Dragon House (10 page)

When he was awake, the world was not one of light, but of darkness. Noah feared this world, for he lacked the power to save himself from his thoughts, his pain, and his hatred. He looked into mirrors and saw a stranger. He turned on the television and saw a man he wanted to kill. His loved ones were no solace. Despite his best efforts, he was envious of their happiness, their lives free of pain. They didn’t understand his sufferings. No one could.

Noah sat upright on his cot. He rubbed his eyes. His detested prosthesis lay on the floor. He looked at the contraption the way a miner dying of lung cancer might observe his pickax. He swore softly, pulling the carbon-fiber sleeve upward until it rose around his thigh and rested against his stump. Most days he placed a gel on his stump, which served to bind the sleeve to his flesh. But in the heat of Vietnam, his stump seemed swollen, and the gel didn’t tempt him.

After pulling on loose-fitting travel pants, Noah stood up. To his surprise, he realized that the beer cans he’d scattered about the previous night had disappeared. He walked unsteadily into the office, looking for Iris. He tried to remember the Vietnamese girl’s name but couldn’t. And so he quietly moved about the building, wondering whom he’d run into.

Despite the clouds, birds, maps, and trees that had been painted on the walls around him, the rooms and halls felt claustrophobic, and he suddenly had to escape. He stepped outside the center and was confronted by sights that reminded him of Baghdad. The buildings were white and stained. Television antennas and rusting air conditioners dotted roofs. The street was patched like an old quilt and was full of potholes. The smell of diesel fuel filled the air.

A scooter passed him, its driver dodging potholes as if a child playing hopscotch. Noah followed the course of the battered street, emerging onto a much larger thoroughfare. The sleeve of his prosthesis chafed against his stump, rubbing it raw. He tried to favor his injured leg, and his graceless gait produced an ache in his back. He swore, bitterness rising within him. An immense truck approached, and he thought about falling in front of it, about how such darkness would feel.

A pair of young women in traditional dresses walked past. Their eyes found the scar on his forehead and he glanced away. The sidewalk was thick with pedestrians. He shuffled past them, needing to flee, but not knowing where to go. Several children soon trailed him, asking for candy and pens. He had neither, and they left him, their voices replaced by those of the city. These noises assaulted Noah, reminding him of the sounds of war. A motorcycle engine became a jet, a thumping jackhammer a machine gun. The siren of a police car pulled him back to roadside bombings. He closed his eyes, leaning against a lamppost. He tried to remember what Iris had said, that good things still existed in the world. But his stump and back ached. His will to endure was gone. And goodness was but a word.

Noah passed a streetside vendor who sold clothes from a stainless-steel cart. Money was exchanged and soon an olive-colored baseball cap hung low on Noah’s brow. Though the fabric hid his scar, he felt no less naked. And so he hurried into the lobby of a nearby hotel. A Western-style bar was present and he sat down and ordered a Tiger beer, which descended his throat as if water. He couldn’t get the alcohol into his system fast enough. A second and a third beer were finished as quickly as the first.

The terror of the street began to fade. The pain within his mind and body diminished. A stillness emerged. In this stillness he was able to temporarily detach himself from his sufferings.

“Where you from?” the bartender asked in broken English.

Noah eyed the older man, who was constantly cleaning glasses or the countertop. “America,” he replied, avoiding the man’s stare.

“Why you come to Vietnam?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your first time here?”

“Yeah.”

The bartender nodded. “It good to have Americans back in Vietnam. When I was boy, here in Saigon, I saw many Americans. We South Vietnamese fight with you, against the north. We fight and die together. And then, when we lose, Americans left. One day they all gone, thousands of them. And for many years they no come back. Those times very hard. No jobs. No food. No reason to—” The man stopped speaking when the power abruptly went out. He smiled. “Some things always stay the same, as you see.”

“Does that happen often?”

“As often as it wish,” the bartender replied, opening another Tiger beer for Noah. “As I already say, it good to have Americans back in Vietnam.”

“Why?”

“Why not? I friends with Americans before. It good to be friends again. Maybe you no welcome everywhere in world, but you welcome here in Saigon.”

Noah looked through a nearby window. “I thought people called it Ho Chi Minh City.”

“Ah, only young people and government people say Ho Chi Minh City. To me, Saigon is Saigon. If people told you to say George Bush City instead of New York City, would you?”

“No.”

“You see?” The bartender sighed when the power came back on. “There. Now I must go and reset the air conditioner. You please excuse me for a moment?”

“Sure.”

“If you want another Tiger, take one. I trust you. And as I say before, I am so happy that Americans come back. Your country, my country, we are good countries. Good peoples. We have great futures ahead of us. Better to go into this future together, yes, than to go ahead alone?”

Noah watched the man depart, envious of his outlook on life, wanting to also be a cheerful bartender in Saigon.

TAO DAN CULTURAL PARK WAS AN idyllic span of green in the heart of the city. Beneath the shade of more than a thousand towering trees, people walked, read, and practiced tai chi. The park was a haven, the groans and cries of the surrounding city muted by the thick foliage. Birds sang in lofty branches. The wind could be heard. The laughter of children rose and fell.

Holding Minh’s stump, Mai walked along an old, concrete path. Her eyes darted to nearby benches, looking for foreigners who might be interested in a game of Connect Four. Mai liked coming to the park, for tourists could be found and easily engaged. And while Minh played she could watch the trees.

“The Shaq was something else, wasn’t he?” she asked.

Minh smiled and nodded. The two friends had just come from an electronics store. Several times a week they stood outside the store and, staring through a glass wall, watched the televisions inside. On this particular morning, they’d seen an NBA game.

“No one can dunk shoot like the Shaq,” Mai continued. “Do you remember the video of when he broke the backboard? What strength!”

Minh recalled that day. It had been raining, and they’d stood beneath the store’s awning for hours. Thinking of how the Shaq had broken the backboard, Minh raised his Connect Four box, pretending to throw it down as if it were a basketball being jammed through a hoop.

Mai laughed. “That’s right, Minh the Dunk Shooter. You look just like the Shaq. I think that maybe you could even beat him. It’s too bad that he can’t come to Ho Chi Minh City and play you for a thousand dollars. We’d be rich. We’d eat ice cream every day for the rest of our lives.”

Licking his lips at the thought of so much ice cream, Minh watched a group of older women practicing tai chi. The women moved as if they were in slow motion, their arms and legs as graceful as anything he’d seen. He wondered what they thought about when moving so slowly. Do their thoughts move at the same speed as their arms? Do they hear and see things that I can’t?

Mai and Minh continued to walk, looking for foreigners. The path curved deeper into the park. A large banner portraying Ho Chi Minh fluttered in the breeze. Minh thought that their great leader looked happy, as always.

“I need to cut your hair, Minh the Monster,” Mai said, touching his locks with a folded-up fan. “You look like some kind of jungle creature. We’d better tidy you up or children will scream and run away. I’m afraid of you, and if . . .” Mai paused, glanced at her feet, and then said, “Loc’s here. Don’t look, but he’s following us.”

Minh bit his lip. He lowered his shoulders, no longer feeling like the Shaq. Gripping his game tightly, he increased his pace.

“We should find someone to play,” Mai said. “He’s probably spent all our money and we’d better get him some more.”

Minh saw a grasshopper on the ground, thought about stepping on it, but didn’t.

“We have to leave him,” Mai said softly. “But fourteen dollars isn’t enough. Oh, how will we ever get more?”

Minh looked away from her. He didn’t want to talk about leaving Loc, not with him so close.

“He can’t hear us, Minh. So stop worrying your dirty little head. Besides, he’s probably so full of opium by now that he thinks he’s a deer, or invisible or something.”

Continuing his fast pace, Minh scanned his environs. Not far ahead, a blond-haired man sat on a bench. Minh headed in the man’s direction.

“Good spot,” Mai said. “He looks bored. Maybe you can play him a few games.” Mai let go of Minh’s stump and waved to the foreigner. Switching to English, she said, “Hello, mister. We can sit with you?”

The man glanced at her briefly. “Sure,” he said, pulling an olive-colored baseball cap lower on his brow.

“Why you here all alone?” Mai asked, as she and Minh sat on the opposite side of the bench. “You lose your girlfriend?”

“No.”

“You no lose her or you no have?”

“No have.”

Mai smiled. “That too bad. Anyway, you look bored. Maybe you play my friend a game? It good way to pass the time. If you win, we give you one dollar. If he win, you give us one dollar.”

Noah rubbed his brow. He’d been on the bench for almost an hour, and his aches had returned. After leaving the bar, he had again struggled with the chaos of the city and had sought refuge within the park. He’d wanted to lie down on the grass and sleep, but thought such a spectacle might draw too many eyes. Squinting against rays of sunlight that seeped through the foliage to reach him, he studied the boy and girl. Both were dressed in tattered clothes. One of the boy’s hands was missing, and thinking of his own self-consciousness about his leg, Noah pretended not to notice. “I’ll play a game,” he finally replied.

Minh opened up the box and began to set the game up on the bench.

“You know how to play?” Mai asked.

“I think so.”

“You must get four pieces in a row. Down, across, or diagonal works same, same.”

Noah motioned for Minh to make the first move. The boy placed his black piece in the center. Thinking that he’d start filling up one of the sides, Noah dropped his red piece into the slot farthest from him. Minh’s next piece went beside his first. And Noah’s next piece went atop his first.

“No, no, silly man,” Mai said, laughing. “Now Minh put third piece next to his other two. And you cannot win, because he then have three in a row with a space on both sides. No matter where you go next, he get four in a row.”

Noah looked at the board. She was right. The boy had already beaten him. “I guess I owe you a dollar.”

“You sure you play this game before?” she asked, giggling.

“Yeah.”

“Must have been a long, long time ago.”

“It was.”

“You want to play again? You play better this time. Sure, sure.”

Noah’s stump itched, but he didn’t reach down. “What’s your name?” he asked, placing his first red piece in the board.

“Mai. In English, it sound like the month after April. My friend is Minh. He no speak, so I speak for two of us. I like to talk, so it good deal for he and me.”

Minh dropped his piece, wondering why the foreigner was sitting alone on a park bench.

“Speaking is overrated,” Noah replied, watching the boy.

Mai shrugged. “Why you no have girlfriend?”

“Girlfriends are overrated too.”

“Then you no have right girlfriend,” Mai said, opening one of her fans and then cooling herself. “I think when you have right girlfriend you no sit alone on park bench.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“How much you pay for your hat? My friend sell this same hat.”

“Seven dollars.”

“Seven dollar? Are you crazy? Next time you come to me. I get for you cheaper. Sure, sure. Or I can sell you fan if you like. Very good to keep you cool.”

The board was filling with black and red pieces. Noah studied it carefully, aware that the boy rarely took his eyes from it. “Why aren’t you in school?” he asked, glancing at Mai.

Her smile faded. “We must make money. If we go to school, we no make money. Then we no eat. So I sell fans and Minh play games. Maybe someday we can go to school. Then we can learn more English, two plus two, capitals of Europe, and so on.”

Noah held a game piece, debating his next move. The board was almost full, and he was being forced to go where he didn’t want to. “Does he ever lose?” Noah asked, dropping his piece.