Fishing for Tigers Read Free Page B

remember the nostril-stinging steam from the pot of broth on the stove, the twinge in my lower back and ache in my thighs as I perched on the child-sized plastic stool, the extraordinarily constant tooting of horns. I remember Matthew’s khaki lizard-print shirt and tan linen trousers, the way the wiry, black hairs on his forearms glistened with sweat. I remember the barefoot toddler chasing a gecko across the concrete floor and his mother, fanning herself in the furthest corner of the room and smiling every time his body crashed into our plastic table. And I remember that Matthew told me he had a son who was twelve and lovely.
    After lunch, Matthew had walked me to my hotel, which was, incredibly, one street back from where we’d eaten. ‘Every­thing’s close here, as long as you know where you’re going. Two blocks that way,’ he said, pointing, ‘is HoànLake. Nice place to sit when it all feels a bit too much.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    His sweat dripped in two almost straight lines from each temple, but he seemed not to notice. ‘If you’re up to it, a bunch of us are going to the bar at the Metropole tomorrow night. It’s the priciest bar in the city and full of wankers, but it’s, uh, it’s my birthday actually, so . . . Well, we’ll be there pretending to be rich and oblivious. You might enjoy it.’
    â€˜Okay,’ I said, having no idea what or where the Metropole was and no real intention of finding out by tomorrow night.
    â€˜Tell you what,’ Matthew said, retrieving a set of keys from his pocket and jiggling them. ‘Since you’ll still be finding your way around, I’ll come by and pick you up. Seven-thirty?’
    â€˜Okay,’ I said again and Matthew smiled and turned and seemed to melt into the crowd. I nodded to the smiling man at the desk and climbed the four flights of stairs to my room where I stripped off my sweat-soaked clothing and laid myself out to dry under the slow ceiling fan. I wondered what Glen was doing, who he was taking his rage out on now.

    The following night, Matthew picked me up on his motorcycle which he drove like a local, weaving in and out of the traffic, ignoring lights and lines, missing other vehicles and pedestrians by millimetres. By the time we arrived at the Metropole I was shaking.
    â€˜You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘It looks crazy but it’s actually very safe. Everybody’s paying close attention, not relying on other people obeying rules.’
    Later I’d discover that thousands of people die on these roads every year. Later I’d see a woman flip over the handlebars at an intersection and have her head smash open like a watermelon. But that evening I clung to Matthew’s assurances and to the casualness with which everybody I met there talked about driving through the city. It can’t be that bad, I thought, if all of these clever, sensible people are okay with it.
    Of course, most of them weren’t clever and none of them was sensible, but it took me a while to figure that out. Every­body I spoke to that night had a convincing explanation for what they were doing there and I left thinking that I had stumbled upon a community of laid-back, self-­deprecating saints. Genuine doers-of-good who still enjoyed a drink and a laugh. I assumed they were all so welcoming to the frazzled, explanation-less stranger out of pity and kindness. To be fair, there was a bit of that. But mostly they were so warm because they recognised me as one of them: a damaged fuck-up unable to thrive in her own land.
    I’m not saying all the foreigners in Vietnam are like that. Some of them are genuine and kind and altruistic. Some of them have a deep love for the Vietnamese culture and language and landscape. Some of them are kick-arse corporate whizzes doing their multi-national expansionist thing before jetting off to the next new boom-town. But the