--
Da Lat, Vietnam.
Unidentified female, mid-20s, presumably American, was found late last night in the surrounding mountain roads just outside of Da Lat. It appears she was riding a white motorbike when she drove off the road on one of the many hairpin turns.
Local investigators report that there was no identification found on the body, but that the storage unit on the bike, most likely containing her belongings, came off during the fall. Police are scavenging the area for the unit and any possible leads as to the woman’s identity.
--
It was in those few moments before going over that she remembered the blind masseuse’s face. It was the face of a generation left to its own devices and torn apart from Agent Orange; a face she’d seen earlier that week at the War Remnants Museum and in this case, the face of a blind woman selling her wares for all she could: her hands and at 50,000d an hour, roughly $3 american.
“IT IS 2:22PM”
The young woman remembered laying down on the table hesitantly, not sure if she should disrobe. The blind masseuse clamored over, felt the young woman’s clothing and slapped her rear sharply and quickly. The young woman learned within an instant that there would be no awkward fumblings around English and Vietnamese, only fumblings through that sometimes forgotten universal language: body.
This wasn’t a planned visit- she’d gone off course in her search for a Saigon movie theatre that played English-speaking films and while flipping through her Lonely Planet realized that the closest possibility to her was the Ho Chi Minh City Blind Association. The prices seemed exploitative, but then so did everything in Saigon- even when adjusting for foreigner charges.
“IT IS 2:27PM”
They made her lock up her things in a safe and handed over the key on an elastic bracelet. The staff, all of them blind, save one woman with partial sight, noticed the pause and pointed to a pack of smaller than small Vietnamese children running down the halls. They put the bracelet on her wrist for her.
The young woman, having promised herself that she wouldn’t stare, she wouldn’t, couldn’t help but gaze into the masseuse’s eyes: a milky blue, forever staring off into unknown spaces. She then gaped at the masseuse’s real eyes: her hands. Small and strong, severely scarred.
“IT IS 2:32PM”
Small and strong, severely scarred. Just like the female vendors on Nha Trang beach, selling their necklaces and bracelets and fried Vietnamese treats to the pasty, mostly plump foreigners lining the shore, knowing not to come back to the young woman after her third and fourth refusals. Somewhat like the child vendors: small and strong, same necklaces, same bracelets, same fried treats, with the biggest, emptiest eyes the she had ever seen. Only kind of like the young Vietnamese women all over Vietnam, being escorted by old and ugly white men: small.
“IT IS 2:37PM”
She felt the masseuse tightly pinch at the bend in her arm, the place where they put needles in at the hospital and nearly fell off the table trying to swat the masseuse’s hands away. Her legs awkwardly hit the lineoleum, breaking her fall.
Not unlike how she half-fell off her seat on the bus from Nha Trang to Da Lat about every 3 minutes, at every turn thinking This would be The Last Turn. Hurtling down unfinished roads at silly speeds, the bus wheels rustling up streams of dust containing god-knows-what that would pass through the ‘closed’ windows and into her eyes, nose and mouth.
“IT IS 2:42PM”
The young woman felt as though she were stealing something, continuing to stare into the blind masseuse’s eyes like that, feeling every bit the sordid Western voyeur. Stealing the masseuse’s cataract-covered eyes, twisted (still strong) hands; her livelihood: paying her roughly 1/20th of what she would in Seoul or New York. If that.
Time to turn over. She felt relieved. No more opportunities to stare into the milky blue.
The masseuse worked on her neck, hard. Knuckles grinding. Elbows digging. Searing pain, but the young woman suffered through it, afraid that if she moved her neck would snap. And then she entered into a space so calm and fluid she wondered if her neck really had.
A flood of snapshots. Sharp and sun-drenched, unrelenting.
DEAD DOGS on Mui Ne beach. Stiff, legs in air. Flies swarming. Footprints of heavy foreigners making figure-eights around the bodies.
SILENT SALAMANDERS, not cockroaches, climbing on every hotel wall. Fast, soundless, greener than green.
FAST-FOOTED Saigon children, dark brown, white teeth, stained skin. Holding out baseball caps, following her, taunting her. Moving onto the next foreign crowd.
SILKY SHAKES, orange, red, yellow. Pure, clean, cold. Refreshing dragonfruit, passionfruit, mango, banana. Endless variety. Less than a dollar.
CRUMBLING CONCRETE sidewalks, steaming, searing. Sucking the life out of her at peak sunny hours. Chasing her into the rare air-conditioned café.
SOAKED SHIRTS of the xe om drivers. Holding onto their backs, instant familiarity of old Vietnamese men and one woman. Feeling them sweating out whole days on these bikes, foreigner fare = lucky day. They all helped her with her helmet.
“IT IS 3:21PM.”
The blind masseuse takes off her talking watch. The young woman slips her last $20 into her hands. The masseuse feels the money and yells at her. The young woman leads the partially-sighted woman over to her, says nothing, puts the bill in her hands and lurches down the ridiculous red staircase the blind people must suffer down on each exit.
--
And then…
The OVERWHELMING OVERWHELMINGNESS of the Da Lat Highlands. The lush denseness and largeness of the scenery, feeling taken over, kidnapped by the beauty, at once: wishing she was sharing this moment with someone dear and wanting it to be a virgin land and she, the first and last visitor, having no one else contaminate the spectacle of this seemingly empty magical earth. Riding alone on twisting mountain roads for miles, trying to lean into the turns like how her father once told her many years ago.
She loses control of the bike on a sharp left turn. She quickly speeds to the edge of the cliff. Time slows down. She sees her family, her friends, memorable lovers and the blind masseuse’s face. It is sunny outside.
No one sees her go over.
--
