The Rainy Season Page 16

  I roll away and try to go to sleep, but I can’t; there is no reason for me to be agitated but I am. I keep sighing loudly into the dark.

  I start thinking about the last time I spoke with Mum about my father: it was Christmas 1987, just after I’d left home. We had a roast chicken at her house, just the two of us at the laminate table, and I drank lots of wine, just to get through the evening. I always think about my father at Christmas and that night the questions kept rising up inside me and then wouldn’t come out.

  Right at the end of the night, I said, in a staged kind of way, half drunk, Seems like Dad’s stood us up again. I hope you remembered to invite him.

  She looked like she’d been slapped, and then the tears started gliding down her face.

  Mum, I was joking. You don’t need to cry.

  I’m sorry for everything you’ve missed, she said. I know he would be here if he could.

  She cried. She was always crying! And what did this even mean, for fuck’s sake? He would be here if he could? I cleared the table, kissed her goodnight and left.

  And yet, what I notice now in replay – lying awake in Saigon in the dead of night – is that it was me who walked out on that conversation, not her. Why didn’t I stay and ask my burning questions? Where is he, Mum? Why did he leave us? What happened to him in the war? Why, since announcing I was coming here have I not asked her my burning questions? Is it for fear of upsetting her or is it really so I can keep him safe in my heart and mind? So I don’t risk losing him again?

  I turn over to face Ariel but he appears at once like a total stranger. I feel giddy and disorientated, as if I were expecting someone else to be lying there. Tim? My father? I should have stayed on sentry.

  I get up and drink some water and sit fretfully on the couch in the dark for a while, hands threaded together, humming the theme tune to Hawaii Five-O; waiting, but for what?

  Can’t you tell, baby? Can’t you see it?

  Tim used to say this too. I remember his clear blue eyes, his teasing smile.

  Isn’t it totally obvious? I adore you!

  On Wednesday after class, Co Ngoc and I ride to the pho chay shop for the monthly soup with her boys. As soon as we are seated, Madam Nhu says something to Co Ngoc in Vietnamese and laughs. ‘Madam Nhu says you have a new boyfriend,’ Co Ngoc explains.

  ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a month or so,’ I explain. ‘I brought him – Ariel – here last week.’

  Co Ngoc nods but she doesn’t say anything and I feel inexplicably embarrassed, as if I have been caught doing something really dumb – from heartbreak to high romance in five easy steps.

  Madame Nhu brings tra da and a saucer of lychees. Co Ngoc and I talk about class and the goings-on at her pagoda. I ask about Thanh and she says he is slowly getting better but it will be a while before he can go home. At least, I point out, he has a home to go to, his own bed and Chinh to cook for him.

  One by one, four of her boys amble in: Quy, Duc, Hoc and Anh. We eat soup and chat about their various activities over the past month – Quy has been selling cigarettes outside the Ben Thanh market. He seems a bit out of it and I wonder if he is on something. Hoc, handsome and slick, recounts a story of getting US$100 off an elderly Dutch man for showing him round the city. Duc has brought along the Guns N’ Roses tape for me to transcribe and also a dog-eared poster of the band he thought I might like to have in my room.

  After we’ve eaten we sketch our family trees in an exercise book, naming all the possible relationships in English and Vietnamese. Duc says he hasn’t seen his father – ba – since he was seven and, impulsively, I tell him my father went missing too, when I was five. ‘Ah,’ he says, throwing his arm around me, ‘maybe you my sister!’

  ‘Yes, and Co Ngoc can be our mum,’ I say. The boys and I giggle; Co Ngoc smiles tolerantly.

  We finish our tea and make a date for our next meeting. I give the boys photocopies of a crossword for homework.

  ‘Goodbye, Teacher,’ Hoc calls, in a silly, high-pitched voice, as we’re parting on the street.

  ‘Chao em,’ I call back.

  When I wheel my bike into the Hotel Van Mai, Hien is looking tired and irritable.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ I ask her. Sometimes I think she is diabetic, the way she needs to snack constantly to stay calm.

  ‘Too busy!’ she snaps.

  I go and fetch a bowl of pho for her then go up to my room to do some washing. I stick up Duc’s Guns N’ Roses poster and, even though Axl Rose is an ugly bastard, it makes the room feel a little more like home. I fiddle about a bit with my father’s things, picking them up absently and putting them back down, studying his unfathomable photo face – it makes me weary. How much longer, I suddenly think, will I have to carry these objects with me wherever I go?

  I make a pot of lotus tea with my new kettle and flick through the newspaper looking for articles to take into class. Halfway in, I notice the discreet announcement of the formation of a new joint venture – Coca-Cola and Ngoc Hoi Soft Drinks. It has a decidedly eerie ring but I guess it is progress. I guess it spells peace.

  I am called down to the desk phone in the morning. It’s Ariel. ‘How did you go at Saigon Times?’ I ask him, eagerly.

  ‘Excellent! I have two projects more.’

  ‘Were you happy with the photos?’

  ‘They are average, but they are accepted. I am not happy with this laboratory they are using. I want to make my own, in the apartment.’

  ‘Will that be hard to set up here?’

  ‘I have a friend – Vietnamese – he will help. He will also use this space.’

  ‘You’re going to be busy.’

  ‘Yes, but I dream for this.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, quickly.

  ‘I have something I want to share with you,’ he says. ‘A surprise. I think you will love it. Can you come to the bar on Saturday before midnight?’

  I pause. It’s only Thursday. I won’t have seen him for five days. ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘I’m sorry I have become so busy these days, Ella,’ he says, gently. ‘I want these photos to be excellent, I want to build, how you say, the folio? And this week we are training more staff at the bar.’

  ‘It’s okay, I understand.’

  ‘Each night when you are not in my bed, I am missing you.’

  ‘Yes, you too.’

  ‘Tonight, I could finish early, maybe eleven. Can you come?’

  ‘No,’ I say, because suddenly it all feels wrong, Ariel’s placating, the whole conversation. ‘I’m tired. I should sleep. I’ll see you Saturday.’

  I hang up, dejected, and then wander up to the Smiling Café for breakfast. I sit in my normal spot; I am right behind Allan. ‘How are you?’ I address his back. Today, I really don’t care whether he responds or not.

  He turns. ‘Splendid,’ he says, mockingly. ‘Splendid. And you?’

  I shrug. ‘All right.’

  ‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ he says.

  ‘I was thinking of going to the War Crimes Exhibition soon,’ I say, as if this is relevant. ‘I think it’s time I had a look.’

  ‘Great choice,’ he mutters, turning back to his table. ‘Have fun.’ He turns back to his table.

  On Friday night, Suze and I meet for a drink at the River Bar. We order beers and a bowl of hot chips and decline an invitation to share a table with a couple of chaps from Madagascar. We’re both subdued.

  ‘Hoang hasn’t called for two weeks,’ Suze says when we’re sitting down. ‘And I can’t call because of the wife. I don’t know whether something’s happened to him or if he’s just dicking me around.’

  ‘You’ve been through this with him before, haven’t you? When he’s just disappeared for a while?’

  She shakes her head. ‘This is different.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know … maybe it’s different for me. I think I’m reaching my limits.’

  ‘I guess when it’s so frustrating, and painful,’ I
say, ‘you need to ask yourself whether it’s worth it. Is it worth it?’

  She doesn’t respond for a while. ‘No,’ she says, dully. ‘No, I don’t think it is.’ She lights two cigarettes and passes me one, sighing.

  ‘Dave and I can keep you entertained,’ I say, squeezing her arm. ‘Boys will be lining up for you from here to Hanoi.’

  She laughs. ‘Did I tell you I got a promotion?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Features Editor.’

  ‘Congratulations! Man! That’s great news!’

  I go and get two glasses of no-name French champagne from the bar. We toast and she talks about the new position as we idly watch two men in white slacks playing pool. I realise one is the Aussie engineer, Mike, who called Vietnam a shit hole. He’s put on weight and has dark circles under his eyes. I wonder how much money he is making.

  Our chips come, fat and undercooked, with a saucer of fluorescent orange ketchup.

  ‘How’s dream lover?’ Suze asks while we are eating.

  I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t know … I don’t know if I’m ready.’

  ‘Who’s ever ready?’

  ‘I mean really not ready. I’m feeling too much too quickly … and I don’t know how he feels.’ I tell her about our last conversation. ‘Maybe he’s trying to slow things down.’

  ‘Honey, you’re making this shit up. Just look at him when you’re around! Can’t you see it?’

  ‘I don’t know. No. I can’t see it.’

  ‘Hey, if you’re feeling that vulnerable, maybe you’re the one who should slow things down.’

  ‘I think I’m just scared. I’m scared it’s not going to work out.’

  ‘You know, it doesn’t have to be anything more than you want it to be.’

  But I want it to be everything, I think. That’s the problem. I want it to be the answer.

  On Saturday I catch a xich lo to the Blue Dragon. When I walk in, my heart starts to race. I like this feeling and I don’t.

  Ariel comes out from behind the bar to meet me. I feel like he’s been gone from me for years. I want to run into his arms. He’s wearing a black shirt and his hair is mussed. He kisses me on the lips; he smells of rice and beer and cigarettes. He kisses me and I can breathe again.

  ‘Will you take a drink before we go?’ he asks. ‘Actually, I have some good wine, this is a change.’

  He pours two glasses and we sit together at the bar. ‘I have missed you,’ he says, in his quiet, serious voice.

  ‘You too.’

  We both smile. He picks up my hand and holds it in his big, warm one, stroking my fingers lightly with his thumb. ‘How have you been these last days?’

  I tell him about Miss Jenny’s discovery of aerobics, the gym suits she’s been wearing to work; I talk about the joy of being with Co Ngoc and her boys.

  ‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘How was your week?’

  ‘I have been taking more photos in Cholon … and I have helped a friend to move his apartment.’ He shrugs. ‘Actually, I am finding the nights here too long. I hope soon to work just four nights, if I can receive some regular money from the newspaper.’

  I nod, ‘That would be good,’ but it strikes me that he has all these plans, friends and commitments, a whole life I’m not part of, and I feel oddly flattened.

  ‘Will you wait here a short time while I finish?’ he says. ‘Tonight I have organised my first payment to the police so now I am a real manager in Saigon.’

  I sit alone and drink my wine while he mucks around at the till and talks to his staff then he comes back and we go out together into the night, get on his Vespa. I have no idea where we are going.

  We ride down Le Loi for a few blocks then turn into a side street, down another couple of dark narrow alleys, until we emerge – suddenly, brightly – into a hive of activity. The entire block is lit up and bustling with people, and fish! Fish everywhere. The stench is overwhelming, exhilarating.

  ‘Wow!’ I say.

  ‘Monday and Friday night each week.’ He is beaming like a little boy.

  We leave the bike and go by foot. Ariel gets out his camera and starts taking photos. I tuck my hand into his back pocket, staying close to him in the bustle. We stop to watch two men lift a six-foot fish from a truck to the back of a bicycle. They strap it on with rope and then one of them climbs onto the bike and wobbles off into the crowd. There is an old brown sedan stuffed with writhing crabs; two xich lo full of lobsters; a truck-bed brimming with thousands of tiny silver fish draped with seaweed. Everywhere, people noisily bartering: fishermen, shopkeepers, housewives and restaurateurs.

  After wandering around the market for an hour, pointing things out to one another, we stop to buy a dozen prawns from a young woman squatting beside a glowing brazier. I stand back as Ariel photographs her. He says something to her in Vietnamese that I don’t understand and she laughs. She reaches out to him and gives him something, a business card maybe, and again I feel somehow excluded, left behind.

  We find some crates and sit down. We pull the prawns apart with our fingers. They’re sweet and fresh and I am aware that I should be happy.

  ‘This is amazing,’ I say, trying hard to be here with him in this amazing setting. I lean over and kiss him, as if I can – by force of will and small, careful movements – thwart this growing sensation that something inside of me is shutting down. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.’

  ‘I knew you would love it.’

  In the morning we get up and shower. We soap each other, wash each other’s hair. It’s playful until we start to kiss. Ariel slides his fingers between my legs and I’m overtaken by this great rush of desire, so strong it’s almost dizzying.

  Afterwards, I lie naked and limp on the bed, watching him dress. He has such a beautiful body – taller and broader than Tim’s but with the same smooth olive skin. It has to be real, doesn’t it? All of this?

  ‘Should we go to find food?’ he asks. ‘You have made me very hungry.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, though really what I want is to stay here in this bed, in this room: just me and him in our nest.

  We go to a French place by the river and sit overlooking the water. Ariel translates the menu. We order frogs’ legs and salad.

  ‘I come here with a friend, Jean-Phillipe, when we are needing some French food.’

  I nod. ‘I’ve been eating a lot of banh mi with Vegemite over the past couple of weeks. I found a jar at the minimart.’

  He makes a face. ‘I have tried this Vegemite, just once.’

  I smile. ‘It’s an acquired taste.’

  The food arrives; Ariel starts to eat. I have some salad and look out at the river but I have no appetite. I feel wound up again, for no good reason. I am wondering when we will see each other again. Will it be days? A week? It makes me anxious but I can’t ask him because I know it will come out all wrong.

  I look at him, absorbed in a frog’s leg. Away from his apartment it feels like our intimacy has fallen away, the connection too loose. Maybe all this is just sex to him anyway. He said he was always looking to find new things; soon he will be bored, he’ll start turning me into photos. And then he will go.

  ‘You are not hungry?’ he asks.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Can I join you in your thoughts?’

  He tries to hold me with his eyes but I smile and turn back to the window. ‘I was just thinking about class, something I want to do with them next week.’

  We barely speak for the rest of the meal. Afterwards, he drops me back at the Van Mai. He cuts the engine. ‘Ella, are you okay? You seem far away.’

  ‘Yeah … I’m sorry. I think I might be getting sick.’ And it’s true, I am sick to the stomach.

  He kisses me, and then I watch him ride away, smaller and smaller until he is out of sight. Gone! I feel overwhelmingly sad. Why am I being this way? How do I stop?

  SEVENTEEN

  I am in bed for three days with a fever, aches and pains. Hien comes up and do
wn the stairs with bottles of water and bowls of broth that I can’t eat. One afternoon she rubs ginger into the soles of my feet. But mostly I am alone. Ariel calls but I can’t call him back and, in the fever, the room becomes enormous and hard and loveless. It seems to echo each small sound – a cough, the rattling fan, the tap dripping in the bathroom, Bones tck-tcking on the ceiling. The rooster crows and I want to wring its fucking neck.

  On the third day the fever breaks and a letter arrives from Jess. I read it in bed, squinting through a dull headache. She and Cosimo have spent a week down the Great Ocean Road, surfing on their boogie boards and eating fish and chips on the beach. They got drunk and sunburnt. They are talking about moving into a share house in Fitzroy with seven bedrooms and a roof garden, just a block from the Rainbow Hotel.

  The letter is like a tonic, everything so mouth-wateringly familiar. I think, longingly, of mornings spent on the front porch of our Carlton terrace when we were eighteen, eating baked beans with grated cheese, drinking huge mugs of tea. I miss her, and Melbourne, with a surprising ache.

  Maybe I could go back and move into Fitzroy too. The prospect of home no longer seems daunting. I could find a new job and rebuild a life for myself without Tim. And yet, I know that there is something muddy and muted here that I need to understand. There is Ariel, and, somewhere, maybe, there is the ghost of my father.

  So I brew some tea and write back to her, complain about the rooster and my confused emotions, and later eat the soup that Co Ngoc brings.

  On Thursday I go back out into the world. After the lonesome fever, the chaos of the street is almost a salve. I eat sunny-shine eggs at the Smiling Café then cycle slowly to work, grateful to have somewhere to go, people who are expecting me.

  We have a quiet class, chatting about illness in the rainy season. Influenza, in Vietnamese, is benh cum. My students offer advice and various remedies then for the last hour work silently from the red book.

  Afterwards, I go with Co Ngoc to visit Quy outside the Ben Thanh market. She wants to check on him. She tells me he has been smoking heroin for a couple of months. She is worried for him. She doesn’t know how he pays for it – he doesn’t sell enough cigarettes to support a habit, even in Ho Chi Minh City. We don’t canvass the possibilities.