Apocalypse Hotel: A Novel (Modern Southeast Asian Literature) by Ho Anh Thai Read Free Book Online

was sitting still, deeply absorbed, next to the bottle of wine. His lips were pursed and his two rugged hands pressed tightly into each other. He held the bra, kneading the padded cups over and over. Then he wrapped it back up into the paper and put it into the pocket of his shorts.
    “I managed to find the bitch that killed Cốc,” he said to Phũ.
    He stood up.
    “Did you deal with her yet?”
    “Not yet. Can you come with me tonight?”
    “Why not?”
    The two of them turned to look at me. I looked back at them in silence. This meant that I wasn’t going. I didn’t yet believe it. There was no way that girl had killed Cốc. But I left the two of them alone. They had the right to believe whatever they believed.
    Bóp left the room silently. He returned to the staff and their specialty cooking. I sat back down next to Phũ.
    Later, Phũ waved to me from next to the window. It looked out on the courtyard behind the kitchen. Bóp had changed his red shorts for a pair of flashy short pants. He was attempting to pull down the head of a goat. It was a great big goat and it struggled to remain on its feet. Its two forelegs stuck out as straight as rods while its two back legs scrambled backward with all of their strength, trying to escape Bóp’s grasping, pincer-like hands. Both contenders were totally silent. Bóp wasn’t even breathing hard in this uneven battle of strength. The goat was using all of its energy to try to pull away. But it had no strength left, not even to bleat. The struggle continued until the goat collapsed. Its four legs twitched hopelessly.
    It was then that Bóp began to do the deed that brought him such pleasure. He released the goat’s horns and then slipped his hands around its unlucky neck. From the beginning it looked like a gesture of love, as if they were embracing. Suddenly the goat jerked and bounced up. Its four legs flailed.
    Bóp began to squeeze.
    Bóp squeezed.
    Bóp finished squeezing.
    The time it took me to mentally compose those three sentences, from the beginning of the undertaking to its conclusion, was about two minutes. Bóp finally released a primal sound of ecstasy as his burly form shook with an orgasm that soaked his pants. The kitchen staff called Bóp the master gunner. Every time he would step out to strangle a goat, many pairs of eyes would be glued to the window, furtively watching everything, like a secret peep show. When he returned, his eyes would be glazed over and he would be satiated. As he went to change his pants, all the spectators would wink at each other. Although they had to have goat meat every day, Bóp didn’t always strangle them. Usually they just chased the goat around the courtyard, beating it until it was covered in sweat, in order to sweat out its rank goat odor. The meat didn’t suffer when the animal just got excited and hot.
    This time Bóp didn’t toss aside the dead goat and go to change his pants. He sat down, yanked the goat’s neck upward, and turned its head back and forth, looking at it over and over. As if he recognized some person or other. As if blissfully identifying a dead enemy. As if satisfied because he’d been able to vent his hatred.
    I instantly understood whose face he saw in the lifeless visage of the goat.
    A few days later, I was sitting with Phũ in the office when Bóp walked in. He told us that he’d found the house of the bitch that had killed Cốc. He’d learned her routine. He was going to destroy her today—the sooner the better.
    The language of action has more effect than any speech. Bóp opened his tennis bag and took out a pair of gloves the color of human skin, a spray can of anesthetic, and a roll of rope. This meant that he’d chosen to deal with her in the same way he dealt with the goats. Afterward he’d disguise the rope as the noose she’d used to hang herself.
    Certainly I was not going to participate. But neither would I try to talk them out of it. If people are careful in one area,