Later, on the bed, he tugged a lock of hair behind her ear. “Your Mekong Delta . . . beautiful. I see it from the cockpit of my helicopter, em.”

  Cóc-pít? Was it the place where Dan sat when he flew his helicopter?

  “You keep safe.” She caressed his lips. “You alway come back to me.”

  “You bet.” He rolled her onto him.

  She kissed the muscles of his chest, then moved her mouth lower. “You stay still. You close eyes.”

  His chim was sleeping when she reached it, but it soon got up and grew.

  “Oh, baby, where did you learn that?” he groaned.

  She grinned. A few days earlier, she’d found a book with photos of a Western couple in the bar’s changing room. The couple was giving each other pleasure in ways she hadn’t known about. The expressions on their faces told her that sex wasn’t dirty and evil the way her work had made her believe. Sex was one of the greatest gifts someone could give his or her lover.

  When it was Dan’s turn to give her pleasure, she closed her eyes and let the music of her body lift her up and bring her to faraway places so she could see the bluest mountains, the most enchanting clouds and the brightest stars.

  Later, they ate dinner in bed, naked. The sticky rice melted into her with its deliciously fragrant salty-sweet taste. She fed Dan the soft grains, laughing as he bit into her fingers. The war was raging outside, people were dying, but here in her apartment, she felt like she belonged to a world of peace, of safety, protection, and complete trust. She was astonished that she could love a person beyond their language, skin color, and nationality, and that love was stronger and more powerful than any war. Love overcame fears and threats.

  When Dan came back next time, he gave her a most special present: the sensitive plant. She’d described to him her rice field, how much she missed it, and now he brought her a piece from the countryside. As she watched the plant timidly open its leaves inside his C ration can, she felt herself blooming for him, too.

  She had brought along from home a diary and now she penned her happy feelings on the pages. She translated her favorite love poems and read them to Dan. She wrote her own poems, too, not about love but about a world of peace where kindness and compassion grew and blossomed, its light overtaking the darkness of wars and violence.

  Dan’s schedule was hectic, and he wasn’t allowed to leave Tân Sơn Nhứt as often as before. She missed him like a rice field missed the rain, like the sea missed its waves, like the stream missed its fish. She was hungry for him, and for his love. But she noticed as the weeks went by that he was becoming more quiet, distracted, lost during his short and occasional visits. She tried to convince herself it was normal, that couples ran out of things to talk about. She wanted to know what he’d seen or done during his flights but it was a forbidden topic.

  One evening Dan came by, looking tired and withdrawn, answering her questions in mumbles. She tried to brighten the mood when they were eating dinner by telling him a funny story she’d heard at the bar. She was halfway into it and giggling when he dropped his spoon and stared at her, his face reddening. “Are you fucking other men?” he asked.

  She flinched. His words cut into her, sharper than a knife. “Of course not. I loyal to you, anh.”

  “Stay home then. You need money? Take it!” He threw his wallet onto the table.

  Of course she needed money. Her parents’ debts were still to be paid. Since moving in with Dan, her income had been slashed to less than a third. If Dan had really wanted to help, she would have accepted it, but the way he behaved was so arrogant, she felt heat rushing to her forehead.

  She put down her chopsticks. “You need to trust me like I trust you. I do nothing bad. I don’t go with men to private place.” She would never depend on him for money. She had to stay independent, save for her education. Besides, what would she do all day at home when he was away?

  “If you want to work, find another job.”

  “I tried, remember? I told you how hard it is.” Since meeting Dan, she’d been determined to find employment at an office. She’d spent weeks writing job applications, to no avail. She hadn’t gotten a single interview. There were too many unemployed people and the fact that she hadn’t graduated from high school didn’t help.

  “Then try harder.” Dan walked away from the table, leaving behind his half-eaten bowl of phở.

  He didn’t come for several days after this, and she blamed herself. She went over the argument they’d had countless times, telling herself that it was just a misunderstanding. But she sensed that it wasn’t. Quỳnh’s words echoed in her mind like a curse. They’re all like that at the start, but once they own you, they’ll drop their masks.

  The next time he turned up, she showed him the many job advertisements she’d cut out of the newspapers and explained that she’d had no luck. Instead of listening to her, he picked up the Sài Gòn Daily News that she’d bought that morning. He stared at the article about an alleged Việt Cộng attack at a café in Sài Gòn, printed on the front page. He gazed at the photos of two Vietnamese men and a woman, their bodies mangled, bloodied. Suddenly he ground his teeth, then began tearing the newspaper into shreds.

  “You okay, anh?” she asked him later, after she’d finished sweeping the torn paper into a corner.

  “How can you even ask that question, given everything that’s going on outside?” He went to the toilet, slamming the door behind him.

  She looked at the torn pieces of paper. The illusory world she’d built, that she’d believed existed, had crumbled. How naïve of her to have thought that her relationship with Dan would save them. Dan was right. She had been pretending that things were normal, when she should be angry about the war and sorrowful about its victims.

  When Dan came out, he sat down next to her on the sofa. He muttered words of apology, pulled her into him, and buried his face into her hair.

  “Tell me what’s going on, anh? Did you see things during your flights that upset you?” she asked later, after they had finished making love and she lay naked in his arms. When they first met, he’d told her that his helicopter only transported passengers, but she wasn’t so sure anymore.

  He flinched as if she’d just splashed boiling water onto him. He jerked his body away, got up from the bed, and put on his clothes.

  “Anh . . . please . . . you never talk to me anymore.”

  “Be careful with your questions,” he glared at her, his belt jingling as he buckled it. “You don’t want me to think that you’re an undercover VC, do you?”

  Fear ran through her veins. She opened her mouth but words were glued to her throat.

  He left the bedroom, only to return to tell her that he was kidding, that he was sorry she hadn’t gotten his joke. By the time she was dressed, he’d gone, leaving some money on the table. She was seeing a pattern in his behavior. He would come to her distracted, nervous, and his temper would explode at something she said or did. Later, he would apologize, act tenderly, become again the man with whom she had fallen in love. Other times, though, he would remain quiet, brooding, but would cling to her as if she was keeping him from drowning.

  She wanted to reach out to a friend who had an American boyfriend, who could help her understand Dan’s erratic behavior. But her friends all worked at the Hollywood. They would tell Quỳnh, and Quỳnh would insist that she leave Dan.

  She sat on the floor, staring at the palms of her hands. She’d believed that Dan wouldn’t be pulled into the vortex of war, but now it seemed obvious that he was already in the middle of it. She imagined him roaming above her village’s rice fields, that the dead bodies scattered under his helicopter were those of her parents and her neighbors. She broke down crying.

  Later, she knelt in front of Buddha, holding the sticks of smoldering incense above her head. She prayed for Dan, for his innocence to be protected. She prayed for him to remain the gentle boy she’d met, the person she’d fallen in love with. She prayed for her parents, her sister, and everyone she knew. She prayed for the monster of war to disappear.

  The following week, she opened the door to see Dan with a grim look on his face. He brushed her aside, went to the fridge, and stood next to it, drinking one can of beer after another, talking to himself, swearing. When she served dinner, he stared at the bowl of tomato soup, cupped his palm against his mouth, and vomited, right there onto the floor.

  “Don’t cook anything red!” he screamed as he washed up in the bathroom.

  She stared at the soup, made from ripe tomatoes she’d sautéed with finely chopped shrimps. Perhaps the color resembled blood—blood that he’d seen or blood that he’d caused to spill. She shuddered. He was bringing the war into their apartment. Now she had to fight it head-on.

  During his subsequent visits, the gulf between them grew larger and deeper. He stopped trying to speak or learn Vietnamese. All he did was eat, have sex, and sleep. He’d once enjoyed listening to her read aloud in bed but now violent sounds of American rock music replaced her voice. He drank constantly: beer, whiskey, and other hard liquors whose names she didn’t know. He smoked cần sa, calling it “grass.” There was no longer light in his eyes, just darkness.

  Even his skin smelled different. It smelled of death and anger. She’d loved the taste of his mouth but now it stunk of tobacco and liquor, just like the men who frequented the bar. She’d imagined their love to be pure and delightful, like the sensitive plant’s flowers, but despite her efforts, the plant had withered. Picking up the shriveled leaves, she felt as if her dreams had shattered, too.

  “I do nothing bad, em. I don’t kill anybody. Do you believe me?” Dan told her one day, as he was leaving the apartment, his hand already on the door’s handle.

  She bit her lips. She had a thousand questions that demanded answers. “Stay and tell me more, please . . .”

  “I can’t.” He shook his head and looked at her with desperation. “I need you to trust me, that I do nothing bad. Not on purpose.”

  She gazed at his face. There were worry lines grooved into his forehead and dark pouches under his eyes. It seemed he’d grown ten years older in the past months. A lump rose to her throat. “Yes, I trust you, anh.”

  He took her face into his hands and kissed her. The most tender and passionate kiss.

  When he was gone, she paced the apartment. She’d heard his call for help. He was sinking and she could be his lifeline. Maybe she’d never get the chance to be a doctor, but here was a chance to save someone.

  She tidied the apartment. She went out and bought a recipe book for Western dishes. She would show it to Dan and asked him what he wanted to eat. She came up with plans to spend time with him outside the apartment, to remind him of the fun they used to have. Not just markets, there were museums, parks, theatres, and cinemas. She would borrow a motorbike for them to ride around town.

  But when Dan came, he shook his head at all her suggestions. He stared at the colorful pages of the cookbook as if they were blank. “Just make whatever you want,” he said.

  He no longer complimented her cooking. He seldom smiled. He’d disappear for days, and when he visited her, he sat with his chair against the wall, his eyes on the door. He no longer ate on the street with her. He’d never carried weapons before but now a handgun was his companion.

  On her way to work at the bar, Trang often came by Quỳnh’s apartment to pick her sister up. One day, she found her sister curled up against a corner of her room. The night before, Quỳnh had gone for a long-time with a soldier, who gagged her, tied her to the bed, and hit her.

  “Stay away from such men, em . . .” Trang told Quỳnh, wincing as she applied eucalyptus oil onto the black and purple bruises on her sister’s arms.

  “It’s like they are possessed by devils,” Quỳnh said.

  “Who?”

  “Those soldiers . . . The newly arrived ones are civilized. But when they go to the battlefield, it changes them.”

  Trang nodded. She’d seen it happening with Dan. “I’ve been thinking . . . violence is a poison. When you commit violence or witness it, it rots you.”

  “Yes . . . That’s why I fear those men, but I also feel sorry for them. . . . I mean, they think they come here to help us, but they’re making things worse. The bombings, the killings . . . all of that horror is being returned to them.”

  “But the Việt Cộng aren’t any better. They’re brutal, too. . . . I wish all of the fighting would stop.”

  “What will you do when the war ends, chị Hai?”

  Trang inhaled the strong scent of eucalyptus into her lungs. The scent of her mother’s love. The oil had always been the first thing her mother used whenever she and Quỳnh had a flu, a stomachache, a headache, an insect bite. “I want to go home with Ba and Má,” she said. She no longer wished to be a doctor. She was failing her first patient. She would rather return to being a rice farmer, bringing seasons of life to her field.

  “Yes, home . . .” Quỳnh said, her eyes distant.

  Once again, Trang asked Quỳnh to move in with her. Dan had stopped spending the night at the apartment for a while now so Quỳnh could surely sleep there. But Quỳnh shook her head. “It’s him who’s paying the rent, I don’t want anything to do with him.” Quỳnh didn’t know about Dan’s erratic behavior. Trang had told her sister that Dan only transported people and wasn’t involved in any fighting, but Quỳnh still didn’t trust him.

  At least Quỳnh agreed that she wouldn’t go into private rooms with her customers any more. She was popular enough to earn a decent income by just entertaining men at the bar. They’d managed to pay more than half of their parents’ debts. In a couple of months, they’d be free.

  But it was getting harder to earn money at the Hollywood. Many GIs were boycotting bars that overcharged them and gave their girls Sài Gòn Tea without whiskey. While Trang tried to charm her customers into buying her drinks, she would think about Dan.

  Dan, though, seemed to be so lost in his own world. He made love now as if she wasn’t even there.

  When he didn’t visit for three entire weeks, Trang went to the base, looking for him. The longest he’d been away before was one week, for his R & R, to Taiwan, and he’d let her know in advance about his trip. At Tân Sơn Nhứt, she asked the armed guards about him but was told to go away. She feared he’d been killed.

  She prayed to her Buddha every night. Then one morning, as she was washing her clothes, Dan stumbled in, drunk. She hardly recognized him: white bandages covered the top of his head. His left hand was in a cast and he limped. He’d lost so much weight, his cheeks were hollow. His eyes darted around constantly. He refused to let her touch him. He didn’t answer any of her questions. He gave her some money, just enough for the rent, and left in the same taxi that had brought him to her.

  The next time he visited, it was raining. He sat on the bed, his head in the cradle of his arms, his knees to his chest. As the rain hit the window, his body jumped, as if each drop were a bullet.

  “No need afraid. Rain is music, anh.” She hugged him from his back. “À ơi . . . trời mưa bong bóng bập bồng, mẹ đi lấy chồng con ở với ai,” she sang quietly, a lullaby to the rain’s rhythm. That night, she sang him countless lullabies, and he wept.

  His injuries healed, and he went on missions again. He visited her from time to time, and their sex life resumed.

  One day, she wasn’t home when he turned up. He came to the bar to get her; when he walked in, she was drinking Sài Gòn Tea with a new customer. Back at the apartment, she was making her way to the bathroom when he grabbed a chair.

  “You were having such a good time with other men. You whore.” He flung the chair at her.

  She ducked as the chair whizzed over her head, hitting the altar.

  Watching the Laughing Buddha shatter into pieces, her legs gave way under her. “Oh Heaven, oh Earth,” she cried, kneeling, knocking her forehead on the ground. “Please forgive us, Buddha, forgive—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” Dan threw his can of beer at her. It hit her forearm, bounced off the wall, spattering liquid onto the floor.

  She ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and pushed her body against it. She trembled. Buddha would be angry at Dan. Buddha could punish him, bring bad luck to him and to her for being with him. Nobody could avoid karma.

  Dan continued to ramble. She heard the sounds of furniture being knocked against the wall. “Death is our business and business is good,” he shouted, over and over. On his last visit, she’d seen the phrase written on his T-shirt. She’d asked him what the English words meant and he said, “It’s who we are, you dumb cunt.”

  Tears ran down Trang’s face, rinsing away any doubts she’d had. If she stayed with Dan, she could end up dead. He was lucky to have her and if he didn’t know it, it was his loss. Unlike other bar girls who brought clients to their beds as soon as their boyfriends went on missions, she’d been faithful. Unlike other women who demanded expensive gifts and monthly allowances, she’d hardly asked Dan for anything. How stupid of her to think that he loved her when he didn’t even know her real name. She knew his from his dog tags. Not Dan but Daniel. Daniel Ashland. But he’d never even thought to find out her name.

  She took down the iron rod from which the shower curtain hung. Even though the rod was no match for Dan’s gun, she had to defend herself.

  Things became quiet. Dan started to weep. After a while, he knocked at the door. “Baby, I am so sorry.”

  “You get out! You leave!”

  “What?”

  “I don’t need you. You go now. You called me a whore. Fuck you!” She’d never said that word out loud before, but once she did, she realized it didn’t sufficiently express her anger. “Đù má mày! Mày chửi tao thì tao chửi ba má mày. Tao chửi tổ tiên của mày đó!” She ranted in Vietnamese, cursing Dan’s parents and ancestors. If Dan understood, he would kill her, but she no longer cared. She would prefer to be dead than to be insulted by the man she had shared her life with like a wife. How stupid of her to have trusted him. She had cooked for him, served him, given him her body and her mind, only to see him flick her away as if she was a mosquito.