New Star

  New Star

  MANHEIM WAGNER

  Published by Azúcar Esfinge 2019

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Manheim Wagner

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781731000484

  ISBN- 13: 978-1731000484

  Cover Photo by Jeremy Coleman

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Charles Baudelaire Quote translated by Nagi Kafu

  Abe Kōbō Quote

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “The true travelers are those who leave for the sole purpose of leaving. With hearts as light as balloons, unable to flee from ill fate, they just call out all the time, ‘Let’s go, let’s go,’ without knowing why.”

  —from Le Voyage by Charles Baudelaire, as translated in American Stories by Nagai Kafu

  “One measure of a civilization, in fact, is the percentage of misfits in its society.”

  —from Secret Rendezvous by Abe Kōbō

  1

  “Can you start work on Saturday morning?” asks the voice on the telephone.

  “Sure.” I look out the window. My neighbor dressed in pink silk pajamas is wafting a charcoal fire with a bamboo fan. The drone of a TV cascades down the lane. “Vietnam and Rwanda vow to increase bilateral ties.”

  “Good. See you then,” the voice says. I hang up the phone and take a hit of weed. After three months of no work, futile poetry and scribbled-out lines, I have a job.

  New Star ELT Centre. Mark Boyle started it after being fired from Atlas Education Centre. He got caught shagging one of his students. An old bricklayer from Brisbane, married with seven children, he conned some born-again church for start-up money.

  I’m supposed to teach a children’s class; good thing I’m a bachelor. I glance at my notebook.

  Prostitutes stand in front of the old jail.

  Gay hustlers walk around lakes.

  A blind man taps the shelves in a bookstore.

  The biggest hotel is empty.

  A dog walks on its front legs.

  Teens cruise on their motorbikes.

  Sandalwood drifts.

  The poetry comes when the vodka runs out. I take another hit. The ceiling fan spins. It’s May. The humidity creeps, pushing down tree branches. A cockroach scurries along the base of the chalk-colored wall — a sure sign a storm is brewing.

  I look at the photos I’ve taped to the wall. A Chinese opera singer puts on makeup, while a boy flies a kite. Thu Duong’s wavy long hair envelops her almond-shaped face. A pile of correspondence from people back home lies on the desk.

  I’m broke, living in a two-story house with high ceilings. My studio stays empty. The paints I bought, unopened, mock me. You call yourself an artist. A piss artist can do better than that.

  I take a nip of cheap Vietnamese vodka and watch more cockroaches scamper from under the wall. They’ll die in an hour. I sprayed insecticide along the exterior...time to go to the roof.

  TV aerials litter the gray sky. I sit in my wicker chair, beer in hand, watching the lightning strike the city edge.

  2

  A gate with a cheesy cross and the Star of Bethlehem opens to a narrow road that snakes around a couple of ochre-colored warehouses printing soapboxes. At the end, a terracotta-tiled courtyard fronts an old villa. A small fountain shoots water above a fishpond.

  Inside the villa, I’m greeted by a chubby British guy named Rick. “I’m glad you could make it today.”

  Like I had any other choice. Humanity does not take kindly to those not enslaved by a job.

  Wearing my best office clothes, tailored in Bangkok, I follow Rick past the reception desk to the staff room. Stacks of English books line the bookshelves.

  “Mark is back in Australia visiting his family, but like we said during the interview, we pay fifteen dollars an hour. If this class goes well, we’ll have more classes for you soon.”

  I nod my head. Being awake at 8 a.m. is not good for anyone.

  “Huong will be your co-teacher, to discipline the kids if need be,” he says introducing me to a Vietnamese college girl with long straight hair, wearing glasses. You’ll be responsible for teaching grammar and vocabulary. Here’s the lesson log. You can see what James taught last and when you’re finished, write what you taught today. It’s pretty simple.”

  Prepositions of place. An easy lesson if there ever was one. I look at the book and scribble my lesson plan, making small talk with Huong. She’s from Hanoi and working here part time to help her parents pay for university.

  I mix some instant coffee and follow Huong back out past the reception desk, to a pale-green painted classroom around the corner. Inside, twelve Vietnamese children between the ages of five and seven greet me with a big “hello” spoken in unison.

  I write my name on the whiteboard, while Huong explains to them that I’m their new teacher. Then I quickly learn their names and begin introducing the prepositions to my rambunctious audience. I can see right away Huong will be of no use. The children fight and scream over her meager reprimands.

  Fucking great.

  I finish my attempt to have the children pronounce the prepositions and send them on their way through an obstacle course I created out of the classroom furniture. It’s a race against time to see who can yell out the prepositions the fastest as they individually go over, under and around all the furniture. The winner gets a bag of candy, while I get to kill a good bit of time.

  So it goes, over, under and around for forty-five minutes. All the kicking and screaming of prepositions have thankfully prolonged things. I take a sip of water and look at the clock. Fifteen minutes to go.

  I put the kids in pairs and they use the prepositions to guide and instruct each other around the school and back to their waiting parents. Day one is finished. I say goodbye and walk back to the staff room.

  “Things seem to have gone well,” Rick says. “The immediate feedback was good. We have some adult classes to fill this week if you’re looking for more work.”

  “Sure.” I exhale, feeling banal repetition hang over my shoulders.

  “For someone who needs a job, you sure don’t look grateful...To be honest, your interview was terrible. Luckily for you, we had an urgent need and you have the CELTA.”

  “Lucky for both of us,” I repl
y, writing my lesson into the lesson log.

  “You seem like a good teacher though. Let’s see how you handle an adult class and go from there.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I grab my things and say goodbye to Huong and Rick.

  3

  Chu Nguyen is a retired dissident. He spent the late 1960s and early 1970s in one of Uncle Ho’s gulags. He was an economics professor at Hanoi University before he refused to teach the party line. When the communists came to his office, he stood defiantly.

  “I told them I’ll never be your dog henchman,” he laughs. The large lump in his throat, going up and down, as Thanh, his nephew, lights a cigarette.

  “Ho was a bastard. He was never a nationalist. He was a communist first,” Chu Nguyen says, tapping his sinewy fingers on the table. “He did everything Mao did.”

  I take a sip of beer, as Thanh chimes in, “He never liked kids. It was all a myth. I grew up near Ho Tay and Uncle Ho’s house on stilts. One day, we were playing football near his house and the ball went right under it. I went to get the ball, and there’s Uncle Ho yelling at us, telling us to beat it.”

  “That sounds about right,” Chu Nguyen says, raising his mug. “Uncle Ho liked fathering children with peasant girls from the country.”

  “To Ho and his illegitimate children.” We clank mugs and take in some steamed snails with ginger. A couple minutes of silence pass as we eat, watching teenage girls with ponytails scurry around the ochre and white fleur de lis patterned tile floor of the Bia hơi, delivering orders of beer and food.

  ”These girls. They’re all from villages,” Thanh says. “The only chance they have is to meet a guy who has money.”

  “Or meet a foreigner like Dave,” I joke, swatting away a mosquito.

  “Dave was stupid to get involved with Mai.” Chu Nguyen ashes his cigarette. “I don’t care how many cows he bought her father. She’s not educated and will spend all his money.”

  “I suppose,” I say, taking in a whiff of Citronella.

  “Let’s see what happens,” Thanh says. “Maybe she’ll prove us wrong.”

  We take a final sip of beer and motion for the bill. Twelve bucks, not bad at all.

  Chu Nguyen gets on his motorbike and goes home, while Thanh and I stroll towards Uncle Ho’s Mausoleum.

  “Fuck Ho Chi Minh! Fuck you, Uncle Ho! You motherfucker!” Thanh shouts.

  And no sooner than turning the corner onto Chùa Một Cột, we’re confronted by two police officers in their olive-green commie uniforms.

  “Just play dumb tourist. Pretend you don’t know Vietnamese,” Thanh whispers.

  I acknowledge Thanh with my eyes and listen. The cops ask Thanh if he’s seen anybody shouting. Thanh replies no, and the cops ask him what he’s doing with a Westerner. Thanh replies that I’m a tourist new to town and he’s just showing me dear Uncle Ho’s Mausoleum.

  The cops then wish us a good night and continue on their beat.

  “That was funny. We’ll have to do it again!”

  “You can,” I laugh. “The secret police are already asking my neighbors questions about my behavior patterns. I don’t need anything else in my dossier.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m a good commie. I’m the first one to vote on election day.” Thanh smirks. “I drop the ballot into the box and smile. They think I’m a fine example. Then they get to read what I wrote on my ballot. Fuck you! You communist bastards!”

  4

  Back at work, Rick gave me two classes of Vietnam Airline’s ticketers and engineers and found someone else to teach the kids. My mornings and afternoons are free. I’m back getting drunk and smoking weed all night. A gentleman’s pace if there ever was one.

  Go ahead and laugh — three hours a night, six days a week. Such is the life of a part-time teacher not on contract. Nobody with a brain would sign on full time, with all the Directors of Study scrambling to fill classes. I can set my own schedule provided I scratch the DOS’s back every once in a while, taking on a new class temporarily until it’s filled.

  It’s a game of favors, and as long as I appear helpful and cordial, I’ll continue to get work and get the schedule I want. The average teacher turnover is less than three months. A month back on the job I’m already number three in seniority behind Drew and Little Tom.

  I lift my head out of thought and look around the bar. The din of local punters, NGO workers and fellow teachers drowns out whatever thoughts I had left.

  “Hey, mate!” Drew flashes his empty bottle with his Midland’s drawl. “It’s your turn.”

  “Piss or Bia Hanoi?”

  “Too right. Get me a Tiger. I may as well support the Tiger girls I teach.”

  “Touché,” I snap back and walk past a group of NGO workers.

  A voice shouts, “Do you work or teach English?”

  Funny, fucker. “I got better things to do with my time than exploit the resources of developing nations.”

  I turn back around and order two Tigers, supporting Drew’s girls and their sleek navy blue Tiger dresses.

  The lucky bastard is teaching a class of Tiger Beer girls. They work at higher-end bars in town and sell Tiger to customers, getting a commission on every keg sold. They compete with the Carlsberg girls, who wear shape-fitting green dresses with Carlsberg brazened across their chests.

  Personally, I prefer my beer girls to have a tiger that extends from their crotch around to their ass. What can I say? I’m an ass man.

  I grab the two beers and head back upstairs to the balcony that extends around the upper level of the Labyrinth, one of the only bars in the Old Quarter open past eleven. It’s our home every night when we don’t want to go home.

  Mao, the bartender, plays a bootleg CD of hip western techno, and rumor has it plainclothes secret police frequent the bar in search of dossier material, so Steve says.

  He teaches one class at New Star and works as the assistant to the BBC Hanoi correspondent. When Gary Glitter was on his pedophilic rampage through Southeast Asia, Steve gave the staff room weekly updates from the Vietnamese government’s press conferences.

  You want to see an elephant, kids? Unzip my fly and pull out my pockets!

  I digress here not to paint a scene, but to give my mind a break. I’m a shit painter. I hand Drew his beer and sit against the exposed brick wall.

  “How are you liking New Star?” he asks.

  “It’s not bad. The pay is on time.”

  “I wouldn’t get used to that. Mark has been a few days late with pay a couple of times. He likes the karaoke ôm places a bit too much.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a little karaoke touch with some good-looking gals if you got the money.”

  “He’s already got a honey, Chau, the office manager.”

  “Is she the student from Atlas he shagged?”

  “Bingo.” Drew laughs. “Be careful around her. She’s a spiteful bitch.”

  “I had that feeling, the way her fake smile greets me.”

  “She has Mark wrapped around her little finger. Where do you think she got all her jewelry?”

  “To each his own.” I take a swig of beer. “What’s with this gossip about having a new investor?”

  “Mark blew most of the Christians’ money on booze and whores. He found this guy Tom. Big Tom, we call him, was out here just before you started. He’s married to some rich woman in Korea.”

  “Great. Is he posing as a Christian, too?”

  “He’s got a doctorate in theology, and he was a chaplain in a penitentiary somewhere in Tennessee. Whatever that’s worth.”

  “So, the school is a pyramid scam of sorts.”

  “I didn’t say anything. You connected the dots.”

  “As long as the pay keeps coming, it should be amusing...What about Rick?”

  “He’s nothing to worry about. He’s been at New Star a month longer than me. He’s up from Saigon. He lived there for a few years.”

  “In one ear, out the other then?”

  “
You got it. He takes being DOS too seriously.” Drew finishes rolling up a joint and lights it.

  “Mao doesn’t care?”

  “No.” Drew exhales, watching the smoke rise to the A-frame wooden ceiling. “I used to be a solicitor in London before I came here six months ago. This is a lot better.”

  “What brought you all the way here from ol’ Blighty?”

  “The history and the women. I’ve travelled Vietnam a couple of times.”

  “They’re a frustrating bunch.” I hand the joint back to Drew.

  He takes a hit and Mao shouts, “Last call.”

  The frenzy for the last drink ensues. We finish our joint and head outside past the shuttered shop fronts of the Old Quarter.

  The flickering light of random street lamps guides us through the narrow maze of streets to Hoan Kim Lake.

  Late night lovers hold hands and embrace under trees, while a few sporadic motorbikes zoom by.

  5

  The city swarms like locusts.

  Cascading motorbikes,

  the hum of a fan…

  drones.

  It’s a maddening beauty.

  Just after a few intersections

  the roads change names.

  With a twist of the tongue,

  police become fish.

  Shutters hide night from day.

  Neighbors live three feet away.

  Women crouch on tiptoes

  flapping bamboo fans

  wafting charcoal

  and smoke into the air.

  Workers run in and out

  of unfinished concrete skeletons

  carrying large bags on their shoulders.

  The Ministry of Education,

  a crumbling gray Soviet block

  lies on Đại Cồ Việt Boulevard

  just south of Lenin Park.

  There at night, whores proposition themselves.

  Junkies shoot up behind fences.

  Men park their motorbikes

  in front of barber shops