Situation normal, thought Condley, grinning madly as he crossed the street and made his way through the park. Even as he fought off the entreaties of a dozen hustlers, he did not take his eyes off the cyclo drivers. Noticing his searching stare, the drivers immediately alerted, and in an instant several of them recognized him. They jumped from their cabs and ran toward him, calling to him as a long-lost friend, waving and jabbering, their thin faces electric with friendship and even hope.

“Cong Ly! Hey, Cong Ly! Hey, lau qua, lau qua!”

Behind them, across the street, the doormen of the Rex Hotel watched with faintly muted disapproval as Condley indulged the cyclo drivers. The doormen did not like the cyclo drivers, even though they tolerated their presence. The reason was very complicated, unless one was Vietnamese, and then it was very simple. The doormen were in. They had jobs and protection. Their family histories were clean when it came to examining the past. The cyclo drivers were out. Many of them were former South Vietnamese Army soldiers. Others were the sons of former soldiers. In an unspoken but firm apartheid, they were blocked by their past from the benefits of whatever Viet Nam’s future held.

It did no good to question this distinction, because everything else flowed from it, and if one questioned it he had to question everything else. But having shared their past, Condley felt a special need to recognize and in some odd, minimal way to protect the cyclo drivers. And so this welcoming celebration in front of the Rex Hotel whenever he returned to Sai Gon had become a great game among Condley and the drivers over the past five years.

They had collectively altered his name from Condley to Cong Ly, which pronounced correctly in Vietnamese meant “justice,” a sobriquet now widely used by other Vietnamese who knew him. And he had nicknamed many of them as well, pronouncing their Vietnamese names in various ways that had given them his own characterizations of their personalities. In front of him just now were “Lazy,” “Happy,” “Tiger.” And now, moving slowly from the rear with a quick, knowing wave of the hand, came “Fearless.” Fearless was Dzung. And Dzung was Condley’s best Vietnamese friend.

Condley was surrounded by them now. The suddenly energized cyclo drivers were speaking rapidly to him in Vietnamese as they caught him up on all the latest Sai Gon gossip. Across the street the doormen grumbled, and in the park many other tourists stared curiously as the drivers mobbed him. He had stopped walking, becoming ecstatic at their attention, laughing at their insistent antics, liberated by their very presence. Two young girls joined the group, pulling insistently at his hands, trying to sell him Wrigley’s chewing gum and packs of picture postcards.

“Cong Ly! Cong Ly! You buy gum from me, you already promise!”

“Okay! Okay!”