Aperture on the East (25 page)

“
Are you hurt?” said Ana,
looking at the bruises on Ivan’s wrists, probably from being
handcuffed earlier. She was sitting across from Ivan at a small
table. She reached out to hold Ivan’s hand, but he pulled it
back.

“
I didn’t know you care,”
said Ivan. He was shaking.

“
If I somehow made you
feel that I don’t care about you, I’m sorry. I know that I’ve been
neglectful, but you’ve always been a really good kid. I get so used
to leaving you alone to do your own thing.”

“
So now you are blaming
me? I should’ve been more like Zoe in order to get your attention?
I should’ve dropped out of school and run away?”

“
That’s not what I meant,”
said Ana.

The police officer came in and
announced that Ivan was free to go. The fine had been paid in full.
Ivan stood up first and kicked his chair before he went out of the
room. Ana let out a sigh, and followed the police officer
out.

When Ana came out of the police
station, she saw Vo and Ivan stood silently facing each other. She
said, “Vo, this is my son, Ivan. Thank you so much for saving him.
I don’t know what to say. I will do everything I can to pay you
back.”

Vo raised his eyebrows and blinked a
few times.

“
You saved me?” Ivan said,
looking bewildered.

“
Ana is your mother?” said
Vo.

“
What’s going on? You two
know each other?” Ana looked back and forth between Vo and
Ivan.

“
Wait, it can’t be,” said
Vo. “Ana can’t be your mother. You said she was
—
”

“
Horrible. Right here, my
horrible mother is this woman right here,” said Ivan. He gestured
toward Ana with both of his hands.

“
You knew I worked at the
Institute of Oceanography, but you didn’t mention that your son was
in the summer camp there?” said Vo. He was looking at Ana, the
question sounding more like an accusation.

“
I-I wasn’t thinking,”
said Ana.

“
You registered him for
the camp, paid for the fees, signed the waivers for him to go
off-shore and let him swim around a remote island, but it never
occurred to you to ask me if I knew your son, since I worked at the
same place?”

Ana didn’t say anything at first out
of embarrassment, and then she turned to Ivan and said, “What fees
did I pay? What waivers?”

Ivan’s face was red, and he was in
tears again. “I took money out of your purse and I signed your name
on all the forms I needed. I did it because you never listened when
I asked you to do something. Your mind was always somewhere else.
You were either dreaming about the dead baby or worrying about
Zoe,”

“
Or drunk,” said Vo. The
muscles on his face were knotted and the veins on his neck were
engorged and pulsating.

Vo’s words were like lead weighing
down on Ana’s heart. She wanted to say something in self-defense,
but she couldn’t utter a sound.

The stand-off lasted for what seemed
like an eon before Vo waved down a taxi to take Ana and Ivan home.
Ana looked at Vo with pleading eyes as he shut the door. He stood
on the curb, watching Ana leave until the taxi disappeared from his
sight, and wondered if he might, or should, never see her
again.

Ana left another message in Vo’s
voicemail box. It had been a few days since they last spoke to each
other. It felt like a surreal walk in the clouds as she looked back
on the very brief period of time that she and Vo had been together
as a couple. Now it felt like she had just been extracted from
above the world and swallowed by a dark, monstrous emptiness
underground. She didn’t get a solid confirmation that Vo had called
it quits, as he hadn’t communicated at all since they rescued Ivan
from the police station. Vo probably intended to end their
relationship, she thought. He wouldn’t have been so cold
otherwise.

Ana decided to focus on Ivan. The
little boy that Ivan ran into while skateboarding would have the
staples removed soon. Ana and Ivan visited the family of the little
boy and made sure that everything was taken care of. The little boy
was already once again the rambunctious five-year-old that he
normally was. The family thanked Ana for the five hundred U.S.
dollars in compensation. Five hundred? The police had told her that
they asked for one thousand. The family was shocked and told Ana
that they didn’t ask to be paid anything at all to begin with.
Accidents happened all the time and the child was not so badly
injured. Ana and the family decided not to bother the police with
the matter, as nothing positive was likely to result from
it.

Ana tried hard to make up with Ivan.
She would ask Ivan how he was doing and whether he needed anything
several times a day if Ivan didn’t make an excuse to get out of her
sight. Ana bought Ivan new clothes, shoes, and supplies for school,
and she even started cooking. She asked about Ivan’s friends, and
offered to host a dinner for them, but Ivan turned her down. At
last she asked if Ivan needed a new skateboard; Ivan declined, but
did let her buy him a new set of wheels. Ana was so happy that she
practically sang the entire time they were at the skate
shop.

Still, the days dragged on for Ana.
Each day Ana woke up with the feeling that perhaps the whole thing
with Vo was just a dream. She went over again and again the moments
they were together, from when they first met, to the outing on the
Pearl Island, to when they first kissed. None of it seemed real
now. Then Ivan would sit down for lunch and start talking about Vo.
He was the best teacher, counselor, and friend that Ivan got to
know in his whole life, Ivan would say. One day he told Ana that he
was sorry for breaking up her relationship with Vo; Vo could’ve
been his new papa if he hadn’t told Vo those awful things about
Ana.

Ana didn’t blame Ivan for any of it.
Her choices alone got her where she was today. She indeed didn’t
deserve to be loved by anyone, not Vo, not her children. She
couldn’t even respect herself, or give herself any love, either.
How could she? She was still drinking, more than ever.

Her cheeks had become hollow and her
clothes were hanging rather loose when she looked herself in the
mirror. Her eyes were always bloodshot with puffy lids. At work she
withdrew from the others, even Mai. She had written down orders
wrong, and taken plates for table A to table B. She was late almost
every day now.

“
This is your pay for the
last week. You can go home now. You don’t need to come back
anymore,” said Mr. Tran when Ana showed up for work half an hour
late one day. He handed Ana an envelope with cash inside, and
escorted her out of the restaurant. Mai came out from the kitchen
to protest, but Mr. Tran shook his head.

“
I’m sorry, Mr. Tran. I’m
sorry,” said Ana as she swallowed her tears. She didn’t even have
the strength or the audacity to beg Mr. Tran to let her stay. She
knew that she wouldn’t be able to find employment elsewhere in her
present shape. She quickly considered the small amount of money in
her savings; money was going to be tight now.

She picked up her mail when she got
home. She hadn’t checked her mailbox for a while even though it was
conveniently located at the entrance to her apartment building. She
noticed a familiar handwriting on one of the envelopes. She flew
upstairs to her apartment to open it and read it. Her heart was
about to jump out of her chest. Her hands were shaking as she read
each word. Vo had finally written. She had waited so long for a
word from him. She couldn’t believe that she was actually holding a
piece of paper that Vo had touched the day before.

Ana,

I admit that I’ve missed
you. My mind is still a mess. I think I’m still in love with you,
but I don’t know if I can get over what Ivan had to say about you.
I am very fond of that kid. He’s hurt, and now I am,
too.

I am leaving soon for a
marine biology conference in Singapore. I am packing as I write. I
should have some answers when I come back.

Vo

Ana wept while she read the letter.
She pressed it to her chest as she imagined that perhaps she and Vo
still had a chance. She read the letter a few more times before she
put it under her pillow. This might be the last thing she would get
from Vo.

Ana went through the rest of her mail
and found a letter from her landlady. It was unusual because her
landlady normally called her on the phone instead of writing her a
message. She hesitated for a few seconds before opening
it.

The apartment building had been sold
to a developer and Ana was advised to move out. The lease had
stated that the landlady reserved the right to evict her tenants at
any time for any cause. Ana would not receive any financial
compensation because she was behind on rent already. The landlady
gave a specific deadline in the letter. The deadline, Ana noticed,
was tomorrow evening! Ana looked at the envelope again; it was
postmarked two weeks ago. Ana let the letter fall to the floor, and
then she screamed.

She screamed and shouted until she had
no more voice. She got up and went to the refrigerator to retrieve
the vodka as it was the knee-jerk thing to do in all disasters big
and small. She drank straight from the bottle and nearly emptied it
before she stopped. She tried to go through everything that had
gone wrong in her head, and found it overwhelming. She should start
packing, and think about where she and Ivan would stay until she
could find another apartment. She should plan out how to wisely use
the little money she had and look for a new job. She should sober
up.

She took another sip of vodka and
turned the bottle upside down to make sure there was not one drop
left in it. She thought about Zoe. Zoe needed to be informed about
the eviction. She had to tell Zoe now.

Ana closed her eyes for a moment to
collect her thoughts; they were random and chaotic, complicated by
emotions even more deranged. A pounding headache started to knock,
and Ana needed an escape. She knew of one way to shut off the
pain.

When Ana arrived at the Rocking Waves,
the place was as crowded as ever. She looked for Zoe, but was told
that the band had taken the night off. A DJ was spinning the music
instead. The volume of the music was deafening, but people still
attempted to converse with one another via shouting. Ana found
Yurik at the bar, and asked him if he knew where Zoe
was.

“
Who knows? She gets
around,” said Yurik.

Ana would have slapped Yurik in the
face if a man hadn’t come up next to Ana and started talking to
her.

“
Hey, can I buy you a
drink?” said the man with an accent similar to that of McKenzie’s.
He looked to be in his twenties, tall and muscular, with short
blond hair and blue eyes.

Ana looked the man up and down. “Are
you sure you are old enough to drink?”

“
Why don’t we find out?”
said the man. He ordered two glasses of vodka and placed one in
front of Ana. Ana looked at it for a moment, then brought it up to
her lips and drank it in one gulp.

The man called himself Erik and told
Ana that he was doing a year abroad at Nha Trang University. He was
indeed from Australia. He had flown into the city before school
started to get settled. He stumbled into Rocking Waves one day and
found it a great place to hang out. He wondered if Ana had been in
Nha Trang long and whether she could show him around some
day.

Ana hardly paid Erik any attention as
he kept buying her one drink after another. She told him that she
just got fired from her job and kicked out of her apartment. Erik
shrugged his shoulders and said, “That’s life.”

As Ana became more and more inebriated
she started to giggle for no reason at all. She could tell that
Erik was trying to kiss her. She was debating whether to give in
when she heard a loud, explosive boom. She tensed up and held
still, and soon everyone was ducking for cover as, unmistakably,
rounds of bullets were being fired. There were people screaming and
glasses being shattered. Ana could hear someone blowing a whistle
and yelling for everyone to get out.

Erik grabbed Ana and they stooped over
as they moved toward the exit with everyone else. Once outside the
nightclub Ana could see the police cars with the lights flashing
and hear the sirens as more emergency vehicles approached. There
were fire engines and ambulances waiting as well. When Ana looked
back at the entrance of the nightclub, she saw Yurik, handcuffed,
being escorted into a police car by two officers. A string of
scantily clad women of different ethnicities filed out of the
nightclub with their heads lowered, making their way to a police
van. A few more men came out with their hands bound behind them,
and they were shoved into a few other police vehicles.

 
Ana wanted to stay
and make sure that Zoe was really not at the nightclub, but the
police were clearing the area and Ana was forced to leave with
Erik. Erik held her arms as she tried looking back several times.
Her head felt like it was spinning in circles and her feet were
heavy. Erik got a taxi and Ana gave the address of her apartment
building.