A Thousand Tiny Truths

by Kyo Maclear

  Arnaud said, “Forget the roadblocks and tanks on the streets. The dog is good.”

  The next morning I was sitting with Dinh across from the hotel on the steps of the old French Opera House. It was one of the few places we were allowed to spend time without being supervised. I was showing him my photos when a voice came out of nowhere: “Hey, big guy.”

  I glanced around.

  “Up here,” said the voice.

  I looked up and saw the shoeshine boy with the red cap, seated on a window ledge, his skinny scabby legs dangling in the air. He jumped down and loped towards me. He was wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a tight shiny blue shirt. With a hard yank, he pulled his cap out of his back pocket and put it on, arranging it to his satisfaction.

  A few more boys walked up Tu Do, a gangle of legs, arms swinging with wooden shoeshine boxes. “Hey, Trang!” they yelled.

  I looked carefully but I didn’t notice Mr. Ten Cent among them.

  When I turned back to Trang, he was holding a watch up by its strap. It took me a moment to realize that it was my watch. The one Mr. Ten Cent had stolen.

  “Hey, where’d you get that?”

  “All this time, I wait for you.” Trang grinned, tossing me the watch.

  Trang stalked off to buy ice-pops from a boy in the square, then came back to join us. We sat there in silence, enjoying our frozen treats, watching the dark rippling shadows from a string of street pennants, triangles dancing happily on the sidewalk. The shade moved with the sun and we hoisted ourselves up a few stairs. When Trang finished his ice-pop, he lit a cigarette and offered it to Dinh, who refused. Then he passed it to me and I held it to my lips, taking a tentative puff. I felt the smoke clutch the back of my throat and started coughing. Trang leaned back on his elbows, watching while I took another puff. This time I pulled so hard I could hear the paper crackle.

  “You give me money, man. I promise, I get you both beaucoup girls,” Trang said, taking the cigarette back.

  Dinh pulled a face.

  “We don’t—want—girls,” I said, between coughs.

  Trang sighed a world-weary sigh. “You’re right, man. They only make me trouble.”

  A few minutes later, Trang stood up to leave. He shook Dinh’s hand and patted me on the shoulder. “Dinh. Marcel. You stay number one. Anytime, you let me know what you want. Okay?”

  We stared after him as he walked away. His body small and tense, ready to shoot across gaps in traffic and snap at the heels of rich foreigners. I guessed that Mr. Ten Cent had been overthrown. I hadn’t seen him around for a while. Now Trang’s turf stretched for a dozen blocks.

  Louis Armstrong was playing on the record player when we returned to the hotel room. Shiny trumpet sounds and a bouncy gravel voice. I walked across the room, stepped out on the balcony and looked at the apartment across the street where my clothes were strung up from one end to the other.

  Anh followed me outside a minute later. “I saw you, Macee,” she said. “I want you to stay away from those boys.”

  When I didn’t respond, she clucked her tongue. “You listen, okay? Those boys are like gangsters. That one you speak to is a cao boi!”

  I looked down at the square, finding it difficult to connect my image of Trang with the boy Anh was demonizing. He had saved my life. I could have been beaten far worse if he hadn’t stopped Mr. Ten Cent. Anh kept looking at me, waiting for me to dispel her worries, but there was nothing I could think to say that wouldn’t feel like a betrayal so I just stayed quiet.

  Anyway, she needn’t have bothered warning me away from Trang. It’s true that for a short while he adopted me. Anytime I was out in the neighbourhood, he popped out of thin air: catching up to me as I walked across the street, tapping the window pane when I sat down for a bowl of pho at the noodle house. But, then, not long after, Trang fell in with a group of GIs at the Brinks. They cropped the sleeves and legs off a GI uniform and he became their mascot, cadging cigarettes and soft drinks and issues of Soldier of Fortune. They taught him more English, including a bunch of new swear words. In return, he acted as their interpreter, even bargaining with prostitutes on their behalf. When the Brinks was vandalized with pro–Viet Cong graffiti, he translated the red spray-paint into English. Go back. American Pig Fucker. Long live Ho Chi Minh. Sometimes, Dinh and I saw him outside one of the nearby brothels, sitting in the doorway, slugging a bottle of Coca-Cola by himself while waiting for his new friends. He always took off his sunglasses and waved us over, but generally he had less and less time for us.

  A few days after Trang reappeared, Oliver was called in to see his Saigon editor. He came back a few hours later with a warning letter sticking out of his breast pocket like a silk handkerchief. The letter accused him of failing to follow house style. It said Novus was not the place for crusading journalism. It asked him to tone down the editorializing.

  I read the letter after he threw it away. Then, later that night, I overheard him talking about it with Joseph. Dinh was sleeping and I was reading in bed by flashlight when I heard their voices through the open bedroom door.

  “All I wrote was that, contrary to the official story, American pilots aren’t just cheering the South Vietnamese on from the passenger seat. Come on, Joseph. You know as well as I do that those aren’t just training planes they’re flying. They’re leading a full-scale air war against the Viet Cong.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, then you need to stick to the facts. You’re acquiring a reputation.”

  “Those are the facts. This air war is producing massive casualties.”

  “Then tell the story with numbers, Ollie. Stick to body counts and kill ratios.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Please, Joseph, don’t patronize me. You know better than that. This isn’t a fucking sports story.”

  “Listen to me. You are my friend. And I am your friend. And I can see that if you don’t put things in perspective, you’re either going to get fired or you’re going to crack up. More seriously, you are going to run out of money.”

  “But I’m furious. They’re blatantly lying.”

  There was a pause. Then a tapping sound.

  I waited, tracing the cracks in the ceiling with my flashlight.

  “How is Marcel?” Joseph asked, changing the subject. “How is your son?”

  Oliver gave a snort of annoyance.

  “Oliver—”

  “He’s fine,” he said, just as I turned off my flashlight. “Marcel is fine.”

  Oliver was put on probation for a week. During that time, the hotel suite became a storm of paper. It was like peering into the cage of a giant, disgruntled hamster. Only the hamster was Oliver unleashing his rage on a stack of international newspapers and magazines.

  He scratched out paragraphs and scrawled, WRONG. Over other sections, he wrote, IT WASN’T LIKE THIS and MISINFORMATION!!

  In the midst of the chaos, Dinh sat at the table, trying to focus on an illustrated bird book Arnaud had given him. From the way he gripped the cover, I could tell he was stressed out.

  Oliver looked at me and said, “My editor wants me to write something ‘breezy.’”

  “Oh.”

  “Something people can read with the missus over marmalade. He says you can’t ask people to read about the war every day and keep it as their peak topic of interest.”

  I nodded sympathetically, neutrally, trying my best not to provoke him in any way.

  The next day, Oliver took me to the Municipal Theatre to see the Miss Vietnam beauty pageant. After months of being with the press gang, it was strange suddenly to be in a room full of people who had spent so much time on personal grooming. It was an entirely different planet, scented with hairspray and flowers, populated by glamorous women with bare shoulders, firm bellies and skimpy bikinis. The contestants had come from across the country. As the initial group was narrowed down to ten final contestants, Oliver stayed in his back-row seat, folding his program into smaller and smaller squares. His notepad remained clo
sed the entire time. At one point I looked over and saw his eyes closed. He had fallen asleep. His one ounce of effort involved directing a freelance cameraman to snap the newly crowned beauty pageant winners: Miss Vietnam World, Miss Vietnam Earth and Miss Vietnam Universe.

  “Those were very beautiful women,” I said as we walked back to the hotel.

  “Perfect,” he replied. “Faultless.”

  Noting the edge in Oliver’s voice, I took a risk and said, “But I prefer Pippa’s kind of beauty, don’t you?”

  He peered at me over his glasses but didn’t respond.

  When we returned to the suite, he took one of the oranges from the pile stacked on Anh’s makeshift Buddhist altar and sat down at his desk. He punctured the top of the orange with his thumb, releasing a tangy spray, and proceeded to dig the fruit out from its skin.

  When he was finished with the orange, he wiped his fingers on a handkerchief and began typing the story up. In less than an hour, it was done.

  The beauty pageant story won Oliver another chance. The next day he received a cable from his London office with news that he had been given a cover spot: OLIVER BEAUTY STORY OUT DAYER TWO STOP CHEERFUL FRONTER STOP LONDON SENDS SALAAMS EVERYBODY.

  So casual, sly, random—the war (I knew) had a way of hiding. It hid across the river, in the mountains, over the hills, in the jungles, paddies and swamps. The war disguised itself as a distant thunderstorm and tinkling glass and falling stars. But, five months had passed since I arrived and some aspects could no longer be disguised. Now that convoys of trucks were passing more frequently along the main streets, Anh spent much of her day sweeping and cleaning. She tried keeping the windows closed but it was too stuffy; and even with the shutters latched, fine dust worked its way in somehow. It snuck in through the seams of the windows, through cracks and under the doors. The war touched everything.

  Anh bought Vietnamese cleanser and detergents. She covered the counters with cloth at night, she threw wet towels on the floor to mop up. When she lifted the towels they were dark and greasy. She cleaned the glass windows with vinegar and newspaper. Whenever Dinh and I returned to the suite, she pointed at our shoes and trousers so we would remember not to tramp anything inside. “House rule,” she said, borrowing Oliver’s words. The sinks were full of twisted clumps of rags that had been left to dry overnight.

  The clothes I had brought to Saigon were either dingy or unsuited for the sweltering summer heat, so Anh asked Oliver for money to buy a few new shirts for me. We were surprised when he said no, that we didn’t have enough. He muttered some reassurance about more deadlines and pay cheques, but I saw the look of worry spreading across Anh’s face. Were we running out of money?

  Arnaud continued to visit regularly. The best times were when Oliver was away and Arnaud managed to get Anh to take a rest from her work. Arnaud knew how to tease Anh and make her laugh. One Sunday afternoon he made a list titled All the Things We Owe to Dust and read it aloud: Without dust there would be no blue sky. There would be no pretty sunset or sunrise. Most of the loveliness we take for granted would disappear without dust. There would be no soft hues. We would have intense, unbearable contrasts!

  When he was finished reading, he shifted Anh’s chair around so she had a view of the sunlight coming through the window. The afternoon sun had become her worst enemy, an unforgiving spotlight on the world of missed debris. Anh watched the gentle swirl of particles swimming in the beam of light. The dust floating high in the air, thousands of sparkling dancing bits. It drifted like weightless snow, floating but never quite falling.

  “What do you think?”

  She brightened and smiled. “Em yeu anh. There is no one like you in the world.”

  He stood up and walked behind her. With a gentle twist, he lifted her hair exposing the nape of her neck, and then trailed a finger across her skin.

  It was on one of these Oliver-less evenings that Dinh surprised us. Arnaud had been away for a week and when he returned, Dinh rushed to meet him at the door. Following his usual custom, Arnaud had brought fresh flowers to replace the browning ones on the table and pastries from Givral’s. He handed the flowers to Anh, then opened the white cardboard box to show Dinh the treats he had chosen—four plump cherry-topped rum babas.

  Normally, this might have prompted clapping or a grin from Dinh, but this time when he peeked inside, he released an unsuppressed “Toi nho ban lam!”

  Everyone looked at him, astonished. Then Arnaud let out a big laugh and said, “I missed you too.”

  At first I was very excited. I imagined long heart-to-hearts, late nights spent swapping stories. I was certain that my friendship with Dinh was about to enter a new phase of openness. But it soon became clear that Dinh had selective rules about where and when he would speak—namely at the dining table and only in the presence of Arnaud. While I understood bits and pieces, my Vietnamese wasn’t good enough to participate. Dinh had opinions and jokes I couldn’t hope to understand.

  “What’s he saying, Arnaud? What is a khach san?”

  “Hotel.”

  “What’s he saying about the hotel?”

  “He wants to know if he will always live here.”

  I tried to hide my frustration as they translated jokes and their punchlines. I had thought I’d overcome any jealousy of Dinh, but a new tide of envy rose inside me. While everyone else celebrated the miracle of Dinh’s reclaimed voice, deep down I just wished for the company of his silence again.

  After lunch one day, while Arnaud, Anh and Dinh were looking through Anh’s family album, I excused myself and went outside. I was sitting on the hotel steps finishing a contour drawing when the ground began to shudder. A squadron of American planes flew low over Saigon, tipped their wings and vanished behind the clouds. I was so startled, I thought at first the hotel had been bombed. The windows rattled as if they might break. Looking around I saw everything around me—awnings, laundry and newspapers—rustling and flapping in the whirlwind. Over at Samedi’s bookshop, Sammy was lifting up a sidewalk sign that had toppled over. He seemed irritated. What were the planes carrying? Where were they going? But when he saw me, he waved me over.

  “There is something that arrived today,” he said once I had crossed the street and he had tucked the sign safely inside his shop entrance. “Wait here.”

  A minute later, he returned with a comic book.

  “It’s my gift today. Your favourite, Peanuts.”

  “Wow, Sammy. Thank you,” I said, tracing my hand across the cover.

  “I know you’ve been collecting them.”

  I nodded and opened it to the first page. “Do you know why I like this comic so much, Sammy? Why it’s better than Tarzan or Dick Tracy or Li’l Abner? I’ll show you. It’s so simple but look here. See? It’s the line. Charlie Brown just has two dot eyes and a squiggle for a mouth, but when his stomach hurts, you know exactly what’s going on.”

  Back on the hotel steps, I held the comic delicately on my lap, and read it straight through—first admiring the drawings, then reading the words. Each frame was genius! Charlie Brown and his kite. Linus and Snoopy fighting over a blanket. Charlie Brown losing a baseball game, getting insulted by his friends. Lucy and Schroeder at the piano. A *sigh* stood for a lot in Peanuts.

  There was a place inside those Peanuts drawings. The scenery was always empty or half-filled. You never saw a whole house, just one end. I remember there were mornings that I would wake up and feel as though I had slept in those fields. It might be that the sky was greyer than I wanted it to be, or that the voices of the adults I knew felt more squashed and unreal than usual. The emotion was in the same region. Spare pen lines. A fizzle of feeling. When Charlie Brown confided, “You don’t know what it’s like to be a barber’s son,” he was speaking for me.

  Dinh and I woke early the next morning to enjoy the air in the hotel courtyard before it became too hot and humid. The neighbourhood birds were singing and flying in and out of the open wicker cages. I sat down to sketch whil
e Dinh crawled around, communing with the world of insects, lowering his head to the rasp of a beetle moving along stone, the criss-cross of ants searching for tiny scatterings of food.

  I noticed that someone had left a thick tourism booklet on the table. The cover said: Beautiful Vietnam: Experience Its Charms. It was filled with flatly coloured images of the country, which left a ghostly dust of dye on my fingers as I turned the pages and carried on a pretend conversation with myself.

  “I’d like to go to Vung Tau . . . Sorry, sir, the beaches are clogged with landing craft . . . Well, then, how about a ferry cruise along the Mekong River? . . . No, that would be quite impossible, sir. The boats have stopped on account of bombs.”

  I was mid-dialogue when our neighbour David passed by on his way from the hotel kitchen.

  “You’re up early,” I said. “Where are you heading?”

  “A bunch of us had a tip last night that something was going to happen this morning at Xa Loi Pagoda in District 3,” he said. Then he winked. “I seem to be the only one who took any notice.”

  I glanced over at Dinh, who had lost interest in the cricket he had caught and was now creeping towards a small grey cat he had spotted crouching in a shady corner. Something caught the cat’s attention. Its ears perked forward, twitched. Off it ran. Dinh shot me a look, I’m going now. Then he followed the cat through the lobby, opened the door and started walking.

  Though we weren’t supposed to wander off, when Dinh left the building, I followed.

  On Tu Do we watched David slip into the back seat of a taxi and tell the driver to hurry: “District 3 . . .” The taxi rattled off, releasing a cloud of black exhaust.

  Dinh started walking again. I waved at the General, who had been observing us closely from a few yards away.

  It started off as a game. I walked behind Dinh, stepping where he stepped, the way a soldier walked. If he wasn’t blown up, then I’d be safe. I crept in and out of doorways ducking imaginary sniper fire. I pretended the pedestrians we saw were guerillas from the north.