The Rainy Season Read online

  I am caught off-guard by his overture. ‘Should I take you seriously at all?’

  He smiles. I smile back. I can see that he is sober. ‘Have you been well?’ I ask.

  He makes a face to indicate this is a stupid question and he will not answer it. ‘And your teaching?’ he asks.

  I nod. ‘Good, good.’

  Then he looks down at his paper, half-smiling, so I look down at mine, but I feel disproportionately glad.

  On page seven of the paper is an update on the MIAs. I read it hungrily. Apparently the US has been defending the thoroughness of their most recent search efforts. In addition to ongoing work at the excavation sites, where they continue to scrape away for bones, investigators have visited ten prisons in the past six weeks in search of living MIAs, following up on whispers and anecdotes, rumour. And they found nothing, no one, not a trace. Critics, however, including the head of the American VietNow veterans group, claim the searches were not adequately executed. They seem to cling, in the face of all reason, to the possibility the missing soldiers may still be coming home.

  The night before the wedding I meet Hugh for pizza at Chez Guido in the Hotel Continental, where much of The Quiet American was set. It’s Liberation Day, 30 April, nineteen years since Saigon surrendered to Hanoi, and all over the city, the victory flags are flying. Somewhere nearby, John Denver will be tuning his guitar.

  I give Hugh the book of folktales, it has the one about banh trung, and we eat and talk about little things, as we always do. I catch him up on news of my students. This week Kim brought me a gift of three huge avocadoes from her family tree and Lan regaled us with gossip from the hotel kitchen. I tell him all about Co Ngoc and the magnificent pho chay. He confesses to having been on a blind date, set up by his secretary.

  ‘Hugh, that’s big news! What was it like?’

  ‘I didn’t want to go. Thuy pressured me until I agreed.’

  ‘Come on, you wouldn’t have gone if you didn’t want to. Actually, that might not be true. What was it like?’

  He grimaces. ‘Perhaps I was hoping … I don’t know … anyway, it didn’t go well. The woman, Thuy’s second cousin, An, was so anxious to impress. She wanted to hear all about America. She mentioned the Fonz from Happy Days. She told me she loves hamburgers and that she can cook them.’

  ‘You didn’t enjoy it at all?’

  He shakes his head and smiles, looks lonelier than ever. ‘It wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t mean the next time won’t be different … better. You’ll meet someone fantastic some day.’

  Hugh smiles. ‘Anyway, I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t know if I ever will be.’

  ‘I know what you mean … I guess I kind of have a date too – tomorrow.’ I tell him about asking Ariel to the wedding and how excited I am, and scared.

  ‘That sounds fun, Ella.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  He laughs. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think I really like him, but I wish I didn’t feel so nervous. I think I care too much already.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s exciting. It means you’re moving on, and I hope you have a wonderful day.’

  ‘Thanks, Hugh. There’s nothing to lose, right? Jesus, it’s just a few hours.’

  ‘Just go and see what happens.’

  ‘Okay, well, it’ll be your turn again next. You’re not getting off the hook that lightly.’

  He laughs. ‘I’m a little older than you, Ella. I don’t think I can keep up.’

  We sit and grin across the table at one another, and for the first time I am struck by the obvious: that it is not just our abandonment by lovers that we share: here I am, a girl without a father, sitting across from a father who has lost his kids.

  He is late.

  I sit out on the balcony and sip tepid artichoke tea. He was supposed to be here by twelve and it’s almost half past. Maybe he’s forgotten, or has the day wrong – it was noisy in the background when I rang to make arrangements.

  I light a cigarette and smooth my hands over the orange silk; the ao dai fits so perfectly I can hardly breathe. If he doesn’t come soon I will take it off and go back to bed. Curl up in a ball and sleep. Tomorrow I’ll apologise profusely to Miss Jenny for missing the wedding. Maybe it would be for the best: maybe I am not ready.

  But then I hear his voice, faintly, from the street below. My heart quickens. I peek over the edge, like a little girl. He is talking to the man who looks after the bikes at the pho stand. He hasn’t seen me; he is coming in. Should I wait up here? Meet him on the stairs? I go back inside and munch frantically on a piece of peanut brittle. The room looks desolate; I can’t even see Bones.

  There is a tentative knock. I open the door.

  ‘Hello.’ He leans down and kisses me on both cheeks. He smells of warm, clean skin and his hair is damp. ‘I am sorry for making you late,’ he says. ‘I hope you will forgive me. I do not enjoy a watch.’ He holds up his naked wrist.

  ‘It’s fine. Shall we get going?’ I close the door behind us, not wanting him to register the bleakness of my room.

  On the way downstairs he tells me the ao dai looks ‘excellent’. ‘The colour is like the sand in your Australian desert, in the pictures. I would love to go there one day, to the desert.’ When he turns to say this he almost loses his footing and we both laugh. He is breathtaking and awkward. Then I tell him about Miss Jenny and the shopping trip, our debate over the buttercup yellow. It feels amazing to make him smile. He has such a beautiful smile.

  He starts up a pale green Vespa and I climb on behind, hitching the long tunic of the ao dai up around my thighs. We take off into the traffic. I put my arms behind me and hold demurely to the back of the seat but I wonder if he is as aware as I am of how very close our bodies are. I can see how thick and wavy his hair is, springing out as it starts to dry, and the width of his shoulders and the smooth brown skin of his neck.

  We arrive at a pink reception centre to find a queue of guests lined up outside waiting to have their photo taken with the bride and groom, neither of whom I’ve met before. The photo seems to be compulsory.

  ‘It doesn’t look like we’re late,’ I say.

  People in the queue stare at us and murmur, some smile. They are probably wondering who the hell we are. I can’t see Miss Jenny anywhere.

  When we get closer to the couple, I spy the wedding cake just inside the entrance. The cake, or cakes, span two tables and incorporate sugar bridges and a tiny fountain spouting real water. I point it out to Ariel and we have to muffle our laughter. For a few minutes we can’t look at each other for fear of bursting into giggles. I like him more and more and more.

  The bride and groom greet us graciously. She is wearing red – the colour of luck – with a traditional round head piece. He is wearing a tuxedo. The four of us pose in front of a gold curtain.

  After the photo we’re ushered into a vast white function room, to a table beside a small stage. It’s obvious ours is the table for assorted foreign guests. I introduce Ariel to another teacher from Speak Easy, David. I don’t know anyone else at the table but I spy Hien waving from a table at the edge of the room. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I say to Ariel.

  I walk over and give her a big kiss. ‘Hien!’

  ‘Miss Ella! Em dep lam!’

  ‘Thank you. You too! Chi dep lam!’

  ‘Now you say hello my family.’

  The tall man sitting beside her stands up. ‘I am Chau. Please to meet you.’ He has a big smile and custard-yellow teeth. For some reason, he is just like I’d imagined.

  ‘You too. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Ella.’

  ‘Please, sit down,’ he insists.

  He pours me a glass of beer from a bottle on the table. ‘My children speak English very good. My English no good.’

  The children, Mai and Long, look up dutifully. The boy, Long, looks just like Hien.

  ‘How old are you both?’

  ‘I am seven ye
ars old,’ says the girl, earnestly.

  ‘I am ten years old,’ says the boy.

  ‘Do you learn English at school?’

  They both nod while their father looks on proudly, silently urging us all to continue.

  ‘Are you hungry? Your mum said there’d be lots of food today.’

  They look confused. I am about to rephrase but Hien says, in her blunt, motherly way, ‘Miss Ella, now you go back your table.’ I look around. The first course is being served.

  ‘Well, it was very nice to meet you.’ I say to Chau, ‘Your wife, Number One.’ He laughs. I wave to the children and they gape back at me like I’m the creepiest thing they will ever see.

  When I get back, Ariel introduces me to the others at our table. As well as David there’s a Swedish businessman and his Thai wife, an American couple in their sixties, and a young English woman. They’re all discussing the soup – pig’s brain and crab meat.

  ‘It has no taste,’ says the Swede.

  ‘Thank God,’ whispers the American woman.

  Her husband goes off for a few minutes and returns with a bottle of Remy Martin. He offers it to the men at the table. Ariel has some then hands his glass to me. Our fingers touch. I have a sip and hand it back; he puts it down between us.

  The courses keep coming, one after the other. It’s good to be surrounded by people and noise; it makes it easier to focus on each other.

  ‘The last Vietnamese wedding I attended,’ Ariel tells me, ‘they invited me to give a speech.’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘I had been drinking brandy all afternoon, so, yes, of course. I recited a French poem of love and when I looked around, most guests seemed, how you say, perplex? And then, many rounds of applause.’

  I laugh. ‘Perhaps you could volunteer your services today.’

  ‘But you would not understand it.’

  ‘You could translate it for me later.’

  ‘I would enjoy that.’

  We are both smiling but then we keep looking at each other, on and on, until we are no longer smiling. I feel it through my whole body.

  I’m almost relieved when a skolling competition starts at a neighbouring table; our table joins in with the brandy. The American pours and after a count of five they all cry out ‘tram phan tram’, one hundred per cent, and swallow. There is laughter and cheering. I watch Ariel wipe his lips with the back of his hand. I want badly to kiss him.

  After the fifth course, Miss Jenny comes over in a magnificent lime-green ao dai. I have never seen her wearing so much make-up; she looks like a small, grinning geisha. ‘Miss Ella, please introduce me to your handsome boyfriend.’

  I frown at her. ‘Miss Jenny, this is my friend, Ariel; Ariel – Miss Jenny.’

  ‘Do you think Miss Ella look very sexy in her ao dai?’ She demands of him.

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  My face burns.

  ‘You see!’ Miss Jenny gives me a satisfied smirk and wanders off.

  Dessert is a rainbow milk jelly and then there is a western-style cutting of the cake, or cakes, which have been miraculously transported into the middle of the room. During the speeches, I notice Ariel’s leg lean against mine. I look at him. He is facing the stage but his leg stays there and the feeling of it is the only thing. The only thing.

  It’s almost five when we finally leave. Outside, everything seems too bright and too loud. I’m a bit drunk. I have no idea what happens next. We don’t talk on the ride back into town and when I realise he is taking me to my hotel I feel suddenly devastated. It is ending already.

  We pull up. Ariel explains that he has to work in a couple of hours and he has some things to do first. ‘It was an excellent day,’ he says. ‘This cake was incredible. I wish I had carried my camera.’

  I smile. ‘Yeah, it was good, it was fun. Thanks for coming with me.’ I am standing beside him, the Vespa still running. Maybe I got it all wrong, imagined it all.

  But then he says, ‘Next week, I have two nights free – Tuesday and Wednesday. Would you show me to your special bar?’

  ‘It’s not that good. I mean, it’s just a funny little place.’

  ‘That is the best kind.’

  Neither of us can stop smiling then, those silly smiles that give too much away.

  He rides off. I want to scream with joy.

  Missing in action

  THIRTEEN

  He walks into the Smiling Café in the middle of a storm, a plastic poncho held over his head. The rainy season has begun.

  ‘Merde! My motorbike has broken on the street. I have walked six blocks.’

  ‘Shit!’ I echo. ‘Sit down! I hope it wasn’t hard to find. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I will try some rum.’ He drapes the poncho over a chair and sits opposite me at my table, my lonely table. It is strange to see him there.

  I motion to Chanh. ‘Do you want to try it with coconut juice? It’s really good.’

  He smiles quizzically, runs his hands through his hair damp with rain. ‘Yes, okay.’

  Chanh comes over to take the order and I introduce them. They laugh together about the storm and it feels like I’ve brought Ariel home to meet the family. Allan looks over curiously – just once. Oh, and there’s Dad, I mutter to myself.

  ‘So, how is your week?’ Ariel asks.

  ‘Good. I went with a few of my students to a karaoke bar last night and ended up singing “Killing Me Softly”, that was not so good.’

  ‘Yes, it is hard in Saigon to avoid the bad karaoke.’ We laugh but it quickly dies. I realise we’re both nervous and for a second everything about this feels wrong – much too precarious – but then he is lighting our cigarettes with his long fingers, warm and alive.

  ‘How’s the bar going?’

  ‘It is good … I think.’ He shrugs. ‘It has been busy, so this is good.’

  ‘Did the oven arrive?’

  ‘Yes. Still, it is not connected. It is in a box in the kitchen.’

  We sit quietly for a while, drinking from our coconuts. The rain drums hypnotically on the roof.

  ‘It is good to see you again,’ he says, tentatively.

  And then our eyes lock, like at the wedding, and I can’t turn away, can’t move. Everything else in the room disappears.

  We both exhale and then smile.

  ‘Do you want another drink?’ I say.

  ‘I will take a beer.’

  ‘So I haven’t convinced you on the coconut and rum?’

  ‘No. But I enjoy your Boy Boy Boys.’

  We keep drinking. We order some food but I barely taste it.

  He tells me about his hopes for the Blue Dragon, that it will become somewhere for both expats and Vietnamese, chic but still affordable to the locals.

  ‘That sounds good – there isn’t anywhere like that.’

  ‘Yes,’ he smiles, ‘so probably it will not happen.’

  We talk about Saigon, how exciting it is to be here when everything is changing so fast. Ariel suggests it is like someone has sprinkled a fine coating of amphetamines over the whole city and everything has shifted into overdrive: office buildings shooting up like weeds in spring, daily announcements of new joint ventures; laws being made and changed by the hour. Catch-up time.

  I ask him about his photography. He says he has always taken photos, that wherever he looks he sees still images.

  ‘That must be disconcerting.’

  He shrugs. ‘Sometimes. Sometimes it is a good way to escape from boredom.’

  I tell him that I’ve never really known what I want to do.

  The café fills and then starts to empty and still we haven’t moved.

  ‘Would you like to come back to my apartment?’ he asks. ‘I have some beer.’

  We walk all the way. It isn’t raining any more but the wet roads glitter under the streetlights.

  His unit is in a small compound of four; the landlords live in the one next door. He unlocks the gate at the front and we tiptoe through. ‘
They can be very angry,’ he whispers. We laugh quietly.

  We go inside and he turns on lights. I sit down on a bamboo two-seater couch in the small living room. There is an ugly glass-topped coffee table but no other furniture. Piles of books lean up against the walls, which are dotted with photos – they must be his. There is an unframed oil painting of a Vietnamese woman’s face, looking down.

  ‘Will you take a beer?’

  I nod.

  He brings the beers and sits down next to me on the couch. Still we haven’t touched.

  ‘Who did the painting?’

  ‘A friend, Quan. Do you like it?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  It is too quiet, suddenly. We should have gone to a bar.

  He stands up. ‘I will roll a joint.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We share the joint. I can tell straight away that it’s too strong. I should stop but I have more. My head starts to spin, my hands tingle. Shit.

  ‘Ariel, I think I have to lie down for a minute. I’m feeling a bit dizzy.’

  He takes me into the bedroom. He says he will get water.

  I wake in daylight on his bed, fully dressed, facing a blank white wall. Oh man, Suze will die when I tell her. What a loser! I roll over and he is right there beside me, in jeans and shirt, lying on top of the covers, wide awake. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I laugh. ‘Sorry! That joint … I can’t believe I fell asleep.’

  He reaches down and picks up a bottle of water from the floor, passes it to me. A little dog is yapping frantically outside the window. I drink some water and lie back down. We gaze at each other.

  ‘So this is, how you say, not a usual situation?’

  ‘No.’

  We both smile. He is so close I can feel the heat coming off his body. ‘Can I kiss you?’ he asks, quietly.

  I nod. My heart starts thumping in my chest like something trying to get free. And then he is moving towards me and we are kissing, our first kiss.

  We kiss for a long time; I get lost in it, carried away. His hands move down my back, over my arse, up to my breasts. I shudder, involuntarily, and he draws away for a second, whispers, ‘I have been dreaming of kissing you like this, since the night we met.’