|
It's 6 a.m. and the morning sounds of Saigon have already invaded
my apartment. As I enter the kitchen, I smell fish, a tangible
reminder of last night. Maybe some strong coffee will erase the
memory of Trinh's fishball dinner.
Trinh is a 29-year-old bar girl. Until recently, she was the companion of
Allen's friend Joe. The four of us occasionally ate out together until Joe left
two months ago. I didn't see Trinh again until last week, the day after Allen
left for China, when she called me from my apartment lobby to invite me to a
famous "monk" restaurant, where we shared tofu bizarrely disguised as duck and dog.
After dinner, we strolled down Dong Khoi Avenue. I felt like a trophy as we
walked past the bar where Trinh works and wondered if she had planned this route
purposefully.
So, I wasn't too surprised last night when she called and offered to make me some Mekong fishballs. Within minutes, she was in my kitchen directing me to
pour the unrecognizable contents of numerous small plastic sacks into dipping
bowls. I held my breath as she opened a bag of stinky fermented tofu and showed
me how to mix and fry her mother's fishballs.
While we worked, I learned she was the sixth child of a Mekong Delta
farmer. When she was 21-the year she was to marry-a poor sugsugar cane harvest
bankrupted her father. The news spread quickly throughout the village, and her
fiancée's family broke the engagement. After a failed suicide attempt, Trinh
ended up as a Saigon bar girl.
A bar girl's job is to entice men into one of the dark, ground-floor
establishments that come to life during Saigon's long, hot evenings. Once
inside, he is persuaded to buy expensive alcoholic drinks for himself and
expensive non-alcoholic ones for her. If he asks, and she agrees, she can "go
out" with him.
Joe, who was twice her age and married, gave Trinh a temporary reprieve
from this life. Inevitably, he left town. By some standards, he had given her a
generous parting gift: $3,000 to buy a motorcycle and go to school.
Yet I suspect Trinh has been drawn back into the night life. As we sat
down to eat, I asked what she was doing with Joe's money.
"That money for school. But mother father getting old. I help them." Trinh
smacked her lips to get the full flavor of a bite. "You not hungry? This ver'
good for you."
"Uh, I had a late lunch. Want some tea?"
"Okay." Trinh dipped a fishball in some green glop and popped it in her
mouth. She continued.
"Sometimes I angry with mother father sister. Little sister, she shout at
me, say bad things. I not like you, I bad luck woman."
The green tea helped me wash down a fishball. "How much does a bar girl
make in a night?"
"Depend on man. Maybe $50, maybe less."
As we drank tea, Trinh looked at me intently, like a bird about to pull a worm from a hole.
In Trinh's world, I have it all: Money, Credit Cards, and a Good Husband.
Trinh wants a saviour who can give her my sort of life, but at best, the men she
meets are like Joe. Still, she believes one will someday marry her and take her
home.
"Do you really want to go where the language and customs are different,
where you have no family?"
Trinh shrugged. "If right man. Then it not be bad."
The right man. Is this a universal refrain among women, a cross-cultural
chorus that binds us in dependency?
The evening dragged on. Trinh tried to persuade me I need to have a baby.
I assured her that Allen would leave me if I had a baby. All men want babies,
she said. I am too old, I said. You can adopt Vietnamese baby, she said. I said,
no Trinh, we don't want babies, I like to work, we like to travel. Babies aren't
in my future. She desisted, but there was no understanding in her eyes. No sane
woman would choose not to have babies.
Then, Trinh told me her dream. With only $5,000 she could become a fish
sauce merchant. She would buy the sauce at a cheap price in the Delta and sell
it in Saigon. All she needed was starter money.
I said nothing.
Before she left, Trinh pulled a mobile phone from the plastic bag she
always carries. She grinned as she held it up to show me.
"Is that Uyen's phone?" I asked, thinking of the friend's phone number she
had given me last week.
"It mine now," she said. "Uyen get new one, sell this cheap. Now I talk
anywhere." She beamed at this symbol of affluence.
*****
My second cup of coffee is comfortingly bitter. Below my window, women
set up their baskets of fruit and vegetables. Bicyclists stop to check out the
produce and haggle over prices. Soon I will go down and join them, perhaps buy a
freshly peeled pineapple or papaya for breakfast.
I wonder if Trinh is awake. I imagine her trudging down Dong Khoi Street
toward my apartment yesterday afternoon. It was hot, despite the afternoon
thunderstorm, and her shopping bag was heavy with fish and sauces. She knew I
was alone, knew I had a nice electric stovetop. Maybe she hoped I would offer to
support her business venture. Maybe she just didn't want to be alone.
And afterward? Did she trade her body for the pleasure of owning a slice
of mobile phone heaven? Will she wake up one day like the professionals who
stalk the sidewalks around the Caravelle Hotel, with hard eyes and a strip of
red mouth across an otherwise empty face?
Trinh is right, I am lucky.
I take another sip of coffee. It's time to get on with the day.
|
