A River in May

by Edward Wilson

  ‘So what?’

  ‘You know so what, Trung Uy Lopez, you know so what. Dead babies, man, dead babies. Another wasteland of overlapping craters. But it’ll be good for the mosquitoes. Mama Anopheles and her daughters’ll turn the stagnant water of those bomb craters into a bacterial soup. Won’t need to drop no more bombs, the malaria’ll kill what’s left of them. At least,’ Dusty went on, ‘King Herod’s soldiers did it on the ground, with smoking swords and aching arms. Here it’s just a radio message, a bearing fix, and five seconds later – paddy fields, babies and village are churned into hot stinking mud.’

  ‘You sound like a fucking book. What’s this chapter called: “Dusty the Humanitarian”?’

  ‘What’s your chapter called? “Lieutenant Lopez: self-pitying pill-popping drunk"?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  ‘It’s a waste of time talking to you. You just don’t care about anything.’

  ‘You can’t say that.’

  ‘Yes, I can. You came down on me all moral and serious like some kind of holier-than-thou priest because I was wearing some poor fuck’s ear. The guy was dead; he doesn’t matter any more.’

  ‘Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?’

  ‘You think that I’m all bad and corrupt, don’t you? You know I used to be a whore and a thief, and you think that I only care about myself and will turn Judas whenever there’s a profit to be made. Well, you’re right, Trung Uy Lopez, that’s me. But there’s a limit: you don’t hurt little kids and old people, you protect them. The others – I don’t give a fuck about them; they can look after themselves.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’

  Dusty didn’t say anything. He wasn’t looking at Lopez, he was more interested in studying his cubicle: the bottles of drink, his books, the helmet and flak jacket he never bothered to wear, the web gear heavy with grenades and ammunition, the battered AK-47 Lopez had taken as a souvenir from the man that he killed. ‘You’re the only one on the team,’ said Dusty, ‘who doesn’t have any pictures. Don’t you have a family, or a girlfriend – a dog or a parakeet, even?’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘If I, Trung Uy, can’t make comments about you, then maybe you shouldn’t go around judging other people – like me, for instance. Something’s died inside you – and it wasn’t the war that killed it – so that now you can only see bad in other people.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘That’s right, Trung Uy. But I do know something about a little girl in Phu Gia. She’s only about eight or nine, and she has to look after this enormous water buffalo. When she rides him it looks so funny, like a tiny kid on a big old hairy couch that just got up and walked away. And she has this incredible smile; it’s like a lamp. What keeps that smile glowing in that miserable village? Her smile is worth more than…’ Dusty stopped. He got up and turned to leave. ‘… more than your life, more than my life too.’

  LOPEZ REMEMBERED VARGAS ONCE SAYING, ‘Why doesn’t everyone hate gringos? Why don’t gringos hate themselves? And you know something, chico? I hate you when you try to be a gringo – which is almost all of the time.’ Lopez promised himself next time he saw Vargas he was going to tell him how wrong he was, how very wrong. If he’d ever been a gringo, he certainly wasn’t one now. But he hated himself.

  The American consul was the ultimate gringo, from his Brooks Brothers tropical light tan suit down to his fine handmade, but thriftily re-soled, English brogues. He was a civilian in his mid-fifties, tall, gray, aristocratically slim and flowing with all the effortless superiority of Harvard and the diplomatic service. He was part of the New England where ‘the Lowells speak only to Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God’. His name was Archibald and he was, in fact, related to the Cabots, but he still condescended to speak to Lopez. ‘Thank you for your memorandum, Lieutenant Lopez. It was powerfully argued and, by military standards, surprisingly well written.’

  Lopez was tempted to say that he modeled his prose style on the later novels of Henry James. But he didn’t want to alienate Archie by coming across as a smartass spic, so he just said, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Archie told him not to bother with ‘that sir business’. He said, ‘Call me Archie – even my son used to.’ Then he looked at the memo to see what he should call Lopez. ‘Francisco?’

  ‘No, no one’s ever called me that. My step-parents anglicized it to Francis when I was still a baby.’

  Archie poured coffee from a silver service on a large mahogany sideboard, made small talk and then offered Lopez a little tour. The US consulate was a graceful French colonial villa with fancy wrought-iron balconies and tall windows with gray shutters. It used to be the residence of the French Sureté chief. The State Department ought, confided Archie, to have chosen a building with fewer colonial associations. During the French war the villa was notorious for the torture sessions carried out in its cellars. Lopez knew that, unlike the French, the Americans didn’t have to get their hands dirty: they had their Vietnamese puppets do the torturing for them. The bloodstains in the consulate’s cellars had long since dried and the torture chambers were used only for storing wine and boxes and boxes of Johnnie Walker Black Label.

  They returned to the office – Archie told Lopez it used to be the main dining room. He showed him a wall cabinet containing enamel bell buttons – cuisine, poste de surveillance, garage, salle de police – from which the chef de La Sûreté used to summon servants and guards between courses. Behind Archie’s desk french windows opened on to a garden with manicured lawns, flower borders and croquet hoops. A gardener, dressed in khaki and smoking a cheroot, was picking up blown blossoms from under the frangipani trees. Lopez started when he saw the gardener’s face. He was the very double of the NVA soldier he had killed last July. It was as if the ghost had followed him there.

  ‘If I might summarize,’ Archie propped a pair of gold half-frame spectacles on to his Yankee eagle nose and referred to Lopez’s report, ‘your main point is a condemnation of the free-fire zone policy. You then refer to the village of Phu Gia as a specific example “where civilians may be killed and injured for no rational military purpose”. In support of this view, you cite the Geneva Convention of 1949 on the protection of civilians in wartime – which is, of course, totally irrelevant.’

  ‘Why’s that, Archie?’

  ‘Because, dear boy, the United States government doesn’t give a fuck about the Geneva Convention. If we did, we wouldn’t be using napalm, plastic flechettes, defoliants or CS gas.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought international agreements were legally binding. I guess I’m a bit naïve.’

  Archie looked hurt. ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, I only want you to see things from a wider perspective.’ He sipped his coffee and made a face. ‘Sorry about this stuff; Hoang makes terrible coffee.’

  Lopez hadn’t noticed.

  ‘The truth of the matter, Francis, is that the military are being given a free hand to run the show the way they want. We in the State Department are still regarded in some quarters as Anglophile, Ivy League, liberal pantywaists. Therefore our bosses in the diplomatic service are trying to be even more macho than the generals. In any case, the Ambassador genuinely believes that Westmoreland can pull it off by sheer brute force. This means endless artillery, carpet bombing, defoliation, bulldozing swathes of jungle and a whole land subject to relentless penetration by firepower. As you, no doubt, have already noticed.’

  Lopez nodded.

  ‘I hope you don’t think that I’m patronizing you, Francis, but you should be aware of the monumental cynicism that imbues my job – and which ought to be the flavor of your job too, if you want to survive.’

  Lopez didn’t say anything.

  Archie chewed on the end of his spectacles and stared out the window for a few seconds. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘My son would have been twenty-three. Car crash in Vermont two years
ago.’ He paused. ‘Driver fell asleep. My son had a girl friend at Bennington – Hillary, fine girl – and tried to make it back to Cambridge for lectures on Monday morning. He was all, all, I had. Scotch? It’s safer than the coffee.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So frankly, Francis, I don’t care. As a matter of fact, Francis – ice? Say when – as a matter, of fact, I would roast alive every single inhabitant of your precious Phu Gia if that act would bring my son back to life for five minutes. Can you understand that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you will, Francis, one day you will.’

  To avoid eye contact, because he was finding all the dead kid stuff embarrassing, Lopez glanced around the office. It was untidy like a university professor’s study. There were shelves full of books and reports, and a table piled high with newspapers and journals from all over the world.

  ‘OK,’ said Lopez, ‘I know that Westmoreland’s strategy is attrition and firepower, but why not evacuate civilians before you obliterate their villages?’

  ‘Ask the President of South Vietnam. It’s the policy of the Government of Vietnam to accept no more refugees. No – more – refugees.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Oh, there are lots of reasons: refugees are a security risk, a means of infiltrating agents into government areas; social problems, overcrowding, disease risk; they’re a source of disruption, the people in the safe areas don’t really want them around – would you want a refugee camp in your back yard? And the cost, Francis, the cost. And besides, the civil re-structuring program is already stretched beyond the limit even with the current number of refugees.’

  ‘And you – not you the State Department official, but you personally, you the bereaved parent – go along with this policy?’

  Archie paused and looked at Lopez as if he were a greasy mechanic who had crashed a family party on Martha’s Vineyard. ‘What do you want? Why have you come here? I don’t really see what you’re trying to accomplish.’ The mask was off. Archie was only a suave mandarin on the surface. Underneath he was just another ruthless cog in the massive stone and iron juggernaut of pitiless empire.

  ‘I want to accomplish as much as I can. In fact, I’ve already written to Robert Devereux about the matter.’

  ‘Is he your congressman?’

  ‘No, he’s a good friend of my step-parents.’

  Lopez knew he had started what West Pointers call ‘ring knocking’. When things aren’t going the way they want at a meeting, they softly tap their class rings on the table to remind their fellow West Pointers that they are all members of the same club. Lopez wasn’t a West Pointer, but he was doing the same sort of thing and it left a foul taste in his mouth.

  ‘Who are your step-parents?’ Archie had given up being subtle.

  ‘Tom and Rosie Ardagh.’

  ‘The same Tom Ardagh that used to run Panama before the war?’

  ‘Yes, but he retired a long time ago to look after the family farm. He likes doing that, I’m not sure why.’

  ‘He had a reputation as a keen botanist. He used to go off on expeditions to Mexico,’ Archie paused, Lopez’s brown face was slotting into place, ‘looking for rare orchids.’ Archie reminisced a little more, ‘Pity about the sons.’ The slotting was now complete.

  Lopez didn’t say anything. He hated himself for mentioning Tom and Rosie – and he hated himself, once again, for not having recognized their pain until it was too late to comfort them.

  ‘So, then. What, Francis, do you think you can do about all this?’ Archie’s tone was softer, but more cautious.

  ‘Well, as a last resort, I guess I could go to the press, resign my commission. I could refuse to obey orders, get myself court-martialed as a matter of principle, anything – all publicity’s a power lever. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t spend millions on PR reptiles.’

  ‘I can see the headline, GREEN BERET OFFICER WHO GAVE UP HARVARD TO FIGHT IN VIETNAM COURT MARTIAL LATEST.’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘Two column inches on page four of your local paper. No one cares, Francis, no one cares. If Muhammad Ali refusing induction can’t hold the front page, I don’t think you’re going to be too much of a cause célèbre.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But that’s not important. In another place and time your youthful idealism would be almost touching.’ Archie paused and pressed the tips of his fingers together. ‘How many civilians are we dealing with?’

  ‘Around a hundred.’

  ‘Let’s do a deal, Francis. If you keep quiet, don’t cause any trouble, we’ll see if we can get those civilians into a resettlement center before any bombing. OK, a deal?’

  Lopez agreed. He was being fobbed off, but it was more than he expected.

  ‘Come back to see me in couple of weeks so I can give you the details. In any case, there’s no hurry.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘There’s big trouble brewing at Khe Sanh. For the next few weeks, all spare capacity for air strikes is going to be diverted there. Johnson’s worried sick, paranoid. If he loses that base and its marine battalions, he can kiss the White House goodbye.’

  It started to rain as soon as Lopez left. There were US Information Service Agency posters on the consulate railings depicting scenes from the NASA space program. On one side were huge color photos of the Gemini capsules orbiting an earth lustrous with bright oceans and wreathed by cirrocumulus clouds. On the other side were artists’ impressions of the proposed Apollo missions. The posters were getting sodden and bedraggled, but it didn’t matter. It was obvious that not a single Vietnamese had ever stopped to look.

  As Lopez drove back to China Beach, he thought about what Archie had said about Khe Sanh. It tied in with rumors he had heard and intelligence reports he had read. Something big seemed to be in the offing. Would it be an attack against the cities and the big bases or a push to grab more countryside? Lopez thought it must be the countryside. How could they dent the massive defensives of the coastal plain: the huge bases ringed by barbed wire, mines and massive bunkers; the lumbering armored hulks and the skies full of bombers and gunships? Or Saigon itself? No way.

  Lopez wondered what Ho Cue, Kim and the other sleeper agents in the camp knew – and what they were up to. Were they about to break cover and sabotage the camp in a late night bloodbath? There would, of course, be an external attack too, but the key to success was the ‘inside job’ part of the operation. Lopez thought of Ho Cuc’s face – those hollow eyes, that taut brown skin, that grim asceticism. He was ready – he was always ready – aching for that final apotheosis of revenge. For Kim, thought Lopez, it must be otherwise. It would be nothing more than duty, an impersonal unselfish carrying out of his historical role. Kim took no joy in blood and slaughter, it was a form of social contract – like the epitaph for the Greeks who fought to the death to stop Xerxes at Thermopylae: ‘Traveler, if you go to Sparta, tell them that we lie here in obedience to their laws.’

  The thought of returning to Boca and a Nui Hoa Den that might be about to be overrun depressed Lopez. He decided to get drunk and party – might be his last chance – before going back to the camp. Despite the war, there was a festive atmosphere and most of the Vietnamese army seemed to be on leave: it was the beginning of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. Dusty had persuaded Lopez to visit a house that he considered – ‘from a professional point of view’ – to be a very superior brothel. They were accompanied by the lieutenant from Minh Long, a shaven headed Croatian Yugoslav named Husac who, like Dusty, hoped to become an American citizen by doing military service. Then later, as soon as Tito died, Husac intended to return to his native country so he could kill Muslims and Serbs. While they were held up at an intersection in Da Nang, an old woman, half blind with milky cataracts, importuned them with a tray of cheap watches. Lopez explained to her in Vietnamese that they already had adequate watches.

  ‘Why, Francis, did you learn to speak the language of dogs?’ said Hus
ac.

  ‘If they’re dogs,’ said Lopez, ‘then we’re vermin.’

  Co Hai, a Vietnamese woman of forty, ran the brothel. At first sight she seemed beautiful: her body was spare and graceful, her hair long and silky. But when you looked at her more closely, you could see the pockmarks, the ravages of smallpox inexpertly covered by cheap cosmetics, and the tired eyes. Dusty loved her, he thought she really was beautiful. Hers wasn’t the beauty of a possible life, of hope, of children, of a future. It was the beauty of dignity staring out of wreckage.

  A single bare fluorescent tube lighted Hai’s place of work. A curtain separated the waiting room from her hard planked bed. Hai had done well: there was a Japanese television and a stereo. She had paid for all of this by taking the penises of thousands of foreign soldiers into her mouth. According to Dusty, who ought to have known, she did it exceptionally well. He praised her virtuosity like a connoisseur of wine who had just discovered a new claret. ‘I bet you, Trung Uy,’ said Dusty, ‘that the day will come – twenty, thirty years from now – when a whole generation of bored American men, thick and obtuse with middle age, will lie awake next to their antiseptic American wives and long once again for Co Hai.’

  Co Hai poured whiskey for Dusty and Lopez before taking Husac behind the curtain. Hai kept her drink in a glass display case beside the pathetic keepsakes of a life apart. She had, thought Lopez, come so far with so little: a bronze perfume burner, a greeting card bearing an invitation to a Tet celebration of many years before, china ornaments decorated with the symbols for happiness and long life. There was also a framed photograph of herself; she must have only been seventeen or eighteen, and had skin like silk and eyes like a young doe. There were no other photographs or objects to link her to any other life, family or friend, other than the narrow world of her customers and her hard bed.

  Just as Husac emerged, doing up his flies, there was a commotion in the street outside. The Quan Canh – the Vietnamese military police – were out looking for deserters. The Saigon Government, under heavy pressure from Washington to sacrifice more of their own soldiers, had launched a series of deserter hunts that tended to turn nasty. The street was loud with the noise of running boots, shouting and doors being battered on. Someone was shooting tear gas.