Buy cheap pocket bike: 5,000
The 5,000 dong bill that caused Luu Van Dat's beating was no different from any other of that denomination; it was royal blue and bore a lithograph of Ho Chi Minh on one side and a fanciful hydroelectric dam on the reverse.
Luu Van Dat's wife, Oanh, had a cousin who owned an art gallery and jewelry shop near Hoan Kiem Lake. One of Oanh's paintings sold to a Belgian tourist for a tidy fortune: 500,000 dong, half of which went to the artist. In celebration and thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Luu took the cousin and his family for a lavish feast of fish, prawns, and snails on the banks of West Lake. That night, wheezing Heineken, Dat managed to connive 30,000 from his wife. Wisps of combed-over hair curled unstuck from his round reddened dome. He needed new rosin; the manager of the Metropole restaurant had mandated new shirts for the trio in which Dat played violin. In silence, Oanh counted out the bills to cease his whining lies and lay beside him in the dark, deaf to his swelling snores as she mentally disbursed the remainder.
Early the next morning, Dat called at the newsstand a few doors down Phu Doan Street.
Good morning, said the old proprietor. A gold incisor gleamed in his grin and his cheeks were striped with age. But his vigor had not diminished in his sixth decade; he had been born, as he liked to remind people, in the Year of the Tiger.
Good morning, Quang. Dat picked up a copy of a football paper and tossed down 1,000 dong for it. Quang's wrinkles reversed themselves with a sullen frown.
Little brother, have you forgotten? You put 10,000 on the Army team last week.
Did I? What was the score? Dat feigned innocent surprise, but he was just a guileless musician and the pathetic attempt only served to sour the older man's mood.
Four to two, Quang spat. You promised to pay me today.
I'd forgotten, Quang. But I'm afraid I can't pay you today. My wife, you see . . . she's sick, and I must buy her some medicine.
Your wife.
Yes. Very sick.
It's best not to speak of her. She was here the other day, screaming that I was to accept no more bets from you. She threatened to bring the police down on me. At this Quang allowed a sly smirk.
Really, the violinist said nervously. The police, ah?
Yes. You know I keep my books here-Quang stroked the top of his head with a newsprint-blackened thumb-but I am an old man, and if they threatened a jail term...
Of course, of course. Dat dug into the pocket of his creased slacks and managed to pull a 5,000 dong note out of his wallet without withdrawing it. Let me cover half now, and I'll give you the other half as soon as I can.
But your wife's medicine . . . I can't take it.
No, no. I insist.
All right. Quang's fingers snapped over the bill and it disappeared before Dat could change his mind. Late now, the musician hurried off, muttering: Greedy old bastard. Stupid son of a pig, Quang murmured. Thick as day-old chit.
The young girl from the noodle stand across the street came running over, dodging bleating motorbikes.
Grandfather Quang, can you change this for my mother? She held out a ro,ooo dong note. Quang gave her the 5,000 the violinist had given him, two 2,000 s and two soiled ,500s. The girl lost a sandal in the middle of the road, and was almost run down picking it up.
Watch it, you blind idiot! screamed her mother. The driver paid no heed, thinking it directed at the girl. The girl waited as a bundle of schoolboys passed slowly on their bicycles. Out of the way, monkey! shouted one who stood on the rack as his friend pedaled laboriously. The boys laughed. The girl darted between creaking wheels and her mother snatched the limp bouquet of bills.
What took you so long? She shaved slivers from a chicken carcass. Always dreaming! Yes, mother. The girl stirred the cauldron of broth with a great bamboo ladle, pungent steam beading her face.
Her mother slapped heaping bowls in front of a pair of startled patrons, so hard that soup splashed over the rims. She thrust them chopsticks as if she meant to put their eyes out. Her last customer, a young Army corporal, was already astride his motorbike, picking his teeth and waiting for his change. The soup vendor gave him Dat's 5,000 and the pair of 5 0 oos, moist with soup. He counted it twice, stuffed the bills into his shirt pocket, and started the bike.
Traffic was heavy, even at seven; thousands of Hanoians were on their way to work. The chicken in the corporal's soup had been a bit rancid and caused his stomach to churn. He belched chili sauce and blared his horn. A three-wheeled xe lam loaded with coils of rope shot out of an alleyway and in braking he bumped the motorbike in front of him with his front wheel. The rider turned to glare at him and he tried to stare her down, but a sudden twisting in his intestine induced an agonized grimace.
The woman climbed off her little green Tact and made a show of examining her taillight for damage. Its bulb had been burnt out for weeks, but she took the opportunity to berate the queasy corporal for breaking it. The tip of her nose bloomed with rash and her hat's plastic flower bobbed in time with her great theatrical flourishes. A ring of onlookers gathered as their argument heated, slowing traffic. The corporal examined the taillight with the care of a surgeon, one hand clenched over his growling guts. The soup roiled in his belly like a high, bitter sea. The foul stench of his rottenchicken breath steamed up her thick glasses, but the tiny red-nosed woman would not be deterred. At last the corporal yielded and they haggled over the repair cost. With a final derisive snort he gave her the 5,000 and left her still protesting for more damages.
The woman carefully tucked the bill into her purse and took the next right, so as not to catch up with the corporal in case he had second thoughts. At Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, she was stopped by a traffic policeman for cutting across a roundabout she had mistaken for a stalled truck. Her astigmatism was such that at work she held the ledgers so close the ink left her nose raw. Rather than confiscate her motorbike, the policeman was happy to accept 5,000 dong as an unofficial fine and let her go with a stern warning.
The policeman coughed through 5,000's worth of lunchtime beer-he had tuberculosis, though he didn't know it yet; the beerhall owner gave the note to his cross-eyed waitress to replace broken cups; the glassware shop owner (an orphan himself) bought a dozen loaves of bread for the pack of beggar children who roamed his neighborhood; the breadseller picked up some paracetamol for her feverish husband; the pharmacist purchased a fish-at a good price, as the fish had gone a bit rank. The fishmonger got a haircut (and several nicks from the barber's dull, rusty scissors).
The decrepit barber, who'd been practicing his trade on the same street corner for almost thirty years, struggled with his desire for drink while sweeping hair into the gutter. Firm in his resolve-at least until the next haircut-he used the 5,000 to fix his bicycle tire. The bicycle repairman, a one-legged veteran, bought ten 500-dong lottery tickets even though the barber had taken his last innertube.
The old woman who sold lottery tickets considered the crippled mechanic's money unlucky; none of his hundreds upon hundreds of chits had ever won. She stashed away her chair, table, and tickets for a few minutes to dash into the market. There she bought a sheaf of hell money in its latest minting: bright chartreuse $100 bills, woodblocked on rough rice paper such that Benjamin Franklin could easily be mistaken for the mandarin of prosperity. She burnt it for luck at the base of the tree which shaded the stand where she sold chances at riches. The ash crumbled among the roots; the knots were crammed with old joss sticks like strange blooms. A painted mirror she'd nailed up to sanctify the bent, gnarled trunk winked in the sun.
The paper votive vendor spent the 5,000 on postage to her nephew, who sold car stereos in Tacoma, Washington, in America. The young postal worker slipped the 5,000 into his pocket and tossed the stampless letter into the trash. The fierce ache of his growing body had generated an insatiable appetite for raw eggs, of which the embezzled 5,000 procured a dozen. The egg peddler put the money against a dress of crimson Hoi An silk she was paying off in installments. It was actually cheap Chinese polyester; this subterfuge, along with usurious interest, garnered the tailor enough profit to buy an electric rice cooker. The huge cooker loomed in a corner of her kitchen, dispensing perfect, fragrant portions from its bottomless white hull.
Food for thought...............Lz
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Topic: Food for thought...... (Read 1116 times)