The Language of Men Read Online Free

leather belt and white sneakers. He sits in a large, intricately-carved chair, holding a steaming bowl of
pho
inches from his face. The lobby is filled with other travelers, white men and women with enormous backpacks—Australians, Germans, Swedes, my fellow Americans, some French. The hotel staff in matching mint-green Polo shirts, rush out like a pit crew and surround the new arrivals. They reach up to help the travelers remove their backpacks; the travelers turn and bend down to tip them.
    As Vanessa and I walk through the lobby, our footsteps rattle the glass cabinets filled with ceramic Buddhas and lacquer paintings. Our guide stands and bows and reaches for my hand. To him, we are "An-tun-nee" and "Ba-nessa." To me, his name sounds like three coins dropping into a glass of water, and I can't imagine what it sounds like to him when I say, "Pleased to meet you, Anh Dung Nguyen." He nods several times, then pulls a map from his back pocket.
    "So. You want to see Long Binh, yes?"
    "Yes," I say. "And also Bien Hoa."
    He nods. "Because you father?"
    "Yes."
    "He still alive, you father?"
    "Yes."
    A big smile. "Why he no come?" He opens his arms wide as if offering a hug.
    Vanessa and I look at each other and laugh. "I'm not sure," I say. "Too far away, I guess." I realize after I've said this that it's the only reason I can think of. I never asked my father to come and he didn't offer. He hates long flights, can't sit in one place for too long. My father seemed satisfied with his memories:
If I had to live my life over again, I'd go back.
    I packed his voice. His stories live inside the recorder in my pocket, and sometimes during our trip, I'd plug in my headphones and press
Play.
    Anh nods. "Lots of men come back. Lots." He leans forward and slurps down the rest of his breakfast. "First we go here"—taps the map—"then here"—tap—"then we stop here for you to buy"—tap, tap, tap.
    "Oh," I say. "That's okay. We don't have to stop."
    "Okay, we stop for bathroom only. And maybe you buy," he says, quickly refolding the map.
*
    Ho Chi Minh City's paved veins bleed into one main artery, Highway 1, which runs the length of Vietnam. Motorbikes piled with bamboo or chickens or friends or relatives flow through massive eight-way intersections, head-on, and zoom around a rotary, the driver's feet grazing the curb or the muffler of another motorbike. We do not merge as much as we are absorbed into traffic. An opening reveals itself only after our driver pulls out, and suddenly our car is surrounded. Our driver hits the horn—not a honk, but a rapid chirping, like a robotic cricket.
    In minutes, the city is gone, and the country opens to infinite green. Farms and rice paddies spread for miles, eventually growing into the mossy mountains painted on the horizon. In the fields are tombs the color of Easter candy. They rise like an exotic crop scattered across the land. A little boy sits shirtless atop a water buffalo, whipping the animal's slick haunches, trying to motivate him around one of the pink and purple stones. "We keep the dead close," Anh says. I try to imagine burying not my hamster but my grandfather, my aunt or uncle behind our pool, beside my mother's flower bed—a colorful stone rising against the seasons, jutting up through leaves and through snow.
    Up Highway 1 to Bien Hoa. Behind tinted glass, within air conditioning. Our driver is silent; he doesn't seem to speak English. He hits the funny-sounding horn each time he passes a vehicle, which is often, and as it trails off it sounds as if the car is laughing. The radio quietly plays a Muzak version of the
Titanic
soundtrack. Anh sits in the passenger seat, holding an unlit cigarette in his mouth. When he turns and talks to us, the cigarette jumps like a needle picking up an unstable frequency.
    "Platoon."
He points to the squat cement buildings capped with corrugated metal, an old movie house, and a dry fountain that form Bien Hoa's center. He holds his hand out