CALIFORNIA FINE VIEW

Strange what a pair of Levy’s jeans can do to a man’s confidence, he thinks as he sits at a window table in the California Fine View restaurant three floors above street level. A new pair of American jeans—he smiles—expertly haggled down from thirty to just twelve bucks at Ben Thanh Market yesterday. When I first came to the city, I couldn’t even haggle, he remembers. I was intimidated. I used to think that if you haggle too much, they’d think you’re a destitute, stupid hick. But I’ve certainly come a long way. He chuckles inside. I’m wearing Ralph Lauren’s Polo Sport and a pair of leather shoes, also bought yesterday, imported from China and costing nearly a month’s salary. Suddenly his face twitches, shot through with a surge of anger. On the pastel-yellow walls are framed photos of the the Golden Gate Bridge and the Grand Canyon. To hell with it, he thinks, shooing the turbulence away with a quick gulp of way-too-sweet lemonade. Not nearly enough lemon, he concludes bitterly. But extravagance is an occasional necessity, he reminds himself. You must be extravagant every now and then if you want to shift your paradigm. A very important word: paradigm. How serendipitous it was that I came across it in my very first novel. And to think—he blushes—only a year ago I didn’t even know what a novel was. Now I read at least a page every night. He smiles. People are stuck in ruts because they have never heard of the word paradigm. And then their lives are ruined. To live beyond your means every once in a while is an act of defiance. When you’re in debt, you cannot be complacent. You either sink into despair or you become creative. You must change your life, he has read somewhere. Renewals cost money, certainly. What bullshit, he thinks. I’m only dressed up to impress a woman.

As a woman enters the room, he rises halfway out of his chair, then quickly sits down again. And she doesn’t even look like my date, he nearly laughs inside. A glance at his watch shows that Lan is seventeen minutes late already. Strange how different the world can look from a third-floor window. Nothing matters from up here. People are shrunken down to size, and all of life’s horrors simply evaporate. But maybe it’s only the air-conditioning. Across the street a legless woman surfs along on a dolly lying on her stomach. A loudspeaker next to her head crackles a Buddhist mantra. How odd it is that I cannot even visualize my date’s face at the moment. But I do remember her name, certainly, Tran Thuy Lan, or Tran Ngoc Lan, or something like that. But if someone were to ask me anything about her appearance, for example does she wear her hair long or short, or does she wear makeup, I wouldn’t be able to tell him.

He finishes his lemonade. Way too much ice, he concludes bitterly. Two tables away, a young white couple are eating something extravagant: a pastry with stuff all over it. The aroma wafts over to his table. The pepperoni is real, but the cheese is fake. He has never eaten cheese before. He waves at a waiter. “What is that?” he whispers.

“Pizza,” the waiter answers. “Italian. Would you like to try it?”

He smiles in gratification. “Maybe later. But give me a Tiger beer for now.”

“We only have Heineken and Budweiser.”

“Say that again.”

“Hei-ne-ken and Bud-wei-ser.”

“Give me the first kind.”

He takes out a pen and writes pi za in his notebook. On the same page with parrot, pistol, and pajamas. It is 7:23 P.M. He looks at the white couple again and comes to the extraordinary realization that he has never been indoors with someone of another race before. A new paradigm. He exhales. I’ve seen them on the streets, sure, many times, but never in a room like this. The man is slovenly, even dorky-looking, but the woman is indeed gorgeous, with an extraordinarily thin nose and very red lips. The man is wearing Levi’s jeans and I’m wearing Levy’s jeans. I’ve never touched the skin of another race before. He catches himself raking his eyeballs across the woman’s baby blue T-shirt. But why am I looking at her while waiting for my date?

“Where are you from?” he thinks in English. “I’m from Manchester. It is raining hard. You can either come or stay with me. I’m the most tallest person in my family. The bathroom is outside. I am healthy, you are sick.” In about a year’s time, I should be able to master English. He chuckles.

He looks at his reflection in the plate glass window. “Pi za,” he mumbles. Intense eyes and serious lips. Ever since I’ve trained myself to keep my mouth shut when not speaking, my face has become more dignified and more substantial. A minimum of thirty push-ups a night. Fifty when I’m not too tired. The Saigon traffic is not too bad on this overcast Sunday. A different waiter returns with his Heineken. After filling his glass, the man grins and says, “Ralph Lauren’s Polo Sport!”

He reacts with an audible sniff. “Calvin Klein aftershave!”

The waiter walks away, winking over his shoulder. A fine place this is, he thinks. Except for the geckos on the pastel-yellow wall of course. The whole country is overran by geckos, sure, but there should be at least one room in Vietnam where there aren’t any of these flesh-colored lizards. The government should figure out a way to eradicate them. Pay kids to shoot them with rubber bands or something. He takes a cautious sip of his imported beer.

He met Lan a week ago in the CD section of a bookstore, that enormous one on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street. He had come to buy his third novel—Sheldon’s Bloodline in a fine translation. He noticed a pretty girl holding a Trinh Nam Son CD. “Buy it,” he advised, “it’s excellent!”

She turned to him with a twinkle in her eyes.

“I have that very CD at home,” he stammered.

“I was just looking at the cover,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t even have a CD player!”

But it was probably a mistake to ask her to meet me at California Fine View, he now thinks. A girl who doesn’t have a CD player would probably be intimidated by a fine place like this, a well-lit place where people from all over the world gather to eat pizza and drink Heineken. Where the chairs are wood and not plastic. But she was also wearing a jazzy and expensive blouse, he remembers, an indication that she also aspires to move up in this world.

The girl is not even here and already I’m spending beaucoup bucks, he laments. He looks out the window and notices that the street has turned dark suddenly. The only lights are the lights on the motorcycles. But they have a generator here and this is a good beer. He takes another sip.

It is 7:40 P.M. The room is crowded with black marketeers and bribe takers, noveau riche and Party officials. At a corner table a dark-skinned Indian man is eating a Greek salad. In a single day I’ve rubbed elbows with both black and white people. He congratulates himself by ordering another Heineken.

Seven fifty-six P.M. and a shoeshine boy is approaching his table. How odd, he thinks, that they would allow a shoeshine boy to walk into a place like this. A barefoot third-grader sporting a harelip. At least no one is trying to sell me lottery tickets.

“Shoeshine?”

“Sure.”

The kid crawls under the table. What the hell, he thinks. He waves at a waiter and points at his empty bottle.

Eight twenty-five P.M., and she is definitely not coming. On the street the lights have come back on. I’m drunk and I’m not disappointed. At least I’ve had a chance to experience the California Fine View. Everything in life is serendipity. If I had stayed at home, I would have learned nothing. The window of my rented room looks straight into another window across a six-foot-wide alley. The California Fine View is now noisy with celebrating Taiwanese. Middle-aged men with teenage Vietnamese escorts. He waves at a waiter for his check.

The check tells him that by drinking three Heinekens and a lemonade alone, he has spent a week’s salary. The hell with it, he thinks. Extravagance is a necessity every once in a while. You must will yourself to shift your paradigm every once in a while. He rises halfway out of his chair, then quickly sits down again. He wiggles his socked toes for a moment, then ducks his head under the table. There is nothing on the floor but a toothpick and a soiled napkin. He looks and looks but cannot find what he is looking for. When he is upright again, he sees the smiling waiter, Mr. Calvin Klein aftershave, clearing his table. “Is anything wrong?”