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watching her like watching the movements of a figure in a dream. She had learned to move around sleeping men as silently as a cat. I wondered how many wallets she had stolen this way. Without concern I watched to see if she would steal mine. I would not have cared if she had tried. I would only have smiled and kept drowsing. But she took nothing from me. She went to the bathroom. The fridge. I did not realise I had fallen asleep until a vaguely threatening and instantly forgotten dream was broken by her movements. I rubbed my eyes. She stood at the end of the bed putting on her clothes. I took my wristwatch from the bedside table. It was three in the morning.
    â€˜What are you doing?’
    â€˜I have to go back,’ she said.
    â€˜At this hour?’
    â€˜I must go.’
    â€˜But I bought you for the night?’
    â€˜You bought me for an hour. But I need something, Joseph. Something to help me sleep.’
    â€˜Name it!’
    â€˜I am sick.’
    â€˜Sick how?’
    Ashamedly I thought then of a cut on my hand where I had nicked myself with my army knife making repairs to my ceiling fan – I had momentarily forgotten that Thuy did not bear Hönicke’s sacrificial wounds. Perhaps in the dream I had woken from she had. That was it: I had dreamt she was wounded and lay bleeding beside me.
    But anyway that was not the sickness she meant.
    â€˜Thuỏc phiện.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Opium.’
    I did not recognise the word at first. I thought she was asking for a cigarette. I had her write down what she wanted in my notebook. I held the notebook to a scrap of street light.
    â€˜It is three in the morning. You do not need it,’ I said stupidly, for that need is as sleepless as the devil.
    â€˜Anh phải lấy nó cho em … Elder brother must get it for little sister.’
    â€˜Must?’
    â€˜Hoặc em phải đi … Or sister must leave.’
    â€˜You cannot be serious.’
    â€˜Please.’
    â€˜How do you take it?’
    She took the foil from a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and took my lighter and held them up. So it was not opium she wanted but heroin. I had forgotten that in Vietnam the same word does for both drugs.
    â€˜Damn it, Thuy!’ I was about to speak a profanity, but she stared at me out of the dark and a light came on in a hotel across the road and lit her face that was the face of an innocent child.
    â€˜How much do you need?’
    â€˜A gram.’
    â€˜A whole gram!’
    â€˜Less then. Three points.’
    â€˜Three points?’
    â€˜Yes. That will do for a tonight and tomorrow if it must.’
    I was angry that she had tried to fool me. But maybe she did need a gram after all. Though she did not look like a junkie, maybe a third of a gram was a terrible concession.
    â€˜Where will I get it?’
    â€˜Không biet … I do not know,’ she said with tears in her eyes. ‘But there is always somewhere at night.’
    I sat up and put my head in my hands. She put her hands on my head.
    â€˜ Thật sá»± anh không biết đi đâu hả?… Brother truly does not know where to go?’
    â€˜No. And at this hour I do not even know who to ask. Rất nguy hiem, em … Does young sister understand how dangerous a thing she asks brother to do?’
    â€˜Anh muỏn em ở đây không? … Does brother want sister here with him?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Then I will return to you on another night. I must find somewhere safe that we can buy it if I am to stay.’
    â€˜Alright,’ I said. ‘I will get you a taxi.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    We went downstairs and paid a man sleeping on his motorbike to take her across the river.
    â€˜Please forgive me,’ Thuy said.
    â€˜Of course.’
    She smiled and kissed me. She spoke English.
    â€˜You very re-regard me,’ she said.
    â€˜Yes,’ I