“So you felt the need to rescue her?” Linda said bitterly. “What a noble reason to betray your fiancée.”

  “It was she who rescued me. The war . . . it was beyond terrible. Most guys I knew were into drugs and prostitutes. We all had to escape reality sometimes, so we could survive. At first, though, I tried to stay loyal to you. I did try . . . very hard. I was in love with you and committed to you, as I’ve always been. But you were far away, and I was young and selfish.”

  “Yes, you were selfish. I bet you destroyed her life, too. How young was she?”

  “Eighteen when we met.”

  “And you got her pregnant? For God’s sake.” Linda gulped down her whiskey. She got a second mini bottle, poured herself some more.

  “Go easy on that stuff, honey—”

  “Now I get it.” Linda gave out a small laugh. “I get why you didn’t send many letters home. And your words, they were so . . . cold. But I thought you were busy with your flight missions, with saving your comrades.” She took a breath. “Were you in love with her?”

  “How could I be if I couldn’t even talk to her properly?” Dan said. “Her English was very basic and my Vietnamese was terrible.” He had cared for Kim and felt tenderness. But he had never once thought about leaving Linda for her. And by the end, if he were honest with himself, he had often treated Kim like shit, taken everything out on her as if she were Việt Nam, the war itself.

  “Did she know about me?”

  “I didn’t tell her, and she didn’t ask.”

  “Great.” Linda plucked some more petals. They scattered down to her feet, red as blood. “So how long were you together with her?”

  “A few months. I was away a lot on missions. The pregnancy . . . I didn’t plan for it. I was careful . . . But there were times I was drunk. And I was high . . .”

  “Here it goes.” Linda lifted her whiskey. “Just blame it on the war.”

  “I’m not. I’m blaming myself,” he said. “I was very irresponsible. When Kim told me she was pregnant, I only thought of myself. My tour was up, I was going home. I cursed her.” He choked. He wanted to confess to Linda what he’d really done to Kim but the truth was too horrific, he couldn’t do it. He took a deep breath. “So I gave her some money, to help with the baby. A few weeks later, I was shipped back home.”

  Linda hugged her shoulders with her hands, as if bracing herself for what was to come.

  “I honestly don’t know what happened to her after that. I didn’t contact her, and she didn’t have my address. Later, a buddy who returned told me that she’d come to the base asking about me. She was very pregnant then.”

  Linda leaned against the table, her palm against her mouth.

  He crushed the soda can he was holding, absorbing the pain as its sharp edges dug into his palms. “I’ve lived with this guilt all these years, Linda. I was young and irresponsible. But the thing is . . . many American men stationed in Saigon had girlfriends. And most turned away from those girls once they became pregnant. It was a crazy time. We were selfish, we were scared.”

  Linda finished her drink. She stepped toward the window, placing her hand against the glass.

  He swallowed. “Linda, I’ve tried to deny it for too many years, but the baby Kim was carrying was mine. My child might be here in this city.”

  Linda turned to him. Tears zigzagged down her cheeks. “How could you have kept this from me?” Her voice trembled with fury. “During the years I was trying to conceive, you pretended as if you knew nothing about pregnancies. You could have killed that poor woman. Young, pregnant, abandoned by you. What else . . . what else did you lie about?”

  Dan lay on the bed, watching Linda sleep. He had been awake the whole night. His headache simmered.

  Linda moaned, turned to her side. He held his breath, not wanting to wake her. He’d watched her like this during the many nights when he’d feared sleep. And just like those days, he was afraid of losing her.

  Linda hadn’t had an easy life: her dad had died in a car accident when she was a toddler, and her mom had to work nonstop to raise her. Her broken childhood and Dan’s had been part of their bond. When they got married, he’d promised her mom he’d take good care of Linda. Once again, he’d failed to keep that promise.

  Linda stirred, opened her eyes, looked at him, and turned away.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  She shifted her body even farther away from his, and got out of bed. She pulled open the curtains, and sunlight streamed into the room.

  “Want some coffee?” Dan said. “I could go downstairs and bring you a cup.” At home, he was the one who made coffee for them both in the morning.

  Ignoring him, she went into the bathroom. He heard the sound of water running in the shower.

  Dan closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing, hoping to get calm, hoping his headache would ease. The bathroom door opened. Kim emerged, wearing a blouse and a skirt, like the day she’d gone to the zoo with him. Tears were streaming down her face.

  Your child here in Sài Gòn, anh Dan, she said. Your child hungry. Your child need you.

  He wanted to ask for the child’s name, whether it was a boy or a girl, but he couldn’t open his mouth. He leaned forward to touch her arm, but he felt nothing.

  The Oriental does not put the same high price on life as does the Westerner, General Westmoreland said in his ear.

  You’re a man of honor, Linda said.

  Dan opened his eyes. There was no one in front of him.

  The bathroom floor was wet, the perfume of soap lingered in the air.

  “Linda,” he called, searching the room again. His breathing eased at the sight of her suitcase. Her phone was on the bedside table, charging.

  Downstairs, the lobby was bustling. A group of Western tourists had just arrived, chatting away next to their pile of luggage.

  Thiên walked briskly to him. “Good morning, Sir.” He gestured toward the sunlit window. “Fantastic weather. Perfect for day tour.”

  “Have you seen my wife?”

  “She’s having breakfast.” Thiên pointed toward the hotel restaurant.

  “Look, whatever the hell you told her last night, it made her very upset.”

  “Sorry.” Thiên scratched his head. “The party last night . . . too much liquor. And Madam, she really wanted to know where we went. I can’t deal with women tears. But I only said your friend Larry is looking for Kim.”

  “Yeah, but she isn’t an idiot.”

  Thiên smiled. “You shouldn’t worry. Wives are like that. Upset one day, okay the next. Wives need to support husbands. We men shouldn’t be afraid of wives.”

  “It’s not your goddamn business to preach how I should treat my wife. Don’t you dare talk to Linda about Kim again.”

  The smile on Thiên’s face vanished.

  The breakfast buffet offered a wide range of hot and cold Vietnamese and Western dishes, but Dan didn’t have much of an appetite. Linda had her sunglasses on and didn’t talk to him. She’d sometimes given him strong doses of the silent treatment for a day or two, but this felt different. He’d fucked up big-time, and they were in a new country, hit by intense emotions and jet lag.

  They finished breakfast quickly and met Thiên outside the hotel. “As on the itinerary, we’ll visit the Jade Emperor Pagoda this morning,” Thiên said. “It’s beautiful, more than one hundred years old. Then we’ll go to Chợ Lớn, which means ‘big market.’ ”

  “How far away is the pagoda?” asked Linda.

  “Twenty minutes by car.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to wander about a little.” Linda looked toward the former Street of Freedom, where shops spilled their wares onto pavements.

  “Sure.”

  Linda started walking ahead. Thiên caught up with her. “Straight ahead are important sights which are a part of our itinerary.”

  As they passed Maxim’s restaurant, Dan paused. Back in the old days, this two-story building had been a bustling bar and nightclub. He peered through the glass door. No one was inside, just fancy-looking tables and chairs. On the door was a restaurant menu, the writing too small for him to read. He’d like to come back at lunch or dinner time to have a look inside, see how much the place had changed.

  Along the street, he searched the faces of female vendors behind newspaper stands or baskets filled with bread, flowers, fruits.

  Shops lined both sides of the road, selling silk, handbags, clothing, lacquer-ware, and souvenirs carved from buffalo horns.

  “Lighter from GI. Best quality. You look,” a middle-aged woman called out to him. She opened a wooden box and a dozen Zippo lighters gleamed under his eyes. He studied the engravings on their metal covers. One read “Vietnam 71-72 Quang Tri” with the word fuck in red ink. Another said:

  We are the unwilling

  Led by the unqualified

  Doing the unnecessary

  For the ungrateful.

  Such sarcastic words, but true. True to the low morale he’d seen among many of his comrades and himself. True to the ignorance of his commanders, who had believed they could bomb the Communists into surrender. True to the role of America in the war; they should have let the Vietnamese sort out their problems themselves. True to the treatment veterans like him had received back home.

  “You buy, Mister?” The woman said. “Cheap price. Only for you.”

  “No, thanks,” he muttered. He didn’t need another reminder of the war.

  Ahead of him, a woman ran out of a shop and tugged at Linda’s arm. “Áo dài for you, Madam? You will look beautiful. Just like model there. You come in. Cheap price for you. Tailor made. Twenty-four hour.”

  Linda shook her head and kept on walking.

  At the traffic light, he followed Thiên and Linda across the street and entered a small alley. The tall, narrow houses blocked out the sun, making him feel caged in. Electric wiring crisscrossed above his head. The skin on the back of his neck stiffened. He glanced around.

  Thiên exchanged words with a white-haired woman who was holding a young boy in her arms while feeding him a golden banana.

  Dan studied the woman. Her many wrinkles told him she was in her seventies. Did she work at the airbase, or at a bar? Could she have known Kim?

  “She’s a friend of my mother,” Thiên told Linda as they left the woman.

  Dan’s mother would be eighty-five this year if she were alive. He had brought the war home and given it to her.

  “Children will make things better,” she’d told him when he said he was marrying Linda. “So, go and have plenty of babies.” He wished he could have given her the joy of having grandchildren.

  What would his mom say if she knew he was looking for his child? For sure she’d tell him it was the right thing to do. Perhaps his sister would talk to him once he’d found his kid.

  At the sound of running footsteps, his heart raced. A group of children were spilling out of a door to his left, chasing each other, laughing. As they disappeared into a house across the street, he wiped sweat from his face. While returning from the war, he’d been on a layover in California when some kid threw a can into a rubbish bin. He dove onto the airport floor and rolled into a corner.

  Still following Thiên and Linda, he left the alley and emerged into the sunlight. The statue of Mother Mary was still there, her peaceful face tilted upward, her hands holding the globe. Behind her, the Sài Gòn Notre-Dame Cathedral stood as if frozen in time. The building still bore the same reddish brick color, its twin towers crowned by white crosses. The same spacious boulevards surrounded the complex. Inside, the air was cool. Linda chose a bench and knelt, her head bent. She must be asking God what to do next. Dan wanted to pray, too; it’d been so long since he believed in any divine help. But as he neared a pew, his eyes caught sight of a woman who sat a few rows ahead. Her hair was black, long, smooth as silk. Like Kim’s hair. Kim used to make her own shampoo with some dried pod fruit she grilled on open flames.

  “I need some air,” he told Thiên, then went outside, down the steps and into the square.

  The noise and heat almost knocked him over. It was mid-morning, but the roads were packed with traffic. Too many people honking their horns. He felt the beginnings of a new headache.

  “You change money, Mister,” a woman waved at him, calling from a roadside café. He shook his head but she hurried toward him. “You have American dollar? Best rate just for you. Twenty thousand đồng one dollar.” A conical hat in her hand fluttered in the breeze. He’d once seen the same type of hat next to a motionless woman. The rotor wash of his helicopter had flipped the hat away, revealing the woman’s face, scorched and twisted. “Didya see that gook?” Hardesty had yelled through the intercom. “Looks like someone zippoed her face.”

  “You change money, Mister?” the woman asked.

  He blinked, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Where’re you from?”

  “Trà Vinh. You know where Trà Vinh, Mister?”

  “I don’t think so . . .” Kim had told him the name of her hometown but there was no way he could remember it. Back in 1969, there’d been plenty of women who offered exchange services, sold drinks, and traded PX goods on the street. Kim could have done the same kind of work after he’d left her. She couldn’t have continued to work as a bar girl while visibly pregnant. He remembered again with sickening regret how cruel he had been to her when she’d told him about the pregnancy.

  He handed the woman a hundred-dollar bill.

  She held the money against sunlight. “Your money no fake?”

  “I brought it all the way from America, lady.”

  “America also fake.” The woman grinned, running her fingers along both sides of the bill. She studied it once more. “I have to feed children. I careful.” She opened her shoulder bag and handed him four big wads. “Two million đồng.”

  From the 50,000-VND bills, Hồ Chí Minh beamed at him. Dan stuffed the money into his pockets.

  “You no count?” The woman giggled. “I can cheat you.”

  “I have no doubt.” He smiled. It wouldn’t be bad if a Vietnamese woman cheated him, he deserved it.

  “Careful with money, pickpocket,” the woman said, before running toward a group of tourists, her hat flapping on her head.

  He turned back to the church. On the entrance steps a beggar was clutching a small child against her chest. He gave the woman some money as Linda and Thiên appeared, heading into the square.

  He smiled at Linda. “I exchanged one hundred dollars. We’re rich here, millionaires.” He handed Linda a wads of bills.

  Without a word, she put the money into her handbag, her eyes hidden under her sunglasses. As she turned away from him, he felt anger rising within him. He didn’t know what exactly he was angry at. At himself, at the situation, or at his past mistakes. Or at Thiên.

  He turned to Thiên, only to see the man shaking his head at him.

  “You changed money on the street?” Thiên said. “I’m sure you were cheated. Gold shops much better.” Thiên pointed at Dan’s swollen breast pocket. “Watch out for pickpoc—”

  “Stop telling me what to do!” Dan snapped. “I’m sick of your big mouth.”

  Thiên’s face darkened.

  Linda glared at Dan.

  Heat rose to Dan’s face. How dare Thiên judge the men who’d come back to look for their women and children? Whoever decided to do it was brave. For those who found their women and disappeared again, they must have had their reasons.

  “That looks beautiful, Mr. Thien.” Linda gestured toward a yellow structure across the road. “What kind of building is it?”

  Hiring Thiên had been Linda’s decision, and now the guy was her ally.

  “That’s Sài Gòn Post Office, built in 1886,” Thiên answered.

  “It looks French, very French,” said Linda.

  “Yes. It was constructed when Việt Nam was part of French Indochina, originally designed by Gustave Eiffel, whose company built the Eiffel Tower. Later, the building was reconstructed by other French architects.”

  “Really?” gasped Linda.

  Dan studied the arched windows and the intricately decorated façade. He’d seen them during the war but hadn’t cared.

  “I had no idea,” Linda said, taking off her sunglasses, admiring the building. “Gustave Eiffel also co-designed the Statue of Liberty, Mr. Thien.”

  “I want to see the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower before I die. But I need a job that pay better.”

  Dan almost laughed. How clever Thiên was, hinting about a big, fat tip at the end of the tour.

  They crossed the road. Dan watched the people streaming in and out of the post office. If Kim was in Sài Gòn, she must come here from time to time.

  As Linda approached the stairs leading up to the post office, Thiên signaled Dan to stop. He waited until Linda was out of earshot, then lowered his sunglasses, looking Dan in the eye, his scar twitching. “I think you don’t need a guide. If you do, I don’t care. Today my last day working for you.”

  The Danger of Fire

  Sài Gòn, 1969

  Trang finished her English lesson, cooked, ironed her clothes, ate lunch, and wrote down the words she wanted to say to Dan, yet it was only noon. Over the last two weeks, Dan had returned to her bar three times, and each time he’d sat a short distance from her as he practiced his Vietnamese. Through him, she’d learned new English words. And she learned that she could have normal conversations with someone, conversations that lifted her up and transported her away from the harsh reality of life.

  Dan had asked her to meet him again that night at eight o’clock. Arriving at the bar, nervousness prickled her skin. She didn’t want him to see her with another soldier, so until eight o’clock, she pretended to be busy. She ran in and out of the bathroom. She joined Quỳnh and her soldier, chatting with them, telling them silly stories. When the tiger madam pulled her aside, asking why she was not receiving customers, she said she was waiting for someone.

  “The one from a few nights ago, who can’t drink?” The madam smirked. “Don’t be such a dreamer. He seems to belong to a good family, and he won’t set eyes on you for long.”