Fishing for Tigers (14 page)

‘How are you enjoying Hanoi?' I asked Christopher.

‘What an interesting choice of words.' He looked at the ceiling. ‘How am I enjoying.
Enjoying
. Begs the question wouldn't you say?' He looked me in the eye. ‘I am not, is the answer. If you want to know how I am
finding
Hanoi then the answer is, er,
unenjoyable
. It must be one of the nastiest places I've been.'

Under the table, Cal hooked his ankle over mine.

‘Oh', I think I said.

Kerry cackled and squeezed Christopher's arm. ‘He's joking.'

‘I am not. It's miserably humid and loud, you can't walk twenty feet without being accosted by scam artists and beggars. And everything smells like piss and fish.'

‘Everything does? Even here?' Kerry waved her arms. Balinese bangles jangled from her wrists to her elbows.

He sniffed. ‘No. Here it smells of chicken and piss.'

‘Your reaction is typical,' said the UN man, in an affected mid-Atlantic drawl. He stroked the strip of brown fuzz on his chin and I remembered my previous conversation with him. He'd been on a spiritual retreat up near the Chinese border and felt moved to share every moment of revelation he'd experienced.

‘The thing about Vietnam,' he went on, leaning across Kerry in an attempt to make eye contact with Christopher, ‘is that you need to give it time. It doesn't work straight away. You need to stick around long enough that the noise and heat become background. Then the magic begins.'

‘The magic?' Christopher asked, with undisguised scorn.

‘Yeah, for real. You talk to people who've been in country a long time and I promise, the longer they've been here, the more whole they are, the more authentic, you know? This place just
does something
to you. But you have to let it.'

‘Wow,' said Cal. ‘The Vietnamese must be the most whole and authentic people on earth then.'

‘Ah, well, that's a different thing. For the Vietnamese, the earth is soaked in blood. Ghosts haunt the jungles and rivers. It's a belief of theirs, you know, that the dead whose bones are not gathered up and reburied are prevented entry to heaven. Imagine all the dead from the wars, scattered all over. Millions of lost, wandering ghosts. Of course people who believe that are going to have a different relationship to the land than we do.'

‘We?'

‘He means westerners, Cal,' Kerry said.

‘Ah, but I'm a mongrel. I wonder,' he said in a tone I could only describe as aggressively innocent, ‘if I stay here a long time, will my white half become whole and authentic or will my Vietnamese half become haunted by ghosts?'

Christopher snorted.

‘Well, that's an interesting thought.' The UN man leant forward, stroking his fuzz. ‘What's your feeling, being here? Do you feel, if I can put it this way, more connected? More real?'

‘Are you serious?' Cal laughed.

I pressed my ankle hard into his. He pressed back.

‘I don't know what it's like in the countryside or jungle,' Christopher said, ‘but I can't imagine what kind of person could possibly feel
connected
to this place. I spent ten minutes on the street outside Kerry's office this afternoon and saw half a dozen people wander out to the footpath – if you can call it that – and fling plastic bags of garbage into the gutter!'

‘Oh, silly,' Kerry poked his arm. ‘That's just how you get your garbage collected. The bags aren't going to
stay
out there.'

‘Seriously, Cal,' the UN man said. ‘I'm interested in your experience as a member of the diaspora. What is it like to be among your people?'

‘The only one of
my people
here is that pasty bloke down the end of the table.'

He squinted down at Matthew, then gave Cal a look I interpreted as pity. ‘Of course,' he said. ‘Your mother's ­people, I meant.'

‘They're not my mother's people, either. Her people had to hide under piles of rotting fish for a month to escape from the people here.'

Christopher chortled and the UN man scowled at him before leaning so far across the table toward Cal he was almost prone. ‘Do you feel no kinship with the people here? Or with the land?'

Cal shook his head at the ceiling. Beneath the table, his ankle moved up and down my shin.

I decided speaking would be a normal thing to do at this point. ‘We published a piece in the magazine recently about members of the diaspora who've returned to Vietnam. It was fascinating. They came from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of situations, but almost all of them spoke about a sense of completeness when they returned home.'

‘Bullshit,' Cal said and I might have been stung by his tone if his foot wasn't trailing up the inside of my calf. ‘I bet they weren't from all kinds of backgrounds. I bet they were all marketing-savvy, English-speaking
with businesses to promote. I bet they all said exactly what the reporter wanted to hear and when the interview was over they went back to bitching about the corruption or undrinkable water or traffic.'

‘Oh, bravo!' Christopher said. ‘This kid knows what's what.'

‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?'

‘It's a relief to hear someone speaking the truth about this bloody place.'

‘Here we go.' The UN man threw his hands up. ‘Someone who's been here a couple of days praising as true the opinion of someone who's been here a couple of weeks.'

‘There's a saying,' Kerry said, too loudly, ‘that if you want to write a book about Vietnam you should only stay a week. Any longer and you'll realise you know nothing.'

‘I'm not writing a bloody book. Having been asked, I'm giving my impression of the damn place. Or is there a minimum time one must be “in country” before one is allowed to have an opinion at all, let alone express one?'

‘You can give your
impression
, mate, but don't go assuming I'm with you just because I call bullshit on one crap article. I'll tell you one thing, since I've been here I've heard more white people talk more crap than I have in a lifetime of living surrounded by white people talking crap.'

Kerry threw me a desperate look. The pressure from Cal's foot intensified along with his pitch and I was feeling rather desperate myself.

‘The chicken is so good, Kez. I can't remember the last time I had a proper roast.'

Kerry grinned maniacally. ‘Yes, I personally taught Hai how to do it homestyle, none of this boiled in a pot then crisped for ten minutes crap. I taught her to bake the veg, too. She enjoyed it, I think. Using an oven is a bit of a novelty for a Vietnamese.'

‘Thanks for changing the subject, Mischa,' Cal said. ‘We were almost having a real conversation. So relieved you brought it back to trivial bullshit.'

‘Oh, Cal.' Kerry's cheerfully scolding tone was contradicted by the murder in her eyes.

‘Hope you're behaving yourself up there!' Matthew called down the table.

‘You're very welcome,' I said to Cal and kicked his foot away. I tucked my feet under my chair and asked the UN man his views on the street vendor crackdown.

While Hai cleared the table and prepared dessert, Kerry led me to the balcony to tell me that Christopher had turned into a total prat in the years since she'd seen him, but that he was only staying five nights and she wanted to keep him onside so she could at least enjoy herself while he was here.

It was at least ten degrees hotter out than in, and I was damp all over before Kerry drew breath.

‘Don't whinge to me,' I said, moving to the far edge in an attempt to catch the non-existent breeze. ‘I was the one keeping things nice.'

‘I know, darling, thank you. Keep on doing that, okay? I have to go back in. Amanda may not like fucking men but she sure as hell enjoys making them think she does.'

As I turned to follow her, Cal came out and draped his arms over the rail, staring intently at the streaky grey wall of the neighbouring building.

‘Great view,' he said.

‘Having fun?'

‘Time of my life.'

‘I can tell, by how charming you're being.'

He turned his head and gave me the briefest smile. ‘I'm a teenager. I'm supposed to be surly.'

‘I'll leave you to it then.'

He sprang towards me, held my arm, dropped it. ‘I just can't believe how much shit they were talking in there. Even you, Mischa. I didn't think you were like that.'

‘Like what?'

He rolled his eyes. ‘That crap about the
feeling complete, chatting up that soul-patch douche. Not to mention the lovely-fucking-chicken hose-down.'

‘Being polite, making conversation, complimenting the hostess. You didn't think I was like that?'

‘Yeah. I thought you were the kind of person to call bullshit, to make a scene, you know?'

‘Oh, no. Definitely not. You're thinking of someone else.'

He squinted at me in the dim light, his hands crammed into his pockets, his sharp hip bones jutting at me through his jeans. His feet were still bare. When he went inside he would tramp the black Hanoi dust into Kerry's carpet.

‘No, I'm thinking of you,' he said. ‘You think I don't know you, but I do.'

My chest heaved as though I'd come to a sudden stop after running for miles, and he curled his hand over his heart and didn't smile.

Inside, Kerry had rearranged the seating. ‘So everyone can meet each other,' she said. I was stuck between Amanda and Henry. ‘Pleased to meet you,' we each said loudly and then slumped in our seats and mumbled nastily about the others. Cal was swallowed by the UN women at the other end of the table. They were closer to his age than I was and, from his frequent blasts of laughter, I guess they were more entertaining, too.

I wasn't jealous; I was relieved. I couldn't look at him. I stayed up my end of the table and pretended to drink much more than I actually did. I felt volatile enough without getting drunk. I had no idea what I might do.

At home that night, I emailed my sisters.