The Man from Saigon

by Marti Leimbach

  Are you coming, then? The German said, glancing over his shoulder at Susan and Son. He pointed his chin to the ambulance and they followed a few feet behind as he walked, his steps purposeful, his hands balled into fists. There was a splatter of ink across the hip pocket of his jeans, a water bottle on his belt. He muttered, We cannot get any supplies and when we do, they spoil. Primitive refrigerators, no reliable electricity! He dropped into the driver’s seat, his boots resting on a worn patch of carpet rugged up so that it showed the metal underneath. We have no blood, you know, he said. No blood bank.

  The door creaked loudly as he slammed it shut, the window rattling. Then he reached across the seat and pushed open the other door for Susan, while Son found a place in the back.

  She got out her pad. She thought perhaps the man was telling her this because he wanted her to write down the information. Has this always been the case, or only recently, when your generator went down? she asked. Perhaps that was the trouble, that they could not keep the blood cold. She assumed it was a new problem. She couldn’t imagine how they could have coped very long without any blood at all.

  How would I know? he said. He couldn’t look at her because the sun swept through her window straight at his shoulder, blinding him if he turned in her direction. He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, another spread like a visor over his eyes, ducking and peering through the bright sunshine. There was a fly on his hair and on his thumb, Susan saw, flies on the dashboard, buzzing against the windshield. I’ve only been here six months, he said. It seems a lifetime, but that is what the calendar says. Only six.

  The ambulance seats were split, the torn vinyl stiff and sharp. The dashboard looked slightly melted. The doors were wired on and they rattled with every turn and pothole as the ambulance moved along a dusty, gray road pitted with craters. The trailer bounced behind them, empty. In the back, amongst an assortment of other boxes, including a set of tools which might have been kept there in case of breakdown, were the batteries and parts.

  The German told them his name: Jonas.

  How do you get blood? Susan asked. When you need it, how do you… For a moment she had the awful thought his answer would be that they did not get blood. That they did without, and that the patients died. Hadn’t she seen similar, unbearable circumstances already in the country? Burn victims whose bodies resembled unfinished wax mannequins, a starving baby, lying in a cardboard box, an old man smoking a pipe through the bones of his amputated forearm?

  We have a card catalog of names, Jonas sighed. They were heading south across the Dak Bla, Kontum’s river, past the sprawling Command Control Central, out into the jungle. We go directly from one person to the other, checking the dates they last gave.

  I see.

  It is very—he hesitated, searching for a word—strenuous.

  They drove in silence now, the landscape increasingly rural and wild, until at last they reached a cluster of low buildings arranged around a dusty courtyard. The hospital was run by a woman doctor from America. She was waiting at the door when the ambulance arrived.

  What’s going on? she said. The trailer is empty. Didn’t they meet you?

  No generator, Jonas said. He walked past her, shaking his head.

  The doctor followed. Where are you going? What did they say? I should have got out my damned self, she called.

  Jonas wheeled around. There was nothing I could do! If I’d let him take the parts back, then we’d have nothing.

  No, I mean I ought to have gone and watched and made sure they loaded the thing!

  Susan and Son followed the woman doctor inside, where the air was stale but at least somewhat cooler. The doctor was well known for helping the Montagnards, an indigenous group who came under pressure from both the North and the South Vietnamese. Among the Montagnards, infant mortality was so high they didn’t celebrate a child’s birth before the age of two. If a person died outside the village, their body was not allowed back for burial. Sometimes grief-stricken parents kidnapped their own sick children from wards, stealing them back in the night so that they could die within the village, where their spirits were believed to stay for eternity. The nurses were always on guard for such thefts, but many of the nurses were themselves Montagnards, and they understood. Even so, they lost children to this practice who would otherwise not have died.

  She learned this upon entering the hospital, within the first few minutes, listening and nodding and writing as quickly as she could while following the doctor, who walked briskly ahead. The doctor had shock of light hair that stood up, a narrow waist, long legs. A man’s watch hung from her belt loop and she frequently pushed back a stethoscope that kept working its way out of her front pocket. The doctor explained who these mountain people were, why she’d come to the Highlands, what the hospital tried to provide. She showed Susan and Son where to put the car batteries, which they were carrying. Between the commentary and instructions she interrupted herself to address her patients, using a mixture of English and Vietnamese, sometimes a bit of French, and wrote notes to herself on the inside of her arm. When she greeted Susan, a cigarette hanging in her lip, the first thing she said was, You look fresh out of high school. To Son, she only nodded. She seemed to take an immediate dislike to him. Susan noticed this; she was used to Americans reacting this way to Son. The soldiers were worse.

  We get mostly orphans and young mothers, said the doctor. Nobody over the age of forty.

  Why is that? Susan asked.

  The doctor wore an expression as though it was tiresome to explain. Well, it isn’t because we refuse people over forty. I am over forty. She looked up at the ceiling and sighed. The life expectancy of a Montagnard is, let’s see, about half of an American’s, though not an American over here, I must say.

  Was the doctor making a joke? Susan thought so at first, but this was not the case. The doctor’s gaze trailed a Montagnard nurse in a nun’s white habit, its hem dusty, the nurse’s hands dry and small. The nurse brought water to a patient, cradling the man’s head as he drank from a polished gourd. It made a nice photograph and Son framed the image in his lens, the doctor watching with a mildly disapproving look.

  Do you not want him to take pictures? Susan asked.

  It isn’t that.

  Then…She wanted to say: Then what is the trouble?

  You know what the Vietnamese call them, don’t you?, the doctor said. She slapped at a mosquito, gave Son another dark look.

  Call who?

  The Montagnards. The people here. The ones in the damned beds. You know what they call them?

  Susan shook her head.

  Moi, said the doctor. Savages.

  I see.

  Do you think that’s right? She was glaring at Susan as though examining her thoughts, which Susan reminded herself were unknowable to the doctor, however much she stared.

  The doctor said, What about your friend? Does he think that’s right?

  Susan put her pen in her pocket and said, You’d have to ask him.

  The doctor leaned back against a wall now, looking down at Susan from what seemed a great height. Susan cleared her throat, about to speak.

  She was interrupted by Son, who said in French, Tell the lady doctor that it was the French who first spoke of them as Montagnards. They call themselves the Degar people, but mostly they refer only to their individual tribes.

  What is he saying? the doctor asked. She stepped toward Son. Que vous dîtes?

  I said thank you for allowing me to photograph your patients, Son replied in English.

  You might ask them! the doctor shot back, then moved on so swiftly that Susan had to hurry after her through the crowded ward. The hospital smelled of disinfectant and urine warmed in the heat. There were other smells, too: camphor, stale sweat, the musty wetness of wounds, discarded dressings, iodine, salt. The doctor was regularly interrupted by the relatives of the sick as she walked her rounds, which made everything take twice as long. Surrounded by relatives of the wounded—who wanted
baby food, penicillin, injections, food, tablets of various kinds—she looked like Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

  Pardon me, Susan said, as she stepped over a child who might have belonged to a woman who sat at the bed of another girl (her daughter?) who had taken shrapnel to her face and neck, a few other children playing idly on the floor.

  Dysentery, tuberculosis, malaria, injuries from mines (very common), injuries from burns, the doctor was saying, calling out these ailments as Susan followed, trying not to step on the baskets and water bottles, piles of clothes and native blankets, the occasional dog.

  We got some mysterious parasites that seem to kill within a few days, the doctor said. A fair bit of plague—

  Plague? Bubonic plague?

  Yeah, bubonic. There’s a number of different strains. Not too hard to treat, if you get it in time.

  A naked toddler wandered into Susan’s path and she stepped over him, nearly colliding with someone else. The child belonged to a family who sat on the floor beside one of the beds. The mother—Susan assumed it was the mother—was arranged over a fold-up metal chair, from which she leaned down over a mattress, asleep. An older child, perhaps seven years old, was in the bed. She did not look awake, or asleep; most of her face was obscured in an arrangement of bandages. Above her, an IV bottle perched precariously on the thin arm of a metal stand.

  Burn victim. The doctor shook her head. I don’t like that one.

  At midday there was soup in wooden bowls, fed to the patients with hand-carved spoons. The soup was either brought in by the families, or prepared on the hospital grounds over wood fires. Perhaps it was just as well that relatives helped provide meals, because there did not seem to be enough, not for the patients, not for the staff. Susan and Son were offered some weak coffee but nothing to eat. She grew hungry. Son had the habit of stuffing boiled eggs into his pack, and she thought about how she might make an excuse and go find one now. Her stomach rumbled and she coughed, trying to hide it.

  What’s the matter? said the doctor. Lunch reservations cancelled?

  She might have disliked the woman more, but the doctor attended to the sick with inexhaustible patience and concern. She did not berate them, as Susan had seen army doctors do when setting up field operations for peasants, telling them with frank disgust that they needed to keep their children clean, that they needed to feed their babies more. This doctor, by contrast, seemed to understand there was never enough of anything. Food or water, soap, medicine, medics, milk—the list was endless. There didn’t even seem to be sufficient bandages to change the dressings as often as she would like, and she was cross when the filthy bandages could not be replaced. The nurses could be seen scraping the residue off old dressings and reusing what was left of the cotton, a practice that the doctor seemed to object to even as she helped. That one is finished, she said of one of the dressings. Throw it away. But here, this one is okay. Tape it back on. Who is working in Supply? Tell them to get some more dressings over here!

  I hear there’s no blood bank, Susan said. What happens when you have a lot of surgeries?

  We trade with the military, liquor for blood.

  Susan smiled. I would have thought they had a lot more liquor than you.

  The doctor laughed. They do—a lot more liquor. But they also have more blood.

  When Susan’s stomach rumbled again, the doctor said, There’s bread in the supply room. There might even be some butter, if you are very lucky.

  A baby died. She walked into a hall area where the parents were being told the news, their heads bent to their chests, their arms slack, saying nothing other than to thank the staff. The staff were always thanked, no matter the outcome. The baby was lying listless as dough in a package of pale cloth. She could not bear to see, but neither could she move her eyes from the couple.

  What will happen now? she asked the doctor.

  What happens all the time, was the reply.

  She walked miles, it seemed, following the doctor from patient to patient, listening to the steady stream of information from the older woman, who did not take a coffee break, let alone a lunch break. Around sunset, they were corralled with a number of others into the ambulance once more, this time to the doctor’s house for dinner. This was a normal practice, not a special dinner because journalists had arrived. We’re going, Jonas said by way of invitation. He was in the same dark mood he’d been in before, a permanent condition it had to be assumed, his blond hair wagging as he moved with heavy steps toward the ambulance. He’d taken off his doctor’s coat and wore a green T-shirt, same as the army wore. He had a long torso, strong legs. He might have been a soldier, except for the hair.

  They took off beneath a blazing red and orange sky. The road was cratered so that the drive felt like a carnival ride. She and Son sat in the area meant for casualties, ducking their heads beneath the ambulance roof as they bumped along. In the front passenger’s seat, the doctor held herself against the rocking motion of the vehicle, looking uncomfortable, exhausted. She hung her cigarette out the window and occasionally took an unsteady drag between the jarrings of the road. Something must have been paining her because she winced over the really big bumps. Susan tried to guess her age—forty-five? She had sallow skin and one of those lean faces that could be any age, a few creases that ran the length of her cheeks. Not yet fifty, Susan thought. Fifty seemed incredibly old in Vietnam.

  We do need all four of these tires, the doctor told Jonas.

  I can do nothing about the road, he replied. He began again to talk about all the things they needed—this was apparently a set speech for him. It was a long list and the doctor rolled her eyes. Susan caught her expression in the rear-view mirror, and it made her laugh. The doctor smiled, then looked away. Jonas said, What? Is this so funny?

  The doctor touched him lightly on the arm in a maternal, tender way. Right about now is shut-up time, she said.

  The doctor’s house served as a canteen and supply store, a temporary home for new employees, a place for meetings and rest. It was surrounded by bougainvillea and a climbing frangipani that was so successful it threatened to invade the roof. The house appeared to have various outbuildings, one of which was missing a wall.

  They were asked if they were hungry, thirsty, if they wanted to share a bed. This last question was meant to be ironic, as if they could never have wanted such a thing. The doctor spoke the words with a cunning air, tinged with disapproval. It inflamed Susan the way she said it like that, especially as the doctor knew that Son spoke English. For a moment she thought of saying yes, she did want to share a bed with Son, just to surprise the woman. She would have respected that, Susan thought. She seemed like the sort of person who held in regard those who were willing to break the rules. Who knows, she might even have thrown a polite word in Son’s direction. But there was no time to reply. They were interrupted by two little girls who came running into the room, Montagnard children who it turned out the doctor had adopted after their mother was killed. Susan watched the doctor gather them up in her arms, her smile newly rekindled.

  You both stink! she said, nuzzling her face in their necks.

  There were a few nurses, an administrative assistant, some others Susan wasn’t sure about, plus Jonas, who was no more relaxed here at the doctor’s house than he had been at the hospital. He was going to eat quickly and return to work, he declared, speaking to no one in particular. That’s a good boy, said the doctor, then went to sit in a big armchair over which was draped a macramé throw, her girls crawling over her. That seemed to be a cue for the others and they all dropped into the cluttered sofas and boxes that served as seats in the main room. There was beer on a table made from a discarded crate, big jugs of water, peanut butter, some saltines in a jumbo-sized box. These things were passed around, as were a number of cigarette packs, and some photographs taken at a party. Then, suddenly, the doctor was called outside because the cook had seen a snake. The cook was terrified of snakes. The doctor watched the grass as the creature sl
ithered slowly away from the house. We should eat it, she said. Everyone laughed, except the cook, who looked sullen and said nothing.

  The cook was Vietnamese. Jonas told Susan that her husband was a VC province chief, but when Susan asked about her parents, where she was from, how many brothers and sisters, she wouldn’t say anything at all. Either she did not understand Susan’s French or she was reluctant to admit even what was for dinner that night. Clearly, there would be no answers. The cook went about performing her kitchen duties as though there was nobody else in the room.

  She’s always a little strange after she sees a snake, the doctor said. And you can take it from me who her husband is. If I could find another cook, I’d hire her. But I can’t. She’s only a little crazy, so she stays.

  She said this in English, speaking over the cook’s head. The cook was mashing spices in a bowl beside a small stack of yams with muddy roots. She didn’t look up. She had a wide, low forehead, small eyes, a bewildered, piggy expression. Her appearance made her seem vacuous, like a rather dull, ugly sister destined never to leave home. She had a nervous disposition, and did everything in a flurry. On the floor and the coarse wooden table at which she worked there was evidence of many spillages; some of the fallen spices stuck to Susan’s shoes. The air steamed from a pot of boiling water into which nothing, at present, had been added.

  Son leaned against a wall and said, Have you met the husband?

  The doctor glared at him. No, of course I haven’t met the damned husband.

  Son spoke in Vietnamese to the cook, who turned away from him but replied even so. He spoke again, and the girl responded in kind. She had a pretty voice, like a little bird. It contrasted with the rest of her appearance. She never once looked up but stared into the bowl in which she mashed and churned, speaking so quickly it was impossible to tell when one sentence ended and another began.