The Rainy Season Page 18

  He nods slowly. ‘So, was it your uncle, or your father?’

  I freeze; frown. ‘My uncle,’ I say, eventually.

  ‘I’m not going to show you my medals and tell you ghost stories,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry about your uncle but I’m not interested in holding your hand, sweetheart. I don’t go in for talking. However, if you were to show me your tits …’

  I snort. ‘You’re full of shit.’ We scowl at each other, but the feeling of our eyes meeting, the stark truth of it, gives me a weird rush, happy and sad. ‘Do you have any medals?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘No.’

  I don’t move. He pours me a whisky. We sit and drink together for a while and it is almost companionable.

  It storms solidly for three days and nights, torrents of water falling down over the city, like the world is ending. I lie curled up in bed with another fever, aching all over, sipping ginger tea. Hien says I must build up my strength, always I am sick!, and brings delicious pork rice soup, chao heo, from home. Ariel doesn’t call. I stand naked in front of the cracked mirror in the bathroom and am shocked at how gaunt I look. When did this happen? How did I get so damned frail?

  On Sunday night, there is banging on the door in the early hours – the police. I pull on clothes and open the door to their familiar khaki figures. We run swiftly though the routine and they move on to the next room. I stumble back to bed and dream that I am in my childhood home in Brunswick, in my old room, and I am hiding under the bed because there is a man outside my room, crying. Why is my father so sad?

  I miss my Monday class and go back Tuesday. The city has turned into an urban wetland and I have to hold my legs straight out like a clown as the wheels of my bike spin through vast puddle after muddy puddle.

  I take into class a photocopied article on Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet’s newly established Department of Social Evils. Regional sub-committees are to be formed to assist local authorities in combating the three major ‘evils’ of drug abuse, prostitution and AIDS. Simultaneously, the Ministry of Health has launched a social marketing campaign aimed at promoting AIDS awareness and condom use. I notice that Trust has taken the spot of best-seller after their snappy TV ad campaign.

  Ngu reads the story aloud, red-faced with embarrassment, stumbling over vocabulary like sacrifice, prevention, abstention. I try awkwardly to define these new words and Mr Trung clears his throat several times, frowning hard. I realise I’ve made another error of judgement.

  ‘This problem can only be helped when young people receive good education,’ says Co Ngoc.

  I nod, thinking of Quy, of all her boys. Since the advent of Doi Moi, secondary education is no longer a right but a privilege, available only to those who can pay – one of the hidden costs of the new, richer Vietnam.

  Chien shakes his head. ‘The person who use the heroin must to go to prison. This person make crime, kill some people, make sick.’

  ‘Yes, but perhaps this person needs help too?’ I suggest.

  There is some fierce debate before Minh puts up his hand. ‘Miss Ella, how many way to get the AIDS?’

  ‘Well …’ I start, uneasily, but he is grinning at me, waiting to speak.

  ‘I tell you, Miss Ella – three way: Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, Huyen Tran Cong Chua Street and Le Hong Phong Street.’

  The flare of laughter is a relief though I notice not everyone joins in.

  Mr Trung clicks his tongue, still frowning. ‘This is very important topic. Before, we do not have this problem in our country, this AIDS,’ he says gruffly. ‘Before, no problem! In Vietnam, we say, when you open door for the new wind, dust come in.’

  I nod slowly. ‘Yes, Mr Trung, that seems a very true thing.’

  There is still half an hour to go and the mood in the room is edgy. I suggest we go to the café down the road to practise ordering in English. Everyone agrees so we troop off and spread ourselves out over a few tables, ordering one of almost every dish on the short menu: fried eggs with bread, spring rolls, crispy fried noodles with beef. We eat together and chat about our families and our homes. Minh cleans up all the leftovers.

  When there is only a handful of us left, and the women from the pea pod are busy discussing their children, I ask Co Ngoc about Quy. ‘Is he okay? Has he seen the doctor?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Same-same.’

  I sigh. ‘Change can be very hard, can’t it?’

  She nods. ‘Yes, sometimes, but sometimes not to change is harder.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ella, you look tired,’ she says. ‘Not well.’

  ‘Yes, it’s this virus.’

  She looks steadily at me and I feel as if it is all there on display for her, like a gruesome tattoo, my terrible appetite for destruction. Axl Rose eat your heart out.

  ‘Today we have special prayer for the full moon,’ she says. ‘Can you come now to visit my pagoda?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘It’s a long way,’ she says. ‘You can come on my motorbike. We will get your bicycle later.’

  We farewell the pea pod and climb onto her scooter. I sit behind, hands planted on her thick, warm waist, as we head off into the puddles.

  After about fifteen minutes we get to a street that is badly flooded. We come over a rise to look down upon a lake of murky brown water, the road rising clear again at the other side. I assume we’re going to turn back, find another route, but Co Ngoc tells me to hold on and we head down the hill. We manage to ride part way in – wheels spinning, engine sputtering – until the water is lapping at our calves, then we climb off and together wheel the bike slowly through. At the deepest point, the water reaches up to our thighs, but it’s strangely pleasant, like a huge, tepid bath. I want to squat down and splash in it. A young woman wades past holding her basket of produce up like a trophy; a flower floats by, a man’s shoe.

  I am almost disappointed when we come out the other side. We get back on the bike and arrive ten minutes later at Co Ngoc’s pagoda, soaking wet, just before prayers.

  The pagoda is built from fawn-coloured cement with ornate pillars and domes, brick-red tiles, sculpted green dragons and decorative columns of Chinese characters. It’s like a plastic model you might buy in Chinatown made life-size.

  A nun comes out; Co Ngoc introduces us. The nun gives us towels and we wind them around our legs and squeeze out as much water as we can.

  To get into the main room of the pagoda, we have to walk through an alcove whose walls are covered, frame to frame, with black-and-white head shots. Co Ngoc explains that they are the dead ancestors of those who worship here. Families come to offer food and prayer so that their ancestors’ spirits will remain close by to protect them.

  I pause in this small space and look at all the dead people, women with tight black buns and staring eyes, men with stern, dignified faces, all frozen forever at a certain age, with a certain hairstyle and expression. The photos carry an air of finality, like the picture of Hien’s father, and like the photos of my father, eternally twenty-two years old, just back from war.

  Co Ngoc takes my hand and leads me into the main room of the pagoda. The walls are decorated with colourful and detailed murals. There is a high red ceiling and dark floorboards. An elderly nun is kneeling on the altar, chanting and tapping out a rhythm on the wooden floor with her long, gnarly fingernails. Co Ngoc starts to pray, clasped hands moving from forehead to chin to chest in a repetitive dance. I try to copy her but can’t keep up so instead I just close my eyes and listen.

  ‘You can think of a person you have lost,’ Co Ngoc whispers. ‘You can wish for them happiness and peace.’

  It’s peaceful in the dark with just the tapping but then the prayer gong starts. It’s like the beating of an enormous tin heart. The deep notes reverberate into my throat, my lungs; steal my breath away.

  I think of my father, whom I have loved always, who I lost. I try to wish him peace and happiness but I am bewildered to find I can
not. Something in me, something new, is refusing, because, well, fuck! Where would the wishes even go? Where does the love go? I send my love out to him but nothing ever comes back.

  It’s late. Ariel answers the door with a towel wrapped around his hips. He looks magnificent. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks, coolly.

  ‘I’m sorry. I needed to see you. Can I come in?’

  He closes the door behind us. We stand for a minute in the middle of the living room. It’s ten days since we were last together. ‘Will you sit down?’ he says at last.

  We sit, side by side, on the couch.

  ‘I’m sorry for waking you.’

  He doesn’t say anything; he is grim. We look at each other for a long time, not touching or speaking, and the ache of desire builds, slowly and relentlessly, almost like nausea, out of control.

  ‘I wish I could be better at this,’ I mumble, shaking my head hopelessly. ‘I think there was some important lesson I missed. I want so much to be with you. I think you are fantastic.’

  He grabs my hand and pulls me towards him. We start to kiss. He is pulling at my clothes; his towel comes off. He is murmuring something in French I can’t understand, half angry, half tender. I kiss his face, his lips, his eyes, his temples; his neck, his shoulders, his hands. All of him, I love all of him. I whisper it soundlessly: ‘I love you.’ I reach for his cock, hard and smooth. I need to have him inside me. He’s moaning and I think he is speaking my name. And then we’re on the floor – his sandpaper cheeks, his soft hair – and it is making me cry, because I have been here before. I have been here before.

  Saturday night. Ariel has left two messages but I haven’t called back. I dress in a short green skirt and black singlet. I go to the wardrobe and pull out my big black boots. I rub lotion on my face, down my legs, into my hands; I pour a swallow of vodka and put on mascara. I don’t look at my reflection for long; I don’t want to see myself right now.

  Suze arrives, I hear her yelling up from the street. ‘Get your ass down here, honey.’

  I walk out onto the veranda. She’s leaning up against the Minx, wearing tight jeans and a black T-shirt. She looks ready to take on the world. Something dark and electrifying moves through me, some deep urge for total annihilation. Fuck everything, fuck every heart-breaking fucking one of them.

  I scamper down the five flights of stairs, past the night guard, the kids on the street still playing shuttlecock in the dark – plock, plock – onto the back of Suze’s clunky orange motorbike.

  In two days it will be my father’s birthday.

  ‘I’ve broken it off with Hoang,’ Suze says, over her shoulder.

  I rest my forehead on her back. ‘Suze, that’s good.’

  She laughs. ‘It’s exhausting being a martyr. I need a break. I want to be my own woman again.’

  ‘It’s not working out with Ariel either.’

  ‘But you two are our shining example of true love.’ She revs the engine. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Ah, let’s not talk about it tonight. Let’s go and dance and be single together.’

  We take off. We go fast. It feels fantastic. There is nothing between us and the silvery moon.

  We go to the River Bar, the Q Bar and end up at the Apocalypse. I know I won’t see Ariel – he hates this scene. I drink and I drink; I smoke and I smoke. People come in and out. I dance with a backpacker from Italy and a businessman from Bangkok. At about one in the morning I convince White Water John to give me a lesson on his motorbike. I want to learn how to ride. I want to be my own woman again. I want to be my own woman for once.

  We spend half an hour outside on the street, in the moonlight, with the xich lo drivers sniggering as I try to get it started. White Water John keeps leaning over me, very close, giving me instructions. We’re both laughing. I notice he is touching me more than he needs to; I don’t mind.

  Eventually I take off. I end up a hundred feet down the road on my side, grazes all the way up my left leg.

  ‘Come back to my place and I’ll clean you up,’ White Water John offers.

  We’re still laughing, so I go, and I know what I am doing, and I do it.

  At ten on Sunday morning I wince my way out of a xich lo and try to slink unseen into the Hotel Van Mai, make-up smeared around my eyes, dried blood down my leg. I don’t think I’ve ever before felt this bad, this ugly.

  There is no getting past Hien. ‘Ella, your boyfriend call here, last night,’ she says, accusingly.

  I take a big, quivery breath. ‘Right.’

  ‘Sit down!’ she orders.

  She comes around and looks at my leg, shakes her head, then disappears through the service door. She comes back with a plastic bowl of warm water, a bottle of brown stuff, and a roll of yellowing gauze.

  I wince as she rinses off the blood. ‘How you do this?’

  ‘Motorbike.’

  She tsks and shakes her head as she dabs on antiseptic then carefully winds the bandage around my leg.

  ‘Thank you, Hien. I don’t know how I’d survive without you.’

  She frowns. She is not impressed. She knows I have fucked up. She dismisses me and I creep up the stairs to Room 513.

  On Monday morning I ride to Ariel’s. I’ve barely slept for two nights now and there is a persistent low-level ringing in my ears.

  He opens the door and smiles. ‘Come in. I have been trying to call you.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ I’m wearing long pants, so he won’t see the bandage. We sit together on the couch. It reminds me of the last time I was here, so bittersweet. ‘I did something I regret,’ I say, without preamble.

  He waits. He’s wearing his glasses and his eyes, watching me, are terrifyingly huge.

  ‘I slept with someone on the weekend when I was drunk. I’m really sorry. It didn’t mean anything and I really wish it hadn’t happened.’

  He doesn’t say anything but I watch his face close over, right before my eyes. ‘Ella, this is your body,’ he says at last. ‘I have no ownership over this.’

  ‘I know, but —’

  ‘We have shared some good times but you are free. You have always been free.’

  I am not free, I want to scream. Can’t you see? I am not fucking free!

  ‘Did it mean anything to you at all?’ I say instead, in a small voice.

  He stands up then and kicks the wall, sudden and violent. ‘Fuck! What do you want me to say? That you have hurt me? That I have fallen in love with you?’

  He walks out of the room, into the kitchen. After a couple of minutes, I follow. He’s holding the bench, facing the wall. I can see the movement of his chest as he breathes. ‘Who is it?’ he asks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter – it was nobody that matters.’

  More silence.

  ‘Well, it was obvious, anyway, that you were not happy,’ he says, not looking at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. Then I leave.

  Sending home the remains

  NINETEEN

  On 3 October 1987, fourteen years after the last Australian combat troops were pulled out of Vietnam, a parade was held in Sydney to welcome the men home. After fourteen years of being shunned by their fellow Australians, vilified by the press, excluded from the RSL – because Vietnam was not a real war and so they were not real soldiers – here, at last, the Vietnam veterans were being brought in from the cold.

  Twenty-five thousand veterans marched and a hundred thousand onlookers lined the streets to welcome them belatedly back. Tearful spectators held their banners high: Australia welcomes you home. Lest we forget.

  I watched the parade on the black-and-white television in our little Carlton terrace, holding Jess’s hand. I got the shakes, watching these men and their families come out of hiding. They didn’t look like monsters. I scanned the crowd on the screen for my father, not sure what he would look like or what I would do if I saw him there. Call up the ABC?

  They were welcoming them home; they were making amends; maybe that meant my father could
come home too.

  A year later I met Tim.

  I have come full circle, right back to the beginning – except that this time I have put myself here. I made this happen. I sit at the Smiling Café with my beer and my cha gio, my broken heart, and there on the walls are the faded palms, Ho Chi Minh, Elvis with a curled lip. A few tables away, Allan sits with his back to me. He’s not going anywhere in a hurry either.

  I gaze out at the midday street. No rain, but everything looks flat and grey, impending. Xich lo drivers pedal by with blank faces. Backpackers come in and out clutching Lonely Planets; street kids follow, flashing their desperate, sneaky grins. It all seems so heartless and grim. I feel like I could just lie down on the floor and never get up.

  Chanh pulls up a chair. He’s holding a piece of sheer white letter paper and his face is a mask of sorrow.

  ‘What’s up, handsome?’

  ‘Same-same, you and me too.’ He puts a hand over his heart. ‘My boyfriend go home next week, finish his study.’

  He asks if I’ll read over his letter to check the English.

  Dear Tom,

  We’ll miss you when you leave here. You are a very beautiful boys.

  You are very very attractive me.

  I am very sorry when you leave here. I have no any small gift to send you. I write this for you to remember many funny thing we do together. Many time you make me so happy.

  I think that you should learn Vietnamese because my nation language is very very interesting and I like to hear you when you speak my language.

  Our café hope to see you again. I do not dare when I want to say ‘I love you’ because I think it is not a polite request. I hope you understand me.

  Goodbye my friend,

  Chanh

  I hand it back to him and watch a single tear slide, Harlequin-style, down his face. If only he would fall in love with a Vietnamese boy.

  ‘That’s a lovely letter. I don’t think you need to change a thing.’

  I’m late to class. I sit down to a sea of expectant faces. I have nothing planned so I tell them I have a headache and set exercises from the red book. I avoid eye contact.