by David Joiner
If she insisted on thinking of this moment as an obligation then he wanted to know what she thought she owed him. But her mouth on his prevented him from asking. Given her repeated emphasis that this was a practical arrangement, her passion surprised him.
She climbed onto him, rubbing his chest with her hands. His eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and she was visible now on top of him. In the dresser mirror behind her, he saw that in passion, too, her grace didn't fail. She straddled him, and the slow, undulant motion of her body as she rocked back and forth was like something blown by the wind, or buffeted from behind by waves.
With her hand she guided him into her, and his thoughts, which so often clashed when they were together, evanesced.
At one point his hand brushed the pillow. It was wet, but not from anything they'd been doing. The worry that she'd been crying interrupted his pleasure. But it wasn't worth asking about now; sadness had no place in this moment.
After trading her parking ticket for her Future, she asked Nathan to drive.
"Tired of being in control?"
"I'm just tired," she said.
On the way home he remembered the damp pillow.
"Were you crying in the nhà nghỉ?" he said over his shoulder.
But she either didn't hear him, or, as was typically her way, didn't want to answer. Fearing some unpleasant truth, or worse, that he'd forfeit the intimacy they finally found, he didn't ask again. For why should he? If she wanted him to know anything, he was confident she'd tell him. Even stranger than her silence, however, was that she didn't touch him on the ride home. Perhaps what they'd shared distracted her. It made things more complicated for her, and he was happy for that.
At the next red light he leaned back into her. "I almost forgot you were there." In his handlebar mirror he saw her smile unevenly.
She pointed ahead of them. "It turned green."
He twisted the throttle and moved through the intersection. "Where are we going?"
"My gallery. When we get there, I have something from the consulate I need you to explain. They gave it to me after my interview."
Rather than mope over this reminder of their predictable, prearranged script, he took a longer way than necessary and drove slowly. For despite his misgivings, what had happened tonight meant progress and he was too happy to let anything spoil the rest of his night.
Eight
The scene through the long gallery window was itself like a painting of expatriate extravagance. Nathan walked inside only to find he knew no one.
If he hadn't been held up at the magazine office, editing several pieces they were in a rush to publish, he'd have returned home to change into what Anthony called his "missionary ensemble": white shirt, navy tie and slacks, and black shoes. They were the only decent clothes he owned. Tonight he should have known better than to show up wearing faded jeans and a striped oxford with coffee stains on the sleeves.
For the first time since he'd met Le, three days had passed without his seeing her. He'd thought nothing of it the first day, when she said an old girlfriend wanted to spend the evening with her. He'd thought nothing of it the second day, either, when she claimed that being out late the night before had left her too tired to see him after work. But on the third day he suspected something was wrong, and assumed that their tryst at the nhà nghỉ two weeks ago was behind the distance she'd put between them. All they'd done since then was study English at Bac-Nam and share a few quick, quiet meals.
The last three days, however, worried him. She didn't answer his calls or respond to the messages he sent. He messaged her in the morning that he'd visit her at work, but when he arrived she wasn't there. Thao, who was filling in for her again, knew nothing of her whereabouts. As he was leaving she remembered to give him two invitations for the evening's gallery opening. "Le asked me to give these to you," she said.
Around him, suits and dresses sparkled in the intense gallery light. People's conversations about business, their high-end serviced apartments, and the coastal resorts they flew to on weekends, excluded him. Who were these people, he asked himself, and why had they been invited here? The guests milling about were all part of the same faceless animal. Without each other, they'd be nothing. His smile faded as he told himself: No, Nathan, without each other they'd be just like you.
He lingered by the entrance, looking anxiously through the crowd. The awkwardness of standing by himself compelled him to send Le a message: I'm at gallery. Where are you?
A Vietnamese woman in a short red dress was circling around with fluted champagne glasses. When she passed Nathan, he lifted two from her tray.
A jeweled hand fell on his arm. The hand belonged to another Vietnamese woman in a black crepe dress. "Do you have an invitation?" she said.
Nathan set both glasses down and reached into his pocket. He removed his invitation, unfolded it, and showed it to her. "I'm with the owner of Bac-Nam Gallery."
The woman looked at him in surprise. "Are you the writer?"
"I guess so. Unless she's seeing more than one writer."
The woman smiled uncomprehendingly.
"Yes, I'm him," he explained in Vietnamese. "I'm afraid I didn't have time to go home and change into something better."
"You speak Vietnamese?" she asked, blinking rapidly.
"Only inasmuch as you understand me."
"I understand. I heard that you spoke Vietnamese, but I can't believe you speak it so well."
He picked up the champagne glasses he'd set down a moment earlier. "Anyway, sorry I'm underdressed."
"It doesn't matter." Her attitude toward him had warmed considerably upon hearing him speak Vietnamese. "Where's Le?"
"I don't know."
"She's just being fashionable, I suppose." She glanced at the thin black watch on her wrist. Just below her elbow was a vague tan line, as of someone who wore long gloves to protect their skin from browning. Her eyes moved to the glasses he was holding.
"One's for Le," he said. He realized then that he'd already drunk from both.
"When Le gets here, tell her to find me." She squeezed his arm and held it.
"What's your name?"
She pointed to a name on the invitation she'd collected. "Thanh," she said. "That's me. And this is my gallery. Stop by any time."
"Thank you."
She hesitated before leaving. "Do you like talking to me?"
"Of course." She seemed to expect him to say more, but he had no idea what to add.
"It's just that it's nice to speak with a foreigner in Vietnamese for a change." She squeezed his arm again. "I'd like to talk to you more. What will you do when Le leaves for America? Will you be here by yourself?"
"Her leaving isn't exactly a given."
She looked at him oddly, as if his comment had sprung from neither Vietnamese nor English and defied explanation. "Come by sometime. I'm almost always here . . ." She let go of him and stepped back into the party.
He drifted around the perimeter of the crowd, taking in the paintings. They were mostly oils in muted colors, of women in cream áo dài's under butter-yellow trees, and water buffaloes pieced together from varicolored shapes. He wandered into an alcove and found on each of the walls a nude painted in a completely different style.
The morning before he and Le had slept together, she'd shown him a self-portrait she had recently finished. Like the one he came across in Hanoi, she was nude, floating on the air, with city ruins, smoke, and fire marking the background imagery. The grotesqueness of the neck, the unnatural distance between the head and shoulders, had detracted from the erotic impression the painting might otherwise have given. But because he'd seen that body, had felt its warm flesh with his own fingers, it had transformed into something more than just an image: it had been both memory and wish.
Footfalls of hard leather shoes sounded behind him. Expecting whoeve
r had entered the alcove to be a stranger, he continued to look upon the paintings.
"I'll be damned. Nathan?"
Nathan turned and saw Andrew. In a dark grey suit and tie, he teetered where he stood, and the wine he held sloshed dangerously close to the rim of the glass. "Andrew," he said, startled. "We have to stop bumping into each other like this."
"Rather than avoid each other, maybe we should spend time catching up."
Nathan was alert to the sarcasm in Andrew's voice.
Andrew and Anthony had known each other since before Nathan arrived in Vietnam, but their friendship had always been spotty. Anthony used to say that Andrew tried too hard with him, as if he had a crush, but it seemed to Nathan that he'd calmed down since entering the diplomatic corps.
"I didn't know you were the gallery type," Nathan said.
Andrew hastily surveyed the room's paintings. "All this is shit," he said, waving dismissively at the walls. The movement threw him off-balance and Nathan reached out to steady him. "I'm here to network. A few people need buttering up; otherwise I'd be at the Park Hyatt test-smoking their Cubans." He narrowed his eyes faintly and tapped his wine-stained teeth with a finger. "What are you doing here? Hanging out by yourself like this is antisocial, isn't it?"
"I was just looking around."
Gulping his wine, Andrew peered at Nathan. "I spoke to Anthony after I saw you at the consulate. He said you left him high and dry. Committed to him and then backed out without explanation. And after he'd informed the other candidates that he'd chosen you."
Nathan cleared his throat, but it didn't help loosen an explanation for the problems he knew he'd caused Anthony.
"Sorry to put it so harshly," Andrew said, chuckling into his glass, "but it's probably not news to you anyway. I'm sure you knew what you were doing to Anthony and his business."
"I didn't know you and Anthony were such good friends anymore."
"We're normal friends." He glanced at a painting and, in what struck Nathan as an artificially casual tone said: "Anthony has enemies, sure, but he must have done something heinous to you to make you screw him like that."
Nathan had no idea how his action had affected Anthony's company. Until now, he'd been able not to think about it.
"It's complicated," was all he could say. "It was complicated to begin with, and it got more complicated after I met someone."
"Met someone? Oh, yes. I remember now, very clearly in fact. Her name was Le."
"That's right."
"I saw her after her interview."
"And?" The word came out too quickly.
Andrew's lips lifted over his teeth in a hideous smile. "And it's funny," he said. "I used to know a girl named Le. She looked a lot like your girlfriend, and in fact their similarities would take your breath away. Of course, pink hair makes yours more exciting."
His speech became particularly slurred saying this — and goading — and Nathan didn't reply.
"I see you don't believe me. But if I introduced you to the Le I once knew, I wonder if you'd see the resemblance."
Nathan looked into the gallery to see if Le had arrived. He didn't want her subjected to Andrew's drunken, uninhibited scrutiny. When Andrew saw him looking toward the party, he lurched sideways to block his view.
"Does she know what you did to Anthony?"
"I didn't do anything to Anthony," Nathan snapped.
Andrew snorted and took another drink. "He's in pretty bad shape, did you know? He had to step away from his company for two weeks — doctor's orders. Did you know about that?"
"No."
"Naturally a few deals were blown while he was gone. Five of his staff absconded with some contracts he'd nearly finalized, then quit and started their own agency. He lost a lot of money from that, and now his office is short-staffed. Did you know about that?"
"No, I didn't. But those things aren't a direct result of anything I did."
"Or didn't do," Andrew put in. "Accepting blame is never convenient, is it?"
"You can stop with the lecture. I formed my own opinions a long time ago."
"That's nice." He gulped again at his wine. "Anyway, he's a better person now than when he lived here. Of course he drinks too much, but in this country who doesn't?" As if to prove this, he raised his glass and drained the last inch of dark liquid.
Nathan didn't say anything. He wanted to end the conversation and get away: people had gathered nearby and it would be awkward if they overheard. Andrew seemed to pick up on this and, to Nathan's surprise, relented.
"The least you could do is e-mail him. It'd do him good to hear from you."
"I'll do that."
Andrew let out a disbelieving laugh. "You owe him a lot of money, don't you?"
"He loaned me some a while back, but I'm on top of it."
"Anthony didn't say how much it was. But for him to bring it up must mean it's a sizeable sum." He paused, as if hoping Nathan would divulge the amount. "By the way, where's that girl you're seeing?"
"She's not here yet."
"I hope it's not because of anything I did."
The comment set Nathan on edge. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," he said. "Make sure to introduce us when she comes. I'm sure I'll have a lot to talk to her about. Women like to meet people with a connection to their boyfriend's past." He grinned sloppily. "Do you think the opposite's true, too?"
"Your glass is empty. Don't you need to refill it?"
He dropped his gaze to the glass in his hand. "Ah, how'd it get like that? A good observation on your part. But back to the girl: I almost thought she went celebrating without you."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how the visa god came through for her, of course. I hope you congratulated her, bought her flowers or something. Do you intend to marry her now, or will you let her slip away?"
Nathan shivered violently.
"Mind you, just because she's had her visa approved doesn't mean it's been issued. Or that it will be issued."
"What do you mean?"
"After her interview, I took it upon myself to review her file. Granted it's a little late, but when I went over her application I noticed a discrepancy between her support documents and what she said in her interviews. I can't help wonder if she lied about her uncle in the U.S."
"What sort of discrepancy?"
"That I can't say. But has she said or done anything that aroused your suspicions?"
Nathan was paralyzed by a dark, alien feeling. He was in a position, after she'd hurt him, to hurt her back. With or without knowing it, Andrew was offering him a chance to destroy Le's dream.
If he were to speak, he couldn't be sure of what he'd say. Rather than say anything, he slowly shook his head.
"Right." Andrew's voice was filled with contempt. "Anyway, as far as you're concerned, I suppose there's more where she came from. Perhaps I'll go mingle with some of them now." He turned to the doorway. Halfway out the room, he stopped. "Always a pleasure talking to you. Be sure to wave goodbye when you leave." He glanced at his watch. "I expect that will be fairly soon . . ." Saluting with his empty glass, he stumbled back to the party.
Stunned by the news about Le's visa, Nathan stood there watching the guests. After the difficulties of the last several days it was hard not to let suspicion get the better of him. He was in the habit of trusting Le, perhaps because he was desperate for her to be honest with him. But at the same time he felt she'd hammered him with lies — or had hidden from him those truths on which his happiness with her depended. Never before had he felt this way, and he began to blame her for it, and resent her, for she knew this would hurt him — she must have known, if she'd thought about it even for a moment.
He forced himself through the crowd and slipped out to the street.
Little girls in loose, dirty
clothes wandered around the sidewalk selling roses. One caught his eye and skipped up to him. "You buy one for wife," she said, smacking his arm with a flower wrapped in plastic. "I sell you cheap."
Another girl ran up with a bucket of roses on her hip. "Hello, Joe. You buy rose?"
"Not tonight."
A third girl ran up. With her arrival, they stopped pushing their roses on him and began chatting with each other. He overheard one of them ask if the rich people in the gallery were leaving.
The parking attendant had rolled Nathan's motorbike into the street. As Nathan climbed onto his Dream, a street sweeper hit his leg with her broom and continued toward her orange trash cart. An old oil lamp hung from the cart and burned weakly. Nathan stared at it, half-expecting it to go out. But it clung to whatever force kept it alive, even in the battering breeze.
He sat on his motorbike fingering the starter. Before long the scratchy, periodic sweep of the woman's broom grated on him and he pulled into traffic, wondering where to find Le.
A hard rain that felt like needles was falling when he left the bia hơi. The cheap watery beer had relaxed him, but the endless invitations to join neighboring parties of drunken men put him off. To them he was nothing but an amusement, a diversion from their boisterous talk about massage girls and gambling, and he was experienced enough to spurn them decisively.
Traffic along Pasteur Street was heavy, and mud from spinning motorbike wheels soon splattered the cheap, single-use raincoat he'd over-worn. By the time he reached Bac-Nam, rain had soaked the collar of his shirt, where it had collected from his face and neck.
He pulled onto the sidewalk, which the downpour had cleared of vendors and pedestrians. A piece of notebook paper was stuck to the door. Protected from the rain by an overhang, it flapped in the wind. Thick black pen had been used to write a short message, and although the rain had smeared the large letters, they were legible: Now hiring: experienced full-time gallery manager. Anyone interested in position please contact Mr. Hung. A phone number appeared beneath.