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“She’s a whore, Man!”
“I know, I know.”
“She’s not even a very good whore. She’s not the best looking whore in
Saigon; she’s not the best lay in Saigon.” Sarge, realizing what he’d just
said, raised his hand, palm out, “Wait a minute, I don’t know that first
hand. As far as I know she’s doing what you told her, not sleeping with any of
your buddies. But the word is that she’s not all that good as a whore.”
“Well, I guess I know that, too, but I can‘t help it, Sarge, I love
her.”
“You’re married, Man!”
“I know, I know. I love my wife.”
“You’ve got kids!”
“I know, I know. I love my kids.”
“And you’re rotating in a month.”
“I know, I know. It’s tearing me apart.”
“So you need to break it off with this woman before it gets too serious.”
“Too late, Sarge. It’s already too serious. I love her.”
“How in the hell can you love a whore, Johnny? I don’t understand it. I
really don’t even believe it. I don’t believe anybody can love a whore that
way. They’re just there when you need them, and then they’re gone. You
don’t fall in love with them.”
“Well, that just ain’t true, Sarge. I love this woman, and a lot of guys
love women like this.”
Sarge shook his head. "So what are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Thieu was getting ready to go out. She peered into the little round mirror to
apply the eye shadow. She wasn’t very good at it. She squinted, she turned her
head, she blinked. And she persevered, but the effect was never what she wanted.
She never looked like the sophisticated call girls in the American films. Still
the effort was a ritual, mostly daily. Once in a while, when she’d had a good
night, she took the next evening off and stayed home with him. But the rent and
her food, her makeup, her prevention pills cost enough that those nights off
didn’t happen very often.
He lay on the mat behind her mirror and watched her work on her face. Her
ineptness was charming. How could this naive little creature be a prostitute,
his mind asked him. She was cute in the cutest definition of the word. She was
childlike, innocent in a strange sort of way—even he saw this as a huge
contradiction, a childlike, innocent hooker.
Sarge had said she wasn’t a very
good whore. He was right in more ways than one. She wasn’t really very skilled at the carnal arts. She just
sort of lay there with a willing acceptance—enjoying it without participating
that much. She didn’t—probably couldn’t—moan the moans, groan the
groans, scream the screams that were maybe sincere in some people but in
prostitutes were usually designed to get the client off and speed the process or
to augment the value of the product and increase the price. She didn’t play
the word games, mind games that really equated to negotiations between the whore
and her client.
So she was a lousy businessperson, and she wasn’t even very
good at displaying the merchandise. She couldn’t choose or properly apply the
cosmetics that brought out her best features, and she couldn’t choose or
properly wear the clothes that displayed her body the way a whore’s body
should be shown. She couldn’t even walk like a whore. She couldn’t wiggle
the stuff that was supposed to be wiggled, she couldn’t jiggle the stuff that
was supposed to be jiggled, and she couldn’t flaunt the stuff that was
supposed to be flaunted. So on really all counts, she wasn’t a very good
whore.
And that was part of the reason he loved her. She was a whore who didn’t
know how to be a whore. If you didn’t know, you’d never suspect. She had
that clean, wholesome look of the traditional girl next door, as long as you
didn’t know next door was “100 Piaster Alley” right outside the main gate
at Tan Son Nhut Airfield in Saigon. She had the cool, aloof look of the girl
that you knew was above you, out of your league unless you saw her in the G. I.
Bar sitting beside the other girls who did look and act like the whores that
they were.
He’d met her at that selfsame G. I. Bar in downtown Saigon, just off Tu Do
Street. The first time he remembered seeing her was after hours on a Wednesday
night. The bar wasn’t so crowded that night, middle of the week; but even so,
at quitting time the same few girls were there as always, the leftovers. These
were the girls who only got taken when there was a crowd, and all the better,
prettier girls had already been grabbed up. This Wednesday night, six or eight
of them sat along the wall talking among themselves, not wanting to leave in
case some G. I. showed up so drunk or so desperate he’d take one on.
He was not intending to spend the night in town. He just wanted one last beer
before he caught a taxi back to Tan Son Nhut. He sat at the bar sipping his
beer, casually scanning the girls along the wall, suffering an occasional
involuntary shudder as he looked at a particular girl who probably should be
doing something else for a living. He was the only G. I. left in the place, and
the girls were all looking at him hoping he’d pick one for the night. But as
he neared the end of his beer and of the row of girls, he saw her.
He sort of
knew every girl there, had seen them before, but he didn’t remember ever
seeing her. Even now, thinking back, he didn’t know, couldn’t remember what
he saw in her. She was not young as these girls go, not exceptionally
good-looking, not flashy. Hell, she wasn’t even looking at him like the other
girls were. Maybe that was it; maybe her apparent disinterest made her
attractive. In any event, he went over to her and told her that he wanted to
spend the night with her. She turned to the girl beside her and said something in Vietnamese. The girl answered, motioning toward the
Vietnamese man behind the bar. His girl then led him to the bar where she spoke
quickly to the man who then turned to him, put out his hand, and said, “Ten
dollar.”
“I pay you?” he asked.
“You pay me. I give room. I pay girl.”
He extracted a $10 bill from his wallet and gave it to the man who said a few
more words to the girl. The girl motioned him to come with her. He followed her
out the back door of the bar into a hallway with a line of curtain covered
doorways, probably eight or ten. She led him to the fourth curtain, pulled it
aside, and stepped through the doorway. He followed and found himself in a tiny
cubicle, sort of like a cell with no bars. It was maybe eight by ten, and most
of the floor was covered by a sleeping mat. There was an overhead fan that
served as much as a remedy against the mosquitoes as a cooler, but there was no
furniture. The room knew its purpose.
He tried to talk to her, but she seemed uncomfortable with that. Apparently
she knew her purpose, too. Although she didn’t show any great response to his
sexual overtures, she was cooperative and adaptive so that went well enough. As
the night passed and they went through several episodes, she became a little
more relaxed and even kidded around about his equipment and his technique. He
responded in kind; and by morning, they were pretty comfortable with each other.
When he left to go to work, he even kissed her on the cheek. She hadn’t
allowed him to kiss her on the mouth during the night, and she didn’t allow it
when he left.
That evening, Thursday, he went back to the bar. She was there, sitting along
the wall with the other girls. He went over to her immediately. “Can you leave
the bar?” he asked.
She spoke to the girl beside her, the same one as last night. Then she turned
to him and said, “You pay papa-san if you take me out of bar.”
“How much?” That seemed to be one of the most used phrases in his current
culture.
“You talk papa-san,” she motioned toward the man behind the bar, also the
same one as last night.
Ten dollars got her out of the bar, papa-san probably wasn‘t counting on
making any money with her anyway. When they were outside, the girl asked,
“Where we go?”
“Let’s go eat,” he said and walked her up the block toward a restaurant
where Americans often ate.
“I no go there,” she said, pulling back, shaking her head. “They no
like girl there.”
“If you go with me just to eat, it will be okay,” he said and pulled her
by the hand through the door. But in fact, the Vietnamese people inside the
restaurant did look at them strangely, stared with an apparent disdain. He
ignored them; she lowered her eyes. When they were seated, the waiter presented
them with menus, written in English and Vietnamese. He didn’t need his; he
ordered his usual steak and potatoes. The word was that the steak was water
buffalo. He didn’t worry about that; it tasted good.
Of course, she didn’t want steak and potatoes; but as he watched her stare
at the menu, he realized that she couldn’t read it. “Can’t find what you
want?” he asked and gently took the menu from her hand. “Why don’t you
just tell him?” he motioned toward the waiter. “You can help her out,
can’t you?” he asked the man.
“Yes, sir, I’ll be glad to help her out,” said the waiter in flawless
English. He then spoke to the girl in Vietnamese, nodded and smiled, and left to
get their food.
The meal was excellent. The steak was delicious, as always; and the girl
seemed to enjoy her food, too, a traditional rice dish. The waiter got twice his
usual tip; and as they left the restaurant, the girl asked, “Where we go
now?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Where do you live? You don‘t live at the
bar, do you?”
“No. I have room. But you no go there. People no like G. I.”
“But I’m not like other G. I.’s. I’m a nice guy. You tell them
that.”
“You no go there. People see me with G. I., they no like me.”
“When they get to know me, they’ll like me. You’ll see, it will be a
good thing. These people will see that Americans are good. I’ll learn
something about Vietnamese people. Everybody wins. Okay?”
In the end, she reluctantly took him to her room, and he never left again. He
stayed with her right up until now when he was getting close to his rotation
date. But he never did meet her neighbors. They’d see him coming and going;
he’d catch their furtive glances and smile and wave; but they always turned
quickly away. Even so, he never got the impression that they disliked him. He
felt only that he was different, strange to them; and they were uncertain how to
react to him.
When he was there, he mostly lay around the tiny room reading or listening to
the radio and drinking beer. There was no real furniture, just a sleeping mat
and a wire line for Thieu’s clothes. There was no running water, they carried
it from a community well at the corner; and the toilet was a hole in the floor
you squatted over and flushed with pans of water. Modesty prevailed to the
extent that they hung a curtain in front of the hole.
He came there almost every day after work. Most days he saw her before she
went to work, but not always. Sometimes he got delayed; sometimes she left
early. Most nights she came back, but not always. Sometimes she worked all
night; and when he left for work the next morning, she was still gone. He missed
her at these times, but he’d still rather be there on her sleeping mat than in
the barracks.
Weekends were kind of touch-and-go. He was usually off from Saturday
afternoon till Monday morning, but her busiest time was Saturday night, which
often spilled over into Sunday. They usually spent early Saturday afternoon
together. Sometimes they shopped; sometimes they went to a movie (she loved the
martial arts movies that were so popular throughout the Far East); sometimes
they walked; sometimes they just stayed at home, talked, listened to the radio
until she had to get ready for work. Usually, they also made love. That was not
a priority for her, but it was essential for him. It was important to him that he
made love to her before she went to work.
In the months that they lived like this, their routine became almost like
that of a settled, married couple, each going to work, coming home, fitting in
what had to be done, making love, getting by. One day he realized suddenly that
he couldn’t remember what his wife’s face looked like. He could picture his
two daughters, just like the day he’d left them. But he couldn’t picture Myra. And strangely, it didn’t concern him
very much. Nevertheless, he took out his wallet, opened it to the snapshots, and
looked at the front one, the one of Myra flanked by the two girls. Oh, yeah,
that’s what she looked like. She was really beautiful and so were the girls.
But by the next day, he had forgotten her face again; and he didn’t bother to
take out the wallet to refresh his memory.
A few days before his flight out, he was given time off to “out-process.”
That didn’t take long: a quick stop by the club, the supply issue point, the
orderly room, and the personnel office took care of most of it. And that left
most of the final few days free. He spent them at Thieu’s place. He’d given
her part of his advance travel pay, so she could afford to take the time off
from work and spend it with him. It was a melancholy time. He put in a case of
beer. All the PX had left was Schlitz; he’d never drunk it before, but he
drank it now. There was no refrigerator and no ice, so he kept the beer in the
water barrel. That cooled it a little, but he was still drinking warm beer. When
he bought the beer, he also picked up Some Came Running. He tried to read
James Jones’ novel as he drank the warm Schlitz, but he couldn’t concentrate
on it.
He wanted to make love as often as they could, as often as he physically
could. Thieu didn’t object. In between times, she talked a lot about his
leaving. She suggested ways he could stay, “You tell you commander you want
stay. They want G. I. Vietnam. They let you stay.” When he told her it
didn’t work that way, she said, “You just stay then. Nobody care.” He told
her he could go to jail for that. Finally she gave up. “You no want stay,”
she said. “You no love Thieu.”
“Oh, god, I do,” he said, “I do love you. But you know I’ve got a
wife and kids in the states. I can’t just leave them.”
“You love me, you leave them,” she said. The statement was cold and
heartless, but her meager command of English would not let her say it more
diplomatically.
He didn’t know what else to say. He reached for her, and she pulled away and
turned her back. She had never done that before.
He opened his eyes just a sliver. It was almost dawn, light peeked through
the louvers in the window. He felt heavy and dull. He’d drunk too much Schlitz
last night specifically to dull the last night. It hadn’t worked that well. It
also hadn’t made love-making very easy. Thinking back, he thought he had been
able to do it, but he wasn’t all that sure. She lay beside him now, facing
away, still and breathing evenly. He touched her back with his fingertips, and
she turned to him. He knew she had not been sleeping. He pulled her into his
arms and made love to her for the last time. She didn’t show any intense
passion; but when he looked at her face afterward, there was a tear on her
cheek.
He packed the few things he kept at her place. Most of his stuff was in a
duffel bag in a locker in the barracks. As he worked, he sang softly a few lines
from a country song that seemed sort of appropriate, “Don’t look so sad, I
know it’s over, but life goes on, and this old world will keep on turning . .
.”
“You sing, you happy,” she said. “You happy you leave.”
“No, no, no,” he said. “It’s a sad song. I’m sad I’m leaving.”
And it was true. He looked at her, and his sadness was reflected in her face.
She waited with him at the bus stop at the end of her alley. They didn’t
talk much. She told him to volunteer to come back; he said he would. But mostly
they looked up and down the dusty street. When the bus came, he kissed her
goodbye. She didn’t resist, even though she didn’t like kissing very much. It
wasn’t something they did in her culture. He boarded the bus and walked to the
back. As it pulled away, he looked back through the rear window and watched her
disappear into the distance. It was a picture that would remain with him for the
rest of his life.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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