by Di Li

Released in Vietnamnews
 
 

A young man with flaxen hair opened the door to Mien. He had a big tattoo of a red and black anchor on the left side of his tanned chest.

"Excuse me. Could you please turn down your music, it's late," she asked.

"I'm awfully sorry for having bothered my pretty neighbour so much," replied the youth whom she nicknamed Anchor on site.

That was their first meeting. When she got home, she unconsciously clicked her mouse to open Anchor's blog. A surprising array of pictures glided across her screen.

She walked quickly to the lift and pressed No 10. As the doors were sliding closed, a strong hand suddenly forced its way inside and kept them ajar. Anchor stepped in quickly with a broad smile. He was carrying several sheets of long fabric and a few sweat covered workers were following him.

"Just a moment, my lady! We live on the same floor," he insisted. She usually felt uneasy travelling in the lift with strangers. It was hard for her to breathe when trapped inside the small cabin with aliens she didn't know.

"Lady, I'm going to make up for bothering you yesterday," Anchor smiled conciliatorily. Mien shook her head to show that she did not understand what he meant.

"Last night, you were so hard on me that this morning I'll have my walls covered with these sound-proof sheets," he added.

She had been living in this bloc of flats for about six months, whereas Anchor had just settled here a few months before. But to be honest, she hadn't even noticed him until she was tortured by his ear-splitting music that night.

Her rent was the cheapest in the entire building, which was full of young residents. None of them were over forty. In addition to the common lift, there were many sets of stairs to all of the monotonous and gloomy floors, each lined with brown wooden doors on both sides of the hall which were always shut. Since Mien had moved in, she had not met any of the hundreds of other residents in the bloc, even though she sometimes shared the lift with them. Contrary to Mien, these young residents seemed very happy in their own world with the motto: the fewer encounters and sharing, the better.

After their second meeting in the lift the loud music at night came to an end. The next meeting, Anchor knocked at her door to see if her power was out. It was not, so Anchor's power line must have been disconnected.

"You live alone, don't you?" he asked her. "Wonderful! Celibacy is one of the products of the most civilized world," he added.

Mien stared at the Interest Section on Anchor's blog. He had a funny mention of Mien.com. As a result, she had a bit of an awkward online chat with him. That day, he knocked at her door again.

"Is there any problem with your power, Mien?" he asked with a broad smile covering his sweat covered face in the flickering light of a candle. "Today I'll celebrate my birthday. We're going to a nearby restaurant. Would you like to join us? My power could be out for awhile, you know," he went on.

His friends, about ten in all, male and female, were both elegant and ridiculous. They went to a restaurant called Funky Girl. Some of his friends acted like rappers by gesticulating with two stretched fingers. One of them read a long text and mispronounced two special words, thus making them all burst into laughter. She kept calm, although Anchor had tried to keep them from making her confused.

No problem! Their discussions all revolved around sex, including funny things such as insinuations and symbolic topics flavoured with humorous stories. She remembered that in her former office, where she had worked for a time after returning home from the United States of America, sex was often the main topic of conversation among her co-workers. With time, their stories turned more and more fabricated and were supplemented with numerous expressions quite difficult for her to understand.

On the way home, she asked him a few questions.

"So, what is your real name?"

"My name is Gia Luong, taken from a Chinese novel about an errant knight. But you can call me Ricky for short. It was the nickname my classmates gave me."

"Where did you go to school in the USA?"

"Bowdoin University in Massachusetts. I graduated three years ago."

"That means you're about 25 years."

"Right you are! I guess I'm five years younger than you, elder sister. Why didn't you stay in the USA to work after you got your Masters?"

"Why didn't you?"

"My circumstances are different," he shook his head. "So why are you still single? he asked her further.

***

Ricky's photo album flashed on her screen. The images only appeared for a moment then disappeared. Most of the photos, taken at his birthday party, were of Mien, Anchor, and his yellow-haired friends and a girl holding up her two fingers in the shape of a V.

Mien's phone rang but she ignored it. A few seconds later, it rang again so she disconnected the cord. She was busy looking for a packet of instant coffee when someone knocked on her door.

She had only met Lam Vi once before.

"Ricky's asked you to open the door for me," Lam Vi, without greeting Mien, said in an insolent voice. "He's too busy to return home now," she added.

***

Sometimes, Anchor invited Mien to his flat. His room was as colourful as a preschool class: magazines, tapes, discs, clothes, cigarette butts, candy wrappers and bottles were scattered everywhere. It was very strange. He was not ashamed of the mess in the least. He even dropped an empty cigarette packet to the floor in front of her. She paced up and down the room.

"Do you want me to tidy this mess for you?" she asked.

"Why bother, everything will be the same again tomorrow. How can you put these things right forever?" he replied.

"However, you may come in any time and do whatever you wish. Anyhow, thanks a lot," he added. Shaking his body lightly, he moved towards her. He nearly pressed her to the wall, held her hands tightly then gave her his keys. Bewildered, she pushed him away then made for a pile of old newspapers. He whistled merrily in high spirits and shook his body slightly again.

"Don't worry! I always think of you as my elder sister," he told her. With the same weird moving gait, he walked to the sofa, dropped himself onto it then raucously sang an English song that she had never heard.

She was happy for she had gained his trust, which he proved by giving her the keys. He was often gone during the weekends, especially during holidays. She went to his room and tidied it up carefully, although she knew that as soon as he returned home it would be messy again.

***

Lam Vi made everybody uneasy at their first meeting. She failed her university entrance exam. She was too talkative, except when she was chewing gum. What's more, she was very stylish: smoking a lot, talking nonsense, leaving the upper hem of her trousers sagging, wearing low-necked dress, dying her hair partly yellow and partly red, and using dramatic nail polish.

Mien opened the door to let Lam Vi in. She took a can of beer out of the fridge and the cold beverage with ease. She put her feet, in their high-heeled shoes, on the table. The air in the room was stuffy because Anchor always closed the door and windows tightly. His room was like a shelter for a pagan religious sect.

"Mien, I wonder why Ricky is interested in you?" Lam Vi asked, staring at Mien and blowing smoke freely. Mien did not feel offended by her rude question because she had the same question about Lam Vi, although she had never expressed it.

Mien remembered that Anchor had once told her, "You're quite insipid." Like Lam Vi, he always spoke his mind to Mien.

While many people told Mien that she was beautiful, Anchor had another perspective. He dragged her to the mirror and said "Look at your self. Every detail in your face is fine, but when you put everything together, you look rather tasteless," he observed.

Now at the age of thirty, she had never had a boyfriend. On a few occasions, she heard the vague remarks that some dizzy young men said about her, "Fair but dull". Now, it was Anchor's turn. "Your life is not interesting," he said as he embraced her and spun her around a few times while laughing.

The third time Mien saw Lam Vi Anchor was giving her a piggy back ride. It was one o'clock in the morning and Mien had slept for a long while. When she woke up, she remembered that she had left her mobile phone in his room while she was tidying up. Thinking that in these small hours of the morning, everybody would surely be sleeping soundly, she picked up his key and slightly opened his door. Hardly had the door opened when loud music pierced her ears and she saw many multi-coloured lights blinking,

Mien was dazzled. Both Anchor and Lam Vi were wearing casual clothes and humming in line with the heart-rending music. In the meantime, black figures were twisting on the sofa or on the floor in a fantastic and exciting dance.

***

"Are your parents happy?" she asked him.

"Very blissful indeed, Mien. Mum still has the aluminium comb that Dad offered her thirty years ago."

"Do you think you were ill-treated or indulged in your childhood?" she asked.

"If I had been ill-treated, how would I have finished sixteen years of education?"

"When did you meet your friends?"

"Last year. One introduced me to another. One day I told them, ‘I'm bored with the life in this condominium. Let's find a temporary way out'. They're all very intelligent, so the issue was solved fairly well, as you can see."

"Have you ever been abandoned by a sweetheart?" she asked him.

"Now, have a look at me to see if I'm handsome or not. A lot of pretty girls are interested in me, you see."

Anchor leant back on the sofa sexily.

"Frankly, I'm bored with you. Why do you ask me such tedious questions? What do you want me to change for? In my opinion, you should replace the disgusting plain paper on your walls for something better and don't allow your bed sheets to stay crumbled during the day," he advised her. "My parents are very rich and enjoy a good social status. However, they are just as tasteless as you. I think that you should make some big changes. Do it as soon as possible," he said, humming a strange tune and dancing a fantastic dance.

***

Mien once managed to persuade Anchor into giving up his gang for a long weekend. He closed the door, disconnected the power line, then stayed in Mien's room for two days. At night, he slept on the light blue sofa. But his eyes were uninterested as he turned a deaf ear to her long narratives. He didn't tell any funny stories or dance his weird dance. One night, he got up from the sofa, opened the wardrobe then rushed to look for something in the bathroom.

"I thought somebody was hiding in your flat in an aim to get rid of me, for he loves you very much," he confessed.

Mien's assuring words seemed useless. He was startled awake many times by his nightmares and screamed sadly. "Mien, somebody is going to kill me," he said in a frightened voice. When she gave him a glass of milk, he appeared doubtful, "Someone might have dropped poison into this glass," he went on. His depressions and hallucinations at the weekend made Mien pessimistic.

When the weekend was over, he returned to his queer shelter behind the brown door. His life at once returned to normal. His eyes were wonderfully sparkling.

"Mien, I've just found a wealthy partner. He's invited my company to be its exclusive software distributor in the North," he told her one day. His high spirits were beyond her imagination.

***

The image of a light yellow convertible coup loomed larger and larger then spread across her entire computer screen. Mien clicked the mouse to pause the photo. It was a windy and cloudy afternoon at the end of autumn.

"Hullo Mien! Go downstairs, will you? I'm in the courtyard."

She stuck her head out of the window. Anchor was standing next to his luxury vehicle, waving his hand in high spirits.

"This is my last chance to make my own living. From now on, I shan't have to resort to support from my parents as I've just signed a very lucrative new contract," he said. "Why don't you go upstairs and take off your dull clothes and try this on. It's my thanks for all of our happy days," he seized her hands tightly and gave her a box wrapped in a dark red sheet of flowery paper.

It was a thin bright red silk skirt.

Whistling merrily, he sat behind the steering wheel and gazed up at the dark blue sky. "I'll take you to any place you wish," he said softly.

The next day, Anchor's mother visited his flat. She scolded him severely for having spent her money on the fancy new car. She was a luxurious and elegant woman. Yet she was sweet and serious. That evening Anchor returned home earlier than usual. Mien felt a tenseness between Anchor's mother and one of his stubborn neighbours behind the thick wooden door. The lady left so quickly that she forgot to say goodbye to Mien just before Anchor came home. He entered her room and dropped himself onto her sofa, clearly distressed.

"I'm unsuccessful now, Mien. My partner refused to sign the contract because I'm short of too many legal documents. At first, I thought that I might resort to bribery, but…," he poured out his heart to her.

***

Anchor phoned his girlfriend. "Lam Vi, where are you? I really need you," he said to her. From the bottom of Mien's heart, she knew that he needed Lam Vi urgently because for him, Lam Vi was a kind of pain-killer that might help him forget all the ups and downs in his life.

The yellow car no longer existed: it was not liquidated because Anchor had paid off his debt, but it lay eternally in an abyss, crashed and alone under a dangerous bend in the road. Nobody knew the reason why Anchor had passed over that cliff at two o'clock in the morning in the pitch dark of night. Many guessed that the accident might have happened when the driver fell asleep. The deep, dark and gloomy abyss swallowed the car completely.

Mien went to work regularly as usual. In the evening she ate bread and a few tomatoes while looking at her personal computer after closing the door carefully. At these times, Anchor's multi-coloured blog seemed to be leading her into another world full of hallucinations, grief and rage.

Anchor had hundreds of faces on his Friends' list. They were all young, good-looking, self-confident, lively and impressionable. Mien clicked to her own picture. Oddly enough, she found she only had one friend. Opening her eyes wide, she saw a message close to a tanned face. It read, "At this hour, you're sleeping soundly, I think. One of my close friends in Lang Son City has invited me to his place. He's going to set up his own company and asked me to pool my money with him to open a business together.

Love,

Anchor

Your neighbour"

Translated by Van Minh