When I returned to my apartment in a block that already felt eerie in its semi-emptiness, I discovered I had a visitor. Madame Binh, who clearly possessed a key I wasn’t aware of, had let her in and she sat straight-backed on my bedside chair. It was Quyen. I had never seen her anywhere other than La Porte Bleue and I mumbled something in confusion. She had been smoking while she awaited my arrival and it shrouded her in a hazy gauze that, coupled with her dark clothes, made her look spectral. She stood up and gave a little bow of the head before brushing ash from her sleeve, but she didn’t speak and I couldn’t think of the right phrase that would allow her to explain why she was there, so to break the stretching silence I offered tea which she quietly declined and when I gestured to her she sat down again.

‘I do not come for myself,’ she said, after another pause and without the need for preamble. ‘It is too late for us. Vien will never leave, no matter what happens. His family means too much to him. He has always provided for them. And I will never go if he stays, even though he begs me to.’

I simply nodded while frantically trying to anticipate what she was going to say.

‘It is for Tuyen that I come to ask.’

‘Tuyen?’

‘Yes. She must get out. Leave before it is too late.’

‘Surely Donovan is the man to ask. He will look after all of you – you have helped him. He knows the people who can arrange things. They have to look after you.’

‘We have not heard from Donovan. He doesn’t take our calls any more. Do you know where he is?’

I shook my head and I could see her welling up, but she had too much pride to cry in front of me and she blinked it away then briefly looked at the floor before returning her gaze.

‘We do not trust him any more. We have nothing more to give him so maybe we are no more use to him.’

I heard myself about to utter some comforting rebuttal of what she had said, but knew the time for lies had gone.

‘I haven’t heard from him,’ I told her, ‘and I don’t know where he is but I’ll go to the Embassy in the morning and try to sort things for all of you.’

‘It is no use,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He has too many friends. They will not help us leave. You are the only one who can help Tuyen now.’

‘Why will they not help you leave?’

‘Because of Tuyen. Because of Donovan.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘He doesn’t want her in America,’ she said, and then I guess in response to my look of incomprehension and only after her obvious hesitation, ‘Tuyen is pregnant with his child.’

I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to take in everything she had said, but all of it slowly made sense. The only thing that didn’t was why she had come to me and what was the help only I could give.