The Frangipani Hotel: Fiction Read online

  “What’s this, Hung?”

  “Put a little in every room—it’s our new, monogrammed hotel stationery! I got it done cheap by a friend on Hàng Ma. Now, for the boys, something special …” He reached into the bag again, and as our eyes widened in horror, he slowly drew out two pairs of matching, mustard-colored trousers and jackets with unraveling gold epaulets and tossed them to Thang and Loi. “New uniforms! There, aren’t they smart?” Thang stared at the yellow atrocity, looking as if he might cry.

  “Snazzy!” I whispered to him. “Imagine what a lady-killer you’ll be in that!”

  But Mr. Henry rounded on me next. “Phi, you’ve got English and a bit of French under your belt, right? Well, there should still be some room left up there,” he said as he tapped my forehead with a chubby index finger. He dropped a heavy book in my lap. “You’re learning Japanese now.”

  I looked down at the book’s cover. Little cartoon children with purple hair smiled up at me. No way.

  “Don’t you think there’s an easier way to do this?” I pleaded. “Maybe repainting the building a color that isn’t pink?”

  Mr. Henry pretended he hadn’t heard me and added, “One more thing—I’m cutting down on your cigarette breaks. It’s a filthy habit, and a customer could come in while you’re not there. You’re down to four a day now.”

  I’m still feeling sore about this—I’ve always taken as many cigarette breaks as I pleased, which is probably giving me a mélange of cancers, but it gets me away from the reception desk. During the day I’ll just smoke on the corner curb with Thang, but at night I always go around the block to Hoan Kiem Lake. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than leaning against the splintering red bridge that spans it, flicking my cigarette butts into the filthy green water, and staring at people.

  Tourists swarm the place even in low season, dutifully snapping photograph after photograph of the ancient tower in the middle of the lake, and giggling Vietnamese teenagers take pictures of themselves on their cellphones. Around the perimeter, couples wander, holding hands, and groups of old women do tai chi to a cassette player warbling bamboo flute music. It’s the most crowded spot in the city, but it’s where I go to be alone. The water is smeary with the reflections of yellow, green, and blue lanterns hanging from the trees at its edge. Sometimes kids will sit on the lower branches and try to fish, but everyone knows that there’s nothing to catch in Hoan Kiem but empty Coca-Cola cans and used heroin needles. Legend says that centuries ago, a giant turtle lived at the bottom of the lake, and it once gave a magic sword to a general to help him defeat the Chinese invaders. I’m supposed to tell the story to all the tourists who stay at the Frangi.

  They say that the lake is the soul of this city. I think they might be right.

  MONDAY MORNING —I WAKE UP at six as always. I lie in my bed in room 703 for a few minutes and listen to the noise leaking in from the street: the usual motorbike horns, squawks from today’s unlucky batch of chickens on their way to market, the propaganda truck making its daily rounds, blasting messages about uniting for the Fatherland. Sunlight is invading the room and I know that the day will be a hot one. It’s time for me to get up.

  Having been spared the new uniform, I put on the black trousers and blue oxford that I wear every day. I grab my shoes from the hall and head down the stairs, rapping on Loi’s and Thang’s doors along the way to wake them up.

  In the lobby, something feels different but I can’t put my finger on what it is. I go about my morning chores—unlocking the front doors, starting the coffee, dusting the family altar, rearranging the room keys hanging behind my desk. The only guests here now are a pair of elderly Swiss tourists, a Vietnamese family from the South on holiday, a handful of Canadian backpackers, and a honeymooning Malaysian couple. No one new is scheduled to arrive for another week. Tourism is slow this time of year, and the hotel is quiet.

  Quiet. That’s it. It’s too quiet. The trickling-piss sound of the tacky lobby fountain provides the background to daily life at the Frangi, and this morning it’s silent. The fountain is bone dry. I go over and examine it more closely: no, not quite dry—some moisture clings to the insides and ledges of the basins, and there are patches of water on the floor around it that I hadn’t noticed earlier. The fountain is a piece of junk that never works properly, but this is odd even by its standards. Just then Loi comes plodding down the stairs yawning, and I go back to my desk and make a note to call the plumber.

  Something else is different, too, but I don’t see it until the end of the day when I’m heading upstairs to go to bed: The dust on the glass covering the photograph of my father has been clumsily smeared away in streaks, as if by a large, wet hand.

  MR. HENRY’S NEW STATIONERY must be working, because on Wednesday morning an enormous American man arrives unexpectedly, looking for a room. He is rolling a dark green suitcase behind him and carries a black jacket over his arm that is ridiculous in this heat. He says he’s in Vietnam for a few days on business and I half-listen as he starts to tell me about his company. His white shirt is translucent in big patches from his sweat. After I check his passport, tell him our rates for day trips to Ha Long Bay, and hand him his key to 502, he lingers by my desk. I see him squinting at the name tag pinned to my chest.

  “Fie?” he eventually tries.

  “It’s actually pronounced: ‘Fee.’ ” Like what you will be forced to pay me when you finally leave, I am tempted to add. Instead, I say, “If you need anything at all during your stay, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Will do, buddy,” he says with a grin, and lets Thang take his suitcase and lead the way up the stairs to the fifth floor.

  An hour later, a glossy black car pulls up in front of the curb, completely blocking the street. All the neighbors pretend to have something to do outside so they can stare at it. The massage parlor girls from next door look particularly interested. Ten minutes pass and the American descends the stairs wearing a new white shirt, gives me a hundred-watt smile on his way out, and slips into the back of the car, which glides off toward the main street.

  I watch through the glass doors as the spectators gradually return to their shops and houses, and then it’s time for me to face the ledgers. Wednesday means bookkeeping. It’s something I’m good at; I’d rather deal with numbers than people. But today, the longer I look at the figures, the less sense they make. My head aches. The numbers are swimming. I let my head fall and hit the desk a little harder than I anticipated. I raise it again: Mr. Henry is nowhere to be seen, and Thang, resplendent in his urine-colored uniform, is admiring his reflection in the doors while he washes them.

  “Take over reception for a little bit,” I say to him, and sneak into the first-floor room for a quick nap. The air-conditioning is broken again, but I fall asleep and a minute later I’m dreaming. Dreaming about soup. My Ba Noi and I are sitting on the red plastic stools at the phở stall down the street with big steaming bowls of the stuff on the table between us. I stir the soup with my chopsticks and she blows on hers to cool it off. But she blows too hard and bits of broth splash my face. The droplets should be scalding, but they are cool instead.

  “Hey. Stop that,” I say. But she just laughs and blows on her bowl again so that the phở splashes me more. Stop that! Splash. Stop that! Splash. I mean it! Splash.

  I OPEN MY EYES and look up at the ceiling. A dark, wet patch is blossoming above my head, and fat drops of water are falling rhythmically on my face. My head is still cloudy from sleep, and for several long seconds I stare up from the bed and blink. Then the switch in my brain flicks on and I leap out of bed as if electrocuted. Fuck. A leak. I jam my feet into my shoes and sprint out of the room.

  “Who’s staying in two-oh-five?” I call over to Thang. He shrugs. Useless. I sprint to the second floor, my untied shoelaces slapping each step. When I reach the door of room 205 I knock once, politely, then again, more urgently. No one answers. I pound harder. Still nothing. I press my ear against the door and hear the sound
of running water from inside. I take a deep breath and push the door open.

  I exhale. The bedroom is empty. But a puddle is spreading silently from underneath the bathroom door. Did the toilet break down? Will there be shit all over the place? Could they have drowned? On purpose? A few years after my father did himself in we had another man try to kill himself on the fourth floor, but he ended up fine and it didn’t make nearly as much of a mess as this. Oh God, what if they’re naked in there?

  But when I open the door, the woman I find lying in the overflowing bathtub is fully clothed. She even has her shoes on—delicate black sandals with pointed heels. She is wearing a black ao dai embroidered with silver, her eyes are closed, and she rests her head above the water in the crook of her elbow. I’m certain that I’ve never seen her before. She is young—her skin is pale and smooth, save for a little vertical line between her arched brows—and achingly lovely. You don’t get girls like this in Hanoi anymore. She remains perfectly still while the flaps of her dress move like seaweed in the tub. I lean in, gaping, dumbstruck, wondering whether she’s alive or dead when she unexpectedly pokes a little pink tongue out and laps at the surface of the water.

  I recoil and emit a croaking noise that I hadn’t known I was capable of making. It’s strange how this small movement startles me more than finding her in the tub in the first place. The girl’s eyes snap open, and they are a liquid black.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, raising her head half an inch. “I was so very thirsty, and I was too tired to reach the faucet. After I turned the water on I couldn’t seem to lift my arms again. Do you think you could carry me?” She rests her head back on the edge of the streaming tub and closes her eyes.

  I just stand there, my still-untied shoes filling with water. She opens her left eye. “Please?” she adds, then closes it again.

  I roll up my shirtsleeves—I’m not sure why; I end up soaked anyway—and fish her out awkwardly, placing my arms around her back and under her knees. The water gives me goose bumps. Even sopping wet she barely weighs anything. From the size of the puddle she must have been in the tub for almost an hour, yet I notice that she isn’t shivering and her fingers and toes remain unwrinkled. I carry her out into the main room and plop her down on the bed because there’s nowhere else to put her, and then I slosh back in and turn off the faucet. The bathroom has become a lake that rivals Hoan Kiem; I wouldn’t be surprised to look down and find the giant turtle swimming around my ankles. I’m dead, really dead. Mr. Henry is going to flay me, tan my hide, and then mount it in the lobby as a wall decoration.

  I sprint out to the cleaning closet at the end of the hall and get a mop and bucket. When I return to the room, the girl has propped herself up slightly on one elbow and pulled the curtain aside to look out the window.

  “Where is the tree?” she asks without turning to look at me.

  “What?”

  She swivels her head to look at me over her shoulder. “You know. The tree. The name. Frangipani.” She rolls the English word around on her tongue before returning to Vietnamese. “Cây hoa sú,” she says and sighs. “You could have reached out and plucked the flowers from this very room.”

  There are a number of things I want to ask this girl, but all I say, stupidly, is “There is no tree.” The line between her eyebrows deepens.

  “Oh?” she eventually says after a long moment, then falls silent again and turns back toward the window. When it becomes clear that she has nothing left to say to me, I begin mopping furiously.

  “There may be a surcharge,” I call out from the bathroom after a while. “For the damages.”

  “Damages?” There is a note of amusement in her voice. “Of course. Everything will be repaid.” It’s a strange way to phrase things, but it reassures me. When I have more or less finished cleaning up, I return to the main room. She hasn’t moved from her spot on the bed by the window. How do you address a beautiful, potentially unbalanced hotel guest who has flooded your bathroom?

  “Miss?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Miss, I couldn’t help noticing that, well, you don’t appear to have any luggage with you—no toiletries or bags or anything. Now, I’m not sure how long you’ve been here, or how long you’ll be staying, because I can’t remember checking you in, but—”

  “It was your uncle who let me in,” she interrupts.

  Odd that he didn’t mention it—we rarely get female Vietnamese guests traveling by themselves.

  “Mr. Henry checked you in?”

  “What a strange name. Is your name strange, too?”

  “Phi. My name is Phi.”

  “Phi. Would you do me a favor, Phi, and not mention my accident to anybody? I’m rather embarrassed by it. No one saw, and no one really needs to know, do they?”

  I stammer out some sort of agreement and she turns and beams at me. Her eyes as they look at me are so dark they appear pupil-less.

  “That is so good of you. So very good. But I’m afraid I’m feeling thirsty again. Would you do me another favor and bring me a glass of water from the bathroom?” She slowly lies back in the bed and lets her long black hair fan around her.

  “Of course. But let me get you bottled water from downstairs—you shouldn’t drink the tap water here; it’ll probably kill you.”

  “Are you sure it won’t make me live forever?”

  I can’t tell if she’s making a joke or not, so I smile uncomfortably and shuffle out of the room. I decide to hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob outside; I don’t want Auntie Linh or Auntie Mai coming in to clean later and seeing the aftermath of the flood. I also don’t want them talking to the girl I found in the tub. The idea of it bothers me for some reason.

  When I return to the lobby, I discover that Thang has foisted reception duty on Loi, who is in a panic, trying to give directions in his pidgin English to the elderly Swiss couple from the third floor. As I swoop in to sort things out, my head finally feels clear again. Whatever happened in room 205 seems like a dream.

  I pour out a glass of water from the clean jug on the desk, but I don’t bring it upstairs. I avoid looking at it for the rest of the day.

  The hours pass productively: I get my bookkeeping done, I make small talk with guests on their way in or out and snark about them once they leave, I take my four smoke breaks. The American returns from whatever important business he was on and gives me an overeager, toothy smile. I even decide to crack open my Beginner’s Japanese Textbook. Banzai!

  But I don’t touch the glass of water.

  On my way to bed, I pause in the stairwell by the second floor. There are footsteps from the hall and I back up against the banister, my heartbeat quickening—I will tell her I’m sorry, I will tell her I didn’t mean to forget the water.

  But it is Mr. Henry who rounds the corner, not the girl in the bath, and he looks at me quizzically when he finds me lurking on the stairs.

  “What are you doing?”

  A good question. I’m not really sure myself. The words that come out of me next feel clumsy on my lips, as if they’re not mine: “Uncle, I have a question. Was there ever a tree out front?”

  “A tree?” He is taken aback. “Yes, there was a tree, a big cây hoa sứ. White and yellow flowers that shed everywhere. Your father and I had to sweep them up every morning. But that was long before you were born, maybe forty years ago. It was cut down during the war. Now, since you’re still up, go and finish the rounds for me and make sure the kitchen and the door to the roof are locked.”

  IN THE MIDDLE of the night there is a thunderstorm, one of those sudden, violent, lashing storms you get this time of year that come out of nowhere, drench the world, then end as quickly as they started. Lightning silhouettes the crooked Hanoi rooftops and I drift in and out of sleep while the rain throws itself against my window.

  But Thursday is so sunny you wouldn’t believe a storm even happened were it not for the nasty humidity. It creeps into the hotel from outside, making my collar go li
mp. Today I’m trying my hardest to be perky. Mr. Henry has been giving me odd looks since our conversation on the stairs last night, and I just want things to be normal again. I try whistling as I go about the morning tasks, and even smile at the American when he passes through the lobby on his way to the big black car waiting on the street again.

  But everything feels unpleasantly moist, and my headache is back with a vengeance by the afternoon. Thang and I each take a cigarette and go outside. We squat down on the curb and immediately start sweating. It’s so hot that the smoke I’m inhaling feels cooler than the air.

  Thang is always excessively careful about how he extinguishes his cigarettes, painstakingly grinding them into the sidewalk or even looking for a puddle in the street to actually douse them. Loi, on the other hand, flings his cigarette butts to the ground with violent, spastic movements. Once he accidentally threw one backward and it hit me in the face, an inch below my right eye. Now I only take smoke breaks with Thang.

  My cousin takes a drag, then exhales and speaks out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I forgot to tell you—the room’s free,” he says.

  “What?”

  “The room you were asking me about yesterday when you went crazy and ran up the stairs—two-oh-five. I checked the book and it’s free. No one’s staying in it now.”

  It is at that moment that the first potted plant falls from above and smashes on the sidewalk at my feet. A second one follows shortly afterward and lands to my left in an explosion of terra-cotta, clods of dirt, and the remains of a hibiscus. I immediately recognize the blue-glaze phoenix design on the shards of the first pot—it’s from my mother’s rooftop garden.