Behind the Dark Room

Sài Gòn, 1969

Trang took another step back from the soldier. There was no way she’d go to a private room with him.

The tiger madam clicked her tongue. “Now . . . don’t be silly. You’re lucky he likes you. Look how handsome he is. And how young.”

“No, Madam . . . He’s drunk.”

“She a virgin? A cherry girl?” the soldier asked the tiger madam, swaying to the music. He eyed Trang’s chest.

“For sure she is. Fresh from the countryside.”

The soldier pulled out some bills. “I want a short time with her.”

The tiger madam nudged Trang. “That’s a lot of money. Take it. No need to buy a ticket for a short time this time.”

“No.” Trang took another step back.

“Are you stupid or what?” She grabbed Trang’s hand, her long fingernails digging into Trang’s skin. “He’s one of our best customers. No one is allowed to make him unhappy.” She caressed Trang’s cheek. “Come on, beautiful . . . He’s impatient. Look, he’s already eyeing some other girls.”

“Madam, I don’t want to.”

The woman tried to push the money into Trang’s palm. “No need to share with me this time.”

Trang pulled her hand away, shaking her head.

“Think you’re so good?” the madam hissed. “I thought you wanted to help your parents with their debts.”

“I do, but—”

“Well, I won’t ask you again. How many customers did you have tonight, huh? One! And he didn’t buy many drinks.” She signaled toward Quỳnh, who was flirting with another man. “Watch how well your little sister is doing. That’s her third customer. She’s meeting her quota. It looks like you’ll have to go back to your village and she can stay.”

The tiger madam returned the money to the soldier. She got on her tiptoes and whispered something into his ear. He shook his head and went to the bar, grabbing a girl by the waist, dancing with her.

Trang found a vacant table, sat down and waited. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance, but no new customers came in. Quỳnh was doing well; her man was buying her one Sài Gòn Tea after another. Trang’s chest grew heavy. She couldn’t leave her sister alone here. She had to stay, to protect Quỳnh.

When the clock above the entrance showed nine thirty, she bit her lip. She only had one more hour until the bar closed due to the city’s curfew. She looked for the tiger madam. “The back room, Madam, is it just for a private chat?”

“You don’t have to do anything in there that you don’t want to.” She then turned toward a bartender, shouting, “They’re asking for more drinks. Are you deaf as well as blind?”

When the soldier finished dancing, he returned to Trang and gestured toward the back room. Trang closed her eyes and nodded, cold sweat dampening her neck.

The back room was dark, lined with sofas and filled with the murmurings of other couples. Trang folded her arms across her chest.

The soldier tapped on a sofa. “Ngôi xuong đi em.”

Trang told herself to stay calm as she sat down beside him. If they talked, he wouldn’t do anything to her. “Your Vietnamese is good,” she said. “Where did you learn? I can help correct your accents.”

The soldier inched closer to her. His lips were wet on her cheeks, his breath ripe with the pungent smell of liquor. She pushed him away. “Madam said we only talk.”

“Hm, talk? Yes, I like talking, too.” His hand was on her thigh, slithering under her skirt.

“No.” She tried to stand up. He put his leg across her stomach. He was heavy, and she wanted to scream. But she feared she’d upset the tiger madam.

“Shh.” The soldier caressed her face. “We shouldn’t disturb other couples.”

“Please . . . I don’t want to be here.”

“Come on, sweetheart, be a good girl.” He reached for her shirt.

She tried to get up, but his strong arms held her back.

“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood.” He chuckled. “Is it your first time with a man? Hmm, your shyness turns me on. Just stay calm. Don’t you want your madam to praise you?”

His hand left her body, but his leg was still on her stomach. She felt him fumbling with something and heard a zipping noise.

“Touch me.” He reached for her arm, placing it on his chest. He had opened all of his shirt buttons and his chest hair reminded her of the pet monkey her neighbors had kept in their back garden. She shuddered, pulling back.

“Please, sweetheart.” He found her fingers and guided them down to his thighs.

“No.” She snatched her hand away. Heat rushed to her face. Did she just touch the man’s private part?

“Don’t be shy, little darlin’,” he whispered, breathing hard. Before she had time to react, he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her toward him. He kissed her hard on her lips. She struggled, freeing her mouth but found her face being pinned onto his sweaty chest. She turned to breathe, and in the dimness, saw his hand moving up and down on his sexual organ.

She closed her eyes in disgust. His body tensed up like a rock under hers. He started to moan, whispering American words. Was he calling someone? Was it the name of his girlfriend, for he uttered it with such tenderness?

She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming. She thought about Hiếu, who’d walked her home from school hundreds of times, and later from her home to the rice field. She’d never let him hold her. They’d never kissed. She wanted to be a good girl, the girl who remained a virgin until her wedding night, the girl with the four virtues her Má had taught her.

The man shuddered as something hot and sticky shot toward her face. She turned away, trying to stop herself from vomiting.

Trang walked into the night after the bar closed. The street was empty, lit up by lightbulbs suspended from tall metal poles. A wind swept through the air, sending a piece of paper swirling toward the black sky punctured by flares. She wished she could fly up like that piece of paper, above the streetlamps, above the half-moon. Only then could she be alone with all the darkness in the world.

Quỳnh walked in front with the other girls. Trang stayed behind, her head bent. When she had left the back room, she’d gone to the toilet and locked herself inside. After a good cry, she stepped back into the bar. She just sat there staring at Quỳnh as she talked to another man. Whenever Quỳnh turned, she looked away. She couldn’t meet Quỳnh’s eyes anymore.

She thought about home and fought back tears. When the problems first started with the lenders, she’d been angry with her parents for having been swayed by the con man. But after reflecting, she saw how her parents had tried all their lives to give her and Quỳnh the best possible opportunities. They had even dreamed about making enough money to send their two daughters overseas to study. That had clearly been a mistake.

Ahead of her, someone had stopped and was waiting for her.

“Our madam said both you and Quỳnh did good tonight,” Hân said. “You earned well, so you can stay. Well done!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Trang gritted her teeth.

“Tell you what?”

“The back room.”

“Oh, someone asked you to go there already? You lucky girl.”

“You should have told me, Hân.”

“Come on, Trang. The back room, we call it the fun room. You go there, have fun with your soldier and get paid. Isn’t that a good deal?”

“No, Hân. I don’t want to do the things people do there.”

“You mean you’re better than us?” Hân snorted. “Look . . . I know this is new to you, but boys and girls do these things all the time. We give each other pleasure. Didn’t you like it when he touched you?”

Trang looked away. How disgusting that Hân talked like this. She’d thought Hân was innocent. She’d trusted her.

“You didn’t let him do anything to you?” Hân gasped. “Well . . . I hope he still paid you. I assume you haven’t had a real boyfriend, but soon you’ll like it. You know . . . men can give us a good time.”

“Hân, please . . .”

“Hey, I’m being honest with you. You should know that these soldiers, they don’t just want drinks. They want our bodies. The happier we make them, the more they pay us.”

Trang glared at Hân. “I’m not a whore. I don’t want to be.”

Hân paused in her steps. She opened her mouth and Trang thought harsh words would come rolling out. But Hân shook her head, looking down. The silence felt like a stretched rubber band between them. Hân released it with a deep sigh. She lifted her face. “You can call me a whore, Trang, but I’m proud to be doing this for my family. And these American soldiers, they’re here to save us from the savage Communists. Believe it or not, I want to make them happy. So go ahead and call me whatever you like.”

Hân turned and quickened her steps, joining the girls ahead of them.

Lying on the sedge mat spread on the floor, Trang’s body ached. Next to her, Quỳnh was snoring. Trang closed her eyes but images flickered in her mind. Images of the mustached soldier weeping, of the tall soldier moaning, of Tina calling her younger sister an ugly pig, of Hân standing on the street with hunched shoulders. Images of her father reduced to lying in his bed, of her mother bending her back in the rice field, of the lenders charging into her home and taking away anything of value. Images of dead people scattered on the village road after the Tết Offensive, when the Communists launched vicious attacks on the ARVN in her village, images of the VC suspect dangling from the tamarind tree on that bright Sunday morning. These memories filled her vision, then her brain, the pain spreading to her chest. She sat up, panting, her arms squeezing her rib cage.

She had to calm down. She took a deep breath, held it in her lungs and let it roll slowly out. After another inhale and exhale, her heartbeat slowed. She stared out at the balcony. To ease the heat, Hân and her roommates had left the balcony door open, and Sài Gòn’s life streamed in. Sounds of a baby crying and a mother humming a lullaby. A dog barked. A rooster crowed. Wheels of a bicycle rolling down the street. Soft bell of a cyclo. Hurried footsteps of someone, perhaps a street seller. Rumbling of airplanes from Tân Sơn Nhứt Airbase. The hooting of a train that blared then faded into darkness.

A soft rustling from inside the room. She turned. A shadow was rising from the bed to her left, making its way out to the balcony.

She followed, careful not to wake Quỳnh. Outside, the sky was still lit up by flares that exploded and hung in the air for several minutes. Her mother would be thrilled to see so many graceful arcs of light; she’d sewn pillow cases from the flares’ white cloth parachutes and made storage boxes out of their aluminum pipes.

The balcony was narrow and cool, dimly lit by a streetlight several meters away. A girl stood, a red dot floating in front of her face.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Trang whispered.

Hân turned. “Can’t sleep?”

Trang shook her head. “I’m sorry . . . for using that word . . . you know.”

“You’re right. That’s what I am. A whore.” Hân took a drag of her cigarette, smoke spiraling out of her mouth.

“May I try?” Trang asked.

“Why? It’s bad for you,” she said but gave Trang the cigarette.

Trang tried to imitate Hân. As she inhaled, a bitter taste invaded her tongue, mouth, and throat, she coughed and choked.

Hân laughed, patting her back. “You okay?”

Trang nodded, her eyes teary. Holding the cigarette between her fingers, she stared at its red dot. “Hân, I’m thankful you’re helping us earn money. . . . But I didn’t expect it to be like this. You said we’d be drinking Sài Gòn Tea only. I hung on to those words and let them take me and my sister here.”

“If I’d told you everything, would you have come? Back home, what can you do, huh? You want to waste your life away working in that rice field?” Hân snatched the cigarette from Trang. The red dot blossomed as she inhaled. “I put my job on the line for you and Quỳnh by bringing you to the bar.” She blew out a plume of smoke. “But if you want to quit, just go home . . . Leave in the morning if you want to.”

Trang swallowed. In addition to the amount she’d given her mother in the envelope, she’d borrowed more from Hân to pay for the bus tickets, the cyclo ride, and dinner last night—a quick bowl of noodle soup on the pavement opposite the bar. “Quỳnh and I counted the money we made. It was good . . . but we’ll need a week to pay you back.”

“You know . . . you were much better than me at school,” Hân said, shaking her head. “You worked so hard, and I always thought you could become whatever you wanted to be.”

Trang reached for the cigarette. The second drag tasted less bitter. “If I have money—” she coughed “—I’ll be able to study and become whoever I’m destined to be.”

“You want to study more?”

“Sure . . . I’d still like to be a doctor.” Trang closed her eyes. Her father’s doctors had saved his life, but she wished they’d do more to help him walk again, not to mention cure him of his invisible wounds.

She turned to Hân. “I’m fed up with being poor, with being chased by lenders, with not having enough to eat.” She stared at the horizon. If she returned home, her future would be buried beneath the rice field’s mud. “I’m thinking . . . that perhaps I should give this a try. If I do it well, I might be able to save. And when this war is over, I can go to medical school.”

“That’s a good plan, Trang . . . or should I call you Kim?”

“Kim doesn’t exist outside the bar.” Trang ran her fingers along the metal railing. “I need to make money. Tell me how?”

“Ha? Just a moment ago, you wanted to leave.” Hân eyed an airplane that thundered above their heads.

“I know, but if I leave, Quỳnh won’t join me. As they say, I’ve thrown my spear, I have to follow its path.”

“You won’t blame me later?”

“I think I might regret it if I don’t give this a try.”

Hân shook her head. “Alright . . . as I said, most soldiers want to have fun with us. So here are some tips. If an American soldier asks ‘you cherry girl?’ he wants to know if you’re still a virgin. In that case, you should act shy, cover your face with your hands and pretend you don’t know. The more innocent you look, the better chance he’ll think that you haven’t had sex before. Then he’ll pay three dollars for a short time.”

“That means going to the back room with him?” Trang thought about the tall American soldier who’d paid her four dollars.

“Right. A long time means going to a private room, or a hotel. In that case, the money is double.”

Trang shuddered. A long time must involve real sex.

Hân flicked her cigarette. “Trust me, sex doesn’t have to be bad. If you relax, you might enjoy it, you know . . .” Trang blushed to hear the word “sex” spoken out loud. No one had talked to her about it. It was a taboo subject, something she was supposed to find out about after her wedding night.

“As I said, men can make us happy,” Hân added and Trang squirmed, thinking about the hairy chest of the American soldier and the odor rising between his legs.

“For a short-time or long-time, our madam will take sixty percent.” Hân blew smoke from her nose. “That’s a lot, but we need her. She protects us. You don’t want to know how many crazy men are out there . . . Our madam also has to pay bribes to get us each an ID card, for example. Without this special ID, we might be arrested by the police at the bar, or on the street when we go home late at night.”

“You’re walking on a rope of fire, Hân!”

“Nothing will happen to us, trust me. I heard our bar is protected by giang hồ—thugs who help keep us safe as long as the money flows. Our madam is well connected, and her husband is a high-ranking government official. She seems to like you so don’t make her change her mind.” Hân threw the cigarette down onto the street below.

“Hang on . . . You said our madam safeguards us. What about the girl who was beaten up by the gangsters?”

“Tina hired those gangsters. That’s why our madam did nothing.”

Trang bit her lip. Her job was more difficult and dangerous than she’d imagined. “I’ve been thinking about Quỳnh, you know . . . I don’t want her to go into the back room or spend the night with a stranger. She’s my little sister . . . And the fact that she confronted Tina last night . . .”

“Let me talk to Tina and make peace among you guys,” Hân said. “And about Quỳnh’s decisions with the men, don’t you think it’s her choice? She’s smart and seems to know what she’s doing.”

“She’s too young for this. Please . . . help me watch out for her.”

Hân nodded.

“Are you not worried about becoming pregnant?” Trang asked. “I was thinking . . . that if I get a child before being married, my parents would die . . .”

“ . . . from shame, I know. But there are rubbers. If we can convince the men to use them, we won’t get babies.”

Trang’s eyes widened.

“I only learned how to use them once I got here, of course,” Hân said. “If a man puts a rubber onto his thing before he goes into you, you won’t get pregnant. And you won’t get bad germs from him, either.”

“Bad germs?”

“Nasty things that make you itch and hurt down there. . . . But some men . . . they don’t like rubbers. If you insist that they put the rubber on, they get angry and won’t pay you . . .”

Trang shook her head. “You do these things with men, and you don’t worry that your future husband will know?”

“How will he?”

“Well . . . you won’t be bleeding on your first night.”

Hân giggled. “Don’t you know it’s quite easy to fake? Chicken blood, for example . . . Men are more stupid than you think.” She yawned. “I mentioned the nurse. She checks on us every two weeks, to make sure we don’t carry yucky germs. Men come to our bar because they know we’re clean.”

“She checks the men, too?”

“I wish. . . . Apparently only us girls are supposed to carry diseases.”

The next day, Hân asked Trang and Quỳnh to get ready for work early. She wanted to introduce them to the other bar girls. “Talk to them before you put on makeup. Let them think you aren’t as pretty as them,” Hân said. “And don’t forget to tell them you know the rules and that you won’t steal their boyfriends.”

On their walk to the bar, Hân said competition among bar girls was normal, and that each of them had to fight for her own survival. Most women working at the Hollywood came from the countryside. Some had brothers or fathers who’d been killed in the war. Some were simply poor.

Tina wasn’t there when they arrived and Trang felt the tightness in her shoulders ease. While Quỳnh joined a group of women sitting around a table in the center of the bar, Trang made her way to another table. She bowed to three women who sat there: two girls around her age and a woman in her forties who were putting on their makeup. The older woman pointed at an empty chair and gestured for her to sit down.

One of the girls introduced herself as Lan, her friend as Trịnh, and the older woman as Oanh. “So yesterday was your first day, huh?” Lan said, applying powder to her face. “What a scene you made . . . with the American who wanted to go to the back room with you . . .”

Trang looked down at the table covered in water stains. She was afraid she would always be tainted by men who touched her in this bar.

“You look ashamed.” Oanh painted a deep red color on her lips. “Are you ashamed to be here?”

Trang wanted to say yes, but didn’t want to offend the women. She asked instead, “Sisters, may I ask how it is for you to work here?”

“I heard you come from a small village like me? Yes? So let me tell you something,” Lan said while applying her mascara onto her thick lashes. “I think it’s liberating to be here. You have fun, you earn money, and you don’t have to labor like a buffalo under the hot sun all day long.”

“Before this, I had to cook three times a day.” Trịnh pinned a plumeria flower into her long, black hair. “My parents and younger brothers bossed me around like I was their servant. They considered me dirt, calling me stupid and useless. But you know what, with the money I bring home these days, they look at me with different eyes. They don’t even let me carry my own plate to the kitchen after a meal when I come home for a visit.” She laughed.

“Ah, I’m different from these young chicks. I was born and grew up in this city,” said Oanh, pushing her bra up so that her breasts would pop out more. “Also, I was no virgin when I started this job. I thought I was too old but it turned out some men liked women with experience.” She sprayed some perfume on her right wrist, then rubbed it against her left. “I already have three children with my Vietnamese husband, you see? I wish he could take care of my kids, but he’s a drunk, addicted to gambling. The money I earn here feeds, clothes, and sends the children to school. Does my husband have a problem with it? Of course he does, but until he can bring home enough money to give our kids a comfortable life, he’ll have to keep his mouth shut.”

Trang was astonished at the forthrightness of these women. She wished she could spend the whole afternoon talking to them, but the tall American soldier came back for her. He wanted only her. She spread out a deck of cards and offered to play but he shook his head. By nine o’clock, she counted the amount of tea her customers had bought her: three glasses.

In the back room, she didn’t let the tall man take off her clothes, but she touched him down there until he shuddered and moaned. She tried to imagine the act to be liberating and empowering, just like she’d been told earlier, but only bile rose to her throat.

She went to bed with ten American dollars clutched against her chest. The man had given her five dollars tonight, the same amount she would have earned from many days of hard labor.

When she arrived at the bar the next day, the changing room was bustling. At one end, some of the girls were getting dressed, but at the other end a girl was lying on a table, her legs spread wide, her lower body completely naked. An older woman was standing between the girl’s thighs, shining a light onto her private parts.

Trang pulled Quỳnh aside. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

“Why not?” Quỳnh asked. “Remember dì Vinh from our village? I’d wanted to become a midwife like her, so I used to go past her place. Once I snuck a look behind her curtain and saw her checking a patient, just like that.”

“It’s not just about this, em. The work here . . .”

“So what do you expect me to do, huh? Run home to Ba and Má and cry?” Quỳnh rolled her eyes.

There was a white cloth covering the table, and when it was her turned to be checked, Trang lowered her naked bottom onto it and shivered.

“Lie down flat on your back,” the nurse ordered.

“I haven’t been with a man, Auntie.” Trang cocked her upper body on her elbows. “Please . . . be careful.”

The nurse turned to her metal tray.

Tears burned the back of Trang’s eyes; she was a fish on a chopping board waiting to be split open.

“There’s no way around it. It won’t take a minute. I’ll be gentle,” said the nurse, her hand halfway into a glove.

Trang shrunk back when the woman reached for her groin. She bit into her shirt collar as the woman held her thigh with one hand, the other reaching inside of her.

The pain lingered as she sat at the bar, flirted with men, laughed along with them. She laughed even though she didn’t understand what they were saying. The evening dragged on endlessly.

The next afternoon, the police visited the bar. Tina had been found in her rented room, her throat slit open, her body decomposing in the heat. “Vietnamese gangsters,” Hân said. “Play with fire and you’ll get roasted.”

“I think somebody robbed her,” another bar girl offered. “She got too many American dollars. It’s her fault for showing that she has money.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead.” Oanh glared at them. “Tina deserves our respect.”

“Ha, respect for a bully?” Quỳnh flicked her hair and applied another layer of lipstick.

“Tina was illiterate, you know that?” Oanh shook her head. “Her parents believed that if a girl knew how to read and write, she’d bring trouble upon herself by writing romantic letters to boys. So instead of sending Tina to school, you know where they sent her? To a rich family; she had to work as their house maid. When she was fourteen, Tina was raped by her master. At fifteen, she ran away to Sài Gòn.”

“That’s why she was fierce. It was her way of defending herself.” Trang brought her palm to her chest.

That evening, Trang burned incense for Tina, regretting the fights they’d had. If Tina were alive, she’d have liked to make friends with her. She felt grateful to her parents for ignoring their neighbors’ ridicule and sending her to school. There’d been times when the men in her village had told her father that an educated girl would have difficulties finding a husband, that no man would want a woman who was richer in knowledge than him.

Trang became more determined than ever to earn money fast so she could pay her parents’ debts and gain her freedom. She agreed to go to the back room with men she knew, men who accepted that she wouldn’t let them enter her. She’d touch them until they came. Whenever they asked her for a long time, though, she shook her head. Each dollar would go a long way, but her virginity was her pride.

Trang didn’t talk to Quỳnh about the back room but watched out for her little sister. Thankfully, Quỳnh didn’t leave the bar to go anywhere; she did well in attracting customers and charming them into buying drinks. Her English was certainly better than Trang’s.

After two weeks, they could pay back Hân the money they’d borrowed. After a month, they started sending money home. Trang calculated in her head that it would take over a year to clear their parents’ debts.

Trang studied and practiced new English words each day with Quỳnh and her customers. She watched other bar girls and learned tricks to charm the Americans. She winked at them, swayed her body, and let them touch her if they bought enough liquor. She would walk away from a man if he didn’t buy enough drinks. She started earning more money from tips.

Each evening, after coming home from work, Trang would scrub herself with a scented soap bar to remove all the filth. Then she would curl up on the floor, next to Quỳnh, with a book. She reread the ones she’d brought from home and devoured new titles that she’d purchased. The stories transported her into another world, purified her. As she traveled into women’s tales from ancient times until now, into the lives of the Trưng warrior sisters, the Empress Nam Phương, and the poet Hồ Xuân Hương, she absorbed their strength. And she learned from Quỳnh, who considered their time at the bar as pretense, a performance, and snored like a farmer after a day of hard labor as soon as her head hit the pillow.

After a month and a half, she moved with Quỳnh into a small room they rented with three other girls. They put most of their money aside for their parents but spent some on things they needed for their job: clothes, makeup, shoes, and jewelry. And as an investment for their work, they hired an English teacher.

They studied in the mornings and worked at the bar in the afternoons and evenings. They told each other to imitate the most popular bar girls, and gradually they became popular themselves. More soldiers came in asking for “the sisters.” And once Trang was able to command more and more Sài Gòn Tea, the tiger madam stopped bullying her.

Trang smiled when she helped Quỳnh put together money to send home. She wrote a long letter to her parents describing how much Quỳnh and she were enjoying their office job. “Our American boss is very nice to us. She never shouts and she’s teaching us English,” she wrote. “Please, don’t forget to buy good food. We’ll send some more in a few weeks to help settle the debts.”

When Trang reread the letter, she wondered how she’d become such a good liar. She should have felt bad but strangely her body was as light as a butterfly’s wings. Her parents had sacrificed their lives for her and she was proud to return their love. That night, she slept like a rice seedling and woke with new determination sprouting inside her.

After nine weeks away from home, a letter arrived. Trang kissed her mother’s writing, her tears falling. Her father’s most recent surgery was successful. “He’ll be learning how to walk again soon. Can you believe it? It’s all thanks to you girls. But we miss you. When will you be able to come back for a visit?”

She hadn’t dared give her mother her real address, using Hân’s uncle’s instead. He lived far away from the bar but had a motorbike. They’d agreed that whenever a letter arrived, he’d deliver it in exchange for one thousand đồng. His job as laborer for a construction project didn’t pay much. He’d fought with the ARVN and been injured, some shrapnel still buried inside his lungs.

Trang reread her mother’s letter each night before falling asleep. She wanted to catch the bus and go home, yet she feared her parents might be able to sniff the smell of American men on her skin.

She had hoped her mother would mention Hiếu, but nothing. Once, she dreamt that he came to Sài Gòn looking for her. How ridiculous. For sure he’d found another girl. He was his parents’ only son and they’d want him to marry soon and produce a boy to keep their family blood running. His name, Hiếu, meant “loyal to parents,” after all. From now on, she had to forget about him.

She kept looking out for the mustached man, her first customer. She wanted to know if he was okay because he’d been so sad. Unlike the other soldiers, he didn’t force himself on her. The look on his face and the way he talked to himself haunted her.

Around the middle of her third month at work, Trang saw a white man step into the Hollywood Bar, his T-shirt and jeans tight against his youthful body. Through the mist of cigarette smoke, she saw his face and her heart jumped: he was the one who’d accompanied the mustached man.

“I back soon,” Trang told her customer, a big-bellied man who was smoking and chatting to another man sitting next to him. The big-bellied man nodded, pinching her bottom as she walked away.

Trang hurried toward the young man, nearly tripping on her high heels. “Your friend, where?” she panted. Standing close to him now, she could see that his eyes were tired; they were moving, looking around the bar, as if searching for someone. Finally, the eyes fell onto hers.

“Your friend, where?” she repeated.

“Huh?”

“Your friend.”

“Friend, who?”

“Thì cái ông có râu đó.” Frustrated, she uttered in Vietnamese.

He shook his head.

“Your friend, where?” She used her fingers to suggest the existence of a mustache on her face.

“Mustached?” The young man squinted his eyes.

“Yes. Mu-ta. Your friend, mu-ta.”

“You mean Jimmy?”

“I know no name. He, mu-ta. He, me.” She made a drinking gesture.

“Yeah, I remember. Jimmy talked to you.”

“Where Jimmy?”

Before the young man could answer, someone snatched Trang’s arm, pulling her backward. She crashed into the fat-bellied man. He gripped her shoulders, turning her around, shouting at her. Words she couldn’t understand, except for one: “bitch.” Chó cái.

The young man said something and the fat-bellied man screamed at him.

The tiger madam appeared by Trang’s side, her face red with anger. “What did I tell you, Kim? Never flirt with two men at the same time. Never!”

“Oh, no, madam . . . I didn’t flirt. I was just asking about his friend, that’s all.” She freed herself from the fat-bellied man, gesturing toward the younger man. “His friend was here during my first night. He had a mustache and—”

“Did he fuck you and stuff you with dollars instead of his sperm?”

Trang stared at the tiger madam, too shocked to utter a single word. But the woman was no longer looking at her. “No fight. Here no fight,” she told the two Americans, who paid her no attention. They were busy shouting and pushing against each other.

“Madam.” Trang pulled the bar owner’s arm. “Please tell them I didn’t try to flirt. I only wanted to ask about the mustached man. I was rude to him and I just wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize my ass.” The woman shook her head but squeezed herself between the two men. She spoke rapidly to them.

It took a while for things to calm down, and a while longer for Trang to comprehend that the mustached man was dead. Shot in the head. Fell face down in a rice paddy and lifted away by a dustoff—the word the young American soldier used for a medical helicopter. The soldier was standing beside her on the pavement outside the bar, smoking a cigarette, talking too quickly for Hân to translate.

“Got it? Jimmy is gone. He’s never coming back. So don’t ask me about him again.” He flung the cigarette onto the ground, snuffing it with the heel of his boot. He stared at Trang, his eyes blood-red. Before she could answer, he turned and left.

The news about the mustached man’s death staggered Trang. Before that, she’d thought about American soldiers as men who carried guns, who drank and smoked, who killed and tortured, and who were hungry for sex.

Now, whenever Trang was out on the street, she watched how awkwardly those soldiers moved through Sài Gòn’s tropical heat, how they sweated through their thick uniforms, and how they stood out due to the whiteness or blackness of their skin and the bulkiness of their bodies. From her chair at the bar, she saw the distant look in the eyes of experienced soldiers and smelled the fear from brand-new ones. She understood that while these men had come to Việt Nam without their families, they were somehow carrying their parents, friends, and siblings on their backs—just like she was carrying hers.

The more Trang tried to understand the Americans, the more she realized each man was different. Some were kind and gentle, some abusive and violent. And those who’d gone through battles were certainly unpredictable. More than a few times she’d seen fistfights. Once, two men drew their handguns and pointed them at each other. From under a table, she gripped Quỳnh tight as the men’s shouts intensified. Her mouth dropped as she saw the tiger madam, in her high heels and miniskirt, step into the narrow space between the two guns, her hands pushing the muzzles toward the ground.

A few days after Trang learned about Jimmy’s death, she was practicing new English words with a customer when Quỳnh pulled her shoulder. “Sister, once you’re done with work go home first. I’ll be there soon,” she said quickly, then linked arms with an older soldier, heading for the entrance.

Trang ran after her. “Quỳnh . . . don’t.”

“I’ll be fine.” Quỳnh looked up at the man, who bent, kissing her on the lips.

“Sister, it’s not safe . . . You don’t need to do this.”

“Is there a problem?” a voice rose behind Trang’s back. The tiger madam.

“I was just saying goodbye to my sister, Madam,” Quỳnh said, and the man led her away.

“No!” Trang reached forward.

The tiger madam held her back. “We have rules in this bar. If you have any problems, leave.”

“But she’s too young, Madam.” Trang watched Quỳnh get into a taxi.

“Well, anyone who steps inside the Hollywood is a full adult—”

Trang broke free, running to the car. “Quỳnh, please . . . You don’t have to.”

“I know what I’m doing, chị Hai. Don’t worry.” With those words, she shut the door. The taxi sped away from Trang.

At her apartment, as Trang waited for her sister’s return, the sounds of occasional gunshots, of airplanes taking off and landing, made her more restless. Sài Gòn was becoming more unsafe. Rumors of new uprisings had filled the bar. The Communists had failed in the Tết Offensive but many people believed another big attack was imminent.

Trang suspected that Quỳnh had gone out for a long time tonight because of the news from home. Their parents hadn’t mentioned it in their letters, but Hân’s mother had told her the court had ordered Trang and Quỳnh’s parents to pay a high monthly interest on what they still owed. Trang had expected this, but the news still devastated her. Her family was racing against time.

When the roosters began to crow, Trang heard the creaking of the wooden staircase. She rushed out. A thin figure was climbing the stairs, tangled hair covering her face.

“Little Sister?” Trang asked.

Quỳnh looked up. Her face was red, her eyes puffy.

Trang ran over and took Quỳnh into her arms. “Where did you go? I was so worried.”

Quỳnh turned away. Her shoulders shook. Trang hugged Quỳnh tighter, her heart wrenching. Once, when Quỳnh was ten years old, she was bitten by a snake while playing hide-and-seek in the garden. Her mother had carried Quỳnh on her back, running barefoot to their village’s health clinic. When the nurse tended to Quỳnh, Trang soaked her mother’s shirt with her tears. She promised herself that if her sister lived, she would take better care of her. Now, she had failed not just in that promise, but in her duty to her parents. How she wished her mother was here to right all the wrongs.

“I’m so sorry, em. I’m a terrible sister,” she whispered. “I should have stopped you tonight. I shouldn’t have let you come here in the first place.”

Quỳnh untangled herself from Trang. She sat down on the steps. “Don’t blame yourself, chị Hai. You did try to protect me, but I know what I’m doing.” She blew her nose.

“If it’s because of the court, we can find another way.”

“What way, tell me?”

“Perhaps we can borrow from the tiger madam, or Hân . . .”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Quỳnh rolled her eyes.

As days passed, the war pressed down on Trang, its horror vivid on the faces of GIs and in the reports of fierce battles featured on newspapers and TV channels.

“The Northern Communists and the VC are coming,” Hân told the girls at the Hollywood. “They’ll eat babies and rape all the women. When the day arrives, we have to darken our faces with charcoal and make ourselves ugly.”

Trang shuddered. By serving American men, she’d become the enemy of the Communists. If they took over Sài Gòn, she’d surely be punished.

“The VC will burn those who’ve had their hair curled and chop off the fingers of those who’ve painted their nails,” another girl said, and Trang stared down at her red nails.

“Nothing will happen to us,” Quỳnh told Trang after they’d gone back to their room. “Before those savages arrive, we’ll flee.” She reached under her bed, felt around, and pulled out a wad of money. “Just twenty stacks like this, and we won’t have to work again.” She whacked the dollar bills against her hand. It was all of their savings, hidden in a secret compartment cut into the bedframe. Quỳnh counted the wad each day, adding the money they’d earned the night before. The money was to be sent home the following week.

The next night at the bar, a GI asked Trang for a long time, offering nine dollars instead of six. “I’m going home in two days, and I want you,” he said.

She shook her head. As the night went on, she kept staring at her drink. Quỳnh had gone out for a long time. The war was a disease rotting the Southern Republic. She’d heard about recent attacks near her village. She had to go home to her parents soon. She couldn’t let Quỳnh carry the entire burden.

When the man approached her again, she studied his appearance. He was an older soldier. His nose was crooked, his face long, his skin punctured by pockmarks. He’d taken her to the back room many times and never forced himself on her. She knew him well enough to trust him a little. After all, what could he do to her? The nurse had poked into her so often down there, she was already as torn as a beggar’s clothes.

“Me cherry girl,” she told the man. “You want long time? Twenty dollar.”

“Get out of here. No girl ever gets that much.”

She shrugged.

“You really cherry girl?” he asked.

She nodded. “You know me. I no boom boom.”

He licked his lips, staring at her breasts. She pushed her chest closer to him. “You buy long-time ticket six dollar. You give me remain fourteen dollar. You no tell madam.”

She put her hand between his legs. His chim was swelling. She gave it a gentle massage.

His breath was hot against her ear. “Alright, you bitch.”

After he’d bought a ticket for her time, she made him pay her the additional fourteen dollars. She hid the money inside her clothes in the changing room.

The room he rented was tiny and smelled like a rat’s nest. The windows were covered in dust as if they’d never been opened. The mattress was soft and the bedsheet dotted with yellowish stains.

“So . . . am I the lucky guy? You really cherry girl?” On the bed, the man reached for her legs, pulling her to him. She stared at his penis.

“Me afraid,” she whispered.

“No need to be, baby.” He brought her foot to his mouth, sucking her toes.

“You wait.” She fumbled inside her handbag.

“What the hell is this?” He laughed. “I don’t want any fucking rubber.”

“No condom, no boom boom.” She shook her head firmly.

“No . . . sweetheart . . . no. I paid you a lot of money, remember? I’m clean, you don’t have to worry.”

“I want no American baby. No condom. No boom boom.”

“You’re unbelievable!” The man said. She thought he’d slap her, but he took the condom and ripped open its package.

When he entered her, Trang let out a big cry. She felt as if someone was slicing into her with a knife. Struggling to breathe, she dug her nails into the mattress.

“No fast, no fast,” she begged him, but he had a wild look on his face. He gripped her buttocks, pumping into her furiously. She balled her hands into fists and shut her eyes, biting her lip until it was over.

“Oh man, you were so tight!” The man rolled off her sweaty body, panting. Then he cocked his head, grinning. “Sorry, babe. Couldn’t help myself.”

She lifted her bottom, staring down. A red patch was spreading on the yellowish sheet, as red as rose petals. The petals which she should have given her husband on their wedding night.

She snatched the blanket, wrapped it around her waist, ran to the bathroom. She turned on the shower, washing herself. The pain throbbed between her legs. She hoped the condom hadn’t broken and the man hadn’t managed to plant his seeds inside of her.

After she’d dried herself, she stood, shaking. She had no more hope to be with Hiếu. He deserved someone better.

Out in the room, her customer had fallen asleep, his face turned to the door, as if he wanted to be watchful of the VC even in his slumber. Picking up her clothes, she eyed the pair of jeans he’d thrown carelessly onto a chair. A pocket was swollen, a brown leather wallet sticking out. Her heart was in her mouth as she crouched down, reaching for the wallet. It was packed with American bills, real green dollars, not the red MPC dollars. The man must have them because he was going home.

Her roommates, Linh and Hường, had often talked about how much the American government was paying their soldiers. Hundreds of dollars each month. Each monthly payment could buy several motorbikes. How unfair. Trang and Quỳnh had entertained countless soldiers for months, and the money they’d earned couldn’t buy a single motorbike.

Holding the wallet in her hand, Trang looked back at the soldier; he was still snoring. “This is for justice,” she thought as she took two five-dollar bills. She wanted more, but feared he’d notice it.

Ten dollars and she couldn’t sleep the whole night.

When the American woke up, yawning, she shut her eyes. She focused on keeping her breath rhythmic and her body still. She strained her ears and heard him sit up. Her body tensed at the sounds of his footsteps clicking against the damp tiled floor, of the water tap running, of him peeing. She turned onto her side, curling up like a shrimp, pulling the blanket to cover her body and half of her face. She ruffled her hair, smearing it with her saliva. If she made herself unattractive enough, he wouldn’t want her again.

She closed her eyes as the toilet flushed. Sounds of footsteps moving closer to the bed. Silence. He must be standing, looking down on her. She froze as his breath warmed her face, his lips wetted her forehead.

At the jingle of keys, she opened her eyes a crack. The American hummed a song as he picked up his jeans. She thought he’d count his money, but he didn’t even glance at the wallet. She closed her eyes and felt his mouth against her ear. “Goodbye, babe. Goodbye, my Vietnam.”

After he’d gone, she buried herself under the blanket. Only then did she dare breathe.

From then on, if Trang trusted a soldier enough, she agreed to go on a long time with him. If she was with a man who didn’t have any weapons with him, she’d check for his wallet. She kept what she’d stolen separately, under her jar of uncooked rice. She had felt powerless before, and now, by saving for her and her sister’s studies, she felt she was gaining control of her life.

Taking money from men was her secret—her joy and her revenge toward American soldiers who were stealing her youth and her innocence. If it wasn’t for this war, she’d be a happy girl, working hard to become a doctor. If it wasn’t for this war, she wouldn’t see her sister drifting further and further away from her. These days, Quỳnh didn’t want to talk, and whenever they did, their conversations were shallow, as if both of them feared that if they reached down deep enough, they would touch the hearts of their pain.

Five months into her work, Trang saw two men stepping through the Hollywood’s door. While the older man quickly found himself a girl, the younger one, blond and tall and slim, stayed near the entrance, looking as if he’d come to the wrong place.

A couple of bar girls rushed to him and Trang looked away. She was tired and unwell. Her new high heels hurt. She regretted buying such a cheap pair. She sat by the bar counter, staring at the palm of her right hand. Once, her village’s fortune-teller had predicted that she’d marry and have one child. Would anyone want to marry her anymore? For sure it wouldn’t be Hiếu. How stupid that she’d dreamt, once again, that he came to Sài Gòn looking for her. Her mother’s letters hadn’t mentioned him at all. If Hiếu missed her, he’d have sent her a message. By now, he must have guessed that her job had nothing to do with an American company.

The smell of men’s cologne drifted into her nose. The blond man was sitting down on the empty chair next to her.

“What would you like to drink?” the bartender asked him.

“Hmm . . . what do you have?”

“Beer, whiskey, cocktail, you name it.” The bartender gestured at Trang. “And if you want to talk to this nice lady, you can buy her a Sài Gòn Tea.” Then he said something else Trang didn’t understand.

The bartender winked at her. “I told him to buy you a tea every half an hour if he wants to talk to you.”

She smiled and returned her gaze to her palm. The fortune-teller had also said that her lifeline was short but refused to say what that meant.

“Sài Gòn Tea?” someone said.

She lifted her head. The man was smiling at her.

She nodded.

The bartender placed a glass of beer in front of the man.

“What’s your name?” he asked Trang.

“Kim.” She drank the tea, shuddering, sticking out her tongue, hoping she looked convincing. Twice, her customers had checked her drinks. One man was so angry, he threatened to report the bar to the police. The tiger madam tried to calm him, and he only softened when Trang agreed to go with him to the back room for free. As for the second customer, she managed to charm him into believing that the bartender had made a mistake. For the rest of the night, though, the customer insisted that the Sài Gòn Tea cocktail be mixed in front of his eyes. Trang became so drunk, she threw up and had to spend the next day in bed.

“What your name?” she asked.

He told her over the noise of the bar.

“Your name Đen?” She smiled. “Đen mean black.”

“No black. See?” He pointed at his face. “I am white.” He said his name again. Again, his name sounded like Đen to her.

She nodded. “I know. Easy. Đen. Meaning black.”

“No black.” He laughed, shaking his head. He picked up his glass of beer and drank. When he put it down, the glass was still quite full. He asked the bartender for a pen and paper. He wrote down his name. Dan.

She took the pen and wrote her bar name. Kim.

“Where . . . do . . . you . . . come . . . from?” he spoke slowly.

“Bạc Liêu,” she lied.

“Bat Liu?” he said.

“No, no Bat Liu. Bạc Liêu.”

He opened his mouth and hesitated. “Bat, Bat Liu.”

It was her turn to laugh and shake her head.

“My Vietnamese, so bad?” He scratched his head. “You have to help me. What is this called?” He pointed at a chair.

“Ghế,” she said.

“Ge?”

“No ge. Ghế.”

“Ge, ge . . .”

That whole night, she taught him Vietnamese. His pronunciation was so terrible, she had to giggle. The laughter filled her and lifted her up. Unlike other soldiers, Dan sat a distance from her and didn’t once touch her. To keep track of time, he undid his watch and placed it in front of him. Every half an hour, he ordered her a new Sài Gòn Tea. She noticed that he didn’t drink much, that he smelled good, not just from the cologne but from a healthy body. Unlike most other men who frequented the bar, he didn’t smoke.

When Dan left, she hoped he would come back. He was the only customer so far who’d made her laugh genuinely.