Aperture on the East (8 page)

It was a week night and the Rocking
Waves Nightclub had a relatively light crowd. The Cardinal’s Choir
finished another gothic metal hit song to the applause of a rowdy
audience.

“
Zoe! Zoe!” the fans
shouted.

Zoe announced that the band would take
a short break, and went off the stage. She and Tam headed toward
the bar.

“
Yurik, give us the
special tonight,” said Zoe toward the bartender.

Yurik barked back and said, “I’m busy,
woman.”

“
Zoe,” said Tam, “why
can’t you be a little nicer to your boyfriend?” She brushed back
her long, straight brown hair with her fingers.

Yurik’s head was shaved except for the
spiky black hair down the middle of his scalp. He had an eyebrow
ring, and his over-developed biceps were covered with tattoos. He
poured the drink from his cocktail maker into two glasses and set
them down in front of Zoe and Tam, “Kamikaze. Enjoy.”

“
Thanks, Yurik,” said
Tam.

Zoe reached over the counter, grabbed
Yurik’s head, and pressed her lips to his. It was not until Tam
nearly emptied her glass that Yurik tore Zoe from his neck and went
to attend to another customer. Zoe took a few sips of her drink,
and asked Tam to go to the restroom with her. Zoe never finished a
drink; she was merely interested in the taste, and didn’t want to
get even a little tipsy.

There was another woman in the
restroom when Zoe and Tam entered. Zoe glanced at the woman. This
was not the first time they ran into her there. The woman with her
platinum blond hair in an updo appeared to be in her twenties, tall
and curvy in a tight and short red dress. Her breasts were half
exposed, framed by the white fur on her shoulders. She had a
glamorous face fit for a magazine cover. There was a small black
mole next to the corner of her full, glossy red lips. For some
reason, her eyes always looked like she had been crying.

Zoe decided that she couldn’t hold
back her curiosity anymore. She said to the woman, “Are you a
regular customer here?”

The woman did not answer, still
focused on her image in the mirror, applying her
lipstick.

Tam looked at the woman as well. The
woman finally saw, in the mirror, that both Zoe and Tam were
looking at her. She turned to Zoe with a puzzled
expression.

“
So, do you come here a
lot?” Zoe said again, secretly amused in her head as it sounded
like a bad pick-up line.

“
I am sorry. I don’t speak
English,” said the woman with a very heavy accent that Zoe
immediately recognized as Russian.

Zoe asked her the same question again
in Russian.

The woman gave a look of surprise, and
then said, sounding hesitant, “I work here.”

“
You work here? We work
here too.” Zoe pointed to Tam. “This is Tam, and I am Zoe. What’s
your name?”

“
I should go.” The woman
turned and hurried out of the restroom.

“
What was all that about?”
said Tam.

“
I don’t know,” said Zoe.
“She didn’t tell me her name. She just ran off. That was a little
rude.”

“
She seemed kind of
sad.”

“
That’s why I wanted to
know what’s going on. She’s always here in this restroom with a sad
face on.”

“
I’ve seen her out there
laughing and dancing with men though,” said Tam. “There were a few
other women whom I’ve definitely seen more than once or twice.
Maybe they are all trying to get a boyfriend or something. I’m
seeing a lot of Asian girls too. Weird, Asian girls usually don’t
come to places like this.”

“
What are you trying to
say? We white girls are tramps or something?”

Tam didn’t back down. “Who was the one
kissing a punk with an eyebrow ring and tattoos all over his arms
just five minutes ago?”

“
Are you jealous?” said
Zoe. “Yurik is not good enough for you anyway. I know you always
think you are above us because your parents are rich and you go to
a private school full of brats like you.”

Tam and Zoe stared at each other for a
few seconds, and then they both laughed, bending over at the
waists.

“
You are nuts,” said
Tam.

“
So are you, Miss, Piano,
Competition, Loser,” said Zoe. She was laughing so hard that she
could barely get the words out.

“
Whatever.”

Aiko and Nelly had been waiting at a
table in front of the stage when Zoe and Tam returned. Nelly was
doing a pencil sketch of Aiko, who was necking with her boyfriend
visiting from a nearby university. Zoe looked around the nightclub
to see if she could see the woman from the restroom. The woman had
vanished. The band got back on stage and started playing another
sequence of crowd pleasing songs.

When the nightclub closed for the
night, Zoe said goodbye to her friends and waited for Yurik
outside. It was the late June, and it was humid and warm in this
tropical seaside town. Zoe enjoyed the breeze from the ocean, and
thought the summer in Nha Trang much more delightful than the cool
summers back in Novosibirsk. She fantasized living in Nha Trang
indefinitely. What could be better than lounging on the beach all
day and then playing the guitar all night?

The sound of a motorcycle approached
and came to a stop in front of Zoe. A police officer in a green
uniform was on it. He removed his helmet and said to Zoe, “What are
you doing out this late at night?”

Zoe looked up at the policeman, who
appeared vaguely familiar. She said, “Is there a curfew or
something?”

The police officer dismounted the
motorcycle, and came toward Zoe. “You were the girl playing the
guitar in public without a permit.”

Zoe recognized him, and immediately
she could feel her heart beat faster and her face turn warmer. She
was currently holding her guitar in its case. “I am not playing in
public now.”

“
No, but why are you
holding a guitar outside a nightclub? Are you playing in the
nightclub?”

Zoe didn’t want to answer
that.

“
Do you have any ID on
you?”

“
I didn’t know I was
supposed to carry an ID at all times,” said Zoe.

“
That means you don’t have
it,” said the police officer. “You are supposed to be eighteen
years old before you can get a permit to work. Are you
eighteen?”

“
What’s going on here?”
Yurik said as he and Boris came out of the nightclub. Yurik went to
Zoe and immediately encircled her with his arm.

“
I’m sorry. Is there a
problem?” said Boris. He gave Yurik’s elbow a nudge.

Zoe didn’t know if she should feel
relieved that Boris and Yurik had come to her rescue. They were
both a foot taller than the police officer, and much bulkier. She
looked at the police officer, who did not seem the least bit
concerned.

The police officer said to Boris, “Do
you own this place?”

“
I manage it,” said Boris.
His voice was as calm as always.

“
I was merely informing
this young lady here that she needed to be eighteen years old to
work. I asked her to show me her ID, but she didn’t appear to have
one.”

“
She’s just waiting here
for me,” said Yurik. “I’m her boyfriend.”

“
It would be wise to carry
an ID on you at all times, especially since you are a foreigner,”
the police officer said to Zoe. He put his helmet back on and left
on his motorcycle.

“
What is this, the Soviet
Union?” said Zoe. She was a little angry.

“
Don’t forget that we are
in an authoritarian country,” said Boris, “like the old Soviet
Union. Try not to get in trouble with the law here.” Boris walked
away.

Zoe kicked the door of the nightclub
and said, “I wasn’t doing anything at all.”

“
Forget about it,” said
Yurik. “Let’s go back to my apartment. I’m ready to lie down.”
Yurik gave Zoe’s waist a squeeze.

They got into a car that Yurik had
parked on the curb. Zoe rolled down the window to cool off in the
wind. She reconsidered her fantasy to live in Nha Trang, and
decided that, alas, this was probably too small a town to live
anonymously for any length of time. 

Ivan was brushing his teeth in the
bathroom when he heard his mother screaming. It was seven o’clock
in the morning. The pale sunlight was just now starting to turn a
more intense gold. Ivan stopped for a moment to listen. After he
determined that it was just a vocalization of his mother’s usual
nightmares, he resumed his teeth-brushing.

The thought of Eduard popped into his
head. His mother’s nightmares had started around the time Eduard
divorced her. Eduard had given him the skateboard three years ago,
just after Eduard married his mother. Eduard taught him how to
skateboard, and they spent many afternoons practicing different
tricks in the park. Eduard was kind and patient, and knew the
answers to all of his questions. Eduard never shouted or raised a
hand, not even when his mother had ruined things for everyone. He
lost the only normal family that he had ever known, and the only
period of his life when he was actually happy, when Eduard simply
left without a word. He missed Eduard terribly.

Ivan’s eyes were getting hot and wet,
but he fought the tears back and finished grooming for the morning.
He gave himself a big smile in the mirror. He had learned that when
he pretended to be happy, he actually could end up feeling better
for a short time. Moreover, he was headed to the summer camp for
another day of fun, and Sofia was also going to meet him at the
beach later that evening. So Ivan was indeed happy, although he was
not confident that it would last very long judging from
history.

When Ivan went to the kitchen for
breakfast, Ana was putting a kettle on the stove to make tea. She
had not brushed her hair, and was still wearing the shirt that Ivan
saw her in the day before. Ivan could tell that she had been crying
because her eyes were red and she was sniffling; that was not
uncommon in the last few months, either. Ana was staring into
space, and didn’t seem to notice Ivan at all.

“
Ma,” said
Ivan.

Ana didn’t answer. She was standing in
front of the stove, looking straight at the wall.

Ivan didn’t try again. He poured
himself some cereal and milk in a bowl, and sat down at the table
to eat.

When a high-pitched whistle abruptly
pierced the silence, Ana turned off the stove, and poured some hot
water into a teacup. She then left the kitchen. Ivan saw her walk
to Zoe’s room and knock on it. She went in, called out Zoe’s name a
few times, and then she came out and sprinted to Ivan’s room. She
called out Ivan’s name in a frantic voice.

Ivan took a deep breath in and sighed
and said to the direction of his room, “Ma, I am in the
kitchen.”

Ana came back, saw Ivan, and exhaled
deeply.

“
Thank goodness. I thought
you were gone too.” Ana picked up the teacup from the counter and
sat down next to Ivan. Ivan wanted to tell her that he had been in
the kitchen all this time, but decided to stay quiet.

Ana took a sip of the hot tea and
said, “Do you know where your sister is?”

Ivan shrugged his
shoulders.

“
I wonder if she came home
last night,” said Ana.

After a few more seconds of silence,
Ivan said, “I am going to the summer camp today, the one at the
Institute of Oceanography. You should come and visit on your day
off.”

Ana let out a groan that vaguely
suggested she heard what Ivan said, but Ivan knew that she wasn’t
really listening.

“
Mr. Nguyen is really
cool,” said Ivan. “He’s teaching me loads of stuff about the
dolphins, although I haven’t seen one yet around here. I get to
feed the fish and the sea turtles. And this afternoon Mr. Nguyen is
taking us out snorkeling. We are taking his boat to Hon
Mun.”

Ana nodded, sipped more tea, and then
said, “Do you miss Eduard?”

Ivan didn’t want to answer. He was
slightly annoyed that Ana didn’t pay any attention at all to what
he just told her.

“
I’m sorry I screwed it
up,” said Ana, “but we are doing pretty well here so far, right?”
Ana set her teacup down on the table and looked at Ivan, who was
just trying to finish his cereal as fast as he could.

“
Are you doing all right
in school?” said Ana. “I know you will get excellent grades in all
your classes like you always do.”

Ivan got up and put his bowl and spoon
in the sink.

“
I don’t know what Zoe is
up to. She’s always the troublemaker,” said Ana. “But she can play
that guitar, and she can sing. I just hope she isn’t running away
again. I wonder where she is. I wish she would go to school like a
normal teenager. Should I come and visit your teachers
today?”

“
School is out for summer,
Ma,” said Ivan. “We finished a week ago.”

“
What? And you are just
now telling me that? So what have you been doing since school is
over? You are out all day every day,” Ana said with a surprised
look on her face.