The Darkest Little Room (11 page)

‘Tell me how you were captured that first time.'

She wrote.

Em đến từ một ngôi làng nhỏ bao quanh những cánh đồng lúa
… Sister was from a village surrounded by rice paddies cut by dirt roads. And in the far distance were mountains. We lived in a farmhouse. A floorless, thatch-roofed house on a road beside the rice. I was taken on a motorbike from there – maybe two hours – to a white-walled house.

‘A motorbike? From a place of rice paddies in Thanh Hoa?'

She nodded.

I looked across the lit-concrete skyline and remembered a girl sitting on a bed of wooden slats with no sheets to protect her against the cold, wearing the butterfly clip and gold bracelets that had belonged to her great-great grandmother, that slipped down over her hand to prove the slenderness of her wrist, and she was singing. I remembered her uncle who drove the van the Reuters news crew had hired that trip. The girl had no father – just the uncle and a sickly mother who fought cancer with little treatment. And I remembered how the uncle watched me watching her and smiled and said that he liked me very well and his niece liked me very well also. Did I understand? Yes, I understood. He assured me he did not say this only because they were poor and these were evil times. Many men and boys of the district came asking after his niece. Every week. I believed it. I told him, truly there has never been such a girl. And I promised him that in six months I would return. What a fool length of time. I did return, but when I did the house was desolate and the neighbours told me about the women on motorbikes who had come selling cheap dry rice after the flood when rice was un-buyable, for the province's feudal lords had given logging leases to the Chinese up in the mountains so the floods came down faster and heavier than ever and scoured the flats and tore the rice from the ground and flooded even the houses and what rice there was was dearer per kilo than beef. The girl I sought – they called her Thuy after
The Tale of Kieu
as she was so beautiful, though her true name was Ny – she had had to sleep some nights on a writing desk under the stars in the cold with the floodwater running beneath her and when the waters were gone those women came selling rice, but they were truly scouting and watching her and when she went out onto the road in the night the neighbours heard a motorbike kick-starting and a scream and shrill women's voices and the girl was gone and no one had seen her since. I had not given the uncle a gift of money the first time I was there because it had felt like a down payment and I had wanted everything to be good and right by the moral standards of my own country, but now I wished to God I had given that gift or payment or whatever any moralist wanted to call it so the uncle would not have had to let those women into his house. But now, said the neighbours, the man was gone. And the girl was truly gone, perhaps to China. Not Cambodia? Maybe Cambodia, the distances meant less and less these days. But probably China … or Laos … And in that bleak northern evening I had walked down the same road she was taken from, the same we had walked that first night hand in hand and I sat down in the dirt and wept …

‘Nhưng thế nào
… How could you let someone carry you on a bike, damn it? You are not a child. Wouldn't it have required a car?'

Thuy furrowed her brow. She wrote.

Em mới mưới lăm tuổi
… Young sister was only fifteen. The women overpowered me, and I did not want to make an accident on the bike. But when we stopped there was a man with a gun. He took us to a house with other men.

‘What kinds of men?'

Người đàn ông tàn bạo
… Brutal men. We walked through woods in the night. There was a house in the forest. In the house they took our clothes. Without clothes we could not flee.

The slave traders took paths through forest and jungle that were cut during the American war and Chinese invasions, when men and militia were forced to turn to obscure dealers to supply them with food and weaponry.

‘Họ đã nói tiếng gì?
… What language did the men speak there?'

Tiếng Việt
… Vietnamese. The next night we were walked over a border and it was no longer Vietnam. We went by ferry over a river, then in a truck. There were strange-shaped mountains on a dark horizon, like old paintings. We were given ID cards.

‘Where were you given papers? It may be very important.'

A town.

‘What was the name?'

Lao Cai.

‘What language did the people speak where you were given papers?'

Tiếng Việt.

‘What then?'

Làm việc
… work.

‘And the first place you worked–'

Truong Quoc
… China.

‘Is sister sure?'

She nodded.

‘Where in China?'

Many places. Many cities.

‘Who were the clients?'

Canh sat
… Policemen and businessmen and soldiers.

‘Tourists?'

She nodded.

‘Does young sister remember the uniforms the police wore?'

She shook her head.

‘The epaulets?'

She shook her head and wrote that the police did not wear uniforms.

‘And the soldiers?'

Không có
… Neither did they wear them. We were told the men were soldiers and police.

‘And you were sold from China to here?'

Sau đo,
she wrote, After a time.

I nodded.

‘And your wounds?'

She stared into my eyes. Then down at her feet. She wrote:

Phep la
… It is a miracle.

At a glance now the wounds looked like a minor motorbike accident, else one of those medicinal treatments with burning glass bulbs the Vietnamese submit themselves to.

I nodded and took back the notebook.

I thought how easy it would be for Thuy's present owner to find me. Even if he did not have the means himself, he need only hire some unscrupulous private investigator – and in my experience – Minh Quy aside – they were all unscrupulous, making their living by reporting the whereabouts of wives fleeing violent husbands and breaking up marriages. And if he found me? I wondered how much my invisible enemy had paid for the girl beside me. I knew the average price. But he could not have paid an average price.

Thuy sat on the end of the bed staring out the window. I watched the door and listened for footsteps on the stairs but no one entered the building.

‘What are you watching for? You look worried. Are we in danger?'

I thought of the girl on the riverbank those nights ago.

‘Is one of your friends in danger?'

She took a deep breath and put her hands together to pray.

Truly it is her. Truly she is not a whore but an angel.

‘Ny.'

She turned and then a tear described her cheek.

Her eyes answered me.

‘Anh xin lỗi,'
I said. ‘I am sorry.'

She nodded and looked down. I took the map off the wall and lay down beside her.

‘Tell me where the darkest little room is, Thuy. Point to it.'

She stared at the map then looked into my eyes then shook her head. I did not know whether she meant she did not know how to find it, or would not tell me.

‘Does the place exist?'

She put her fingers on my eyelids to close them.

‘Sleep, brother.'

And I did. But I woke in the night and put my hand out to touch her and she was gone.

16

I walked along the river bank, biding my time till the brothel opened and wondering how I might get to Hönicke, though no one had seen him at the cafe and there seemed no trace of him anymore in Saigon. In the afternoon I bought a .45 service revolver from a retired policeman and when night fell I put the revolver in my jacket and rode over Thu Thiem Bridge and into the dark across the river and stood on empty roads of huts of tin and wood and neglected tube houses. An old woman stood beneath a floodlight. I asked her if she knew a place called the darkest little room. She squinted at me as though I was crazy, threw her hands up and said to get off the street or else I would end up robbed or knifed out here. Then she walked down a lane into the dark. Some boys on bikes cordoned off an end of the road, the way to the bridge. I sped past them and one made a swipe at my back pocket but I skidded away from him. I rode to Club 49, paid a boy in the alley to watch my bike, and walked in with the revolver in my motorcycle coat. I looked for that friend of Thuy's whom I had given the 100 000đ note to but I could not find her.

‘Where is Thuy?' I shouted across the room. I went to the bar and asked the boy who served drinks the same question but he ignored me and then I reached over and grabbed him by the collar. He pulled away and swore.

‘
Thuy là ai,'
he said, ‘Who is Thuy?'

‘You know. Now tell me!'

But I had not seen that snake-faced manager come up behind me, and now he had me in a headlock while one of his thugs blindsided me and landed a fist in my ribs and they dragged me out the door and threw me onto the road.

When I stood up I hit the thug in the mouth and he hit me back and then I pulled my revolver. Snake-face had been on the stairs but now he hurried inside.

‘Where is Thuy?' I yelled.

All the girls of the club were on the street.

The thug spat blood.

‘What are you talking about, you cunt?'

‘I'll kill you,' I said. ‘You son of a whore, I'll kill you both. You and the manager.'

The thug pulled a knife.

I heard the panicked voices of the girls telling me to get off the road and that the manager had gone to get a gun and then a girl screamed at me to run.

The thug picked up a bottle and threw it at me and it smashed at me feet.

‘Đi, đi!
… Go!' the girl screamed from the steps of the club.

‘Damn it!'

But I could not stand there and wait for the police or snake-face and his gun to arrive.

I spat and spoke to the thug.

‘The next time you see me I will kill you and him both if that girl isn't found.'

I ran to the alley and kick-started my bike.

I rode back toward District One, but I did not have to ride any further than the river. She was standing at the foot of the bridge watching the water rush beneath her and my sanity was destroyed, for there was not a mark on her body. I pulled up beside her and stood and stared. I looked at her ankles. I touched the side of her face.

‘What are you doing to me?'

She only stared with fierce eyes that accused me.

‘Did someone steal you from me last night or did you run?'

Her eyes returned to the river. The night's rain came in spits.

‘Anh phai giữ đến buổi cầu nguyện
… You had only to keep vigil.'

‘What do you mean? I almost got myself killed looking for you tonight. Why are you here? To find me? If they stole you back, how did you get away?'

Suddenly she was near tears. I shook my head.

‘Were you punished for having left?'

‘
Vâng
… Yes I was punished.'

‘And yet …?' I ran the back of my hand along her immaculate arms. I shook my head. ‘Did you lie with me in my room last night or am I mad?'

‘Không phải
… You are not mad.'

‘Em la ai?
… Who are you?'

‘Em tồi tệ
… I am evil.'

‘You are not evil.'

‘Aren't I? You poor fool, brother. And now I will do something truly evil. But you must agree to it before the thing is done.'

‘What is it?'

‘Will you take me in again?'

‘Yes. I told you before–'

‘Nhưng nếu anh đưa em bây giờ
… But if you take me in now,' she paused and brushed a blade of damp hair from her eyes. She looked frightened. The rain splashed her cheeks. ‘If you take me in now …
nguy hiem lam
… You will be in great danger. You may be asked to kill. I think someone may die. No – someone
must
die for what has been done, myself or another, or even you.'

‘I am not frightened.'

‘Anh nói thêm một lần nữa anh sẽ theo em xuyên qua những của ở địa ngục
… Brother once said he would follow sister through the gates of hell.'

I nodded. She looked away to the north.

‘That is where you may have to go.'

‘Will you be with me?'

She raised her eyes and stared at me, with hope or sadness I did not know. She looked back to the river.

‘Hell is vast. There are many people there.'

I took her hand. She huddled close.

‘Do you intend to take me to your country?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you have tickets? Air tickets? And documents?'

‘I can get them.'

She nodded.

‘Now take me to your room.'

As we walked a black Citroën came onto the street and rolled slowly toward us in spite of the fast-moving traffic.

‘I know that car,' I said. ‘I have seen it outside Club 49.'

She nodded absently.

‘Why would someone want to watch you? Someone who would not also shoot me dead where I stand and take you back.'

‘Không biet
… I do not know,' she said. ‘Truly I do not know. Quickly!' She grabbed my arm and we got on my bike and I pulled down on the throttle so the car disappeared into traffic behind us.

Phong and his mother were away at a wedding in the provinces. The sister was home watching her soap operas and she stopped me in the lobby. I gave her two 500 000đ notes, two weeks working wages, and she smiled.

When we got inside Thuy told me she felt very sick.

‘Brother, you must–'

‘I know. I have done it already.'

I met Zhuan's courier earlier in the day in the perverse hope that I might make Thuy a present of the drugs tonight. But the joy of the gift vanished the moment I gave it. I opened my coat and threw the packet on the bed and she sighed and her eyes became glassy with gratitude and relief and at once I resented her. Last night and the night before, I had not allowed her to get very high. It had been like giving a sick child medicine. It made her sleep. But tonight she smoked half the bag. She claimed she had to.