Aperture on the East (16 page)

“
No, actually I haven’t
thought about asking Kim to come out here.”

Ana set her eyes on the pearl again to
inspect it. She had never held a natural pearl in her
hand.

“
Let me have it,” said Vo,
looking at the pearl.

Ana handed it over.

Vo said, “I’ll have to take this back
to the lab to properly identify it.”

“
Identify it? It’s a
pearl,” said Ana.

“
There is more than one
kind of pearl. Don’t you want to know what kind it is?”

“
It’s a beautiful kind,
whatever it is.”

Vo smiled, and put the pearl away. He
turned to look at Ana. “Do you want to come out here again with
me?”

“
Just the two of
us?”

Vo nodded.

“
People may get the wrong
ideas,” said Ana.

“
Is that a bad
thing?”

“
I don’t mind it. I’d love
to come out here again with you. We get a private island all to
ourselves, kayaking and snorkeling. Maybe we can hike up that
mountain a little next time.”

“
Deal,” said
Vo.

“
Anymore sob stories?”
said Ana.

“
I think that was about
it. But maybe you want to hear my mother’s sob stories, leaving
Vietnam and all. She has a truckload.”

Ana chuckled and said, “Thanks, but
no.”

“
We have to get going,”
said Vo. He packed things up in his waterproof bag.

“
Hey, Vo,” said Ana as she
helped push the kayak toward the boat, “we can name this place the
Pearl Island. Yes?”

“
Yes,” said Vo. He smiled
at her.

They climbed up into the boat. Ana
wrapped a blanket around her and sat down at the bow again when Vo
started the engine and pointed his fishing boat toward Nha Trang.
The sun began to give its most intensified rays of light before the
day dimmed down into dusk, and the South China Sea sang them a
peaceful spiritual all the way home.

“
This is really amazing,”
said Sofia as she perused the floor-to-ceiling shelves of marine
specimens inside the museum at the Institute of Oceanography. There
were tens of thousands of species of mollusks and crustaceans
preserved in various sizes of glass jars. Corals, sponges, sea
stars and sea urchins of dizzying array of colors were also well
represented. Sofia gasped when she saw a specimen of a sea snake
with zebra stripes curled up inside a large jar.

“
Yeah, I don’t think I
could inspect all of them before camp is over,” said Ivan. He was
giving Sofia a guided tour.

“
Ivan,” said Vo as he
entered the museum.

“
Mr. Nguyen,” said Ivan.
He introduced Sofia to Vo.

Vo took a good look at Sofia, who was
blushing at the moment.

“
Thanks for letting me
borrow Ivan for an hour so he can show me the place,” said Sofia.
“There is so much to see here. I like the aquarium, too. The
stonefish was the best.”

“
No problem,” said Vo. “We
do our best to spread the passion for marine biology. Ivan is doing
a great job.” He looked at Ivan and said, “Ivan, take your time,
but don’t forget that we are going fishing this afternoon. There
are a few things we need to wrap up before we go to the port.” Vo
turned and left.

“
What a camp! Fishing?”
said Sofia.

“
Fish is part of marine
biology, no?” said Ivan.

They held hands and went for a walk in
the garden where the flowers of plumeria trees were blooming and
casting a sweet fragrance around them. The bougainvillea bushes
completed the visual with brilliant magenta, pink and orange
bracts. The Institute of Oceanography was south of the center of
Nha Trang, and it was quiet except for the chirping of the cicadas.
The scent of the ocean was wafting in and out of the air, which was
humid and warm.

“
Mr. Nguyen seemed like a
really cool guy,” said Sofia.

“
Yeah, he’s awesome,” said
Ivan. “I just want to hang out with him all the time.”

“
Really? I thought you
want to hang out with me all the time.”

“
You know what I
mean.”

They were silent for a minute before
Ivan said, “Sofia, what’s it like having a papa?”

“
Are you still mad at your
ma for lying about your birth father?”

“
Of course I am mad at her
for that. I thought I knew who my papa was. Now I guess I would
never find out. Anyway, is it nice to have a papa
around?”

“
Sometimes, when he is
around,” said Sofia, lowering her head. “My papa is too busy with
his work. He doesn’t have much time for me. At least your ma is
around a lot.”

“
Now she is, but she used
to not be around much. Anyway, she cares more about my sister, Zoe,
than she does for me. After I found out how she got pregnant with
me, I also figured out why she always favored my sister. She loved
Zoe’s father, whereas she didn’t even know who my father
was.”

“
I am sure she loves you,
too. She just hasn’t had a chance to show you properly.”

“
I fell while
skateboarding the other day and got this huge scratch and bruise on
my arm,” said Ivan while showing his right arm to Sofia. “My ma
didn’t even notice it. She never asked me about it. But Mr. Nguyen
noticed, and he was so worried that I was going to break my neck
one day skateboarding. He examined my arm this way and that way and
it took a long time to convince him that I was okay. He was a lot
like Eduard.”

“
Why did Eduard divorce
your ma? He sounded like a great guy, too.”

“
My ma did something
stupid, what else?” said Ivan. “I was supposed to have a baby
brother, but he died in my ma’s belly a week before he was to be
born. It was horrible. My ma had to push the dead baby out, you
know, like how women normally had babies. And then her bleeding
wouldn’t stop, and she had to have surgery. She had bags of blood
hanging by her bed when I visited her in the hospital. When she was
strong enough to come home, Eduard packed up and left. And my ma
has had this nightmare ever since. It’s crazy how she screams in
the middle of the night. She’s paid even less attention to me after
that.”

“
How was that your ma’s
fault? Some babies don’t make it. Everyone knows that.”

“
I can’t answer that. I
just know that Eduard wouldn’t have left if my ma was
innocent.”

“
Maybe Eduard was not as
nice as you thought,” said Sofia. “He might have been a
jerk.”

“
No,” said Ivan. “Judging
from my personal experience, I’d say that it’s more likely for my
ma to be the jerk. Anyway, I did wish that Eduard would consider
taking me with him, but it didn’t happen. He left me with my ma,
who couldn’t even take care of herself.”

“
Well, I am glad that she
decided to move you and your sister down here, so we could meet
each other,” said Sofia with a smile.

“
Yeah, this is definitely
the best thing she’s ever done for me.”

Ivan and Sofia were walking toward the
souvenir shop to get iced tea when a group of preteen boys showed
up. They were Ivan’s skateboarding friends. They called out Ivan’s
name.

Ivan saw his friends, and let go of
Sofia’s hand.

The boys already saw Ivan and Sofia
holding hands before they entered the shop. Misha said, “So the
rumor is true. You guys are going out.”

Ivan was surprised to see his friends,
and didn’t craft an answer beforehand.

“
Ivan, thanks for showing
me around. I’ll see you later,” said Sofia as she ran off toward
the exit, where her father’s Rolls Royce was waiting.

“
Well, we’ve come to check
out this place like you told us to,” said Brian. All the boys were
holding their skateboards.

“
You could’ve told me
ahead of time when you were going to come,” said Ivan. He was
delighted to see his friends, but at the same time annoyed that his
visit with Sofia was cut short.

“
She didn’t have to run,”
said Koji. “I don’t think she cares to be friends with
us.”

“
Why would she, when all
we do is talk about her behind her back and make fun of her?” said
Josh.

“
Can we maybe get some
iced tea first? I am parched,” said George, who was exaggerating
his British accent.

They all got some iced tea and sat
down on the steps of the souvenir shop. After a few sips of the
cold drink, Viktor started by saying, “Ivan, I would be careful if
I were you. Sofia’s father is not going to like it when he finds
out that you are messing with his daughter.”

“
Messing? I am not messing
with Sofia,” said Ivan.

“
It’s too late now. They
have fallen in love with each other,” said Laurent, who pursed his
lips to make the sound of a kiss.

“
Gross,” said
Duong.

“
Anyway,” said Viktor,
“it’s never a good idea when a poor guy goes out with a rich girl.
I heard that Sofia’s father owns several Russian businesses in
town. He might hire an assassin and make you disappear!”

“
Viktor, I think you have
watched too many movies,” said Brian.

“
He could be right,” said
Misha.

“
Sofia and I are just
hanging out. We are friends,” said Ivan.

“
Right, friends who hold
hands walking on the beach every afternoon,” said
Laurent.

“
You’ve been spying on
me?” said Ivan.

“
Chill, Ivan,” said
George. “Nha Trang is a very small town. There is only one beach.
There are, what, eight of us? I think it’s pretty easy for anyone
of us to spot you two on the beach on any given day.”

Ivan was dumbstruck. For some reason,
falling in love was not a cool thing to do for an eleven-year-old
boy. It was not something he could admit to just yet.

“
Okay, I am ready to see
some sharks. Can we go and do something more fun than talking about
a girl and her boss daddy?” said Josh as he stood up. Ivan thanked
him silently. He was always the more sensible American.

The rest of the group got up as well.
Ivan showed them to the office to park their skateboards before
giving them a tour. Koji and Duong almost fell in as they sat on
the wall of the open saltwater pool, trying to get a good look of
the reef sharks and stingrays. Ivan’s friends left just before Vo
got all the camp students together for their fishing trip to a
nearby island.

When Ivan came home that
evening, he saw his mother napping on the bench in the living room.
He looked at his watch. It was six o’clock in the afternoon. It was
a Wednesday, and his mother was supposed to be at work at four. He
thought about waking her up to make sure that she was all right,
but eventually decided to just mind his own business. He went to
the kitchen, tossed the red snapper that he had caught earlier in
the freezer, and sat down to eat the
bánh
bao
he bought from the street for dinner.
He was so hungry that he devoured the pork-filled steamed bun in
seconds. He spent the rest of the evening in his room reading about
the elusive dolphins of the South China Sea. He was thinking about
Sofia, who was just about as mysterious as the dolphins, before he
fell under the spell of dreams.

It had been almost a week since that
magical day on the Pearl Island, and Ana still felt intoxicated by
it. She had been thinking about it a lot, but she was not sure how
she should feel about the whole thing. After all, Vo behaved like a
friend, without any indication of other intentions. Ana felt
incredibly close to Vo when they were on that island, and there was
definitely something magnetic between them, but since she had
decided before she left Russia that she was in no condition for a
romantic relationship, she tried to ignore, even suppress, her
desires. Besides, Vo was spoken for, his fiancée being the daughter
of an important investor who was helping to pay for her living in
Nha Trang.

Ana placed the leftover food from
earlier in the day into to-go boxes and cups, and then secured them
in several plastic bags. The kitchen of Quan Bien Dong always
prepared more rice, spring rolls, and soup than could be consumed,
and Mr. Tran’s policy was that food from the lunch batch would not
be served at dinnertime. His motto was that everything would be
made fresh. He directed the kitchen staff to throw away leftovers.
He was not a fan of composting. Nobody could take leftovers home,
either. One must be a paying customer to eat the food from his
restaurant.

Ana had grown up in the desperate
final years of the Soviet Union, and come of age during the
post-Soviet depression era in Russia. She had stood in long lines
for bread and soup with her grandmother, trying to stay warm with
only layers of ragged shirts and a wool coat, staring up at the
faces of men and women who showed nothing but despair. She
collected empty vodka bottles from the unemployed neighbors who
occupied themselves with alcohol, and turned them in to stores for
small change, which her grandmother would use to buy whatever
vegetables and meats available in the market. The small amount of
vegetables and meats would invariable get preserved somehow to last
through what seemed like a hundred meals.