The Red Lotus

by Chris Bohjalian

  “Because she had a broken heart?”

  “Because everyone has had a broken heart.”

  “I’m sorry I missed them.”

  “You should come back next year. It’s our national flower.”

  “The red lotus?”

  He nodded.

  “I should come back,” she agreed, but he was smart: he probably knew she was only being polite. He bowed ever so slightly and returned to the kitchen inside the mansion.

  For two months, once she had started to settle into a schedule at the hospital in Manhattan, she’d tried yoga. There were classes at the gym. She could handle it physically, but not mentally. She’d sit in the lotus position, her legs crossed and her heels on her upper thighs, her spine straight, and she was incapable of clearing her head. She finally accepted the reality that she was not hardwired for meditation. If she was connected to the earth like a lotus—a soul climbing from silt to sky through the water—she was never going to be the sort to reach heaven or find peace through quiescence. For better or worse, she was clearly her mother’s daughter in this regard.

  She looked at her phone and calculated what time it was in New York City. She understood that Captain Nguyen and his team were investigating Austin’s disappearance here in Vietnam, but she wondered what was occurring back in America. Someone had reached out to Austin’s parents. But what else? Who else? His supervisor at work? Yes, she thought, definitely his boss. Her name was Sally Gleason and Alexis had met her two times, both brief. The first was when Austin had introduced her when the three of them—Austin, Sally, and herself—had all been in the hospital cafeteria at the same moment. The second was at a summer fund-raiser for the hospital at a rooftop bar overlooking the East River. If it weren’t so late at night on the East Coast, she’d see if she could find her number and call her. She presumed that Austin had lied to her, too.

  She speculated that even the very first time she had met Austin, that Saturday night in the ER, their meeting had been built around a lie. Perhaps he hadn’t been shot by a junkie in a bar.

  But hadn’t the police investigated the crime? Of course they had. There had been witnesses. Still, this trip was grounded on a fabrication, and his family history was a fiction, and who knew what else was smoke and mirrors. No wonder he wanted nothing to do with the social networks.

  An idea came to her. Austin wasn’t on Facebook, but his boss, Sally, likely was. She went to the app for the social network on her phone and found Sally right away and sent her a friend request. She did the same thing on Twitter and LinkedIn. She didn’t know if she’d ever hear back from the woman and, if so, when, but Alexis wanted to know what stories, if any, he had shared about his family and their history here in Vietnam. She was curious what the people at the hospital knew about him.

  She poured herself a cup of tea and sipped it as she ate the cookies. Yesterday there had been moments when she had envisioned Austin in an emergency room somewhere in Vietnam and had pictured a young doctor like her tending to him. She had seen the scrubs and the gloves and the stethoscopes that dangled like necklaces. She had seen him conscious and unconscious. She had seen nurses taking his blood pressure and physicians using trauma shears to cut off his jersey and bike shorts. But today? The tableaus were different, both because he hadn’t turned up in a hospital and because he had morphed into a human cipher.

  She scrolled aimlessly through news stories and apps on her phone and saw, much to her surprise, that Sally Gleason already had accepted her friend request on Facebook. The woman was awake. And so she typed her a message:

  As you know, Austin and I are in Vietnam. I see you’re still up. May I call you?

  Within seconds, Sally said sure and provided her phone number. And so Alexis took a deep breath and rang her, despite the fact that it was nearly ten thirty at night on the East Coast. It dawned on her as she pressed in the digits that she had no idea where the woman lived. It was a Westchester area code, but in an era of cell phones, that meant nothing. Sally was in her midforties, and Alexis knew she was married. She guessed the executive had children, but she hadn’t mentioned them in their brief encounters that day in the cafeteria or at the fund-raiser.

  “Sally Gleason,” the woman said formally.

  “Wow,” Alexis said, smiling slightly to herself. “Pretty formal for this time of night, especially since you knew it was going to be me.”

  “A reflex. It’s how I answer the phone.”

  “Is now really an okay time to talk?”

  “It is. My husband’s asleep and the kids are asleep. Just me. I was on my iPad when you sent that friend request. All good.”

  “How old are your kids?” Alexis asked.

  “Is that really why you called? Seriously?”

  “No. I was just…”

  “You were just being polite, I get it. That’s sweet. Olivia is eight and Freddie is five. Look, I know Austin is missing.”

  Alexis watched two swallows playing along the surface of the pool and wondered if it was the same pair as yesterday. They were just so happy. She couldn’t decide whether they were flirting—there was something lubricious about the pursuit—or whether it was a more innocent, avian version of tag. But it didn’t matter. They just looked like they were having so much fun. “The police called you?” she asked.

  “Called me? Hell, no. They came to my office at the hospital. In person. And it wasn’t the police. It was two FBI agents in dark jackets and boring neckties. ‘International police cooperation,’ they called it. Both were male, both straight out of central casting. They showed up around five fifteen, when I was trying to get out the door. They wanted to know what Austin does here and whether he was seeing someone for work in Vietnam. They wanted to know about you.”

  “Me?”

  “You work here, too. At the hospital. Who knows? Maybe they spoke to people in the ER when they were done with me.”

  “No one I work with called me.”

  Even over the phone, she could hear the woman sigh. “They only left my office four and a half hours ago. So, for all I know, they only left the ER three and a half hours ago. If they even went there. And it’s Thursday night—the start of the weekend for the serious partyers in our neighborhood. We both know what sort of chaos your friends might be dealing with. Maybe they were swamped at the end of the day. And maybe they’re worried about you and saw no reason to add more crap to whatever you’re dealing with. That would be kind of like piling on.”

  “I guess. But the FBI can’t possibly think I had something to do with his disappearance. Certainly, the police here don’t. Austin went off alone. He didn’t even have one of the bike tour leaders with him.”

  “I have no idea what the FBI thinks, or whether they suspect you were involved with something, I don’t know, unsavory. Until you told me that he went off by himself, all I knew was that he was missing. I think they were just doing the Vietnamese police a solid: helping out at the request of the FBI attaché in that corner of the world. Austin is, after all, an American citizen and he’s disappeared.”

  Alexis closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She explained to Sally what had happened, filling in the blanks for her, and then got to the point of her call. “Austin claimed he was on this pilgrimage. That’s why we came here. But I think he was lying,” she said, and then she told the woman what he had told her about his family and what she knew now was the truth. “And so he brought me here…he brought me here kind of under false pretenses. He was lying. Did he ever talk to you about his family and why we went on this bike tour?” she asked when she was done.

  “He told me the same fairy tale he told you. His dad and his uncle were both war heroes.”

  “Well, his uncle might have been. But nowhere near here.”

  “Right.”

  “And Austin definitely wasn’t seeing some big donor?” she asked Sall
y.

  “Yeah, our hospital has an extensive collection of high-roller philanthropists eleven or twelve time zones away. We depend upon big givers in communist Vietnam because they view us as an integral part of their estate planning,” the woman replied, the sarcasm deep and rich.

  Alexis felt a gust of wind and watched the thinner branches on an ancient tamarind, gnarled and skeletal, bow in the breeze. “So, you have no clue why he was really here,” Alexis said.

  “None. I mean, maybe he was up to no good. But we don’t know that. Maybe he just had—excuse me, has, let’s go with has—this one weird quirk: he lies about his father because he’s ashamed of him, but he didn’t have a nefarious reason for going to Vietnam.”

  “Did he ever lie about anything else? Did he ever get in trouble for anything?”

  “At the hospital? No.”

  “Outside the hospital?”

  “Not that I know of,” Sally answered.

  “I’ve been moving between devastation and confusion a lot the last few hours. I mean, I was a mess last night. A disaster. I wasn’t great this morning. And then, when I learned he had lied to me—and what a strange and needless lie it was—I was baffled and hurt. I mean, why did we come here?”

  “Maybe he’ll tell you himself. Today. Tonight. When he turns up.”

  “You think there’s hope?”

  “Of course I do. There’s nothing that would give me greater pleasure than to see him back in his office next week, having to listen to me give him grief for worrying the shit out of all of us, and for telling tall tales about his family.”

  Alexis nodded as if they were in the same room together. “Yeah. I like that idea. I like that image.”

  “Keep sending good vibes out there, Alexis. It can’t hurt.”

  “I will,” she said, and then they said good-bye and hung up. She suspected that Sally Gleason felt some of the shock she herself was experiencing—as well as the puzzlement—but none of the despair. This was, perhaps, the difference between two people whose relationship revolved around work and two people who, she realized, might once have been in love.

  * * *

  . . .

  A few minutes later, her friend Ellie texted her, asking if there was any news. Alexis texted back that there wasn’t. And so Ellie said she was still awake and asked if now was a good time to call. Instead of texting that it was fine, Alexis called her and brought her up to speed on what was occurring. After a moment Ellie observed, her tone hesitant, “Okay, let’s suppose Austin does have a secret. Maybe it has something to do with his first visit to Vietnam.”

  “Such as?” Alexis asked.

  “Maybe he met someone.”

  Instantly she understood what Ellie was suggesting. “I would use the word mistress,” Alexis said, “but we’re not married. Still, I hear what you’re saying.”

  “I’m not sure you do. Maybe it was like a fling last year and he was just seeing her again for old time’s sake. Maybe it’s not even sexual now.”

  “And he wouldn’t tell me? He wouldn’t tell anyone?”

  “Possible. Maybe he has a baby. A love child. Maybe there’s some cute little infant he wants to meet.”

  She thought about this. “As far as explanations go, that one’s better than a lot of possibilities.”

  “I mean, it’s a reach.”

  “But not an absurd one. I’m going to share the idea with the police or the FBI here,” she said. Then she thanked Ellie for checking in, and reminded her that she had animals to see in a couple of hours and should probably get some sleep.

  * * *

  . . .

  The fact that she could do nothing and there was nothing to do was toxic, and so Alexis popped a Xanax and lay down on the bed in her room, hoping she might fall asleep until the other bicyclists returned. Scott had checked in on her at the pool, solicitous and kind as an uncle, but there really wasn’t anything that he or the bike tour company could do, either.

  And she did doze, but it was fitful, and she wasn’t rested when she was pulled from a shallow sleep by the sounds of car doors slamming. By the time she went to the window, she saw a Vietnamese police car parked in the roundabout, but its occupants were already out of sight and, she presumed, entering the hotel’s portico. She hoped they were bringing news that Austin had turned up in a hospital, hurt but with injuries from which he would quickly recover, but she feared they were bringing news that was far more dire. She ran her fingers through her hair and, as she started for the door, picked up her phone. She saw she had missed a call and didn’t recognize the number. But she had a hunch and compared it to the direct dial number on the business card that Toril Bjornstad had given her, and sure enough it was a match. The voice mail was short and businesslike: the FBI attaché wanted Alexis to call her back.

  She heard someone walking down the corridor to her room, and a moment later there was a knock on her door. As she expected, it was the day manager, a genial host, his shirt no match for a stomach that pillowed over his belt like a water balloon. “So sorry to bother you. Are you awake, Ms. Remnick?” he asked through the wood.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said. She didn’t open the door. She was dressed but couldn’t bring herself to face him. To face them. Not yet. In her head, she heard her mother’s voice, judgmental and harsh: Why didn’t he call you Doctor? And she heard her response, at once placating and exasperated. Because he didn’t know. He isn’t clairvoyant.

  “The police have returned. Can you come downstairs?” he asked.

  “I can,” she replied. “I’ll be right there.”

  Should she call back Toril first? Or should she let the captain tell her…whatever?

  “Very good,” he said, and she listened to him retreating down the hallway and then pounding his way down the stairs.

  She decided she would ring Toril. If it was the worst news? She would rather hear it alone in this room, not downstairs with the officers from the CSCD. And so she sat down on the side of the bed on which she had been dozing and called the woman. When she got the agent’s voice mail, she hung up and rang the consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. There a duty officer, a fellow with a deep, officious baritone for a voice, said Toril was unavailable.

  “I’m returning her call,” Alexis said. “It’s important. I believe she has news about my boyfriend. An American named Austin Harper.”

  “I understand. The ambassador is down from Hanoi, and she’s in with him. But I don’t think it will be much longer.”

  Alexis sighed. “All right. Thank you. Just tell her I called back.” And then she bent over and pulled on her sandals. She stood and considered brushing her hair, but saw no reason to bother. She could cope; she would cope. But it seemed frivolous to brush her hair. And if the news was the worst it could be? Her hair probably should be a mess. Oh, she wouldn’t be a widow; far from it. She wasn’t even sure what she thought this afternoon of the man who just last night she had thought that she loved. But she was definitely the girlfriend of a man who was, she feared—and another term came to her from the ER—unfixable. Beyond repair. One of the doubtfuls. Her hair probably should be a mess given the reality of what she was about to learn.

  And so she opened her door and started down the hallway and then down the stairs. And there they were in the lobby, not even in the library. Captain Nguyen and Officer Vu of the CSCD. They were standing near the small, black marble obelisk where the guests checked in and checked out—there was a computer screen built into it at the top of one of its steep sides—chatting aimlessly with the day manager. Nguyen saw her and stood up a little straighter, his hands clasped behind his back. He bowed his chin, a nod of greeting, and when he raised his head their eyes met and an understanding flashed between them. The news was bad. That was clear.

  “Captain,” she said.

  “Dr. Remnick.”

  “You
’ve found him?”

  He surprised her by shaking his head, but when he spoke she understood that really there had been no stay of execution at all. This was just a brief, flickering pause in the pain.

  “We don’t know,” he explained, “but we may have. We are hoping you can—and I am very sorry to ask this of you—identify a body.”

  The news left her more weak-kneed than she expected, and she leaned her hips into the side of the obelisk. She doubted anyone had noticed. At least she hoped they hadn’t. The day manager already was retreating, scurrying toward the kitchen and, Alexis presumed, the safety of hospitality: no doubt, he was going to return with afternoon fruit and tea for them.

  “Yes, certainly,” she said. “Where was he found?”

  “We don’t know for sure it is him.”

  “But it’s a male. And I’m going to wager it’s a male in bike shorts and the cycling jersey I described for you yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry to say that’s all correct.”

  “Any identification?”

  “More or less.”

  “More or less? What does that mean?”

  “We haven’t found his cell phone, but we have found his wallet.”

  “So it is him.”

  “It’s likely him. The wallet was about fifteen meters from the body. The pockets in the bicycling jersey were empty.”

  “Anything in the bike bag? The touring company gives us these lunchbox-like things that sit on the backs of our bikes.”

  He shook his head. “There wasn’t one on the bike. How are they attached?”

  “Velcro straps to a bar above the wheel.”

  “I’m guessing it was thrown from the bike. We’ll go back and see if we can find it.”

  The younger officer wrote this down, concentrating so intently on his pad that she had a feeling he was relieved he had an excuse not to make eye contact with her. Did she look stricken?