Lotusland

  But the more excuses he made and repeated, the more he realized this wasn't the issue. He couldn't quite grasp it, but he knew that all these things were symptomatic of a bigger problem. Somehow, at some point in time, their values had sharply diverged.

  The question hanging over him now wasn't whether or not there would be repercussions for flying here, but what the repercussions would be. Of course he had an obligation to Anthony and his company, but what about his obligation to write about Agent Orange? He continued to remind himself that Anthony had approved the trip.

  Nathan straightened in his chair, wondering at something new: was he jealous of Anthony's success where he himself had failed — and more so because Anthony didn't appreciate all he had?

  A young Vietnamese man in a starched cream suit delivered his drink and, bowing while stepping backwards, thanked Nathan for nothing.

  In all his years in Saigon, rarely had he come to such an upscale place. It wasn't for the money — he'd never been rich, but a seven-dollar drink was affordable on occasion — but for the feeling that he didn't belong. And he didn't belong because he didn't see the point in trying to fit in with these people who'd never see Vietnam except as some small, self-serving opportunity.

  At least once a week Anthony made a point to stop by the Sheraton on West Lake. The top-floor bar looked out over the water, and at night, with the surroundings plunged in darkness, he might have felt he was anywhere in the world. The opposite shore sparkled like Christmas lights, and even the giant Ferris wheel, on summer nights when the amusement park stayed open late, looked magical turning under the stars.

  "Quiet's why I come here," Anthony had told him more than once. "That, and to be reminded there's still mystery for me in Vietnam."

  Anthony liked it during the rainy season when he often had the place to himself, for the shelter it gave felt impregnable — "Like a fortress," he'd said. The only people who approached Anthony then were bartenders and bored prostitutes, and as far as Nathan could tell bartenders and prostitutes were some of his favorite people.

  Sometimes Nathan went with him when he needed the same thing, though he was confident he could find an equal feeling in less exclusive places, and was interested moreover in making his own discoveries.

  Feeling that nowhere in Saigon could compete with West Lake's sweeping openness and quiet beauty, Nathan glanced around the bar. A Vietnamese girl in a short black dress and sparkling halter-top hovered nearby. He knew she had her eye on him because he was alone. He frowned and looked away, ending the hope she seemed to have that he'd gesture for her to come over.

  For a moment, he imagined Le sitting across the table from him. But it was an incongruous image, and it made him feel like an even bigger fool for being here. Le, if he'd brought her, wouldn't have ventured past the opulent lobby — not even to wander down hallways whose walls were mounted with paintings as big as cars.

  In Hanoi several weeks before, Nathan had driven with her to the Sheraton. As they'd come upon the entrance, he saw her, in his handlebar mirror, staring at the enormous ‘S' that capped the hotel. He'd decided to drive down the sloping road, over a stone bridge, and toward an empty parking area. When she asked where he was going, he said there was a bar inside with a view over West Lake. She immediately voiced her opposition. At first he thought she was joking, or only needed persuading, but she refused to enter. He never found out what had been the matter — perhaps she felt underdressed; or disliked the idea of him spending so much money on them both; or thought she'd be intercepted at the door and, viewed as too poor to enter, told to leave. Without them getting off the motorbike he'd continued past the lot and through an exit.

  He imagined the painter's eye she'd bring to the people he could see in the dance club — fat, ruddy-faced foreigners caressing the teenage prostitutes who alternately clung to them and gyrated to the Filipino cover-band — and one revolting image after another flashed through his mind. But she'd never paint a scene like this: the nine levels of Hell were for Buddhist monks to paint inside their pagodas.

  An hour later the bar no longer felt like the escape he'd sought from the city. He began to think there was filth around him he couldn't see, particles of corruption and decay floating around and settling onto the surface of every table and person and into all the drinks they rapidly consumed.

  Raucous laughter exploded on either side of him. The bar grew louder with people talking over each other. Whenever he expected the noise to die down, it picked up again louder than before. He shouted to a waiter for his bill.

  Nathan's lips cracked feebly upward at a thought: in a city as polluted as Saigon, oxygen was in short supply. Why compete for it 25 floors above the city where the air was thinner and the people here needed so much of it?

  Rain was falling when he walked past the lobby's doormen and outside.

  He lifted his collar at the back of his neck and ran into the downpour. This would surely be the last storm of the monsoon season, he thought.

  When he returned to his hotel he phoned Huong.

  "This is a bad time," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Can I call you tomorrow?"

  "Call me anytime you need. But how is he? Is he conscious?"

  "Nothing's changed. He's just this inert body with tubes running through him. I'm sorry, I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow or the day after." He heard the phone click and he stared at the wall, picturing Anthony as she'd described him.

  He washed his face and called Le. They spoke for more than an hour. "I should've brought you with me," he said before hanging up. Afterward he was kept awake by the easy imaginings of what that would have been like.

  The next morning Nathan called the airline office. The woman who answered told him no seats were left on the flight he wanted to switch to. Not knowing what else to do he inquired about the following day. She found him a seat on a midnight flight.

  "If that's my only option," he said.

  "It's not your only option, sir."

  Until he realized she was referring to the flight he already had, he wondered if somehow she knew the problems he'd create by making this change.

  "How many times can I change my ticket?"

  "There's no limit, sir. But you may be stuck if you wait too long."

  He confirmed the details, worried that by the time he returned to Hanoi he'd have missed three days of work.

  Twenty-Six

  On the midnight flight to Hanoi Nathan reviewed his notes from a meeting at the World Health Organization, interviews with two families in Cu Chi, and two more visits to Tu Du Hospital.

  Soon he fell asleep. He dreamed he was back in America.

  The circumstances of his dream were unclear. The only thing he knew with certainty was that he was wandering through a vast supermarket. Such a large, well-organized store contrasted strongly with the overcrowded mini-marts where he normally shopped in Vietnam, and in his dream he was aware of this, of being in a different country.

  The other shoppers paid him no attention, which was another contrast to Vietnam. They were fantastically tall and overweight, and their plodding steps rattled the bottles that lined the shelves of the aisle he was in. Fat enlarged their features to grotesque proportions, and everyone's noses, lips, and jowls, even the backs of their necks, swelled with excess flesh. Their eyes were slits encased in too much skin, and a purpling, as from ruptured blood vessels, peppered their puffy faces. Wherever he went, he heard them panting.

  Eventually he found himself in the meat section of the store. Hordes of shoppers crowded around the cold storage bins, inspecting packaged meat. With everyone pushing at each other to grab what they wanted, he couldn't get close. Many customers had tucked their packages under their arms, concealing and protecting them as they hustled away to the checkout lines. Near the exit, separate fights had broken out among shoppers.

  The furious push toward the bins prevented
him from seeing the selection of meats. The meat section took up a full half of the store, and a rancid stench filled the air.

  A breach opened before him, and he squeezed between the pulsing mass. When someone pushed him aside, branding his shirtsleeve with their sweat, he found himself in someone else's way, and the longer he stood there the more he became an object of animosity. He wanted to ask if the meat was fresh, but there was no customer he dared approach and no store employee he could find.

  All at once a wave of impatient customers shoved him forward. Their collective force pressed him against the edge of the bin, where he could finally see the meat that people were rushing to buy.

  In every package, smashed between yellow Styrofoam and clear plastic wrapping, were bloodless, hacked-off pieces of human body parts. But even in this revolting display there was something more shocking still. Every body part was deformed: a three-fingered hand; a webbed foot; a fleshy cheek spotted with black warts; a chest with the heart and lungs outside the body; the folded, stick-thin legs of a paraplegic. Orange lights above the bins radiated downward, giving the body parts a sickening coppery tint as if to emphasize they were raw.

  Nathan tried to retreat but the crowds pushing against him were like a wall. As he shoved his way out he heard a strange noise come from the bin. Glancing back he noticed that the packaged parts had begun to move. Like fish yanked from the sea they flipped about the bins until a store employee beat his way into the crowd, thrust a hand inside, and turned a knob. The orange light overhead changed into a dark, lurid red. The deformed body parts immediately settled again into lifelessness.

  Nathan woke with a start. He knew at once that he would quit Anthony's company.

  Perhaps next week he'd draft his resignation. But to whom would he submit it? He supposed he could slip it into Anthony's office mailbox and let it sit there until Anthony was well enough to return to work. Or he could have it delivered to Anthony's house in care of Huong.

  But no — he was trapped. Where Anthony's most strenuous efforts had failed to bring Nathan into the fold of his company, his stroke might manage it perfectly. All Nathan could do was hope Anthony quickly recovered.

  He lifted the closed window beside him and looked out at the plane's blinking wing — Do Not Step Here flashed into his vision and disappeared.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he wiped at his nose to rid it of the lingering stench in his nostrils.

  Briefly he wondered why Huong hadn't called like she promised.

  Hesitating in the agency doorway, he savored a moment longer the scent of late autumn that blew from off the lake. The scent carried hints of Ohio in November, and he breathed in the cold damp grey of the morning until his lungs began to hurt.

  Standing there he became acutely aware that people inside were watching him. Already it was half past ten.

  Without a word to anyone he shut the door and started for the stairs. Passing his fellow workers, whose heads hung morosely over their desktops, the pleasure and excitement he once felt coming here was now severed, irrecoverable. The office atmosphere was cheerless and morgue-like. But the feeling more likely came from the fact that these people resented him.

  Halfway up the stairs he stopped and looked over the handrail. A full third of the employees weren't at work. No desks had been cleared, which indicated that no one had quit, but this absenteeism was obviously a coordinated effort. Remembering that imitation was the highest form of flattery, he finished the climb upstairs.

  Xuan didn't bother to acknowledge him when he approached. When he said hello she glared at him and wanted to know where he'd been.

  Over the last two days, she told him, the company had fallen into disarray. Employees were feuding, and with no one at the helm, client meetings had been abandoned and Xuan was forced to cancel or postpone those that were scheduled on the following days. Two computers had disappeared, and an important client had backed out of a property he intended to purchase.

  Nathan didn't have to ask about the absent employees. She volunteered that everyone had grown afraid that the firm would go under and they didn't want to find themselves trapped aboard a sinking ship.

  "So they're not just skipping work . . ."

  She looked at him in amazement. "They're out interviewing for jobs."

  "Do they think they can do whatever they like with impunity? Apparently they think there's no punishment for insubordination . . ."

  Her lips parted and she stared at him like she couldn't believe he thought they were guiltier than he. "They're concerned about their families." She spoke slowly, as if this was necessary for him to comprehend her. "Most of them grew up poor and hungry. They want something stable."

  "Are they coming back?"

  But she wasn't interested in his question. She wanted him to understand something more. "In Vietnam, when you have a job and career you think is stable, only to feel like you've had it taken away overnight, you'll do things you wouldn't normally do to get that stability back." She paused to let him absorb this.

  "Call them. Tell them that if they're not back before lunch they're no longer employees here."

  "You can't make that decision," she said, struggling to contain her anger. "Only Anthony can."

  "What can Anthony possibly do now? I said call them . . ."

  He stared down at her until she withdrew a list from her desk, picked up her phone, and started punching in a number. Satisfied that he'd reestablished his authority, he went into his office, closed the door, and tossed his briefcase on the ground.

  Why, he wondered bitterly, was he expressing outrage over an act he'd normally support? He knew he was being unfair, but the situation confronting him wasn't fair, either. After all, he'd only gotten involved in this business to pay off a debt, and nothing was more an anathema to him than presiding over people whose entire lives were guided by the unrelieved need to make money.

  He realized only now that they'd expected him to lead them. The problem was, in all his life, he'd never wanted to be a leader.

  Slumping in his chair, he shuffled through a stack of folders and binders that had been transferred here from Anthony's office. Half the stack was marked "Ministry of Property and Investment." He called Xuan on his intercom. "Come in here, please."

  "But I'm trying to reach the absent employees."

  "I said come in here."

  She entered a minute later and set a glass of tea on his desk — like a deferential wife trying to appease an angry husband.

  "What is this stuff? And what am I supposed to do with it?"

  "You're supposed to read it."

  He dumped the files he was holding onto his desk and heaved a disgusted sigh. "But what for, Xuan? Is it urgent or just for my review?"

  She glanced over her shoulder at the clock above the doorway and then, suddenly alert again, looked back and nodded at the stacks. "You better hurry."

  She pointed behind her, where the whiteboard by her desk showed his and Anthony's schedule. Arrows drawn in black marker indicated what she'd transferred from Anthony's workload to Nathan's.

  "You have a meeting in fifteen minutes with a group from MOPI," she went on. "I put it on your schedule three days ago."

  "I wasn't here three days ago," Nathan snapped, sitting up and pulling himself close to his desk. "Damn it, there's no time to prepare for this. What's the meeting about?"

  "I think they heard complaints and are coming to investigate. It's also time to renew our license."

  "But our license is good for fifteen years."

  "The rules have changed. License holders must now apply for yearly stamps of approval."

  Her words relieved him. A "stamp of approval" was likely nothing more than a payoff disguised as procedure.

  The intercom at Xuan's desk crackled to life and one of the staff said her name.

  She ran back to her de
sk. "Yes?" she said.

  "MOPI's here. Should I tell them to wait?"

  Xuan shot Nathan a look both helpless and vindictive, then hurried off to speak with the staff directly.

  Nathan's tie felt tight around his neck. After wrestling with the knot, he yanked the tie from his collar and dropped it inside his desk.

  His time at Tu Du had been difficult, but at least there the struggles he'd encountered moved him. If he'd been torn over letting the company founder for a few days in order to write an article about Agent Orange, he no longer felt conflicted. With a suddenness that was almost violent, an idea about what might come next in his life shattered inside his brain. If Mr. Jasper liked what he wrote, Nathan would e-mail him a special request. A saying Anthony sometimes used around the office came to mind: "Success breeds more success. If you do everything like your life depends on it, you'll never fail."

  Full of a determination to succeed, he undid the top button of his shirt and reached for his iced tea. Condensation from the glass had pooled on his desk and soaked into the stacked material. It occurred to him to push the stack away from the water, but it didn't seem worth his effort.

  Twenty-Seven

  The sky was round and grey like the belly of a whale. Cloud shadows glided over the water then were lost in the leafy trees and newly built villas beyond the shore. Now and then a motorbike passed along the path to Nathan's back, or an electric drill whirred from some nearby construction site, but mostly it was serene.

  Nathan knew he couldn't stand forever at the edge of the lake. The snail shells he'd pushed with his foot into a pile already numbered 12. None had anything living inside. At some point the snails had either slipped away or been eaten.