"Life is unfair," she told herself," and so am I."
"Life is very hard," she told herself," and so am I."
She only believed in one more thing; that the world was very dirty, and only dynamite could make it clean.
Her lover, an English man who described himself as an "Explorer", had taught her this. When he was drunk, which was often, he would quote Lenin,
"We destroy to build better."
Lenin had said that more than ten years ago, and the world was not better yet. Clearly, she reasoned, much, much more needed to be destroyed.
But where to start... Saigon offered so many targets... so many dirty places that needed destroying. She did not know where to begin.
Fortunately she was still young, there was plenty of time.
'Thuy,' he called out to her across the crowded street from the tiny cafe where he waited for her. 'You are late."
"Always late," she said with a smile.
"Better late than never, I have waited three months, what is one more hour?"
He stood and embarrassed her.
She normally hated it when he held her in public. A rickshaw driver frowned at her and spat on the floor, and two old ladies selling corn muttered viciously. But tonight she did not care.
"Where have you been, Steven" Thuy asked him as she sat down.
"Eldorado."
He always said that when he didn't want to tell her where he had been. She knew it was a joke, but she did not understand it. She laughed anyway.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked her.
"No, the weather is fresh after the afternoon storms, lets go for a walk."
She allowed him to take her hand in his huge, leathery hand, and they set off.
"Is it really like Notre Dame in Paris?" she asked as they walked past the replica that the French had built.
"Exactly,' he replied."It looks good in the moonlight."
"It would look better in fire light."
He kissed her passionately.
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