When I looked deep into Chiem’s beautiful eyes, I could see the indifference staring back at me.

"I’m going to Da Lat tomorrow," I told her.

Chiem’s eyes remained still and impassive, indifferent to the news as if it had nothing to do with her. She did not ask when I would be leaving or beg me to return as soon as possible. It was as if I were not her lover. Could it be that her eyes, the windows of her soul, didn’t reflect her true sentiment?

We had met as a result of a downpour. I had rushed to take shelter under the gate of Quan Su Pagoda just as the rain began pelting down on that 15th day of the seventh lunar month.

Deep in thought as I gazed into the rain, I didn’t notice the young lady who had sneaked under my umbrella. I was startled and a little displeased to feel her warm breath on my shoulder. Apparently unaware of my irritation, she asked for a ride when the rain stopped and I pulled my motorbike out from the eaves.

"Can you give me a lift to Giang Vo?"

Too shy to refuse, I started the engine and weakly agreed. We drove through flooded streets until the engine stuttered, its exhaust pipe waterlogged. I waded through the flooded street, pushing my bike with me. Unbelievably, she was still tagging along behind me when I turned.

"Let’s stop somewhere to warm up and have some food!" she said.

I agreed, following her to a street-side shop selling boiled snails that beckoned us with the aroma of lemon and ginger. Two women were already seated at the small shop.

"Snails for two please! And have you got any alcohol?" my hitchhiker asked. Then she took off her rain coat, revealing her beautiful face.

"It’s just like in the old days, we city folks eating countryside food like this," she said, and I immediately caught the snobbery in her voice. She was showing contempt to the round-faced seller, whose paralysed legs lay limply under a red blanket.

"Do you have to prepare everything quite so meticulously?"

"I’m sorry. Please wait just a minute so that I can clean the dish."

"Do you want us to eat your snails or not?" she snapped, her eyes narrowing.

"I’m sorry for taking so long!"

Noticing that the snail seller was struggling, I quickly helped her open the pot and saw her defeated expression. I quickly changed the topic of conversation to the miserable weather and then asked about different types of snails. Finally, the smell of boiled snails and the delicious dipping sauce improved our mood.

"Let me pay for it!" the lady insisted. When we had driven away, she added, "If you like hot snails, I’ll treat you to them tomorrow too."

After a week, eating together in the afternoon had become our routine. At the end of each day, I would call her.

"Should I come to see you tomorrow?"

"If you like," she would reply half-heartedly.

I did come to visit Chiem, but my words "I’m going to Da Lat tomorrow" seemed to fall silently to the floor of her desolate, three-storey house.

My Da Lat trip ended in complete failure. I returned, tormented with sadness, and I couldn’t help but ask Chiem if she had missed me. When I heard her answer I knew I shouldn’t have asked: "Things here have been normal, quite normal." How could she feel normal when in love?

***

With her natural beauty and flawless body, Chiem was like a blooming rose. She had lived in privilege her whole life, the only child of a doctor and a dancer.

Every part of her body was aesthetically pleasing, but her full breasts and bright eyes caught men’s eyes the most. Everywhere she went she had a magnetic effect on people, making men fall head over heels for her. She was constantly surrounded with people who lusted after her, were infatuated with her or pampered her — or some combination of the three. Her flighty personality and attitude of superiority seemed to feed these reactions. She was a two-faced woman, right from childhood.

Though her teachers and parents supported and doted on her, she failed three university entrance examinations. Then she started working as a lowly typist, but she was still revered and pampered by a host of men, thanks to her beauty. Though she was working in the dark corner of an office, her beauty caught the attention of a handsome poet, who bought her expensive perfume as a gift. Next, the deputy governor of a bank began taking her every afternoon to dine in fancy restaurants, until his wife found out and hired some hitmen to threaten her. The banker had to bid her a tearful goodbye. Dozens of men proposed to her, some ready to abandon their families to be with her.

After weighing her options, Chiem got married at age 20. If she had been a character in a novel, she would have married a wealthy man, probably a businessman or an overseas Vietnamese banker, someone pig-headed with billions of dong to throw around. Their married life would have gone from a blissful first phase to a tragic end, with a clever plot twist. But this wasn’t fiction, and Chiem’s real life did not go that way.

Chiem told me the real story:

"My husband Dong is a Government official, not a rich businessman or lawyer. He is a man of national stature, and he is rich, very rich. Do you think power breeds wealth? I’m not sure, and I don’t want to discuss it with him. I only know that Dong divorced his wife and married me when he was 35 years old. He owned a 100sq.m, three-storey building that was leased by a UN agency for US$10,000 per month. That meant that every month, he earned over VND160 million in rent.

"The building had been given to him by the Government as a job benefit of sorts. With the money he made from his tenant, after less than 10 years, Dong could buy a building in the Ngoc Khanh area and villas in Tam Dao and Vung Tau. These are open assets. He does not need to hide them, right?"

"Let’s assume so."

"I met Dong and invited him to eat boiled snails with me. After that, I came to visit him at home many times. He knew I liked snails, so whenever I came to see him, he would ask his maid to cook them for me. Once, the maid agreed but then brought in a tray containing only canned food, not snails. Dong asked her why, and the old woman hesitantly answered that she was a Catholic and therefore forbidden to kill creatures on that particular day. Dong got angry with her, and I had to intervene to make him stop cursing her. After that, he complained about how difficult it was to hire a good maid, and I smiled and told him he could hire me. He jumped for joy, saying: ‘If you agree, I want you to be the mistress of the house, not the maid!’ "

She smiled and continued:

"I’m beautiful enough to deserve to be a house mistress, don’t you think? A woman’s beauty is a godsend and a treasure. I’m proud of mine. But Dong’s pride was his money. He treasured money because he came from a peasant family. Now he is a rich man, living in high society, but I could tell that the years of poverty had made him determined to maintain his new social status, whatever the cost to others. He could be mean too. He would speak ill of his ex-wife and wasn’t above using underhanded methods to obtain government positions over his opponents.

"One day I came home earlier than expected and walked in on him making love to another woman on my bed. I immediately ran back to the living room, afraid and ashamed. A moment later, the woman hurried past me. It was Dong’s ex-wife. It would have been better if he had slept with another woman, even a prostitute. He should have kept silent; that would have been better for me. But he had knelt down and begged for my forgiveness. It was disgusting. What a mean man he was!"

***

After that traumatic experience, Chiem had made herself into a cold, impenetrable person. Her ego and ambitions had withered.

After she told me her story, soon after my trip to Da Lat, she cut all ties with me. Missing her, I went back to the street-side snail seller, seeking the comfort of the familiar. There I met Hien, a girl who had been partially paralysed from birth and was struggling to support herself and her bedridden mother. She had a warm heart and always smelled of lemon leaves and ginger. She once said to me, "If I love someone, I will devote myself to him completely, with all my heart."

In the end, I married Hien.

***

Hien and I lived happily together. Four years after we married, we had a son and a daughter, and Hien’s business was faring very well. She saved enough money from selling boiled snails to open a fancy, three-storey restaurant.

Why did she become so successful? Probably because poverty had taught her to value life and surround herself with honest people. Or was it that Hien’s true love, sincerity and devotion brought out the best in me and the other people around her?

I would have never seen the beautiful Chiem again, but one day she appeared in our restaurant, accompanied by an older man. I observed her discretely. For one month, they regularly came to our restaurant in a taxi and ordered the most expensive items on the menu. After that, their visits to our restaurant became infrequent, and eventually only the old man would come. He was a wealthy overseas Vietnamese who had returned to his homeland to retire. I wanted to ask him about Chiem, but I dared not, fearing that he would speak ill of a woman who I knew didn’t deserve it. (VNS)