The Avatari (23 page)

Through all of the following week, Dennis took him on a round of the city’s buzzing, if slightly tawdry, nightlife. They visited clubs which were ‘all right’ as well as those which were ‘out of bounds’ for members of the diplomatic community. The bar girls wore obliging smiles and white smocks, the latter the result of a diktat imposed by the puritanical and powerful Madame Nhu, sister-in-law to the President. By the time they had done one round, Ashton had tired of the forced gaiety and the monotony of meeting very much the same people. Everyone seemed to know that they were from the Embassy.

Ashton would also discover to his dismay that the nightmares were not a thing of the past, as he had imagined; they haunted him every night now.
Hilda and the accident – over and over again.
A fear had begun to build up within him that those images would never leave him. He was beginning to wonder if coming out to Vietnam had been the right thing to do.

Just before Easter, Dennis went off on a month’s leave, the first he had taken in two years. Ashton dropped him off at the airport and as they shook hands, his colleague told him, ‘Well, I guess you know your way around by now. Be good and when you aren’t, try not to get caught. Pinnet is quite a tiresome snoop.’

Ashton agreed with that. He had overheard the staff’s tea-room gossip about their first secretary. He wished Dennis a safe journey and clapped him on the shoulder, receiving a wry grin in response. Dennis’s wife hadn’t written to him in two months.

Though Ashton hated to admit it, he was much happier alone. He had never been good at saying what he felt like, especially if it risked hurting someone. He knew Dennis liked him and thought of him as a mate, someone you played darts with or cheered the Gunners on over a draught back home. The trouble was, it was precisely what Ashton was trying to get away from.

So it was in his fifth week in Saigon that Henry Ashton began rushing back to his room after they had broken off for the evening and changing into casuals to explore the streets. He would wander around on foot and catch a
cyclo
back to the Embassy after dinner, which he would end up eating off a roadside kiosk. It was during one of these aimless jaunts that Ashton had come across the library – if you could call it that. He had turned off into a bylane from the main Ben Thanh Market, hoping that the general direction in which he was headed would take him to the riverside. He liked to sit on a pier and watch the sun go down, as the catch of the day was offloaded from the boats in baskets, some of the fish already having made their way to skillets at wayside stalls, where they sizzled in bubbling hot mustard oil.

It was a wonder that Ashton hadn’t missed the library, because it was crushed between two shops selling silk, its entrance all but blocked by the low wooden tables those establishments had arranged on the pavement and part of the road to display their wares. A young boy from each shop had caught sight of Ashton and both had pounced on him, each grabbing him by a hand and trying to pull him into their respective shops with broad smiles and the words, ‘Cheap, very cheap!’ At the same time, they had flung at each other what Ashton guessed were decidedly adult expletives. Either business was slow or he was the first white man to have ventured into the bylane that day, because he had seen the shop owners beginning to take an interest and getting up from their stools.

Ashton had shaken off the boys and, more out of the need to escape than anything else, had looked up and seen an enigmatic board over a heavy wooden door. On it was written in faded but still legible letters: ‘Jefferson Waters US–Indo-China Buddhist Library’. Below that, it said: ‘Estb 1961’. He had smilingly turned his back on the boys and pushed the door of the library open.

As the door creaked shut behind him, he found himself plunged into near-darkness. He stood still, allowing his eyes to get used to the dim light filtering in through small stained-glass windows set high in the wall and flush with the ceiling. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw that the library had two levels. A flight of dusty wooden stairs led up to another room at the top which, with its rows of stacked books, looked identical to the one in which he now stood. Against one wall sat a huge jade Buddha, in front of which incense sticks burned, their acrid, overpoweringly sweet smoke hurting the eyes. The counter for the librarian was near the door. Sitting on a chair behind the desk was a small boy, who stared at Ashton indolently as he picked his nose. On the wall behind the boy was a large photograph of Mr Jefferson, a long-faced man with long white hair. Beneath that portrait, another lot of incense sticks burned. The boy stared back at Ashton for some time, then yelled,
‘Maman! L’Américain!’

There was the sound of a crash upstairs, followed by a muffled moan. Ashton rushed up the flight of stairs and came upon a young woman – the librarian – who had evidently been in the process of arranging books on the shelves. She had fallen off the stool on which she had been standing while going about her work and the books now lay scattered on the floor, with some on top of her.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ Ashton asked, helping her up.

‘Heureusement, non,’
she said, smiling.
‘Merci.’

But she seemed a little shaky as she tried rising to her feet and Ashton helped her up and held her arm, as she made her way gingerly down the stairs. He was very aware of the lemony perfume she wore. Definitely off the city’s thriving black market. She said something to the boy who brought out a US Army-issue water bottle. Since there were no other chairs around to sit on, she set herself down on the stairs.

After she had caught her breath, she took a sip of water and said softly, ‘Bo Hai startled me.’

She gestured towards the child, who was now kicking a football.

Ashton nodded. He knew he should go and this was ridiculous, but he didn’t want to.

Perhaps she sensed it. ‘So you are interested in Buddhism?’ she asked.

She spoke with the soft French lisp of Ashton’s local office staff; only it sounded better coming from her.

‘Just looking,’ he replied.

‘Bien.
We have so much here, with much gratefulness to Monsieur Jefferson.’ She glanced at the photograph behind the counter and went on, ‘But in these troubled times, so few visitors. Perhaps I could show you around,
si ça vous intéresse
?’

She took him around enthusiastically and led him upstairs, delicately picking up books and scrolls that had been collected from all over the Orient.

‘So how did this place come up?’ he asked.
I should have left by
now
, he thought.
What am I doing here
?

‘Monsieur Jefferson, he was a devout Buddhist. He had meditated at the Chang Khong Monastery in the Annamite Mountains,’ she told him. ‘When his studies were complete, he asked his teacher what offering he could make.’ She spoke rapidly, then realizing that Ashton wasn’t following all she was saying, explained patiently, ‘In our culture, it is customary for initiates to make an offering to the teacher on completion of their studies. The teacher asked Monsieur Jefferson to pass on the knowledge he had gained at the monastery. So he set this up.’ She smiled. ‘Most of us did not know earlier what means Monsieur Jefferson had. We discovered later that he was very wealthy.’

‘And this Mr Jefferson was the man your son mistook me for?’

Ashton could not bring himself to look directly at her as he asked the question.

‘You ask so many questions!’ she exclaimed, the hint of an indignant blush spreading over her cheeks. Then she looked at him and said with a shy smile, ‘But monsieur, you are not
that
old – certainly not as old as Monsieur Jefferson!’

Again, he did not know what to say. And again, there was an awkward silence between them.

‘Perhaps you would like to become a member?’ she asked softly.

Ashton became a member. He would visit the library every second day, diligently reading what he had borrowed on the off chance that she might ask him about it. But she never did. The days he chose not to go seemed excruciatingly long and he would often find himself walking up to the corner from where the bylane branched off the main road, then turning back. He felt silly and happy at the same time and was comfortable with both feelings. On most days, the library remained empty and he would sit at the foot of the stairs, while she insisted on making him a cup of tea on the pressure stove she kept behind the counter. She would talk of her day, her family and engage in general market gossip. Mostly, he listened to what she had to say. She didn’t seem to mind that he hardly ever said anything.

‘I want to improve my English, Henry,’ she told him during one such conversation. She was graduating from the university in sociology. ‘You have to speak to me too. We make a deal, see? I will improve your French and you, my English.’

He mulled it over. ‘Maybe you can throw in some Vietnamese too?’ he suggested. ‘For instance, your name, Le Xuan. What does it mean?’

‘Beautiful spring.’

‘It suits you,’ he remarked, staring at his shoes, teacup in hand.

‘Are you always this shy?’

‘Yes,’ he said honestly. Then, his voice tight and his gaze still fixed on his shoes, he asked, ‘Would you like to go out to eat something?’

The words sounded as awkward as he felt.

‘Ice cream!’ the boy exclaimed excitedly from behind them, before she could reply.

Ashton was startled. It hadn’t occurred to him that the boy might know enough English to follow their conversations. Xuan scolded her son sharply in Vietnamese, then turned to Ashton again apologetically.

‘Forgive us, he is very badly behaved.’

‘Ice cream sounds wonderful!’ Ashton said, putting an arm around the boy.

He found himself unable to look into Xuan’s beautiful eyes.

After that, Ashton would occasionally wait for her to lock up before taking her to one of the small cafés, where they would have dinner. Then he would walk her home, an apartment on the first floor of a building in an alley behind the street on which the library stood. They always ate early. She ate sparingly.

‘I must also have some appetite so I can eat with my mother,’ she had explained.

‘She doesn’t mind my taking you out?’

‘She waits to hear what you have said.’

‘But I hardly say anything!’

‘It doesn’t matter. I make it up,’ she said.

That had made him splutter into his coffee, while she giggled merrily.

They noticed the change in him at the Embassy. Even Julius did and remarked one evening at a cocktail, ‘You are looking very well, Ashton.’ He puffed on his pipe and added, ‘Good to see you’ve found your feet.’

‘It’s the librarian,’ Dennis said under his breath, but loud enough for Ashton to catch the words.

He had told his colleague about her, which Dennis, for some reason, found vastly amusing.

As time went by, Ashton thought he should stop seeing Xuan. Going any further with her, he knew, would be quite impossible. It wasn’t because of his official position; he was quite certain he could chuck that. But he was less sure about being allowed to stay on in Vietnam beyond his tenure. He kicked himself mentally for being so presumptuous; she probably thought of him as nothing more than a friend. Or what was more likely, she was just being kind. But he knew that he had gone further with her than with anyone he had known. He would find himself prattling on about his life and his thoughts in her presence in a way he would have thought unimaginable earlier. No, he was quite sure she wouldn’t go with him. If she had wanted to go anywhere at all, she would have gone to the States to be with the corporal – Bo Hai’s father – who still wrote to her. Anyone who knew her would probably have expected her to do so, he thought. But she was fiercely patriotic and would not leave her country.

There was so much fire, so much life in that slender frame of hers, it was infectious. She wore an armour of obstinacy, defending her idealism with fervour against all arguments to the contrary. But Vietnam was tumbling into an abyss all around them. The government’s propaganda had grown more strident with the times; there were now more police on the streets than ever before and people tended to hurry past, their shoulders hunched, their tired eyes furtive. On 8 May, President Diem’s police opened fire on students who were peacefully protesting against the recent order banning the flying of flags other than those of South Vietnam. Eight students were killed. When he met Xuan, he found her crying at the news; he comforted her as best as he could.

Ashton decided that he would meet Xuan no more than two days in the week: Wednesdays and Saturdays, days on which she didn’t have afternoon classes. It was a self-imposed deprivation. They would meet at the library. In the beginning, Bo Hai accompanied them and they would walk through the market where Ashton invariably bought the child ice cream. The boy always thanked him politely, but never smiled. When they reached the crossroads, Ashton would flag down a
cyclo
and they would somehow manage to clamber on and go to the First District and visit Den Ngoac Hoang, the Emperor of the Jade Temple, where Xuan often sat and meditated after her prayers.

‘Why do we meet?’ she asked him one day, as they sat on the bench outside the temple. She had just finished her meditation and turned to look at him.

‘Well,’ he began, taken aback by the question and uncertain of what he should say.

He was saved from replying when a child tripped and fell. Ashton went to pick him up. The child, who had begun crying, stopped when he saw Ashton approach, got to his feet on his own and walked away, limping slightly. Ashton returned to the bench where he had been sitting with Xuan, shrugging at her before settling down again.

‘We meet so we learn the languages of each other,’ she said, looking ahead.

The setting sun bathed her face in a warm shade of gold. The fine down on her ears appeared to be on fire.

She turned to him with a soft smile. ‘What did
you
think?’

‘I was going to say just that – only in Vietnamese,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I don’t think I got it at all.’