The Shadow of Arms

by Hwang Sok-Yong

  Nguyen Thach paused and pulled a piece of paper out of the lower pocket of his white cotton shirt, then handed the folded sheet over to Yong Kyu.

  “Of course, it’s merely a formality. But it could become extremely useful to you. You once told me you needed a wild card for protection, something suitable for the mysterious nature of your duty here, didn’t you? Well, here is the card for your protection.”

  Yong Kyu looked over the paper. It contained information on the quantity and price of various goods and the destinations to which they were consigned.

  “This is . . .”

  “That’s right. Goods that clearly have been shipped to the NLF and to the residents in liberated areas. It’s a detailed description of materials that have been fraudulently siphoned off from the supplies that were supposed to be used for the phoenix hamlets resettlement project. Can you think of a better card to hold in your hand? It’s one you can play against the Americans as well as the Vietnamese authorities.”

  Ahn Yong Kyu quickly put the paper away. “Isn’t the dealer your own brother?”

  “Yes, and that was a great help for discovering more detailed information. Later, I tracked down those outbound trucks and so was able to make an accurate description. If you use this card when you need to, it’ll shake up the whole of central Vietnam as well as the Da Nang administration. There’ll be a storm of personnel changes in the command of the US forces, not to mention the Vietnamese army. However, as you yourself said, whether you should actually use this card, or just gulp the information down is a decision requiring very serious consideration.”

  Ahn Yong Kyu took a deep breath in order to remain calm.

  “Fine. But there’s still something I’m curious about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I still have no information on the dealings in weapons.”

  Nguyen Thach frowned. “What do you want, to become a prize agent so the Americans will award you a silver star? You may find the metal too heavy to bear.”

  “Just curious.”

  “From the quantities shown on that statement, you can guess,” said Thach. “Black market dealing in the phoenix hamlet supplies is vital for the Americans and Vietnamese alike.”

  “Thank you,” Yong Kyu said sincerely. “I will be leaving here in three months. And I like to travel light.”

  “That’s precisely your position. Everything in Vietnam belongs to the Vietnamese. Am I not right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m glad we’ve come to understand each other. One more thing. I must inform you that things are shaping up so that it’s going to be difficult for us to share an office any longer. My brother is completely absorbed in the cinnamon he’s collecting with Major Pham in the highlands. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve had to give up my own repair shop as a warehouse for their use.”

  “I understand. We’ll move out. You’ve been a great help to us.”

  Nguyen Thach stood up. “Well, it’s not as though we’ll have nothing more to do with each other from here out. You can find an office anywhere in Le Loi market, and we’ll continue to do business together. Here comes Mr. Toi. I hope you’ll relay my intention to him.”

  As he left the pub, Thach nodded to Toi who was just coming in. Sitting down across from Yong Kyu, Toi asked, “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean? Am I not allowed to have lunch with a dealer of ours?” Yong Kyu said.

  “What did Nguyen Thach have to say?” Toi asked, flipping the cold food this way and that.

  “He asked us to vacate the office. Looks like his brother is going to use his service shop as a cinnamon warehouse.”

  “You must have said something. You didn’t touch the very bottom, did you?”

  “I’ve just found out who the main dealer to the NLF is,” said Yong Kyu.

  “Who?”

  “As we knew from the beginning, it’s none other than Nguyen himself. But I’ll make no more inquiries.”

  Toi looked around in perplexity and then asked, “How can you say that when this is only the beginning?”

  He gave me some information that can be used for a counterattack, and he has even more information than that.”

  “Look, we’ve known that from the start. Did he say so himself?”

  “No, but he didn’t have to. I could just tell.”

  “Then the conditions have not changed.”

  Yong Kyu could not resist taking out the piece of paper and showing it to Toi. “This ought to be enough. It’s dynamite.”

  Toi snatched the sheet of paper and quickly scanned it. “Very specific. No doubt it’s useful. But one thing is missing here. There’s nothing at all about weapons dealings.”

  Ahn Yong Kyu took the paper back from Toi. “We can make some guesses from the quantities of the goods. Still, this is sufficient for me. Now, I’ve got my hand on the main root. When I’m in a fix, I’m going to yank it out. I don’t give a damn who ends up digging potatoes later, I just don’t want to be the first one to dig. I’ll spend these last couple of months without any worry and then I’ll be on my way home. After that, it’s none of my business whether you do the job or not.”

  “Same goes for me,” Toi said. “As I told you before, I’m an opportunist created by the reality of Cochinchina and South Vietnam. Even so, we have to know this. I’m just an informant employed by your detachment, but even when you’re gone I still have to make a living here. I told you there was something odd in the air across the river. We can uncover the Da Nang supply line of the NLF.”

  “So? Shall we report it to the Americans?”

  Toi paused for a moment then leaning low across the table, said, “We’ll lose nothing. We started by tracing back the flow of C-rations and ended up grabbing Pham Quyen by the ankle. We can go further to squeeze their throats.”

  “I’m going to make a copy of this memo and give it to the captain. And our dealings in B-rations with Nguyen Thach are finished now, too. I’ll have to be independent here. But I have no problem if you want to keep digging for the NLF supply lines. If you come up with some solid information, though, you have to consult with me concerning the consequences.”

  “We’ve been good partners. I’d like to do something good for you before you return home.”

  “Thanks. What would be good for me?”

  “Koreans are poor like us,” Toi said. “You never know when hard times will fall upon you. If we’re lucky, we might be able to make some big money. Then, when you go home, I’ll also quit the joint investigation headquarters and go to Saigon.”

  Yong Kyu changed the subject.

  “It’s getting late. I need to look in briefly on Stapley and then go into the office for a talk with the captain. By the way, what did you learn when you went out earlier?”

  “I confirmed that the daily passes of the American soldiers have been restricted. It’s been three days. Considering the overall circumstances, a full scale operation doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “I went to see an Indian moneychanger. I know his wife well. People may soon want to change their military currency. It’s like the calm before a storm. I’ve been through something similar once myself. After Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated, there was a great bedlam in the market. Those who had inside information lost nothing, and those connected in some way with the Americans held out to the last minute. Of course, the American soldiers are given plenty of time to exchange their money. But on the street, the notes can lose 30 to 50 percent of their face value in an hour, then they will drop to 10 percent and before long they are wastepaper.”

  “What about the apples at Puohung Company?” Yong Kyu asked.

  “They figured it out fast enough. The upper class in Da Nang, those who are holding military currency, are eager to spend it as quickly as possible. Those with c
onnections to the US military make arbitrary offers to purchase at a discount from face value and start gathering up the military currency. At the moment, a single apple can cost twenty military dollars. I’ve seen a hunk of frozen beef or a turkey go for a hundred.”

  They got up from the messy table. The restaurant had no customers apart from a couple of people drinking tea. They emerged from the pub and headed down the back alley into Le Loi market.

  “When I went to the moneychanger,” Toi said, “they already had heard of the restrictions on passes. They must have known about that immediately since the volume of money being changed had rapidly fallen. But they do not yet seem too concerned about it. After all, the main business for the third-country moneychangers lies in trading mainland greenbacks.”

  “Nguyen Thach once suggested that, in return for our opening a channel of medical supplies, he would change our military currency to US dollars with no commission.”

  Toi whistled. “Too bad, that was a great opportunity. The cost of changing will double, triple; who knows, it may increase fivefold.”

  “What if the currency is replaced?”

  “You guys have nothing to worry about. The finance department will treat the Allied Forces just like US troops, and they’ll swap it for you with no loss.”

  “That’s not true. The captain, the sergeant, they will have no way out. The military currency they are hoarding, apart from the dollars sent back home, is all blind money.”

  “Then they ought to find a channel of exchange in advance.” Yong Kyu and Toi kept on walking up the back alley behind the old market street. They passed by the signboard of Puohung Company, painted in red letters on a white background, in between a row of shops. A three-quarter ton truck was stopped out front and workers were busy unloading boxes and carrying them inside the warehouse.

  “Look at that,” whispered Toi, “more goods coming in. If our guess was right, they will keep on coming in tomorrow and the next day, too.”

  They purposely slowed their pace and stalled to loiter a while. An American military driver was sitting in the cab, smoking a cigarette. Old Man Hien was standing at the front door of the place with his hands behind his back, watching. As they passed by the truck, they took a peek inside at the boxes being carried in. Over his gold-rimmed glasses, Hien gave them a probing look. Once they had passed by, Toi spoke.

  “You saw them, didn’t you? The boxes were white with frost. They’re fresh out of a freezer.”

  “Right. Looked like meat to me. Must have been about a hundred boxes, since they were piled all the way to the top of the truck.”

  Behind the next row of stores was a narrow alley lined with two-story houses, mostly used for inns, brothels, and small handcraft workshops. Toi pulled a rope hanging down outside of a porch covered with wire mesh. A bell sounded, and then the familiar face of the landlord slowly appeared in the hall. He shouted in the direction of the second floor, clapping his hands.

  “Khach!”

  They could hear thumps on the stairs, and then Stapley came into view down the steps. The man had called him “Khach,” meaning guest, and Stapley truly cut a figure too precious to rot away in Vietnam. He wore his “Run, Rat!” pendant around his neck, a pair of blue jeans, and a black Vietnamese shirt. His hair was long enough to cover the nape of his neck and his beard had filled out enough to make him resemble a medieval monk. This guest seemed to have been away from the battlefield for ages. Even his gait was leisurely. He grinned like a Cheshire cat. His eyes were dreamy and between his fingers he had a lit joint of marijuana. Yong Kyu patted him on the shoulder.

  “Hey, hippie, how do you like the neutral zone?”

  “I feel light as a feather. It’s a white wall.”

  “Can’t you stop smoking the marijuana?”

  “I’m still in a waiting room. I have no choice but to travel as I lay here. This is much better for your health than heroin.”

  The landlord offered them seats. In the hall there was a bamboo bed and wooden chairs propped against the wall. Toi and the landlord started conversing.

  “I heard your son’s going to be a little delayed.”

  “Yes, about a week later than scheduled. He was supposed to have arrived tomorrow. Now he won’t be in port until next week.”

  “Does your son know about this matter here?”

  “No, not yet. But there’ve been similar cases before. One time he took several Vietnamese youths to Saigon. They included a draft dodger and also a young deserter.”

  Yong Kyu gave Stapley a bottle of whiskey he’d brought with him.

  “A gift. Drink it at night.”

  Grinning broadly, Stapley kissed the bottle.

  “So, what else have you been doing,” Yong Kyu asked, “besides torching grass.”

  “I’ve done a little masturbating, and some reflecting about America too. Then I thought about what it would be like to live in some other country with a new name. Burma, India, some little village in central Asia somewhere near Bali wouldn’t be too bad. Anyway, somewhere beyond the reach of the Pax Americana. True, the world order is in process of changing these days. This war will be the last farewell to the old colonialism and the old era.”

  “Things may get worse, you never know. The military will be strengthened. The weapons will be newer and deadlier, the Cold War intensified. What little money you have soon’ll be parted from you, and then what’ll you live on?”

  “I’ll do anything. I’ll carve wood, make pottery, or weave mats. I just want to live in a totally different way.”

  “Aren’t you going back to New York?”

  “I don’t know. If the war comes to an end, I suppose I might make it back somehow. I have this friend by the name of Holden Caulfield. He didn’t know where this phony order came from—just like I didn’t know before coming to Vietnam. I wonder if I can use love to demolish all these monstrosities. Love is bullshit, it has a suspicious smell. It kicks up dust and then glosses things over. Love recognizes hypocrisy but doesn’t try to change it. It pronounces its solitary neutrality and then becomes an eternal fugitive. Listen to the lyrics of the pop songs these days, all the abstractions of defeatism, peace, loneliness, love, all camouflaged with beauty. That I run off into the jungle like some Frenchman, and don’t join the NLF, that I dream of some quiet village in Tibet or a desert island in the Pacific, those are self-imposed failures to act. There exists no island like that where you never grow to be an adult. I’m going to flee with all the children straight through the rye fields and go crashing down over the cliff.”

  Stapley’s quiet and lackadaisical voice sounded to Yong Kyu as if it were coming from a faraway place. Why did he find Stapley’s sophistication so unnatural, he wondered? Was it because the bloodstained lips of the Vietnamese people were sealed tight, and that very silence was wearing a cold smile at the spectacle of these illusory and terrifying American dreams?

  The sound of those shrill, crisp screams, the voices of those brown-skinned “gooks” who, like a swarm of soulless worms, had been tunneling deep into the ground, carrying bombs on their bicycles, digging pits for mantraps, falling and falling again until at last they overran Dien Bien Phu—could it be because that shrieking sound blackened out this mumbling monologue of a frustrated dream?

  For the past century we the people of Vietnam have been ceaselessly struggling against foreign invaders to win our freedom and independence. In 1945 every class of our countrymen across the nation rose in a great revolt against the Japanese and the French, overthrowing them and recovering political power. When the French colonialists returned to invade us again, our people did not want to go back to being slaves. To protect our national sovereignty and independence, our people made enormous sacrifices. Thanks to the solidarity of our people and a struggle lasting nine long years, we of the resistance won a series of battles, and in 1954, in accordance with the Geneva Accords, th
e sovereignty, independence, unification and territorial integrity of Vietnam was confirmed and acknowledged.

  Our people living in the south, however, were not able to lead a happy and prosperous life, working in a peaceful environment. America, which had long been aligned with the French colonialists to annihilate our race, stepped in as successor to the French and foisted upon us a new colonial system to enslave South Vietnam. They have perpetrated full-scale oppression, inflicting a long-term division upon our country with Ngo Dinh Diem in the lead as their agent for exploitation of the population. Now they are plotting to turn the south into a vast military base for the preparation of war in Southeast Asia.

  Ever since, the invaders—in conspiracy with traitors to our country—have been running their cruel dictatorship. They have persecuted and murdered patriots and all who demand democracy, depriving us of the basic freedoms accorded to human beings in a democracy. They exploit the laborers, the peasants, and the rest of the working class, and suffocate domestic industry and commerce. They import the decadence of foreign culture to contaminate our race, to cause the degeneration of our traditions, and to destroy our nation’s spiritual foundations. They reinforce their preparations for war, erect military bases, oppress the masses, and degrade our own armed forces to make them serve the American policy of invasion.

  For the past six years, not one day has passed without the sound of gunfire attacking the people in the south. Tens of thousands of patriots have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been imprisoned. Our people of all classes are moaning under the iron knout of the American dictatorship. Unemployment, poverty, levies of taxes and tribute, oppression, murder, forced conscription, expropriation of land and housing, all forms of concentration camps which have separated countless families and inflicted upon them unspeakable sacrifices and traumas.