12

The light flickered. A moth, having wandered in unawares, kept batting against the covered light fixture in the milky white bathroom, its wings shuddering. Hae Jong was in the bathtub, her legs crossed and propped up straight along the tiled wall. Steam was wafting out through the open window. The mosquito net was torn; the moth must have come in through the hole. The huge shadow of the moth moved across the wall then stopped, looking like the root of a giant tree. The water was lukewarm.

Hae Jong looked down disinterestedly at her legs and pubis. Her breasts rose and fell slowly with the rhythm of her breathing, breaking the calm surface of the water. The sound of music on the radio came in through the cracked door to the next room. A swaying, soulful Supremes song gave way to the music of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Hae Jong understood their loneliness.

How to imagine the American Dream without suffering its melancholy? They sing of a corner booth in an all-night bar, headlights whizzing over the horizon, a cattle car of a freight train rolling endlessly over red dirt, the drunkard in a back alley at dawn, old folks sitting on a park bench in a small town, a young boy lounging in front of a juke box, a city park enveloped in smog, a rainy November highway, all this in their song of loneliness. The Americans are still kids. Kids who belong in Sunday school. There they learn of the whites, of power, of rules and responsibilities.

Lennon sings: “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”

McCartney sings: “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”

Hae Jong scooped up some water and poured it over her breasts. She leaned her head back into the tub, dipping her wet hair into the water. Jerry, Thomas, and James . . . she visualized each of their faces. Jerry was a professional soldier, sweet, short and stout with a very red face. Thomas was tall, with a long chin, dark hair and a dark beard, a real joker.

Then, there was James . . . Hae Jong remembered their child. They were separated right after the adoption agency placed it with foster parents, so by now it must be growing up as the youngest of some family somewhere in America. James, first lieutenant in the US Army, high school history teacher, Anglo-Saxon, typically middle class, yellow roses on green lawns, low fences painted in bright colors, little brothers in checked shirts, girlfriend named Eileen, tears running through hairy fingers, Uijeongbu, the same US officer’s trench coat she had seen in Waterloo Bridge, the cheap rented house near the base, the harsh cold drafts of February slithering in through the cracks in the window frame . . .

Hae Jong scooped up some more water and ran her fingers over her face. The light was still flickering. The white paint on the plywood ceiling was peeling off around the edges. A lizard the size of a man’s palm was crawling across it upside down. It stuck tenaciously to the ceiling, gripping with its skinny toes. A long forked tongue flicked in and out from time to time, unwinding to nearly half the length of its body. It stopped for a moment, then scurried toward the light fixture and froze once more.

The telephone was ringing, but Hae Jong did not even lift her head from the rim of the tub. The lizard crouched, then suddenly extended its neck and its long tongue shot out to whip around the moth. The insect fluttered futilely to try to escape, but was pulled back to the lizard’s mouth where the jaws locked down on its thorax. The telephone kept on ringing, but Hae Jong did not remove her eyes from the lizard. Its throat was distended as if swollen, and in a moment the moth’s wings disappeared into its mouth. The white eyelids of the lizard opened and closed like a chicken’s.

The telephone stopped ringing. Only then did Hae Jong look over into the other room. On the radio an announcer was crisply enunciating the results of a northern assault. Hae Jong slid her way up out of the tub. Though it was out of her reach, the movement sent the lizard scrambling across the ceiling and after some quick darting leaps it vanished into a crack in the plywood. How well do cold-blooded reptiles adapt to the dark? It would sleep in there a long time, digesting the moth.

Hae Jong stood before the mirror. A few curly hairs lay in the sink. Her body was firm, still free of any excess fat. The nipples were somewhat dark but upright, and her belly was smooth and flat. As fat Jerry had once said, her skin was “a lighter shade of ivory than a white woman’s.” That high nose and those large, deep-set eyes, for which her Korean classmates in high school had teased her as mixed-blood, were peering back at her from the looking glass. Standing out prominently was the mole she had come to despise. It was a dark blue color. She did not like those eyes, either. Shadows had settled in around them and they had lost the brightness they once had. Of all her features those eyes were what revealed the passage of time. Was it James and the baby that had taken away the gleam in her eyes? Or could it have been the long stretches of sleeping since coming to this place?

After towel-drying her wet hair, Hae Jong went into the other room. Noticing that the band of sunrays no longer shone in between the shutters, she told herself the sun must have gone down. The bed was still unmade, with the sheets half pulled off and a pillow dangling from the headboard ledge. A radio sitting on the same ledge was now belting out American country songs.

The apartment was divided into two parts. One was the bedroom with attached bath and the other was the outer space used for a living room and a kitchen, though the latter was no more than a small sink basin and a kerosene stove. Against the wall was an old couch and there was also a mahogany table with four rickety wicker chairs. An old Westinghouse fan hung from the ceiling. Out through the front door was a broad terrace. A platanus tree had grown right up next to the window, dropping leaves over the curb into Doc Lap Boulevard.

In the old days Hotel Thanh Thanh had been a luxurious residence for French colonial officials, but these days it was owned by a Chinese and had been turned into a high-class hotel and apartment building. On occasion a foreign prostitute would move in, paying rent in advance for a few months, make money, and then leave. Sometimes employees of Philco or Vinelli roomed there in groups of twos or threes. Half of the place lived up to the name of “hotel” and received visiting guests. Vietnamese hookers were also allowed in if accompanied by a registered guest, most of whom were American officers on business from Saigon, or Vietnamese government officials. The monthly rent was thirty thousand piasters.

Hae Jong finished drying herself and put on a pair of silk pants, the kind Vietnamese women liked; they were smooth to the touch and did not cling. Then she put on a cotton T-shirt. If she had been planning to go out, she would have selected an outfit from the closet, but the telephone call meant that he would be coming. She splashed some perfume behind her ears and on her neck, then applied a little make-up, some light foundation and lipstick. She made up the bed and switched on the lamp.

Coming out into the living room, she went over to the stove and put a frying pan on the burner. From the refrigerator she removed an egg and a piece of ham, and cooked them in the pan. With her plate of food and a glass of instant iced tea, she sat down in one of the wicker chairs and had just begun to eat when the telephone rang again. The ring was so loud and startling that her heart fell, and she frowned slightly as she picked up the receiver.

“Mimi?”

“It almost ruptured my eardrums.”

The man laughed. He knew how loud army phones could be. “What are you doing?”

“Just eating my dinner.”

“Sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.”

“What promise?”

“To take you to China Beach yesterday. But you’d forgotten, so I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

Hae Jong paused for a second and then spoke in a low, scolding tone. “You can forget promises like that. But you can’t forget my passport. Do you mean to leave me stranded here like food on a refrigerator shelf?”

“No, it’s just that I was swamped with work today. I had to go to some official ceremony with my boss. The meeting will be over soon, so I’ll drop by.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Hae Jong stood there absentmindedly with the receiver in hand. They had known each other for about two months. He used to sit next to her on the PX commuter bus. Asian prostitutes who’ve had any experience with white men hardly consider Asian men as equals, and she was no different. She remembered too well the faces of Korean soldiers who had cast scornful looks at her whenever they saw her with Jerry or Thomas, or especially when she was with James, even as they behaved submissively toward the Americans with her.

If it had been her choice she would never have sat down next to that Vietnamese officer. He had boarded the bus with an American navy officer. It happened that the seats beside and across from Hae Jong had been unoccupied, and the two of them had walked down the aisle and taken those two places. She was dressed in a white blouse and black skirt befitting an office worker. The officer beside her turned to her and tried to strike up a conversation in Vietnamese. Hae Jong at first pretended not to hear and kept her eyes fixed on the window. When the officer again turned to her and said something, she had answered politely in English, “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Vietnamese.”

“Ah, right. Maybe I speak your language. Chinese? Or, from Singapore?”

“I’m an administrative employee of the US Army.”

“That much I know. My name’s Pham Quyen. I’m at the army headquarters. People tend to look down on those in adverse circumstances—is that how you see the Vietnamese?”

“I don’t look down on them. I’m just tired and want to be left alone.”

“I didn’t mean to bother you. It’s just that a maiden among uniforms is as blindingly beautiful as a rose in an empty room.”

At these words, Hae Jong turned and looked at him. Unlike most Vietnamese men, he was well built with a strong chin. He was smiling and the tiny wrinkles gathered gently around the corners of his eyes reminded her of Jerry when he used to teach her English.

“Where do you live?”

“I board in a private home.”

“Where?”

“On Puohung Street.”

“That’s near where I live.”

Hae Jong felt a little annoyed, but also somewhat reassured. Her prim and proper days were long gone. For six months she had been living in a room rented from the family of a Vietnamese girl she worked with at the PX. On weekends she went out to clubs or to the beach with an American civilian administrator who came to the house to call on her friend, Chin Pei. Sometimes she slept with them. But, of course, she did not take money. Instead, PX vehicles would drop off ration-controlled items at Chin Pei’s house. Chin Pei’s father would sell the goods, for a little commission, at three times the original price. Hae Jong changed her profits into military money orders and saved them.

The money orders with their eagle imprints were as good as dollars everywhere in the world where there are American troops. Hae Jong needed money. Back in Korea waiting for her return were her mother and two younger siblings, who had been eking out a precarious living running a hole-in-the-wall shop in a small town. Perhaps she would never live with them again. Probably she would go back to Uijeongbu or to the Dongducheon army base. She might buy a small club, or run an inn. Who knows, she might even cross the ocean to James’s country.

Hae Jong often suffered from insomnia. In the beginning she drank bourbon and coke. Then Chin Pei’s father introduced her to a more effective sedative. On days when he returned home after selling PX goods, he always hopped up onto a wooden bunk on the back porch cradling a hemp cushion in his arms. His old wife would wait on him, bringing his pipe, and while the two smoked they looked like the happiest couple in the world.

From the start she knew that the stuff burning in the bowl of the long pipe was not tobacco. They took a golden brown clay-like substance out of a plastic pouch and rolled it into balls in their palms, placed it on a beer bottle cap and cooked it over charcoal, then emptied the contents into the pipe. The smell of burning opium reminded her of burning hay, not at all unpleasant. Their eyes became distant and dreamy and their fingers limply swayed.

At their suggestion, Hae Jong had tried a pipe in her room. It felt at first like her joints and spine were melting away. Then the bed began to fall and it kept falling downward endlessly. It was a calm darkness, bottomless and boundless. It was a journey like that of a single reed swept away on the waves, caught on and then broken free from obstacles and riding the crest of strong waves, jolting against this and that as it drifted onward, then finally floating lazily over the quietly rippling surface of a broad lake.

Those trips took Hae Jong away from Vietnam and Uijeongbu. From time to time she went on them with clerks she knew from work. Worn-out soldiers often indulged in smoking opium, which they found much more satisfying than marijuana. Opium was perfect for those soaked monsoon nights when steamy rain fell all night long. Maybe opium was just the right thing for the torrid climate of Vietnam, with its insects and lizards. Smoking raw opium was much slower than injecting the refined white powder mixed with distilled water into your veins, but it was also less dangerous. The heroin came from Vientiane and Cholon while the raw opium came from Burma and the frontier with Laos. In the Central Highlands of Vietnam there were high hills where poppy fields stretched out for miles.

The Turkish baths and most of the hotels in Da Nang offered opium dens, and the same was true of many of the military barracks. Any Vietnamese could buy opium in the back alleys of the old market in amounts ranging from a matchbox full to a slab as big as a candy bar. The price of heroin, according to the GIs, was one-tenth of the stateside price. Not long before, an officer had discovered a GI blown away from smoking heroine in the barracks. His report was turned over to PX security, who tracked the scent back to Chin Pei’s house, where MPs searched Mimi’s room. In her closet they found opium and a pipe.

The security officers treated the case with some caution, for Mimi, after all, was a temporary civil servant of the American government. Had she been Vietnamese they would have turned her over to the national police and she would have forfeited all pending salary and severance pay. But Mimi, being an alien as well as a beauty, got off with just being fired and having the Korean embassy notified that she had lost her job and thus her right to remain in Vietnam. The embassy had ordered her immediate departure, but she had stayed past the deadline and was now subject to deportation.

The incident had occurred during a time when Pham Quyen was paying occasional visits to Chin Pei’s house, and Hae Jong decided, instead of giving up this stepping stone, to use him to help her get back on her feet. Major Pham Quyen was one year older than she, and not selfish or immature like most Americans. Most of all, she came to realize that he, like herself, had reached a point where he was a man without a nationality. Yes, the two of them were like lost children, launched from either end of the Asian continent and now bobbing aimlessly like untethered buoys.

Hae Jong sliced off little pieces of the ham and egg with the edge of her fork. The bitter taste of the unsweetened iced tea slowly sharpened her dull senses. She opened the shutters wide. The light pouring out of the Hotel Thanh Thanh made the leaves of the trees lining the street seem green and fresh. As always, gunfire could be heard now and then in the distance. But to her it sounded like sound effects on the radio. She settled deep into one of the chairs and gazed out the window at the trees. The cool wind off the bay was pushing the shutters, making them creak. An approaching vehicle could be heard, then came a loud screech as it braked suddenly, followed by a motor revving and the sound of it hurriedly pulling away.

Without getting up to look outside, she knew it had to be him. She sat facing the front door, holding her head high, picturing his footsteps—those dusty jungle boots treading over the carpet, then up the stairs, first floor, second, third, then down in the hall in a single breath and finally he was there knocking on the door. Without getting up she said to come in. Pham Quyen, taking off his hat, came up to Hae Jong and kissed her lightly on the lips. His mouth smelled of cigars and alcohol. She grabbed a handful of his hair in her hand and, as with a child, playfully tugged it.

“Whose side are you on, huh? Tell me. The general’s?”

Pham Quyen worked his hair loose and then grasped her hand and rubbed it against the coarse stubble on his unshaved chin.

“I’m on my side. Nobody else’s.”

“Just like me.”

She gently fondled the major’s chin and cheeks with the hand he was holding in his own.

“But . . . I’d like to be on your side. We’re the only ones with no allies.”

Pham Quyen buried his face in Hae Jong’s full breasts.

“Were you busy?”

“Very. We’ve been out to An Diem.”

“Where’s that?”

“Ah, that’s a phoenix hamlet, a new life village.”

“Why don’t we go live there, too?”

In a voice mimicking that of Butler, Pham Quyen said, “When the new generation is born, we’ll go live there. For that will be a village of eternal peace. Well, what have you been up to for the past two days?”

She gently nudged him away and straightened her posture.

“I slept.”

“I think you’ve been tripping too often. What about the rent?”

“I already paid it.”

Hae Jong went into the bedroom and returned with a piece of paper from the dresser drawer.

“Look, these are the figures from the past five days.”

The previous week Pham Quyen had gone with Hae Jong in the general’s sedan to the navy supply warehouse at the end of Bai Bang Cape. He had gone to negotiate on the rations for the night sentries guarding the outskirts of Da Nang. Actually, that matter fell under the jurisdiction not of the provincial government but of the QC headquarters; a bureaucratic discrepancy of that kind, however, was considered trivial. Pham Quyen had handed over an official document and received in return a requisition issued by MAC 36.

The next day Hae Jong took a three-quarter-ton truck Pham Quyen had arranged for to the navy cargo dock at the North Cape and loaded the goods. She then brought them herself from the base into town. In the backyard of Chin Pei’s house, concealed under coconut fronds, they had stashed four pallets holding 240 cartons of C-rations. A few days later he had sent another truck to her and during the afternoon siesta she and Chin Pei’s father had loaded a batch and delivered them across the river to the campside market near the navy hospital.

“So, the total is fourteen hundred forty dollars?”

“No, fourteen hundred even. I gave the driver and Chin Pei’s father twenty dollars each. And then I paid thirty thousand piasters for rent, so that leaves eleven hundred dollars.”

“It brought us one month’s living expense, then.”

“I don’t have much time,” Hae Jong said in a cold tone. “I know those people very well. I’ll teach you. What will you do for me in return?”

“I’ll give you love.”

“Then, will you come with me?”

“Mimi, you can always live with me in Da Nang.”

“No, I can’t. We’re just two people who somehow ended up sharing a room. If you come with me to Bangkok or Hong Kong or some other third country, we could be man and wife.”

Pham Quyen said nothing for a time, exhaled smoke, then spoke in a slow and deliberate voice. “There’s Singapore. I really like port cities. You can put up a hammock near a window that lets a sea breeze in and read a good mystery novel. Like the rich and famous on the French Riviera.”

“Quyen, don’t be so naive. I know you like I know myself. We’ll probably be betrayed. I can only wait for three more months. After that, I’m leaving.”

“Without my permission you can’t go anywhere. Not even to Saigon, let alone out of the country. Your passport is invalid.”

Hae Jong began to laugh, swinging her legs.

“See here, Major Pham. I know a little about men. If I went right now to the US Army Officers’ Club, I’m sure I could become quite intimate with a high-ranking officer. And, you know, they could have your general transferred in a snap. If I wanted to, I could even get married and become a US citizen. But I just don’t want those Americans looking down on me.”

Pham Quyen listened in silence to Hae Jong’s heartless voice. He put out his cigarette.

“I’ll keep my promise. I can make you a Thai woman tomorrow and send you to Bangkok. Just stop talking about three months, four months, please. I’ll make sure your passport is ready by next week.”

They sat staring into space, shadows darkening both of their faces. Hae Jong undid one button on his uniform, then said, “Why don’t you have a bath?”

“Right, I really should. I’ve been running around in the dust all day.”

Pham Quyen took off his army boots and peeled off his clothes, and soon came the sound of the shower running. Hae Jong also undressed and then put on a robe. Sitting at the head of the bed, she smoked a cigarette.

Pham half-shouted from the bathroom, as if the thought had just struck him, “I’ve been too busy lately with the resettlement program. From now on, I’ll take care of everything for you.”

“It’s all right. I’m bored with not enough to do anyway.”

“You’re a woman and a beauty at that. Too conspicuous.”

Hae Jong let out a soft laugh. “What have I got to be afraid of? Nothing.” With those words she banged loudly on the bathroom door, adding, “I’ve got you, don’t I? So make me your Vietnamese wife, or give me some nationality.”

“All right.”

She turned the radio on. A wailing lead guitar was playing soul music. From the kitchen cabinet she got an aluminum plate and an alcohol lamp, then she removed two pipes and a small lump of opium from a drawer in the bedroom closet. The Vietnamese pipes had trumpet-like fluted bowls, long bamboo bodies, and mouthpieces fashioned from pieces of juniper. To prepare enough for two smokers, she tore off chunks with her fingertips a bit at a time, then rolled them into balls and sat the balls on the heated plate. The opium began to sizzle. Ever since learning this routine back at Chin Pei’s house, she no longer had any fears about the future. Her initial concern about becoming addicted had long since disappeared. She would not regret it if some day she became so desperate she started sticking needles in her arm. For now only the peaceful present would last, like a dream. She wasn’t worried about the next ten years. Pham Quyen came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“What’s that? The dream flower?”

“Today you should try one, too.”

“What if it snatches me by the ankle?”

“Smoking is no problem. More than half the old people in your country smoke.”

“Because it’s a country where death is all too common.”

“Death doesn’t bring you back, but this stuff does. You come back fresher.”

Hae Jong nimbly picked up the burning lumps of opium with bamboo chopsticks and pushed them into the bowls of the pipes. She gave one to Pham and put the other pipe in her mouth.

“Lie down comfortably on the bed. Take a deep puff and repeat it several times to make it spread quickly all through your body.”

They lay side by side, drawing on their pipes. The sound of sucking was like the squeaking of mice and the opium bubbled under the flame.

“I can feel myself relaxing.”

“Yes, and your eyes are getting dimmer. You said you liked the seaside. Come closer, this is no place for us to live.”

“You’re right. Now let’s fly together.”

The spent pipes slipped out of their hands. Lazily they rolled onto their sides and Hae Jong parted her gown, revealing her nakedness. Lifting one arm, she pulled the string to switch off the lamp above her head. The streetlights seeped into the room and fell diagonally across the walls and floor. Slithering like a spineless creature, Pham Quyen fumbled with Hae Jong’s body. The two intertwined.