The Beauty of Humanity Movement (50 page)

Ph
ng was right; no one is paying very close attention to the report anymore. You don’t need to spy on your neighbour now and envy his brand new television and suspect him of accepting some bribe, perhaps from a foreigner, or of having some Vi
t Ki
u traitors in his family sending him money from the U.S. Now, instead of reporting you to the district council, your neighbour will say, Friend, help me split this television cable, will you? Hey, friend, why don’t we pool our resources to buy a satellite dish?

T
steps off the sidewalk and onto the road. “Wait,” Maggie calls out. “We’re not going to cross here, are we?” She is pointing across the river of traffic between them and Hoàn Ki
m Lake. “Can’t we just walk to the top and cross up there?”

“But this way is much quicker. Do you never come to the lake?”

Maggie shakes her head.

“You never cross the road?”

“Not this one,” she says.

“How do you come and go from the hotel?”

“I take a taxi.”

“Every day?”

“At least twice a day.”

“
Ôi z
i ôi
,” says

T
. He guides Miss Maggie into the street by the elbow. It’s almost like floating, like walking on water. “Look straight ahead,” he says, “and whatever you do, don’t hesitate. You need to find the quiet inside.”

Inside T
s quiet, he finds the girl of last Christmas in her fuzzy red-and-white outfit. Her lips like a butterfly, her skin dewy like a newly peeled potato. He doesn’t hear the traffic as he crosses the road, he hears her whispering in his ear instead:
You can kiss me, you can touch me, if you’d like
. Those same words slip out from between Miss Maggie’s perfect teeth just before he reaches the sidewalk.

“Wow. My God,” says Miss Maggie. She holds her stomach for a moment, and T
wonders if she’s about to be sick. Never mind, the lake air will refresh her. Hoàn Ki
m is at its most beautiful in the morning, and its most romantic, when young men sit with their girlfriends under the banyan trees while T
envies them and the mist slowly dissipates into a chalky sky.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, looking at the surface of the lake.

It strikes T
as very sad that Miss Maggie is only realizing this after a whole year in Hanoi. For all the changes that are happening in the city, the lake remains constant and still.