Love Like Hate (26 page)

“No.”

“How come you’ve never told me how many girlfriends you’ve had?”

“What does it matter?”

“Tell me, how many girls have you slept with?

“What does it matter?”

“More than ten?”

“I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s change the subject.”

“More than twenty?”

“Why are you so curious?”

“What were the others like? Did they do anything weird?”

“What do you mean ‘weird’?”

“Did you have sex with them underwater?”

“I already told you. No.”

“So what made you think of it?”

“It was instinct. It just happened.”

“It was really intense.”

“We can try it again tomorrow if you like.”

“No, it won’t be the same.”

“You’re right. You can’t plan these things.”

“Maybe you can write a song about it.”

“Maybe.”

“You can call it ‘Man and Mermaid.’ ”

“No, that’s really corny!”

“Do you love me, Quang Trung?”

“You’re always asking me that. Of course.”

“Of course what?”

“Of course I love you.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Now you’re making a joke out of it.”

“I’m getting sleepy, Hoa.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m really exhausted, Hoa. Let’s just sleep.”

“Exhausted from what?”

“I spent myself in the ocean.”

“Poor man!”

“Let’s just sleep, Hoa.”

“I’m not sleepy yet.”

“Are you wet?”

“No, I’m just kidding around.”

“Let’s see.”

“No! I’m just kidding.”

“Now you got me worked up. Just feel it!”

“You’re so sensitive.”

“It’s always sensitive.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No, but it’s a little annoying. Stop playing with it.”

“Have you ever had sex with an older woman?”

“How old is older?”

“Middle-aged.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’ll be a middle-aged woman someday. Sometimes I see my mother’s face in the mirror and it scares me.”

“You’re talking like a middle-aged woman right now.”

“See! You’re already getting sick of me!”

“Stop being so serious. You want to hear a joke?”

“Not really.”

“But you must hear this one. It’s funny.”

“OK.”

“A rich kid takes his girlfriend home to meet his parents.”

“Go on.”

“He says to his dad, ‘Dad, this is my girlfriend. I really love her. I want to marry her.’ ”

“OK.”

“His dad gives him a serious look, pulls him aside and says, ‘But you can’t marry her. She’s your sister!’ ”

“Huh?!”

“That’s exactly what the rich kid says. His dad explains, ‘I visited a place called Paris by Night nearly twenty years ago. Met a really nice lady there. Supersexy. That’s why your girlfriend’s your sister!’ ”

“That’s a terrible joke, Quang Trung!”

“There’s more: Pissed off, the rich kid tells his mom why he can’t marry his girlfriend. She laughs really hard and says, ‘There’s no
problem whatsoever. Go tell your father your girlfriend’s not your sister because you’re not his son either.’ ”

“You’re really bad at jokes, Quang Trung.”

“You didn’t think it was funny at all?”

“No, not at all.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t tell me another joke ever again.”

“Hey, I was only trying to make you laugh.”

“Good night, Quang Trung.”

“Good night, Hoa.”

“Good night, sweetie.”

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I believe you.”

“I really, really, really love you.”

“I believe you.”

8
HEAVENLY MESSAGES

K
im Lan wondered whether Hoa had a boyfriend and was lying about it. There were too many signs. Hoa claimed to have gone to Vung Tau with Bich, a neighborhood girl, but only Hoa had a deep tan the day after. Hoa stayed out late nearly every night yet never talked about a Viet Kieu in concrete details. The fibs she made up were transparent and laughable. Deciding to seek divine intervention, Kim Lan announced to Hoa that the two of them would go on a religious pilgrimage, to see the Black Lady in Tay Ninh.

Abutting Cambodia, Tay Ninh is sixty miles northwest of Saigon. Going there by car, you will drive over the Cu Chi tunnel complex, where Vietcong guerrillas lived underground for years like naked mole rats. You will also pass by the town of Trang Bang, famous for a thick white noodle called
banh canh
, and for a photograph of a burning, naked nine-year-old girl running away from a napalm strike. (Her name is Phan Thi Kim Phuc. She became a devout Christian and now lives in Toronto.) Kim Lan bought two tickets on a bus that left at five in the morning. It was air-conditioned, but noisy from a TV showing one comedy after another.

During the two-hour ride, Kim Lan explained to Hoa the legend of the Black Lady, “At the beginning of time, Hoa, there was a genie who fell in love with a fairy. He gave her diamonds and expensive dresses, but she paid no attention to him. After ignoring his pleading for years, the fairy challenged the genie to a mountain-building
contest. If he could build a higher mountain than she could, she would marry him. After three days, they went to the top of the genie’s mountain and could see the ocean and all the neighboring countries. From the summit of the fairy’s mountain, however, they could see the entire world. Letting out a bitchy, victorious laugh, the fairy kicked the genie’s pathetic molehill of a mountain to smithereens. Only her creation, Black Lady Mountain, remained. So you see, Hoa, the Black Lady is more powerful than even a male god, which is what a genie is!”

The Black Lady Mountain was just outside Tay Ninh. At twenty-eight hundred feet, it was not much more than a hill. It was striking solely because it was the only elevation for hundreds of miles around. Standing on its peak, you could see the vague outline of Dau Tieng Lake, about five miles away. Near the summit, there was a Buddhist temple with the unlikely name Fairy Rock, built in 1997. Most people referred to it, generically, as Mistress’s Temple, the mistress being the Black Lady.

Kim Lan and Hoa got off the bus in a huge, dusty parking lot. After buying forty-five-cent tickets, they joined thousands of other pilgrims in trudging up the steep mountain. Some were carrying bags of rice, boxes of (vegetarian) instant noodles and fruit to donate to the Fairy Rock Temple. Porters could also be hired for the purpose. One could tell by the way most of the pilgrims were dressed—floral pajamas and tennis hats—that they had come from the remotest villages. Along the way to the temple the pilgrims passed an alligator pond, a temple dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, a statue of a female Vietcong fighter and countless refreshment stands. They saw plastic trash cans strapped to the backs of cast-iron penguins and tree-mounted speakers blaring tinny pop music. Peddlers roamed the trail to hawk bundles of incense, lottery tickets, chewing gum and fifteen-cent necklaces. “Take a Buddha back to the little one at home!” a small girl yelled as Kim Lan stumbled sideways down a slippery rock. For those too feeble to hike up the trail on
foot, there was a ski lift. “But we must walk,” Kim Lan explained to a sweating, panting Hoa. “Otherwise, the Black Lady will not help us.” Many pilgrims would sleep overnight on rented straw mats, in tents or cabins. After dark, card games, alcohol and curses contributed to the festive atmosphere.

This entire complex, including the temple, was administered by the government. A Communist capitalist venture, it had the feel of a budget Disneyland minus the rides. In spite of its stance against “superstition,” that was the one aspect of religion the government minded the least. The more superstitious the populace, the more they donated to temples dedicated to supernatural deities. The government and the monks divided the loot. In his book
Sai Gon Tap Pin Lu
(
Hodge Podge Saigon
),
Vuong
Hong Sen mentions the original Black Lady, an ancient foot-long limestone figurine, most likely of Cambodian origin, worshipped inside a deep cave. It is no longer there. No one has seen it in seventy years.

After hiking for an hour and a half, Kim Lan and Hoa finally reached the Fairy Rock Temple. They went inside and looked at all the statues but saw nothing that resembled a Black Lady. Kim Lan walked up to a cigarette-puffing monk and asked meekly, “Where is the Black Lady, teacher?”

He was a muscular one, this monk, an iron pumper, his one bare arm rippling. It took the utmost self-control for him to refrain from sporting a tattoo of the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, a personal favorite, on his right biceps. “There is no Black Lady!”

“But isn’t this the Black Lady Mountain?”

“Yes!” The monk deepened his voice and stressed each syllable as if he were talking to an idiot. “Only the mountain is called Black Lady. There is no Black Lady!”

“So which statue are we supposed to pray to?”

“Any statue!”

Heeding the monastic’s instruction, Kim Lan and Hoa went up to the nearest wooden figure—a scowling male deity with six arms
and a long tongue sticking out of his mouth. “Just be honest, Hoa, just ask him for a Viet Kieu husband. Ask him to deliver a Viet Kieu husband to you as soon as possible. Tell him you have no skill, no education, and that you will not make it through life without a Viet Kieu husband.” Mimicking her mother, Hoa clasped her hands in front of her forehead, but did not pray at all. As soon as she closed her eyes, she saw Quang Trung smiling at her. The gongs, bells, chanting and wailing in the background sounded to her almost like a punk band tuning up. She could not wait to get back to Saigon so she could be with her boyfriend. Around him, she felt grown-up, like a woman. Around her mother, she felt retarded.

Descending from the Black Lady Mountain, Kim Lan and Hoa went into town to visit the Cao Dai Holy See. With its triple-layered roofs, square towers, octagonal minaret and blue dragons intertwining pink columns, all done in painted cement, it was without doubt the weirdest-looking structure in all of Vietnam, not a small honor, and one of the most impressive. It was described by Graham Greene as a “fantastic Technicolor cathedral” and dismissed by Norman Lewis as “the most outrageously vulgar building ever to have been erected with serious intent.” Entering it without mockery, however, one could sense the strong belief and dedication of the Cao Dai followers, people who tried to lead simple, faith-based lives in a very debauched and corrupt country.

Founded in Tay Ninh in 1926, Cao Dai seeks to synthesize the doctrines of the three main religions—Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Based on communication with God and other spirits through séance sessions, it uses techniques such as the Ouija board and
pneumatographie
. Blank slips of paper are sealed in envelopes, then hung above the altar for the spirits to write on. The basket-with-a-beak technique is also used. A pen is attached to a stick radiating from a wicker basket. Two mediums hold the basket while the apparatus quivers to deliver messages from beyond the grave. Since it is transparent and direct, this is Cao Dai’s preferred method of spiritual
communication. Among Cao Dai’s many saints are Victor Hugo, Joan of Arc, Pasteur, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Li Po, Lenin, Chaplin and Sun Yat-sen. God’s handle is “AAA” in séance sessions. Priests are like fax machines. On February 2, 1921, God sent us this poem:

This free-verse quatrain, with its natural rhythm and use of the colloquial expressions “dead broke” and “sponger,” shows that God was very much in tune with the poetics of his time. He was au courant with modernism. Some even suggested that he was alluding to the band Red Hot Chili Peppers, an anachronism only he could pull off. When God writes a poem, it appears simultaneously (in his head) in 6,822 languages. He is also attempting a novel, a multilayered, hypertextual mess that will only end when the world ends.

Since Kim Lan and Hoa were not adherents of Cao Dai, they had to stand to the side as they prayed to an eye on a huge blue globe—Cao Dai’s symbol for God. “Just be honest, Hoa. Just tell that huge eye you want a Viet Kieu husband.”

Mother and daughter returned to Saigon after midnight, exhausted. Kim Lan could see that Hoa had never believed in their religious mission. Silent and distracted the entire trip, her mouth never moving during a prayer, she had betrayed no urgency in entreating the gods. Kim Lan slept fitfully that night and had many unpleasant dreams. In one she saw Hoa in the grasp of a lecherous monk with six arms. He was French kissing Hoa with a bright red, twenty-six-inch tongue. In another she saw a black lady riding a blue globe, shouting, “Your daughter prays on a mountain yet fucks underwater!” The lady in the dream was black all right, but without African features: She was a Vietnamese black lady. And she didn’t
resemble the conical mountain of her namesake, but a nebulous swamp, with only an enormous pair of breasts and abysmal genitals to define her as any sort of a lady. This last dream was the most disturbing. In the morning Kim Lan decided to ask Cun to spy on Hoa. “I’m almost certain she has a boyfriend. I want you to find out who it is.”