13th Valley

by John M. Del Vecchio

  El Paso smiled in the dark. Cherry still did not understand, he thought. Maybe he’s even regressing. El Paso sighed weakly and thought Cherry would need a long time to crawl out from under his thick layers of campus propaganda and government indoctrination. Neither side has the answer, he thought.

  “What if they gave a war and only one side showed up?” El Paso asked him.

  “Huh?”

  “That has happened, you know,” El Paso said gently. They were sitting very close to each other wrapped like five enchiladas in their ponchos and poncho liners. They spoke very quietly, speaking directly into one another’s ears. “It happened in Russia under Stalin and in China under Mao. They called it a purge.”

  “Aw, you know what I mean,” Cherry said.

  “Yes,” El Paso said. “But it’s dangerous to talk in slogans like that.” He spoke very easily. He wanted to talk, to tell stories, to pass the night. “Would you like to hear more Vietnamese history, Brother?”

  “Yes,” Cherry said. “I’d like to know it all.”

  “Just a little, eh? Then we’ll give Egan the radios and we’ll cut some Zs. Maybe you would like to hear of Nguyen Ai Quoc. That is Ho Chi Minh’s real name. He once led a war where only one side showed up. What would you like to know? About exploitation perhaps? Perhaps representation?”

  “Both,” Cherry said. El Paso’s voice in his ear was both soothing and interesting. Cherry flashed on Silvers each time the night became quiet and he longed to keep El Paso speaking.

  “Okay, Brother. Did you know Uncle Ho had many of his political enemies put to death while he was coming to power in the 1940s. He once said, ‘All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.’ In ’45 and ’46 he purged the anti-communist nationalists, the Dai Viet, and the Catholics and he directed the Viet Minh in the South. Diem was a popular nationalist back then. Uncle Ho tried to have him assassinated. He wasn’t successful but he was in having Ta Tu Thau rubbed out because Ta was head of a rival communist faction. The Viet Minh almost took over the South at that time but the British stopped them.”

  “The British?”

  “Ah, you didn’t know the British fucked around over here?”

  “No.”

  “Oh yes,” El Paso said lazily. “Right after World War Two. The Japanese had Nam during the war. The Germans had crushed the French in Europe and the French lost their colony here to the Japs. When the Japs were defeated Britain and America tried to force the Vietnamese back into the French Empire. Boy Asshole did not have it entirely wrong and, of course, Minh is very astute. Most of the British were from India and only led by Anglo officers. All that happened while both England and the United States were proclaiming the Atlantic Charter and the principles of equality and independence for all pre-war colonies. The Anglos turned their backs on Nam out of sympathy for the defeated French, and for money too.”

  “How come you didn’t say that earlier tonight?” Cherry asked.

  “Oh, you know,” El Paso shrugged. “No matter how hard you tell a man something he will not believe it unless he already believes it. Es verdad. Our first blunder here was to support the French. Roosevelt committed us to that. FDR not only condoned the French move but he sold them $160 million of war material. Truman kept it going. Eisenhower brought in the advisors, Kennedy the ground troops. The American public has always been one president behind. Johnson was not the one to begin the American combat role. He just escalated it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cherry stopped him. “Didn’t FDR die before World War Two was over?”

  “Yes. But he made the commitment. Tricky Dick inherited the entire mess. Now he is winding it down, withdrawing everyone. People think we are still escalating.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “Yes. But they all are. Is there a politician anywhere you can trust?”

  “I don’t know. Hey, what about Nixon’s Vietnamization and pacification and what about the Paris Peace Talks?”

  “Those are very old programs. You should know the Vietnamese are very gentle and very polite and they love war. They must love war. They have been fighting non-stop for two thousand years. If you put two friendly papa-sans in a room for twenty-four hours, one will emerge victorious.”

  “Hey, that’s good.” Cherry laughed. “Ha. Put two …”

  “Pacification,” El Paso continued gently, “is a French phrase going back to the late 1850s. The French wanted to mollify the natives, ‘for humanity.’ They wanted the natives to be peaceful and to accept French rule. Dien Bien Phu showed what one hundred years of Pacification earned for the French. The American who coined that term was stupid. It was an insult to all Vietnamese.” El Paso spat. Cherry could feel his body jerk as he spat. “We moved peasants off their rice farms and into camps on the coast. Then we keep the NVA from rocketing the camps. So what? ¡Estupido! Pacification is a term for newspapers and official reports. The only ‘hearts and minds’ it wins are the ones making big profits off the war.”

  “God, Man! You oughta talk to somebody. Maybe you should write the president.”

  “No one listens, Cherry. No matter how hard you tell a man something he will not believe it unless he is inclined to believe it. Pacification began as a protection for French missionaries. The emperor, Tu Duc, he was trying to keep western imperialism out of Nam and he blew away a few missionaries. Sometimes I think every man wants to get rid of a priest here or there.

  “One more parallel, Cherry. Did you know the French only wanted Vietnam so the British wouldn’t have it? That was the game of colonialization. It was like saying, ‘So it don’t go communist.’ That’s a stupid reason. It is very much like it was before, only now we have some new names for it.”

  “Where’d you learn all this, Man?” Cherry asked.

  “It is all in the history books. I don’t have a monopoly on it. Do you want to know about negotiations?”

  “I’d very much like to hear.”

  “It will be like it was before. The French ratified a treaty with Tu Duc in 1863. In exchange for French backing the emperor gave the French Saigon. The people hated the French and they hated Tu Duc. Tu Duc wanted to slaughter the Catholics. The French said, okay, as long as we can have Saigon. The people went to guerrilla tactics to fight them both. To the people the treaty meant nothing. Over the next four years France suppressed the resistance in the South. The Vietnamese people were wild about losing Saigon by ‘negotiation.’ One night, legend says, Tu Duc smelled an evil wind so he moved into league with Napoleon and renegotiated a return of Cochin China, the southern third of Nam. In return he opened the entire country to the French and he agreed to become a vassal and his country would become a French protectorate. The Vietnamese attacked Tu Duc and French trade went bad. The businessmen got pissed at Napoleon for not conquering and Napoleon reneged on the treaty. Treaties mean nothing. If we sign a treaty tomorrow that will not stop the war.”

  “Were the French that bad?” Cherry asked.

  “Yes,” Egan said joining the conversation. He had sat up to check for leeches again. One was stuck to his right eyelid. He dug his fingers into his eyelid and squeezed. The leech burst and watery blood and slime ran down his face. “Fucken French starved the peasants,” Egan said.

  “What’re you doin, Bro?”

  “Goddamn fucken leech in my eye.”

  “Wake Doc up.”

  “Fuck it. Don’t mean nothin.”

  Doc had silently risen and was now on his knees by Egan gently checking Egan’s eye by touch. “Bloodsuckers, Mista. The whole world full of em. Get under yer poncho and let me look at that with a light.”

  “How’d the French starve the peasants?” Cherry asked.

  “They did stuff like force them to build railroads instead of lettin em raise rice. They died of famine because so many worked on the railroad and so few worked in the paddies. Twenty-five thousand starved to death.”

  “Hey,” Egan said—he and Doc emerged from under the ponc
ho—” let me ask, if you coulda come here back then and, say, killed the fucker who ran the railroad …”

  “Doumer,” El Paso said.

  “Okay,” Egan said, “killed Doumer to keep those twenty-five thousand peasants from being murdered, would you have done it?” No one answered. Egan pressed. “Huh? Would that have been right? The Jew use ta ask me that. He use ta say, would we have been justified in killing Hitler in ’37 or ’38 and thus stopping World War Two? Stopping the slaughter of six million Jews? Of twenty-five million Russians? Of maybe a total of fifty million people? I didn’t come here to kill. I came here to stop killing. So did you. How could anybody in good conscience refuse to come? It was people sticking their heads in the sand who let fifty million people be slaughtered in six years. El Paso, Doc, Jax, you awake …”

  “I listenin.”

  “… Cherry, you came to save, not to destroy. Brothers, your hearts are pure. It’s the bloodsuckin politicians who’ve fucked us. Me, you, all of us.”

  At the CP Brooks lay semi-conscious, cold, trembling. He lay between Cahalan and Brown but their body heat was not enough to keep him warm. He trembled into that state between sleep and wakefulness where dreams flow and are sometimes controlled. He fell through a black hole into nothingness and the void filled with the gentle fragrance of Hawaiian flowers, bloomed with soft splashes of color, warmed with the touch of Lila. Those first moments repeated and sped by. If R&R’s beginning had been a wonder, the next days held no wonder at all. The tiny crack between Rufus and Lila spread gradually, steadily, a hundred minute innuendos forcing them apart until the invisible crack became a chasm.

  After they had loved for the nth time and he had lain back satisfied, warm and secure, Lila had said, “Oh Rufus. It’s going to be so wonderful. It is wonderful.”

  Rufus was anxious about seeing Lila again after so long but he had not expected her to be anxious too. He had simply not thought of it from her perspective. “Yes, it is wonderful,” he said.

  “Let’s go out,” Lila said. “Let’s not waste any time. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said smiling. She looked so pretty and so young.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Lila said. “There isn’t going to be enough time to see all the things I want to see. I just know it. Let’s go eat then let’s go to the beach. Oh my, we’ve been here almost six hours and we haven’t even seen the beach.”

  Rufus had to shower first. He had washed beneath the cold showers at Eagle, then again in warm showers at Da Nang and at Ton Son Nhut but he still had not felt clean. He could not dislodge months of jungle dirt in minutes of showers. Rufus showered with Lila. She got out and dressed. He continued washing. He scrubbed his feet for ten minutes and his balls for five. He scraped at his body with his fingernails removing layers of dead and calloused skin. Come on, Lila groaned to herself. We don’t have forever.

  Lila had dressed in colorful native African dress, her head wrapped in a high turban, her shoulders naked. She had accentuated her green eyes with cobalt blue eye shadow and raised the arch of the brows. She was stunning. Rufus just finished showering. “Oh Rufus,” she said, “don’t wear that uniform.”

  “I’m not ashamed of it,” Rufus said simply, not defensively.

  “Oh, of course not, Silly. I only meant, well, you know, we’re here among civilians.”

  “Okay.” He smiled but it hurt him. A tiny chip had been made in the polished lacquer of his pride.

  “Come here, Silly.” Lila smiled warmly after he had dressed in the clothes she had bought for him. He obeyed and embraced her. Lila laughed and ran her fingers through his hair. She vigorously massaged his scalp.

  Why are you doing that? Rufus asked himself. Does my short hair give me away? Does it offend you?

  Rufus and Lila dined at a very fancy restaurant on the first night of R&R, the night of the day of their most wonderful love spree.

  Look at these rich sons of bitches in here picking at their food, Rufus said to himself disgustedly. God, even she’s doing it. Rufus did not mention his thoughts. His irritation and frustration grew.

  “I wonder what those guys are eating right now.” Rufus laughed as he plunged a thick juicy hunk of meat into his mouth and swallowed it after chewing only twice.

  “My fish is wonderful.” Lila smiled. “This sauce is just … just, scrumptious. How’s your steak?”

  “Good.” He winked at her. “We call ourselves boonierats,” he said with pride.

  “What?” She laughed at the name.

  “Boonierats,” he repeated and thought maybe that name does sound silly.

  “What’s a boonierat?” she asked laughing.

  “Just an infantry soldier.” Rufus smiled. “A grunt.”

  “A grunt?”

  “Well, more than a grunt. Marines are grunts. Soldiers from the Big Red One are grunts. We’re boonierats. We live in the boonies, we don’t just visit. The jungle is our home.”

  “Let’s not talk about Vietnam,” Lila said. “Let’s talk about Hawaii and about you and me.”

  I’m nothing right now but Vietnam, he thought. “All right,” Rufus said. “Hey,” he said cheerfully, loudly, “let’s order a bottle of champagne. I’d love a fucking bottle of champagne.” The word fucking had come out so easily, so naturally, he had not even noticed it until he saw the appalled look on Lila’s face and the side-glance of the waiter. Well fuck them, he thought bitterly.

  After eating they took a taxi to a secluded beach. Three taxis had passed them up and finally the furious doorman had halted the fourth. The streets near the restaurant had been crowded with bustling people. Someone knocked into Rufus. He spun and violently shoved the man back, “Watch it, Mothafucka.”

  “Oh, so sorry, Sir,” an old oriental bowed slightly and scurried away. Other people on the sidewalk stared at him and Lila. Rufus breathed deeply. He could feel the ambient prejudice, the thick unwelcome Hawaii reserves for blacks. Or is it just that I’m a soldier? he asked himself.

  “God,” Lila seethed in the taxi. “Did you have to make a scene?”

  “Aw fuck em,” Rufus snapped. “Fuck them phony people. They don’t even know what the fuck’s happening.”

  “Please don’t talk that way, Rufus,” Lila ordered.

  “These fucking people don’t even know there’s a war going on. Rich, innocent mothafuckas.”

  “Rufus!”

  “Hey, you too.”

  They walked the beach in silence. The night was moonlit and beautiful and Lila wanted to skip and wade barefoot. Rufus wanted to return to their room and have room service bring up more champagne. Don’t let one bad pitch destroy your whole ballgame, he said to himself. “Look,” Rufus said stopping, “I’m sorry. It takes some time to adjust to this. Hey, you know?”

  “Rufus, I’m sorry too,” Lila said. “I guess I haven’t let you tell me much about what’s happened to you.”

  “Hey, okay. There’s not much to tell. I treat my men as my equals over there. They’re men. I’m a man. I respect them for what they are and they return that respect.”

  Lila pressed the palm of her hand to her cheek and stood before him. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  Rufus ran through explanations in his mind but he rejected each. He knew Lila was not interested in or capable of comprehending what his infantry unit was, what it meant to him. There was an esprit de corps among his men built on the deep concern each had for every other. They worked together, they fought together, they shared life and death. How can those words mean anything to someone who has not experienced it? Yet Rufus wanted to talk, wanted Lila to understand. But he could not talk. He put his arms out to her and drew her to him and they embraced. Lila kept her head buried in his chest. He did not belong to her any longer, nor did she any longer belong to him. They had come from different worlds, had merged, and had been separated by the army. They came together again in Hawaii and again they were from different worlds. They embraced a good-bye embrace. They both felt it but ne
ither said it. That would take much longer. “Hey, let’s go back and get a few drinks at the hotel,” he suggested and she quietly agreed.

  Over the next few days Rufus and Lila went through the motions of a returning soldier and a faithful wife on vacation. They went to Diamond Head, to Pearl Harbor, to a hotel sponsored luau. They surfed, paddled an outrigger, played tennis. Rufus told Lila a little about his men, a little about tactics, a little about the gore of modern warfare. And they drank. Both drank heavily. Rufus passed out the next two nights. He could not relax.

  And in the morning, in bed, “How the hell can you say that?” he demanded.

  “You stink. You never used to sweat like that,” she accused.

  “Hey,” he was furious. “Look! Three things. One, men sweat. Okay, you’re a fine lady and you don’t sweat. Well, men sweat. Two, blacks sweat. Okay, you’re a fine black lady and you don’t sweat but blacks sweat. And three, black men sweat. Why do you think whites call us shines? It’s because we sweat. I’m a black man and I sweat like a black man and I smell like a black man. I don’t know how you plug up your pores so effectively but I’ll tell you this—I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m going to wet stink like the black man I am.”

  “Rufus,” she cooed. “White men sweat too.”

  He jumped out of bed and stamped off to the bath.

  During the days and nights, a dozen times, Rufus flashed upon evening operations on hillsides in Nam, on morning fights on ridges, on night probes in valleys. Again he tried to tell Lila about his men, about heroism he had witnessed, about hours he had endured. And again he felt her lack of interest, her apathy at best, her deliberate rejection, her distaste and hatred. Rufus attempted a different approach. Once he said, “Power is not simply what fire power you have. It’s not what you have. It’s what the enemy thinks you have.” She did not understand. He tried another vein, something that should mean much to the artist in her black body. “There is a wholeness in black culture which has been disembodied in much of white, especially Anglo-white, culture. The disembodying of the culture is both the cause and the effect of perceptions which divide everything into components and then attempts to explain everything as complex constructions of those components. When I say everything, I mean everything. I mean seeing a man as a composite of molecules and a poem as a composite of words or a culture as a composite of people and not seeing the energies which run through the forms, the molecules, the words, the people, the energy which ties the elements together into what the thing is. It’s that energy which our blackness is losing by becoming white.”