Read Online Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire - Free Book Online Page B

loutish expats.
    In fact, in Cal’s agitated state any bar likely to be populated by tourists or expats or drunks was a bad idea. I decided on a quiet bia ho’i whose elderly proprietor I nodded hello to every morning on my way to work. It was on the other side of the church district and by the time we got there we were both dripping.
    Seated on child-sized stools under the canvas shade, we fanned ourselves with coasters. A moment after Mrs Ly placed our beers on the rickety plastic table, a breeze swept through the lane, speckling them with ash.
    â€˜Please tell me there’s not a crematorium around here.’
    â€˜It’s only paper.’ I used the edge of my coaster to scrape as much as I could from each of our glasses.
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜It’s the first of the lunar month. First and the fifteenth, people burn money for the dead. Printed votive paper, really, but the dead can apparently spend it just fine. You didn’t notice all the piles of flaming notes as we walked here?’
    Cal looked towards the street and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There’s so much to notice. I don’t register some things until later. I was in bed the other night, nearly asleep, and I realised that I’d seen a whole roasted dog in the market earlier. It’s a weird feeling. Like your brain’s taking photos without you knowing.’
    â€˜Sensory overload.’
    â€˜I guess. Have you tasted it?’
    â€˜Dog meat? Sure.’
    â€˜Really? Is it nice?’
    â€˜Depends how it’s prepared.’
    He looked towards the counter. ‘Do they sell it here?’
    â€˜No. Anyway, it’s bad luck to eat it during the first part of the month.’
    He drank his beer. ‘They have a lot of rules here. How do you keep them all straight?’
    â€˜I don’t much of the time, but my work helps.’
    â€˜I’ve read that magazine of yours. Dad’s got a heap of copies at his place. It’s kind of—’ He gave a demented smile. ‘You know.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Propaganda,’ he whispered.
    â€˜Only in the sense it’s positive towards Vietnam. It’s not pretending to be anything else.’
    â€˜So you believe the things you read in it?’
    I emptied my glass. I felt thick and slow, as though it were my first week here. I knew I should order sugar-cane juice or coffee, but instead I raised my hand and signalled that we’d have more beer.
    â€˜It’s not a matter of belief,’ I explained. ‘It’s about information and a perspective on that information. You don’t have to agree with the perspective or believe it’s the only one for the information to be useful.’
    â€˜Spoken like a true propaganda apologist.’ He said it as though it was a compliment and I responded as if it was one. I felt my mouth softening, my rib-cage dropping.
    â€˜I may be over-sensitive,’ he said. ‘My grandpa drummed all this stuff into me about the communist north and ­people who dared to disagree with anything the regime said being whisked away in the middle of the night. And then Mum’d correct him, tell him it’s not just the north, it’s the whole country because the regime got rid of all the non-­communists wherever they lived, and how they hardly ever need to whisk people away in the dead of night, because they have talented propagandists and a government-controlled media to paint everything as rosy and the guilt-ridden, lily-livered western nations endorse and encourage this picture and so people think they’re free when really they’re living in the Matrix.’ He drew breath.
    â€˜What does your dad say about all that?’
    â€˜I don’t talk to him about Mum or Grandpa or argue their views or anything. Dad knows the general vibe there is one of negativity and he always tries to show me the positive, I guess, to counteract that. Or maybe