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

forty-five years more the Master would have to live within the world of those who would venerate him, admire him, believe in him, but maybe never actually understand him. The Master is a lonely and pitiful figure.
    I reflected on this as I sipped my cup of coffee, only vaguely aware that Thế was talking to me. Suddenly, I jumped back. A woman had pushed the door open and walked into the front room, straight to the reception desk, and then found the staircase and walked upstairs. She looked like someone I knew but I couldn’t recall whom. I wondered why I’d met so many people who’d seemed familiar to me lately. My friends teased me that everywhere I went I bumped into people I knew, spoiled youngsters that I was afraid to hit in case they were actually my kids. “Never mind,” I thought. “Just let it go.” I smiled to myself and tried to concentrate on what my brother, who was more talented than others, was talking about.
    He was complaining that people often mistakenly called the hotel the Ngày Tận Thế, which was actually Vietnamese for Apocalypse Now, the restaurant owned by old Đắc Tùng. He’d just lifted the name wholesale from Francis Ford Coppola’s film about America’s war in Vietnam. “That old man,” my brother was saying, “was so ignorant of politics that he had decorated the inside of restaurant with replicas of helicopter rotors, parachutes, and US combat helmets. A lot of people were responsible for perpetuating that ignorance by allowing him to do business in an atmosphere that reeked of war.” But he, Thế, was different; he was a very aware man. He had thought very hard from the beginning before he named his hotel the Apocalypse—it was certainly not Apocalypse Now. His choice of name was actually a reference to the final book of the New Testament, Book of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, in which John of Patmos foretells the end of the world.
    “If, as seems likely soon,” he said, “I don’t have permission to use foreign words for my hotel name, I’ll change it to Khải Huyền or Thiên Khải.” 2
    Thế paused, looking at me as if he were cracking a joke.
    “And I’m afraid that the Captain’s Studio will have to be renamed Xưởng Vẽ của Thuyền Trưởng.” 3
    I grinned slightly to let him know that whatever he chose was okay. Thế burst into laughter to show that he was just teasing me. At that moment, Phũ walked in.
    “Dad, Uncle Đông, come to my room, right now.”
    His face was pale, his lips trembling.
    The two of us rushed after Phũ back to the office. He carefully locked the door, and then led us toward the bathroom. Bóp was swaying back and forth like a mannequin in the middle of the large bathroom. A length of rope, tied tight around his neck, hung from a hook on the ceiling. His face had turned a livid purple from the accumulated blood. His eyes were bulging and his tongue protruded.
    In that moment of panic, I was still conscious enough to find a knife from Phũ’s drawer in the office. I cut the rope while Thế grabbed him and laid him down on a long couch. He pressed Phũ’s cold hands and thoroughly examined the chilled body.
    “He’s been dead a long time already,” he said, and released Bóp’s stiff hands, letting them flop onto the couch.
    Phũ told us that the two of them had just been planning how they would approach that girl’s house. He was going to remain outside and keep watch while Bóp went inside to do the deed by himself. Phũ had jokingly told Bóp to remember to put on a diaper or else he wouldn’t be able to escape with soaked shorts. Phũ had then left the room for about thirty minutes so that Bóp could finish his business. When he returned, he found his friend hanging there in the bathroom.
    Now Bóp lay motionless on the couch. Phũ closed his friend’s eyes. His shorts were totally soaked and smelled of chestnuts.
    “Okay, now we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get Bóp out of