CLOUDS MOTEL IN Nha Trang was a concrete quadrangle. Two rows of single-story rooms faced a rock garden where yellow chrysanthemums grew in oblong planters. Their shared room was painted white and bare of decoration. Three single beds lined side-by-side, perpendicular to the wall. Through two large windows, the breeze swayed white curtains, making them fly like young girls’ skirts on a windy day.
White, like an infirmary ward, like mourners at a funeral, like heaven.
But what Maia craved was blank white space. The knots in her stomach had tightened and an ache swelled at the nape of her neck. She felt restless yet weighted down. She thought of shutting her eyes to clear her head before slipping off to the Central Highlands. Twenty minutes to the Liên Tỉnh Express Bus Station. She would take a xích lô. No regular bus schedule. When a bus filled up, it would take off. Phoenix Pass before nightfall.
“I need a nap,” she said and settled on the bed beside the windows where No-No was batting at the white curtains.
Na wanted to go for a swim and disappeared into the bathroom to change into her skimpy neon pink bikini. They could hear her humming a song about clouds’ illusions.
JP retrieved the tube of sunblock from his pack. He squeezed the lotion into his palm, spread it on both hands, and applied it on his face, neck, chest, and arms. He pulled off his T-shirt. The tattoo on his upper arm was now barely visible under his tan. “Could you put some on my back?” He handed Maia the Hawaiian Tropic and sat at the edge of her bed. The scents of coconut oil, plumeria, and passion fruit filled the room. Under her hands, his muscles felt taut then relaxed. “Hmmm . . . It’s the first time you’ve touched me.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Don’t stop.”
“Now that I’ve touched you, I have to kill you.”
“Okay. Before that—” He unzipped his khaki pants.
“No. Oh no. Wait!”
“I have swim trunks underneath.” He lowered his pants. “Come with us for a swim,” he said. No-No had stopped clawing the curtains. His nose twitched and wrinkled, sniffing the air. Finding the fragrance on JP, he licked and gnawed him.
“Okay, done.”
“I’ll put some on you.”
“Uh-uh.”
“What are you afraid of?” He turned to look at her. “Are you still angry at those old men at the train station?”
The room seemed whiter. The orange fur ball rolled between them, purring and snuffling at the Hawaiian Tropic. She gazed into eyes like clear turquoise waters. Waves undulated, rippling. Their breaths, shallow and warm.
“I’m not afraid,” she said and fell back onto the bed, closing her eyes.
“Mai,” Na called, coming into the room. “You sick?”
“Shhhhh!” JP hushed. “C’mon, Na.”
Footsteps pattered on cement floor. The doorknob turned, the door squeaked open, and then closed. Through the window, she could hear JP’s low voice and Na’s laughter. The wind blew the scent of suntan lotion from the room. Voices faded. No-No curled up on the windowsill. She pulled the bleached sheet over her body and curled beneath it, listening to the waves rolling and crashing against the shore. White, like illusions of clouds. She visualized white empty space and saw turquoise waters. She breathed in and out. Her hand reached for the jade locket around her neck. She clicked it open and touched its cool hollow inside.
Off the coast of Vung Tau, she had scattered ashes like sand from her jade locket, gone in the wind over the South China Sea.
But the urn was empty.
Xuan’s gaze was steady. “We’ve placed your father’s remains where they belong,” he said. His eyes squinted against the wind. He seemed nonchalant.
The small rickety boat sailed past the Con Dao archipelago. The fisherman was relieved not to go farther and turned back toward land.
That last night in Vung Tau, they drank tea with the clam pickers on the back beach. Maia served Xuan and the Public Security Trio hot cups of herbal brew from the nuns on the Isle Pagoda. They needed it, she thought—a deep oblivious sleep.
At daybreak, the four men slept, legs dangling from the hammocks, mouths opened wide and eyes closed shut.
Maia, Na, and JP carrying No-No made their escape.
In the morning grayness, a ball bouncing back and forth woke Maia from a heavy sleep since the afternoon before. The beds had been pushed together under a single mosquito net that billowed like clouds with the sluggish turning of the rattan ceiling fan. Beside her, Na and JP slept, bodies in tertwined. Curling at their feet, No-No stirred when Maia left the bed. He yawned and arched his back, all the while watching her change into the yellow đồ bộ. He sidled up to her and circled her legs with his tail. When she gathered him up and pressed her face into his, he wrinkled his nose and pushed all four paws against her. He slipped from her arms and through the window into the gray light.
“Goodbye, Pōpoki.”
She collected her things and secured her bag. She glanced at the sleeping forms, still shifting and entangled in each other’s dreams. JP’s journal lay on the nightstand, a pen wedged midway between the pages. She picked up the journal and moved toward the windows for light, thinking she should leave a note. Instead of writing, she peeked at the entries on the places they had been, curious scribble and unfinished sketches. She was again arriving at the airport at noon, this time from another viewpoint. She was intrigued by the observations of things she had not noticed. Marginal notes on one page and parallel curving lines on the next conjured flickering light in grayness. She saw a figure stoking ashes to find embers.
Outside, a single bouncing ball became many, pulling her attention from JP’s travelogue of juxtaposed images and askew details. She peered through the window. The boulevard was packed with people playing soccer, badminton, and đá cầu. The sounds of shuttlecocks rocketing off badminton racquets, soccer balls against bodies, and the calls of celebration mingling with defeat filled the morning. On the sand across the boulevard, a group of women in their sixties and seventies moved their arms and bodies in slow fluid motions, mirroring the continuous extension and re treat of the shoreline. They stood facing the horizon where a bright orange sun beckoned.
Maia replaced her bag under the bed, left the room, and walked past the xích lô parked beside the motel, heeding the pedalers who were still sound asleep in the passenger seats. She crossed the boulevard and stood on the sand under the coconut palms several feet from the women whose movements rose and fell with the ocean waves.
“Thái Cực Quyền,” a teenager said, coming up to her. He raised his thin arms exaggeratedly in a Tai Chi pose of a white stork flapping its wings. His grin ended in a yawn. He knotted his tousled hair into a bun, exposing a dent imprinted across his cheek where he had leaned against a bar while sleeping. “Mothers from the North,” he explained. “They’re looking for their children’s remains in the South.” He pointed to the group’s transportation, a Soviet vehicle with Cyrillic script still detectable under yellow paint. “I pedal xích lô. Need a ride somewhere? A beautiful sunrise from the towers?”
“No.”
He chanted a hymn to Mother Earth:
Born from the puff in the sky and the fluff in the sea,
Ninety-seven husbands and thirty-nine daughters,
Creator of Earth, trunk of eaglewood, aroma of rice.13
He crossed the street. “Come, before the sun is high!” He disappeared through the crowd and returned minutes later, pushing a rickety beat-up bicycle. “My xích lô needs fixing.”
The boy took her on his bicycle down Tran Phu Boulevard along the South China Sea. They turned left on Yersin Street and then right on April Second. Heading north, they crossed the Cai River. They were strangers though she did not feel strange, sitting close to him on the rear rack, her arms around his thin waist. She could smell the sweat and hear his breathing when the road sloped up. On flat land, he pedaled easily and talked as if they were longtime friends.
Across the Xom Bong Bridge, they arrived at the ancient towers on the hilltop erected by the first people. There had been eight structures, but only four remained. Except for some remnants of old masonry coated under layers of lichen, most of the towers had been rebuilt recently with concrete and red bricks. They climbed atop the boulders behind the four towers and looked down over the bridge. The sun rose higher and painted the thatched huts and fishing boats along the river in an orange light that reflected off the water. As the wind blew, she felt the delicate fabric of her yellow đồ bộ against her skin, and images from JP’s travelogue entered her mind. Lines blurred and spaces opened. She stood in the sanctuary of Mother Earth, momentarily transfixed in the morning glow of her childhood home.