It hadn’t been the attachments part of the question that caused Bodge to think carefully. Operations had done its homework. They knew Leon was divorced and, even including the overnight pickups from clubs: the pretty showgirls, aspiring actresses, for almost two years he hadn’t been intimate with anyone he liked. He visited his parents at Christmas and on birthdays without fail, but there was no emotional attachment and he didn’t stay there longer than was absolutely necessary. He had no brothers or sisters, so Agent Robert Leon was what they called in the division, ‘unhooked’. Nobody would miss him.
What concerned Bodge about the question was the period of time. Two years sounded like infinity to him. He’d always imagined skipping into a country, photographing a secret file, skipping out, and taking a month of emotional leave to recover from the trauma. He’d never imagined a mission being a long drawn-out affair. But he answered ‘No’ anyway.
With all the formalities out of the way, Palmer apologized for being unable to give Bodge details just yet, but said he’d go ahead with arrangements for a formal and thorough briefing. He welcomed Bodge to what he called ‘the team’, shook his hand once more and walked him to the door. Palmer had a way of speaking that pumped pride into a man like air into an inner tube. Bodge stood in the doorway puffed up with glory and honor and patriotism. He had a strong urge to salute till Palmer let a little of the air out.
“Oh, Bodge.”
“Yes sir?”
“It may be a good time to do something about your shape.”
“My shape sir?” The word ‘rectangle’ leapt to his mind.
“Yes agent. You’re a mess. Get fit.”
“Yes sir.”
Bodge walked off down the hall.
“And don’t forget you owe me an adjective,” Palmer called after him.
“Sir.”
4.
Vietnam
Her Highness Mademoiselle Nguyen Von Hong, second consort to the sometimes esteemed Emperor of Vietnam, was on her knees at the new porcelain toilet bowl. She’d thrown up successfully twice. The third attempt was an empty dredging.
The French gin had negated the effects of the first three pipes of opium so she’d taken an ill-advised fourth. When Lan came running into the bed chamber with the message, the room was already in flight; rolling through the air like a Chinese dragon.
“He’s back and he wants you — immediately,”
“What for?” she’d asked, although there was no mystery. Her tongue had expanded to muffle her question.
“What for? To nip at your sweet, boyish nipples,” her maid servant giggled. “To caress your firm buttocks.”
That was the image that had sent Hong into the marble bathroom and her dinner into the palace sewer. Still she knelt in homage to the god of ill-matching substances. She could hear Lan blithering on behind the locked teak door.
“Hong, really. He’s waiting and he’s had a few drinks. You know what he gets like. He’s in a mighty hurry to place his ardor.”
“Let him wait,” Hong thought. “Let him wait till his ardor builds and fills him from toe to top-knot: till he explodes into two thousand randy pieces.” She called out to Lan, “You go. You go in my place. I’m not well.”
“Oh, that he’d accept me,” Lan lamented. “Oh, that he were a man with an appreciation of ripe swaying bosoms and hips with handles. But, sadly he favors the chopstick over the ladle. Come on. Hurry. It’ll be me he punishes, not you. Wash out your mouth and we’ll set about making you fit for the table.”
Hong looked at herself in the ornate mirror. She looked for the once-pretty child, the once-brilliant student, the one-time Miss Mekhong Delta who’d wobbled on pointed heels to collect her ribbon. But all she saw was an abused woman nearing twenty-five, ravaged by excesses, and painted over to hide the mistakes. She knew if she were able to step out from inside the makeup and the lacquered hair and the antique pajamas, any woman could move in to take her place. She was just a piece of common fruit in this elaborate rind. But it was her he’d chosen. To her the honor, the most awful, unwanted honor, had been bestowed. So, unless she wished her family to vanish like the others, she had no choice.
She dabbed carefully at her paint-work with a damp flannel, gargled with a mint and jasmine mouthwash, and unlocked the door so that Lan could, in five miraculous minutes, turn her once more into the ‘embodiment of southern perfection’ with whom the Saigon newspapers had fallen in love.
5.
Bodge and Lou were somewhat stymied when it came to a location for toasting the news that night. They’d developed a habit of celebrating non-events; the arrival of a new batch of stationery, the passing away of an office silverfish, a haircut. For such memorable moments they had several favorite bars and restaurants. But, apart from Bodge’s divorce, there had been no really happy events to drink to. None of their regular haunts seemed appropriate for this life-changer. So they didn’t even try to match the splendor of the event.
Twenty minutes from the office was a neighborhood bar. It wasn’t seedy enough to call a dive, but it wouldn’t have made it into the state Good Drinking and Dining Guide either. It did, however, have ice-cold Schaeffer’s on tap and that was how they decided to christen the end of their era. With another flurry of snow blowing sideways outside the window, they found a spot near the radiator and settled. The barman had instructions to keep the jugs coming until Bodge and Lou fell off their stools.
“So what are you gonna do without me?” Bodge asked. He was expecting another smart-assed answer, but his office mate was in one of his philosophical moods.
“I been thinking about that, buddy. I can’t see me sticking around the office for long. It was only having you in there with me reminding me how much worse my life could have been — only kidding ya. You’re the only thing that makes it bearable. What would you have done if it had been me?”
“Called on a mission?”
“Yeah. Stretch your imagination.”
“I’m not sure. Put in for a transfer to somewhere different? Quit? It would have dynamited me out of the rut, that’s for sure. I couldn’t imagine that office without you, either.”
“Ain’t this romantic? But that’s just it. You and me, we were headed along that road to long service and a gold watch. They’d have these two white-haired old guys up on a stage talking to the young recruits saying things like, “Yes, it was different when we started out.” And they’d all be sitting there with their mouths open and their tongues dribbling, waiting for old-timer stories about spying and near-death experiences…”
“And we’d tell them about how tough it was before the days of the ball point, when we had to use fountain pens and fill them up ourselves out of bottles.”
“Exactly. What’s the most exciting thing you’ve got to tell your grandkids about your days with the agency?”
“Me?” He looked up at the reservoir. “The Christmas party of 48?”
“That’s what I mean. Mind you, it was one hell of a party. But now it’s different. I’ve got this friend who’s off risking life and limb…”
“Wait. They didn’t say anything about that.”
“…risking life and limb in a dangerous far off land, getting tortured by crazed war mongers.”
“Hell. Maybe I’ll call in sick.”
“Making love to beautiful exotic women, seeing the way things really are in the world and making a difference. I don’t suppose they’ll let you send me weekly postcards?”
“Unlikely.”
“But at least I can imagine all that stuff while I’m doing…what I’m doing.”
“And what is that?”
“What?”
“What you’re doing.”
“Oh, you know. I’ve got something planned.”
“You didn’t tell me that. What is it?”
“It’s a secret.”
“I thought we didn’t have any secrets.”
“No, the way it works is that you don’t have any secrets from me. But y
ou don’t know shit about my secrets. You’d be amazed at what I’ll be doing while you’re off vacationing in Asia.”
It was just one exchange in a night of friendly talk, but it was one Bodge would come to think back on. It stuck for some reason. Those coherent moments eventually gave way to slurrings and fictional reminiscences, and loud, badly sung songs. But the nice thing about the bar they’d chosen was that you’d probably have to set light to the place to get thrown out. At around midnight, as they’d predicted, they fell off their stools and the barman stopped serving them draft beer.
Bodge’s last few days at the Adams Center felt entirely different. He and Lou agreed that the best way to deal with Thursday’s hangovers was to suffer work, go for a meal, then have an early night. On the Friday morning a young guy came into the office and handed Bodge a letter already removed from its envelope. He stuck around while Bodge read it.
It was from Palmer telling him his orientation proper was to begin the following Tuesday. It announced Bodge’s position would be taken over by Mr. Edward Gladstein and asked Bodge, if he had time, to go through the procedures with Edward at some stage to ensure a smooth hand-over. Bodge read the letter aloud to Lou. Young Gladstein insisted they both call him Eddy. Bodge was more than happy to oblige. The boy spoke French like a native. His mother was the real thing and he’d been raised bilingual somewhere out in California. He and Bodge yapped away in French for the whole afternoon apart from when they were parrying the odd insult from left-out Lou in Italian.
Then the three of them went out and got stewed in a procession of bars and nightclubs. It was a final goodbye for Bodge, an office welcome for young Eddy, and a farewell to a tradition. Bodge came-round in the back of a Yellow Cab with Lou asleep on his shoulder and the boy nowhere to be seen. Only the driver seemed to have any grasp on sobriety.
“Hey mister?” Bodge slurred. He felt like he was in a sack of flour. “You got any idea where you’re going?”
Bodge saw the skinny driver smile into the mirror. Most of his face was nose.
“Yeah pal. Don’t you worry. I got both your addresses writ down here. You’re getting out just up ahead.”
The cab stopped in front of a four-story brownstone that Bodge recognized as his own. He somehow found the car door handle and the sidewalk and used the side of the cab to hold himself up while he felt around for his wallet. The driver laughed again.
“No need pal. It’s all paid for. You wanna shut that door?”
Bodge looked inside at Lou. His office mate had dropped down onto the seat and was sleeping like a baby.
“Sweet dreams, Lou.”
There was no response. Bodge was reluctant to let the cab out from under him as he wasn’t certain he’d be able to stay upright of his own volition. But he slammed the door shut and waved as the yellow blur shot off into the night. It took him a long while to get to his apartment. There were waves on the sidewalk — big Japanese-style waves. The front door, the elevator, the apartment key, they all found ways to complicate what should have been an easy enough journey. Bodge had never felt so numb or so stupidly ill. Even the kitchen-dinette was waltzing. Whatever he’d drunk that night was evil. If he could remember what the hell it was, he’d give it up.
He drank two cups of black coffee so strong he had to chew. It was always a mistake to go to bed drunk. That much he remembered. He didn’t want to feel like the devil had set up the satanic quintet in his head when he woke up. He’d had the taste of vomit on his lips when he got home although he couldn’t remember throwing up. He wanted to get himself to the state where he could get to the bathroom, shower, relieve himself and clean his teeth before he passed out.
But the third cup of coffee turned out to be more than he could take. There was a current passing through him like a badly wired tenement. He found himself in his boxer shorts, shoes and socks laying on the top bedcover, staring at the lampshade above his head. A siren was going off somewhere far outside his window. His clock was ticking — loudly, and his heart was throbbing like the pump on an oil rig. He was horribly awake, thinking in vivid confused colors.
Somehow his mission to Indochina got into his head. He saw himself in a rickshaw dressed in a white suit and a Panama hat heading off to baffle the enemy. And the foe had to look like Japs because they were the only Asians he was vaguely familiar with. And Japanese and fighting naturally took his mind to Germany and the day that changed his life. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone over the events. It didn’t ever alter things and no amount of thought ever gave him a handle on how he could have done anything differently.
General Osgood had handpicked Bodge from the flock of French-speaking aides gathered at Command on the south coast of England. He hadn’t bothered with interviews, just walked into the room, looked around and pointed at Captain Leon.
“You’ll do, son. Come with me.”
That day, Osgood had explained to Bodge he’d been chosen because German snipers were renowned for picking off ranking officers in the field. Whenever possible, he liked to have heavy-set adjutants around him so the riflemen couldn’t get in a shot. Naturally, Bodge believed that story because he wasn’t too well attuned to war humor. It wasn’t till two months later when he and the general had gotten to know each other pretty well that he discovered the man had been through Bodge’s files with a microscope. He was relieved to learn he’d been picked on merit, not size.
After a seemingly endless wait in England, going over tactics again and again, word finally came from Ike that D Day was on. Bodge and Osgood went in following the main invasion forces at Normandy. They had a coordinating role. Once the main body of troops was on the march across France, their job was to travel from one resistance group to the next, show them the ground plan for a coordinated effort and gather intelligence that was too sensitive to radio back and forth. There were four in Osgood’s team; a driver, a radio operator, an interpreter (Bodge) and the General himself. They traveled light and fast in a souped up Willys jeep.
Things went well. The push had been held up for a brief spell but now four divisions were on their way to Orleans. Osgood and Bodge had been able to contact over twenty cells of the underground and coordinate acts of sabotage that scuttled German defense plans. As they were technically traveling along the periphery of enemy occupied territory, going into villages that had been vacated by retreating German divisions, their job was classified "low risk". In fact, while many of his countrymen were under fire on the front line, Bodge was accepting garlands and kisses on their behalf miles away from the fighting. His was invariably the first allied unit the villagers had seen and the French wanted to show their gratitude and relief that the occupation was almost over.
Bodge felt bad that he was getting the credit for other men’s bravery. When he caught up with the aftermath of a battle, he apologized in his mind to the corpses of his countrymen. But he appreciated that his team played an important role in the overall offensive. He still hadn’t been under fire. The war had been just dispatches and distant sound effects until one small miscalculation changed everything. It was his first day of action that earned him his reputation as a hero.
They were traveling through Mousin on their way to a small town recently vacated by German administrators. The resistance group had gathered and was waiting for a briefing from Osgood. But, although the clerical officers had moved on, it turned out that a battalion of German combat troops was still amassed in the neighboring countryside awaiting orders for a counter offensive from the flanks. Thanks largely to Osgood’s resistance efforts, the word hadn’t reached these men that the offensive had been called off or that they were supposed to retreat. So, still following the original orders, they’d waited for two weeks for the promised reinforcements. Their rations were low and their morale was even lower. Radio signals had been blocked so they were deaf and blind as to the real situation of the war.
It was the forward sentries that opened fire on Bodge’s jeep with machine guns. The bullets burst
through the heads of the two men in front and ripped into Osgood’s chest. By some miracle, Bodge wasn’t touched. But he was stunned into inaction by the horror of what just happened. The jeep skidded to a halt and the gunfire stopped. The silence was more frightening than the noise. As Bodge sat frozen in the back seat, the sentries assumed he’d been hit and they ran crouching toward the idling jeep. Bodge saw them as shadows emerging from the tree line but his eyes focused on the blood that gushed like crimson oil from the stub of the driver’s neck in front of him. His own uniform was soaked in other men’s blood.
A groan from Osgood brought him back to some kind of reality. The General’s eyes were open but glazed like those of a market fish. The sentries approached the jeep one from each side, certain they’d wiped out the Americans. Their overconfidence showed when they lowered their weapons and straightened to their full height perhaps with pride. Bodge’s reaction was unemotional but instant. He took the General’s side arm from its holster, raised it, and fired. It took two shots to fell the first man, but before the second could raise his heavy weapon, he too was dead.
Still Bodge sat in his place. He noticed the hooting of a wood pigeon, then the shouting of men. A shot rang out from the same patch of woodland. It whistled over his head so close he thought he could have reached up and caught it. His thoughts of survival were not only for himself at that moment. He knew it was his duty to keep his general safe. He climbed between the front seats and pushed the two corpses out of the jeep on either side. He lowered himself into the pool of blood that filled the driver’s seat.
Bleeding in Black and White Page 3
