There had been the smell of a soldering iron among the other, less pleasant scents. She pointed this out. Rust on the inside, the outside. If it had been raining, the roof would have leaked. He could see that from the watermarks darkening the upholstery above him. But there was no rain that night, only dust and noise. His foot rested on a sandbag that almost certainly covered a hole in the floor.
I don’t think the doors match, Susan said, laughing.
Beside him, she looked crisp and pale, out of place, a cool glass of water on a summer’s day. She wore a white blouse he particularly liked, jeans with embroidery, a slim military watch, a gift from a colonel who had also given her a ticket to Hawaii which she’d had to decline, although she was quite willing to have dinner with him in Saigon. The colonel had shown her how by pulling the watch’s crown one could stop the sweep hand, allowing soldiers to synchronize the time. The guy is so old, Marc had said, probably that watch is from World War II. Susan laughed at him. You’re just jealous, she said, to which he grunted, Don’t be ridiculous. I have no right to be jealous in any case. It was true he didn’t like it when another man showed her attention. One time, it had been so hot when they’d been together on a patrol that the soldiers quickly ran out of water. A private, some nineteen-year-old kid from Michigan, let Susan have the last slug from his canteen. Watching her head tipped back, the workings of her throat as she drank gratefully, the soldier standing close to her, admiring her, Marc had to look away, pretend it didn’t matter, that he hadn’t noticed. He’d run out of water a mile ago and it had never even occurred to him to share it.
You’re all right? he said as they crossed into Cholon in the taxi.
I’m thinking about Thanh. Thanh owned the hotel where she stayed. He was a fat, balding little guy who gave Marc disapproving looks whenever he entered the hotel with her. He brought me another lizard.
They’re not lizards. They’re geckos. Or anoles.
He says they will eat the insects.
Bug spray. And a new lock on your door. Basic stuff. Tell him you would like running water, for example. He didn’t like that hotel. He was always trying to get her to leave it, find a room elsewhere.
You don’t have to hate him.
I don’t hate him.
The taxi glided down the road; he kissed her. Stay in my room. If I’m there, if I’m not, he said, though he knew she wouldn’t. She did not keep a change of clothes in the room, not so much as a pair of socks. She didn’t belong to him—that was the truth—and he often felt that the way in which she left no trace of herself was more revealing than if she were to keep an extra pair of underwear in his drawers, or a comb, or a toothbrush in the echoing bathroom with its high ceilings and black and white tiles.
He found the nape of her neck with his thumb, whispered into her ear: It’s paid for and half the time it’s empty. You can get room service. The windows don’t leak when it rains.
And leave my lizards? Sorry, my anoles.
Bring them. I’ll stick them to the walls myself.
If you’re not going to be there, then why would I want to be there without you?
Well, there’s a lot more room, he said. He was thinking of Son, how the guy slept on her floor like a tramp.
Ah, the truth reveals itself, she laughed.
This was weeks ago—six, eight? The taxi seat had a tear mark, he remembers, the foam beneath it rising up like proud flesh. She pushed the foam back into position, smoothed the upholstery, put her hand on his knee. The window, when he’d rolled it down, became stuck in position. He could not move it unless he got out and lifted the glass. He apologized for this, but Susan shrugged it off.
I like the breeze, she said.
He spoke again but the sounds from the road drowned out his words. Pedicabs, motorbikes, the heaving drone of an ancient bus. The noise awakened inside him a feeling he associated only with this city. Whenever he was in Saigon he began to feel a kind of controlled desperation, something he picked up from the place itself. The size, the dense clusters of people and buildings, overwhelmed him with its mad logic, its combustion of heat and energy that cloaked him like the fine dust that he washed off in the evenings. He felt all of it, all at once: the discreet corner swindlings, the meetings of money-changers, the pickpockets, the girls dressed up to attract business, the courteous hotel staff who tolerated, more than tolerated, who absorbed the indiscretions of their Western guests. All the hundreds of vendors, floating markets, corrupt police and restaurants in which this group gathered, or this other group, he seemed to take the whole of it inside himself, swallowed in one big gulp. He tapped his chin, his fingers fluttered, his leg vibrated in a steady rhythm. He couldn’t remember when he’d acquired these habits. It was part of the electricity that coursed through him and to which he’d become accustomed.
What’s the matter? she asked.
Nothing. Put your hand back. Keep it there. If I move, press down.
Yes, sir.
I’m sorry. I’m a little strange tonight.
Tonight?
Ah, ha, ha. I’ve had an awful day.
I know, sweetheart, she told him.
And it was true. That afternoon, he’d been threatened by the police because he had brought a camera to a student protest. The police were everywhere, an army in white, and among the pale uniforms of the Saigon police were Westerners, too, men in crisp shirts, cropped hair, pale uncallused hands. The CIA advisors looked like thoroughbreds before a race. Charged up, even sleek, in their pressed trousers, their almost identical blue blazers and ties. He watched them among the crowd, noticing the air of authority they projected, something they seemed to acquire in training. Even the youngest of such advisors had it. One of the men broke away from his companion and approached Marc, his eyes leveled at him, fists clenched, head hunkered down upon his collar. Marc knew the man’s name, had even had a drink with him once at an embassy party. We wouldn’t want you to get shot, Mr. Davis, the man said. Stray bullet.
Marc had nodded at the statement, showing no sentiment one way or another. Part of the treachery he was able to bring upon such people was his ability to hide his emotions.
He issued his own question coolly, as though grateful for the advisor’s admission of violence. Are you planning to shoot people this morning? he asked in his reporter’s voice, the recorder on, his cameraman, Don Locke, to his left, just behind him, the camera resting on his shoulder, the film ticking through.
There are always stray bullets, Mr. Davis.
Marc was not on camera. The steady focus of Locke’s camera was on the CIA man, whose face was as solemn and angry as though he’d had altogether enough of newsmen, of cameras and notepads, of the press demanding special rights and access—who had agreed to all that in the first place?
Marc pretended he did not notice. He smiled as though the man was making a joke, and said, How many stray bullets are you expecting today?
The advisor turned away now, out of the frame of the shot, pushing past the Vietnamese policemen. One may be enough, he whispered as Marc stumbled along beside him, trying to get his tape recorder in range.
It was not the first time, but he’d never grown used to such intimidations. They filmed the American as he spoke and then watched the Vietnamese policemen with their billy clubs, their white gloves, their Honda steeds. The students were beaten, shot at, dispersing after not much fuss. It was over so quickly it was hardly a story. Then they came upon a girl, maybe seventeen, eighteen, her hair wet with blood, lying on the hot asphalt. Locke put the camera on her, following her as she was lifted by another student who himself was struck, hauled off by four officers who met his protests with their clubs. Another student arrived at the girl’s side and he, too, was pushed back. They kept the film rolling. The arrival of ambulances, shouting, circling police. Twenty seconds, maybe half a minute.
Suddenly, there was gunfire; he and Locke ran backwards, the camera still pointed toward the girl. The commotion continued. Locke tried to keep the
camera up to film as a group of students, newly determined by the sight of the injured girl, fought off a line of police. The students could only hold their ground for a few seconds before being set upon by another group of police and forced back; in this way they surged and withdrew, forward and back like a receding tide, dropping their banners and signs. The girl was there, then gone, then there again. Marc held the recording equipment up and away from him, exposing his chest. It forced him into a vulnerable position but he had no choice. Locke lifted the camera high above the reaching arms of the police in the same manner. They had minutes of good footage, enough for a story.
Then the police hit Locke’s arm so that he dropped the camera on to the street. Marc jumped for it, grabbed it, then was kicked, his arm stepped upon so that for a moment he let go the camera. Somebody booted him across the shoulder, trying to turn him over now that he’d tucked the camera beneath him. But he rose up through the blows, bent over, the camera at his belly, shielding it with his body. The girl was gone and in her place, he saw now, was a fan of smeared blood. He would have loved footage of that, too, but the camera was huge, unwieldy, and he kept getting pushed back, down on to the street again. He got up, turning as he did so. The police were pulling at the camera, prying it away from him. He held on; running, trying to run. His feet didn’t seem to make any progress; it all happened in a compressed moment of time in which he felt trapped, overpowered. He looked over his shoulder and saw another journalist being hit in the face. The man fell down and was kicked. He saw it and stopped, held the camera up, trying to film. The journalist was dragged back, smacked in the ear with a boot. Then someone dropped a gun—he saw this—dropped a gun right next to the journalist’s hand. By then he was being pushed back hard in a rush of people. The recording equipment wagged on his hip, the camera was harder and harder to protect. He could film nothing. He looked wildly around for Locke, but could not see him. He saw the gun inches from the journalist’s elbow. He wished he could yell to the journalist, Don’t pick up the gun. He ran forward, colliding into people; he heard the journalist crying out. There were sirens everywhere, shouting, gunshots, CS cans rolling down the street spewing their pummels of smoke. There are always stray bullets, Mr. Davis. He thought what might happen if the journalist picked up the gun that had been planted there, how easy it would be then to shoot him, to justify it, even to insist on the necessity of yet another assassination. The police hovered over him until tear gas drove them back. He couldn’t see the gun any more. Either it was obscured by the gas or the policeman who dropped it there had picked it up once more. Someone had gotten the journalist to his feet and he saw now who it was: Brian Murray. His eye was swollen; he had blood over one side of his head. He was ducking his head one way then another as though fending off blows that were no longer coming. Though Marc did not manage to get that on film, he watched it, and the sight of Murray protecting his face from assailants who were gone, had scattered, fled, became so embedded in his mind that for many years he believed he’d seen the footage, that he’d filmed it and that it had been shown on the news.
Locke grabbed his elbow and spun him around. Already their eyes were streaming and stinging from the tear gas. Let’s go! Locke said. Marc handed Locke the camera. Get Murray, he said. He meant get him out of here, but Locke thought he meant film him.
We’ve already got enough!
No, I mean, go get him!
Murray had lost his eyeglasses. He was trying to find them, patting the ground, his hands filtering through papers, coins, cards, keys, shards of broken glass, other bits of debris, but he couldn’t see with his swollen brow, the tear gas overwhelming him, the glasses undoubtedly smashed to pieces anyway. Locke and Marc reached him, yelling already for him to stand up.
Move! Locke yelled. Stand up, for fucksake! They took him by the elbows, hoisted him up. He rose with enormous resistance, shoulders first, making a squealing sound, then stopped suddenly and vomited on their shoes. Locke yelled, Run! Run, you sonofabitch! At that point Murray finally registered that it was them, Locke and Davis, and opened his mouth in surprise. They ran down the road, escaping the tear gas, the riot, Murray clinging to them, Marc hoping the guy wasn’t seriously wounded, that they weren’t leaving a trail of blood. He hadn’t checked; there had been no time. He had the sudden, awful thought that Murray had been shot, or had been hit so hard in the head that his brain was swelling.
They got a taxi to the radio station ten blocks away, Murray holding the front of his head, patting the wound there. It did not look so bad once you could see where the injury began and ended, a broad scraping that had taken off the skin across his forehead. Locke pushed a bloody handkerchief against the back of his own head where he had been kicked. That wound was of a different kind. It had a caved-in look that made Marc nervous. He was inclined to tell the taxi driver to keep driving, to pass the radio station altogether and head out to the dispensary by the airport to have the gash seen to. But Murray was half mad with fear and it took both him and Locke to keep him calm. No change of instructions was given, about a dispensary or anything else, and so the taxi stopped duly outside the radio station.
They all piled out. Murray recovered himself enough to curse the whole of the Saigon police department, particularly the Commissioner and a few other high-ranking officers. The blood on his head wasn’t too bad, but his hands were a mess. Standing on the sidewalk, Murray stretched his fingers out and back again, or tried to, checking if they were broken. One of his wrists had a purple bruise that seemed to grow by the minute.
Let’s go, said Marc, and they charged into the radio station, climbing the stairs to the cloakroom, where they washed under the disapproving glare of Madam Ngô, who ran the place, and who began to yell when they took turns ducking their heads under the faucet, trying to get off the traces of gas and blood. Murray couldn’t work the taps; his hands were too swollen. They must have stood on you, Locke said. Marc turned the taps for the guy, brought him some paper towels. At the adjacent sink the blood from Locke’s head wound mixed with water and filled the bowl. Marc told him he really should go get some treatment. Murray finished at the sink and set off downstairs once more, saying he was getting a taxi to the dispensary. He was worried about his fingers, one of which was blackening at the tip. Go with him, Marc said.
Locke frowned down into the sink, then spit. We’ll do the spot first.
Madame Ngô clucked and stomped around them. What you do my floor! she said. My towel! Why you take all my towel? They dripped water over the tiled floor along with flecks of blood. Locke made a compress of paper towels, pressing them against his swelling skull. Madame Ngô pointed to these infractions, shouting at them as they piled back down the stairs to the studio. By apologizing profusely and promising to send someone to clean it all up, they convinced her to connect them to San Francisco, then get a patch through to New York. She made it clear she found them boorish and demanding, impossible even, worse than disrespectful children. If she could have spanked them, she would have. Marc did a one-minute spot on a New York station while Madame Ngô pouted and stamped on the other side of the studio’s soundproof glass, berating Locke, who had the bad manners to continue to bleed despite all her ravings, marking the green linoleum of the radio station’s floor. Marc stepped out into the area where Locke was leaning against the metal shelving that held cables and production equipment, all the mysterious black boxes and wiring and reels of tape, ignoring the woman who bent at his feet, scraping spots of blood with wads of tissue paper from a roll she held tightly near her person, lest the enormous American man above her try to use that, too, for the problem with his scalp.
They got a taxi to the bureau. Locke went through the sequence of pictures, first this, then that, guessing at how much time he’d got on each set of images, as Marc typed out the words for the voice-over. He read it through once more, then wrote out the changes in longhand, editing where he could. What he wrote did not entirely capture the drama of the event. It did not include
the warning from the CIA man, the attack of the journalist, Murray, the last fan of blood left by the dying girl. But it was a sound, accurate report that he was glad to conclude. It had been a misery, the afternoon; in the end, they had to ride out to the dispensary because the blood was still seeping from Locke’s skull.
What a pain in the ass, Locke said.
It’s no big deal, said Marc. Might as well have it checked out.
Marc felt all right. He thought he was all right. He’d been in Khe San only a month before when North Vietnamese gunners were firing three hundred rounds a day. This little student protest didn’t even figure by comparison. Even so, in the taxi on the way back from the dispensary, Locke’s wound neatly joined now by a line of new butterfly bandages, he didn’t feel entirely all right. He’d had a coffee with cognac. He’d had half a joint in the stall at the dispensary while they tended to Locke. Fuck if I’m doing any more work tonight, said Locke afterwards. I’m getting sufficiently stoned and that’s it. Goodnight.
The traffic coming out of the dispensary slowed, then stopped. They stood in the baking heat, Locke slumped against a door, asleep or close enough, the sun like a knife, the only slight shade at one edge of the seat, which was burning hot, as though the vinyl might melt altogether. Marc ran out of cigarettes. Normally, he would have asked the driver to stop and get him some, never having to move from where he was sitting. You could do that in Saigon, sit and wait and have things brought to you. But the taxi hadn’t gone more than a mile in twenty minutes. They were flanked by every kind of vehicle, stalled by the sheer weight of traffic because (he learned later) a military convoy making its way slowly over a cross-section had experienced some type of mechanical problem. Meanwhile, he wanted a smoke. This fact and the way in which the sun was angling into the cab, searing them like meat, made him so crazy he banged the roof of the cab and howled at the driver, who quivered and was silent. Locke didn’t move from his stupor. He leaned his head on the half-open window, a neat pink line from the window’s edge dissecting his cheek. He was completely out of it. He didn’t care who yelled at who. The traffic was one long unmoving chain; Marc was thirsty as hell. No cigarettes. He flung himself upwards from his seat. The driver shrunk down as he roared.
The Man from Saigon Page 15
