Dragon House by John Shors Read Free Book Online

the damp cloth.
    “I love you,” Tam said tiredly, holding her blanket against her cheek.
    “I know, sweet child. And do you know how much I love you?”
    “How much?”
    Qui continued to clean Tam’s face, thinking of tonight’s response. “Remember the gecko that lived with us?”
    “He was green.”
    “Remember how he’d wait in that corner of the ceiling? Wait for a bug to come crawling toward him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, I love you like that gecko loved his corner.”
    “That much? Really, Little Bird?”
    Qui fought back a sudden shudder, glad that Tam’s eyes were closed. “Yes, that much, my precious child.” Setting the towel aside, she lay down next to Tam, drawing her close, so that Tam’s last memory of the day would be of shared warmth.
     
     
    AS SHE STRODE TOWARD THE BAGGAGE claim area of Ho Chi Minh City’s new international airport, Iris felt as if she were inside a giant white shoe box. Almost everything seemed colorless. The lone exception was a row of potted flowers that stretched down the long corridor. Thousands of pots held bright flowers, and Iris couldn’t imagine how they were all watered.
    After having her passport stamped for the first time and passing through customs, Iris waited for Noah, and the unlikely traveling companions descended toward the baggage area. It was late, almost eleven o’clock local time, and most of the airport’s shops and stalls were closed. Scores of Vietnamese waited next to her as she eyed the conveyor belt for her two bags. Most of the luggage on the belt came in the form of cardboard boxes. The boxes glistened with clear packing tape and were often covered in Chinese markings.
    Iris and Noah found their bags, and she followed him outside, trying not to notice how he limped. Beyond the orderly confines of the airport, chaos unfolded. Hundreds of people stood in a waiting area, restrained by a chain-link fence. Many eyes fell on the two Americans, and immediately people offered them hotel rooms and taxi services. Iris nodded to a smiling driver, asking how much the fare would be. The price quoted seemed reasonable, and they followed him to a car that looked as if it had just finished competing in a demolition derby. The headlights, doors, and rear bumper had all been smashed.
    The car’s inside was surprisingly clean and undamaged. Iris and Noah settled into the backseat and the driver turned the key. The car and its radio jumped to life. A high, almost feminine-sounding male voice seemed to try to keep pace with plucked guitar strings, violins, and the metallic clash of drums and symbols. Iris had studied Spanish in high school and believed that she had a good ear for foreign languages. But the sounds she listened to now totally baffled her. She recognized nothing.
    The taxi merged onto a busy road and Iris forgot the music. She’d read about the four million motor scooters on Ho Chi Minh City’s streets, and now it felt as if all of them suddenly descended upon her. The scooters were everywhere, darting around their taxi, driving directly toward them, running red lights, crossing roads as if daring the approaching traffic to obliterate them. The scooters carried about anything the mind could conceive. Entire families crammed together on the black seats—often with a baby in the front, a father behind, then an older child, and last a mother. The families laughed and chatted, weaving in and out of trucks and cars, missing other vehicles by less than an inch. Some scooters had reinforced racks behind their seats, and these carried refrigerators, baskets of live pigs, steel girders, televisions, crates of Tiger beer, wedding cakes, pets, and engine parts. Many of the drivers wore masks, though the fabric didn’t stop them from talking to one another, from asking directions as they dodged potholes and fallen debris.
    Construction work was being done on the street, and sparks flew as boys wielded welding torches. A soldier held an assault rifle at the