"NGO Girl"

John Leary

A Sunday afternoon after a week of working too hard we took a trip to the countryside outside Hanoi. It had been Maxie's idea, grouping a bunch of us expats to go motorbiking out of town, to see what was out there beyond the city limits, maybe scare some cows. Late the night before at the Pear Tree, she'd slowly convinced everyone that an outing would do us good. Barry Artesia had asked, "Who's going to be outed?"

The NGO Girl came with Cal, riding on the back of his motorbike. Her real name was Wendy, someone said, but everyone called her the NGO Girl, and that's how she was remembered. She worked for one of the NGO's active in Hanoi. No one was sure which of the non-governmental organizations it was, maybe CARE or Catholic Relief Services or Save the Children or maybe the Mennonites. Whichever, she was adamant about her profession. That's fine, that's fair, we thought, but adamant easily crossed the line into disdainful, a crunchier-than-thou attitude. We learned this shortly after we'd met her, and it saved us the trouble of making up a reason for disliking her.

We gathered early, in front of the Metropole Hotel. The Hanoi summer heat was not yet fierce, though it was bad enough. We stood there waiting like piles of laundry, everyone handwrung with hangovers. There were seven of us, and five motorbikes: the ubiquitous Honda Dream II's with the step-down shift.

While we waited to see who else was going to show up, Barry Artesia entertained us with stories of his previous evening. He'd started in the Apocalypse Now bar, but said he was thrown out after the bartender refused to play the Allman Brothers cassette he always carried around with him. He was a big guy, built like a rowboat, so it was unlikely he could actually be thrown out of any bar in town. A consultant in Hanoi, we knew him as a boisterous drunk, and great fun to be around. More often than not his boister was directed at the NGO crowd or any unwashed backpackers within earshot: he loudly threatened to tag their ears and study their mating habits. The NGO crowd and our crowd, the business crowd, didn't mix much: in part maybe because of Barry. Also, the NGO folks tended to drink at the bia hois --the streetside beer vendors--while we gathered at the White Bar, the Pear Tree, and the lobby bar at the Metropole.

So when Cal showed up with the NGO Girl on the back of his cycle, everyone was a little curious, but no one said anything. He seemed to pretend not to notice the inquiries we glanced his way as he strolled from person to person saying hello in his cowboy drawl.

After more milling and complaining about hangovers, we saddled up. The NGO Girl waited until Cal steadied the motor bike then climbed on the seat behind him, gripping the bar in back rather than holding him around the waist. Her sandy hair was tied behind her with a leather thong; she had freckles and a compact, athletic frame. She was pretty, in a maybe way.

The non-roar of kickstarting our little engines didn't cause any heads to turn.

Clayton stood wiping the sweat from his brow looking lost. He said to no one in particular, "I seem to have been under the mistaken impression that transportation would be provided."

He worked as a lawyer for a New York law firm with a new branch in Hanoi; Cal and some of the other expats in town were his clients. In his late twenties-early thirties like the rest of us, he seemed to lack the resiliency we all believed we shared. He carried more fat than anyone else, he wore expensive glasses, his wispy blonde hair was more meager every day, and in even the mildest heat he turned the color of pickled ginger.

Maxie put him on the back of her cycle.

Artesia asked, "Where are we going?"

Maxie said, "I thought we'd go to the countryside. It's not like there's anywhere else to go; no way could we make it to Ninh Binh or Sapah on these things."

Artesia said, "Ninh Binh can't be more than a hundred kilometers."

"Yeah, but on dirt roads? On these cycles? It's not far, kilometer-wise, but it's a four hour trip by car. Each way. We'll just cruise around and see what's out there. Don't worry," she smiled, "I'm sure there's plenty of trouble we can get into."

Everyone clicked down gears, popped up kickstands, and we were off. With no map, no itinerary, we headed for the river and the bridge: we knew the Red River and one of the Soviet bridges across it were about three blocks from the Metropole. After only two wrong turns, we found it and crossed it. The steel mesh roadway allowed us to view the river underneath our feet as we crossed, peeking down at the rushing brown water.

Maxie stopped just down the road from the bridge to make sure everyone had caught up. Trucks and buses and a horde of motorbikes honked and flailed dust from the thin pavement.

Playing tour guide, Maxie said, "I've heard that during the war the Americans bombed that bridge over and over, and the Vietnamese kept rebuilding it. The Americans would destroy it and the Vietnamese would put it back up in a few days. Finally the Vietnamese grew sick of constantly rebuilding it, so they used American POW's as their repair crews and the Americans stopped bombing it."

The NGO Girl's response came quickly. Out of nowhere. She said, "The Vietnamese wouldn't do something like that. They were idealistic." She used a pleasant voice. Not at all shrill. But still--

Artesia said, "Excuse me? Of course they did."

"Nope, I don't think so." She then delivered a short lecture on the perils of buying into "U.S. propaganda."

It was still early. We had just met her. Artesia and Maxie let it drop. Everyone else pretended they hadn't heard her over the noise of the traffic. We took the road to Haiphong, a two-lane road the Vietnamese motorists treated as if it were a four-lane road. Trucks passing on the shoulder kicked up stinging dust clouds. Vehicles of every type packed the road, like an evacuation going both ways at once with everyone trying to pass everyone else: army transports and cars and vans, plus the occasional sleek 60's Ford. We rode into a rotary with a crumbling concrete Soviet-style sculpture in the middle, a huge fist with sickles and wheat. We followed the eastern spoke out of the rotary, which looked the least crowded.

This road was better paved and less crowded, but dull. For half an hour we rode passing nothing we would remember, then Maxie pulled over to the side. Everyone was dusty and thirsty, and when we stopped we felt the full heat of the sun. It must have been in the mid-90s. We looked around. On either side of the road we saw nothing but brownish fields, brush, and the occasional slouching stucco house. No commercial district. Not even any rice paddies.

It seemed Maxie didn't want to be responsible if the outing was a complete disaster. She said, "Where to now?"

The NGO Girl said, "I think we should get off this main road and go into a village. The roads seem more interesting off to the sides. Maybe there are pagodas or something."

Everyone looked at her. It sounded logical. But no one would agree.

Finally Cal said, "Yeah, pagodas. Let's go."

This seemed to prove conclusively that Cal was interested in her. Just the Thursday night before at the Pear Tree he'd said, "You seen one damn pagoda you seen ‘em all."

He took the lead, and we followed him. If our group in Hanoi could be said to have a leader, a hero, it would be Cal. His full name was Connor Callahan, and he managed the startup office of a New York investment fund in Hanoi. Originally from Wyoming, he had a bit of the cowboy in him: the way he would walk into the Pear Tree or any other bar in town and slowly circulate, walking a little bowlegged, shaking hands with everyone in the room, and smiling with narrowed eyes and one yellow tooth. He could drink with Artesia shot for shot, and shoot pool like it was his profession. About once a month he'd drink too much and stumble around looking lost and that seemed to endear him to the women in town, because sometimes it meant they had a chance with him. Everyone else looked up to him because he mixed well with the Vietnamese, and he was the only one of us who seemed to be making any money.

We followed Cal on the highway until he found a road off to the left, a narrower dirt road trailing about four hundred meters through a field and then into a stand of trees. Cruising along the dirt strip between the highway and the trees, Clayton decided he wanted a photo of a couple of oxen lolling in the heat. Maxie snapped some shots with Clayton's instamatic as Clayton clowned near the oxen. He called them "savage water buffalo." We watched, lobbing a few weak safari jokes.

The NGO Girl sighed. She looked away, seemingly uncomfortable.

Clayton, glancing her way, sensed it. "Perhaps we should resume. And allow the agrarian chorale to resume its pastoral medley unimpeded by touristic interlopers." He removed his glasses and wiped his brow with a handkerchief, all the while grinning madly.

We rode along the dirt strip into the line of trees, to where the road ended at a T and a long amble of shops selling housewares or fruit. One sold flat bread that looked like pita. A café and a few repair shops. There wasn't much of interest so we didn't stop, and the few people wandering the street didn't pay much attention. Off the highway, away from the roar and clutter of the traffic, we rode more slowly, closer together.

The village thinned and was gone, and farmed fields spread out in front of us. Riding past a windbreak of eucalyptus trees we reached a crossroads. Fields marked three of the corners, with a low tumble of boards at the fourth: a small café.

There didn't seem to be anywhere else to go, so we stopped the cycles and piled off.

The café consisted of three low benches maybe six inches high, a few plastic stools and a bent table. We spread out. The NGO Girl stood near a rough wooden display practicing her Vietnamese on the ten year old waitress until Cal told the girl that we'd like some beer. The beer was warm, but it quenched.

Conversation slowed, then stopped. Our hangovers slumbered in the shade, out of the dust, the heat. And everyone was amazed at the silence.

Clayton whispered, "This is unheard of. I can hear a cricket sneeze a mile away."

Hanoi is a noisy place, filled with loudspeakers and street-vendors; the horns of every car, truck and motorbike jostle for solos in the city's music. Then you throw in jackhammers, powersaws and welders, and it makes noontime Manhattan seem as quiet as a Japanese painting.

But at that moment, the only sounds were the scratching of a small child on the concrete floor. A tractor somewhere. Then, nothing.

Everyone soaked in it.

Then NGO Girl started talking, as if she'd been kickstarted. The rest of us fumbled for the kill switch.

"It is so peaceful out here." She must have said that five times in the course of her address, as if she didn't tell us, we wouldn't get it. She used the phrase like some people say "Um." Until the words snapped with irony.

She mentioned the oxen first, telling Clayton he shouldn't have taken pictures. Or more precisely, she said, "Did you have to take those pictures?"

Clayton was a little baffled. The sweat stains from his armpits reached across his back and nearly touched; as he wrung out his handkerchief, he asked, "Is the problem that we will be mistaken for tourists? And therefore be subject to the guile and cheats of the local vendors? Here in North Vietnam? I fear none of us are in danger of blending in with the local populace . . . "

Artesia chimed in, "Yeah, but now that we have stolen the cow's spirit with our magic box there is nothing anyone can do."

Her argument was different, however. Something about how we looked stupid taking pictures of a cow. Like a Vietnamese in New York taking a picture of a fire hydrant. And somehow it all reflected poorly on her--made it harder for her to do her job. Though we were never quite sure what her job was. She only described it in broad outlines; it seemed to involve winning the trust of Vietnamese villagers, then bringing them sunshine and enthusiasm, development paradigms and eco-friendly fertilizers.

She continued. Some people talk when they're nervous. She was likely plenty nervous, what with the new crowd and different worldviews. She spoke about maintaining "the balance" of people's lives, and the travails of shedding light on the ways of the Vietnamese.

When she paused for breath Artesia nodded his agreement; he said when Cal's electric power project near Haiphong was complete Cal would be bringing them plenty of light. He pointed to another of our band, a banker, and said she was bringing them debentures and substantial penalties for early withdrawal.

The NGO Girl ignored him. She held up her can of Coke, and said "This costs sixty cents. In this country the per capita income is two hundred forty-two dollars a year for people who live in the cities, but for the eighty percent of the population that lives in the countryside, it's one hundred thirty-two dollars a year."

We all looked at her as if to say, "Your point being . . . "

Maxie wiped the perspiration from her brow with both hands and said, "Well sure, but most things in the countryside don't cost very much."

Laughs all around. Maxie was a journalist--a business journo--so she was entitled to be in between camps. But she left no doubt whose side she was on.

The NGO Girl's remarks held an implicit message: her mission in Vietnam was right and we were wrong. That was her big mistake, trying to shame guys like Artesia and Cal out of trying to make money. It was like trying to shame dogs out of getting into the garbage. At the time, all of us living in Hanoi thought Vietnam was going to make us rich as kings. It was 1994, right after the country opened, before people were building fortunes through the dotcoms and the internet--as far as we knew, the best way to get rich was by spending a few years working in emerging markets.

The NGO Girl didn't seem pleased at the reception she was getting, but she persevered. She said, "But the only places people buy these things are at the expat bars. Bia hoi on the street is ten cents a glass. A beer at the Pear Tree is three dollars. Expat bars are so neo-colonial."

Artesia studied his beer can and said with a serious air, "I agree. While I'm in the Pear Tree getting weaker, Charlie's in the bush getting stronger. Charlie doesn't have a Pear Tree."

The NGO Girl turned red and looked toward Cal, maybe for support. We were being cynical, so she couldn't be. A pre-emptive cynical strike, Artesia later termed it. As he explained, cynicism was kryptonite for the average NGO worker. It made them look naïve. Sure, we'd heard they could be bitter and cynical among themselves, but we seemed to always bring out their earnest side--it was probably easier for them than displaying outright contempt. The NGO Girl couldn't drop her earnest outlook and join our cynicism; she would look pretty stupid sweating in mosquito-infested diuretic conditions for a salary of seventy five dollars a month without some bulwark of idealism to fall back to.

Cal wasn't going to get in the middle, but seemed to sense there was no need to let things get nasty.He stood, drained his beer, and we headed off again.

We rode single file along trails through fields, then turned onto a tract that led to a walled village of twenty or thirty buildings. Getting closer, we realized the village was not walled--all the houses were simply clustered closely; small picturesque boxes of whitewash and red tile. We passed into the village and the road narrowed to about six feet, paved in red brick.

Clayton said, "Internal combustion engines are likely not the main mode of transport in these parts."

We slowed our pace and filed along. We passed an oxcart and a donkey, stables, and houses and a small shop selling pans and nails. It was difficult to tell whether the structures were houses or businesses or something else--with the narrow road and walls or fences, it was like traveling through a back alley. We saw no people, no vehicles. The entire village was strangely quiet.

"Are we riding into an ambush?" Artesia joked.

We came upon a litter of piglets nursing from a sow spread in a shallow indent below a wall. Clayton dropped back to take a picture. We weren't sure where we were going, so we continued a little farther until there was nowhere else to go. The road ended at a wall with a doorway that was barely wide enough for a motorbike. A footpath trailed from the portal across a shady yard. Cal turned his cycle off and looked around as we gathered near him. He looked at us, then away.

We followed Cal's line of sight. At first we were relieved to finally see some people. A few women had stepped from doorways or gardens to watch us while we struggled to turn the cycles around. Their looks did not seem friendly. Six of them stood watching us, village women in faded clothes and headscarves, scowling.

"Geez, bad vibes," Artesia said.

The NGO Girl probably thought she was in her element, "They're obviously a little surprised to see you." She greeted them in Vietnamese, " Sing xiao quy vuy ."

Nothing. Two of them mumbled conspiratorially and the others just stared. A tattered chicken pecked at Cal's front tire, then looked up at him.

Cal said, "I don't get it--are we trespassing or something?" He apologized to the women in Vietnamese. "Sorry, we got lost. We'll be going now."

Clayton turned to the women, trying to break the tension, "Is the Four Seasons nearby? We have a reservation that we'll lose if we don't arrive promptly at six."

He could see the NGO Girl frown at him. She said, "I think we'd just better go."

Cal said, "There doesn't seem to be anything here. Let's get out of here and find another village or something."

He kickstarted his cycle. We cleared him a path and resumed.

After taking one turn, Artesia honked. We stopped and he said we were going the wrong way.

We followed him to another dead end.

Maxie said, "We can get back that way." She pointed to a narrow bit of road to the right.

Clayton disagreed; he said we should retrace. We retraced and argued at an intersection. More Vietnamese stood looking at us, emerging from nowhere and quietly staring. Even the chickens seemed to stop clucking and stared at us.

"Oh, of course we're not lost," Clayton said, "We just have differing opinions as to our coordinates."

"I know where we are," the NGO Girl said. "See, traditionally Vietnamese villages are laid out in a rough crescent shaped pattern. It makes them easier to defend and provides all the inhabitants with relatively easy access to the fields."

Artesia shook his head, saying, "Great, just great. She's the National Geographic Pocket Compass."

In her defense, she said it as if her interest lay in the fact itself, not that she knew it and we didn't.

Cal led us the way the NGO Girl had pointed.

As we rode, we saw see no one, and only heard the put-putting of our motorbikes. But every time we stopped, in every direction we turned, a few villagers would be standing watching us. We were hot, sweaty, hungry and thirsty, but we found no hospitality. Only the stares from the round peasant faces, the mouths moving slowly, passing quiet comments.

We reached another dead end. Another corner of the tiny village. More women and a few quiet children seemed to issue from nowhere. Their hostility, whether it was real or imagined, put all of us off from asking directions.

Maxie said, "Maybe we have stumbled upon what only looks like a village. Maybe it's really some sort of missile site or something."

Clayton said, "Certainly. And these persons are cleverly disguised junior technicians sent to warn us off."

"Something must be making them so hostile," Artesia said.

The NGO Girl replied, "You are intruding. That's enough to make anyone hostile."

Artesia countered, "It's not intruding if you're lost."

"That doesn't matter to them."

"That doesn't mean they can't help us."

"Why would they want to? We come barging in here on our noisy motorcycles spooking their children and livestock and you expect them to worship us as gods if you flick your lighter at them?"

"All I'm asking for is a little courtesy, it's not like I'm here to napalm them or destroy their houses in order to save them."

We all shifted uncomfortably. Things were deteriorating. Two of us looked around wildly as three women carrying long wooden tools stepped into the middle of path we had just taken, about fifteen meters away.

Clayton tried again, "It occurs to me that I think Italian food would really hit the spot right now. Though if one were to eat a bowl of pasta and a plate of antipasta, would they cancel each other out?"

Artesia looked away. No smile, "Shut up."

If we really had been some sort of hostile army, this would have been the point for us to turn on ourselves, carping and fighting and if we had guns eventually shooting each other in a panicked, paranoid frenzy. But any panic or paranoia we were feeling ran shallow. We felt secure in our place in the country; we were capitalists, we had money: we were welcome guests. At worst, we didn't really get beyond cranky. We turned to Cal, and he didn't fail us. Likely he had been merely being polite in his deference to Artesia's and Clayton's and the NGO Girl's directions, and he'd known the right way to exit the entire time. So, sensing that things were unraveling, he seized the reins and guided us out of there, nodding in a friendly way as we passed the watching Vietnamese.

After reaching the main road, Cal kept a steady pace, riding smoothly about fifty yards ahead of us. There was no chance of taking a wrong turn, as this was the only paved road within miles. At one point a convoy of canvas-covered trucks slowed traffic, and we drew even with Cal and the NGO Girl.

Cal saw we had caught up with him and signaled at the next roadside stand that we should stop for a beer. We were in the heat of the day, and no one had eaten.

We stopped at a two-story building, a roadside café with a linoleum floor. We ordered beer and binbins, little fried shrimp chips. A few of us ordered some fried rice. No one spoke much.

A Vietnamese man at the next table tried to get us to talk to him, but everyone was sullen from the heat, the ride. We'd been out maybe four hours and had at least another hour's ride back to town. It seemed like the trip had been a huge waste of time.

The Vietnamese man offered us cigarettes. He pointed to the NGO Girl who'd left the table and was practicing her Vietnamese on the old woman behind the counter. "Wife which one?" he said, pointing to each of us. We smiled at the ground and moved on.

Coming back into town we passed through the Old Quarter by mistake. Maxie had been in the lead crossing the bridge into town, and she had turned off the river road too soon, so we had entered the town in a different direction than we had left. Traffic was sticky in the Old Quarter. One-way streets tangled the streams of incidental traffic: mad gaggles of bicycles, pushcarts, cyclos and women with poles across their shoulders carrying pots of soup. We proceeded slowly--weaving through the crowd, occasionally putting a foot down to steady the cycles.

Of all of us, Cal was the best driver. He had lived in Hanoi long enough to know the streets and traffic habits, he knew when not to take stupid chances and he could recognize a potential obstacle long before the rest of us could. So he led the way through the Old Quarter and was slightly ahead of us when we reached the intersection at Hung Da market, a broad mandala of concrete where six roads converged.

He seemed to be feeling good to be back in the city, leaning and weaving, cutting through the traffic in the broad intersection like a skier's slow slalom. Then an oncoming car, a black Russian Volga, veered into Cal's path and he swerved. He rounded an old woman carrying chickens, avoided a cross-cutting scooter but a boy jumped into his path from behind a bike and he couldn't do anything but hit him. He tried to turn but the handlebar caught the kid in the throat and knocked him up and over and backwards. It happened quickly, with no long screechy skid giving witnesses time to turn their heads. It went: kid, impact, thud. The kid flew sideways about five yards, then tumbled and skidded some, coming to rest face down. He'd hit the ground on his shoulder to the pop of something breaking: his collarbone, his arm, something. His legs were moving.

Cal knew exactly what to do. He set up his bike and went over to him. The NGO Girl had jumped off the cycle and was already squatting next to the boy. She helped him turn himself over, brushing the loose gravel off his cheek. He had a little blood on the side of his head and he appeared to be conscious. His brown eyes stared but didn't seem to be taking much in. He looked to be about ten years old. People started gathering around and an old man tugged on Cal's sleeve He pointed at the bike, he pointed at Cal, and he pointed at the boy.

"Yeah," Cal said, "I know."

He pulled some money--U.S. Dollars--from his pocket, folded the bills and put them in the boy's front pocket. He looked around. He could not see them, but two policemen stood at the other side of the intersection They were turned away, but when they saw the commotion they would come across to investigate. This would mean accosting and questioning and extortion. The police in Hanoi would not stroll over and help you fill out an accident report, and then let you go merrily on your way. They would stand there in their military uniforms and their imitation Ray-Ban aviators and they would ask you for a fine on the spot. Then they would take you to the police station and ask you to pay another fine and then, if the person was hurt seriously, they would throw you in jail. If the injured person recovered, eventually they would let you go but would drop by your house every few days after that, making vague threats, telling you that the person has had a relapse and died and that you need to pay for the funeral expenses. The usual type of extortion. If the person actually did die the consequences were much worse. At least that was what we were all told.

From where we sat across the intersection, lined up trying to look inconspicuous, Maxie whispered to Cal, "Hurry."

Cal recounted later what happened, what we couldn't see.

The NGO Girl said, "Somebody call an ambulance!"

Cal said, "They don't have ambulances."

She said, "They do! I've seen them!"

"Those are for party members. This kid has probably never even been in a car, let alone an ambulance. C'mon, let's go."

She looked at him like he had slapped her, "What? What are you talking about?"

The two policemen across the street had noticed the crowd gathered near Cal and were picking their way across the intersection to investigate. Another two policemen on a motorcycle with a sidecar had also entered the intersection and were following their colleagues.

A man tugged on Cal's sleeve and pointed to the boy. "Yes," Cal said in Vietnamese, "I have given him money."

The NGO Girl said, "Cal! He's hurt! We can't just leave him here!"

"These people will take care of him. I gave him more than enough. Let's go," he said. "The police are coming." The last sentence was uttered with a calm authoritative urgency. He told us later that he hadn't seen the cops, but knew they must be nearby.

She said, "No, no we can't. We at least have to find his parents, someone to look after him. This crowd . . . " She felt the presence of the crowd pressing on her.

But Cal had turned and was already swinging a leg over the cycle and popping the kickstand up. The police were blocked from our view, obstructed by a lumbering truck.

The NGO Girl half stood, then bent down again. The decision seemed to physically tear at her--she had leaned over the boy but then she had turned her head to look at Cal.

"C'mon," Cal said, "It'll be all right."

Then she stood but turned to look at the boy, saying, "No . . . I . . . "

Cal kickstarted the bike. A few people had gathered around him to block his path, tapping him on the shoulder. Cal revved the engine, in warning to those in his way. The four police had all joined one another and were only ten yards away. Luckily, a Hanoi rubbernecking crowd is thick. . At least a hundred people had dropped everything they were doing to spectate. The police were picking their way through the crowd, which parted slowly, grudgingly.

Cal said, "Let's go." He said it in a way that she would know it was the last thing he was going to say. . He revved the cycle again and clicked it into gear.

The NGO Girl shook her head. It seemed to be a more of a shake of confusion than a shake of disagreement. An old woman grabbed the NGO Girl's wrist with one hand and held the other one open and out, gesturing for money. The woman was bent and weather-lined, what teeth she had were stained black from betel. The NGO Girl tried to take her wrist away from the old woman but the woman held tight, yelling at the NGO Girl, pointing to the boy and then holding out her hand.

"Cal!" she yelled. People were pushing against her, partly pushed by the crowd, partly of their own volition. In a few seconds the crowd would fill the space between the cycle and the boy, and she'd be stuck there. Cal held a hand out toward her.

The NGO Girl twisted out of the woman's grip, stumbled, took three steps, and climbed on the back of the cycle. She folded into Cal's back as if he were shielding her from the wind. Cal released the clutch and a few people tried to hold him, to keep him from going, but they didn't seem to have their heart in it. He said something to them calmly in Vietnamese and they let him pass. . He sped off--veering to avoid a cyclo rider and another near miss --then was gone.

The police had arrived at the boy. One of the onlookers pointed after Cal, then another pointed in our direction, across the street. Two of the police started toward us. We started our bikes and sped away.

We weren't sure where Cal had gone, so we went to the Pear Tree. Ordinarily we would have gone home to shower before we went back out for the evening, but a beer seemed like a very good idea right then, and someone suggested we try the Pear Tree. After some discussion we realized that if Cal took the NGO Girl to an expat bar like the Pear Tree, then it meant he expected to see other expats. He expected to see us.

Cal was sitting with the NGO Girl at a table on the patio. The table held two bottles of beer and Cal was talking to her quietly.

Artesia walked in and put his huge hand on Cal's shoulder, saying, "How're you doing?"

Cal shook his head, "Jesus."

We pulled up chairs and an extra table, ordering beers and smoking, slowly venturing conversation. Everyone made an effort to swallow opinions, skirting controversy. The NGO Girl was pale. She seemed a little lost at first, not saying much to anyone. Eventually, as we had more beers and then dinner, she warmed. She mentioned a few times that she had to go, had to get home, but she didn't leave until late after midnight. Maybe she realized that we were the only companionship available to her at a time when she needed it, providing some shared experience that her shaggy friends couldn't.

None of us are sure what happened to the NGO Girl because we never saw much of her after that. When she left, we asked Cal why he didn't take her home, and he said he wasn't interested in her in that way and never was--he asked her along as a favor, to look after her, because she was the daughter of a guy who was helping to fund one of Cal's projects. Someone said later that an old boyfriend of hers had come over from the States and they were living together. Someone else said she'd gone back to the States to go to grad school.

We spent the better part of that evening at the table, together, instead of breaking off to play pool in the bar or mingle as we usually did. As we talked, we could occasionally see her chin rise, as if she would respond, engage, but for almost an hour she was silent. Then Artesia said something about how the Vietnamese language, the tonal system, was stupid and confusing and she countered him, and we all held our breath. She'd been polite in her rejoinder. She'd begun with "Well, maybe, but my experience has been that . . . " and he nodded, said, "Yeah, you're probably right," and clinked his beer bottle against hers. A short while later she told a good story of her own, about being stranded on a bus in Laos the month before, and we all laughed. Before the end of the evening, she'd had a nice chat with Maxie in the ladies' room, asked Artesia's opinion about inbound investment flows, and dished some friendly grief at Clayton. When it grew late and people started to peel away from the table to go home, to go out, she kissed each of us on the cheek, and we received the kisses like mail from home.