by David Bergen
A memory from the mountain came to her. She and Jon had been playing in the woods behind the house when they found a nest of baby birds set in the small crevasse of two rocks. The birds were very young, their beaks yawning soundlessly at the empty air. The mother was nearby; she had a broken wing and she scolded madly and spun in useless circles. Ada squatted and studied the babies. Jon stood off at a distance. Ada told him to come look. He said no. He said the birds would die. Yes, she said, but you can still come look. He shook his head and left her there. A few days later, when she went back alone to find the nest, the family was dead. The mother bird had managed to spin her way to the rocks below the nest. The babies were featherless and curled into one another. Their chests were translucent, like blue glass.
4
ONE SPRING YEARS LATER, SHORT OF MONEY, CHARLES BOATMAN was hired on at a truss factory in the Valley. He worked the night shift and returned as the sun was rising, and there was always immense hope in that moment, though it didn’t last. Sleeping in the daylight seemed to produce fewer dreams and for that he was thankful. One day after work he stopped at a travel agency and bought a ticket for Hanoi, through Bangkok. He didn’t tell anyone about this plan, and if he’d been asked he wouldn’t have been able to explain himself. He was feeling less and less connected to the world around him, and there were times when he would rise from his seat by the stove and say something just to hear the sound of a voice, and he would not recognize his own voice. Every so often he pulled out the airline ticket and studied it as if it were a precious relic, or as if it might offer him some revelation. Two days before the flight he cashed in the ticket and lost several hundred dollars on the transaction.
Sometimes he went down into the Valley and drank at a small bar close to the highway. One Saturday night he met a woman named Jill. They drank and danced and talked about nothing special and later she came up the mountain with him and spent the night. In the brightness of the morning he was sorry; all the noise of the previous night seemed excessive and false, and he supposed, based on her silence, she felt the same. He drove her down the mountain to her car, which sat in the bar’s parking lot. They didn’t speak, and he was amazed once again at how physical contact did not guarantee intimacy or even affection. He was glad to see her go, though he would recall, in later moments of lust, the tiny mole on her ankle and the manner she had of crouching over him and lowering her breasts into his mouth, as if she were feeding him.
The following year he quit the factory and took a job operating heavy equipment in the construction of a highway. It was easy work, sitting high up on the seat of a scraper, and he didn’t have to converse with anyone, though the mindlessness allowed for too much wandering, too many detours into the runnels of his brain. He considered buying another plane ticket, even stopped his car outside the travel agency, but he didn’t go in.
He saw Ada and Jon infrequently. Jon was living in Vancouver and working at an auction house. He phoned occasionally but he rarely came to visit. Ada came up the mountain every month. One time she brought a man with a goatee who owned several restaurants in Vancouver. They came for the day. The man, whose name was Jefferson, was well dressed and groomed, and he sniffed about the caboose and the outlying land as if attempting to connect the Ada he knew to the hardness of the place. When he finally got her alone, Charles told Ada she should have called first and he would have cleaned up.
“Oh, Jefferson gets freaked out by a little dirt,” Ada said. “Don’t worry about him.” And she hugged Charles.
When she phoned Charles the following month, he asked about Jefferson and Ada said, “He’s not my friend anymore.”
Charles said, “It was the caboose, wasn’t it?”
Ada laughed. “I love the caboose, Daddy.” She paused and then said, “Don’t lose sleep over it. Okay? I’m fine.”
After Ada said good-bye, Charles hung on to the breathiness of her voice. Her self-possession always surprised him; it encircled her like a second layer of beauty.
IN THE SUMMER OF 1997, CHARLES RECEIVED AN UNEXPECTED call from Jimmy Poe, a fellow soldier to whom he hadn’t talked in years. In Vietnam, Jimmy had been given the name Mister Book because he was a walking library, a man of quotes and titles and favorite passages, though Charles remembered Jimmy had been silent that day, after the attack on the hamlet in Quang Ngai Province.
On the phone, Charles said that Jimmy’s voice sounded the same, it was eerie.
Jimmy said that that was the only thing the same about him. He was fatter and older and he had no hair left. The thing was, he said, he’d been doing too much thinking over the last year and it wasn’t good thinking. “Vagaries of the past,” he said.
“Speak English,” Charles said.
“Whims and dreams. I keep seeing things. After all these years you’d think that the ugly stuff would disappear.” He said that he was trying to make contact with some of the guys. “Do you ever see any of them?”
Charles said he’d talked to Harry a number of years back but it hadn’t been useful. Then he said that if Jimmy wanted to fly into Vancouver someday, Charles would pick him up and show him his handsome house on the hill, which was actually a rebuilt caboose. “But, still handsome,” Charles said.
Jimmy said that these days the only traveling he did was in his head. He didn’t have the wherewithal to carry himself beyond his job and family and his armchair. “But let me tell you something, Charlie. I’ve got this novel I want you to read. It’s something I stumbled across and I think it’s important. It’s right on. I’ll send it to you.”
Charles said that he wasn’t a big reader, that he liked hunting books, or stories about horses.
“There’re no horses in this one, but I’ll send it. It’s written by a former soldier from North Vietnam. You know, those guys we were trying to kill.” Jimmy laughed and said that there was little in the novel that resembled what had happened to them, but in fact, it did feel right, there was a connection. “The madness. You’ll understand.”
“And what do you do with the madness?” Charles asked.
“Nothing. Have to wait till we die, don’t you think? Look at Abel.”
“But Harry or Alex B., they just float through it.”
“That’s because they don’t think. And if you don’t think, then everything’s easy. Those guys’ll always stay that way.”
They talked about their children then, a commonsense conversation that whiled away the minutes and left Charles lonely and breathless. He wondered, after he hung up, why he couldn’t see the world around him as whole.
Jimmy did as he promised. He sent the novel. It was called In a Dark Wood. There was a photograph of the author, Dang Tho, on the back flap of the book’s jacket. He looked younger than Charles or Jimmy. He had a mustache and sad, intense eyes. There was a biographical note beneath the photo. It said Dang Tho was born in Hanoi in 1952. During the Vietnam War he served with the Glorious Youth Brigade and was one of the few survivors from that brigade. In a Dark Wood was a harrowing, nonheroic retelling of Dang Tho’s own war experience.
Stuck inside the novel was a short note from Jimmy. He wrote that everything was running along ricky-tick, except he’d just been diagnosed with diabetes. Had to get more exercise and stop smoking. And he’d signed his name.
Charles put the book on the shelf.
He picked it up early one morning when he couldn’t sleep. He had finished the first section by the time the sun fell through the window onto his lap. He looked up from the pages and heard the call of a crow, loud and raucous. For a moment, he was startled from his reverie. He returned to the book.
He came down out of the Central Highlands, avoided Kontum, and moved slowly toward the coast, walking at night, sleeping in caves and under heavy bushes during the day; as a deserter, if found, he would be shot. His clothes were dirty and worn; he carried a small bag tied in a knot, and in it was a bit of rice, some plantain, and a little salt that he had stolen from the abandoned pack of an American soldie
r, castoffs left in the haste of evacuation or death. It had been a lucky find; besides the salt he had found a pen and a sheaf of paper, as well as tins with fruit and some kind of bean, and a hand-gun, a small knife, some medicine with syringes, matches, and a green poncho. He kept everything but the gun, which might incriminate him in some way if he was captured. He had discovered boots as well, much too big for him, but if he stuffed leaves in the toes and tied the boots tightly around his ankles, they protected his feet, though they were heavy, clumsy, and inefficient. In the end the boots became a burden and he threw them away.
He walked for ten days, and during that time he had talked to only one person, a farmer east of Kontum who had offered him a place to sleep and some food. The food he took, but he refused the shelter. One morning he was nearly discovered by a group of thirteen North Vietnamese soldiers. They passed within a few feet of his hiding place. He woke and heard the soft pat of flip-flops and saw the thin ankles, and long after they had continued down the path, he lay there, hardly breathing. He had been dreaming and in his dream Tuan was calling his name, “Kiet, Kiet,” and though he kept turning to find Tuan, he couldn’t.
Tuan had been in his company. He had been killed in a battle two weeks earlier. All over that hillside, men died. Men whom Kiet had fought with and slept beside and shared jokes with, most of these men died. They had been defending a hill. Had been dug in for months, with tunnels and a field hospital. Except the Americans had kept targeting the bunkers with gunships and bombers. In the end, it had been a slaughter, complete mayhem, men all around Kiet losing heads and arms, entrails spilling onto the earth. Kiet had been in a bunker with Tuan when Tuan stood up beside him and fell backward; a bullet had passed through his head, taking off half of his face.
Kiet, one of a few, had survived. At night, surrounded by the complaints and cries of the dying and injured, he moved down the hillside, made his way past the American lines, and carried on through the jungle toward Kontum and beyond toward the coast and then north. He had not planned to desert. It simply became a fact when he realized that he was walking away. The first few days, huddled in his hideouts, he would listen to the sound of his own breath, or study his hands and arms, and wonder how it was that he was still whole, that his fingers still counted ten, that his eyes were two, that he could chew and swallow and shit. He recorded these facts with the solemn astonishment of a man slightly mad who had not yet registered the guilt of survival. “You lucky bastard, Kiet,” he muttered one day, and even the sound of his own voice surprised him.
He thought of his lover, Lien, whom he had left in Hanoi so long ago. He did not know if she was alive or dead. A year and a half earlier he had managed to put a letter into the hands of an injured soldier who was returning to Hanoi. In the letter Kiet told her that he was still alive and though she might be surprised by this, he hoped that it was a good surprise. He said more, much of it sentimental, and later he was sorry that he had written words that would seem self-pitying and unnecessary. How did one talk about love that had been untried for so long?
There had been no reply. If an attempt had been made by Lien, Kiet did not know of it. He wrote letters to her anyway, more specific and despairing, and he took these letters and stored them in a bag that he carried with him—tucked the bag inside his shirt and tied it round his neck. Always, sleeping or eating or fighting, he was aware of the bag and of the letters close to his body. Sometimes, he pulled these letters out and reread them.
On his fifteenth day he entered Hue Province, an area known for its sympathies to the South. He traveled carefully, still walking at night, but even so he sometimes caught sight of soldiers from the South Vietnamese Army, or he heard gunfire, or the passing of a fighter jet. Setting out early one morning, he bypassed a village north of Hue and came across a young woman washing clothes at the bank of the river. She looked up as he stepped along the path. She rose and gathered up a bundle beside her; turning to run, she called out. He caught her and covered her mouth as she struggled. Forcing her to kneel, he whispered in her ear that if she was not quiet he would kill her. The bundle she held was a baby. It began to cry and Kiet told her to make it stop. The woman sat and slipped out a breast and pushed the baby’s mouth against the breast. Kiet watched. The woman whimpered. Kiet took the knife from his small bag and asked if she was alone. Was it just her and the baby? The woman nodded. Kiet looked around. In the distance was the village. Cooking smoke lifted to the sky. The shouts of children. A woman calling.
When the baby had finished, the woman set it down and took Kiet’s hand, put it to her face, and held it there. She didn’t say anything, just held his hand there. Then she moved it down to her breast and made him touch her. Kiet had not been close to a woman for two years. He touched her breasts, first the right and then the left. Then she lay back against the ditch and pulled Kiet down beside her and took his hand and placed it between her legs.
The baby began to cry.
“Make it stop,” Kiet said.
The woman lifted the baby to her shoulder but it struggled and cried louder. The woman offered the breast but this was rejected by the baby, who began to howl. The woman shook it desperately. Kiet looked about. In the distance, three men from the village were standing on the trail, looking in the direction of the noise. They carried scythes. One had a machine gun.
Kiet took the baby from the woman and pressed his hand against the small mouth.
The woman cried out, “No,” but Kiet pushed her away and took the knife in his hand. The white sky, the gray smoke, the blue pants of the men, the brilliance of the sun off the blade of the scythe, the thin red line at the baby’s throat, an infant’s howl descending into a mother’s wail, and then that wailing, too, gone, disappearing like the pink bubble that rose from the opening at the mother’s neck.
OVER THE NEXT DAYS HE WALKED QUICKLY, BYPASSING villages, halting at the sound of voices, circling well-worn paths, and keeping off all roads. A week later he crossed the Demilitarized Zone in pouring rain and dug himself a hole in a bamboo stand, covering himself with the poncho and leaves and dirt. He slept poorly; the rain pooled at the bottom of the hole, reaching his ankles and soaking his back. He woke shivering, considered making a fire, and decided against it.
For the next while he followed the train tracks, slipping away as the trains passed. The southbound trains carried troops heading into battle; there was often singing, and sometimes soldiers sat on the roofs of the cars, smoking and looking out at the passing countryside. The northbound trains were full of the injured and dead. The cars were coffins; there was no singing. Men, if they were able to sit, rested their bandaged heads against the window, or cradled the stump of an arm or leg. Once, a soldier leaned out a window and called out to the emptiness, “Here, here,” and then the train passed.
Early one morning, Kiet came across a soldier sitting at the edge of a path by a small stream. The soldier was very young, a boy really. Kiet circled the boy, studying him. He was gaunt and tall and claimed to be hungry. He was blind.
“Who are you?” the blind boy asked. Kiet thought that, based on the accent, the boy might come from a more northern province.
Kiet said that he was a man on his way back to Hanoi. The blind boy looked up expectantly to the spot where he imagined Kiet was standing and said that he too was walking back to Hanoi. He had been blinded by a grenade, spent three months in a hospital, and was now going home. They could go together.
Kiet said that he couldn’t. He was a deserter, and if it was dangerous for him alone, it would be even more dangerous if he traveled with a blind man.
The boy nodded at this. He said that he too was a deserter, but even so, what could he do if he fought? “Shoot at noises?” he asked.
They sat by the river. Occasionally, the boy tried to convince Kiet to take him along, but Kiet said no.
When Kiet rose to go, the boy stood as well. He swung an arm as if to seek out Kiet’s location. Kiet said good-bye. The boy followed his voice. Finall
y, in disgust, Kiet agreed to walk the boy to a place where he could find shelter and food. They spent the day in the protection of a lee of rocks and in the evening set out. They made a wretched pair: a short resolute man called Kiet, and a much taller blind boy whose name Kiet did not know and who, at times, because of the darkness and the rain and mud, was tied to Kiet with a thin rope fashioned from the trousers of a man found dead at the edge of the train tracks.
THEY BEGAN TO WALK DURING THE DAY AND SLEEP AT night, and when Kiet slept he dreamed. In one of his dreams fire fell from the sky and Tuan’s face appeared as whole and smiling, calling out Kiet’s name and the name of Kiet’s lover, Lien, and then Tuan asked, “What is that you’re holding?” and Kiet looked down and saw the dead baby and he woke crying out. This roused the blind boy as well, who sat up and called, “What is it? Are you there?”
Kiet did not speak. He held his head and rocked in the darkness until it was time to rise and continue walking.
The dream came again and again. Sometimes he was holding the baby, sometimes the mother. Always, he woke shaking and calling out.
One night, rather than sleep and invite the dream, he stayed awake and watched the sky, trying to locate different constellations. The next day he was exhausted and when the blind boy suggested they rest, Kiet sat down with relief and fell asleep immediately, dreaming only briefly of Lien, who beckoned to him from across a wide river.
Kiet did not tell the blind boy about his dreams, nor did he tell him about the killing of the baby and the mother. What was there to tell? And if the story were told, how would it differ from any other that the war produced? He was not sure anymore what had actually taken place. He began to be convinced that a fever had produced the images and that, when he arrived home, all would be forgotten.
ONE DAY, WHEN THE RAIN HAD FINALLY STOPPED, THEY stumbled across a pig that had escaped its owner. Kiet chased this pig for an hour before finally trapping it in a slow-moving stream. The blind boy sat astride the pig and seized its ears while Kiet held the knife and considered the pig’s heavy neck. He told the blind boy that he could not do what was required. As he spoke, the pig set to bucking and screaming. To stop the noise, Kiet searched desperately for some other weapon. He finally found a large boulder and dropped it on the pig’s skull. They managed to bleed the pig, and then the blind boy sawed at the pig as Kiet called instructions. They fashioned pointed sticks and pierced large pieces of flesh. They built a small fire in the heat of the afternoon and around that fire the two of them squatted and had their first taste of meat in months. As they ate, the blind boy asked Kiet why he had had such difficulty killing the pig.
