The Shadow of Arms

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  “But . . .”

  “Look, we’re having a hell of a time as it is getting supplies to the platoons. You expect us to find a chopper for an individual transfer?”

  “It’s on you if I don’t make it to Da Nang.”

  “Yeah OK,” said the radio operator, his forehead creased. He muttered his insults under his breath, but loud enough for Yong Kyu to make out the words “son of a bitch.”

  “You can walk up Route 1 or crawl all the way to Hanoi, take your pick.”

  Yong Kyu did not understand how administration worked. Even when he was wading through a marsh with only his head and rifle above water, it never occurred to him that he was wandering aimlessly, bound for arbitrary coordinates determined by negligent officers who, in some comfortable office with coffee in hand, had traced wavy lines on a map using a right angle and a compass.

  C-rations and ammunition lay in piles at the end of the landing strip. Yong Kyu stood watching as they got loaded into helicopters.

  “Hey you, give me a hand with this!”

  A sergeant passed by carrying a huge plywood box under each arm. They were marked GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, the kind of boxes used for private purposes. Nobody but the owner of such a box knew its contents. It probably wasn’t worn-out underwear, army uniforms, or eating utensils that was inside them.

  “Can’t help. I’m leaving with the helicopter.”

  “What? . . . Where are you going?”

  “Da Nang.”

  As he spoke, Yong Kyu got the feeling that Da Nang was some kind of mythical paradise he was never going to reach.

  “I’m headed there too,” the sergeant shot back, undeterred. “Give me a hand with these.”

  Yong Kyu had no choice but to take one of the boxes and hoist it onto his shoulders.

  “Can we take off in this chaos?”

  “I can handle it. I’ll take you up, as surplus cargo,” said the sergeant and quickened his pace, then stopped, as if something had occurred to him.

  “You’re not AWOL, are you, private?”

  “I have my transfer orders with me, sir.”

  “What unit you with?”

  “Criminal Investigation Division.”

  Obviously impressed, the sergeant eyed Yong Kyu from head to toe. Yong Kyu could not help scrutinizing the sergeant back. He was wearing new American army jungle fatigues with a stiff, starched work cap. His jungle boots were coated with white dust, but a single wipe would reveal their shine.

  “So you’re moving up in the world,” the sergeant said, extending his hand. “We should get acquainted. I’m Sergeant Yun, senior non-com at the recreation center.”

  They shook hands.

  “The rec center and the investigation division have tight connections,” Sergeant Yun went on, offering unsolicited information. “You’ll learn all about it soon enough.”

  The sergeant led the way towards the helicopters lined up on the runway. He did not even glance at the transport chopper, but made a beeline for an armed gunship that had been escorting the convoy. There was a boyish-looking American soldier manning a machine gun at the door. The sergeant addressed him in broken English:

  “Let me-ah on tha helikopta an I gib you whiskey one battuhl.”

  The American soldier leaned forward and asked him to say it again. Once he understood the sergeant, he gestured for him to hurry on board. They had to practically shove themselves inside the gunship along with the boxes. They squatted in the corner. The pilot asked what was going on and the American gunner answered, “Special liaison men, sir.” Then the gunner winked at them, making a little circle with his thumb and index finger.

  “Bastard. Damned pleased with himself,” the sergeant muttered in Korean.

  “You know him?”

  “Know him, my ass! He’s all cocky because I promised him a bottle of whiskey.”

  The sergeant opened a box, took out a bottle of whiskey wrapped in paper and handed it to the American gunner. The latter looked over his shoulder at the pilot, an officer, then took the bottle and quickly hid it in a half-filled ammo box.

  “Thanks very much. I’ll give you a lift back, too,” he said, smiling.

  The sergeant smiled back at him and turned to Yong Kyu.

  “Bastard. I make the trip once week. Fat chance we’ll ever run into each other again. You see, whiskey is a business asset.”

  “But who’s going to drink two boxes of whiskey?”

  “Who said anything about drinking it? The idea is making contacts for the rec center. In Da Nang, this is how every transaction begins. Today it gets us on a chopper, but that’s a special case. A soldier of his rank isn’t allowed whiskey. Americans below the rank of corporal are only allowed to drink beer. If that bastard returns to his unit today, there’ll be an uproar. Let’s take a nap. We won’t be able to get off until the supply convoy’s mission has been completed.”

  The sergeant stretched out his legs and leaned against a box. The helicopter engine started and they took off. A cool wind filled the cabin.

  “Is it big, Da Nang?”

  “Huh!” The sergeant responded indifferently without opening his eyes. “It’s like an island. Completely encircled by the enemy. Guerilla attacks every night. But your transfer to Da Nang will be good for you. Lucrative.”

  “Lucrative?”

  “C’mon, you’re here to make money, aren’t you?” the sergeant insisted. “You’re going to find yourself in the heart of the black market. Even when you’re just walking down the street, your pockets are going to fill up with dollars.”

  Beneath the helicopter, the dark jungles of hell were slowly gliding by.

  Footnotes:

  2 Criminal Investigation Division

  3 Military Police

  2

  Chan Te Shoan left through the main gate of the Lycée de Pascal at 65 Doc Lap Boulevard. She hung her head low, hiding her face behind her long hair. Lei had told her that morning before class that Pham Minh had dropped out of school and had come home the night before. Lei was a year behind Shoan, and Pham Minh, who had been studying medicine in Hue, was Lei’s older brother.

  She didn’t know why Minh had quit school, but for some reason the news made Shoan uneasy. He was still too young to be drafted and anyway, medical students were almost always guaranteed deferments. But ever since Minh had left Da Nang for his uncle’s in Hue, the growing distance between them had been making Shoan anxious. Every few months Minh came for a short visit and each time confirmed Shoan’s fear that he was turning into someone else.

  More than half of the seniors at her school had disappeared. Most of those who had married were now young widows. And it was not just the women of Shoan’s generation who were affected. There were many women from her neighborhood who, having lost their husbands, had gone to Saigon and become prostitutes. There were housewives selling their bodies to soldiers from the nearby posts while awaiting their husbands’ homecoming.

  Walking toward the embankment of the Da Nang pier where Minh was waiting for her, Shoan felt a sudden urge to turn around and go home. In the distance she could see the white marble wisteria-covered walls of the ivory building that used to be the French customs house. Ahead, the row of open-air cafes. She walked beside the old iron railings just above the waterfront.

  Even from afar she recognized Minh’s distinctive posture. He wore a white shirt and was sitting with his head drooped. One arm hung over the back of the chair and he had both legs propped up on the seat of another chair beside him. Hanging from his fingertips, nearly scraping the ground, was a burning cigarette from which curled a bluish smoke. Shoan passed through the chairs and as she came up behind him, Minh slowly turned his head.

  “Hey, Shoan,” he murmured, squinting, as if dazed by her appearance.

  Shoan was about to pull over a chair to sit down fa
cing him, but Minh pushed forward the chair beside him.

  “Sit next to me. You always smell so good; I knew you were here before I saw you.”

  Shoan obediently took the chair he had been using as a foot prop. The breeze played with their hair. Naked children lined up on the embankment below and jumped into the sea one by one. The children’s innocent squeals of laughter and the constant splashing almost made the two forget the sound of gunfire that resonated through the neighborhood from time to time. Friends met up on bicycles. Minh and Shoan sat in silence in the occupied peace of an occupied city. Shoan watched the naked children, her eyes half-closed.

  “When did you get back?”

  She already knew but asked him anyway. It was her way to reproach him for not coming directly to see her upon his return the day before. Minh understood her intent and quickly replied.

  “Yesterday, but I haven’t even been home. There were some people I needed to see. I called Lei to come downtown and we had dinner together. She’s grown. And she was very critical of our older brother.”

  Minh often let himself vocalize his wandering stream of thoughts. Normally Shoan would have been eager to listen, but now she could not control her impatience.

  “What about school?”

  Minh froze, his arm half-raised, and gazed at her. Slowly he lowered his arm and answered with deliberate curtness, “Ah, I quit.”

  With a questioning look on her face, Shoan stared at him.

  “What book is that?” asked Minh, picking up a thin volume in French on top of the textbooks she had neatly placed on her lap. He read the title aloud.

  “Louis Aragon. Les Beaux Quartiers . . . A few miles away children are being mutilated by bombings, and the ghosts of this colony are teaching trash like this. I don’t have time to study an atlas of anatomy when the swamps and the rice fields are strewn with the bodies of my countrymen.”

  Shoan took back the French text and laid it on her lap.

  “The living can’t stand it, either,” she said quietly, but Minh turned and beckoned to a waiter.

  “Garçon, what is there to drink?”

  “We have Coke and lemonade, sir.”

  “That’s it?”

  The waiter looked blankly at Minh. “You haven’t had lunch yet, have you?” Minh asked Shoan.

  “I’ll eat when I get home.”

  “No classes in the afternoon?”

  “Yes. Two hours after the siesta.”

  “Then there’s no point in going home,” Minh said, looking up once more at the waiter. “Bring us two orders of bánh mì.”

  The waiter wiped the sweat from his neck with a napkin and said, “We don’t have any. We do have crêpes made from C-rations, though.”

  “What about noodles with nuoc mam?”

  As a response, the waiter pointed across the street. The sun beat down and people, exhausted by the heat, were beginning their naps, sleeping in the shade with newspapers on their faces. A couple of rickshaw drivers sat by the curb, eating noodles from a street vendor. Minh was about to get up, but after a quick glance at Shoan he settled down again.

  “Fine. Bring us something to eat and drink. Doesn’t matter what.”

  “You seem nervous,” Shoan said.

  “That customs house, this sidewalk cafe, people like us hanging around here, that idiot of a waiter. . . it’s like it’s been this way forever.”

  Minh gazed out at the ocean. Or he was averting his eyes to avoid Shoan’s.

  “Shoan, I’ve . . . I’ve made up my mind. At a time like this, I can’t do anything. Even if I’m still young.”

  Inside Shoan there arose a strong urge to grab him by the neck and give him a violent shake. But she remained still. Disinclined for the moment to expand on what he had said, Minh remained silent as well. The waiter brought their drinks. Minh took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “This is the first time in ages I’ve felt this light and refreshed.”

  After a few sips, Shoan asked tentatively, “Where do you plan to go? Hue?”

  “No. I . . . don’t know where I’ll go yet.” Then, unable to contain himself any longer, Minh leaned in and whispered to her, “But I won’t be gone long. A friend from the jungle is supposed to meet me here.”

  Shoan felt a painful thud in her heart, like from the heavy blow of a blunt object. She picked up the drink and gulped. The rim of the glass made an abrasive sound as it grated against her teeth. Her hands were shaking.

  The two sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. A German hospital ship was slowly steaming into the harbor. The war refugees who had crossed the narrow finger of water in the harbor streamed along Ivory Road. More people in need of food. Among them was a boy with both legs amputated. His sister, a small girl not much bigger than him, was carrying her legless brother on her back. From the medical vessel rang the joyful sound of a bell. Ever since the guerrillas had set off the C-4 bomb on the pier, military police searched everyone except for some women and small children.

  “The education won’t be like what I’ve been getting at school.”

  Shoan knew what he meant. There had been many students who suddenly disappeared from home or school after receiving their draft notices. Some were later discovered as corpses in some small village or down in the Mekong Delta, their bodies sent back to their parents. She had also heard of students who’d climbed walls to sneak into their friends’ houses in the middle of the night only to vanish. Others were said to have become hawkers around the foreign army bases.

  “I’m going to Uncle Trinh’s tonight. I’ll see you there.”

  Shoan shook her head and said, “No, I’m not going back to school today.”

  “There’s some place I have go alone,” Minh said coldly. But he did not move. It was Shoan who rose first.

  “Aren’t you going to see your family at least?”

  “I already told Lei everything. And I don’t want to fight with my brother.”

  The two walked side by side, crossed Ivory Road and continued all the way to the intersection where Le Loi Boulevard began. As they approached the side street leading to Shoan’s house, she paused and turned to Pham Minh, as if to ask his destination.

  “I’m heading for the marketplace . . . be at Uncle Trinh’s at around seven o’clock, okay?”

  Lowering her head, Shoan was quiet a moment before speaking.

  “You haven’t heard about the curfew, have you?”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “Civilians on the street after eight p.m. are to be arrested and anyone trying to run away can be shot.”

  Minh glared at Shoan. What she meant was that with an air strip and US Marine checkpoints on the way to Dong Dao there would be no way for her to return home at sundown, let alone by eight o’clock in the evening.

  As for Pham Minh, not knowing what the future would bring made returning to Da Nang unthinkable. Starting that day and for the next three months, he would have to survive at the center of Vietnam’s wretched reality, in the swamps and marshes. The organization might send him back to Da Nang as a civilian agent or part of the urban staff organization. But they also might keep him in the jungle. Minh saw Shoan’s big eyes moistening. He wanted to wrap his arm around her slender waist and kiss her. Instead, he shyly held out his hand.

  “Chào co, Shoan. See you soon.”

  “Chào ong . . .”

  She didn’t take his hand but ran, all the way across Le Loi Boulevard, her long hair and the skirt of her white ao dai swaying from side to side. Minh dropped his hand. As he walked toward the marketplace, he began to regret having seen her at all.

  The market quarters were divided into an old and a new section. The nice shops on Le Loi Boulevard ran from the pier to the front of City Hall. The traditional open market, held daily and just for Vietnamese, extended from the bus terminal ar
ea to the outskirts of the city. There, the population of Da Nang and its surrounding area could trade in artisan and agricultural products, from every kind of vegetable and grain to coarsely woven clothing. It was a modest market. Most transactions took place in the narrow back alleys between Le Loi and Doc Lap Boulevards, a bustling area where the goods that had leaked out from the American PX4 and other military supply warehouses got traded.

  The old market was where Pham Minh was heading. It was in disarray, its stalls cluttered with mangos, bananas, and coconuts; salt fish and dried shrimp; noodle dishes, bánh mì, sausages, and fried pork. All laid out in small wooden baskets or on military ponchos. Minh walked into the market and looked around.

  “Chrysanthemum Pub . . .”

  There was a lot of confusion in the parking lot of the bus terminal. The incoming and outgoing buses all were overloaded with packages strapped high on their rooftops. Minh saw a round signboard with a chrysanthemum painted on it. The small bus had been crammed so full of chairs and its ceiling was so low that travelers would suffer the painful effects of a long journey days after it had ended. National Route 1 heading down to Saigon was the busiest. Occasionally there were buses that made round trips inland. Cutting through the bedlam of the crowd, Minh approached Chrysanthemum Pub. It was filled with passengers and soldiers. As Minh hunted for a place to sit, he stopped a man carrying a big tray full of nuoc mam noodles.

  “When’s the next bus to Quang Tri?”

  “Oh, there happens to be one tomorrow. Leaves at six in the morning. After that, you’d have to wait three days till the next one. You can spend the night here.”

  “But I’ve got to meet my uncle from Khe Sanh . . .”

  It was the first part of the message Minh had been instructed to deliver. The man pretended not to have heard him.

  “His name is Nguyen Thach, has he been here yet?” Minh added.

  The man scanned Minh from head to toe and then pointed to the interior of the restaurant behind a screen of beads.

  “Go ask in there.”