Apocalypse Hotel: A Novel (Modern Southeast Asian Literature) (7 page)

The two of us went into a nightclub. Two polite dancing girls came over and invited us to dance. Phũ gave them some money and said that we were discussing business. They said thanks and left. We were drinking coffee when a lady carrying a glass of orange juice came over and asked to sit with us. I glanced questioningly at Phũ, but he immediately shook his head. A quiet apology: “We’re not from Hong Kong or Singapore, we’re not overseas Vietnamese, we’re just discussing a little business.” The lady politely withdrew. Why did she look so familiar? Why did I see familiar faces on women wherever I looked? Just looking at her, I could tell she was a high-class, semi-professional call girl practicing a flexible, improvised trade with Westerners, Chinese, Japanese, Americans, and the real overseas Vietnamese types.

We weren’t disturbed by anyone else. Phũ announced that the story that Bóp had hanged himself was a lie. Phũ had seen something that nobody else had noticed: around Bóp’s neck were strangulation marks from someone’s hands. It meant that Bóp had had done to him exactly what he’d planned to do to that girl. That wretched girl must have snuck into the hotel and killed him. And she couldn’t have done it alone with her soft hands; surely she must have a formidable gang that gave her the strength to carry out something so difficult so quickly. “Too bad,” he said, “that I didn’t ask Bóp for the address they were going to. But no problem. Hanoi is no bigger than a hand; Hanoians run into each other every day. After dealing with this, I’m going to find that bitch and make her pay.” He alone was left from his group of three friends. He would live for all three of them. He would exact revenge for all three of them.

We drove aimlessly through the nighttime streets of Saigon. Many women’s faces on the streets. Once again, so many of them looked familiar.

THREE

T
he two of us didn’t need to return to Hanoi. The culprit appeared in Saigon. It was Phũ who discovered her. He dashed into the room, grabbed me, and pulled me out after him. His hard hands shook with burning hatred. He launched us on the high-displacement Prawn. The bike had been borrowed from Bóp’s family during the days of the funeral. We rolled up to a street vendor on the side of the road. Looking around, I thought the area looked like a gathering place for the lowest-class petty traders. There was a dubious-looking hotel with dubious-looking guests and dubious-looking drinks. Just a bit of coffee and a glacier of ice in a glass, making the whole thing look like a polar ice cap.

People sat, doing nothing but sipping their drinks. Even so, everyone had to order a cup of coffee, a cup of salted lemon drink, and a cup of
rau má
juice. Every cup was two-thirds full of ice to be chucked away. As Phũ sipped, he kept his eye on the other side of the street. A small road. On the other side was a mini hotel. Every once in a while people came in or went out.

I was suddenly dumbfounded. The lady pushing open the door and stepping into the hotel was the same woman that had rented the Captain’s Studio the day before. She was still in the same blouse and skirt. Still had the same rippling but frizzled hair.

I glanced across the street. Phũ was still sitting there impassively, waiting. If I didn’t go with him, if we didn’t have to go and ambush somebody else, maybe I’d have gone over there and talked with her.

Ten minutes later, the door of the mini hotel opened. Another female stepped out. I was dumbfounded again. I immediately recognized her; I had no need for Phũ to tap me on the leg to get my attention. It was none other than the lady from the beach at Bình Sơn. The lady with the unlady-like name of Mai Trừng. The same person that had been chased by Bóp before and was currently being chased by Phũ. The young lady who now got on a Honda 70 that was parked in front of the hotel—clearly a rented motorbike—and then took off.

“Let’s go home, Uncle.” Phũ stood up and paid the bill, then walked leisurely to the parking area. His face was calm and composed.

“It will be finished tonight,” Phũ said. “Dry and cold. Simple and final.” There was no misunderstanding what he meant.

My heart pounded. I wanted revenge. But at the same time I wanted to repress this feeling. And, finally, I had a feeling of presentiment about the tragic end that would befall my nephew if he kept flying like a moth to the flame. Is she the flame? Had she been the one to burn up Cốc first and Bóp afterward? I was starting to understand this, but I could not understand how she could have done it.

But Phũ didn’t take us in pursuit of the prey. Instead, he took us back to our room in the hotel. He seemed to be content knowing that his quarry had no way to escape.

I tried to persuade Phũ that this girl couldn’t be the one responsible for the deaths of Cốc first and then Bóp. But the more I tried to convince him, the more I felt that my argument was without reason. I was worried that Phũ would also die. Did I still know fear? Wasn’t it I who had doggedly planned revenge after the death of my two-year-old? If my experienced brother Thế hadn’t intervened in time, then I might have committed a murder.

But now I couldn’t just fold my arms and stand there as I watched Phũ head to his death. To celebrate Tết last year the two of us footloose guys had gone to the gathering at the Đống Đa knoll. During each lunar month, one should not travel or trade during the fifth, the fourteenth, and the twenty-third days. In fact, each person that came to the celebration on the fifth day presented another opportunity. Phũ had managed three breast-gropes and a waist-squeeze among the many women in the jam-packed crowd. Quite contented, we worked our way out of the crowd and collapsed on the ground next to an old fortuneteller who was yawning and swatting at a fly. In front of him was a deck of Western cards. “Choose seven,” he said, and quickly flipped over the cards. He sat motionless. Finally he managed to mumble, “Young man, you should go home and think what you can do—this year, not only will you die, but you’ll also be arrested.” Phũ punched him straight in the face and laid him out.

“Fortuneteller bullshit,” he muttered. “I haven’t killed anyone, so ain’t nobody gonna kill me.” He stood up furiously and scattered the deck of cards with a vicious kick.

Now I remembered the words that the fortuneteller had said to Phũ. “Not only to die, but also to go to jail,” I said, trying to intimidate him a bit. Phũ smiled insipidly and repeated the words he’d spat into the fortuneteller’s face. He hadn’t killed anyone, so . . . certainly nobody would be thinking about killing him.

I surrendered. I abandoned him to fate. Man tries to outdo the heavens. Who knows if he’ll succeed? However it ended, we would finally conclude this incessant cycle of vengeance.

In 1972, my sister-in-law, not having had time to get to a hospital, gave birth to Phũ in an evacuation zone. During the war the hospital was more than ten kilometers away, and bicycles were the only means of transportation. Instead, she had had the benefit of a village midwife. That midwife had cared for almost everyone in the village—except the deputy village chairman, who had led a group of uncouth youths in pissing in the incense bowl and then burning down the temple of the village tutelary spirit. And except for a widow of doubtful chastity, whose husband had been dead ten years and was known throughout the village, her eyes always darting back and forth, her face always glowing and content, not even trying to hide behind an appearance of sorrowful virtue. And except for a few people who drifted around making their living through theft and fraud . . .

Everyone else in the village had been blessed by this midwife. Now it was my nephew’s turn.

Behind the pressed-bamboo screen, my sister-in-law shrieked intermittently, “Thế! Thế! You’ve killed me!” I had just turned twelve and, hearing this, I was panic stricken, afraid she was actually going to die. I ran through the partition. She was lying on her back on a wooden platform, her face completely white, her big belly arched weirdly up into the air. The midwife quickly covered my eyes and screamed, “What’s wrong with you? Someone get this kid out of here.” My aunt ran in and pulled me out. My sister-in-law was still howling: “Thế! Thế! You’ve killed me!” At this time, Thế was serving the Vietnamese delegation at the Paris Peace Talks and everybody here was watching the conference, waiting for the Americans to stop their last bombing raids on the North.

Thế had been in Paris since the beginning, and had done nothing to her to make her scream so tragically.

My sister-in-law still hadn’t finished when a squadron of American planes appeared. Everyone jumped into a shelter beneath a wooden screen. Only my sister-in-law and the midwife remained above—just the two of them, face to face with the pirates of the sky. Everyone jumped as the roaring of a bomb erupted all around us and the surface of the earth trembled and shook as if it were in the throes of febrile convulsions. Above our heads my sister-in-law, who had continued her screaming, was suddenly quiet. The always-daring Phũ couldn’t handle staying inside anymore and finally emerged from his mother, thanks in part to a bomb’s exploding so close by that people soiled their pants. Then the squadron of planes left, as if the sole mission of that wave of attacks had been to help her give birth.

My old auntie and two other women rushed out of the shelter to help the midwife. I sat there with a handful of my auntie’s children. The whole group of youngsters was sitting with eyes glued to the pairs of ladies’ legs clad in black pants and running back and forth above our heads. From the edge of the wooden platform, drops of red blood began to drip like rivulets of rainwater.

In this manner, Phũ came into the world: a purple-faced kid weighing 4.9 kilos, stubbornly determined not to cry. The midwife put him aside in order to save his mother, who had fainted and was showing signs of dangerous complications. She placed him into a flat basket in front of the awning and turned to his mother. Just then the temple-destroying village vice deputy rushed in, screaming for more laborers to go fill in the craters left in the fields by the American rockets. He saw the pitiful child lying in the basket, surrounded by flies, and—feeling sorry for this uncommonly chubby little baby—grabbed him by his ankles and held him upside down as if he were holding a puppy. Then he slapped his bottom over and over, saying, “Young master, today is the first day of the month! A son born on the first day of the lunar month should be as big and strong as a robber,
¹
but you just lie there and let the ants crawl over you!” It was the kind of exhortation that could have driven two otherwise self-respecting young men to pick up knives and stab each other, let alone a little baby that had been about to die a moment ago. The baby suddenly pulled back, contorted his body, snorted snot from his nose and drool from his mouth, and burst out crying. A robust and hearty cry. In the end he had conquered fate, thanks to the help of an atheistic cadre.

Following the advice of the midwife, my sister-in-law went to get a horoscope reading for her baby. The horoscope reader furtively gave readings to all the good people of the village, except the temple-destroying deputy chairman, the widow that he called a total prostitute, and a handful of drifters. The reader reported that Phũ had a predetermined fate: he could be killed easily by the earth.

Who doesn’t die from the earth? The earth destroys everyone—noble or vile, rich or poor, virtuous or sinful. Phũ, it was warned, would have a period of hardship during his twenty-fourth year during which he could even die. But if he could get through it, he would become extremely wealthy. He was a son of the first day of the lunar month and would rise to the top and take charge anywhere he went, able to defeat any opponent. My sister-in-law decided to go to the fortuneteller, even though scientific cadres risked tarnishing their reputations during this arrogantly self-assured era of state subsidies, when many believed that fortunetelling was just a way of taking advantage of the illiterate masses, who were willing to go to ridiculous lengths to learn their futures. By the time the market economy era arrived, by the time they spent the money on building the hotel—in short, by the time they were moving from a condition of non-productivity to a condition of private ownership—it seemed as if she had all but forgotten about Phũ’s horoscope. Property has the effect of turning its owners into people who continuously worry about losing it, and are always anxious about the possibility of having less. They worry so much that they become superstitious, until finally they’re praying to the four and the eight directions, and they’re worshiping, prophesying, abstaining, and curing. They worry so much that they can’t sit still for a minute without worrying more; they have to rush around here and there praying to fate, praying to prophets, trying to calm themselves down. And the female mediums and male spiritualists gain more and more prestige, servicing bulging pockets and purses that want to swell even more, great loves trying to find greater loves, everywhere people frantically searching for evidence they will be okay through prophecies and fortunetelling.

In fact, it was only around this time that my sister-in-law began to believe in divination. She and Thế held the fate of a relatively large hotel in their hands. It was no joke. She suddenly remembered the words of the old horoscope reader about her son’s destiny. This year, counting since conception, Phũ was exactly twenty-four years old. She worried about it. She became obsessed by it. But when she tried to talk to her husband about it, he brushed her aside. That was just women’s stuff! Thế was the head of the family and he believed in the patriarchal position that as the ranking male in the family, he shouldn’t be dealing with women’s work. The famous Từ Hải had died, thanks to the woman Kiều.
²
Confucius said that to be too close to women would lead to over-familiarity, which would lead to resentment. Thế rarely let his wife participate in issues that he judged important and correct. If she reacted hysterically he would silently leave the house and go off somewhere. If she did the same, he would calmly do whatever he had to do until she grew tired and came back home. It had been the same this time. Thế didn’t tell his wife anything about his decision that Phũ and I should take Bóp’s body down to Saigon. Only when we had already flown did she find out. Frightened, she repeatedly called Saigon, waiting in anxious suspense until the day the two of us were to fly back. Nobody had told her what had happened in Saigon. So when I stepped into the house, I tried to keep my face impassive. But I was still a bit pale and she caught my change of countenance. She was shaking as she asked me, “It happened to Phũ, didn’t it?” And then she passed out.