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Authors: Andrew X. Pham
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but Tat flinched, his features hardening.
“I wish I had your nose,” Loan crooned, mistaking his reaction for shyness. “I could be a famous singer, even with my voice!”
Tat snapped, “Shut up! You’re just a peasant. What do you know about anything!”
He brushed her off his arm. I could see he was on the verge of striking her. Tat stomped across the crowded dance floor and out the door without saying good-bye, leaving his date, Bich, without a word. Loan gasped, looking at us. Ha shook his head, telling her never mind. Loan burst into tears. The girls gathered around her. Thu, Ha, and I glanced at each other; none of us wanted to explain it to the girls. Ha offered to take Loan and Bich home. Thu put his arm around Lien, shrugged, and said it was getting late.
It was past 1:00 in the morning when Anh and I took a cyclo back to her uncle’s house. It was a modest single-level home in the residential maze of a middle-class neighborhood. There was a brick courtyard and garden behind the picket fence. I had never seen the inside of the house. Her uncle was a high school counselor and didn’t approve of premarital relations between boys and girls.
The moon beamed from high overhead. Anh fumbled with her purse. She had forgotten her keys and was afraid of waking her uncle. I couldn’t take her back to my house. This was not the proper way to treat a girl. Besides, my father already expressed his disapproval of Anh and me dating. I was in a quandary. There was no all-night diner, and taking her to a hotel would have compromised her reputation.
We lingered indecisively at the gate under the arch trellis with blue ivy blooms draping over us, the pale moon on her arm. A sense of fullness welled within me, a sort of engulfing warmth. I wanted to share this feeling with her. I wanted absolutely to be with her. I gathered her into me. She was supple within the circle of my arms.
“I have an idea,” I whispered. “Are you feeling adventurous?”
Anh nodded, grinning. Her trust was empowering.
I took her hand and we fled down the moonlit alley, her heels a flurry of clacks. A dog barked. We could have been the last souls left in the city. She giggled into my ear. I inhaled the scent of her.
A cyclo driver was waiting on the main street. I told him our situation and made a proposition: an all-night tour of Saigon in his cyclo for the price of a hotel room—three times what he would have normally earned. He smiled and dismounted to tilt down the cab for Anh.
Entrusting ourselves to a stranger, we floated deeper into the night, delighted. In ponderously slow strokes, he pedaled toward the city center, and then looped around the grand cathedral, the government buildings, and the commercial avenues. Saigon was flat, lush with tall trees; the night air fragrant with blooms. It was like going through an immense tropical park, the asphalt streets, fluid in their emptiness, like canals. We sailed through the city unimpeded. It was strange to know there was no French gendarme to stop and question our movement—a liberty I never knew in Hanoi. Saigon was at peace, without fears. We did not even own the privacy of four walls, but there was an impression of wealth as if the city was truly ours.
Down by Ben Thanh Market, merchants were preparing for the coming day. We ate coconut tapioca pudding and sipped hot soy milk among laborers at a roadside stand near the market. He brought us down to the quay where a dozen cyclos had gathered by the river. Slouched in their cabs, exhausted drivers slumbered. One young man strummed a guitar, his cohorts drowsily humming along. A bottle of rice wine was being passed among them. We dallied, watching them for a few songs, then moved onward. Our chain-smoking cyclo-man enjoyed rolling in the night breeze.
Anh asked me why Tat was so upset. I said he didn’t like being reminded of his family’s secret. He would never admit that he had foreign blood.
“It’s not a big thing,” Anh
“I wish I had your nose,” Loan crooned, mistaking his reaction for shyness. “I could be a famous singer, even with my voice!”
Tat snapped, “Shut up! You’re just a peasant. What do you know about anything!”
He brushed her off his arm. I could see he was on the verge of striking her. Tat stomped across the crowded dance floor and out the door without saying good-bye, leaving his date, Bich, without a word. Loan gasped, looking at us. Ha shook his head, telling her never mind. Loan burst into tears. The girls gathered around her. Thu, Ha, and I glanced at each other; none of us wanted to explain it to the girls. Ha offered to take Loan and Bich home. Thu put his arm around Lien, shrugged, and said it was getting late.
It was past 1:00 in the morning when Anh and I took a cyclo back to her uncle’s house. It was a modest single-level home in the residential maze of a middle-class neighborhood. There was a brick courtyard and garden behind the picket fence. I had never seen the inside of the house. Her uncle was a high school counselor and didn’t approve of premarital relations between boys and girls.
The moon beamed from high overhead. Anh fumbled with her purse. She had forgotten her keys and was afraid of waking her uncle. I couldn’t take her back to my house. This was not the proper way to treat a girl. Besides, my father already expressed his disapproval of Anh and me dating. I was in a quandary. There was no all-night diner, and taking her to a hotel would have compromised her reputation.
We lingered indecisively at the gate under the arch trellis with blue ivy blooms draping over us, the pale moon on her arm. A sense of fullness welled within me, a sort of engulfing warmth. I wanted to share this feeling with her. I wanted absolutely to be with her. I gathered her into me. She was supple within the circle of my arms.
“I have an idea,” I whispered. “Are you feeling adventurous?”
Anh nodded, grinning. Her trust was empowering.
I took her hand and we fled down the moonlit alley, her heels a flurry of clacks. A dog barked. We could have been the last souls left in the city. She giggled into my ear. I inhaled the scent of her.
A cyclo driver was waiting on the main street. I told him our situation and made a proposition: an all-night tour of Saigon in his cyclo for the price of a hotel room—three times what he would have normally earned. He smiled and dismounted to tilt down the cab for Anh.
Entrusting ourselves to a stranger, we floated deeper into the night, delighted. In ponderously slow strokes, he pedaled toward the city center, and then looped around the grand cathedral, the government buildings, and the commercial avenues. Saigon was flat, lush with tall trees; the night air fragrant with blooms. It was like going through an immense tropical park, the asphalt streets, fluid in their emptiness, like canals. We sailed through the city unimpeded. It was strange to know there was no French gendarme to stop and question our movement—a liberty I never knew in Hanoi. Saigon was at peace, without fears. We did not even own the privacy of four walls, but there was an impression of wealth as if the city was truly ours.
Down by Ben Thanh Market, merchants were preparing for the coming day. We ate coconut tapioca pudding and sipped hot soy milk among laborers at a roadside stand near the market. He brought us down to the quay where a dozen cyclos had gathered by the river. Slouched in their cabs, exhausted drivers slumbered. One young man strummed a guitar, his cohorts drowsily humming along. A bottle of rice wine was being passed among them. We dallied, watching them for a few songs, then moved onward. Our chain-smoking cyclo-man enjoyed rolling in the night breeze.
Anh asked me why Tat was so upset. I said he didn’t like being reminded of his family’s secret. He would never admit that he had foreign blood.
“It’s not a big thing,” Anh
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