“Lucky,” I whisper. Neither of them looks at me or asks what on earth I am talking about.
Ian opens the door, and incredibly it appears untouched. It is almost empty, and meticulous, as June would have kept it. There are several bottles, unopened, of the local whiskey; a single case each of 333 and Tiger beer; and, on the top shelf, a few gallon jars of snake wine, complete with snakes, coiled inside as if they are sleeping off a big night. A hammock stretches across the back wall, attached to rebar-fashioned hooks on either side. I picture Clive in here on a hot afternoon, fanning himself with the day’s edition of the Saigon Times, a beer on the floor within easy reach of an outstretched arm.
Ian starts palming the walls between the shelves, looking for a secret compartment or a trapdoor. I hold the flashlight for him while Luc sits on the floor, smokes a cigarette, and watches us. “You think you will find some dop?”
Ian laughs. “What ees zees dop?”
“You know,” Luc says. “Dop. Smok. Hashish.”
“Maybe,” Ian says.
After he’s gone over every inch of wall, he borrows my flashlight to inspect the wooden floor planks. He finds a tiny chunk of hash in a crack between two of them, and another one, and another, like a trail of bread crumbs leading out of a forest. We are stunned to find anything at all and wonder how it got, and stayed, here. Luc keeps saying “Incroyable,” as if he is saying a prayer. Ian finds maybe two grams total and divides it up among us.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, and Luc gets up from the floor. They start for the exit, but I hang behind.
“I’ll see you guys later.”
Ian says, “Share what you find?”
“Sure.”
Luc says, “Watch out the gendarmes.”
“The gendarmes got nothing on me,” I say.
My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, so I assemble the few bar stools that are still intact and line them up where they belong. Clear a space around the pool table and find a broom. It is while I am sweeping up the glass that I see a large patch of dried blood on the floor. I figure Clive caught his cheek on the corner of the table somehow in the fray and lay there for a time while it bled, watching his Vietnam life pass before his eyes.
I am taking stock of the pool balls caught in the table’s net pockets, seeing if they are all there in case someone should happen by at three in the morning looking for a game, when the door opens and Luc slides through it. He throws the bolt on the inside and makes his way to me and my broom. “Why you still look? Why you don’t stop looking?” He takes the broom out of my hands and leans it against the wall. “Now,” he says. He sounds exasperated, a little breathless, like maybe he ran here, but that is highly unlikely. Nobody runs in Saigon.
It is not the most eloquent kiss — not what I would expect from a mouth that offers up words like bites of ripe dragonfruit — but it is a kiss. He actually tastes nothing like fruit of any kind but like cigarettes and cognac and, for some inexplicable reason, butterscotch. I don’t know where to put my hands, and after a minute he puts his on the sides of my face and then pulls tenderly away. He has a pipe, and we smoke some hash. It’s strong so it doesn’t take much to get me stoned. We finish clearing space around the pool table and shoot a couple of games in the near darkness. The smack of the balls as we scatter them across the felt and drop them into the pockets is the only sound, except for an occasional lorry or motorcycle or boat motor in the distance. Saigon is sleeping. So rare.
After a few games, Luc looks at his watch. “Time,” he says.
“Time for what?”
He doesn’t answer, but goes to the storeroom to fetch a jug of snake wine. While I lean against the wall and watch, he pours it around the room, over the pool table, the bar stools, and the bar.
“Are we going to burn it down?”
“Oui,” he says, as matter-of-fact as that kiss, and empties the last of the snake wine, and the snake, onto the floor.
“I wonder what kind of snake that is.” Despite how stoned I am, I know how stoned I must sound.
“A dead one,” he says. “Let’s do eet.”
Snake wine is basically grain alcohol wrapped around a serpent, and it goes up like gasoline. Luckily, Luc has made sure that we are all but out the door when he lights it. We take off for the river, and smoke begins to pour from the windows. Flames climb from the inside out and up to the roof. We find a small, uninhabited boat tied up to a bigger boat, and huddle together in the bow, breathing hard, watching Clive’s bar disintegrate. The front of the big boat is carved into the shape of a dragon and we are in its shadow. No one comes to put out the fire. A few sleepy cyclos pedal up and sit, backlit by the flames, in a row at the curb. They look like they are watching a movie.
I am reminded, inexplicably, of the Aussie, who will be coming back any day, and I wonder if I will even tell him I know about the girlfriend and the baby, or just go on until they get here as if nothing has changed, seeking refuge in a room that could be anywhere, in any country, at any time. Or maybe I will do the more rational thing and take up with Luc, and we will burn stuff down. I think about Frank and how careless I was, how I never looked back until now, and still don’t know why I didn’t, or why, now, I have.
I try to remember what Clive looked like, how he moved and the way he spoke. Every time he starts to slip away, I bring back that one quick dance, that pirouette, and begin again. I am glad the bar is gone. All those knickknacks.
When the sun comes up, we walk along the quay, stop at a phở stand, and sit down on low plastic stools under a mesh awning. There is a small, dirty-blond dog asleep next to the table. He has many small scars around his muzzle, and his ears and stubby tail twitch away the flies. The soup is good and hot; we top it off with basil leaves and chili sauce, stir it all together. My lips burn as I eat, but I can’t drink the water, so I just let them.
Luc asks if I have ever been to Củ Chi. I say no, not yet. He says how can that be? He says he has a motorcycle. A real one. Russian. Not one of those little 50cc jobs. I nod. When we finish eating, Luc pays the bill and kisses me on both cheeks.
“Saturday?” he says. I do not say anything. I do not say no. He waits a minute and says, “Ten o’clock. Le matin.” He goes. I finish my soup. The dog watches.
I teach two classes at the business school, and after they are over ride my bicycle to the zoo. Two of the street kids I know are selling postcards and “shwing” gum to dumbfounded visitors they have helped cross the wide boulevard, where the onrush of bicycles, motorbikes, and the occasional car or lorry never pauses or breaks for even a second. The kids acknowledge me with almost imperceptible nods, and they don’t try to sell me anything. In one corner of the zoo, I find a large black bear in a very small cage. He is not moving and his paws are covering his eyes.
I go home at four to shower, change, and eat, arrive at the bar at six, get a beer from Tho, retire to the window with Phượng. The sun sets as it does here, without prelude, and the sky goes from light to dark as if a switch has been thrown. Phượng leans her back into one corner of the window frame, her fingers laced across her middle and her head turned to gaze outside. Her expression tells me nothing, but I have seen her and Ian in deep conversation, laughing sometimes, sometimes not laughing. They are going to keep the baby, I think. Together. And I am jealous of what they have.