one prostitute, whose Chinese neighbor spat on her and said, Why is this whore with us?
Even among the unwanted there were unwanted, and at that some of us could only laugh.
The prostitute scowled at us and said, What do you want?
We, the unwanted, wanted so much. We wanted food, water, and parasols, although umbrellas would be fine. We wanted clean clothes, baths, and toilets, even of the squatting kind, since squatting on land was safer and less embarrassing than clinging to the bulwark of a rolling boat with one’s posterior hanging over the edge. We wanted rain, clouds, and dolphins. We wanted it to be cooler during the hot day and warmer during the freezing night. We wanted an estimated time of arrival. We wanted not to be dead on arrival. We wanted to be rescued from being barbecued by the unrelenting sun. We wanted television, movies, music, anything with which to pass the time. We wanted love, peace, and justice, except for our enemies, whom we wanted to burn in Hell, preferably for eternity. We wanted independence and freedom, except for the communists, who should all be sent to reeducation, preferably for life. We wanted benevolent leaders who represented the people, by which we meant us and not them, whoever they were. We wanted to live in a society of equality, although if we had to settle for owning more than our neighbor, that would be fine. We wanted a revolution that would overturn the revolution we had just lived through. In sum, we wanted to want for nothing!
What we most certainly did not want was a storm, and yet that was what we got on the seventh day. The faithful once more cried out, God, help us! The nonfaithful cried out, God, You bastard! Faithful or unfaithful, there was no way to avoid the storm, dominating the horizon and surging closer and closer. Whipped into a frenzy, the wind gained momentum, and as the waves grew, our ark gained speed and altitude. Lightning illuminated the dark furrows of the storm clouds, and thunder overwhelmed our collective groan. A torrent of rain exploded on us, and as the waves propelled our vessel ever higher the faithful prayed and the unfaithful cursed, but both wept. Then our ark reached its peak and, for an eternal moment, perched on the snow-capped crest of a watery precipice. Looking down on that deep, wine-colored valley awaiting us, we were certain of two things. The first was that we were absolutely going to die! And the second was that we would almost certainly live!
Yes, we were sure of it. We—will—live!
And then we plunged, howling, into the abyss.
Part One
Me
CHAPTER 1
I may no longer be a spy or a sleeper, but I am most definitely a spook. How can I not be, with two holes in my head from which leaks the black ink in which I am writing these words. What a peculiar condition, being dead yet penning these lines in my little room in Paradise. This must make me a ghostwriter, and as such, it is a simple, if spooky, matter to dip my pen into the ink flowing from my twin holes, one drilled by myself, the other by Bon, my best friend and blood brother. Put your gun down, Bon. You can only kill me once.
Or maybe not. I am also still a man of two faces and two minds, one of which might perhaps yet still be intact. With two minds, I am able to see any issue from both sides, and while I once flattered myself that this was a talent, now I understand it to be a curse. What was a man with two minds except a mutant? Perhaps even a monster. Yes, I admit it! I am not just one but two. Not just I but you. Not just me but we.
You ask me what we should be called, having been nameless for so long. I hesitate to give you a straight answer, as that has never been my habit. I am a man of bad habits, and every time I have been broken of one—never having given up such a thing willingly—I have always gone back to it, whimpering and dewy-eyed.
Take these words, for example. I am writing them, and writing is the worst of habits. While most people squeeze what they can from their lives, suffering for their paychecks, absorbing vitamin D as they enjoy the sunshine, hunting for another member of the species with whom to procreate or just to rut, and refusing to think about death, I pass my time with pen and paper in my corner of Paradise, growing ever whiter and thinner, frustration steaming from my head, the sweat of sorrow sticking to me.
I could tell you the name I have in my passport, VO DANH. I assumed this name in anticipation of coming here to Paris, or, as our French masters taught us to call it, the City of Light. We, Bon and I, arrived in the airport at night on a flight from Jakarta. Stepping out of the airplane, we were gripped by a sense of relief, for we had reached asylum, the fever dream of all refugees, especially those rendered refugees not just once or twice but three times: 1954, nine years after I was born; 1975, when I was young and reasonably handsome; and 1979, just two years ago. Was the third time the charm, as the Americans liked to say? Bon sighed before he pulled his airline-provided sleeping mask over his eyes. Let’s just hope France is better than America.
That hope was ill-advised if one judged countries by their border officials. The one who inspected my passport wore the blank mask of all security guards as he studied my photograph and then me. His pale face seemed displeased that someone had granted me access to his beloved country, this man who lacked both an upper lip and a mustache to disguise his lack. You’re Vietnamese, this white man said, the first words ever uttered to me on visiting my father’s homeland for the first time.
Yes! I am Vo Danh! Along with my best French accent, I gave the border policeman my most fawning smile, ingratiating to the point of being grating. But my father is French. Maybe I am also French?
His bureaucratic brain processed this statement, and when he finally smiled, I thought, Ah! I have made my first joke in French! But what he said was: No . . . you . . . are . . . definitely . . . not . . . French. Not . . . with . . . a . . . name . . . like . . . this. Then he stamped my passport with my date of entry, 18/07/81, and flicked it across the counter, already looking over my shoulder at the next supplicant.
I met Bon on the other side of passport control. We had at last stepped foot on la Gaule, as my father had taught me to call France in his parish school. It was fitting, then, that the airport was named after Charles de Gaulle, the greatest of great Frenchmen in recent memory. The hero who had liberated France from the Nazis while continuing to enslave us Vietnamese. Ah, contradiction! The perpetual body odor of humanity! No one was spared, not even the Americans or the Vietnamese, who bathed daily, or the French, who bathed less than daily. No matter our nationality, we all become accustomed to the aroma of our own contradictions.
What’s wrong? he said. Are you crying again?
I’m not crying, I sobbed. I’m just so overcome to be home at last.
By now Bon was used to my unpredictable bursts of tears. He sighed and took me by the hand. In his other hand, he carried only one bag, a cheap cloth duffel, a gift of the United Nations. His bag was nowhere near as fashionable as my leather one, presented to me by my old mentor Claude when I graduated from Occidental College in Southern California. My old man gave me one just like it when I left Phillips Exeter and went to Yale, Claude had told me, his eyes misting. Although he was a CIA agent who saw interrogation and assassination as his trade, he could be sentimental about some things, such as our friendship and high-quality men’s furnishings. I held on to the leather bag for this same nostalgic reason. Even though it was not very large, the bag, like Bon’s, was not full. Like most refugees we barely had any material belongings, even if our bags were packed with dreams and fantasies, trauma and pain, sorrow and loss, and, of course, ghosts. Since ghosts were weightless, we could carry an infinite number of them.
Passing the baggage carousels, we were the only passengers not pulling suitcases or pushing trolleys burdened with luggage and touristic expectation. We were not tourists, or expatriates, or returnees, or diplomats, or businessmen, or any class of dignified traveler. No, we were refugees, and our experience in a time machine called an international jetliner
