The Committed. Viet Thanh Nguyen
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had not moved at all since we had come into the Boss’s office. Hey, guys, he said. I think we’ve got a problem.
And by “we,” he of course meant “you,” or “us.”
No one knew what the Boss’s name was, or if he did, no one dared utter it aloud. His passport had a name, but no one knew if it was real, and only the authorities had seen it. Presumably his father and mother knew his name, but he was an orphan, and perhaps they had not even given him a name before leaving him at the orphanage. An orphan was akin to a bastard, and this made me feel a certain amount of sympathy for the Boss, who had run away from his orphanage at twelve, no longer willing to tolerate the Catholic instruction, the repetitive diet of porridge with a few flakes of dried pork, the abuse from other orphans for being Chinese, the unending rejection of never being adopted. His experience among children meant that he had no desire to have children. The Boss had no need for a legacy outside of the one he made for himself, the only kind worth possessing. He focused on the two men before him—one of whom was me—and decided they were not a threat to his legacy, not dumb enough to risk their profitable relationship with him for half a kilogram of this remedy of the finest kind.
Tell you what. Come back tomorrow with the other kopi luwak. No big deal, right?
In chorus, they said yes. People who knew him always said yes, if that was what he wanted, or no, if that was what he wanted. As for people who did not know him, it was his task to let them know who he was and how they should respond. These two knew him and understood that if he could not trust them with half a kilo he could not trust them with anything. He drew a smile on his face and said, Honest mistake, I’m sure. Sorry to put you through the trouble. You say your aunt likes hashish? I’ll give her some. On me. Free of charge.
Then he wrote two addresses down for Bon on a piece of paper and said, Drop off your stuff, then get to the restaurant. You don’t want to be late for your first job.
They finished their cognac, shook his hand, and left him alone with the bottle of Rémy Martin, the packet of cigarettes, a dirty ashtray, three empty snifters, the coffee beans, and the hammer. He brushed off the white powder and brown coffee smeared on the hammer’s head and, holding it in his hand, admired its weight, balance, and elegance. He had bought it in a hardware store soon after arriving in Paris, along with a box of nails. Wherever he went, one of the first things he liked to buy, if he didn’t already have it, was a hammer. A hammer was a simple tool, but it was the only thing he had ever needed, besides his mind, to change the world.
CHAPTER 2
Although I feared the Boss for good reason, I feared Bon a little bit less. This was a mistake, in retrospect, given that Bon has shot me in the head. I had known Bon for more than two decades, ever since we had met at the lycée. He had seen too much violence and death, and dealt them as well, to be afraid even of someone like the Boss. For most of his life, in a way that was completely unhealthy for everyone but him, Bon had been concerned with what it meant to die. If that was one aim of philosophy, then Bon was a fine philosopher. He had dwelt on death ever since the childhood moment when a Viet Cong cadre aimed the accusatory finger of a revolver at the back of his father’s head, puncturing the fragile shell, revealing what no son should ever see, and awakening a homicidal urge in Bon, one that knew no restraint until his time in reeducation. It was there that Death woke him every morning, holding the broken shard of a mirror close enough for him to see the fog of his breath clouding his image.
In the years before reeducation, hunting and killing had not bothered Bon in the least. After reeducation, he took more care with the offer of employment the Boss gave him in the refugee camp. Having witnessed Bon’s handiwork in saving his life, the Boss had said, I could use a man like you to do things like that.
I don’t hurt innocent people, Bon said.
They studied the man crumpled at their feet, unconscious or perhaps expired, the elements of his face rearranged by Bon in a cubist manner. The Boss shrugged and agreed, since the price of entry into the Boss’s profession entailed a loss of innocence. But the Boss hesitated about Bon’s other stipulation, that he provide a job for me as well.
I don’t employ people like this crazy bastard, he said at last. He could see that I had a screw loose, the trusty screw that had, for years, held together my two minds. Sometimes I did not even notice that I had two minds, since that was my natural condition, even if it was unnatural. Now the threads of the screw were stripped, having been placed under a great degree of stress from my years of being a spy, a sleeper, and a spook. As long as the screw had remained tightly screwed, my two minds had worked together reasonably well. Now I was no longer screwed—humanity’s universal condition—but was instead unscrewed.
It’s either both of us, Bon said, or neither of us.
That’s the problem with loyalty. The Boss sighed. It’s great until it’s a pain in the ass.
Outside the Boss’s import-export store, we were faced with a dilemma. The Boss wanted us to get to work right away. The Boss also wanted the return of his kopi luwak, which my aunt possessed and might open at any moment. What was to be done?
She did say she’d make the coffee tomorrow, I said. And she didn’t seem enthusiastic, so I don’t think there’s much chance of her drinking it by herself.
All right, Bon said, looking at the sun to determine the time. His watch had been taken from him by our guards in reeducation in order to . . . in order to . . . well, there was no justification for it. Let’s get this done as quickly as we can.
The housing was a short walk away, through an area whose pedestrian architecture was charmless. Unlike the Paris of Maurice Chevalier and Catherine Deneuve, most of the 13th arrondissement was deficient in charm, although it was unclear whether the authorities permitted Asians to live in this quarter because of its ill-favored qualities or whether the presence of Asians added to the unloveliness. Regardless, Bon was satisfied when the weary concierge with the deflated perm showed us his lodgings, the stacks of bunk beds recalling for Bon the military barracks he had loved with true ardor. The atmosphere was nostalgic, too, tangy with masculine sweat that evoked honesty and camaraderie. Otherwise the room was lived in by civilians, judging from the blankets huddled in shame on the mattresses, the rumpled reed mats on the parquet floor, and what passed for a kitchen: a folding table on which sat a rice cooker and a greasy two-burner plug-in stove.
Everyone’s at work, the concierge said. This bunk’s yours.
What’s the rent?
The Boss takes care of that. Good deal, huh?
A good deal for Bon meant an even better deal for the Boss. But with no other recourse than my aunt’s apartment, Bon dropped his duffel on the mattress and said, I’ll take it.
That, as reeducation had taught him, was his unique talent. He could take anything.
Our next stop was Delights of Asia, located on rue de Belleville, where Bon would work as a line cook. Cook? Bon had said. I don’t know how to cook. Don’t worry about it, the Boss had said. The place isn’t known for its food.
In this restaurant not known for its food, the white tiles of the floor throbbed with varicose veins of brown grease, the yellow walls were stained with what I hoped were sticky fingerprints, and the surly waiters and cursing chefs could be heard shouting and cackling whenever the kitchen doors swung open. Next to the register, a stereo played cassettes of high-pitched Chinese and Vietnamese opera. Behind the register was the maître d’ and musical curator, Le Cao Boi, who, from looks to manners, was the typical romantic Vietnamese man: part poet, part playboy, and part gangster.
I love seeing their bodies tense after I hit the play button, he said with a laugh, watching the lone customer leave behind a plate still swarming with worms, which on closer inspection turned out to be greasy and gelatinous noodles. He ejected the cassette and inserted another. Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven,” he said. That’s better. So! The Boss told me all about you two bad boys.
Le Cao Boi was the Boss’s field marshal. He introduced the restaurant’s employees: the two waiters, the three chefs, the busboy, and the janitor, or, as