He’d been taking money from that one woman for more than ten years to find a boy named Quy. He inherited this mark from the monk he deposed and destroyed with the best dose of opium since the Buddha made heaven. Every four or five letters he would give her hope and relate how he had seen her boy and the boy was now a holy man, and then he would plunge her into despair, saying no, it might not be him after all. Then he would ask her to send as much money as she had so he could go to the sacred temple in the interior, where he was convinced the holy boy had gone. Then he would berate her about how little she loved her son that she would send such a pittance. This was the monk’s most intense relationship, I could tell, until the factory girl came along. I came to believe that he was Quy himself; otherwise, why would he keep up so many letters with this one mother when with all the rest he robbed them and moved on? But then again the subject of all this could just as well have been me, for one of the names I go by is Quy and I was lost one night in a bay, or so I’ve told myself.
The new boss never showed any particular interest in me. How would I know that he saw in me one hundred years of meditation, that I had lived several other lives?
Innocence is important for a hero. I’m not innocent; neither was the monk. Innocence makes a story more appealing to some. It’s dangerous where I’m concerned. How many times did I have to repeat my own story to some stupid new humanitarian. My words passing like through a sieve. No amount of relating would help. It was always new to them. It got so that to amuse myself, since I was so bored with it, I made minor changes to the tale, or in the end I fantasized wildly. Either way, I was a liar or I was mad. Either way, my listeners went away as if they’d heard nothing. So much for innocence as arbiter of any situation. I never tried to find myself or who I belonged to. The thought made me weak. It paralysed me. Whenever my mind wandered there, I became a child. This Lon inside me would whimper, “Why don’t they come for me?”
When the monk fell in love, he called this danger on himself. Maybe he was weak. I warned him. He had moments, reclusive, when we would not see him for days. Away on business or just lying on his mat. Perhaps then he longed for the woman in the letters, perhaps then he dreamed of going to her and forgiving her. He stole more from me than I care to say. I don’t blame him; I would have done the same. And I warned him.
As I said, spring. Me and the girls sat on a train to the city for three days, and then we arrived. It wasn’t hard to convince them that I was one of the bosses, that I knew people and they owed me. I fucked them both. I missed my tape of Mallaria and the Stone Crows. Ku Yie playing guitar with Carburetor Dung would have been nice. Well, what can you do on a train for three days? I had to ditch them. They were planning to do the same to me. But they weren’t my only ticket. The laptop was a gold mine.
TWENTY-THREE
BINH WOULD BE just opening his store on Bloor Street. Monday. It was 10 A.M., and that was the time he generally got there.
Tuyen tried working but could not concentrate on the signpost or the little carvings. Then she tried transposing the longings in her book to the wall but was too distracted. She still felt drunk from the weekend. She was not a good drinker. Drinking actually made her face red and swollen. So she’d spent Friday lying on the floor with cold towels on her face. She had pulled down the dried photographs as soon as she came home and put them in a pile on the table. Lying with a cold towel on her face, the photograph of the man burned her retina. Between the ache in her head from the alcohol and this image of Binh’s companion, she fell into something that wasn’t really sleep. She woke up around 1 P.M. and looked at the photos again. The red light on her answering machine blinked. Binh, she’d thought fearfully. She pressed the button, heard his voice begin a word and snapped the button off. Uncharacteristically, she washed the dishes in the sink. Called Carla across the hallway, knowing that she wasn’t there, then went to Carla’s to see if there was anything to eat. The bareness of Carla’s apartment stunned her. She looked around and had the sense of something missing. No photographs. No family. Lucky, she thought, then took it back. Carla had her own shit. Tuyen, at least, didn’t have a brother in jail. She phoned Jackie.
“What’s happening?”
“Nothing. What’s happening with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.” Jackie was curious.
“Okay, then.” Tuyen rang off. The phone rang, she hesitated, thinking it might be Binh, then grabbed it, but it was Jackie.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. Same old.”
“You don’t sound ‘same old.’ ”
“No, I’m cool. Hey, Jacks, what if we did the installation at your store?”
“Oh, sure”—Jackie was hesitant—“but how’re you going to get that thing down the stairs?”
“It’s changed, it’s changed, Jacks. Anyway, Oku will help. I’ll do it in pieces.”
Jackie hesitated again. “Oku … Oh, well, fine. Fuck, come to think of it, that would be great. More people will come to the store and shit. Yeah, all right.”
“Okay, then, check you, right?”
“Yes, later. Hey, when—”
Tuyen hung up before Jackie finished. She thought she might have said something to Jackie about
