Fishing for Tigers (6 page)

‘Really?'

‘Hey, he's only human.'

Kerry shrieked. She leant across the table and fixed Cal with a serious wide-eyed look. ‘And you're into that, are you? Doing it with fellas, I mean?'

‘Kerry!'

‘Nah. I don't think so, anyway. Not that I've ever tried. How about you? Ever done it with another chick?'

Kerry shrieked again. ‘God, Mish, isn't he a scream? Nothing like his dad. Listen, I bloody wish I could feel it for the ladies. Every straight bloke in Hanoi is Asian or only into Asians. Or both.'

He sat up straighter, tilted his chin. ‘You have a problem with Asians?'

‘No, no. Listen, it's just they're not my type. Not very
masculine
, you know? Too delicate. Oh, please don't be offended, Cal. I mean, you're obviously not a typical . . . I mean you're a lot, uh, bigger and . . .' Kerry looked to me.

‘You have your father's height,' I told him. ‘And you weren't raised here. You were well fed.'

Cal slipped his sunglasses down on his nose and peered at me over the top. ‘You calling me fat, Mischa?'

‘She didn't mean that,' Kerry said. ‘It's childhood nutrition. You grew tall and strong on all that grain-fed beef and creamy milk. Kids grow up hungry here and never lose the look.'

Cal's eyes challenged me over his lenses. ‘What about you?'

‘Oh, I've always been well fed.'

‘Mmm,' he said, looking at me a moment longer, then pushing his glasses back over his eyes. ‘I meant, do you agree with Kerry, about Asian men.'

‘Kerry and I rarely agree on anything. That's why we have such fun together.'

Kerry bumped her shoulder into mine.

‘So you do find Asian men attractive?'

‘Oh. Well. I don't know.'

Cal smiled out of the corner of his mouth. ‘You don't know if you find them attractive?'

‘Some of them.'

‘Which ones?'

‘What?' I looked around, desperate for a waiter to wave down, but we were alone out there. ‘I need some iced tea.'

‘Which Vietnamese men do you find attractive?'

‘Oh, you know who is nice?' Kerry said. ‘Johnny Tri Nguyen. He's very muscular, very, ah . . .' She clenched her fists.

‘What do you reckon, Mish? Johnny Nguyen worth a tumble?'

‘He's American, isn't he? Finally!
Em oi
! Iced tea?' The waiter pointed to a Lipton's poster featuring a tall glass filled with ice, lemon and pale, golden-brown tea. I smiled yes. ‘
.'

‘You're having ice?' Cal asked.

‘Mischa has a steel stomach,' Kerry said.

‘You would, too, if you stopped eating like a bloody tourist. Let the bugs do their work on you and you'll be right from then on.'

‘If by “bugs” you mean cholera and dysentery then I'll pass, thank you. Must pee. Back in a tick.'

‘Kerry's kind of racist, huh?' Cal said when she was gone.

‘She can't help who she's attracted to.'

‘Mmm. But there's a difference, isn't there, between being attracted to people with a certain build or whatever, and being attracted – or not – to people of a certain race because you think they'll act in some stereotypical way. Kerry thinks Asian men are weak, feminine. That's a stereotype.'

‘True.'

‘It's like the old geezers who say they just happen to be attracted to Asian-looking women. They flock to Mum, all over her for about ten minutes. Then they figure out she's not a meek, low-rent geisha so they move on.' He shrugged with one shoulder. ‘It's nothing to do with how she looks. It's what they think she'll be.'

‘Your mum must be a strong person. Raising you alone, far away from her family.'

He shifted in his seat, dipped his head, so he was peering over his glasses again. ‘See, me, I've had girlfriends from all over. Japanese, Lebanese, Maltese, Nigerian, Greek, plain old white-bread Anglo-Aussie.'

‘You've been around a lot for a kid.'

He sat back and I fizzed at the sting on his face. Behind him, at the entrance to the building Kerry chatted to the waiter who was holding my rapidly warming tea in one hand and swiping a napkin across his forehead with the other.

Matthew returned and bought another round. I opted for lemon juice, which annoyed Matthew and Kerry more than it should have. I, in turn, felt irritated by the both of them. Matthew with his continual and entirely unnecessary explanations to and about Cal, and Kerry with her forced double entendres and attention-drawing cackle. It felt late although it wasn't and I wanted to leave but the thought of haggling with a
driver kept me in my seat. For years I had been vowing to get a bike of my own, and my failure to have done so felt, on this afternoon, disgraceful. What was the point of living in this suffocating, alien place if I was going to allow myself to be dependent and vulnerable? I might as well go back to the States where I could at least drive my dependent, vulnerable self around in an air-conditioned sedan.

‘I think I'll head off,' I said. ‘I'm exhausted

‘Because you stopped drinking,' Kerry said. ‘I told you this would happen.'

‘Yeah. You win.' I put some money on the table and gathered up my bag and sunhat. ‘I'll see you later.'

I stood for a moment on the street, sussing out the apparent sobriety of the drivers slouched over their bikes on the opposite corner.

‘Mischa, wait a sec.' Cal jogged the few metres to where I was standing. ‘You were going to lend me that book about the history of the literature temple?'

‘Oh. Well, I don't have it on me, obviously. I'll bring it along next time.'

‘I can come and pick it up if you like. Maybe tomorrow?'

‘I guess so. Um, I don't know when I'll be home. Just . . .' I waved towards the waiting drivers. I figured the one who got to me the quickest would likely be the most sober.

‘Cool. So I'll text you and if you're home, I can come and pick it up.'

‘Okay. Um, Cal, I need to – Yes, moto.
. Twenty thousand, okay?'

The driver shook his head, held up three fingers.

‘What's your number?' Cal's fingers were poised over his phone.

‘Can you get it from your dad? Twenty thousand. Or I go with him.' I pointed to a driver who was, unfortunately, snoring loudly enough for us to hear him across the street.

The man shrugged, held up three fingers again.

‘Ugh. Fine. Thirty. Let's just go.' I grabbed the offered helmet and climbed up behind the driver. I threw a half-wave in Cal's direction as we roared off into the flow of traffic.

There's a knack to riding on
.
Om
means hug, but wrapping your arms around the driver is only acceptable if you're already intimate with each other. I'd heard of single women being escorted inside at the end of the trip after hugging their driver, but I'd never been game to try the ploy for myself. What if the driver turned violent once we were inside? What if, as I'd heard about happening, he demanded payment for the sex as well as the ride? What if I hugged a driver the whole way home only to have him take my proffered bills and roar away?

I'd rather my assumption that Vietnamese men didn't want to sleep with me remained untested, and so I always kept my hands on my thighs and tensed my stomach ­muscles. If I'd misjudged the sobriety of the driver, I would have to reach back and grasp the bar behind me, but holding on made me feel like a tourist and left me with wrenched shoulders.

I don't remember what the ride home was like that day, so it must have been smooth enough. What I remember was the text I received as I was unlocking my front door.

U tearing off on a mb, not even holding on, coolest thing ive seen. Ur so kickass. CU 2moz

The words look silly written down here. They look silly on my phone screen, too, but I can't bring myself to delete them. They let me see how far I'd come from the woman who once walked for three hours in 90 per cent humidity because she was too afraid to hop on a motorbike taxi. The message straightened my spine. It still does.

n Sunday mornings I would wake to the pealing bells of St Joseph and the sound of an extra ­couple of hundred motorbikes honking their way down my street. There aren't many Catholics in Hanoi, but there are too many to fit comfortably into the very few churches, and so minutes after the bells stopped, the loudspeakers broadcasting the service to those who didn't make it inside started up.

The service was in Vietnamese, but Kerry attended every week anyway, sure that God would give her points for effort. Afterwards, she would often walk up to my place for confession. I'm not being flippant: Kerry really did feel the need to confess her sins and as there were no English-speaking priests in town, I had to do. At least I had Irish blood and was celibate, she liked to say.

The morning after the picnic, Kerry stood at my kitchen window staring mournfully at the grime-streaked neo-gothic spires of her church. ‘I was up in
An Province this week. We're setting up an education unit there. It'll be good. It'll do good, I mean, but the thing is, I was sitting there with the local liaison going over the budget with her and I realised that I could double the annual budget if me and my team – three of us, mind – went without pay for a month. A month. It's fucking obscene.'

‘Kez, you go through this same thing every time you set up a new project. Guilt is not helpful.'

The kettle whistled and Kerry sighed. ‘I don't suppose you have any proper coffee?'

‘I only have proper coffee.' Most people I knew had Italian plungers and bought imported coffee at the French grocer, but I liked doing it the Viet way. I placed two feather-light tin
phin
s over two thick, clumsily handblown glasses. I half-filled the
phin
s with ground beans, poured on boiling water and then placed the tin lids over the top. I liked watching as the thick, black liquid drip-drip-dripped until the glass was so fogged up you couldn't see, but Kerry was sighing tragically and so I set the glasses aside and turned my attention back to her.

‘There was a little boy there with a tumour the size of my fist growing on his nose. I mean, I guessed he had a nose under it, you couldn't see. He shadowed me the whole time I was there. Didn't speak, didn't beg, just trailed behind me, sat at my feet, watched me. The worst thing, Mish, the absolute worst thing is that when I was there I thought to myself that I wouldn't be able to get his face out of my head – but then I got home and didn't think about him until this morning in church. I closed my eyes during the opening prayer and there he was. Poor little mite. Six years old and I could barely stand to look at him.'

‘Agent Orange?'

‘Probably. It's not what I was there for. I think we have a dioxin project in that area. I should find out. See! See! I didn't even rush straight back to the office to find out. I flat out bloody forgot him.'

I removed the
phin
s and carried the steamy glasses over to the window. Kerry received her coffee with both hands as though it was the Holy Chalice.

Our Sunday morning confession sessions were always one-sided because I never had anything to confess. Perhaps if I'd been raised Catholic I would have found something to feel guilty about, but although I was no moral hero, my conscience was clear. I paid my way in the world, tried to help people who seemed to want it, and leave alone those who didn't. I had no need to steal or cheat and nothing about which I needed to lie. It sounds as though I'm bragging; I'm not. I lived like that while it was easy to do so. As soon as I had an incentive to behave badly, I did.

On that morning, though, I was calm and clear of conscience. My phone beeped and I reacted without a second thought. ‘God, that Cal's an eager little beaver,' I told Kerry. ‘I mentioned this book yesterday and he's already texted to see if he can come and pick it up.'

‘He's a weird one. Still can't believe he's Matthew's. I'd kill to know the story there.'

‘Apparently the mother is unhappy about him being here. Hates Vietnam, he says.'

‘He told you that? When I asked him about his mum he went all mumbly.'

‘Of course, he's a teenager; immediately on guard when asked a direct question, but happy to volunteer the most intimate details when given two seconds of silence.'

‘True, that. Universal, I reckon. Girls at our sexual-health seminars are exactly the same.' Kerry took a sip and grimaced. ‘Like bloody petrol,' she said as she did almost every time she drank Vietnamese coffee. ‘God, my head hurts. It's not even alcohol. It's the six hours of doof-doof music I had to listen to while trying to meet a fella who isn't a complete fucking imbecile.'

‘Everybody in those backpacker joints is an imbecile. You included. I have no idea why you continue to do that to yourself.'

Kerry pressed her forehead against the kitchen window. ‘My worst fear is that I won't get a European posting before I'm forty. I'll finally get sent somewhere with men who think big-titted blondes are hot and I'll be grey and saggy.'

‘That's your worst fear?'

‘That and the likelihood of HIV reaching epidemic proportions because Vietnamese society refuses to officially recognise the existence of prostitution, drug injecting and bum-fucking.' She sipped, grimaced. ‘But that feels like something I can prevent. Getting old . . . being sexless . . . Ugh. Maybe I should just quit. Go back to London. Buy a flat and get knocked up and all that.'

‘You'll still end up old and sexless, Kez. We all will. Question is do you want to spend the years before that living under gloomy grey skies married to some depressed former-merchant-banker with mummy issues, or here where there's sun and dragonfruit and occasional sex with well-built imbeciles?'

‘Those are the only two choices, huh?'

‘Those are the worst-case scenarios.'

‘You know Reba from my office? She's got this fella, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous American, absolutely besotted with her. She broke up with him for a couple of days and the poor sweetheart sent her a bunch of flowers twice a day until she took him back. Just once in my life I'd like to have someone that mad over me. Someone who calls at three in the morning because he can't sleep from thinking of me, and who almost starves because he's spent all his money on roses and diamonds and champagne. I want to be someone's obsession, you know?'

‘Be careful what you wish for,' I told her, thinking of hours spent justifying a facial expression Glen had found hurtful, nights wasted listening to him lecture me on how properly to demonstrate my gratitude for his adoration, of red eyes, sore throat, aching bones, constant weariness. ‘Obsession can be terribly tedious.'

My phone rang. ‘Mischa? It's Cal. Um, did you get my message?'

‘Yes, hi. I was about to text you back.' I pulled a face at Kerry. ‘I can't find the book anywhere. I must've lent it out and forgotten. But listen, there's an English-language bookshop on Hai Ba Trung, just down from the corner of Bà
. You should be able to find it there for a couple of bucks.'

‘Oh. Sure. Cool. Um. Thanks. Okay. So. I'll see you later.'

‘Bloody keen on that book,' I said as I hung up.

‘Oh, Mish, look. Oh, bless.'

I joined Kerry at the kitchen window. Cal was on the street below, his too-white running shoes picking their way through the scattered washing buckets, plastic stools, cooking pots and parked motos.

‘Crap. He didn't say he was
here
. Now I feel awful. Should I call him back?'

‘Nah. He'll be embarrassed. Let him think you didn't know. Funny kid.'

‘Yeah. He's heading the wrong way for the bookshop. I should've given him directions. I forget how easy it is to get lost here. I should go after him.'

‘Oh, he'll be right. That's the best thing about being his age. Getting lost in a strange city is fun instead of terrifying. He'll probably meet half a dozen other lost wanderers and end up getting shattered in some dusty dive and shagging some hot backpacker behind the hostel.'

‘Sounds like your perfect night.'

‘God. It actually does. So sad.'

In my previous life I worked as a receptionist. I never cared for it, and was pleased that my inability to speak or understand Vietnamese ruled out that kind of work for me here. Of course, my lack of language skills and experience at anything other than answering phones and typing ruled out almost every other kind of work as well.

Most of the expats in Hanoi teach English, although very few of them are English teachers back home. Only the elite schools for the children of foreigners require their teachers to have actual English-teaching qualifications. A few of the better private colleges, like the Australian-­affiliated one where Amanda worked, expect their teachers to have a degree in something (anything), but most will take anyone who is a native English speaker.

So it was that my first week in Hanoi I managed to get a job teaching English to tourism students despite having no experience in either teaching or tourism. My training consisted of a ten-minute run-through of the series of 1980s textbooks and tapes that I was to follow unswervingly. The classes were held in a three-storey tube-house with no air-conditioning and only one desktop electric fan per classroom. There were nine classrooms – three on each floor – and the walls were so thin that whenever I paused for breath I could hear the teacher in the next room as clearly as if she was standing by my side. I taught six 45-minute classes every day. Each class had between twenty and thirty students who seemed to have been grouped randomly. Any given class could have absolute beginners and almost fluent English-speakers. When I tried to talk to the director about reorganising the classes he pretended not to understand me even though his English had been excellent when he'd hired me. I lasted three weeks and was never paid a
dong
.

Matthew found me an editing job with the weekend magazine put out by the newspaper he worked for. That I had never worked on a magazine nor edited anything didn't matter. I could read and write English and that was enough. The office was on the second floor of a French-colonial mansion five minutes from Hoàn
Lake. The outside of the building was magnificent, if slightly faded, but the inside had been gutted and ‘refurbished' in standard Stalinist grey. The editing department was on the second floor, furnished with twelve desks, every one of which would have been dumped on the nature strip for council collection back home. In the centre of the room was a shiny linoleum-topped table on which was placed the department's sole English dictionary – a 1983 Abridged Oxford which was missing most of ‘P'.