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One More Loss to Count "Me, I'm Chinese," Be Hai says. She's the sergeant major's woman, switching from French to English. We talk with our eyes, sipping Cokes in my hooch. Days pass before she shows up again with a shy look, not herself, that bowed dance with her head the Vietnamese do. Sometimes I look up to find her standing in the doorway, not knowing how long she's been there, watching me with my earphones plugged in to James Brown or Aretha, her man somewhere sleeping off another all-night drunk. Once I asked her about family. "Not important, GI," she said. We all have our ghosts. Mine are Anna's letters from L.A. This morning Be Hai shows up with a photograph of the sergeant major & his blond children back in Alabama. For months we've dodged each other in this room, dancers with bamboo torches. She clutches the snapshot like a pass to enter an iron-spiked gate. There's nothing else to say. The room's caught up in our movement, 22 & the novel Anna sent me days ago slides from the crowded shelf. Like the cassette rewinding we roll back the words in our throats. She closes her eyes, the photograph falls from her hand like the ace of spades shadowing a pale leaf. 2<3 ...

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