the circling around, is part of the excitement, the anticipation. He asks how I came to be in Vietnam and I explain about planning the trip with Tim and then us breaking up, arriving alone and then just deciding not to go back. When I say it like this it sounds okay, almost romantic.
I ask Ariel about his life in France. He tells me he finished a fine arts degree at university the year before last, majoring in photography, then went straight into his national service. ‘But this week I have had some good news. I have a photo assignment from Saigon Times. The money will be nothing but it is a beginning. I am happy for this.’
‘That’s fantastic! What’s the assignment?’
‘I will take photos of new building sites.’ He laughs. ‘It could be possible, I hope, to make this interesting.’
I smile. ‘Can I look around at your photos?’
He nods. ‘But they are just ideas, they are not good pictures.’
I get up and wander around the room looking more c
losely at the photos on the walls, stuck up lopsided with opaque brown tape, then into the tiny kitchen where there are more. There’s an empty doorway with a neat rainbow row of rubber slides; piles of incense drying in the sun; two very old women leaning towards one another, talking, in a crowded market; a blurry one of a man in a white singlet holding up a beer can in salute. They are all beautifully composed, pensive. I imagine Ariel looking through the lens at these things, seeing the world like this.
He comes up behind me in the kitchen and slides his hands around my waist. I lean back against him. We stand like that for a while, not moving or speaking. I close my eyes and feel him, big and warm and solid. His cock is getting hard against me.
‘This feeling I have with you is so strong,’ he says, softly. ‘I think you are a dangerous woman.’
I laugh. ‘Me? I could barely speak during dinner tonight. And I was so nervous, seeing you again.’
‘So maybe we are dangerous for each other.’
‘Is that bad?’ I ask, seriously.
He turns me around. ‘Now I have to kiss you.’
In the early hours we lie in his bed and talk.
I ask him about his past loves. He tells me he has been in love only twice. Once, when he was seventeen, to a girl who didn’t love him back and then again, when he was twenty-three, to an older woman who wanted more than he could give. It was the second one, the one he left, who broke his heart.
‘Do you think of her often?’
‘No. For a long time I had, how you say, regret? That is finished. I hope for her that she is happy.’ I turn onto my stomach and he strokes a hand down the length of my spine. ‘What about you, Ella? What are your love stories?’
I tell him about walking into Tim’s tutorial at nineteen and knowing that this was it, spending the next five years barely apart and then him walking out and my life changing irrevocably from one day to the next; but I find, lying there in the dark, that it doesn’t hurt to tell it; it’s like talking about something that happened to somebody else.
‘Is it over?’ he asks. ‘For you?’
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