Mai smiled in my direction. ‘Cal tells me you work for VietVoice?’
‘He tells you right. I do. Do you know it?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s very popular. We’re always sure to have copies in our waiting areas. This month, I enjoyed very much the article about hip-hop dancers in Lenin Park. I often see the dancers as I pass the park on my way home from work. It was so interesting to read about their lives. Did you read it, Cal?’
‘Nah. I’m not such a fan of the mag.’
‘It is very middle-class, isn’t it?’ said Collins.
‘I don’t even know what that means,’ Cal said. ‘It’s just not my thing, is all.’
‘I’m working on a book at the moment,’ I said, hating the loud rush of my voice but unable to stop myself. ‘It’s a major work. Very important. A history of Vietnamese women.’
‘Ah! This is a good project, I think. Have you been to the Women’s Museum? Of course you have! You know, it is okay, but not great. Maybe your book will be sold there. Maybe the curators will use your book, improve their displays. Oh. I am very happy to hear about this book.’
‘There’s a long way to go yet,’ I said. ‘It’s a labour of love, really.’
‘Yes. I understand this. At work, we have many labours of love.’ She smiled, clasped her hands. ‘Tell me, Mischa, what do you think of The Tale of ?’
‘Oh. Oh. That’s a big question. I mean, it’s beautiful and important, obviously, but I find it troubling.’
Mai nodded, turned to Cal. ‘Do you know The Tale of ?’ He shook his head and she turned back to me. ‘I understand. The story is lovely, but it is the . . . the . . . veneration of it that is troubling, as you say. Yes?’
‘Yes. Exactly.’
‘Do you know, Mischa, the story of Trinh? This is my very favourite.’
‘Yes, of course. My street is named after her.’
‘Ah! You live on So lovely. I wrote my dissertation on Lady . I know by heart her words. Ah, let me think in English.’ Mai furrowed her brow. ‘ “I want to straddle big winds, to tread on ferocious waves, to behead the ocean’s sharks, to chase away aggressors.” ’
‘ “I cannot resign myself to bowing down and becoming a man’s concubine”,’ I finished. My skin was hot. Of all the Vietnamese stories I had read, this was the one I returned to. It lit me up in a way I couldn’t explain.
Mai grinned. ‘You love this, too. I can see.’
‘I do. I love it.’
I was aware of Cal pretending not to look at me and of Collins pretending not to look at Cal. I was aware that Henry was drunkenly slurring into Matthew’s ear. I think Amanda and Kerry had gone to the bathroom or else to the bar to smoke. Afraid of my fluttering heart, I stopped drinking.
By the time the restaurant closed I was almost sober and everyone else was very drunk. Outside, it had stopped raining but the water on the street was ankle-deep. There was much confusion and shouting and making and changing of plans as a cluster of taxi and moto drivers hovered. I said goodnight and slipped into a cab before anyone could protest. A minute later I received a text and twenty minutes after that Cal and I were fucking in my front hallway.
He came quickly and we climbed the stairs and he lay naked on my bed while I rubbed his frozen feet. He told me he had missed me this week, that he thought I’d gone off him.
‘Silly. It was a busy week, I told you that.’
‘Working on the Very Important Major Project of Great Significance?’
I pinched his heel. ‘Mai was impressed even if you’re not. And she’s a proper Vietnamese person, not a faker who doesn’t even know The Tale of .’
‘Is that the troubling, venerated one or the straddling sharks one?’
‘You’re a disgrace to your people, young man. The Tale of is like, um, Waltzing Matilda is for Aussies. It’s about this girl, . She’s beautiful and kind and smart. She falls in love with a suitable young man, Kim, but before she can marry him, her father and brother are thrown into gaol and her family plunges into crisis. is forced to go into prostitution in order to save her family. She has various adventures and continues to be beautiful and pure of heart, and eventually she ends up back with Kim, but she’s all sexed out and the two become sort of chaste companions rather than passionate lovers.’
‘And I thought a suiciding swagman was grim.’
‘It’s all relative, isn’t it? Looked at like that, isn’t so sad. She could’ve jumped into, well, not a billabong, but a . But she didn’t. She did what she had to do and she survived and so did her family. Her life was sad, but at least she lived it.’
Cal squinted at me. ‘Are we talking about you now, Mischa?’
‘Not at all. Mai had me pegged. I’m far more than . Her too, which makes you wonder what she’s doing with Henry.’
‘What was so great about this ?’
‘For one thing, she led an insurrection against the Chinese when she was, like, twenty.’
‘Cool. Did she win?’
‘For a while. When she stopped winning she went to a mountain top and killed herself.’
‘And you relate to her? That’s a worry.’
I felt exposed, suddenly. was an orphan who fled from her siblings and the threat of being subsumed by marriage. Her downfall came when the Chinese general ordered his men to strip. An army of naked men drove her to suicide.
‘Well, the really famous thing about her,’ I told Cal, ‘was her enormous breasts. Legend has it she had to toss them over her shoulder before she could ride her elephant into battle.’
Cal sat up, covered my breasts with his hands. ‘Over the shoulder? How would that even work?’
There was a fierce drumming on my front door. Cal leapt off me, reached for his pants.
‘Wait in here.’ I grabbed my Chinese robe from the desk chair, tying it tightly as I ran down the stairs. The drumming continued. ‘I’m coming,’ I called.
I threw open the door, ready to yell. Henry leant heavily against the frame, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. Across the street, I saw noses and eyes and fingertips poking out from behind shutters. This would be all over the neighbourhood by sunrise.
‘Henry! Shit. What’s wrong?’
‘Mish. You’re here. Thank fuck. Mish.’
‘What—’
‘Wait for me!’ Kerry’s voice came from the darkness.
I ushered Henry inside, keeping hold of his arm to stop him climbing the stairs. Kerry appeared, hobbling unevenly down the deserted road, waving wildly as though trying to be noticed in a great crowd.
She lurched into the hallway and I closed and locked the front door. Immediately, Kerry began to yell at Henry. Something about being a pucking frick.
‘Shut up. Please! It’s two in the morning. The police’ll be here if you don’t pipe down.’
‘Sorry.’ Kerry clutched my arm. ‘Sorry, sorry. Fuck, my feet hurt. Can we sit?’
I led them to the lounge. All three of us sank down. Kerry kicked off her shoes and Henry let out a gutted moan and I asked what the hell had happened.
‘We got kicked out of that cowboy bar on Hang Quat. Mr Charm here got all aggro and started shouting and next thing we’re being dragged – not exaggerating here, Mish – bloody dragged by the elbows out onto the street.’
I would’ve said I couldn’t imagine Henry shouting and making a public scene, except here he was in front of me, drunk beyond reason, swaying in his seat, murmuring murderously.
‘Run by gangsters, that place. Never should’ve gone in. Racist fucking gangsters.’
‘There were no gangsters. We got booted because of your spectacular tantrum.’ Kerry turned to me. ‘He got into a fight with Mai and she left and he went tropical.’
‘No! No that’s not what it is. It’s . . . It’s . . .’ He conducted an invisible orchestra. ‘It’s everything. This place. Bloody sick of it all.’
‘Bullshit. You were fine until Mai told you to piss off.’
‘You think I care about that? I don??
?t care about that. It was the last straw, is all. The bloody last straw. You know what I mean, Mischa, don’t you? You know how things are lately.’
I looked at Kerry. She shrugged, then hurled herself up off the lounge and over to the fridge. ‘Anyone else want a drink?’
‘No. And don’t help yourself, thanks. I want you both out of here. I was asleep, you know.’
‘You’re up now. Might as well make us welcome.’ She took a slug of Tiger, then plonked back onto the lounge.
‘Henry, darling, maybe this is just birthday blues. It’s not unusual to feel all grim and down about everything on a birthday.’
‘No! Mischa, listen. I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about my birthday. No, it’s this place. It’s ruined. Girls like Mai, might as well be British or American even with their bloody . . . me, me, me bullshit. Don’t roll your eyes, Kerry! It’s not just that, it’s . . . it’s . . . Mish – you know my balcony? You know what I see when I stand out there? Bloody high rises, that’s what. I used to be able to see all the way to Tây Ho on a clear day, but now . . . There used to be more clear days, too. I used to ride an old bicycle everywhere and it was easy, but now I’d be run down by all the SUVs, with their idiot drivers talking on their fucking iPhones.’
‘I love my iPhone,’ Kerry said. ‘I bawled like a baby when I lost it that time.’
Henry shook his head. ‘You don’t know what it was like. It didn’t used to be like this. It’s all wrong now.’
‘What bullshit. Leave Hanoi, once in a while. See how they’re living in the rural provinces. It’s third-world and it shits me, it really does, that you think it’s better like that.’ Kerry shook her bottle at him, sloshing beer onto my lounge. ‘Why the hell shouldn’t they have iPhones and SUVs if they want them?’
Henry blinked at Kerry like she was suggesting the Vietnamese embrace cannibalism. I placed a hand on his arm and turned him to me. ‘You’re overreacting, it’s the weather, the drink. The old Hanoi is still here. You know that. The other day I got caught in a downpour and I ducked down this alley near my office and there was a coffee stall run by this tiny villager woman with betel-stained teeth wearing black pyjamas and using a dented tin spoon to scoop the coffee from an old milk tin.’
‘Did you have some?’
‘I did. I plonked myself on a stool under the awning, had to awkwardly tuck my feet under me to stop them getting wet. No menu, no order-taking – the old woman slapped a phin and a bowl of hot water on the stool next to me, then stood back. There was a chicken pecking the ground near the woman’s feet and a couple of old men, dressed the way they used to dress – you know, black trousers, tucked-in shirts, worn leather belts – squatting against the opposite wall, smoking. And I sat there with the rain hammering down and watched the coffee drip.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Oh, that sounds lovely.’
‘We’ll go there together. You’ll see.’
‘Ugh. Count me out.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of counting you in, Kez.’
‘Up yours.’
‘Henry, listen. Mai was a sweet girl, but obviously not right for you. It doesn’t mean anything. There are plenty of other girls.’
He nodded at his hands which lay limp between his thighs. ‘Don’t know what I was thinking, taking a girl out with you lot. With my friends. Mixing busin— ha! Mixing pleasure and pleasure, no good, no good.’ He lunged, took hold of my shoulders, kissed my cheeks. ‘You’re a fine woman, Mischa. Bloody good woman. If only I could be attracted to someone like you.’
‘God, you’re an idiot, Henry.’
‘It’s a compliment! She knows that. Don’t you, Mish?’
‘Sure. Now, you two need to piss off. I’m exhausted. Will I call some cabs or—’
‘No, no. This is still Hanoi after all! Walk a couple of feet and the drivers will come.’
I walked them out, hugged them both, let Henry kiss my cheeks again. As I closed the door I heard Kerry telling Henry he’d been unbearably insulting to me. I turned back to find Cal waiting at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded.
‘Sorry. Got rid of them as quickly as I could. Seems that Henry—’
‘I know. I was at the top of the stairs the whole time. Heard everything.’
‘God, what silly old drunks, hey?’
‘Why did they come here?’
‘Oh. I suppose . . . I suppose they were drinking nearby. I didn’t ask. Sorry, anyway. Let’s go back to bed. We’ve got a couple of hours.’
He pushed past me, into the living room where he snatched up the remote control and turned on the TV. He flicked through the channels too fast to see what any of them was playing, then switched the TV off and dropped the remote with a clatter.
‘Okay, what’s wrong?’
His left shoulder twitched and his lips formed a pronounced pout. I felt a flicker of panic at his startling adolescence. I went to him, buried my face in the crook of his neck, kissed him softly, rubbed his back. ‘Come on now. You’re making me grovel and I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong.’
‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’ His voice was gruff.
‘So . . . ?’
‘I just didn’t like hearing you like that. With Henry.’
I felt the strain in his neck and jaw as he spoke. ‘How was I?’ I asked.
‘It’s hard to explain. You have this way of listening, of responding. It makes me feel like I can’t trust you.’
I pulled back and looked into his face. ‘I don’t understand. Do I seem insincere?’
‘No. The opposite. When you’re talking to me, I feel like what I’m saying is fascinating and whatever you say makes me feel that you really get me. But you’re the same way with everybody. And I know you mustn’t be all in tune with everybody and so that thing you do . . . with the soft voice and, the, the intensity . . . it’s convincing, but not real.’
‘Why can’t I be in tune with everybody? Or, at least, not out of tune. I can almost always find some point of connection. I guess I’ve never thought of that as a bad thing.’
‘So your point of connection with Henry is what?’
The accusation registered as a lurch in my stomach. ‘Hanoi,’ I said.
‘That’s it? Because you talk to him like you’re soul mates.’
‘On the matter of Hanoi, we are, I suppose. Why is this a problem?’
Cal looked at me. ‘I can’t argue with you. You’re too clever,’ he said and I understood that he meant I was too experienced.
‘When it comes to you I’m an idiot.’ I forced a kiss on his pout. ‘I can’t think properly. I talk in clichés. I’m powerless.’
‘You’re doing it now. Talking me around.’
What could I say that wouldn’t be interpreted as cleverness, as seduction? I sighed and laid myself out flat on the floor at his feet. I lay silent and my breath came fast and shallow and that was real. He came to me. His weight, the heaviness of his faith, was extraordinary.
Cal did end up reading The Tale of , or some of it at least. I know because I once found the beginning of a hand-written letter from him. In it he quoted Kim’s argument to the guilt-ridden, ‘soiled’ :
How skilled you are in spinning words!
You have your reasons – others have their own.
Among those duties falling to her lot,
A woman’s chastity means many things.
For there are times of ease and times of stress:
In crisis must one rigid rule apply?
True daughter, you upheld a woman’s role:
What dust or dirt could ever sully you?
He didn’t write anything after that. The note was abandoned underneath a stack of magazines. I don’t know what he was getting at, why he picked out those lines. I suspect his interpretation is different from mine. It doesn’t matter. Things were bad by then, and knowing he had once wanted to communicate anything at all was enough.
al and I had always met at my place, always after dark and he always le
ft before morning, both because Matthew would expect him home and because my maid, Hoang, arrived at eight on weekdays. But six weeks into our affair, Matthew went to Saigon for a three-day conference and so I told Hoang I was staying with a sick friend, took the Friday off work and moved in to Cal’s.
We started making out in the front hall, my overnight bag still in my hand and then dropped at my feet. Cal tried to lead me to the master bedroom – Matthew’s bedroom – but I said I’d prefer not to.
He broke away. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’d just feel weird about it.’ I tried to start things up again, but he stepped back from me.
‘Weird how?’ His lips were wet and swollen, his chest bare.
‘I just don’t like the idea of Matthew coming home and climbing into a bed where I’ve been fucking his son. Doesn’t that feel wrong to you?’
He gave me a withering look. ‘I wasn’t thinking about it being Dad’s room. There’s a mirror across from the bed, is all. I thought it’d be hot. I think it’s weird that you’re so anxious not to fuck me in there. He’s not your dad.’
His erection was pushing at the front of his shorts and I was fast losing any concern for propriety. ‘You’re right, a mirror does sound hot. Forget what I said. Let’s go.’
‘Yuck. Not now that you’ve made me think of Dad in there.’ He slouched against the wall, his chin tucked in, his eyes narrowed.
I pressed up against him. Kissed his stiff neck. ‘The bathroom then. There’s a mirror there. Bend me over the sink. Please, baby, come on.’
‘But Dad showers in there. Wouldn’t that be weird for you, Mischa? Won’t you be thinking about Matthew showering while we’re doing it?’
He never seemed so much a teenager as when he was in a strop. The speed with which my ardour cooled at such times is reassuring, I think. I do not have a thing for adolescents. I wanted to fuck his teenage body, but only when I felt it was controlled by a man.
I buttoned my shirt and walked into the kitchen. I put the kettle on and prepared a pot of tea. I heard Cal stomping around in the back of the house. I went to the bookshelf and chose a non-fiction collection of stories about Central Vietnam. I was halfway through an essay about war ghosts in Danang when he came and sat across from me.