Can I buy you a beer before I go? said the journalist to the new interpreter.
But, sir, I have not had any supper! the boy whined.
The journalist started to despise the boy then. He'd showed up uninvited at lunch time; the photographer had yelled: Fuck off! Screw! — but the journalist had said: All right, if you want to come to lunch you can come to lunch, but you have to pay for yourself. . and then the photographer said: Aw, you can't make him pay for his own meal; the kid's probably got no money… — and so they'd taken him out, handing the waiter rubber-banded blocks of hundred-riel notes that smelled like mildew; it was after lunch that the journalist had gotten him to write the love letter, a commission he'd fulfilled in beautiful script, even folding the sheet of paper as delicately as if he'd studied origami, so the journalist had been grateful, but this request to be bought dinner at a rip-off place was too much, especially with Vanna waiting to be taken home; he told the boy he'd buy him a beer and a dance but that was that. He was already on his feet following Vanna out. She never wanted to take his hand in public. She walked the way that many a lady walked with her tray of wares balanced between right shoulder and upturned palm, the conical hat hanging from the crook of the other elbow; those vendeuses walked in an effortless-seeming way because there was only one thing for them to do and so they had to do it; without any tray or cone-hat Vanna walked the same way, specialized and powerless. Now he was behind her on the motorbike, telling the driver: Hotel Asie. . and they were speeding toward that lobby of spies where everyone waited to frown upon his latest activities, and Vanna paid the driver two hundred from the money he'd given her. .
As soon as he'd closed the door of the room behind them he gave her the love letter, and she sat down to read it. (I have one sure rule for you, one of his friends said to him much later, when he told the friend about her. The rule is this: Whatever you think she's thinking, you're going to be wrong.) It took her half an hour to read the letter. He saw her lips moving three times or more over each word. Then he saw that instead of explaining himself to her and making the situation easier, he'd only set her another ordeal. But he had to know. He had to know! He gave her pen and paper and waited, drinking her in like the kids did clutching the grating of the Muslim restaurant, peering in at the video wide-eyed like beggars while the bicycles crossed silently behind them in the empty sunlight and they stretched their necks to see better and nosed the grating and held the grating tighter. . She smiled anxiously. She strained over her writing, sounding out every letter in her whisper-sweet passionless voice. Then she crossed out what she'd written — only a single word — and turned the page. She tried again and again. Finally she had three or four lines for him. It had taken her twenty minutes. The next day he got his government interpreter to translate, and the man laughed and said: But it is all together like nothing, all these words! She does not know how to write! I cannot, I. . uh, she say, uh, that she watch you very carefully the first time, and she is very happy with your letter, her happiness, uh, beyond compare.
The English teacher translated: Thank you when I wrote letter to sent to you I'm please so much. It hasn't find to as.
The English teacher's friend translated: Thank you when I write letter to you I'm very glad. It nothing to say.
She was so slender, like a thin hymen of flesh stretched over bones; he could feel her every rib under his palm. Her long brown nipples did not excite him, but enriched his tenderness. She held his hand all night. In the morning she turned away from him with a sour face; she didn't want him to walk her out. .
That same morning the photographer had said as before: I'd sure like to hop on her. Why don't you send her over here for a minute?
I don't think she'd like that, the journalist said levelly.
When she left, she sounded out the syllables of farewell one by one, and as always it seemed the first time that he had ever heard her speak: — Bai-bai.
He had lain beside her thinking she was already asleep and touched her hand but at once her fingers closed around his very tightly. He began to play with her but she was still. He touched her cunt but she kept her legs closed. So he patted her and rolled over to sleep. Suddenly she was smiling and slapping his butt. Pretty soon he was pointing to his dick and her cunt and she was nodding and he got out the K-Y jelly -
That afternoon the Vietnamese girl came back for one more try; since the photographer was paying no attention to her and the journalist felt sorry for her she started smiling at him and his heart ached because he couldn't help her but by now those feelings were nothing personal. After awhile she got into a cyclo and went away. The English teacher said proudly: I tell her you no want her, because she Vietnamese! Rob you, steal you, Vietnamese no good! I no like!
The English teacher was so happy, knowing he'd done the right thing like a pet cat that brings you a bloody screaming bird in his jaws…
Back to the disco, with the photographer and the English teacher. He had a sinking feeling of what's the use. He always dreaded going there. - So! he said. You have a good day today? — The English teacher looked at him. - Everything good for you today? — Yes, the English teacher said. - They sat in the loud hot darkness, waiting for her to see him and find him. Drunken monsters grinned at them like the green sun-frogfaces in temples that waited to swallow the moon at eclipses; would the moon come out on the left side or the right side? — that would determine the harvest. Maybe something in the way those faces drank blackness would determine whether she'd come or not, but the photographer would say that that was all bullshit, and it was; the photographer was always right. The photographer's girl had come right away with loud cries of delight. For some reason he thought of the rubber-band game that the children played on street corners, shooting elastics from a distance to try to strike other elastics and win them. What did his game mean? Across the table, the photographer and his girl were drinking something canned, probably carbonated water or cream soda; in the disco you always had to order something. The journalist had a Tiger beer; he bought the English teacher who didn't speak English a Tiger beer. .
She came like a ghost, looking at him.
She say she's busy with another guest, the boy said. Do you want her to come to your bedroom, sir?
Oh, I dunno, said the journalist despondently. Let me think about it.
He sat there and the waiter came back and he said: Tiger beer.
He took one sip that he didn't want and said: Tell her it's OK. Tell her she doesn't have to come. Tell her I'll say goodbye.
Eyes bulging, the English teacher repeated this information in a voice of machine-gun command. Or maybe he said something entirely different. That was the beauty of it.
She said something to the English teacher, who said: She is very happy to have meeting you.