“I feel very alone,” said Muir warily, succumbing to Condley’s pressure and beginning to climb down from the cyclo.

Dzung stepped forward. He had read Muir’s fear and also the curiosity in the eyes of many of his neighbors. Now he waved his hands into the air, calming them. “Di choi,” he said reassuringly. “Choi, choi, an thua gi,” meaning that the two had come for pleasure, not politics or other life-threatening pastimes.

“Nguoi My? Nguoi My?” they kept asking, daring to believe but still unsure whether the two were Americans.

“Yes, we’re Americans,” Condley answered in Vietnamese, drawing an explosion of laughter and praise for speaking their language.

The older people were even more excited than the children. The two frail old women who lived across from Dzung made their way to Muir’s side. They were twinlike, dressed almost identically in worn cotton blouses and black silk slacks. Their gray-white hair was pulled back tightly into similar buns. They smoked from the same pack of cigarettes. Their rheumy eyes held mutual memories from American visits of long ago.

“Lau qua!” one fairly screamed. Her wide smile revealed blackened, betel-nut-stained teeth as she uttered the traditional Vietnamese greeting of Too much time has passed. Her exuberance caused the crowd again to laugh and cheer.

Her housemate, not to be outdone, now moved against Muir and embraced him. He stood stiffly, transfixed by confusion as the crowd cheered her on. “Co vo Viet Nam chua?” she asked, rubbing his arm up and down fondly as the others laughed merrily.

“Roi, roi,” answered Condley, causing them to laugh and cheer some more.

Muir towered like Gulliver above the boisterous crowd, fighting back his fear. “What did she say?”

“She asked if you have a Vietnamese wife yet,” said Condley nonchalantly. Two children were pulling softly at the hairs on his arm, examining their length and color. “See? I told you I’d introduce you to some Vietnamese women!”

Dzung stood at the doorway to his house, filled with pride, gesturing as he invited them in. Muir appeared stranded. The two old women kept fawning over him. A half dozen children were examining him, pulling at his arms and even experimentally touching the leather on his shoes. Condley called to Dzung, pointing at the old women.

“Are they the oldest, Dzung?”

“Yes, sir,” Dzung answered, his nodding smile showing that he knew what was to follow.

Condley reached into the bag he had been carrying since leaving the Rex’s restaurant and gave each of them a loaf of French bread. “I’m sorry, it is really nothing,” he said with the humility expected when giving a gift in Viet Nam. They clutched the bread as if it were treasure, immediately abandoning the hapless Muir. Then Condley followed Dzung through the doorway into his home.