Elianne (26 page)

Bobbo bought a round of beers for them all and he and Phil launched into conversation with Kim and her friend Mai, both of whom it turned out could communicate quite well in their broken English. But Yen said nothing. She sat in silence, looking rather grave and giving the occasional nod as if she understood, but Neil had the feeling that perhaps she didn’t. He felt self-conscious, unsure how to include her in the conversation.

‘I am sorry,’ he said in Vietnamese, the only phrase he had yet learned apart from hello and thank you, ‘I do not speak Vietnamese.’

‘Is no matter,’ she replied, ‘I speak some English. A little. Not well.’

He was surprised. Even from the few words she’d said, it was clear her command of the language was superior to that of her friends.

‘Whatever English you speak is a great deal more and a great deal better than any Vietnamese I shall ever master,’ he said.

She smiled, her serious little face suddenly transforming, and Neil was enchanted. He thought how extraordinarily attractive she was. All Vietnamese girls were attractive, it was true, petite, delicate, their hair a glossy jet-black, but Yen seemed to him flawless. Her features were perfectly formed, like those of a porcelain doll. And that smile!

‘You live here,’ he asked, pointing rather foolishly at the floorboards of the verandah, ‘Vûng Tàu?’ He was probably stating the obvious and felt a bit silly, but he wasn’t sure how else to continue the conversation. He only knew that he wanted to retain her interest. The others were downing their beers and chatting away animatedly and at any moment her attention would be drawn to them.

‘Vûng Tàu, no,’ she said, and she waved a finger to the north, ‘my village two mile away.’

‘Oh, so you’ve come in from your village to Vûng Tàu,’ he repeated unnecessarily.

‘Yes.’ As she smiled again he noticed the dimple that flashed disarmingly in her left cheek. ‘Family have stall in market,’ she explained.

‘I see.’ Perhaps it was the dancing dimple that made her smile so infectious. Something did anyway: he found her mesmerising. ‘But you don’t work at your family’s stall, do you?’ She wasn’t dressed like the peasant girls who sold vegetables in the market. Perhaps she worked in an office.

‘No, no,’ she appeared surprised he should ask such a question, ‘my two sister work stall. They more young than me.’

‘Right.’ The comment confused him a little, but for simplicity’s sake he decided not to pursue it. ‘Where did you learn to speak such excellent English?’ he asked.

‘My priest, he teach me,’ she said proudly. ‘My priest is Irish man, teach many English.’

‘So you’re a Catholic?’ He found the fact interesting. Despite the predominance of Buddhism throughout Vietnam he had heard there was a strong Roman Catholic minority.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘my family all Catholic.’

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by Bobbo.

‘We’re heading off with the girls now, Neil,’ he said, ‘you coming?’

Bobbo stood, Mai with him, their arms around each other, Bobbo’s hand already straying to her breast. Phil and Kim also stood, similarly linked; it was clear an arrangement had been struck.

Neil looked dumbly up at them, feeling all of a sudden incredibly stupid. The girls were street prostitutes. But how could he possibly have known? They’d not been advertising the fact, they wore pretty little cotton dresses, they’d been wandering the markets . . .

‘You coming or not mate?’ Bobbo urged with a jerk of the head towards Yen, indicating he should do a quick deal with his girl.

Neil was confronted and embarrassed. Yen couldn’t be, surely, and yet surely she must be. He glanced at her, but she made no movement, as if awaiting instruction.

‘Um, no thanks, Bobbo,’ he said, hiding his confusion by pretending to consider the matter briefly, ‘I reckon I might give it a miss. Heck,’ he said holding up his virtually untouched beer, ‘can’t leave a full glass, mate.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Bobbo glanced at Phil. ‘Wowser,’ he said with a good-natured grin. ‘Come on, girls.’

A glance was also exchanged between the three girls, and as Kim and Mai turned to go Yen quietly rose from the table.

Neil was further confused. He felt a rush of concern for Yen. Had he insulted her? In saying no had he humiliated her in front of her friends? In any event, he didn’t want her to go.

‘Would you like another beer?’ he asked. The invitation was vaguely ridiculous as her glass sat untouched on the table, but he took out his wallet, indicating he was willing to pay for her time. ‘I would very much enjoy your company.’

‘OK.’ Grateful to be saved a loss of face, Yen smiled her pretty smile and resumed her seat.

‘Bye bye,’ Kim and Mai called, waving as they left.

The seats they’d vacated were quickly grabbed up by a bunch of new arrivals and Neil edged his chair closer to Yen’s to make room.

‘If I had gone with you and your friends,’ he asked, getting straight to the point, ‘how much would it have cost me?’

‘Ten Australian dollar, short time,’ she said. ‘I do only short time.’ Once again his question seemed to surprise her. ‘You never go with girl here in Vûng Tàu?’

‘No.’ He placed the money on the table.

‘Ah.’ The fact was clearly of interest as she folded the notes and slipped them into the pocket of her dress. The pocket had a flap, which she carefully buttoned. ‘You want go with me now?’

She made as if to rise but stopped as he shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, ‘no, I just want to talk.’

‘Oh.’ She appeared concerned and put a hand to her chest. ‘You not like me?’

‘I like you very much,’ he said. ‘That’s why I want to talk to you.’

‘But you not want to sleep with me?’

‘Not yet.’ Of course he wanted to sleep with her. He wanted to sleep with her very much, but he didn’t want to be one in a queue and then out the door minutes later. ‘Not right now. I want to get to know you a little first.’ She probably considered him downright stupid, or at least naïve, which no doubt he was, but he didn’t care. She intrigued him too much.

‘OK.’ She shrugged: he’d paid her, it made no difference either way. ‘What you want to know?’

He indicated her untouched glass. ‘You don’t like beer, right?’

‘No.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘Mai and Kim and other girl, they drink beer because men like. Me, no,’ she wrinkled her nose in an expression of disgust, ‘beer make me sick.’

He laughed. ‘So what do you like?’

‘I like sweet drink.’

He bought her a sickly concoction of pineapple juice and coconut milk, which she very much enjoyed while they admired the shimmer of light across the ocean’s surface.

‘How long have you been doing your sort of work?’ he asked, avoiding the term ‘prostitute’ more for his own sake than hers – he had the feeling she wouldn’t have been remotely offended.

‘Two month only. Mai and Kim, they go with American soldier one whole year, make lot of money.’ Far from being offended, Yen was more than happy to talk about her work. She liked the Australian. He was very polite. ‘Mai and Kim have place in town with many other girl. We have deal, is good. I teach Mai and Kim speak English, they teach me way to get soldier.’

‘Oh? And what way’s that?’

‘They teach me not look cheap like bargirl. And they right,’ she said eagerly. ‘Bargirl show too much, you know? Here. Here.’ The way she heaved up her bosom with one hand and slapped her thigh with the other was comical and instinctively he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t, aware that she was intent upon getting her message across. ‘They teach me how look at soldier in street nice way, friendly, you know?’ She offered a demonstration, bobbing her head a little, putting a hand to her face and smiling in a way that was at once demure, provocative and flirtatious. There was no mistaking the signal, and Neil realised yet again how absurdly naïve he’d been. Bobbo’s behaviour in the marketplace hadn’t been crass at all. One of the girls had obviously flashed him the sign and he’d known in an instant the three were prostitutes; so had Phil.

‘Yes, I see,’ he said, ‘very effective indeed.’

‘Yes, yes, is correct way.’ Yen was pleased that she’d made her point so succinctly, and that he agreed she was right. ‘And make more money,’ she said with an efficient nod. ‘No need for pay barman, no need for pay mama-san,’ she counted the benefits off meticulously on her fingers, ‘and soldier no have to buy girl Saigon tea,’ she added, referring to the non-alcoholic drinks posing as hard liquor that the bars sold to the servicemen for exorbitant prices. ‘You see? Is good for soldier too.’

‘What a very astute businesswoman you are, Yen.’

She was gratified by the compliment, but felt compelled to give credit where it was due. ‘Mai and Kim teach me,’ she said. ‘They teach me lot.’ She ran her hand affectionately over her pretty, peach-coloured dress, the fabric of which was far finer than the coarse peasant garb she was accustomed to. ‘They teach me wear nice dress like this. They teach me be nice girl. Soldier like to go with nice girl.’

‘But they didn’t need to teach you that. You are a nice girl.’

No comment he could possibly have come up with could have pleased her more. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

They smiled, the moment resting between them. Then he asked the question he was unable to resist, even though he suspected it was further evidence of his naïveté.

‘Do you like your work?’

‘Is OK.’ Another shrug. ‘My family poor, I make lot more money from soldier than market stall.’

‘So your family know what you do?’

That was when he realised he may have overstepped the mark. Her face lost its eagerness to communicate and went blank as she focused upon a nearby cormorant perched on a piece of driftwood, wings outstretched, feathers drying in the last heat of the day.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly, ‘I didn’t mean to pry. It was rude of me, I’m sorry.’

‘Is OK.’ The cormorant took off, but she appeared not to notice as she continued to look out at the fading light. ‘I must go now.’

‘Please don’t be cross, Yen. I really am sorry.’

She shook her head. She wasn’t at all cross. ‘Market close soon, I go home with sisters. I work only daytime.’

‘Can I see you tomorrow?’ He had a full three days’ leave. ‘Not just to talk,’ he added and, feeling strangely self-conscious, he patted his wallet to ensure there would be no misunderstanding.

‘OK.’ Although barely eighteen, Yen felt far older than the Australian. He is very young, she thought. Then she corrected herself. No, no, he is very innocent. She wondered if he was a virgin. She’d had the occasional virgin soldier in the past. ‘What time you want?’

It was Neil’s turn to shrug – any time that suited her, he didn’t care.

She chose noon. ‘The market, where we meet,’ she said. She would not take him to Kim and Mai’s place, she decided, where often many girls serviced soldiers in the same room. She would take him to her other place. The Australian was nice.

The following day they walked a half a mile to the outskirts of town where wooden huts and tin shanties dotted the countryside.

‘I take you nice place,’ she had said as they’d set off, ‘quiet, you like.’

He enjoyed the walk, although it was no leisurely stroll: Yen strode along at a brisk, business-like pace. They spoke little as they went, but glancing at her from time to time he did not feel uncomfortable or self-conscious as he’d suspected he might. She looks so pretty, he thought, in her blue sleeveless shift, her arms swinging healthily in time with her bare legs and sandal-shod feet as she marched. He found it difficult to encompass the purpose of their assignation, that she was a prostitute and that they’d done a deal, that his ten-dollar note was already folded and tucked away in the pocket of her dress. The situation was somehow bizarre.

It became even more so as the town petered out and they were suddenly among rice paddies where peasant workers and farmers were going about their daily business and where the odd water buffalo stood motionless in the fields, baleful eyes staring fixedly at them as they passed.

By now the purpose of their trek seemed quite unreal, lost as he was in the splendour of the surrounding countryside. ‘How beautiful it is,’ he said, gazing across the rice paddies to the distant mountains, but she either didn’t hear or wasn’t listening.

‘There auntie’s place,’ she said, pointing to the tin-roofed hut that stood twenty yards or so from the side of the road. They had arrived at their destination.

Auntie had seen them coming, as auntie always did, she kept a regular lookout for Yen, and as the young couple entered the hut, which was virtually one room, she nodded to her niece and gave a quick bow of recognition to the soldier.

Neil returned a respectful bow to the weathered peasant woman before him and waited for an introduction, but there was none. Before he knew it, auntie had grabbed one of the many bundles of raffia that hung from pegs about the walls and disappeared wordlessly out the back door.

Yen took a dollar coin from the pocket of her dress. It made a tinkling noise as she dropped it into the empty jar on the table.

‘Is nice place, yes?’ She started to undress. ‘Quiet, more nice than town.’

‘Yes, very nice,’ he said. Looking around at the poky little hut where two wooden boxes served as seats and where the bed was a hessian-covered pallet in the corner, he wondered what the alternative would have been.

Following her lead, he sat on one of the boxes and removed his boots. When he’d done so, he rose to discover her standing already naked before him, but he had barely time to admire the pertness of her breasts and the flawless satin of her skin before she embarked upon the ritual that was to follow. Her own disrobing had been quick and efficient, requiring seconds only. Her disrobing of him was to take much longer. As his hands went to the belt of his shorts she stopped him.

He stood motionless, watching her as she undressed him in silence, her eyes not meeting his but focusing rather on each tiny detail. Even the undoing of a button was a daintily performed process. She might have been undressing an emperor. And as she slipped the shirt from his shoulders, her fingers trailed across his naked skin with the same reverence, as if she were serving a lord and master. Neil found the whole process intensely erotic.