The Frangipani Hotel: Fiction Read online

  An awkward silence, punctuated by Mr. Henry’s periodic snoring, ensues. I register the American picking up the pitcher and reaching over the mass of Mr. Henry to refill my glass. More silence. Then he clears his throat and says, out of nowhere, “Your English is really good, did you know that?”

  I snap my eyes up from staring at my unconscious uncle. Of course I know how good my own English is, I think, my lip automatically lifting to sneer. Then I realize what I’m doing and want to laugh. I don’t know why, but Mr. Henry’s story has me rattled, and now I’m grateful to the American for saying something irrelevant, something innocuous. For breaking the spell. My cheeks are warm, so I know that I am approaching drunk, but I’ve still retained my pandering ability and reply, “Do you really think so? I’m flattered. In school it was the only class I liked. But I get so embarrassed about my accent.”

  The American gives me what he probably thinks is a gentle, friendly punch in the shoulder with his gigantic fist. “Aww, Phi, don’t even—your accent is great. Your English is great, really great. In fact …” He breaks off to drain the rest of his glass, wipes his mouth on the back of a huge pink hand, and leans toward me over the table. The alcohol on his breath is overpowering. “In fact, I want to make you a proposition, Phi. I know this is a bit sudden, but don’t think I’m just saying this because I’m drunk—and I am drunk—but that, that’s beside the point, and the point is that I could use a guy like you. I know I’m rushing this—I fly home to the States on Saturday morning—but I’m coming back to Hanoi in six weeks, and then things will start moving fast. We need people like you: sharp, hardworking. People with your language skills. People who know the way this city works. To be advisers and go-betweens, to do PR. I know it’s kind of unusual, to be doing things this way, but I think it’s a sign that I met you by chance. You’re young, you’re clever, you can do whatever you want to!”

  I don’t have the energy to be surprised by anything anymore. Even the American’s spontaneous job offering. “That’s very nice of you,” I say flatly.

  “I’m not saying it to be nice, I’m saying it because it’s true. Do you want to end up like him?” He inclines his head toward Mr. Henry, who has a dribble of spit hanging from the corner of his mouth. That’s when I start to have dangerous thoughts. I could do it, I think. I could leave. What’s keeping me here?

  Slowly, I hold out my hand to him across the table. He reaches out his own and shakes mine, and when I pull away there is a business card pressed against my palm.

  “You hold on to that. Phi, you’ve got my word, I’ll be back in six weeks’ time, and then we’re gonna be running half of this city.”

  He pours us both refills and we clink our glasses and drink. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then strangely shy. Then he says, “There’s one thing in the meantime that I could use your help with.” Ah. I’ve been waiting for the catch. “The thing that he—is he your dad?”

  I shake my head. “No. Uncle.”

  “The thing that your uncle was talking about before—the beautiful girls of your country. I thought it would be a shame to pass up the chance, since I’m here, in”—he pauses and runs his fingers through his hair—“in Asia. Just for one night. I’ve been on the road so much lately, and it can get lonely—”

  “I think I know what you mean,” I break in, so I don’t have to hear any more. “I can give you the name of a place in Ba Đình—”

  “Wait, hear me out. I don’t mean … I don’t want a whore. I’m not looking to sleep with anybody …” The American is offended now. “I just want to take a young, beautiful girl out to dinner, out dancing. I want to put my hand around her waist, to talk to her, to laugh with her. Nothing more. Is that so wrong of me?”

  I shrug.

  “Look,” he says, smiling again, “to show you that my intentions are nothing less than honorable, I’m gonna take you with me.” He laughs. “You can be my chaperone. How about tomorrow night? You arrange everything with the girl, and let her know I mean well, that I’m not a creep or anything. We’ll all go to dinner at eight. Sound good?”

  I’ve already made too many strange deals today, and I hesitate before this one.

  “Okay,” I say eventually.

  “Great!” He stands up and points at Mr. Henry. “Now let’s get this big boy home.”

  I stand, too, and am alarmed by the way the world wobbles when I do. The American drops an enormous pile of bills on the table without counting them, and we hoist my uncle between us and stagger off down the alleyway. It’s mostly the American who’s supporting Mr. Henry’s weight—I’m struggling enough trying to keep myself upright. Thankfully, the streets are practically deserted by now, and the only person who witnesses our walk home is an old man burning a paper spirit-offering in the gutter.

  THE AMERICAN AND I deposit Mr. Henry in the first-floor bedroom. On our way up the stairs I turn to him and say, “It feels funny, working together like this, but I guess I should start getting used to it, huh?”

  “What?” he says. I realize that I have been speaking in Vietnamese.

  I tell him good night in English and leave him at the second-floor landing, saying that I have something to take care of. Without knocking, I throw open the door to room 205. The girl hasn’t moved from the bed, but the flower vase is now lying empty on its side. I’m a little disappointed—I had been hoping to burst in on her doing something, I don’t know what. Maybe hanging upside down from the ceiling. She wrinkles her nose at me.

  “You’ve been drinking, Phi.”

  “It was the American’s fault! He’s going to be my new boss. And he wants me to get him a call girl, to not-sleep with her tomorrow night.”

  “You’re drunk, Phi.”

  “Probably—I’m seeing two of you right now.”

  She laughs. “Oh, there’s only one me; you should be thankful for that.”

  “Your vase is dry. Let me fill it.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but I’m not thirsty anymore. A little hungry, but not thirsty.”

  “I’ll get you something to eat then.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Not yet, anyway. Now it’s time for you to rest. I’ll be fine for the time being. Sleep well, Phi.”

  Feeling rejected, I fumble out the door and feel my way down the hall and up the stairs, pausing by various rooms. I know that 312 has nightmares, I know about the stains that were on 404’s sheets this morning. I know things about them that would make them blush, but most of them probably don’t know my name. I fall into bed without taking my shoes off. Everything is tilting in a way it shouldn’t. It feels a little bit like I’m underwater.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mr. Henry is too hungover to care about the broken plants anymore. He stumbles into the lobby complaining about his aching head, and if he remembers the things he said last night, he does not acknowledge it. My own head, however, feels surprisingly clear. I sit behind my desk and wait for the American to come down the stairs, steeling myself for the inevitable moment to come when he will apologize and tell me that he didn’t know what he was doing last night and didn’t mean any of it.

  A little after nine, the black car pulls up outside, and the American, his hair slicked back and his face pinkish, emerges. As he passes me on the way out, he says, “Hey there, partner. Eight still all right?” with a wink.

  I nod, my pulse racing like a flustered schoolgirl’s. After he drives away, I pick up the phone and make a call to the massage parlor next door. Thang comes swaggering down the stairs just as I am hanging up the receiver.

  “Who was that?” he asks, squeezing in next to me on the chair. He kicks his feet up on top of the desk and steals my mug of coffee from me.

  “Just business. I need you to cover reception for me tonight.”

  “Can’t. Got a date. Make Loi do it.” He takes a sip of coffee. “This is too sweet.”

  “I put condensed milk in mine. If you don’t like it, get your own.”

  “It’s fine.”

&nb
sp; We sit together in the chair without speaking. He drinks my coffee and I stare out across the lobby at the wall where the photograph of our fathers hangs. I want to tell him I’m leaving, but when I open my mouth I say, “Who do you think was holding the camera?”

  BY 7:45 P.M. I am waiting nervously in the lobby. Loi, the little shit, agreed to take over reception tonight, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Neither is Châu—or “Candy,” as she’s professionally known—from next door, who told me that she specializes in showing Western men a good time while getting them to empty their wallets. I pace around the still-dry fountain; I haven’t gotten around to calling the plumber yet. Why does my head hurt now when it felt fine this morning?

  At 7:58 the American’s black car purrs to a stop in front of the Frangi and he sidles out wearing a crisp black suit. I can tell that my wrinkled blue oxford is a little damp under the armpits and smells like stale beer. I open the door for him, stammering out an excuse for running behind schedule, but he is looking past me, at something over my shoulder. The American gives a low whistle. “You sure know how to pick ’em, Phi.”

  I turn around. She is standing at the foot of the stairs, her hand resting lightly on the banister. The edges of her black and silver ao dai undulate gently, as if there were a breeze in the lobby, and her hair falls over her shoulders, so dark it almost looks blue.

  “Oh no,” I say. “This isn’t—”

  Her high, clear voice cuts me off: “Hello,” she says in halting English. “I will be escorting you this evening.”

  The American shoulders past me and walks over to her with his hand outstretched. “A real pleasure to meet you,” he says. When he reaches her, she looks down at his hand with an amused expression but does not shake it. The American recovers, sweeping his arm out and making a funny bow. “What is your name?” he asks her.

  With a sudden jolt I realize that it hasn’t once occurred to me to ask her this myself. She appears to be giving the matter some consideration. After a pause, she says, “You may call me Tien.”

  “Well, Miss Tien,” the American says, butchering the pronunciation, “shall we?” He starts to offer her his arm, then thinks better of it and makes a flourish in the direction of the door instead. She smiles and walks across the lobby—I’ve never seen her walk before, and oh, can she walk, swaying slightly, her little heels making no sound on the tile, as if she’s drifting above it. Without giving me so much as a glance, she sashays out the door to where the shiny black car is waiting, the American close behind.

  For a moment I stand there, stunned, until I hear Loi’s clomping footsteps on the stairs. “If Candy from the massage parlor ever shows up, she’s all yours!” I call to him, and nip out the door in time to hear the American saying:

  “I hope you’re hungry!”

  And her reply: “You can’t even imagine.”

  The driver is waiting for me with the door open. I duck inside the automobile, running my fingertips over the buttery leather of the seats and inhaling its scent deeply. Then the door closes with a soft click, and we pull away into the sea of motorbike headlights drowning the streets of the city.

  TONIGHT, THE AMERICAN HAS abandoned his pursuit of the Real Vietnamese Experience and is clearly trying to impress “Tien” instead. His car delivers us to a restaurant behind the opera house that has no name, just a gold sign above the glass door with the engraved image of a lotus. We enter the foyer and—as I obviously don’t belong and will never set foot in the place again—I gawk at the surroundings without shame. Giant orchids line the walls and dangle from wires, while live orange-and-blue butterflies float around the room or rest on the flowers. I look down: Marble tiles gleam beneath the unevenly worn-down heels of my cheap shoes. The dining area is through another glass door, and it is dominated by a cascade of water at the center of the room, which falls from some unseen source in the ceiling into a circular pool in the ground. I hope that Tien isn’t in one of her thirsty moods.

  The waiter who seats us looks familiar—I’m pretty sure his mother runs a beauty salon on Hàng Quạt. He may be wearing a suit that costs more than the Frangi’s yearly electrical bill, but he’s still a plebe like me underneath it. Our boy suavely pulls out Tien’s chair for her, simpers at the American, and gives me a very special sneer. There is no menu. The American asks for a certain kind of wine, our boy nods, fetches it, pops it, and pours, and then the food just begins arriving—food I’ve never even dreamed of: a cool, creamy soup, pink slivers of tuna that melt on the tongue, a duck on a bed of dainty greens, oysters still trembling in their shells, a faintly musty cheese … the plates keep on coming.

  I glance around the room at the other diners and am not surprised to see that it’s mostly middle-aged Western businessmen and ambassador-types with younger Vietnamese women. I am the only Viet guy here, apart from the waiters, and the only male in the room without a necktie on. The men are all in black or gray suits and swigging wine liberally. Some of the women are in ao dai, and some wear slinky Western dresses. Their eyebrows are all identically arched, and they pick at their foie gras with their forks in the exact same way. They are nothing compared to Tien.

  Tonight she is radiant and she knows it. Tonight she is a thing of jewels and precious metals: gold skin, onyx hair, silvery dress, and eyes like diamonds—shining and hard and cold. I haven’t said a word to her all evening because she has been too busy charming the American to let me get anything in edgewise. Tien doesn’t even touch her food; she chirps nonstop in the English I didn’t know she could speak, spinning endless stories about the history of the city or telling the American to drink more wine. I’m not touching alcohol tonight—not after yesterday. The American is half-drunk already, and laughing at everything Tien says, his gaze never leaving her face. While she chatters and he laughs, I devour my food as if there’s no tomorrow. I am perfectly aware that I am wolfing down my meal in a way that is most unbecoming for such an establishment and don’t need our boy’s continued stare of disapproval to tell me. When I ask him for chopsticks so I can eat even faster, he just glares at me.

  Maybe an hour later, I am polishing off the last course—a tart with candied fruit that oozes chocolate—and the American is utterly smitten. While I scrape the plate with my fork, he motions the waiter over and wordlessly hands him a credit card. It’s disappointing; I had been hoping to hear the astronomical price of the dinner. Tien dabs at her mouth delicately with a napkin, which seems silly because she hasn’t lifted her fork to her mouth all night.

  As we pass through the foyer again on the way out, I wonder briefly if the butterflies ever accidentally escape, and whose job it is to chase after them when they do.

  OUTSIDE, THE AMERICAN GOES to wave over his car from the corner where it has been waiting, but then Tien surprises both of us by suddenly placing her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Actually,” she says sweetly, “I was hoping that we might take a little walk. It’s a cool night, and the only way to really know my city is by foot.”

  The American grins. “What a coincidence! I’ve always thought the same thing!” he says. He motions for the car to stay put, and Tien lets him place his huge arm around her waist. She looks so fragile next to him. I trail behind them as she starts to lead us in the direction of Hoan Kiem Lake.

  It’s Friday night and the streets are so crowded that the people—revving their motorbikes, stumbling out of bars in one another’s arms, buying and selling things that no one needs—just become noise. There are so many people that I don’t even see them anymore. The streets are so crowded that they are empty. No one notices the girl wearing a black and silver dress and a secret smile, the man with stars in his eyes who follows her, or the boy in a dirty shirt behind them both.

  We are standing at the southern edge of the lake in the shadow of the willow trees. I look out across the water with its rainbow sheen of oil and feel the light and sound pulsing at its shores.

  “It’s beautiful,” says the American, who has forgott
en that I am here.

  “It is my home,” says Tien.

  I say nothing.

  “You’re beautiful,” says the American.

  “Is that so?” says Tien.

  I still say nothing, but a vague sense of uneasiness is creeping in the back of my mind.

  The American, his face so earnest it hurts, turns to her. “Of course you’re beautiful!” he exclaims. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. When I’m with you, I feel … I feel … I can’t even describe how I feel. But I would do anything for you.”

  A slow smile begins to blossom on Tien’s face, causing a little spike of fear to run through me. “Do you really mean that?” she says. “Would you really do anything for me?”

  “I would. In a heartbeat.”

  “Do you promise?”

  No. No, No.

  “I promise.”

  Tien’s smile widens. “Let’s test this, then,” she murmurs. “Look across the lake, toward the middle. Do you see the old tower there? On the little island near the center? It’s not very far away, is it? I bet even an old man could swim to it and then back without any trouble.”

  The intrepid American is already taking off his jacket: “Well, Miss Tien, I’m gonna do it for you.” He steps out of his shoes and lines them up so that the toes are facing the lake. People mill about on the shore, but no one sees and no one cares. As he goes to step into the water I make a move toward him, but Tien sinks her fingernails deep into my forearm and the pain is so sharp it stops me from even making a sound. The American wades out five feet before he turns and calls to Tien over his shoulder.

  “Time me,” he says, laughing, before pushing off into the darkness with powerful strokes, the moonlight on his back.

  The girl and I watch him from the shore. Eventually she extricates her nails from my arm.

  “You made me bleed!” I cry.

  She either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to. “It’s a shame,” she says cheerfully. “He would have made it, you know.” Without taking her eyes from the American in the water, she lifts her fingers to her mouth and licks them off one by one.