by Kim Ekemar
“I want you to be absolutely clear about what I'm offering you”, he said in a voice as if he asked me to mow the lawn. “You can either hew the hole and toss the bodies into the water. In that case I'll let you aboard again: into the warmth, back to our fraternity – or rather, what remains of it. Your other option is to leave us, return to civilized parts one way or another if you don't freeze to death on your journey, that is. It also suggests that you prefer to leave your female companion, shall we say … neglected.”
His words sank into my consciousness with the same chilling experience as the snowstorm that tortured my physical being.
Porfirio pointed casually towards the ladder we had once ascended, and with a heavy heart I obeyed the motion of his hand. He waited until I had left the deck and disappeared from his sight.
When I reached the ice, I couldn’t see a thing. There was no light that the snow could reflect. The wind’s attack came directly off the sea and had me covered in snow within minutes. I was shaking uncontrollably. To get my circulation going I began to jump about and instantly stumbled over one of the bodies we had thrown overboard.
A flashlight came on above me.
“Where are you?” I distantly heard Porfirio's voice. The beam made circles through the snowflakes. I felt the cold so intense I couldn’t answer him. Eventually the beam found me.
“Here’s the axe,’ he shouted after a brief pause. ‘When you're finished, you may come up.”
Immediately following his words, I heard a heavy thud next to me and I understood that the axe had missed me by the breadth of a hair. The torch went out and once again darkness ruled.
“So as not to lose you in the tempest I've decided to let Stuart keep an eye on you!” Porfirio shouted down at me.
To underscore his words a thin ray of fire whirled from the gunwale into the gale. The snowstorm did not prevent Stuart from his strange habit of shooting burning matches.
I fell on my knees and fumbled through the blanket of snow until I found the axe. Without leaving the spot I started to pound the edge of the axe against the ice. It was impossible to see if my efforts had any impact, but at least I felt the axe cut through the snow to hit the frozen sea below.
The exertion brought the benefit that the cold no longer felt quite so penetrating. Now and then Stuart lit the lamp above me and randomly illuminated the ice a brief moment. I used these moments of light to inspect the results of my struggle and to estimate how I best should continue making the hole. When the lamp wasn’t lit Stuart continued to fire storm matches haphazardly abducted by the wind.
Half an hour must have passed before I finally felt the ice break beneath the axe. I tugged at the buoyant floe until I got it safely up on the ice and finally had access to the sea.
Stuart fired two more burning matches into the wind and lit the lamp he carried. It was only on for a few seconds, and during this short interval I desperately tried to locate the three bodies. I knew that they must lie next to the ship close to where the ladder was. All three of them should be found within a reasonably small area since they had been thrown overboard from the same location. I caught a brief glimpse of some irregular mounds in the blanket of snow before Stuart turned off the lamp again. Lying flat on my stomach I shuffled towards a pile of snow that I was fairly sure covered one of the bodies. In order not to lose my sense of direction, I kept my feet pointed at the hole all the time.
Everett's body was the one I first encountered. It was rigid and cumbersome to handle. The lit matches that sometimes soared in the wind became mere distractions. I was able to orient myself only when Stuart's lamp occasionally sought me in the heavy snowfall. With some difficulty I pulled Everett's corpse through the drifts of powder snow. Using my right foot, I felt my way until I reached the rim of the hole. I stood up and hauled my burden into the hole. It disappeared with a hollow liquid sound.
The time it took me to discover, drag and drop the other two beneath the ice felt like an eternity. I was exhausted like never before in my life. The cold had invaded the core of my physical being. I lay down by the side of the hole and a pleasant numbness crept up on me to replace my discomfort. I was overtaken by the urge to be embraced by the wind, to be solaced by the snow and carried away by the cold; to rest and rest and rest until my strength returned …
The beam from Stuart's lamp moved among the snowflakes tumbling down. The light froze on me for a moment; then it was abruptly turned off. The matches no longer came darting in the wind. Mustering my last reserve of willpower, I forced myself to get up. I realized that I could not remain on the ice, or the treacherous fatigue that beckoned me to drowse would make me fall asleep forever. I got up on unstable legs, waved my arms and shouted up at the spot on the ship's deck where I supposed Stuart was standing. There was no response. I stomped my feet to get my blood circulating.
No one heard me through the tempest. I waited in the darkness on the ice, exposed to the fury of the elements. Aboard the ship Oona was alone, exposed to the fury of the dark forces we had provoked.
In anguish I fumbled along the ship in search for the rope ladder. My bare hands probed the rugged surface but they could not find it. In desperation I carefully searched again from bow to stern but with the same result. It took a while before I understood why. Stuart had raised the ladder.
February 24 – 26, 1973
Paul Crimson’s diary
Excerpts from Velvet Nights
February 24, 1973
Again I have trouble concentrating on my writing. Daniel hasn’t come back and Inocencia is reluctant to talk about him or his whereabouts. Xavier paces back and forth smoking his awful-smelling cigarillos through a nicotine-stained ivory holder burnt black at the edge where a cigarillo was once left unattended. Suddenly he has shown an interest in me - perhaps out of boredom with Harbor. He is waiting for something, I can tell, but I don’t know what it is. He seems amused by composing sarcastic remarks and acting out his role as a proud South American gentleman.
“You were in Viet Nam, of course”, he said. “Inocencia told me. Battleground separating the boys from the men, eh? Were you hurt? I suppose not, you’re around, aren’t you?”
His soliloquies drive me crazy.
“Where I come from the men have no time to be boys before they grow up … isn’t that right, Inocencia? Nothing like the American life. Here everything is served on a platter. So many fat people around. How can you stand it? Just because a few boys are sent to Southeast Asia, everybody expects this will justify all the fat people back home and the lack of courage of those who never participated in any true call for change. Besides …”
And he kept on and on and on until I thought I would explode. I didn’t fall into his trap, though. What does he know about the war in Nam? How is it possible to compare everything I went through to life in some backward Colombian village full of men with a macho complex and too much time on their hands? I held my tongue and let him ramble through his thing.
Inocencia looked awkward about her brother’s put-down of me and Nam. She was visibly relieved when Xavier suddenly changed tack and mentioned to her he would soon be leaving, that he would miss her, and why didn’t she go back with him to Cali to meet the family? She protested she really couldn’t, and when he continued to pester her about making the journey she still didn’t budge. It’s clear she doesn’t want to return to her country for all the gold in the world. She is uncomfortable when Colombia is mentioned. This is also one of the few times Lorena shows a glimmer of interest in Inocencia’s reactions. Lorena looked up from whatever she is endlessly toying with. There was a hint of a knowing smile on her thin lips.
February 25, 1973
Deception! I really thought Inocencia was above this sluttish kind of behavior! No better than a Saigon whore, she now offers herself to the enemy. I saw her sneak across the lawn to the house of our fat loud-voiced neighbor Brett, taking advantage of Daniel’s absence. Despite what took place the other day she returned to him. She carried
something. In the dark I couldn’t tell what it was. Brett hasn’t come over for dinner since Dan disappeared, so certainly Inocencia’s excuse for going over there is that she took him some leftovers from our own meal.
The manner in which she stole across the snowy garden still upsets me. There was no way I could contain myself. I decided to follow her and go over to Brett’s house. I plodded along in the dimples Inocencia had made moments ago in the vast white blanket between the two houses. The soft snow absorbed all sounds except the muted crunch of my footfall. Sudden gusts lifted the loose snow that kept whirling around me. A distant moon lit up the dark blue landscape. There was a strangeness to the scenery that was uncanny and unlike anything I have ever experienced before.
I walked around the building to see if I could get a peek inside. Brett’s house is the last one on the hill and his only immediate neighbor is the McPherson family. On the side not visible from our house there’s a steep wooded cliff that prevents further extension of the neighborhood. The faint light that spilled through the windows made the craggy cliff look ominous and forbidding. The heavy curtains were drawn but not completely closed. I suppose Brett didn’t expect anyone to venture out in the nasty weather and peer through his backyard windows.
I could look inside unhindered, yes, and look I did. He was groping all over her! Although she was completely nude, he hadn’t bother to strip off more than his trousers and his underpants. His fat pallid body looked disgusting in the firelight that he had lit in a vain attempt to put some romantic icing on the crude cake he intended to serve her. He grabbed her wrists with his left hand and held them fast over her head. She lay still on the carpet. It looked to me like she was shivering. Brett separated her knees roughly and climbed on top of the limp, defenseless Inocencia. Was she accepting him, or was he forcing himself on her? I could not see her eyes. I could not tell. Just as he lowered his revolting flesh on top of Inocencia’s perfect beauty, Brett happened to raise his head and in the pale moonlight see me peering through his window.
Then he grinned at me. I fled.
I ran back through the snow and long before I reached the McPherson house I realized I was shaking violently. It had begun to snow again. I had not bothered to put on my overcoat leaving the house. Still I knew the shaking came from the shock of finding Inocencia violated by Brett. Or had she given herself up willingly?! The smug satisfied grin on his face was the clincher. I was furious. Furious over Inocencia who had always had a ready smile for me. Furious over the gross ugly Brett with his triumphant grin. Most of all I was furious because of his victorious grin!! As if he shared something with me when he caught me watching them. Letting me in on his secret!
I let myself back into the house through the kitchen entrance. I was trembling so hard from the emotion and the cold that at first I had trouble opening the door. Lorena was sitting in front of the TV set, oddly enough without having it turned on. She was playing with cards on her own again – this time she was using them to build a house. A fire crackled in the living room. I briefly wondered how she had mustered the energy to put the logs in the fireplace. Why was everybody lighting fires in the first place?!? Well, of course Lorena wouldn’t have been the one who had lit it, because then I became aware of Xavier sitting in Dan’s favorite chair sucking on some strange-looking cigarette using his ivory holder. He studied me with that irritating smirk of superiority on his face. Vincent wasn’t around, why wasn’t he around, did he leave …? My head was spinning and I was back in Nam and the jungle heat and I was standing in front of John Gore who days later had his brain shot out and most of it spilled over me, but before that he was standing over this Viet Namese girl he had knocked over in the village we were searching. He had taken only his pants off just like Brett and he laughed while he tore off the girl’s dress and forced himself down on her like Brett I know I know I know
February 26, 1973
I couldn’t help it. I had to go back to Brett’s house. To stop from shaking I put on a jersey and my old parka, God I was cold, freezing to the marrow. In my mind’s eye I could see the disgusting copulating flesh interlocked on the carpet of Brett’s living room floor. Noiselessly I went downstairs. I heard Xavier’s raspy voice rant in Spanish. The moment I crossed the darkened hallway Lorena blew at the cards she had painstakingly used to erect the elaborate house she had built. They flew all over the sitting room, seemingly on fire against the backdrop of the big fireplace. All my impressions suddenly seem so enlarged again; they are detached, slow-moving, unreal, detailed like blown-up photographs … I haven’t felt that experience since Huang Ngong during my last days in Nam.
I left through the kitchen door, certain that neither Xavier nor Lorena had noticed. Silently I closed the door and circled the house and was swallowed up by the dusk. Around me the flakes made pirouettes in the wind. The tracks I had made twenty minutes earlier were now imprints almost obliterated by the fluffy snow. I hurried over to Brett’s house as fast as the snow permitted. I went around the building and reached his kitchen entrance. It was unlocked; of course it was, why would a bachelor lock his house in Harbor – the safest haven in the world!? I didn’t make any noise when I let myself in. I was back to the jungle and the stealth with all my senses on high alert. The soft whistling sound of the wind outside must have muffled whatever noise I anyway doubt I made.
I stole through the kitchen. On the opposite end the door to the living room was open and I could glimpse the fireplace. A row of kitchen utensils hung on a magnetic bar next to the stove. A feeble light from the waning fire glimmered in the steel. I felt a sweat break out under my clammy clothes. There was a buzz in my ears. I was hunting on enemy territory again, and I needed a weapon.
I had the intent to use it, I realize it now. I was there with the intent to kill. Rivulets of sweat poured over my face and I constantly had to wipe my eyes. I grabbed one of the most impressive knives. I remembered John had kept one just like it, not standard army issue, but he never explained to me why it wasn’t – or is my memory failing me? I soundlessly moved over to the door that led to the living room.
The fat monster lay on his side snoring with his back turned towards me. He wasn’t wearing his shirt now; he wasn’t wearing anything at all. In the glow from the fire his body looked red and swollen, enveloped by rolls of hairy fat. Beside him on the Persian rug, crushed beneath his ham of an arm, lay the golden-skinned body of Inocencia. It was inconceivable that she could have found any attraction in this obese, revolting beast of a man. She had been seduced – no, manipulated! – then overpowered and raped and perhaps she was dead I remember we found Lt. Carter once in one of the huts with a girl so small she might have been a third of his size he must have crushed her then promptly fell asleep done with her I could never figure it out his complete oblivion of the war going on around him having sex with the girl then falling asleep. Unbelievable.
Yes, Inocencia looked dead in the ghastly light. I could not see her lungs provoke even the slightest motion. Her molester snored lightly, and his body moved with the sounds. Then there was the tiniest of movement in her shoulders. Inocencia was not dead after all. She was trapped. She tried to move her upper body but was held down by his arm wrapped around her. I couldn’t see her eyes because her long curly hair covered the face.
Perhaps I did make some sound because suddenly the man on the Persian carpet started, lifted his head and stared me square in the eye. Then he grinned again with a meaning look – an awful, lascivious, victorious grin. He obviously didn’t realize I had the knife, I know, I know. In an instant I knew I had no choice. He was the enemy beyond doubt, so I had to kill him. I ran the short distance and slit his throat before he had a chance to move against me. Then the woman beside him stirred and revealed her face to me. A beautiful face, a face I had loved, a face tormented by the cruel facts of life. The big round eyes in this beautiful face recognized me, and they quickly grew bigger in their surprise and fear when they became aware of the knife I held and the blood that s
treamed from the gurgling man beside her. She screamed. In flashes I saw a thousand Viet Cong rush to answer her primeval screech. I hesitated for a mere fraction of a second. The man I had killed was the enemy. The woman was a threat. I was trained to defend myself. I had to kill the threat. I killed the woman to remove the threat.
I had to survive. Survival was what they had trained me for.
The wind kept on whistling softly and that was the only sound I listened to for a long long time. No one came, and now I knew the enemy wouldn’t locate me. I was still ahead in the game. I would survive no matter what.
I saw the two bodies, and it dawned on me I had to hide them before Charlie came.
Excerpt from Velvet Nights, Chapter VIII
We jumped out of the chopper not far from the Chang Nguy village in the Mekong delta. Led by Ap Noi, we jogged for 15 minutes through the jungle penumbra until we came to a clearing. Everybody was soaked with sweat from the effort and the high humidity. After a brief pause and Ap Noi’s reconnaissance, Lt. Montana gave orders to attack. We had the advantage of surprise and managed to root out a patrol of five or six VC before a single enemy shot was fired. By then an enemy task unit had managed to assemble for counter-attack and two of our men went down for eight of theirs. A handful civilians got caught in the crossfire that lasted maybe ten or fifteen minutes. All went quiet. Then a single shot rang out and I saw Bernie grasp his leg. “Snipers!” someone called out. We had been through the routine before and knew what do to. Everybody took his place and we began to spread out in a circle around the village. Another shot. Two more; different rifles. Paulie took a hit, and later that night he died from his wounds. We closed in until we had spotted the snipers’ positions. Then we pumped bullets until the last guardians of the village had been eliminated. The frightened civilians were rounded up while we began searching for the hidden weapon supplies that were our mission to find and destroy.
