Aperture on the East (14 page)

Lan couldn’t help but smile when she
pondered over this fateful event. She let out a chuckle.

“
What’s so funny?” said
Vidal, who was sitting to her left in the backseat of the
taxi.

“
Oh, I am just so happy to
finally meet Kim,” said Lan, beaming toward Kim, who was sitting to
her right.

“
Vo,” said Lan toward her
son sitting at the front passenger seat, “I will meet with Kim’s
mother tonight after I wash up, and then tomorrow we will all visit
Kim’s parents to talk more details. I can hardly wait.”

Lan’s enthusiasm was shared perhaps
only by the taxi driver, who was eager to offer advice on matrimony
as he successfully married his daughter to the son of a well-to-do
hotel owner not long ago. Vo looked out the window at the passing
buildings and motorcycles, and didn’t say a word for the entire
ride.

The Cardinal’s Choir was rehearsing
before the nightclub opened in a half hour. The drummer that Tuan
recommended to Zoe had started about a week ago. She had introduced
herself as Billie Dinh, twenty-one years old, born and raised in
Nha Trang. Billie spoke English with an accent, but she knew just
about all the bestselling pop songs in English in the last fifty
years. Zoe was concerned that Billie couldn’t adapt to their music
style because gothic metal was new for Billie. However, Billie fell
in love with the genre immediately, and her amazing ear allowed her
to learn the drum parts fast. Zoe shared a few videos with her and
soon Billie was dressing the part, too. Everyone dressed in black
with red, purple, or white highlights. They all opted for the
beautiful classic look using smudged eyeliners, smoky eye shadows,
and dark lipsticks, staying away from the horror makeup. Their
clothing was mostly simple and elegant, with occasional mischievous
accents of tulle or lace, a revealing corset or a very short skirt.
Zoe maintained her pixie haircut, but everyone else had long and
flowing hair past her shoulders.

“
Hey girls,” said Boris
when he interrupted the band’s rehearsal. “You guys sound amazing,
but I need to talk to Zoe.” He gestured for Zoe to follow him to
his office.

Yurik was also in Boris’s office,
watching a Russian variety show on television and eating pickled
cucumber and salami, washing both down with vodka. Boris asked Zoe
to sit down.

“
So, Zoe,” said Boris, “I
really appreciate your band. Not many clubs here could offer live
music, and I am happy that we can.”

“
Thanks,” said Zoe, who
was glad to hear the compliment.

“
However,” Boris’s
expression turned serious, “the new club that just opened last
month down the street from us is drawing away some of our
customers. They have a DJ spinning what Americans call ‘top forty’
kind of music.”

Zoe looked down at her shoes, and said
nothing.

“
What I want to know is,
can you girls play something more mainstream? Russians love
American pop music, too. We can get American tourists and maybe
more locals to come to our nightclub. The Vietnamese bands here
play covers of American pop music all the time on TV.”

“
That’s true,” said
Yurik.

“
So what do you think?”
said Boris.

“
Well,” Zoe said after
some consideration, “I have to talk to the girls, but I don’t think
we will be able to do it.”

“
Zoe,” said Boris, “I have
been very nice to you and your friends. You are not even of legal
age to work here, and I should think that you are grateful for this
job.”

“
Why do you want to be the
same as everyone else? That’s boring,” said Zoe.

“
Zoe, watch your mouth,”
said Yurik.

Boris waved at Yurik, and then said to
Zoe, “If I lose customers to the other club and I can’t make any
money, I won’t be able to pay for your band. I will have to let you
girls go. After all, it is cheaper to hire a DJ.”

Zoe felt that this was almost an
ultimatum, but she was not going to budge. She stood up and said,
“Can I go now? I believe we are to start soon. I don’t want to be
late. You might lose more customers.” She took a step toward the
door.

Yurik stood up and grabbed Zoe’s wrist
and twisted it in a way that made Zoe curse in pain. “The boss
asked you a question. Are you going to do it or not?” said Yurik in
a threatening tone.

“
We don’t know any pop
songs. We don’t care to play them anyway. We don’t want to be
ordinary,” said Zoe, her voice loud and determined.

“
You don’t want to be
ordinary. If you get fired and have to live on the street, you
might appreciate being ordinary,” said Yurik. He put his hand on
Zoe’s head and forced her to face Boris. “Now answer the
boss.”

Zoe was starting to tear up, but she
still was not going to back down.

Boris stood up and said to Yurik,
“That’s enough. Let her go.”

Yurik released Zoe’s wrist, and sat
down.

“
Zoe,” said Boris, “I want
you to think about it. Talk with your friends. I want an answer in
a week or two. You can go now.”

Zoe left the office. She finally let
her tears roll down her face. She needed this job. She couldn’t go
back to her mother’s apartment and let her mother declare victory.
Her heart was pounding and she was nauseated. She got her purse
from her locker and went to the restroom to get cleaned up for the
performance.

Billie was in the restroom as well
when Zoe walked in. There was another Southeastern Asian woman
there, petite but full-bodied, clad in a short backless dress with
sequins and standing on a pair of three-inch stilettos. She was
handing Billie a piece of paper when Zoe came in. She said
something to Billie in a foreign language and hurried out of the
restroom.

Zoe was trying to hide her sniffles.
She grabbed some toilet paper and started to wipe down her face and
reapply makeup. Billie looked at her and said, “What
happened?”

“
Yurik was being a jerk,”
said Zoe.

“
Yurik? I thought you were
talking to Boris,” said Billie.

“
Yeah, but Yurik was there
too.”

“
What does Boris
want?”

“
He wants us to play music
the new American club down the street is playing, or else he was
going to fire us and hire a DJ instead.”

“
Oh no, I am just
beginning to like this new job of mine,” said Billie.

“
I don’t want to do it,
but I need this job. We don’t have to answer Boris for a while. We
will talk about it.”

“
I don’t know why Boris is
so worried. He offers more than just live music, dancing and
drinking here than that American club. He shouldn’t have to worry
about money.”

“
What do you mean? More
than music, dancing and drinking?”

“
Well, you know,” said
Billie, “this place is so Russian. There are no other Russian
nightclubs that I know of in Nha Trang. It’s special that way.”
Billie looked in the mirror and powdered her face.

Zoe cleaned up and felt almost back to
her normal state. She said, “So, who was that woman you were
talking to a minute ago?”

“
I’m just helping her with
something,” said Billie.

“
Like what?”

“
She wants to keep it a
secret.”

“
Fine, don’t tell me. But
I heard her say something before she left. It didn’t sound like
Vietnamese.”

“
It was Khmer, the
language of Cambodia,” said Billie.

“
You speak
Cambodian?”

“
Sure, Cambodia is our
neighbor,” said Billie. “I’m going to get a drink of water. I will
see you on stage.” Billie left the restroom.

Zoe was still trying to put her
thoughts together when another woman came in. It was the Russian
woman Zoe had met many times before and spoken to once in the
restroom.

“
Hi. How are you?” Zoe
said in Russian.

The woman had long blond hair in
bouncy waves, hip-hugging burgundy dress with a plunging neckline
and a pair of knee-high gladiator heels. Her face was as glamorous
as always. She furrowed her brow and gave a look of puzzlement when
she saw Zoe.

“
I’m fine,” said Zoe,
thinking that her own dejected look had caused the woman to be
concerned. “I’m just having a bad day. If you have a boyfriend, you
would understand.”

The woman’s face turned sad all of a
sudden, and she looked down. Zoe sensed that she had touched on a
sensitive subject. “I’m sorry,” said Zoe.

The woman’s eyes, which were already
somewhat bloodshot to begin with, were now red with tears. She wept
quietly.

“
I wish you would tell me
what’s going on,” said Zoe. She could tell that the woman was
burdened with something that she could not share.

Zoe didn’t expect the woman to answer,
but she was surprised when the woman pulled out a lipstick from her
purse and started to write on the mirror.

Don’t say it out loud, the woman
wrote.

Zoe nodded. The woman erased the
sentence and wrote, pen and paper and I will tell you
more.

Zoe took over the lipstick and wrote,
okay.

The woman nodded, and erased the
writing. She took the lipstick from Zoe’s hand and put it back in
her purse. She started to refresh her makeup as well. Zoe left the
restroom; she was full of curiosity.

The Cardinal’s Choir started
entertaining on time. Zoe looked more carefully at the crowd in an
attempt to estimate whether the number had indeed dwindled. She
really couldn’t tell a difference; there were still a lot of
people, and the band still got a lot of applause after each song,
more so now that their performance had been elevated with the
addition of Billie’s drums.

As Zoe was scanning the audience, she
was surprised to see a man at the bar sitting next to the Russian
woman from the restroom. After a few seconds she recognized him to
be the man that was chatting with her mother the night she left the
apartment. It was McKenzie Clark. She had thought that he was her
mother’s new boyfriend.

McKenzie’s hand was stroking up and
down the woman’s back and occasionally her thighs. Zoe could tell
that the woman was forcing a smile. Before long both McKenzie and
the woman left the bar, and Zoe could see that they were heading
toward the back exit. Zoe wondered whether McKenzie was that
woman’s boyfriend, the one who was making her sad.

When the club was closed for the
night, Zoe again stood outside with her guitar to wait for Yurik.
She didn’t really want to go home with Yurik, especially after what
happened in Boris’s office earlier. It wasn’t the first time that
Yurik had acted violently either. Just recently he had slapped her
in the face when they were having a fight. Zoe tried to hit him
back, but her thin frame was no match against Yurik’s enormous
muscles. She knew that she had to leave him, but the prospect of
being homeless in a foreign country was much more
frightening.

The sound of a motorcycle approached.
Zoe looked up, and Tuan had stopped in front of her again. He was
in his green uniform, straddling a police motorcycle.

“
I thought I’d come and
check on my neighbor, Billie,” said Tuan.

Zoe smiled and said, “Thanks so much
for getting her to play drums for us. She is excellent. She has
gone home, though.”

“
That’s fine. How are
you?”

Zoe didn’t answer right away; she
didn’t know whether to tell the truth.

“
What’s troubling you?”
said Tuan.

Zoe didn’t want to talk about her
problems with Yurik, so instead she told Tuan about the Russian
woman and McKenzie Clark.

“
So, are you going to tell
your mother about it?” said Tuan.

“
My mother and I don’t get
along,” said Zoe. “She’s always dating losers anyway. Well, except
for my father, and the husband that divorced her last
year.”

“
I’m confused. Your father
divorced your mother?”

“
No. Long story short, my
father, Leo, died when I was four. My mother, Ana, ran around
dating random people and had my brother, Ivan, who is eleven now.
My great grandmother raised me, because my mother was incompetent.
Poor Ivan had to live with my mother because my great grandmother
was too old to take care of both of us. Then my mother married this
man, Eduard, about three years ago, just before my great
grandmother died. Eduard was a good man, but my mother did
something stupid and he divorced her.”

“
Okay, that sounded
complicated,” said Tuan. He had a look of amazement on his
face.

“
Anyway,” said Zoe, “back
to the woman we were talking about earlier. I feel sorry for her.
She looks so beautiful, but she is so sad all the time. And she
says she works here at the club. She doesn’t seem like a waitress
to me. She could be a maître d’, but she doesn’t dress like one. I
wonder why Boris never introduced her to me.”

“
Zoe, you can be so naïve
sometimes,” said Tuan with a smile. “When you hand her the paper
and pen, could you ask her to write down her full name, date of
birth, and her hometown in Russia? Also ask her who got her this
job, who her boss is, and where she stays.”