Aperture on the East

Aperture on the
East

A NOVEL

by

Meris Lee

Aperture on the
East

Meris Lee

Copyright
© 2014 by Meris Lee

Smashwords
Edition

Including Cover Photo and
Text

All Rights
Reserved

No part of this book may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the author.

[email protected]

ISBN:
978-1-311-33495-4

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

The roaring train shook violently in
the night as it raced along the coast of the South China Sea,
running the danger of disengaging from the age-old tracks that
stringed countless rice fields, fishing villages, and bustling
cities. An antiquated Soviet engine hauled this train, which on a
daily basis moved passengers over a thousand miles between the two
poles of this linear country. Every now and then, when the train
would grind to a stop with a piercing squeal, a weary traveler
would walk down the corridor to use the water fountain, plastic
sandals slapping against the wooden floor, and then return to his
cabin, banging the steel door shut. This was when Ana would
suddenly awake from her very short slumber of uneasy dreams,
muttering a sigh that sounded almost like profanity.

She lay on her side with her arm under
the square pillow, examining the cabin in the dim light again.
There were two sets of bunk beds in this small compartment. Each
bed, with its thin mattress, could fit exactly one person. Her
children, eleven-year-old Ivan and sixteen-year-old Zoe, occupied
the two top bunks. Ana worried that they might roll and fall to
their deaths, and so she got up one more time to make sure that
neither was lying too close to the edge of the bed.

When she lay down again, she pulled
the fleece blanket over her shoulder, shivering in the heavily
air-conditioned cabin. The sweat lingering on her skin from
sweltering Saigon made it worse. She had spent the day before
visiting the Saigon Zoo with her children, and then sat waiting at
the hot and suffocating railroad station for an hour before they
all boarded the train. The chill was welcoming at first, but it
soon became intolerable.

Ana was envious of her children who
seemed to be sleeping soundly. Ivan even laughed out loud once,
perhaps dreaming about the funny scenes of the water puppet
performance they saw just two days ago. Ana tried to stay up and
keep a vigil because she couldn’t stop imagining a number of tragic
events that could happen on this train. However, when the train
started moving again, the rocking motion of the old machine
combined with her fatigue commanded her to doze off once again
without much contest.

“
Good morning. We will
arrive in Nha Trang in twenty minutes. Please make sure that you
have all your belongings.” The announcement was broadcast in both
Vietnamese and English, via a deafening loudspeaker over the cabin
door. Ana opened her eyes slightly, and was assaulted by the
blinding fluorescent lights that had come on all of a sudden. The
train showed no signs of slowing down.

“
We’re here! We’re here!”
Ivan hopped down from his bunk, took a wet wipe from his backpack
and started to clean up for the morning.

“
Ma, Zoe, we are here!”
Ivan gave Ana a tight hug, and then rocked her with both hands.
“Hurry, Ma. We need to get off the train.” He was already dressed,
hair combed, shoes on, backpack tidied and ready to go.

Ana rubbed her eyes and yawned. Why
had she decided to take the sleeper train, which had provided very
little sleep, if any at all? She sat up to organize for the day.
She put her hair up in a ponytail, and applied concealer to cover
the tattoos on her forearms. She smoothed out the wrinkles on her
tunic and capris with a spray, and slipped into a pair of walking
shoes. A large portfolio of photographs that she had taken and
printed in Saigon sat at the foot of her bunk, next to which a
suitcase stood. 

“
Did you know that Nha
Trang meant the River of Reed in the Cham language?” Ivan said. He
was scanning a guidebook.

Ana smiled and said, “No, I
didn’t.”

“
It’s just north of the
city. It’s called the River Cai now, meaning the Mother River. Can
we go and see it sometime today? The Cham temples on the other side
are over a thousand years old. Can we, Ma?” Ivan looked at Ana,
hands folded together.

“
Of course,” said
Ana.

The Mother River, how fitting? She had
moved Ivan and Zoe to Nha Trang so that she could get another
chance at being a mother, a caring and responsible one, the kind
that she knew she should have always been, but never
had.

She checked the cabin to make sure
that nothing would be left behind. She looked up at Zoe, who was
still lying in her bed with the blanket over her head.

“
Zoe, please get up,” said
Ana. She reached to uncover Zoe’s head.

“
Don’t touch me!” Zoe said
as she sat up. Her black, pixie-styled hair with purple highlights
was frizzy and her eyes were blood-shot. Ana backed away. She was
thankful that Zoe had agreed to come to Nha Trang at all, and
thought that she had better not irritate Zoe any further because
Zoe might just disappear from her sight as soon as they got off the
train.

When the train rolled into the station
in Nha Trang, Ana inspected Ivan, who was wearing a camouflage
shirt and a pair of khakis with matching boots. He was carrying an
oversized military backpack, and holding a skateboard in his arms.
His soft brown hair was partially covering his eyes and he coped
with it by constantly brushing it away with his hand; Ana made a
mental note to ask around for a barbershop as soon as they settled
down.

Ana shook her head when Zoe came down
from her bunk. Zoe had on smoky eye shadow, a very dark shade of
lipstick, and black nail polish. She had three small silver loops
in each ear. A heart-shaped silver pendant, formed by two
intertwining dragons with a ruby in the middle, dangled at her
chest. She wore a short black corset dress with black ankle boots.
A black wilted rose tattoo was visible on the back of her neck. She
had a large red backpack with a silver dragon embroidered on the
front. In her right hand she carried a black guitar case. The
backpack and the guitar case were just about the only parts of
Zoe’s attire that Ana approved of.

It was still dark when they got off
the train, just past five o’clock in the morning, according to the
timepiece Ana saw on the wall. They followed the other passengers,
many of them obviously foreigners, to the exit of the station.
Instantly, they were bombarded by a long line of waiting
taxis.

“
This taxi is available,”
said one of the drivers in Russian. Ana’s was surprised to hear her
mother tongue spoken by an ordinary Vietnamese taxi driver. He was
standing by a green and white sedan holding a rear passenger door
open. Ana went toward him. Ivan followed and climbed into the
backseat through the open door, but Zoe went for the front
passenger seat instead.

Ana frowned, and then got into the
taxi herself. She started talking to the driver in Russian. The
driver just shook his head. Ana realized that he couldn’t say
anything else in Russian beyond what she had just heard. She
directed the driver to take them to the hotel by pointing to a dot
on a map.

When they arrived, a uniformed valet
came to assist Ana’s family and unload their belongings.

“
Welcome to Nha Trang, and
thanks for choosing to stay with us,” the valet said, also in
Russian. He smiled and led them to the front desk to check
in.

The front desk clerk first greeted
them in Russian, but then quickly switched to English.

“
Novosibirsk, Russia,”
said the clerk, looking at Ana’s passport. “I recognize the names
of some Russian cities now, having looked at so many
passports.”

“
Yes,” said Ana, “that’s
where we’re from. It’s landlocked, nowhere near the
ocean.”

“
You will enjoy your time
here then,” said the clerk.

After check-in Ana told Ivan and Zoe
to remove their day bags, and left everything else with the hotel
clerk because their room would not be ready until later that
afternoon. They were given a city map and some recommendations for
food and shopping.

“
We are going to the beach
first!” said Ivan. He looked at Ana with eyes widened, cheeks
raised in a big smile, bouncing on the balls of his
feet.

“
Would you like some help
crossing the street?” said the clerk.

“
I think we can manage,”
said Ana.

She soon found out that they could
hardly manage at all to cross the four-lane Tran Phu Boulevard
segregating the hotel from the beach. There was a pedestrian
crosswalk, but there were no stop lights. Cars and motorcycles did
not slow down unless some brave soul was already in the middle of
the road. Ana looked left, then right, then left again, trying to
find a gap in the stream of traffic. When that failed, she took a
deep breath, held hands with Ivan, took a leap of faith and ran
across the street. They cheered when they made it to the other side
alive. Ana, still trying to catch her breath, turned around to look
at Zoe, who followed suit a minute later.

By this time the sun was hanging over
the horizon as a red disk against a backdrop of orange skies and
pink clouds. Ana looked around her. Between Tran Phu Boulevard and
the sand there was a wide promenade with very tall palm trees. Many
locals were walking or jogging, and others were using the exercise
equipment installed on the promenade. There was a group of people
practicing tai chi, and another group doing some kind of a folk
dance with fans. Ana reached for her cell phone to take pictures,
and saw that it was just past six o’clock in the morning. She was
amazed to find the beach so active so early in the day. When she
finally stepped on the sand, she saw women with gray hair sitting
in the water in their street clothes, chatting with one another.
Men of the same age group, bare-chested, raced their peers in the
open sea.

Ivan, with an ear-to-ear grin on his
face, was running barefoot back and forth at the edge of water. Ana
had never seen him as excited as he was right now. Thinking back,
Ana realized that she’d rarely seen Ivan smile at all. She said,
“Ivan, are you happy that we are here?”

Before Ivan could answer, Zoe said,
“For now. Ask him again in a week.”

Ana pretended that she didn’t hear it.
She was feeling exuberant herself, centered by the expansive ocean
and the glorious sunrise beyond, her worries drowned out by the
sound of the waves. She was certain that she could turn things
around now. But when she observed the couples embracing and walking
hand in hand on the beach, she reminisced about her honeymoon in
the Black Sea resort town of Anapa, where she and Eduard had also
taken such romantic strolls every morning.

“
I wish Eduard were here,
too,” said Ivan.

Ana felt an ache in her chest, and
with a sigh, she put the thought of Eduard out of her
mind.

Quan Bien
Dong
had become Ana’s favorite eatery
within the first few weeks of her new life in Nha Trang. When she
entered its courtyard through the tall wooden gates the first time,
she was immediately taken with its architectural details. The
courtyard was flanked on either side by corridors where women in
peach-colored
bà ba
shirts prepared street foods to order. The floral
carvings of the wooden shutters on the walls of the corridors,
along with the terracotta roof tiles, gave an ancient look to the
restaurant. Ana loved sitting down at one of the tables in the
elegant courtyard and perusing the menu of dishes with exotic
ingredients, while the cool breeze from the sea gently stroked her
face.