One
(Over the Pacific)
I am up and ready. Last night Duy said she would call me at 5:30 am to wake me up. But i am up even before 5. At 5:30, instead of calling, she sends me a text message: Are you up? I say yes. Then i pick up the backpack and walk out of the house. There is a car service office two blocks away. I walk into the office and say to the man behind the glass window that i want to go to Kennedy airport. He tells me to wait. The sun has just come out. It is going to be a blue day. Then the man says the car is waiting for me outside. I walk out and enter the car. Where to, the driver says. Kennedy, i say. There is no traffic in this direction of the Belt Parkway, going out of the city. There are jams however in the other direction, people are coming into the city from Long Island for another day of work. I don't feel asleep at all even though last night i only slept for three hours. Chat with Duy until one in the a.m. I didn't think that we were going to meet. She was a lot of pain: i want to see you, i don't want to see you, off and on like a broken record. If we met this time it was to decide our future, she also said. She could say a million things, but none would stick. She changed her mind like she changed her underwear. Each day. And it made me dizzy. One week before today, i was even convinced that we would not meet. And what the hell am i going to do with the gifts i bought for her? The Superman faceplate for her iphone, the magnet, the backpack, the t-shirts, the earings, all with the Superman logo. She loves Superman. But near the day of my departure, we made up, and now we agree to meet. She was even excited at the prospect of seeing me again. I hope she doesn't change her mind while i am in the middle of the flight.
This is an annual vacation and i time it to coincide with father's memorial. Middle of August. My brother Duc in Pennsylvania is going too, just for this occasion. He will arrive home, in Da Nang, one day after me. He goes because this may be the last time he will get to see mother: she's 81 years old and sick; she's counting her days. Earlier in the year she fell down the stairs and suffered multiple injuries and no one thought she would survive. But she did, and now her condition is stable. But still, with the illnesses, she can go at anytime.
And Duy? She has been back to VN since Feb and it has been six months since we were together. Back then, she was living in New York with me. So of course i am eager to see her again. And she always wants me to take her back to New York, something i don't think i can do. But seeing each other we must. Because we are lovers. And six month is a long time for any lovers to separate.
I have no luggage, only a carry-on backpack. Mai and Hong have asked me to bring stuffs to VN for their families, but i said no i can't, and they are understanding, they didn't beg me to. And for that i am grateful. I always have a hard time saying no to anyone about anything. That's my weak point, if you want to call it that. On trips like this, luggage for me is always a no no. I want to travel light, as light as possible. In and out of the airports like a stealth commando. I brought three pairs of pants and some underwear. No shirts. Duy said i didn't need to: she has already bought 4 shirts for me and will give them to me when we meet in Sai Gon. The rest of the stuffs in my pack is gifts for Duy and some other people. Even with such little things, the backpack bulged.
After checking in, i stand at the edge of the terminal to smoke. Cigarette after cigarette. Because i know the flight will be long: 16 hours non-stop from New York to Hong Kong. Inhuman. Savage.
And i am somewhere over the Pacific. I don't sleep. I don't take sleeping pills or drink beers. I sit and watch movies. A lot of them. Between movies, i just stare at the back of the seat in front of me. And i eat the meals they serve. Sixteen hours confined in a seat. Lucky, i have the aisle seat. One thing i know: you cannot shit at 32,000 feet. Sleep away the hours? I didn't care to. Had i wanted to sleep, i would drink a lot of alcohol and take a lot of Alprozolam. But i don't do that because in flights last year and the year before i was so drunk all the flight attendants were mad at me. I kept coming to them for wine and beers. And i even took up seats in the first class. And when i stepped off the airplane at the end of the flights, i was decimated. I am not going to do so this time.
So i just sit and eat and watch movies and stare at the back of the seat in front of me. I don't even think. All is arranged: My nephew will pick me up at the airport. We will meet for a few hours, then after he's gone, i will call Duy and she will come to the hotel to spend the night with me. "I don't want you to sleep alone," she said.
The plane lands in Hong Kong and i run, looking for the smoking room. It is at the end of the large airport. I smoke two cigarettes then run to the departing gate for Sai Gon. At the security check point, they take one of my gas lighters. You can have only one, the woman says. I debate with her the logic of their policy, because one of the lighters is a new Zippo that does not light up, only sparks, intended as a gift for my nephew. The other one is a regular lighter for my cigarettes. I tell her the Zippo is a gift. And she says so give up your own lighter and keep the Zippo, you can always ask someone for a light if you need to smoke. Ha? Such a smart woman! Why can't i think of that, such a simple thing? I guess the jet lag does that to me.
The plane to Sai Gon is only half full, and it is going to arrive earlier than scheduled. Getting off the plane and walking out of the terminal, i don't see my nephew. So i sit in a cafe and wait for him. It is six in the evening and darkness has descended on the city. The asphalt surface of the road outside the terminal glitters: its wet surface is reflecting the neon lights. It is raining. Saturday night.
Two
(Sai Gon)
Two of my nephews come. Not one as i has thought. We ride through the dense Sai Gon traffic. Motorbikes, or mopeds, swarm the streets and the noises are deafening. I am not unfamiliar with this sight and this environment: i have been in this town many times before.
-What are you doing now? I ask the nephew, sitting behind him on his bike.
-I am working for a company. And i sell insurance on the side, he says.
-What company? I ask.
He doesn't answer the question, and i think i understand why: he may not be telling the truth. He may not be working for any company at all. But selling insurance? Perhaps. A few months ago he and his girl friend went bankrupt and they had to run to this big town to hide from the debtors. No one in the family knows where he lives, and he does not answer strange numbers. I communicate with him through emails and yahoo messenger. He may be having a hard time making a living for himself, his newborn baby, and his girl friend. Perhaps he feel ashamed of his situation and doesn't want to divulge too much on his personal things. He is the nephew that i am closest to.
We arrive at the hotel in the center city where i has planned to stay tonight. I did my research on where to stay. Thien Xuan Hotel. After registering all three of us go up to the room. I take a shower then join them. One is sitting at the table. One is stretching out on the bed. I gave the bankrupt nephew his gifts: the Zippo and 100 tabs of Alprozolam. "Use it with care," i say to him. He knows what he's up to. Last year when he ran out of the drugs, he went crazy and in one drunken bout he cut his wrist. He couldn't find any substitute for the drug except the alcohol. He needs tranquilizers to deal with his terrible girl friend who is now considered his wife because they have a baby together. This woman once said to him when she was still carrying the fetus: Give me 100,000,000 dongs or i will have an abortion. Enough said.
I sit at the table with one of the nephew and say to them:
-Situation is this meeting is going to be short. It's now near eight o'clock and my girl friend will come over before ten. Let's go out and eat and drink some then you go home and i will see you later.
We got up and go. After riding around for half an hour, we settle in a sidewalk restaurant and order foods and beers. The rain has stopped. During the drinking i pop half a pill and the bankrupt nephew does another half. Then while riding back to the hotel, he say his headache is gone and he feels fine. He drops me off at the hotel near ten o'clock. I will call you, i say to him. Then he rides off. I go up to the room and call Duy. No answer. I take another shower, then call her again. No answer. I go down to the hotel lobby and sit at a PC, wanting to contact her with yahoo messenger, at least sending her a SMS message because i don't have a cell phone. Then while the PC boots, i hear someone says: Room 307. That's the number of my room. I walk to the reception desk and the guy tells me someone is looking for me and she has gotten into the elevator to go to my room. I must be Duy, think. So i go to the room. As i get off the elevator i see a woman with her back to me standing at the door of my room. I approach her and hug her from behind. She turns around and places a kiss on my lips. Duy. I open the door and we enter.
-I know you were calling me but i was riding the bike so i couldn't answer, she says.
-Be careful, my breath is full of alcohol smell, i say.
Her kisses go even deeper into my mouth. I carry her to the bed and pin her down. We get naked and brush our bodies against each other. It has been six months. I miss you so much, she says. She's thinner than when she was in New York. Her breasts seem to be smaller and when i hug her, i can feel her rib-cage.
Then we get up and i give her the gifts. She's excited when she sees the black thongs that she has asked me to buy for her.
-I will paint the Superman logo on them and you will keep one and i will keep one, she says.
Then she gives me the shirts and ask me to try them on. All fit very nicely. And she gives me the book i has asked her to buy for me: a collection of TCS's love letters to a woman when he was in his late twenties. I stay up last night to read this book, she says, because i will have to give it to you. It is a big book, almost 300 pages.
We don't talk about serious matters like what are our future plans are going to be. We just don't talk about it, even though i know it has been her only concern in this relationship, at least since she ran to New York to live with me. So all we do is making love. That's how we are. All the matters that seem to be serious are discussed in the emails and in the chats, not in face to face conversations; at least, not all of the times. When she has something important to tell me and she says that she will only tell me when we meet, she always forgets about it when we do. And i forget to remind her too.
That night i twist and turn and my insomnia does not allow her to sleep either. I have just come from the other side of the earth and for my body, it is day, not night.
In the morning we walk to a book store and i buy her a copy of the TCS's book. Then we walk to the museum where we first met in the spring of 2009. We climb the stairs and out into the balcony where i saw her in person for the first time, after almost two years courting each other online. I was crazy about her. She drove me insane with her youthful beauty and her playfulness. That morning when i found her she was wearing a blue t-shirt and blue jeans. I recognized her even though she was having her back toward me. I came near her and she turned around and i extended my hand toward her and she took my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. The world vanished. Then on a bench in a museum hallway, i fell asleep in her lap, without reservation, without care, without worry. Even though this was the first time we met in the flesh, i felt that we had known each other intimately like an old couple. But this morning standing on this balcony with her again, more than two years later and after a good amount of drama, tears and laughter, i don't feel the same anymore. It just feels like a morning like any other morning, and this balcony is just a place like any other place. I wonder why.
We stand on the balcony for a while, looking at the buildings around us and the traffic on the streets. There is very little talk between us. Then we walk down to the museum's garden cafe and sit. The temperature rises and i start to sweat. We drink coffee. I am smoking a cigarette and she asks me to burn a hole into the TCS's book's title page. I do as she asks. Then she asks me to write something to go with the burn mark. And i write a sentence from TCS's lyrics: Love is a burn on your skin.
I have to be at the airport at noon for the flight to Da Nang. So we walk back to the hotel. We ate in a restaurant on our way back. Then i return the room and we ride to the airport on her moped. It rains. We say goodbye at the security checkpoint.
-I will call you and let you know when we can meet again, i say.
-When can it be, she says.
-Two weeks from now, perhaps, i say.
-Ok, she says and walks away.
An hour and thirty minutes later, my older brother picks me up at the Da Nang airport. He brings me home to mother. She does not know that i was coming. She is lying in bed when i and my brother walk in. She recognizes me and happiness shows on her wrinkled face.
-You are a good boy, going home and seeing me like this. I didn't know you were coming, she says.
I hug her and sit with her on her bed. She caresses my hands. But she does not say much. My brother has kept my home coming from her because he doesn't want her to count the days. Then my he says let mother rest. She lies down again and closes her eyes. I change, take a shower and while she's sleeping, i and my brother go to the riverbank and drink beer.
That night i sleep in a hotel on the other side of the river because there is no place for me to sleep at mother's, at my brother's or at my sister's. Near midnight one of my nephews comes to the hotel and we go out and drink and i get very drunk. I talk with Duy. She says that after seeing me off at the Sai Gon airport, she went home and slept all day. The night before with me, she didn't sleep at all. I pass out near dawn. And today is father's memorial.
Three
(Da Nang)
In the morning my brother comes and picks me up at the hotel and takes me to his house where father's and the ancestors' altars are and where father's memorial ceremony will take place. I go straight to the top floor and lie down on a cot on the floor to continue my sleep. The fan brings little relief from the heat. In and out of consciousness.
Duc, my brother from Pennsylvania, is to arrive by noon.
A nephew wakes me up and asks me to go down for lunch. I come down and see Duc sitting at the dinning table with my older brother and my sisters; one of the sisters has just come from Tam Ky, a small town 40 kilometers south of Da Nang.
We ate.
After the meal i and Duc go for a ride around town and into the mountains surrounding the city, then a swim in the ocean. He laughs at the street names in the newly developed area of the city near the beach. Names like "Lesby" and "Morrison."
-What the English is for, Duc says.
-Some smart ass in the authority was trying to show off his language skill, i say.
At three o'clock the ceremony for father begins. The candles are lit and the insense are burning and we take turns to kowtow. Mother is also present. She comes in a taxi because she cannot safely sit on a moped. She sleeps on a bed near the altars and only gets up when the kowtow at the altars begins. She looks as if lost, doesn't know what's going on.
-What is it, she asks.
-Father's memorial, mom, one of my sisters says to her almost in a scream, and near her ears too.
After all the incense burns out, everyone sits at the table and eats. Outside, darkness is descending on the city. It was in this house that i grew up and it was in this house that i lived the darkest days of my life: the teen years. On that ceiling was where i attempted to hang myself when i was 18. And on that bed over there one night i tried to commit suicide by swallowing liquid mercury and waiting all night for death. And it was in this house that i met and fell in love for the first time in my life: Phuong. She's now in San Jose with a husband and two children. But i don't see the pictures i painted on the walls anymore: my brother has painted over them. My existence, or at least the memory traces of it, in this house was erased.
The phone vibrates. It is Duy. I don't answer. I am in the middle of a feast in the presence of the whole family, i will call her later when i am free and alone. Seven in the evening.
That night i rent a room in a hotel on the northern edge of the city and Duc comes near midnight and immediately falls asleep. I cannot sleep despite the amount of beers i have consumed all through the evening, plus the Alprozolam. I just cannot sleep. I call Duy after Duc is already snoring loudly. I don't remember what we talk about. Then i lie down and close my eyes.
At four thirty in the morning the church across the street strikes its bell as if wanting to wake up the whole neighborhood. I get up and look out the window. People start to walk into the church, alone or in groups of two and three. The faithfuls. Duc gets up after me and looks at the sight.
-I wonder how the people who are not Catholics take this everyday, i say.
-They all have moved out of the hood for sure, Duc says.
Unable to continue to sleep, we go to mother's and see her sitting at the table in her bedroom and my older brother is giving her an insulin shot. I light a cigarette. Duc lights a cigarette. The sister from Tam Ky is sitting on a chair, looking and smiling.
-What are you doing, just sit there and smoke, why aren't you at work, mother says.
-We are on vacation, mom, and we are here to see you, i say.
-Stop the vacation and go back to work, she says.
I have to almost yell for her to hear me. After the insulin shot, my older brother gives her the pills, then she eats. We sit and observe her. I have seen her on earlier trips home and this is the first time i see gray hairs on her head. And her hairs are cut short like a man's. My mother is typical of any traditional woman: marry early not out of love but by arrangement, devote all of her life to the family, never step out of line, and now, she's waiting for death. After the meal, which was a small bowl of noodle soup, she goes to bed and lies down, closes her eyes. We all leave the room and go to a coffee shop. We sit until noon then my older brother leaves. Then Duc and my sister leave. Duc says he must go back to the hotel to sleep. His life in America does not allow him enough sleep. He's a chronic insomniac and the lack of sleep has been killing him.
-How can you, with all the coffee you drank, and the day light, and the noises? I says to him.
-I have my Valiums, he says.
Alone, i order another cup of coffee. I sit. I look at the phone: there are two text messages from Duy. I answer her, telling her that all is ok and i will see her soon.
It is day four into my vacation. Before i boarded the plane in New York, i had thought that this might be a trip to endure, not to enjoy. Because i have known what has been waiting for me: the loneliness and aloneness. The city where i was born and raised has become a strange place to me. Mother and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews are there but their is no sense of a family to me. Everyone is wrapped up in his or her private world, often a very turbulent world; and all orbit a dying mother. And here i am, dropped in out of nowhere, and they welcome me with a kind of aloof politeness. I don't have a home. I don't have a family. I want to sleep at mother's, but she is troubled by the faintest noises and light. I cannot bother her with my insomnia and my late night movements. So i sleep in hotels, but i tell her i sleep at my older brother's house. She would be upset if she knows i am sleeping in hotels.
The next day i, Duc, my older brother and one of the sisters go to the village to visit the ancestors' graves. It is a routine for me every time i come back to the country. I must. The village is 30 kilometers outside of Hue. It is cloudy all day and the heat is less intense and my sister keeps saying thank god the day is cool. She's right, otherwise we are roasted, because all the graves are in the sand dunes surrounding the village. We visit about ten graves, planting incenses and kowtowing at each one. We return to Da Nang in the early evening and i am tired. I and Duc go to the hotel and he immediately fall asleep.
-I have to make up for the sleep i lost in America, he says.
I go down to the hotel lobby and drink with a guy who says he is the security guard. At midnight, i go up to the room and throw two pills down my throat. And i pass out until the church across the street wakes me up. That's four hours of sleep; or rather, unconsciousness.
The next day in the early afternoon i and Duc board a plane for Sai Gon. He's going back to America. I am going to Vinh Long to see M's mother, another routine for me on every trip back. Before the flight M's brother call and says he will pick me up at the airport in Sai Gon. I thank him but tell him not to bother. Duy calls while i am sitting in the Da Nang airport waiting to board the plane. I tell her how i feel: the isolation and the alienation. She says she wants to go to Da Nang. I tell her no, i will have no time for her because i must spend most of my time with my sick mother. She expresses sympathy and says she will wait for me to return to Sai Gon, near the end of my vacation. But here i am, flying to Sai Gon in a secret trip to see another woman's mother. Another woman, Mai. They don't know about each other's existence. And i am in the middle, trying my best to keep it that way. Am i a cheater? I am not sure. I have been separated from M for almost 6 years but we still see each other every two or three weeks but we never touch each other again. It would not help the situation if Duy knows about it. And as far as Mai is concerned, i always have a lover hidden somewhere; and she's right. She just doesn't know the details and never presses me for details. It's as if she accepts my "unfaithfulness" as a matter of fact that she can do nothing about, and she reserves to the status quo without complaints. Leave it that way.
Four
(Sai Gon-Vinh Long)
The taxi drops Duc at his mother-in-law's house. I tell him i will call him when i am back to the States. That's the end of his trip, going back to a frustrated life with five children and a wife he doesn't have any love for.
I continue to the hotel where Mai's brother is waiting for me. I have wanted to go straight to Vinh Long after landing in Sai Gon, but the brother asks me to spend the night in Sai Gon. I am in the same town with Duy again, but she doesn't know. I am not deceiving her, i am only being practical and realistic: she doesn't need to know my personal business. It would only create an unnecessary uncomfortable situation that does not help anyone. I reply to every message and answer every call from her, so to her, i am in Da Nang, even though right now i am only a taxi ride away.
That night i and the brother go club hopping until three in the morning.
In the morning i take a bus to Vinh Long. The town is about 150 kilometers southwest of Sai Gon by the Mekong River. I have been to this town faithfully to visit Mai's family each trip back. No matter how my relationship with M is they still see me as one in the family and that's the way i feel too. When i walk into the house, i see M's mother sitting on the bed looking at the TV. She is as old as my mother. I greet her and sit by her side and i ask her questions about her health. She appears to be even sicker than my mother. She can't walk without support. Mai's sisters prepare lunch. What do you want to eat, they ask me. I say anything is fine. After the meal i go up to the room on the top floor and pass out and in my sleep i hear the rain pounding furiously on the roof. I wake up at about three in the afternoon and it takes me a while to realize where i am.
That night i drink with another of Mai's brothers and he gets very drunk.
The next morning i say goodbye to the family and go back to Sai Gon for the flight back to Da Nang. I have done my duty to the family, even if only with my presence. A mere fleeting presence. I don't know if it means anything anymore, to me or to them. I do what i think i must do, that's all.
Five
(Da Nang)
Back in Da Nang, suddenly i am forced to confront the days. I don't know what to do to kill the time except spending hours on the beach baking myself in the sun and drinking myself into oblivion every night.
One evening i go to one of my sisters and drink with her husband and when the drinking is over i walk out of his house and don't know where to go, where to sleep. It rains. I walk the streets like a mad man. I go into an internet cafe, wanting to get Duy on the messenger to chat with her, as if i was still in America. Access is denied every time i attempt to sign in. I walk again and it is near midnight. I must find a hotel and i wave down a moped and the driver takes me to the hotel where i and Duc have stayed. No vacancies, they say. And we ride again. The rain is relentless. Eventually, we find a hotel in a corner of the city and they put me up in a room without windows. I want more beers, they bring me beers and i drink. And i call Duy and talk and talk and talk. I am nearing blackout. I pass out. When i wake up, darkness is around me, i am terrified: Where am i? The place does not look familiar. Then slowly i realize that i am in a hotel. I look at the clock: one past noon. I take a shower and go downstairs to check out. I walk out of the hotel and the sun hit me in the face. I go to see mother. She is sleeping when i enter her room. I tap her on her shoulders. She opens her eyes.
-Is that you, she says.
-Yes, it's me, i say.
-There are bananas on the table, eat, she says.
Then she falls back to sleep. I stay in her room. Then at five, my brother comes. He wakes mother up and feeds her and after she finishes eating he gives her the pills. She complains about having to live on drugs, not foods. My brother laughs. I light a cigarette. Why do you smoke too much, having nothing better to do, she says. My brother leaves after his five o'clock routine with mother. She goes back to bed. It's dark. The room's windows open to the noises of traffic down on the street. It is like i am sitting right in the middle of the road. I walk downstairs and into the street. I catch a moped and tell the driver to take me to the beach. There, i sit on the sand, drinking beers and listening to the sound of the waves. That night i go back to the hotel on the edge of the city where Duc and i have stayed and this time they have a room for me.
I wake up near noon the next day. I look at the phone, there are two messages from Duy. Both say: Why do i feel so unwell this time you are in Da Nang, unlike the last time? I call her and tell her i will be back to Sai Gon earlier than i have planned. Like when, she says. I don't know, but sooner rather than later, i say.
Then i sit and look out the windows. I see a suspension bridge on the far side of town. The day is sunny. I say to myself, should i stay in the room or should i go out. I feel so sick that i even think of confining myself in this room until the day i leave town. It is week two into the vacation. I thought i could stay longer. But now i see that's impossible. Time weighs heavily on me. I must kill the time. Then i decide to go to see mother. I walk into her room. She opens her eyes and looks at me. Then she closes her eyes again. I sit at the table and smoke cigarette after cigarette.
The next day i go to the airline ticket office and book a flight for Sai Gon for August 30, four days from today. Not only i book a flight to Sai Gon, but i also book flights for Hue, then back to Sai Gon. I will take Duy with me back to this region then back to Sai Gon again. We are going on a trip together. First to Hue, then Da Nang, then back to Sai Gon.
I tell my brother when we are drinking together that afternoon that i will leave town earlier than planned. He has no comments. There is nothing left here for me to do. Besides, i have a lover waiting for me in Sai Gon. She calls everyday. And she sends tons of messages. She feels very insecure that i am in this town and she's not with me and she's getting restless by the day. And i am eager to see her again. With her i would no longer feel lonely.
The following day i take a bus to Tam Ky and spend a day and a night with my sister's family. Second day with her i borrow her bike and ride into the mountains west of the town. I ride to the Phu Ninh lake, where when i was nineteen, i have helped dig it along with thousands of other people. You can call it forced labor. I remember that i spent a week there breaking the earth with a spade during the day and sleeping in barracks with scores of others, like in an army camp. Then i ride to Tien Phuoc, a small village not too far from Tam Ky. At noon, i return to the sister, have lunch; and after lunch i take a siesta and at 5 in the evening i catch a bus back to Da Nang.
Back in Da Nang I stop by mother for an hour then go to the hotel. I call Duy and tell her i will be back in Sai Gon on August 30. She says she will be waiting for me. I have thought that i would only have three days for her. But now, she is going to have six days with me. Near midnight a nephew comes and we go down to the hotel lobby and drink. The woman at the reception says she cannot get a visa to go to America even only for a visit. I ask her why, and she says she doesn't know why they keep turning her down, she has properties here and there is no reason for her to stay in America past her visa. She owns the hotel. After the drinking my nephew takes me back to the room and throws me on the bed. I look at him and see five of him, not one.
-Promise me you will not leave the room, he says.
-I promise, i say.
Then he leaves. I pass out.
I wake up at noon and go to mother.
-What are you doing here, why aren't you working, she says.
-I am still on vacation, mom.
-Go back to work, she says.
Then she closes her eyes and sleeps again. I borrow my sister's bike and ride to My Son. Out of the city and on the highway, for a short while, the road suddenly becomes deserted. For a few moments, there are no trucks, no buses and no other mopeds around me. And i speed up. Then i see something in front of me, and i apply the break, like a knee-jerk reaction, and the bike flips over and throws me off. A few people run to me from the side of the road as if wanting to assist. But they stop when they see i pick myself up. There is blood on my right foot and pain in my left wrist. I ride on. Then i see a pharmacy and stop. The woman at the counter looks at the wounds on my foot and tells me to go the a clinic not too far away. It's only a few hundred feet down the road, she says and points her finger in the direction where the clinic is supposed to be. I leave the pharmacy and find the place. I park the bike and walk into the clinic. Two girls come out and take me to a room and tell me to sit down on a bed and pull up my pants. There is a wound on the knee, and three on the foot. And they are all bleeding. They clean the wounds and put bandages on them.
-I feel pain in the wrist, i says.
-Take an xray, there may be broken bones in there, one girl feels my wrist and says.
I ride on to My Son but this time much slower than before. The pain in the wrist is getting more distinct. At the foot of the My Son Mountains, I park the bike at the ticket booth and walk into the restaurant. I sit and smoke. I am in no condition to climb the mountains. After half an hour, i ride back to Da Nang. I return the bike to my sister late in the afternoon and limp into the house.
-What happened, she says.
-I had an accident, i say.
That night in the hotel room the pain in the foot and in the wrist are so bad i have to grab the wall when i go to the bathroom.
The next morning i call my brother and tell him about the accident. We meet in a cafe by the river and he takes me to a doctor and the doctor takes an xray and finds no broken bones either in the foot or in the wrist. But by this time both areas have swollen up and all red. The doctor wraps my hand and wrist up with a brace and gives me some meds.
In the evening i talk to Duy and tell her that on arriving in Sai Gon i will meet with my nephew first and then with her, just like the first day i landed in the country. At this she goes ballistic: she wants to be the one who sees me at the airport. Then follows a series of text messages: i don't want to see you again, you are a fake, this love is phony, leave me alone, have fun with your nephews, why do we have to continue this relationship when all is just a fake between you and me. For the remainder of my stay in Da Nang, i am bothered by her attitude. She knows we are going on a trip together, and now this? So i stop the phone calls and the text messages with her. If you do not go with me, i will go alone. No big deal, i say to myself.
I keep going to the beach and bake in the sun. I walk along the beach for miles and drink all the beers people can bring me. One night, sitting in a club with a nephew and very drunk, i toss Duy a message. She replies. So here we go again: back to "normal." That's the way it is. That's how this love affair is. It can die a thousand deaths, and will come back to life a thousand times. I tell her she can meet me at the airport in Sai Gon on August 30, we will spend a night in town and will fly to Hue early the following morning. She becomes excited again.
On the day i leave Da Nang i see mother and say goodbye to her.
-Your job is the most important thing of all, she says.
-Yes, mother, i say.
That day the airline cancels the flight and delays it until 10 in the evening. I have booked a morning flight. So i lie in bed at my brother's and wait. In the evening my sister-in-law tries to talk to me about the difficult and unappreciated life she has had in my family. She is on the verge of tears when she is talking. She talks about how she attempts to run away many times. My brother walks in and she looks at him with fear and stops the monologue. All i do is sit there and listen to her. I have heard similar stories from her many times before, almost every time i come back. So i am not surprised because there are no new details, but i think her suffering is real: she is the only one who brings in money for the family. My brother has voluntarily checked out of the economic life of his family a long time ago, leaving the hardship of feeding and maintaining the family to his wife. So i don't blame her if she complains. And she complains bitterly. That night when i and my brother come out of the house to go to the airport, i see her walking to the corner of the block, a very frail figure. She knows i am leaving. But still, she chooses not to be present to say goodbye.
At the airport, after i check in, my brother says goodbye.
-What are you doing for the remainder of your vacation, he asks.
-I will just travel around before i go back to America, i say. I have six days left.
It is supposed to be the final goodbye, and that is how i want him and everyone to think. My plan is i will come back to Da Nang with Duy for one day. And they'd better not know about it. My brother goes home. It is eight thirty in the evening, time for him to go to bed.
After clearing security, i sit and wait for the plane with scores of other people. It is again late. I call Duy and tell her i will arrive after 11 o'clock. She is already at the airport, waiting.
Six
(Sai Gon-Hue-Da Nang-Sai Gon)
I walk out of the terminal but don't see Duy. I call her on the phone. And as i am rounding a corner, i find her. She does not look too happy. Flight delays. She had to wait for more than two hours. It is near midnight. And i am dead tired too. I grab her hands and we get into a taxi and i tell the driver to take us to a hotel near the airport.
As i close the door of the hotel room behind me, i tell the bellboy that i need a wake-up call at 4:30 in the morning. He says yes. I and Duy strip and enter the shower. Then we go to bed. We have an early flight to Hue to catch tomorrow morning. She looks at the wounds on my knee and foot and the brace i wear on my wrist. I take off the brace. Then we make love and fall asleep. The wake up call comes at exactly 4:30 am. I shake Duy to wake her up and half awake half asleep we take a shower. Then we go downstairs. It is dark in hallway and in the lobby. A guy comes up from somewhere under the counter when i knock on it. I pay and get my passport back. Need a cab? The guy say. I say yes and we sit and wait for the car. The ride to the airport is very short.
This time there is no cancellation or delay of the flight. The plane lands in Hue after an hour and twenty minutes. Walking out of the terminal, we board a bus for the city. I have been to this ancient city so many times in my life. The last time was only last week when i was passing through it on my way to visit the ancestors' graves. For Duy, this is her first time. But i don't see any excitement in her face. Just like when i met her in Houston when she arrived in America almost two years ago, her face was as cold as a statue. Maybe traveling is not something she is so interested in. But what's important is we are together. And we have talked about this trip a while back when i was still in the States, before the vacation. We wanted to travel the length of the country, from Ha Noi, through Nha Trang and to Sai Gon. But now, for the days i have left, Hue and Da Nang are the best we can do. The bus drops us in the center of the city, on the southern flank of the Huong River. I wave a cab and tell the driver to take us to a hotel nearby. And he takes us to a hotel called DMZ. The room is large and nicely decorated. Large windows and even a balcony. But i hear furious poundings on the other side of the wall: some construction is going on. After taking a shower, we go downstairs and the same taxi driver is still there. I ask him to take us to a restaurant where they serve special local foods. By now, the sun is shinning very brightly and it is hot. The cab takes us across the Huong River and into the other part of the city. This is the river i want Duy to see. It is mentioned in the music and the poetry, and now she is looking at it for the first time. This is Hue, the city associated with TCS, or is it really where the musician was born? I am not sure. But in the popular imagination when his name is mentioned, people think of Hue. We both love TCS's music. Then the driver makes a turn into a deserted road along the river, and he says this is TCS Street. Duy looks around and says: It's just like what he describes in his music. She's talking about the desolation along the street. Scattered houses on one side of the street, and on the other, only grasses and shrubs. After the meal, we go back to the hotel for a midday nap. The poundings on the other side of the wall have stopped. It is lunch time.
We sleep to two in the afternoon. We take a shower. She kisses me from my chest down to my toes while the water is pouring on us. And i soap and clean her very carefully. Then we go out to visit the kings' tombs. The afternoon heat is oppressive. The air stands still. This is Hue's summer. At one mausoleum, when we come out and walk along the dirt road to return to the car, a woman carrying a baby follows and tries to sell us some fruits, perhaps from her own garden, and when we refuse to buy, she suddenly turns into a beggar. We give her money. She thanks us and turns around. That evening after dinner in a sidewalk restaurant, we walk along the river. There is a night market where all kinds of trinkets are for sale, all laid out on the ground. Duy stops to look at them but does not buy anything. And the sellers are not interested in making sales either. They are there to pass the time. We sit in a coffee shop. I ask the waiter for alcohol. No alcohol. Duy has an ice cream. On the way back to the hotel, we eat in a Japanese restaurant. Duy orders for me a big bottle of sake. Knock yourself out, she says. And i am happy to oblige. At the hotel, we sit on the balcony and listen to the dying noises of the city about to go to sleep. Suddenly, Duy asks what our future will be. I tell her i am planning for a day when i will return to VN to live for the rest of my life but i do not explicitly say that she will be part of the plan. When is it going to be, she asks. For that, i don't have an answer. And she cries. She does not wail, but i see tears streaming down her face. Then she leaves me and goes to bed. After half an hour, i come in and see her bury her face in the pillows. I lie down next to her and take her in my arms. She cuddles up and returns the embrace. I feel happy, this is my lover and she is in my arms. Suddenly, she sits up. Close your eyes, she says, and walks to the corner of the room and searches her backpack. Then she comes back and blindfolds me.
-I have a surprise for you, she says.
I hear her going into the bathroom and closing the door behind her. Five minutes later the blindfold on my eyes is removed and what i see in front of me is a cat. She has turned into a cat. She wears cat's ears, she paints her face to look like a cat, with whiskers and a red nose, she wears a black bra and black panties, and when she turns around, i see a cat's tail. All black. I laugh. I remember she said once that when we met again and made love, she would have a surprise for me. So this is it. I pull her over and tell her she's my cat, my cute and adorable cat. I caress her tail and her ears, and bite her red nose. Then slowly i remove everything on her and we make love. I am making love to a cat. And the cat doesn't cry anymore.
In the morning i rent a moped and we ride into the Citadel. My wrist is still hurting and i drive slowly, almost clumsily. Before crossing the river into the ancient part of the city, we spend an hour in an art gallery. Duy observes and does not talk, or very little. At noon, she is starting to show signs of fatigue. It's the heat, she says. So we go back to the hotel and sleep and wake up when it begins to get dark. Then we go out and sit for hours in a cafe called Vo Thuong. Here, they play only TCS's music. She talks about the drama in her family. And her stories make me feel unease. That night we walk over the bridge and into the old section of town. We walk the dark and empty streets along a branch of the Huong River. Near midnight we take a cab back to that Japanese restaurant. They are about to close but they serve us anyway and i drink and drink. Then reality leaves me. When i open my eyes, it's morning. I don't remember how we got back to the hotel last night. Hurry, we have a bus to catch, Duy says. We take a quick shower and go down to the hotel lobby to wait for the bus that will take us to Da Nang. The bus is late. Dozing off on the bus, i think about the possibility that someone in my family may see me back in town with Duy while i have already said goodbye. But i chase the thought out of my head. This trip is going to be a success, i say to myself.
When the bus enters Da Nang, i ask the driver to drop us at the hotel where i have stayed. Thomas Hotel, near the beach, on the edge of the city. It is afternoon when we get off the bus. We walk a few blocks to the hotel. The girl at the reception desk looks at me and Duy with inquiring eyes. She knows me because i have stayed at the hotel for six days straight, but this time she sees an addition: Duy. I tell her i want the same room i have stayed in. It's taken, she says. She assigns me another room with the same layout, but this room has no pictures on the walls. It looks out to the same view, however. So here we are, Duy and me, in my hometown, something that she has wished for. I live in New York, she wanted to be in New York, she was in New York. I was born in Da Nang, she wanted to see Da Nang, and here she is.
-Will you show me the house where you grew up? She asks.
-Yes, i will, tonight, i say.
She wants to cut my pants into shorts because the wound on my knee is hurting me. I go downstairs to ask for a pair of scissors. The girl goes into the kitchen and looks but finds no scissors. I say give me the kitchen knife and she gives me the kitchen knife. I bring the knife to Duy. She lays the pants on the floor and cut them into shorts. Then we go to the bed and make love. At three, the phone rings. The girl says the car is waiting. I have asked her to arrange a car to take us to Non Nuoc and Hoi An. In Non Nuoc, we climb the mountains and from the top of the mountains we can see the Pacific Ocean. And we went into the caves. Then off to Hoi An, an ancient town that has been over run by the tourists. Hordes of them. Duy buys a lot of souvenirs. For my friends in Sai Gon, she says. In a clothing shop, i try out a pair of flip flops. I walk them into the street. Duy says i am acting obnoxiously by doing so: they wouldn't take the flip flop back even if it doesn't fit me and will make me pay for it. And she makes a face. But i take the thing anyway even though it is a bad fit. It is better than wearing shoes because of the wounds on my foot. On the way back to Da Nang we don't say a word. I am upset at her for saying such thing to me while we were in that shop. Back in the hotel she asks what the matter is. I don't tell her how her words and comments upset me. It starts to rain. We go out to eat. I don't remember how the night ends. The last thing i remember was i was in a cab with her and i pointed out to her the house i grew up in. By then the city was in deep sleep.
In the morning we go to the beach and walk on the sand. When i check out of the hotel the girl forgets to give me my passport back. She is too busy staring at Duy.
-How could she, Duy wonders, it's the job she does everyday.
-I think she's envious of you, i say.
-Why?
-You're more beautiful than her.
-Am i?
-Yes, you are.
We fly back to Sai Gon on the noon flight and arrive in the big town at one in the afternoon. This is Duy's city, she was born and raised here. In the hotel she texts her mother about where she's staying so the mother can bring over a gift Duy has for me. She says it is a pot of artificial orchids she makes herself. Her mother is totally supportive of Duy in her relationship with me. It was her who drove Duy to the airport to meet with me two days before. And she will drive Duy back home when our meeting is over which is two days from today. I had a brief romantic fling with Duy's mother last year when the mother was still living in America and Duy was in VN, before her American misadventure. Last year i was in this town on vacation and i saw the mother and Duy, all the way in Texas, went totally crazy and demanded an end to our affair. Now the mother stays in the background, providing Duy support from a distance. I don't think she is able to bear the sight of me. The last and only time we met, last year, she cried on the day we said goodbye at the airport. This woman was so deprived of love and attention that two years ago, when Duy was not looking, she caught my attention and fell into an abyss, taking me with her. But we recovered from the madness in time. She is Duy's mother and she is not going to destroy her own daughter's happiness on the account of one man. And i am grateful for that.
It is September the 3rd, we will have tonight and tomorrow together. On the fifth, i will go back to America.
-We have to take a picture together at the museum, i say.
So we go to the museum and walk up the steps to the balcony where we met for the first time two years ago. We ask a man to take a picture of us together. The memento is now complete. There is a picture of me alone at the balcony. There is a picture of her alone at the balcony. Now there is a picture of us together at the balcony.
After the museum, we go to the church where Duy worships every Sunday. Or she is supposed to. I have thought a lot about this church. I always think it has something to do with our relationship. I don't clearly see a correlation, but somehow the church plays a role in my imagination whenever i think about Duy and the city. We walk the narrow streets of Cho Lon to get to the church. It is in the center of a big market. Inside the church, i see a confession booth and i turn to Duy.
-Do you have anything to tell the father? i say.
-top going to church is a big sin, but the father does not need to know, she says.
I go to the booth and kneel down and say to the man behind the partition that i don't know which to listen to, the head or the heart.
-Is it bothering you that much? He asks. The father has a low and warm voice.
-Yes, father.
-Are you a Catholic?
-No.
-Hmmm ... always listen to your head.
-Even if the head is wrong?
-Right.
I thank him and leave the booth. Perhaps the father has had much painful experience with the heart, that's why he says what he says. Even if the head is wrong. In the church's courtyard Duy asks me what i confessed to and i tell her it was nothing important.
In the late afternoon we walk to the Sai Gon river and sit in a coffee shop. Not far from where we are a ferry is going back and forth across the river. The sky is still blue but the heat has subsided. I look at Duy: her face has now sunk. This is her face without a smile. She can smile very easily, forced or spontaneous, but this is how she looks when she's not smiling: sullen, a face that says i am depressed, i am desperate, i am angry, i hate people, stay away from me. She has been waiting for me to say something but i have not said it and perhaps never will. She wants me to propose, to take her back to New York, to save her from the stagnate life she's living now. But why doesn't she ask me to say the thing she wants to hear? Is it because she's a woman and therefore she must wait for the man to say the words? I am a man without conviction, she might do better and even get what she wants if she takes the initiative. But she doesn't. The only thing she has said since we met again is, Would you come back to me immediately if i was pregnant? But she didn't press for an answer. And i left it at that. We are both ambivalent. We don't know what we want from each other, even though we think we do.
My nephew calls and i tell him i will see him tomorrow afternoon. The bankrupt nephew.
When evening falls i take Duy to the roof of the tallest building in the city. From the 48th floor observation deck, we look down on a sea of dotted lights. Her house is somewhere on the horizon in that dark and obscure area. I came to her house once two years ago. I called her on the phone but she didn't answer. So i just stood there, in the dark, under a canopy, smelling the stinking odor from the black canal a short distance away. Then i went away. I was very crazy about her then.
Late in the evening we go to a night club. Hong Nhung was performing. In my drunkenness, i tell Duy the singer's breasts are kind of sagging. She gives me a look. That night i am very drunk.
In the night i dreamed hotel clerks come into the room and look at us sleeping naked. The next day we pack up and go to another hotel and we stay in the room. I sit at the window and smoke. She sits in my lap. She cleans the wounds on my foot. And we wrestle with each other in bed. At three in the afternoon Duy wakes me up: Your nephew is waiting for you in the lobby. I put my clothes on and go down to meet him. We go to a restaurant and drink. He vomits, then passes out. I put him in a cab to take him home but his wife refuses to let us bring his body inside. So we drive him to another nephew's and drop him there. Then i go back to the hotel. Duy gives me the gift. Her mother has come when i was out with my nephew, bringing the gift.
We do not go out the next day but stay in bed and wait for the time to go to the airport. I am going back to America. The vacation has ended. In my half awake half asleep state, i see Duy, through a hazy screen of fog, kiss me all over my body. Again and again and again. By then i have become just a body.
By five we take a taxi to the airport. I kiss her goodbye at the security check point. She calls and we talk while i am in the smoking room. Her mother is coming to the airport to pick her up and take her home. Then i hear my name announced on the loudspeakers: they are calling for the last straggling passengers to board the plane. I run to the departing gate.
When i land in New York twenty one hours later, it rains and i shiver in the cool air. My summer is gone. Up in the room in the boarding house, i check my emails and the first one i see is Duy's: It's over between us, she writes. I am not so sure.
Seven
(Sai Gon)
Mother died one week after i returned to New York and i flew back to VN for the funeral. In the late afternoon of the Sunday after mother's funeral, before boarding the plane for SG on my way back to the States, i called Duy and asked if she wanted to see me for "the last time." She said yes after i told her the reason i was back in VN. Only the week before, she had adamantly demanded to end the relationship, citing my "bad treatment" of her over the years. "The more i love you, the more i hate you," she said in her last email. So i thought it was over between us, and really believed so. Because love and hate exclude one another, i would take the love but not the hate. And now i am in DN, one hour flight from SG, and my duty to mother was done, i felt that i needed to see her. After all, she is my lover, even though the IS might as well be the WAS. If i passed through SG without seeing her, i would consider myself the most cruel man, a man without a heart. And i also believe we would be meeting for the last time. The next time i come this way again won't be until next September. ONE YEAR from now.
So after she agreed to meet, i told her to stay home and wait, i would call her after i settled in a hotel and we would meet at a cafe.
But when i landed in the SG airport, she was there. When i was walking out of the terminal and waiting for a taxi, she came up from behind and touched me on my arms. Her face looked sullen. We walked to the parking lot without even holding hands, without saying a word. I was somewhat apprehensive. The last meeting. Her demeanor was as cold as ice. She asked me where i wanted to go. "To a hotel," i said. Weaving in and out of the SG's dense traffic on a moped, she took me to a hotel in the city center and waited outside while i checked into the hotel. Then i went back out and we rode to a coffee shop behind the city's opera house. Three years ago we had been here when we met for the first time. We sat at a table in a very dark corner. She had an ice cream and i had a bottle of spring water. I touched her fingers. She was motionless, unresponsive. "We can't even hold hands now?" I said. She didn't answer. And i just sat, looking at her. The face of my lover, my disillusioned lover, my angry lover. Then she said under her breath: "I don't understand." I asked her what was it that she didn't understand. No answer. I looked at the clock: it was near 9pm. We had been sitting for almost an hour in almost total silence. I didn't know what to say. Perhaps i should end this last meeting now. I said let's go and we rode back to the hotel. At the entrance of the hotel, she asked me if i wanted her to go in with me. I said no. She asked again. And i said no. I had decided that this was our last meeting. Because that was what she had wanted before i made the trip and i agreed. She had begged me not to contact her again. And now this question. It would not help the matter if we got in bed together as if nothing had happened. The affair should end. I could not do anything to reassure her that we would have a future together, so what was the point of prolonging the pain? Now we had met, again and for the last time, and i was pleased. And that was good enough for me. I didn't want anymore contact with her after this.
She rode away. I went to the room and lied in bed. I was very tired. When i was about to fall asleep, i heard knocks on the door. I opened the door. Duy. I didn't expect this. She entered the room. I took her hand and led her to the bed and we lied down and hugged each other very tight. "I miss you so much," she whispered. Then i took off her clothes and we made love. She cried. I thought i understood why she turned back and went to my room: she couldn't resist the love. And perhaps because she knew it would be another year before i come this way again. At 11pm she went home.
In the morning, she came back. We stayed in the room all day, and only went out to eat. It rained all day. She acted and talked like we were still very much in love and nothing bad had happened between us. She wore the black cat costume again when we made love. She stayed until late in the evening then went home and came back again the following day. This was my last day in town. In the afternoon she drove me to the airport on her moped. I was flying back to the States. At the security gate, we hugged and kissed. Then she turned and walked away. Another farewell. But is it going to be forever? I wish i had an answer. But i never have the answer to THAT question. Ever. And i don't think she does either. Time will tell time if this parting is going to be forever and i am sure it has the answer--yet to be revealed.
(October 5, 2011)