By the time Phong and Bác Quang said farewell, both sisters had a new change of clothes and a knapsack filled with toiletries from the market. They also were given sandals, since they had left their village barefoot. As Tâm looked for the correct sizes, Mai drifted over to browse the perfume stall. One of the women tended to Mai’s wrist and put a real bandage on it. Tâm was relieved her wound wasn’t infected. Most important, Tâm had the address of a restaurant on a scrap of paper.
“How long a walk is it?” Mai asked.
“The woman at the market said thirty minutes,” Tâm said. “We should change clothes when we get close. We stink like dead catfish.”
Mai giggled. That she could laugh, even feel hopeful after their ordeal, was good, Tâm thought. Normal. She ignored her own guilt that came with Mai’s giggle. Young people adapted more easily to change. The three years between Mai and Tâm was not much, but to Tâm it felt like a chasm.
“Do you think we’ll get jobs?” Mai asked.
Tâm shrugged. “We’ll try. And then we’ll go to the refugee camp the women told us about.”
“But I don’t want to live in a camp,” Mai said. “I want—”
Tâm cut her off. “We have no choice.”
“Promise me that as soon as we have money, we can search for a proper home.”
“What is a ‘proper’ home, Mai? We lived in a hut with a dirt floor and a straw roof. I don’t see any of those here.” She swept her hand across the street.
They had left the dense thickness of the market and were now approaching the city center. Traffic was less crowded here, the roads wider. They walked down one street with islands separating the two directions of traffic. Buildings were larger too, with space between them. Some were painted yellow with graceful wrought iron or marble flourishes. Trees and flowering bushes lined islands and curbs, and urns filled with colorful blossoms dressed up entrances. The heat of the afternoon had crested, but a slight breeze made the walk tolerable.
Mai took it all in. “Dung was right,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“She said everyone in Saigon was rich.” She pointed to a hotel. “I’ve never seen such a big hotel. And look at all those decorations.”
Tâm studied a large building. “That is not a hotel. It is the post office.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen photos. At the library back home. It was built by the French during their occupation.”
The memory of quiet afternoons at the one-room library in the Catholic school swept over Tâm. It was the most peaceful place she knew. When the heat became too much, the librarian would bring in a fan and place it on a tall counter, so the relief reached Tâm at a table a few meters away. She was one of the lucky students. Her father did not make her quit school to work when there wasn’t enough money. He knew she reveled in the pure act of learning. While the family did need her at harvesttime, they allowed her to continue her education if she helped after school. She’d been grateful. But they were gone now. She needed to think about them in the past tense. The thought brought tears to her eyes, and she bit her lip.
They turned the corner and came to a huge structure with graceful arches, colored glass windows, and two steeples. “What is this?” Mai asked.
Tâm laughed. “It is a cathedral. For Christians.”
“Really?”
“The French built that, too.”
“For Catholics?”
“And now probably Americans as well.”
As they kept walking, the neighborhood changed again. Rows of skinny tube houses Quang had pointed out lined the streets. Up close, most were only two or three meters wide. But what they lost in width they made up for in height, stretching up four or five stories. Crowded together like chopsticks in a drawer, they were painted different colors, tropical green, yellow, even pink. In most, shops occupied the ground floor.
“Look!” Mai pointed to a succession of tall, narrow structures. “More tube houses. Like Bác Quang told us about. Do you think the restaurant is in one of them? Perhaps they will let us live above it,” Mai said hopefully.
“In return for what? We’d probably need to work a week just to afford one night.”
Mai stiffened. “Well, you don’t have to be crabby about it.”
Tâm ignored her. Mai was always spinning dreams, most of them wildly unattainable. “There! We’re here.” Tâm stopped at a green tube building with five stories. A sign on the door of the ground floor indicated they’d reached the Saigon Café.
They peered inside. There were only ten tables squeezed together, with barely any space between them. A set of stairs lay at the back. Perhaps there were more tables upstairs? The tables were covered with white tablecloths, and Chinese lanterns in bright colors festooned the ceiling.
Mai smiled. “I like it.”
“Let me do the talking,” Tâm said.
Mai shot her sister a dubious look but didn’t say anything.
Tâm sighed. “Let’s find a place to change clothes.”
In an alley nearby they changed into their new black pantaloons and white blouses. Mai dug inside her knapsack and pulled out a small bottle of perfume.
“Where did you get that?”
“At the market.”
Tâm’s eyes narrowed. “How did you pay for it?”
Wide-eyed, Mai’s aggrieved expression said she was surprised that Tâm doubted her. “One of the women gave it to me. She said it would help with the fish smell.”
Tâm wasn’t sure she believed Mai, but now was not the time to challenge her sister. A few minutes later, in new clothes and doused with perfume, they presented themselves at the restaurant.