Love Like Hate (29 page)

Experience had taught A-Chen that the more money you gave a Vietnamese, the friendlier he became, the brighter his smile, his demeanor improving with each dime given. Losing to Sen was A-Chen’s way of softening him up, because he had been eyeing the man’s daughter for some time. Hoa was the best-looking girl A-Chen had seen in Saigon and she wasn’t even that tacky. Each time Hoa was in the room, A-Chen’s face softened, his eyes lit up and he would even forget whose turn it was.

“Is it my turn, Sen?”

“It’s always your turn, A-Chen.”

A-Chen was stumped by Sen’s curious statement. Then he chuckled and said, “You always move fast, Sen. And you have a quick eye too!”

A-Chen dreamed of rescuing Hoa from her miserable country and taking her to Taiwan, where she could be properly educated and
live like a lady and sleep on his big brass bed. To achieve all this, he would gladly have given her parents a nice chunk up front, in a discreet white envelope, of course. After that, they would get a monthly stipend until they dropped dead, sooner rather than later, hopefully, to be supplemented with an annual gift of an electronic gadget. For Hoa, on her birthday, A-Chen would always surprise her with something hard, shiny and moderately precious.

Sen was only waiting for Hoa’s hair to grow back so he could introduce her to A-Chen.
Everything comes full circle
, Sen thought.
My father came from China, and now my daughter will go to Taiwan, which is really a part of China, although they do have a separate (and much inferior) Olympics team. China netted over sixty medals in Athens; Taiwan just five. I have it written down somewhere. Am I glad I never invited A-Chen to a whorehouse. It would be a little unbecoming for a father and a son-in-law to have this memory in common
. Hoa was in her room twenty-four hours a day, watching TV and not doing much else. It would take at least a month before she became presentable again.

13
A DRUNK BIDDY

W
hen Hoa kissed Quang Trung good-bye that night, she said she would see him the next day. When a couple of days went by and she didn’t show up, Quang Trung thought that maybe she had been in a traffic accident. Everyone in Saigon, without exception, had been knocked off his bike or motorbike at least once. There were dozens of accidents each day. In Saigon, there was no such thing as a one-way or a two-way street; every street was ten-way—traffic came at you from all directions. A vehicle would suddenly turn left from the right lane, and right from the left lane. The variety of things moving made the situation even more chaotic. There were taxis, cyclos, beggars on dollies, peddlers pushing food carts, eighteen-wheelers, three-wheeled delivery trucks, American jeeps left over from the war and top-heavy, overladen buses, not to mention dogs, chickens and blind men jaywalking. This swarming madness engulfed every neighborhood from five in the morning till ten at night. Encountering this mess, foreigners often remarked on the energy of the Saigonese. What they didn’t realize was that many of the folks rushing about were unemployed. If they had had jobs, they wouldn’t crisscross town for a bowl of soup or a cup of coffee.

Quang Trung’s drummer had been in an accident the year before. Swerving to dodge a bicycle going the wrong way, he had slammed his motorbike into a passenger van, sending him tumbling across the asphalt. Skin was scraped off his face and forearms, showing the
muscles and fat underneath. He lost all his front teeth. While still in pain, recovering, he memorized chunks of Ecclesiastes and contemplated the priesthood. Weeping, he apologized to God for being a punk rocker.

Quang Trung could not imagine Hoa without her front teeth.
Would I still love her if she were disfigured or brain damaged? Hmm. Not bad for a song title. I would like to think I would, but who knows, maybe I’m just kidding myself. I don’t know about disfigurement, but I must have loved plenty of girls who were perhaps brain damaged. Hmm. Does a pierced labia count as disfigurement?
He stopped ruminating and picked up the phone. Calling around, he soon found out that the Paris by Night café was in Thanh Da, north of downtown, by a leafy stretch of the Saigon River. Anxious to see Hoa, with or without her front teeth, he got on his motorbike and headed there immediately.

Thanh Da is known for restaurants serving duck-rice gruel or dog meat. Dog meat is really a northern Vietnamese thing—most Saigonese won’t eat it—but if you crave dog meat in Saigon, Thanh Da is the place to go. It has a rich, complicated, aromatic taste, as testified by a proverb: “A piece of dog meat stuck between the teeth is still fragrant three days later.” Vu Bang, a Hanoi writer, wrote in 1950: “If you take a lovelorn, suicidal person to a dog-meat restaurant and tell him he can kill himself afterwards, I’m sure he will change his mind after the meal.” Thanh Da is also known for pitch-dark cafés where young couples can go to grope each other to soft music. Thinking that Paris by Night was one of these love joints, Quang Trung was surprised to discover that it was completely nondescript—large and bright with only beer posters for decorations: white women with silicone breasts hugging giant beer bottles tilted at an angle. Only the sign was distinctive: It featured not just the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe but even the Georges Pompidou Centre. The lady behind the counter, a cranky, overly made-up biddy, most likely drunk, gave him a testy look before he even said, “I’m looking for Hoa.”

“There’s no Hoa here.”

“But this
is
the Paris by Night café?”

“Yes, but there’s no Hoa here.”

“I’m pretty sure she lives here. Are you Hoa’s mother?”

“Listen, I told you there’s no Hoa here. Do you want me to call the cops?”

“Call the cops for what?! I’m looking for Hoa!”

Quang Trung noticed that two guys had appeared—a middle-aged man balling his fists and a young, scrawny guy clutching a long stick. Absolutely pathetic, he thought, yet menacing enough. He could kick these guys’ asses, sure, but they would leave a few bruises on him too. The scrawny guy was so nervous, his stick was trembling. Quang Trung looked around and saw that many customers had stood up, ready to join the fray. At a corner table, behind a chessboard and a just-poured glass of beer, a Taiwanese guy sat grinning. Sensing excitement, neighborhood children crowded the entrance, tittering, their eyes gleaming. Unseen, a toy dog started to bark hysterically, its vocals mixing with Donna Summer on the stereo. It was so ridiculous, Quang Trung had to laugh. Shaking his head in disgust, he walked out of Paris by Night, got on his motorbike, then rode away.
It was like a bad chop-socky scene
, he thought,
not that there’s ever a good one. Well, maybe Jackie Chan. I don’t need to put up with such trash. I’ve got a mission in life. Maybe I’ll write a song about this episode. Nothing is ever wasted on an artist
.

14
VIA THE TIN ROOFS

T
he house had a front and a back door. Hoa could not leave by the front because she would have had to walk through the café, past Kim Lan, Cun and/or Sen, and she could not sneak out the back because she did not have the key to the steel gate. The only escape was to jump from her window onto a neighbor’s tin roof——a drop of about five feet. Once on this roof, she would have to walk across six more to reach a leaning coconut tree, where she could slide down to street level. The older of these sloping, corrugated tin roofs were rusty and tetanus inducing. Leaking, they were patched with brittle plastic or even nylon sheets. TV antennas and live wires further complicated Hoa’s escape. Though she had never climbed up or down a tree before, she was game. Imprisoned for two weeks, she could wait no longer. The best time was nine in the morning, when her mother was at the market. Hiding her hideous hair under a baseball cap, she climbed onto the windowsill, hesitated for a few seconds, then let herself go. Landing awkwardly, she pitched forward, rolled and got up in one motion. It sounded like a car crashing into a series of trash cans. Nothing was broken, so she started walking. Adrenaline made her deaf to the commotion of neighbors spilling onto the street to see who the thief was. She didn’t dare run, fearing the roofs would collapse. Before she knew it, she was on the coconut tree, hugging it, but the ride down was far from smooth. The notches scraped her hands bloody, tore at her jeans and jacket, and she nearly landed on
a woman selling iced gelatin at the base of the tree. As the woman cursed at her, she ran to a street corner, hopped on the back of a motorbike and instructed the driver to go downtown. On every Saigon street corner, there are men waiting on motorbikes to take you anywhere for a modest fee.

Two weeks before, Hoa had made the same trip going in the opposite direction, feeling elated about a future she would share with Quang Trung. So much had changed. What she had gone through had toughened her and taught her a good lesson. She now knew, once and for all, that her family was pure shit and that she would never want to live under the same roof with them again. Their behavior was the catalyst she needed to break free. They had betrayed her. Realizing what she had lost, her selfish and brutal mom would cry, cry, cry, but it would be way too late.
She’ll never see my face again. How dare she lay her hand on me?
Even a female alligator would not use her sharp teeth on her babies, Hoa remembered from an adequately dubbed American TV show, although a panda bear would raise only one twin cub and abandon the other one, let it starve to death. Now her mom only had one left,
only had that poor excuse for a man, for a boy, for I don’t know what
. Heading downtown, Hoa actually felt more elated and optimistic than ever. It felt so right, this decision, this moment, it felt preordained. Quang Trung had even predicted it in a Love Like Hate song:

Seeing Quang Trung’s building, Hoa felt so happy she could barely refrain from laughing out loud. There was so much life
coursing through her lithe body, she thought her chest would explode. Looking up at the second-floor window, she rang his doorbell and waited with a huge smile on her face. She had not seen him in two weeks, an eternity in their brief relationship. Yelling his name, she rang the doorbell again and again. Finally a head stuck out. It was female, someone her age—this girl even looked like her.

“Is Quang Trung home?”

The girl glared at Hoa. “My boyfriend is not home!”

15
HAPPY BIRTHDAY

T
here was only one Western-style bar in Quang Trung’s neighborhood and it was called Whatever. The interior was velvet and chrome and the music techno. Sitting at the bar, Hoa ordered round after round of Jameson. She didn’t care that she didn’t have enough money, she just wanted to get drunk and stay drunk. It was not yet noon, but there were a dozen customers in the place, including a middle-aged white guy who was also downing Jameson. Seeing the beautiful girl in the baseball cap, he finally ambled over and said, “May I?”