Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

As they left the main thoroughfares, they turned left, then right, then left again. They doubled back and went forward, circled, until it seemed they had gone a very long way but not traveled far at all. Darrow leading her until she was so disoriented that her only compass was his arm in front of her. A new world, or an old world hidden, only half the stores lit by electricity, and then usually no more than a bare lightbulb swinging high on the ceiling, the rest dimly illuminated by kerosene lamps that flickered and made the rooms look alive. Many of the stores barely larger than closets, a mystery to figure out what they put up for sale in their crowded interiors. One sold paper-newspaper, writing paper, butcher paper. Another store sold twine. Still another, only scissors and knives. Food vendors crowded in portable stalls. The smells of spices she could not name blended with the sweet incense burning in the stores, all of it cloying the smell of diesel and sewage and the ever-present river.

They came to the moon-shaped entrance of an alley that was flooded across from the rain. It narrowed to the dark throat of a path.

“The streets are known by the guilds on them-noodle street, sail street, cotton street, coffin street. So if you want a driver to bring you here, say you want to go to the meeting place of silk street and lacquered bowl street.”

“Why would I want to come here?”

“It’s this way,” he said, ignoring her.

Helen looked down at the oily, pitch-black water doubtfully as Darrow stepped into it. It covered his ankles.

“They don’t get around to fixing the dips and the potholes very often.”

“Maybe we should do this another time. Curfew is only an hour away,” she said.

Without warning he scooped her up in his arms and carried her through the puddle. Chinese and Vietnamese crowded the wide mouth of the alley, the women giggling and pointing. Helen heard men barking out comments she couldn’t understand. On the other side of the puddle, Darrow kept holding her.

“Put me down now,” she said. “This is stupid.”

He kept holding her.

“Put me down,” she said. He slowly lowered her but kept her tight against his body. When her feet touched the ground, she was still in the cage of his arms.

“If you don’t stop this, I’m going to leave.”

“How? Now I have a moat holding you back. You’ll ruin your lovely shoes.”

She sighed. “I’ll take off my shoes and carry them as I run through your moat. Believe me.”

“I believe you.”

They entered the alley, the buildings now close together, and the lights within the storefronts dim. The darkness and closeness enveloped them; they walked shoulder to shoulder, Darrow holding her hand, and in the velvety pitch of the alley she did not let go. Not a person passed them, but there was no feeling of solitude in the night. Instead the passageway felt teeming, even crowded; it seemed to her that if she reached out her hand she would touch a body, someone pressing against the wall, holding still and waiting until the two of them passed by. For a moment, the image of the Vietnamese man, Linh, came into her mind, how he stood away from the group and went off by himself. Was he standing somewhere close, watching them now, holding his breath?

They walked in silence and came to a two-story, yellow stucco colonial building that leaned to the left as if it were gossiping with its neighbor. The facade wore faded, long ocher streaks from the rains and humidity, the patina like that of the moldering buildings in Venice. The roof and the entrance portico were tiled in a cobalt blue Chinese ceramic, the corners curved upward into points like the upturned corners of a sly mouth. An unsettling mix of cultures that created a strange beauty. The front door of the building was made of lacquered wood. On it were painted squares depicting the various scenes of Buddha’s enlightenment.

“Beautiful,” Helen said, tracing her hand along the panels.

“A lacquer artist lived here. When he couldn’t pay his rent, the landlord demanded he make something of equal value.”

Helen looked at peacocks perched atop rocks, elephants striding through bamboo, tigers crouched in palms, the great spreading of a bodhi tree, and pools of lotus blossom.

“It should be in a museum.”

“That’s part of what I love here. Everything isn’t locked away behind glass and key, you live with history as part of your life and not just on a field trip. The legend is that he worked on it a year. And when it was done, he ran away and was never heard from again.”

“Why?”

“It was during the war with the French. He couldn’t make a living and marry his girl, so she married a soldier. I don’t know if it’s true or a folktale. But the door is real. A friend of mine lived here. I still keep the place.”

“I thought you had a room at the Continental.”

“That’s the room that Life pays for. My official residence. This is my real life.” Darrow opened the door and waited for her to move inside.

They walked up the shadowy stairs that leaned to the right for a few steps, then to the left, as if nailed together by someone who felt ocean swells under his feet. The wood felt light and hollow like balsa, the middle of the struts bending under the weight of each footfall with a small groan.

“Are you sure these are safe?”

“This is a very old building. They’ve held so far.”

In front of a thin, scuffed door, Darrow pulled out an old-fashioned brass skeleton key and turned the lock. “This key only opens this door and a few thousand others in Cholon.”

Inside, he flipped on a small lamp with a red silk shade with beaded fringe that gently swished against his hand. The room smelled dusty and unused, like the stacks of an old library. He sneezed and walked to the window and opened it. The room was threadbare, furnished with only an old iron bed, an armoire, two wooden chairs, and a table. The only ornate decorations in the room were a large mirror in a scrolling gilt frame and the lamp.

“That’s a very feminine touch,” Helen said, nodding at the red glow of the shade.

“Henry, the guy who rented this place, was involved with a Vietnamese girl. It looks like it’s her taste. I let her take what she wanted, but she left this behind.”

“Where is Henry? Did he go home?”

“He was home. He was American, but he loved Vietnam. The war tore him up. I’ll show you some of his work-he was on his way to becoming a hell of a photographer.”

“Where is he?”

“Died two years ago covering an operation in the delta. Henry was reckless. I refused to go out with him on assignments. But he knew the dangers. That’s one lesson of etiquette you need to learn here-never ask what happened to someone. The answer is usually bad.”

“Not a very lucky apartment for its owners.”

“Not a very lucky country. Henry gave me a key. It’s the one place I could escape when I needed.”

Helen went to the open window and leaned on the sill. She smelled dust and rain, heard people walking down the alley, the tinny sound of Vietnamese pop music from a transistor radio. “Are you escaping now?” she asked.

“Trapped now is more like it.” And then, as if in answer, the room went dark. “Great Electric of Saigon at it again.” Darrow groped his way to the table and lit a candle.

Up and down the dark street, the slow pulse of flames like fireflies appeared.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Darrow stood next to her, reticent, and stared out the window as if he were waiting for something to happen. He did not want to say it was because she had appeared scared shitless to night, woefully inadequate for what she had come to do. Neither did he want to admit he found her beautiful.