Lost Soldiers

by Lost Soldiers (retail) (epub)

He knew what this was all about. It was no mystery what Manh was preparing him to do.

  ‘And what are my chances of being reunited with my precious cyclo after I perform this service?’ he asked dryly, staring at Manh’s relaxed frame from behind him.

  ‘I thought you hated your life, mister cyclo driver.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ smiled Dzung, fighting back the nervousness that was now causing even his fingers to tingle. ‘It is a wonderful existence. Fresh air. Plenty of exercise. Interesting people. And when I take a vacation, I can park my cyclo free of charge in front of the Interior Ministry building.’

  As Dzung spoke he noticed the van’s driver looking quickly at him through the rearview mirror, a silent, threatening reproach that prodded Manh himself into action. ‘Careful with your disrespect, Dzung.’

  ‘But that was not disrespect,’ grinned Dzung. ‘I was expressing my gratitude for all the benefits the revolution has brought me.’

  ‘I am warning you—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ answered Dzung. ‘My files.’

  Manh shook his head, as if Dzung himself was hopeless. ‘I actually like you, Dzung. But you are too careless with your own safety.’

  Dzung looked out the window, vainly searching faces among the stream of the motorbikers and cyclo drivers who were looking into the van as they passed. ‘That is an odd way to put it, Manh. You’ve given me a gun. You want me to use it, for the good of the revolution. I may not survive. And then you tell me I am too careless with my own safety.’

  ‘Enough,’ warned Manh, lighting a fresh cigarette as he held it at the bottom of two fingers near the palm. His eyes were on the mirror as the driver looked back at them with disapproval, and his face had grown suddenly hard. ‘I am serious about this. We have developed a… certain way of talking to each other, which might cause you great difficulty in the coming few hours if you continue to use it. No more silly talk. You may think you are protected from retaliation because we need you to perform this service, but you should remember that there is life on the other side of what you are about to do. Assuming you do it successfully, that is. And that life will be just like this life, Dzung. So these are your choices: fail in your task, in which case you will not survive. Or carry out your task, in which case you still belong to us.’

  ‘Those are really not such different choices,’ shrugged Dzung, feeling somehow emboldened by their very futility. ‘Fast death or slow death. But I will succeed. For the good of the revolution, right, Manh?’

  Manh finally waved a hand into the air, looking out the window and dismissing him. ‘Be careful, Dzung. I am serious. We will not forget.’

  District Three faded behind them, as did the busy markets of Cho Lon. Dzung lost his bearings as the van twisted and turned along the crowded streets. Finally they reached a walled compound that covered an entire city block. Barbed wire ran along the top of the walls. Sentry boxes manned by hard-faced soldiers sat atop the walls at every corner and on both sides of the double iron gate, as if they had reached a prison.

  ‘My new home?’ teased Dzung as the gates slowly opened, allowing the van inside.

  ‘You’re not that lucky,’ snorted Manh, grinding out his latest cigarette on the van’s metal floor. The van halted, and the Interior Ministry agent slid the door open, jumping outside. He pointed to Dzung, his demeanor and his voice having lost all hint of familiarity.

  ‘OK, out.’

  Dzung stepped out, finding himself at the entrance to yet another bleak, yellow-plaster building built by the French nearly a century before. He followed Manh up a short flight of worn, rounded steps and then inside. The air was clammy, heavy with moldy Asian odors, similar to the stairways in the Interior Ministry building itself. Manh brought him down a long, dimly lit corridor and then into a side room. The room was stark and empty, its walls painted blue. A picture of Ho Chi Minh hung on one wall, above a wooden bench. Except for the bench, the only furniture in the room was a small table in the center and two small wooden chairs that seemed to have been built for schoolchildren. A floor-length mirror was on another wall. Next to the mirror was an internal door that led, no doubt, into another room.

  Manh closed the outer door behind them and nudged Dzung until they were standing before the mirror.

  ‘I want you to see what you look like,’ said Manh. ‘Have you seen yourself before, Dzung?’

  ‘Not in a long time,’ Dzung answered. ‘Only my face in a small mirror. Sometimes my reflection on a hotel window. And Cong Ly took a picture of me last year for Tet. I saw that.’

  ‘A picture is tiny,’ said Manh. ‘Take a look at yourself.’

  Dzung moved slowly to the mirror and stood before it for a long time. His hair shot raggedly out from underneath his worn baseball cap. His thin arms dangled from his stretched and faded T-shirt. His fingernails were cracked and dirty. His legs looked like pencils at the bottom of his rolled trousers. His sandaled feet were wide, callused, and dirty, their toenails blackened. He moved closer, examining the gaps between his stained teeth and the lines that creased his face and neck. He did not like what he saw, but he was not surprised.

  ‘Why do you want me to look at myself?’

  ‘Because I am going to change you,’ said Manh. ‘Come with me.’

  For two hours Manh led Dzung from room to room inside the ancient, mysterious building. In one room a barber waited for him and skillfully cut his hair. In another room a technician brushed and expertly cleaned his teeth, while another clipped and manicured his nails. He was then brought to a shower room, where he dropped his old clothes and scrubbed himself for a long time, taking his first hot shower in more than twenty-five years.

  After he dried himself he was issued a set of snow-white underwear: Once he put on the underwear he was brought into another room, where a frowning, stylishly dressed young woman awaited him. Without saying a word to him, she meticulously blow-dried his hair, rubbing gel into it and styling it for him. She went into a closet and brought out a new, tropical, worsted olive-coloured suit, a pair of patterned silk socks, and a pair of brown leather shoes. As he put on the trousers, socks, and shoes, she went back to the closet, bringing out a handful of ties and several shirts. Holding the ties against the suit and looking at his face, she finally chose a blue and gold rep pattern and matched the tie to a sky-blue shirt. He had never knotted a tie before, and so she did that for him, tying it and slipping it around his neck, showing him just how to fold the collar over the tie and how to pinch the knot at the bottom once the tie was tightened around the neck.

  And finally Manh brought him back to the first room he had entered, walking him in front of the mirror again.

  ‘Now look,’ said Manh as he lit his thirtieth cigarette of the day, a devilish grin slashing across his face. ‘Who do you see?’

  ‘I see Dzung,’ he said.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Manh. ‘Look again.’

  He moved closer to the mirror, looking more closely. Staring back at him was a sleek, handsome powerhouse, an entrepreneurial giant, the kind of man he could never have dreamed of conversing with on the sidewalk, much less luring into his cyclo.

  ‘I see a hat ngoai,’ said Dzung quietly, using the term that identified the overseas Vietnamese who lived in Australia, France, or America.

  ‘You see Nguyen Le Trong,’ said Manh. As he spoke, a thin, frazzled man entered the room, carrying a camera. Manh nudged Dzung and pointed toward one of the dull blue walls. ‘Stand over there with your back to the wall. Hurry up!’

  As Dzung stood against the wall, the man took two pictures of him and then quickly left the room. Watching him leave, Dzung shrugged his shoulders absently. ‘Who is Nguyen Le Trong?’

  ‘You are Nguyen Le Trong,’ answered Manh. ‘Listen to me. You have only a few hours to memorise this and fully understand it. It was impossible to tell you earlier because, quite frankly, it would have been too dangerous to tell you before you were completely under our control. You are Nguyen Le Trong. You were born on
March 23, 1949, in a small village in Thua Thien Province. Your father was a doctor. You moved to Hue at an early age. You served in a few innocuous logistics positions during the war but mostly studied economics at Hue University. You are now a businessman—’

  ‘A businessman?’ grinned Dzung, looking again at himself in the mirror. ‘I must make a lot of money.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be nervous!’ grimaced Manh, watching Dzung preen before the mirror.

  ‘Me, or Nguyen Le Trong?’

  ‘You, Dzung!’ Manh watched him for another second and then relaxed into silent laughter himself. ‘You do have nerves of steel, don’t you? I see we picked the right man.’

  ‘Tell me more about this business,’ said Dzung, running his hands over the material of his suit.

  The photographer walked back into the room, handing Manh a small, bulky envelope, and then left. Manh opened the package, nodding his head approvingly as he flipped through several pages. Then he held it up for Dzung to see.

  ‘This is your passport. As you will be able to see, you have been to Thailand many, many times.’

  ‘To Thailand?’ breathed Dzung, staring at the small booklet. ‘What have I done there?’

  ‘Business,’ said Manh.

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘Rice,’ answered Manh. ‘We are the third-largest exporter of rice in the world, you know.’

  ‘We export rice while our children starve?’

  ‘Cease talking like that,’ said Manh. ‘You are not living in District Four. You are an exporter.’ He handed Dzung the passport. ‘This is not a forged document, Trong. Please note that from now on I will call you Trong. But this is not a forged document. It is an official government passport. The only thing that is inaccurate is your identity.’

  ‘What are we doing?’ asked Dzung.

  ‘We are going to Thailand,’ said Manh. ‘There is a flight that leaves at three o’clock this afternoon.’

  ‘To sell rice?’ asked Dzung sarcastically.

  ‘To sell rice,’ said Manh.

  ‘What time does my limo pick me up?’

  Manh laughed, folding his arms and looking proudly at his creation. ‘You learn quickly, don’t you, Trong?’ Dzung preened for another moment at the mirror, turning this way and that, amazed at his own transformation. ‘Maybe I like this idea of selling rice.’

  It was an idle comment, but as Manh watched the newly converted Dzung’s face he saw a power emanating from those simple words. And it made him very uncomfortable.

  * * *

  The walkway outside the Tan Son Nhat airport terminal was jammed with travellers, cab drivers, family members, hawkers, hookers, and thieves, all waiting anxiously to greet passengers on the flight that had just arrived from Bangkok. They stood three-deep along a roped corridor that allowed the new arrivals to exit from the terminal’s glass doorways, holding flowers or signs, their eyes filled with anticipation. They peered wistfully inside the terminal through the windows, as if all of the outside world were a jail and the terminal building itself were an enviable node of freedom. They pulsed with an undeniable energy, an excitement so palpable that it crackled among them like static electricity.

  And nothing that had happened to him in the last quarter century amazed Dzung so completely as when the thick crowd parted upon seeing him approach, allowing him to walk untouched into the terminal. In the usual tradition of Sai Gon he had expected to be jostled, pickpocketed, suborned, and even insulted. But when he stepped out of the government van in his olive suit with his leather carrying bag and his swept-back hair and walked resolutely toward the terminal doors, the mass of people parted before him. His elegance stunned many of them into silence. There was envy in many of their eyes, curiosity in others, but in all of them he saw an eerie, undeniable respect.

  When he reached the terminal door, Manh came up from behind him, opening it for him. The Interior Ministry agent was grinning with delight. ‘Allow me, Mister Trong.’

  At the business-class section of the ticket counter, Manh brought their passports to the front of the line. Immediately a Viet Nam Airlines employee left the counter and personally escorted them through security, and then through Customs, where they were waved into the departure lounge without inspection. Dzung remained silent, following Manh, having little idea of where he was and no idea of where he was going.

  In the departure lounge hundreds of people milled about, most of them foreigners at the end of their Viet Nam adventure. Dzung strolled among the backpackers and the sport-shirted tourists, marveling at their easy opulence, wondering how many of them he might have implored to ride for an hour on his cyclo for a dollar, only a dollar, a fraction of what they now were throwing away on beer and peanuts as they whiled away the minutes before the flight that would take them to their next few days of frolic.

  Manh guided him to the business-class lounge, where a half dozen other passengers were already waiting. In the small room he sat for a half hour on a cushy sofa, watching television for the first time since the war’s end. A cute young woman in a blue ao dai spoiled him with deferential smiles, offering him napkins and food. He ordered a bottle of orange juice, then two bags of cashew nuts, and finally three slices of papaya.

  Another escort from Viet Nam Airlines greeted them in the business-class lounge. Ever smiling, ever gracious, she guided them past the long lines and around the X-ray machines, taking them to a small bus that drove them onto the runway, directly to the waiting aircraft. They climbed the flight ladder and took their seats in the front row of the business-class section. They were the first people to board the aircraft. The flight attendants greeted them as royalty, knowing they were on a special travel assignment from the government.

  Dzung took off his jacket, folding it carefully and stowing it with his bag in the overhead compartment, and then settled into his seat. A flight attendant brought him a glass of juice and that day’s edition of Tuoi Tre. It was almost impossible to comprehend that a mere seven hours before, he had been pedaling his cyclo in the dust and fumes of District One, on his way to work at the Rex Hotel.

  As he was reading the newspaper, the rest of the flight began to board the aircraft. Soon he heard a familiar voice. Then he heard another familiar voice, and finally that of a woman talking to the other two. He sat, stunned, his heart pounding uncontrollably for the first time that day. Looking carefully from behind the newspaper, he fought back a moment of stark terror.

  Condley, Van, and Hanson Muir stood only a few feet away from him, waiting for the passengers in front of them to take their seats. Condley and Van were standing very close together. Hanson Muir was just behind them, carrying a too-large hanging bag and grumbling good-naturedly.

  ‘I am in a state of extreme depression, Brandon, and it is only fair that you also be in a state of extreme depression. Back in the States they have a show called Sesame Street. They teach us all about sharing. Sharing is a good thing. So if you can’t share your good fortune with me, at least I’m going to make a point of sharing my depression with you. Do you understand my concept? And will you two please stop it?’

  ‘I told you, Professor. As soon as we get to Bangkok I’ll get you a bubble bath and a massage.’

  ‘My wife wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘How do you know? Has she ever had one?’

  Van laughed lightly, a hand moving casually along Condley’s arm. Dzung weakened for a moment, allowing himself to scrutinise her face. It was the closest he had ever been to her. An emotion rolled through his belly, somewhere between jealousy and concern.

  Condley picked up his look. With a sudden protectiveness he turned toward Dzung and stared menacingly back at him, squinting his eyes just for a moment, as if in recognition. Shaken, Dzung quickly returned to his newspaper. Condley looked at him curiously for another moment, as if considering a thought and then dismissing it. And then the three moved on toward their seats in the rear of the aircraft.

  Dzung looked over at Manh. The I
nterior Ministry agent was smiling grandly, a look of complete victory on his face.

  ‘So you see, Mister Trong. You are a different man.’

  Dzung clung to the newspaper, shifting uneasily in his seat. ‘This business of exporting rice is becoming very complicated.’

  ‘Perhaps. But it has its rewards.’

  He glanced at the carry-on bag that Manh had kept on his lap. ‘Did you bring the gun?’

  ‘Of course I brought the gun.’

  ‘What will happen on the other end?’

  ‘The same thing that happened here,’ said Manh simply. ‘We will be met by Thai officials and Vietnamese diplomatic staff, who will escort us through Customs. A driver will take us to the Vietnamese Embassy. We will stay at the embassy.’

  ‘Where am I going to… sell my rice?’

  ‘Wherever I decide,’ said Manh, putting his carry-on bag under his seat and then buckling his seat belt.

  ‘Why is Cong Ly on this plane?’

  ‘Who? We don’t know such a man.’ Manh picked up his own copy of Tuoi Tre. ‘Enjoy your flight, Mister Trong. There will be a meal when we take off. You are the kind of man who appreciates a good glass of wine.’

  ‘I have never had a good glass of wine.’

  ‘Actually, you have had many good glasses of wine. You make this trip frequently. Check your passport. And you always have wine with your meal when we fly to Bangkok.’

  ‘Bangkok is crowded?’ asked Dzung gamely, trying to picture their destination. ‘Like Sai Gon?’

  ‘More buildings,’ answered Manh. ‘Very nice hotels. But the traffic is terrible.’

  Dzung felt suddenly weary. ‘I think I will take a nap on the plane.’

  ‘A good idea,’ said Manh, turning to his copy of Tuoi Tre. ‘We will have a lot of work to do when we reach Bangkok.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Bangkok

  ‘Oh, Cong Ly. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.’

  She was on the terrace just outside the fifth-floor hotel room, looking stunning in a black bikini that he had bought for her after their arrival the day before. She had awakened at dawn and spent an hour in the swimming pool while he showered and shaved. Now she stood, one hand on the railing, her chin raised into a gentle morning wind. She closed her eyes for a moment as if she were in the middle of a glorious dream. The wind lifted her long hair, sending it fluttering behind her shoulders so that she looked bold and innocent and free, like an island girl catching her first glimpse of civilisation. Watching her he descended into a flash of mawkishness. For at that moment she, and not the view before her, was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen.