She had a dark mark on her ankle, like a bruise, but it wasn’t. It was a “Sài Gòn tattoo”—the telltale patch of flesh that had been burnt on contact with a motorbike exhaust pipe. A rite of passage for almost every woman in a hot country who took up motorbike driving for the first time, as they were more used to (a) showing their ankles and (b) taking the rear seat on the family runaround.
