Fishing for Tigers (9 page)

‘God. Are you really worried? I mean, do you feel unsafe? Because I'm sure your dad—'

‘No. Don't . . .' Cal rubbed his neck. ‘This sounds stupid, but I didn't tell Dad. I don't want him to know. He might be weird about it. He might . . . I don't know what, but I don't want to have the conversation. I'd rather deal with it myself.'

It sounded unconvincing, suspicious even. The logic of the preemptive, self-protective liar. I had an urge to grab his hands and squeeze them tight, to tell him I understood perfectly. I'd hidden things from Glen all the time. Innocent, ordinary things – a neighbour popping over to borrow a screwdriver, a workmate asking for a lift home – because there was no way of knowing how he'd react.

‘Fair enough,' I said. ‘But, listen, if he keeps hassling you, let me know. I'll sort him out, right?' I tried for reassuring eye-contact, but Cal's gaze was focused on the tabletop. He was clearly sorry he'd told me at all. ‘In any case,' I said, as brightly as I could manage, ‘it shouldn't be a hardship to be out and about in Hanoi in autumn. If I was you, I'd head to the backpacker district. Find some playmates your own age to go exploring with.'

‘That's where I was headed.' He grinned. ‘Before you grabbed me off the street.'

‘Oh. Well. Don't let me hold you up.'

He looked at me like I was a cool stream. ‘Nah,' he said. ‘I'm good here.'

There's a moment I remember from my first week in Hanoi. It was the fourth or fifth day and I had spent the morning on the back of a real estate agent's motorcycle going from gorgeous executive apartment to barely habitable rooms and back again with not a single middle-of-the-market, affordable flat or house in between. Matthew had told me I could trust this agent not to rip me off, but I was beginning to worry that this incessant back and forth from luxury to squalor was a strategy, the object being to make me feel so hopeless about my quest that I would happily overpay for the first realistic option he showed me.

It was lunch time, which, I had already learnt, meant that within an hour the city would be stiller than at midnight. Shop-fronts would close and street vendors would drape their carts or baskets with towels and find the nearest patch of shade in which to sleep. Even the
drivers would stop their smoking and touting and curl into commas on the back of their motos.

The smell of steaming
and grilling pork filled the thick air, and the estate agent shrugged and told me it was time for lunch. He would meet me back at this spot in two hours. My mind was still sluggish from jet-lag and grief and the swampish humidity, and he jumped onto his moto and merged into the sea of lunch-rush traffic before I could respond.

I was afraid to go far in case I never found my way back to that place, which I know now was the intersection of
and Phan
and famous for the guidebook-promoted ‘tourist friendly' street-food restaurant on its corner, but which then looked to me like every other yellow-walled, madly potholed, fish and sewerage stinking street. Across the road was a restaurant that appeared to have an actual door and transparent glass windows, behind which I thought I glimpsed proper tables and chairs. The promise of a comfortable seat and the chance there may even be air-conditioning propelled me off the kerb and into the swarm of motos.

As I had been told they would, but had refused until now to believe, the motos kept coming right at me, elegantly swerving at the moment before impact. I kept my eyes on the restaurant door and put one foot after the other and breathed in petrol fumes and hot air and then I reached the opposite kerb which was as smashed-up as the one I had left and my face busted into a grin that felt ridiculous but which I couldn't stop.

Suddenly I didn't want the restaurant with its dusty blinds and English menu offering
CocoCola
and
Piza
. I swung left and walked until I found a
bánh mì
cart. I ate the bun with dripping pork squatting next to an old man with missing teeth and a pinky nail as long as his thumb. We smiled at each other and I knew that everything was going to be okay.

I'd never wondered since how I had looked to that man, how my beaming awareness of the navigability of my future looked from his side. But now, six years later, Cal said
Nah, I'm good here
and I felt I had completed a journey. I understood the smile of that old man, the pleasure of witnessing trepidation slipping into wonder, of being connected with someone at the start of a path that you had forgotten even existed.

After our second drink I paid the bill and offered to walk Cal back to the Old Quarter. After we'd been walking a minute or so he commented on how nice the early evening air was and asked if I knew of any other open-air pubs.

‘Are you kidding? Outside of the tourist areas they're all open-air.'

‘So, lead the way.'

In the second
bia ho'i
, the blushing teenager who served us asked Cal in halting English where he was from.

‘Australia.'

‘Australia? Because you look like Asian.'

‘Yeah. Asian–Australian.'

‘Yes. Where you from?'

‘My mother is Vietnamese. My father is Australian.'

‘Ah!' She clapped her hands, beaming. ‘Yes. I thought maybe Vietnamese, but you are more handsome.'

‘Thanks.'

‘You have very nice nose.'

‘Nose?'

‘Yes. Do you speak Vietnamese?'

‘Nah. I can say,
xin chào
,
cám o'n
,
and, ah,
tam biet
. That's it.'

The girl had been counting the phrases on her hand. She waved four fingers in his face. ‘Only four!'

He laughed, shrugged, the picture of charm. ‘Wait, four – I know that, too.
, right? Yeah, so that's five I know – I mean,
.'