A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [136]
I think I’ve gone bamboo, as they used to say about British military advisers who’d stayed too long in this part of the world. I’ve gone goofy on Vietnam, fallen hopelessly, helplessly in love with the place. I’m now accustomed to bowls of spicy pho for breakfast, strong cups of iced expresso over crushed ice with condensed milk at Trung Nguyen (sort of a Vietnamese version of Starbucks – only better), lunch at the coms, cheap eateries where I’d have bowls of rice with fish, chicken, or meat. I’ve come to rely on the smells of jasmine, frangipani, the durian and fish-sauce aromas at the markets, the constant buzzing and rumbling from the motos. I have a hard time letting any of the don gah pass me by – women carrying portable kitchens on yokes across their shoulders, serving bowls of soup or noodles that are always fresh. Everything is beautiful. Everyone is nice. Everything tastes good.
Linh has changed since introducing me to Madame Ngoc. A few weeks ago, he was all nerves and suspicion. When I told him, before leaving for Nha Trang, that Philippe might be swinging through town, maybe joining us in Can Tho, he’d stiffened at the prospect of an unannounced and unanticipated new arrival. He’d have to talk to the People’s Committee, he said. People were watching us, he insisted, independently reporting on our activity. This addition to our party was an unexpected and potentially difficult development. Who was this Philippe? What were his intentions? Was he also a journalist? Was he a French or American citizen? During drinks at the roof bar of the garish Rex, when I left to go to the bathroom, Linh followed me, making an elaborate show of washing his hands while watching in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t emptying a dead drop or whispering into a satellite communicator.
But since Nha Trang, he’s been relaxed, and since he introduced me to Madame Ngoc, he’s become an absolute pussycat.
Madame Ngoc is a force of nature. The relationship between the matronly middle-aged restaurant owner, dripping in jade and jewelry, smelling of French perfume, always smartly dressed in well-tailored businesslike Western attire, and Linh, the young translator and Communist functionary, is a mysterious one. When he first took me to her restaurant, Com Nieu Saigon, I couldn’t figure out why he was so solicitous of her. At first blush, they couldn’t seem more different: the cold, efficient Hanoi boy and the warm but mercurial Saigonese woman. Yet Linh never lights a cigarette without first lighting one for her. He pulls out her chair for her. He hangs on her every word, anticipates her needs. When she narrows her eyes, looks around the room, clearly desirous of something, Linh goes on full alert. But then so does everybody else. She may be a tiny Vietnamese version of a yenta, but underneath her soft features and almost overbearingly generous nature it’s pure steel. She teases him relentlessly. She scolds, pokes, dotes on him, calls him ‘Little Brother’. It is, I finally figured out after a few visits, love.
‘Next time! You bring cookies. Chocolate!’ says Madame Ngoc, pleased by my gift of flowers but preferring other things. ‘Chris! Lydia! You happy? I love you . . .’ she says, giving them both a big hug and a kiss. ‘You too thin!’ she says to Chris, who has never fully recovered from his crab in Nha Trang. ‘Too thin! I think you sick.’ She snaps her fingers, and across the room an assistant manager and a waiter rush over to serve her. She barks at them in Vietnamese, and a few moments later, the manager returns with packages of vitamins, Maalox, and herb tea. ‘Tony, Chris, Lydia,’ she says, looking worried. ‘You must be very careful.’ We each receive an identical package and a stern admonition to eat more carefully when