Robert Butler - The Deep Green Sea

I’m more jumpy than I was before. Then I see her crossing the street, far away, down at Le Loi near the fountain. I see her though there’s a hundred people around her and a hundred people between us. I see Tien and she’s dressed in that white blouse with the big bow and the dark, tight skirt that hides her knees. The way I first saw her.

She comes into the square and for a brief moment she doesn’t see me. I think to walk away. As connected as I am to her by my love — and I am as connected to her as I am to the limbs of my body — I almost turn and walk away fast and find some place to hide and then get the hell out of this country without ever seeing her again and never ask another question of myself about what it was that happened. Go back and get into another truck and follow the black track of the exhaust burn in my lane till I fucking die. But I’m not quite scared enough to do that.

Then she sees me and she starts to hurry, cutting through the threads of Vietnamese strolling in the square, dodging people, and she doesn’t seem to be one of them at all, she’s moving in a different way, quicker, more focused. I think: Like an American.

And she is. Half of her is. That’s already known. Watching her move like this, coming closer, is no reason for the revving to start again. I curse my cowardice. I curse these rushes of fear. I wait for her touch.

But it’s not Saigon anymore, it’s Ho Chi Minh City, and Ho is watching us and his own touch is secret, it seems to be one thing in this public place but is another, I’m certain now. Tien is here and she’s breathing heavily and our hands flap out in front of us, not knowing what to do, and I don’t quite know how it happens but our right hands connect and we shake, like two strangers meeting and introducing themselves, or maybe like tour guide and tourist. We both look down at our shaking hands and Tien laughs, though it is low, sharp, full, I think, of my failure last night.

“Hello,” she says, still looking at our hands.

“Hello.”

“This feels so strange,” she says.

“Uncle Ho is watching,” I say.

She brings her face up, glances over my shoulder. She laughs again, softer now, and then she says in a whisper, “He is easily offended.”

“Good to meet you,” I say, out loud, not letting go of her hand, playing the little game, though it’s the last thing I want to do right now. “I’m Benjamin Cole.”

“I am your guide, Miss Tien,” she says, and she bends near. She whispers again. “Does this mean we can start over?”

I know she’s asking if we really have to go to Nha Trang, if we can’t just take another tour of the city and then meet tonight and resume our love affair. But I can’t find a way to answer.

She says, “Out here. In this public place. Away from my room and all the. . things that are in it. Does it seem the same to you?”

Our hands separate. I say, “I still love you.”

“And I love you. But it is the other thing I ask about. The fear.”

I wait. I wait for some other answer than the one I know I must give. But there is nothing else. “We have to know for sure.”

She nods once. “Then I have reserved a car for us. I wish it was right now. But the soonest I could arrange was in three days’ time.”

“Three days.” It’s dumb repetition. I don’t know how to hold this feeling for three extra days.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “The city is full of Japanese businessmen until the weekend. They have booked many weeks in advance.”

“I understand.”

There are no words for a long moment and then she says, very softly, “Until then, it must only be a handshake for us. Is that not so?”

I look closely at her eyes. Surely if she is my daughter, I’d be able to look in her eyes and see something of myself and know. But there is nothing clear. And the fear won’t go away.

Tien nods as if I’ve answered her. She says, “I will see you on Friday. I will meet you with the car just over there, in front of the Rex Hotel, at eight in the morning. We can get very close to Nha Trang before the night.”

I say, “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” she says. “Not with you. I am angry with my father.”

What races in me now is gratitude for this woman. Her certainty lifts me, smooths the rough spots like I’d expected from the hit on the cigarette. I say, “I want to touch you now more than ever. You understand?”

“I wish not to understand until it can be more than words.”

“I love you, Tien.”

Her eyes fill with tears, but she lifts her chin slightly, keeps them from flowing. She offers her hand. “I will shake your hand for that,” she says.

I smile. She does too. I take her hand as if to shake but our hands do not move. We touch and people pass by, close to us. She releases my hand and goes off, past me.

I do not turn to watch her and suddenly she is near me again, at my side.

She says, “I do not want you to misunderstand for these three clays. When I shake your hand just now, I was full of some strong feeling about you, a good feeling. I did not say in return ‘I love you,’ but I do.”

And she’s gone. I watch her this time as she moves off, past Ho with his hand on the child, and into the crowd. When I lose sight of her, I dig my own restless hands into my pockets and I find the pack of Ruby Queens. I tap out another cigarette and I light it up and I suck in a deep drag and it burns in me but I keep it in and all the empty nights on the road come with it, all the nights pulling smoke in and letting it out, over and over, and I keep the smoke inside me now, like holding my own ghost.

He is on the curb when Mr. Thu and I drive up. He has a small bag beside him and we stop. I can see his forehead wrinkle when he sees Mr. Thu. I get out. We do not shake hands this time.

“You remember Mr. Thu,” I say, even before he can ask. “We will drop him at his house on our way out of town.”

Ben nods. I open the back door for him. Mr. Thu is already out of the car and picking up Ben’s bag and he heads for the trunk. “Please,” I say to Ben, motioning him into the backseat. I feel how formal I am, how distant this all sounds. He does too. He gives me a brief, sad look and he moves and bends, entering the backseat. I do not care if anyone sees or what they think, though I am very discreet, really, turning my body to shield this thing I do, but as he goes by me I move the hand holding the door and touch him on the back of his thigh, just a quick touch and I grasp the door again and close it.

I step away from the car and my heart is racing. I should be more considerate of Ben’s fear. But I will not share it. I am looking for this trip to escape my father, not find my mother. I will not even think of my mother. Somewhere along Highway One, well before Nha Trang, I think things will become clear on their own.

I turn from the car. I look around. The xich lo drivers are in a clump in the midst of their cabs, arguing about something. The doorman at the Rex is looking down the street. No one has seen my counterrevolutionary act. I get into the front passenger seat. As soon as I close my door, I hear the trunk slam shut. I look into the backseat at Ben. I want him to be smiling, happy for my touch. He is not. His eyes are very sad.

I say, “I am sorry.”

“Why?”

“For touching you.”

Mr. Thu is opening the driver door, unaware what we are saying in English.

“Don’t you know what it is I’m afraid of?” Ben says.

“Of course I know.”

The door closes. Mr. Thu is beside me.

Ben leans forward and touches my shoulder, just with the tips of his fingers, and he sits back deep in his seat again, his eyes looking out the side window. I tell Mr. Thu to take us to his house.