GOLDEN TORTOISE, THE

Closed

53 Edward Tick I find Son’s tiny shop on a busy main thoroughfare between clothing stores and cold drink vendors. Closed The old black padlock on his worn plank door would not halt a determined gecko. Behind this sun-splashed pale wood are stacks of worn, finger-stained books— Poe, Hemingway, James, Shakespeare— written in words he can understand but not pronounce. His stacks are piled between the three squat walls he built with his old father, lined with thinly shaved shelves, like an ancient temple displaying rows of Buddhas, saints, goddesses smiling, smiling, smiling. He toils to chip and shape their grins from his marble chunks— pink from the south, red from Ha Noi, and yellow from the mountains near his central home. He caresses these chunks of his homeland the way a gentle breeze ripples the rice grass. I cannot find my friend today. From the side of the world he imagines but can never see I carried his favorite gift— books and hours of talk in a language he loves but cannot speak. Now I am the gecko by his door squatting in the steaming noon in dust, scattered leaves, moped drone, waiting for an hour as he waits for a year. 54 The Golden Tortoise I listen to the crickets click as sweat drips from my nose and brow. A lone bird lands in the dusty tree and warbles the song we would speak: “It is the sap root. It is the sap root.” Though I have the language he craves I cannot pronounce the name of this ache I carry for this hour a year of talk with my friend. The crickets halt. The bird flies away. The ache will travel everywhere I go. What does gifting him gift me? R In the simmering summer noon, the sidewalks become radiators and both vendors and customers desert the marketplace. Hoi An Noon “Hello! Sir! Boat ride!” Her only English echoes through the steam as she steers and bumps her tiny sampan beneath the carved hull and long rudder of the two-decker tourist boat. “Hello. Sir. Boat ride.” Her right hand grips her push pole or tugs the tour boat’s anchor line. Her left hand lifts and drops, lifts and drops as between calls she drags on a cigarette. “Hello. Sir. Boat ride.” Streets empty. Stalls closed. Too hot even for vendors. She cannot risk missing a single fare. But I have had my daily ferry. Shade is all she has. “Hello. Sir. Boat ride.” R ...