Aperture on the East (3 page)

“
I glanced at it,” said
Ivan.

“
The boy sitting next to
you is Misha. I see that he ran off before properly introducing
himself to you. Anyway, some people are quite rude,” said Sofia.
There was an aristocratic tone in her voice.

“
It’s fine. I am sure I
will get to know him soon since we are going to be in this room all
day it seems.” Ivan shrugged his shoulders.

“
After math, we get a
thirty-minute recess, but we have to gather and do aerobic exercise
before we can play or eat snack. Then, it’s Russian language class,
and after that the science class. You’ll love it,” said Sofia. Her
eyes enlarged for a second.

Ivan thought it was funny that Sofia
took it upon herself to inform him of the schedule. He had already
looked at it the night before, and he had a copy in his
notebook.

“
Then, we will have a
thirty-minute lunch break, and another thirty-minute quiet time,
during which you can nap, or read, or whatever. You just can’t
talk, or you will get points taken off,” said Sofia. She looked
serious.

“
What points?”

“
Every student earns
points by doing something good or completing assigned tasks, like
them.” Sofia pointed to the two students who were now beating the
erasers with a stick outside the window. “And you lose points by
breaking the rules, or getting a bad grade on a test.”

Ivan nodded his head, even though he
didn’t know if he liked what he had just heard.

“
At the end of the
semester, whoever earns the most number of points will be awarded a
trophy, and two tickets to the movie theater, with cash to buy
snacks there too.”

“
I guess you have won this
award before,” said Ivan. He scratched his head.

“
I am proud to say, yes, I
have. I won it last semester,” said Sofia. “Anyway, after the quiet
time, it’s English language class, and then social studies, and
then arts and music last. As Ms. Mimi said, you would be staying
after school to catch up on Vietnamese with Ms. Mimi. She does this
for all new students, except for me. I already spoke Vietnamese
pretty well when I started.”

“
Where did you learn
it?”

“
I was born and raised in
Hanoi. My father is a businessman, and we lived there until about a
year ago. Nha Trang is getting a lot of Russian tourists nowadays,
so my father came down to expand his business.”

“
And what is the
business?”

Sofia didn’t answer.

Ivan was very curious. One did not
come across a Russian girl born and raised in Vietnam every day.
“So, is it a secret?”

“
It’s not. He gathers
information on people.”

“
Like a spy?”

“
No,” said Sofia. “I have
to go. I hope you brought a snack for after school.” She turned
toward the door.

Ivan watched Sofia walk out the
classroom with regal strides, and wondered whether she had any
friends because no one was waiting for her to go to recess
together. Ivan got up from his desk to stretch his legs. He
chuckled quietly as he thought about Sofia, and then he groaned
with dismay when he realized that, due to the short notice, he did
not bring a snack for after school.

Zoe decided to cut classes on her
first day of school. She parted with her brother at the door of
their apartment building, and promptly walked to the seaside
promenade. Her mother had been sleeping when she and Ivan left the
apartment, so she was able to carry her guitar out without much
fuss from her mother. She dropped out of school a long time ago,
and hadn’t planned on going back.

She first walked along the beach a
little, and then settled on a bench away from where most of the
crowd was. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and the sunlight
was warm and inviting. She never much cared for the beach, and
didn’t even like the color blue, but she had fallen in love with
this particular shore since she first stepped on it. She was too
proud to tell her mother about it, however. Since it was also the
first day of school, she decided to commemorate it with her first
guitar practice on the beach, to harmonize with the song of the
ocean. She removed her guitar from its case, and attached the small
amplifier directly onto it; her mother had given it back to her on
the condition that she would attend school that day.

She tuned it a little, and strummed a
few chords. Zoe closed her eyes, and played the melody of “Eva” by
her favorite band, Nightwish. The crisp sound of the vibrating
strings soon wrapped its tentacles around the salty air, flowing
together with the quiet murmur of the South China Sea.

Zoe sang softly. She kept her eyes
closed because she didn’t want to see the ugly glances she thought
she was going to get from passersby. Five minutes in and still no
one had told her to stop, so she became emboldened. She played and
sang louder and louder as she got more and more entranced. She
seconded “Eva” with the song “Bye Bye Beautiful.” Her fingers
clutching the guitar pick moved faster and faster. 

Zoe did a few boisterous chords before
she slapped the strings against the body of the guitar, and the
reverberation came to a sudden stop. She opened her
eyes.

To her surprise there was a small pack
of both locals and foreigners standing around her. Some were giving
a sort of a disapproving look with raised eyebrows, but most were
smiling, and a few apparently were rocking and playing air guitar
to the music. The latter stopped abruptly when the last twang of
the guitar strings vanished, and then they cheered and
clapped.

Zoe opened her mouth in disbelief. She
stood up and gave a bow.

“
Play some more!” someone
said. 

Zoe shrugged her shoulders, smiled,
and immediately started playing “Trip the Darkness” by Lacuna Coil.
This time she didn’t close her eyes. She saw the crowd nodding
their heads and tapping their feet. There was another round of
applause when she finished, and to her amazement, some threw money
into her guitar case, which she had left open out of
habit.

The performance and the coming and
going of audience went on for another twenty minutes when a
policeman showed up.

“
Hey, Miss. You got a
permit to play here?” said the policeman in English. He was in his
early twenties, wearing an olive green uniform and a cap, with
bronze skin and a square face.

Zoe didn’t quite know what to say. The
small congregation of listeners had quickly scattered.

“
You are not allowed to
play in public without a permit,” said the policeman.

Zoe finally muscled out two words,
“Okay. Whatever.” She packed up her guitar.

The policeman dribbled on a pad of
yellow paper and handed the top sheet to Zoe. “It’s a ticket for
the violation of city ordinance.”

“
What in the
world?”

“
You owe the city 500,000
Vietnamese dong. You can pay me now,” said the
policeman.

Zoe didn’t know how to respond. She
was unprepared for a run-in with the law in a foreign country. All
she could remember was the anecdotes online telling people how
abusive and corrupt Vietnamese police officers could be, especially
toward foreigners who didn’t know any better. Her hands trembled
and she felt warm in the face. Tears started to well up in her
eyes, but she fought them back, not wanting to show any
weakness.

“
Hey, what’s the matter?
You look pretty tough.” The policeman examined Zoe from head to
toe, and then focused his eyes on hers.

Zoe said in a low, soft voice, “I-I
don’t have that much money.”

The policeman sighed and said, “Don’t
start crying now. Consider this a warning. Keep the ticket to
remind yourself of your foolishness. If I catch you again, you are
going to jail.” With that, he turned and walked to his motorcycle.
Before Zoe could take a breath of relief, he was gone.

Zoe could still feel the shakiness in
her legs. She could not believe what just happened. She counted the
money in her guitar case. There was roughly 10,000 dong. That was
all the money that she possessed at the moment. Her mother had not
given her any allowance and she did not have any savings at
all.

Well, what a shame. People seemed to
like her music. Maybe she would research about getting this permit,
and then she could earn her way to financial independence from her
mother. She could be out on her own again; she could hardly stand
living with her mother any longer.

She walked toward a vendor and spent
3,000 dong to get iced coffee, which was dispensed in a clear
plastic bag with a straw thrown in, the opening of the sack tied
close by a red string. She sipped her coffee as she turned her back
on the ocean to face the busy Tran Phu Boulevard that she was about
to cross. She cast her eyes to the row of hotels and restaurants on
the other side. Through the rumbling torrent of motorcycles and
cars, she could hear the cacophony of different, but all upbeat and
rapid, music coming from the restaurants that were now serving
breakfast. She knew very well that those restaurants would remain
open long after midnight to accommodate the revelers. She drank the
rest of her coffee in one gulp and tossed the bag in the trash. She
had made up her mind.

“
How are your kids doing?”
Mai Nguyen, the head chef in Quan Bien Dong, said to Ana, who was
washing the vegetables while waiting for the dinner crowd to
arrive.

“
I enrolled them in a
school for Russians. Ivan seems to be doing fine. Zoe has not been
cooperating, however. The school sent me a notice saying that she
had not shown up at all.”

“
No,” said Mai, stirring a
pot of soup on the stove.

Ana was not in the habit of talking
about her problems, but something about Mai made Ana lower her
guard and confide.

“
Also,” said Ana, “Ivan
said that she got a ticket playing the guitar in public without a
permit, although apparently the policeman let her off with a
warning in the end. She was bragging about it to Ivan, saying how
she had not lost her cool. She used to have problems with the
police back home, too.” Ana paused, and then said, “Well, at least
she hasn’t run away. When I decided to move to Nha Trang, she was
not living at home at the time and I didn’t know where she was. I
had to stake out at her favorite guitar store for days before she
showed up. I was so relieved when she agreed to come.”

“
Your daughter’s a trouble
maker?” said Mai.

Ana didn’t respond. She felt
responsible for Zoe’s behavior, and didn’t want to blame everything
on Zoe.

“
My son skipped school
once,” said Mai. “My husband gave him a beating and he was not
allowed to eat dinner for three days. After that, he never skipped
school again. He just graduated from college last year.”

Ana still said nothing. Although Ana
was not supportive of corporal punishment, she didn’t want to make
a comment that might offend her colleague. She liked Mai, and she
needed a friend now.

“
Well,” said Mai, “I’m
sure you’ll think of something to make Zoe change. She will get
expelled from school soon if she doesn’t go to classes. Without a
high school diploma, she won’t be able to go to college and find a
good husband.” Mai sprinkled some salt into the soup.

Ana chuckled, and secretly thought
that perhaps that was the reason why she had such trouble finding a
“good husband” for herself. Then she remembered that she was in
fact married to a good man once, and it wasn’t the lack of a
college degree on her part that had caused the marriage to break
up.

When Ana finished washing the
vegetables, another Russian waitress, Olga, came into the kitchen
carrying bags of groceries. Olga set them down on the counter and
said, “I never thought that I’d be doing the shopping, too. Can’t
you send one of your cooks to do this, Mai?”

“
I would’ve,” said Mai,
“but Mr. Tran’s into this cross-training deal, and in case we are a
cook short, he’ll want you here. Ana’s washing and chopping
vegetables, too.”

Olga rolled her eyes, and then said to
Ana in Russian, “My friends from the university and I are going for
a drink after work tonight. They are mostly Russians. Do you want
to join us?”

Ana would really appreciate the
opportunity to meet other people from her country, but she had to
decline. For one thing, she would probably be the oldest in the
group by at least fifteen years, and she didn’t want to stand out
being the only one without any college education. She said, “I have
to get home to my kids. Thanks so much for inviting me
though.”

“
That’s fine,” said Olga.
“I’ll ask you again next time. There is a really nice place here
with vodka and pickled herring, if you ever get home
sick.”

Ana’s gustatory memory of her
motherland was instantly aroused, and she could almost taste the
vodka and the pickled herring right now. She swallowed hard, and
helped Olga put away the groceries.

“
Olga!”

Ana could tell that it was Mr. Tran
calling on the other side of the kitchen door.