The Beauty of Humanity Movement (87 page)

That whole generation of sour-faced old men now very high up in the Party got their training in Russia, men who probably fantasize about being one of the ones whose brain is sent to Moscow after they are dead to be sliced into a thousand pieces and mounted onto Plexiglas sheets revealing many things of great importance to the scientific community.

Russia is the absolute last place in the world T
would like to visit. He might even prefer to see shit on a canvas.

The vodka bar is stuffy and windowless, full of smoke and the clash of foreign languages. They sink into a red velvet sofa, which feels a bit damp. T
checks to make sure there aren’t mushrooms growing between the cushions. Miss Maggie,
Maggie
, orders vodka for both of them, then clinks her glass against his. T
is not used to women who drink, and he wonders what people in the bar must think of their unusual pairing. She is at least ten years older than him, certainly of an age where she should be married.

“So tell me,” she says. “Your friend said you were offended by some of the art you saw.”

T
has a screed in his head about the greed and arrogance of artists like Mindanao and the one who was a dandy peacock who are only making art for money, growing bloated and arrogant in their service of the foreign market, behaving like French plantation owners and getting rich off the backs of the Vietnamese slaves who are doing the
actual
work. And what about people in positions of influence like Miss Maggie? They are no better—encouraging and indulging these artists in their crude misrepresentations of the country and presumably, like all those foreign gallery owners, getting rich in this process themselves. He expects more of someone of Vietnamese heritage, but that is the deceptive lie of her face.

He is too schooled in politeness, however, to offer anything more than, “I am simply uncomfortable with the ways in which Vietnam is being represented in many of these contemporary art galleries.”

“How so?” she asks.

The subject of Mindanao’s pornography is too uncomfortable to raise with a lady, even one of questionable values. “You would think we are all still pulling ploughs by hand and sleeping alongside pigs and oxen,” he says.

“That’s what sells, I’m afraid. A kind of timeless and romantic fantasy of Vietnam. No unpleasantness. No war.”

“But we don’t live like this,” T
stammers. “Where is the truth in it? In the past, there were artists and writers who would risk their lives to depict reality rather than some socialist utopia.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “My father was one of them.”

“Seriously?”

“No joke.”

“Huh,” he says, cocking his head to the side to get a better look at her, a different angle. So who was her father? And if he was such a principled man, shouldn’t she know better than to indulge these contemporary artists in their gross distortions of Vietnamese life? T
s mind floods with questions, but before he has a chance to ask any of them, she slides an envelope full of money—good crisp American dollar bills, from what he can see—across the table.

“For the days you worked,” she says.

T
quickly sweeps the envelope off the table into his lap. It might look like he’s taking some kind of bribe, and you never know who’s watching.

“So,” he says quickly, changing the subject. “Your father was from Hanoi?”

Miss Maggie nods as she stares at the bottom of her empty glass. “He was an artist here in the forties and fifties,” she says.

“Ah, so this is why you have such an interest in Vietnamese art.”

“Yes,” she says.

“Would you like another drink?” T
asks, intrigue now trumping anger. “
Maggie
.”

“I shouldn’t,” she says, then pauses. “Oh, all right, then.” She nods her head at the waitress and points at their empty glasses.

“I understand why you find that work offensive,” she says.

“And you don’t?” he asks, emboldened by the drink. “Would you rather see shit on a canvas?”

“Hah,” she laughs. “You mean Mindanao. I know. I understand what he’s doing, but that doesn’t mean I like it and it doesn’t mean he isn’t an asshole.”

T
bursts out laughing and quickly slaps his palms over his mouth. He has never in his life heard a lady use such a word. Wait until he tells Ph
ng.