He started walking again, quietly but quickly, aiming to get around the village and away from the troops as soon as he could. After a few steps, he realized the sun was coming up over his right shoulder: he was headed north.
Josh changed course, heading back toward the split in the path he’d taken earlier.
2
A bright meteor flew overhead — the tail end of a malfunctioning missile arcing in the direction of the old city. Antiaircraft batteries north and east of the city began to fire. Geysers of yellow smoke shot up a few hundred yards ahead, foaming across the sky. A black streak passed through the top of the cloud, then several more; explosions shook the ground.
Ten minutes before, no one in the city seemed to be awake. Now everyone was up and running into the streets. Mara turned onto an avenue flanked by five- and six-story apartment buildings and found herself surrounded by people, many in their nightclothes, who surged to the middle of the road and stared at the sky above. She had to brake hard to avoid hitting an elderly man dressed in pajama bottoms and holding a broomstick in his hand. He turned and looked at her, brandishing the broom as if it were a halberd.
The next block was just as crowded, with people running back and forth or staring in disbelief at the sky. Antiaircraft tracers sprayed in furious streaks while the ground jumped up and down with fresh explosions. The entire northern horizon was red. Sirens began wailing above the explosions. Here and there a woman or child screamed, but most of the people in the streets were quiet, shocked into silence.
Turning down a side street, Mara found her path blocked by a small delivery van, which itself had been blocked by two other cars. It was nearly impossible to squeeze through the people jamming into the street around the vehicles. Mara had to inch forward with her feet on the ground. People began to take hold of her, clinging to her as if she were some good luck charm. They pulled her left and right, making it harder and harder for her to keep her balance.
“Sister, you must help us,” pleaded an older woman in Vietnamese, curling herself around her arm.
“Yes,” answered Mara, unsure what to say.
They walked together for a minute more, both silent. The woman saw someone and began to pull away, tugging for Mara to come with her.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” said Mara, using English this time.
She unhooked her arm and pushed the motorcycle forward, hitting the horn. The sharp, drawn-out squeal had no effect on the people in front of her; they seemed to drift rather than move, clotting like blood from a minor wound.
The air raid sirens began to shriek louder. Someone on the street yelled at the people to get inside, to find shelter, but everyone remained more or less where they were, locked in the middle of the street. Mara managed to reached the end of the block, where she found the cross street was nearly deserted. After a few more zigzags, she got to Hoang Hoa Tham, one of the major east-west roads in the city. But the police had blocked the road to nonemergency traffic. Head down, trying to look as nondescript as possible, she funneled on the side streets toward Ho Tay Lake with the rest of the traffic, bicycles mostly, their worried riders unsure whether they truly had destinations to go to. Anxiety drove them at a good pace, and Mara was able to move ahead as gaps opened in the flood.
Police and military vehicles were parked in front of the luxury hotels and fancy houses that filled the lakeshore area. Spotlights had been set up on the causeway that divided the larger lake from Truch Bac Lake; they wagged back and forth across the sky, illuminating only a few wispy clouds that seemed to struggle to stay out of their grasp.
So far, Mara hadn’t seen any destruction up close. But cutting south toward the Star Hotel she passed into an area of older houses, several of which were on fire. The tops of three roofs burned almost as one, flames licking up the sides as black smoke curled from under the eaves. The black looked like bunting, underlining the red and yellow dancing above. Since the buildings themselves hadn’t been damaged, Mara guessed that the fires had been set by antiaircraft shells falling to earth. But that wouldn’t matter much to the people whose houses they were. There were no fire trucks nearby, no hoses or even bucket brigades; the residents stood on one side of the street, watching as the flames fed on the dry wood.
The Citadel and the surrounding area were blocked off, heavily though somewhat haphazardly guarded by soldiers. Many of the men were not in full uniform. Mara kept her head down as she rode with the traffic detouring away.
A few blocks from the hotel, the motorcycle began pulling back, as if it had lost its will to continue. The problem was purely physical — Mara had nearly run it out of gas. She tried moving to the side of the street as it stalled out, but there were too many bicycles and people closely together. Seeing a small opening, she pulled right, only to be nearly flattened by a bus that had tried cutting out from several car lengths behind.
Mara coasted to a stop on the sidewalk. She was going to dump the motorbike there, but as she started to slip off she realized it might be her only means of leaving the city. She picked it back up and began walking, looking for a safe place to leave it.
Bicyclists passed on both sides. She was right next to the curb, but that didn’t seem to have an effect on which direction they took. Sometimes they would jump up onto the narrow sidewalk, ducking through and sometimes into the crowd there, then cut back directly in front of her. Several bumped up against her. Mara looked in the face of one of the riders after he poked his elbow into her side. His eyes were dazed, his mouth slack. He wasn’t even worth cursing at.
Two soldiers with automatic rifles were standing in front of the Star Hotel. Several uniformed security people were just inside the lobby door. Unsure whether the soldiers were there for protection or to keep foreigners from leaving, Mara walked her bike past, continuing down the street.
She found the intersection blocked off with sawhorses and a pair of police motorcycles. She turned back around, mixing in with a group of Vietnamese workers, some on bikes, some on foot, and went back in the direction of the hotel.
As she neared it, she decided that the soldiers had probably been posed there in case the locals decided that the foreigners were somehow involved in the bombings. But she didn’t want to take the chance of becoming a prisoner there, not even for the sake of a warm, perfumed bath, so she kept walking.
The crowd took her in the direction of the Hien Lam, the hotel where the Belgian scientist was supposed to have been staying. When she didn’t see any soldiers or policemen outside, Mara decided the Hien Lam would be as good as any other hotel. She wheeled her bike down the alley at the back, where she found a small lean-to about half filled with other motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles. She propped hers against the wall, then went inside.
The sole clerk on duty stood on the steps in front of the hotel door, a small pile of cigarettes on the concrete next to him. He stared at the sky, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. Mara had to wave her hand in front of his face to get his attention.
“I need a room,” she told him.
He shook his head.
“I know you have vacancies.”
“Too early, lady. Come back two p.m.”
Mara reached up and under her dress for some of the cash in her pocket. She did it without thinking — she was after all wearing pants — but it had more of an effect on the clerk than her hundred-dollar bribe. His face flushed, then flushed again as she pressed the bill into his hand.
“No business here.”
“I’m not interested in business,” she told him. “Get me a room.”
He looked at the hundred-dollar bill. It revived him.
