Scene 14

When it's windy in the day, then the wind lies down in the night», notes the 12th volume of the book «The Art of War» by Sun Tzu that Maille had had to read during his training as a secret agent. Maille was happy to go along with this piece of wisdom because, for him, the day was always a definite counterpoint to the night or the evening – a bit like it was for a vampire, who turned into a completely different creature the moment the sun went down and developed a hunger that was hard to suppress.

This evening, too, Maille felt this mutation of his inner attitude towards the world as he sat down in a restaurant in the Dong Khoi area: he often moved through the hours of the day like foam in a Coke that had been shaken too much, but now at sundown he turned into a heavy red wine that curved seductively in a big glass – so far the concept, at any rate. Unfortunately, his trousers had crumpled on the boat-ride and so his ankles were badly sunburned, factors that marred the majesty of his evening life.

The rice paper that the waiter placed before him along with pig-stomach, prawns, salad, various herbs and vegetables was only half dry. Maille could therefore make the summer rolls without having to first moisten the paper. The tingling freshness of the cool and almost indecently naked-looking items on the table made an interesting contrast to the fire in his ankles. Had anyone – in the tiny world of his table – wished to differentiate between the freely adapted from Claude Levi Strauss «cru» (raw) und «cuit» (cooked), Maille would have definitely been rated as the cooked one at that moment.

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