“I’ll come up in a minute.”
Thien nodded, turned, and walked upstairs. She began to sing softly, her voice floating down the stairwell.
“Why don’t you ever speak to her?” Iris asked, sipping her tea.
Noah turned from the stairwell. “I . . . I don’t know. She seems so happy. Maybe I don’t want to interfere with that.”
“There’s a lot more to her than a smile,” Iris replied. Thunder boomed, and she glanced outside. “Can I give you some advice?”
“Feel free. Everyone else does.”
Iris lowered her tea. “I guess I’ll see you—”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like that.”
She nodded, and though not hungry, took a bite of fruit for Thien’s sake. “I know that you’ve . . . lost yourself. Lost who you were. But my father lost himself too, and he somehow found himself.”
“After thirty years?”
“Maybe you won’t need so long.”
Noah shrugged, not believing that he’d be alive in three decades. “I know you’re trying to help me,” he said. “And I wish I could say and do what you want. But I can’t. I live in hell. And for me, every day is just about . . . survival.”
Iris tried to imagine his pain. “You’re in a whole other war, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. Maybe the first one never ended.”
She moved toward the door. “All wars end, Noah. Just remember that. Remember where you are and look around.”
He watched her disappear. When she had, he moved to the stairwell, listening to her talk with Thien. To his surprise, Thien didn’t ask about him, but about the clouds they’d almost finished. The women spoke of the clouds as if they were all that existed in the world. And as Noah listened to them, he realized that they were so much stronger than he. Iris, whose father had just died and who was in a foreign country for the first time, and Thien, who rose to his shoulder and probably couldn’t lift fifty pounds—these women were strong and resilient and everything that he was not.
Disgusted with himself, he glanced at the whiskey bottle, longing for a drink. The bottle beckoned to him the way a lover might from an unmade bed. Noah looked at the bottle, unconsciously licking his lips. He stepped toward this temptation but managed to stop himself. Glancing at one of the office computers, he decided to e-mail his mother and tell her that things were better. She’d be waiting for such an e-mail, and its arrival would lift a weight from her shoulders.
Noah knew that he needed to write the e-mail now, before he picked up the bottle again. The bottle might rescue him at times; it might bring him to a warmer place. But it would muddle his thoughts. And then he’d be in no condition to write his mother. With his mind clouded, she’d see through his lies and even more weight would press on her.
The computer flickered to life before him. The rain continued to fill the streets. His body ached as if he’d fallen from a high balcony. Wishing that he possessed the strength of the women above, Noah began to type. His fingers moved quickly as he spoke of worlds that he didn’t believe in.
Though he hated the liars, he’d become one.
THE RAIN FELL HARD ON THE roof of Ben Thanh Market, creating an endless drumroll for everyone inside. Normally abuzz with activity, the market seemed eerily empty. Vendors swept their shops until the cement floors glistened. Items were dusted and rearranged. Chipped pieces of lacquer were touched up with carefully blended paints. While such duties were performed, vendors chatted amiably, sipping soft drinks or nibbling on strips of dried squid.
At a plastic table near the rear of the market, Mai and Minh sat and stared. They didn’t like rain, for it tended to keep tourists in their hotels and off-limits. Luckily, a few foreigners would brave such weather and head for markets and museums. Depending on the weather and the day, Mai and Minh could often predict where these tourists would venture. Upon awaking under the bridge, the two friends had debated where they might find a good game and sell fans, finally settling on Ben Thanh Market.
Mai and Minh hadn’t eaten since the day before, and the smells of grilled shrimp, roasting duck, and simmering lemongrass made their mouths water. Both found it maddening to be hungry with so much food nearby. It was better, they agreed, to be hungry sitting at a busy corner or lying in a park.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Mai said, her chin propped up by her elbows. “There’s no one here. And everything smells so good.”
Minh tugged on his shirt, which was finally dry.
“Oh, would a wet shirt really kill you, Minh the Particular?” Mai asked. “Maybe we could drink the rain. Put some fish sauce on it and drink it down. Anything would be better than sitting here, watching people eat. You’d think they were pigs being fattened for the market.”
Shrugging, Minh looked again for tourists. He wondered what it was like to sit in a fancy hotel room and listen to the rain. Still imagining, he slumped when Loc shuffled into sight, heedless of who was in his way. Loc’s baseball jersey was filthy. He looked as if he’d rolled down a muddy riverbank.
“Here comes our water buffalo,” Mai whispered, pretending she didn’t see Loc.
Minh glanced at his game, wishing that he were playing someone.
Loc stopped at a food stand, gave a girl some bills, and then moved toward their table. He sat on a plastic chair, unaware that its legs bent beneath him. Mai risked a glance at his eyes and saw that they were bloodshot. “You brats better make some money today,” he said in his hole-in-the-throat voice, his words lacking intonation, but his face hard and unforgiving. “Win it, beg it, steal it. I don’t care how. But get my five dollars. Don’t get it, and my protection is gone. And everyone will know it.”
Mai shifted in her seat. “Where should we go? The tourists are all inside.”
Loc ignored her. Instead he watched a girl bring him a steaming bowl of
pho
. He was soon slurping up broth and noodles. Minh tried not to look at him, breathing through his mouth to avoid the smells drifting around him. Loc belched. Bits of shrimp and noodles were visible between his teeth. “I’ll come tonight, to the bridge. And you better have my money. I’ll put your heads in the river if you don’t. Hear that, half boy?”
After finishing his
pho
, Loc stood and left.
“He paid for that
pho
with our money,” Mai said, pushing the empty bowl away from her. “And he’ll come tonight, just as he said. He’ll be full of opium and he won’t . . . he won’t know what he’s doing. Oh, Minh, we have to get his five dollars. But how are we going to get them today?”
Though normally Minh feared Loc more than Mai did, he could see that she was terrified of being thrust underwater. And so he picked up his game box and started walking around the immense market. His legs trembled, and he looked about, trying to take his mind off Loc. A nearby vendor bartered back and forth with a foreign woman, each typing figures into an oversize calculator. Ahead, a ladder rose far upward, and a man perched at its peak worked to restart a ceiling fan.
Minh rounded a corner, moving into a quiet part of the market where tourists sometimes sipped fresh coffee. To his surprise, a pair of older Westerners sat at a table. Between them lay a chessboard. Minh had seen chess played two times before and on each occasion had been fascinated by the game. When one of the men looked at them, Mai asked if they could watch.
Soon Minh’s chair was near their table. He observed the strange pieces being moved up and down, diagonally, even two spaces up and one across. Minh didn’t know the names of the pieces, but soon grasped their powers. The little ones seemed insignificant. The horses could create turmoil. The large, pointed ones appeared all but invincible.
The men, both gray haired, continued to play, paying no attention to the children. Minh wasn’t sure what the term “checkmate” meant, but one player said it, and the other nodded and removed his remaining pieces.
Mai pointed to Minh’s game. “You want to play Connect Four?” she asked in English. “Why go outside? It raining . . . cats and mice. You only get wet. Maybe catch a cold, and then have no fun tomorrow, when it be a beautiful day.”
One of the men smiled. “Play him?”
“Sure, sure. You play for American dollar.”
“Not Vietnamese dong?”
“U.S. dollar is better for us. Everyone want them.”
The other man looked at his companion. “Fancy a game, Paul? I reckon it might be a wee bit of fun.”
“Of course it fun,” Mai replied.
“Can we both play him?”
Mai glanced at Minh, certain that he’d be nervous about trying to beat two chess players. “Sure, sure,” she said. “But if he win, he get two dollar. If he lose, you get one dollar.”
The men agreed, moving their chairs so they could sit opposite Minh. Mai explained the game as best she could. As she spoke, Minh gathered his red pieces, his heart thumping quickly. He didn’t like the prospect of playing two men who’d been so intent on their chess game. Mai had only a single dollar in her pocket, and if he should lose, they’d have to return to the bridge with nothing.
The older man, who wore bifocals and a vest full of pouches, dropped his black piece into the center of the game board. Minh would have preferred to go first but, having been preempted, let his piece fall beside the other. Additional pieces were played while Mai watched anxiously.
As the game board filled, the men took more time to play each piece. They spoke and strategized at length, clearly understanding the nuances of the game. Minh began to scratch his stump, something he did when nervous. Mai might have said that he tied tigers to trees each night, but now, as he debated where to place his next piece, he didn’t feel powerful. He felt tired and hungry. He felt afraid. But he played and the game went on.
“Bloody hell, he’s trying to force our hand,” said the younger of the two men, who relished the challenge before him.
The older man looked at the board, aware that fewer options were available, that most of the slots had been filled. “Clever little bugger, isn’t he?”
Thunder crashed outside. The younger man produced a cigarette and began to smoke. “He’s dictating things, and you’d best put a stop to it before you get whipped.”
Minh listened to them strategize, glad that they made their thoughts known. For a few moves he let them force the action, let them believe they were making him go where they wanted him to. Before they knew what had happened, only two slots remained for them to place a piece in, and either slot would let him connect a fourth piece. Relieved, Minh sat back in his chair, glancing toward a porcelain vendor.
“Checkmate,” Mai said happily, extending her hand. “Two dollar, please.”
The older man nodded. “Blow me down. That was really something, how he did that.”
“Well,” said Mai, “you are good players. Very good. I never see him so nervous.”
“Is that so? Is that why he doesn’t talk?”
Mai shook her head. “No. I think when he lose his hand, he lose his voice.”
“How did he lose the hand?”
“Me not know. He lose it when he very little.”
The foreigner looked closely at Minh. “You’re quite a player.”
Mai watched the younger, cigarette-smoking man reach into his pocket. He removed several bills, one of which fell to the ground. He didn’t see it fall, and she was tempted not to tell him about it. She could see that it was a ten-dollar bill, as much money as they’d make in two days. Tapping her foot in frustration, she picked up the bill and gave it to the man. “You drop this,” she said, wishing that she’d found the money on the street.
The man put his cigarette butt in an empty soda bottle. “Thank you, dear,” he said, handing her two dollars.
Mai pocketed the money. “Maybe you play one more game. You win this time. Not same, same as before.”
Both men smiled. The younger one rose from the table, walking toward a food stand. The other helped Minh organize the pieces. “You both should be in school,” he said kindly. “You’re too bloody bright to be here.”
“If we go to school, we no have money for food, for clothes,” Mai replied. “We must make money during daytime.”
“You don’t have parents?”
“Maybe once, the day we are born. But not now.”
The man was about to respond when his friend returned with two orange Fantas and two bags of potato chips. “For the victors,” he said, giving Mai and Minh each a bottle and a bag.
Minh smiled, grasping the bottle with his good hand.
Mai took a sip, melodramatically licking her lips. “Thank you, mister. This very lucky day for us. Sure, sure.”
“For us, too. Even though we stuffed up the game.” The man looked at his watch. “We’d best be off.”
The foreigners said good-bye, waving when Mai called out her thanks. When they disappeared, she turned to Minh. “What a wonderful day this has become, Minh the Victorious. Such nice men. And such good players. I thought for sure that they were going to beat you. But they got impatient at the end, and you tied them to a tree.” She laughed at her joke, taking his elbow. “Let’s drink these outside.”
Minh carefully wrapped his game in a plastic bag. He stood up and followed Mai as she zigzagged her way through the market. Outside, the rain seemed to be falling even harder. Scooters sped by, sending up fountains of spray. Cyclo drivers huddled beneath old umbrellas. Mai and Minh moved under the canopy of a nearby bank, pausing when they spied a beggar. Mai recognized him as Dao, a kind man who’d lost his sight in the American War. He sat motionless, apparently listening to the rain. Though many people who lived on the street preyed on one another, Dao had been generous to Mai and Minh, giving them money when they’d been desperate.
Mai sat next to him. “Hello, Dao,” she said, still pleased with winning two dollars and being given the Fantas and chips.
“Mai, sweet Mai. And is that Minh?”
“He’s here,” she replied, holding her bottle carefully. “He just beat two men at once. And they’re expert chess players. They sure were surprised.”