“The rats,” she says now. She is so tired her bones feel like lead in her skin. Son arranges himself next to her, then tucks the liner up under them both, providing some small protection from rat bites. She is aware of how close he is, how her head rests on his chest, his arms over her arms. Being so close to him ought to feel strange to her, yet it does not. He feels familiar and comforting. The soldiers, asleep, are invisible in the darkness. Minh snores softly above them. Anh is comfortable in the hammock.
“The Americans are destroying all the villages in this area,” Son says.
She can hear his heart, his breath as it fills his lungs. For a moment she almost puts her hand on his bare stomach, that line of dark hair that begins around his waistband. His skin is softer than she is used to in a man and he is close to her height so that it feels as though she has been twinned with him here in the cocoon of the poncho liner.
“Perhaps they’ve had more luck than we have finding people,” she says.
“They are certainly ruining all the hiding places.”
“I don’t want to hide. I want to be found.” She hears the longing in her own voice and feels once again the weight of regret, how she wishes she could take back all the small steps that brought her here. But Son she does not regret. Meeting him, teaming up with him, being “taken in with him”—as surely that is what happened. She feels him near her and knows that his presence is the only thing that has made today bearable. Lying on the ground, listening to the rats above her, near her, hidden in the corners, occasionally rushing past the opening of the hut, would be impossible without him.
“You will be found, darling,” he says now, the endearment sounding peculiar from his lips, as though he has never said anything of the sort before to a woman, much less to her. In all the time they have been together, the months of working side by side, not to mention the long, almost unendurable days of captivity, they have spoken of battles and strategies, of what size artillery was being fired where, who was in charge, and where they might get the best information or story. They talked about Operations that had code names like Rolling Thunder and Starlight, about press escorts, Task Forces, F-100s, divisions and regiments, people they knew and places—Happy Valley, Ia Drang, Cherry Hill—the very names of which held enormous meaning. They did not often speak softly to each other, certainly not as they are now. Neither of them had before used the word darling. He is not touching her in any manner other than to hold himself around her as he had to do in the circumstances, given the small space in which they were lying, but he might have; it would not have seemed extraordinary. They do not kiss; nor is there the feeling that they ought to, or ought not to. It is as if they have always ended their days in each other’s arms, or, having been dependent upon one another for so long, they have become a single unit.
“You have hidden yourself all this time,” she says now, “even from me.”
There is a pause as he thinks about this. Everything they say, every small movement of muscle or skin, even their thoughts, feels slowed down, even deliberately, as though they know the delicacy of this moment, this intimacy that links them. Or as though the events of the past days have emptied them out completely so that all they can do is follow the simplest connection between them. No sudden declarations are required. They are Susan and Son, who might have been childhood friends, or brother and sister, or husband and wife, and are here now together.
Son says, “I am myself around you. More myself than without you.”
“But to be a spy—? I guess you wouldn’t call yourself a spy. What would it be?” Her voice is neutral, as though she is merely thinking aloud. She wants to understand him; she feels as though she has not been paying attention all these months and wishes she had been. “Nationalist,” she sighs. “That’s the way you would describe yourself, isn’t it?”
His arms around her are loose, circling her in the practical arrangement of their sleep. He draws closer, tightening his hold by an ounce, no more, and in that embrace she realizes she has hurt him. His fingertips brush the inside of her elbow, his breath is upon her hair. He has laid himself upon her so completely, and while it is not what she seeks or needs now, it feels as though he will tell her anything, anything at all. He is waiting only for her to ask. He is aware of the situation they find themselves in. Until now, he hasn’t been able to face it. She can sense, even in his embrace, how he longs to disentangle himself from what separates him from her. How much he loves her. He could describe the way in which he was selected for training, the classes that spoke hour by hour of the history of his country’s foreign occupation and the need to liberate themselves from it. He has not seen his family for years. He doesn’t know which of them are dead. He has known hunger and hard physical labor and all manner of discomfort, and he has never questioned the need for such sacrifice until now, with her. Somehow she knows this. She can no longer pretend she does not. His sleeping in her room, on her floor, the way he attached himself to her. He is probably thinking how it was a mistake, all those little steps that brought him to the place he is now, loving her. She knows all of it, all at once, as though she has swallowed his thoughts whole. The world around them has closed shut and a new one has opened in its place.
“Are you high ranking?” she asks. “Please say you are not.” I am not.
“You are lying, aren’t you?”
“Ranks don’t really mean—”
“I knew it.”
When she wakes he is gone, though not without having tucked the edges of the poncho liner under her. She opens her eyes and is startled first by the dawn light that washes over her, and next by the vision of Minh, lying on his stomach, his rifle raised, aimed out the door. His head is inches away from her and she can see the way his hair rises in odd tufts, the curl of his ear, the metal glint of a chain he wears round his neck. His sword, bound by a length of hairy cord to his trousers, lies at an awkward angle from his side. He is concentrating, the muscles in his shoulders taut. She hears Anh giving an order and then his footsteps as he comes closer to the house. It would appear at first that Minh is aiming at Anh, that while she slept some kind of insane coup has taken place. Anh stomps forward, still barking orders, then clamps his hand over the barrel of the gun, his foot inches from Susan’s nose. He looks down at her as she stares, her eyes wide, unable to understand what on earth is going on between the soldiers and why it is that Minh would aim his gun at Anh. At that exact moment she hears the muffled squawk of a lonesome hen. It calls and coos, then calls again, looking for its flock, which has clearly been confiscated by the soldiers, the ARVN or the Americans, whoever it was who took the village.
Anh continues looking down at Susan. He still has Minh’s rifle in his hands. Minh is speaking in Vietnamese but Anh ignores him altogether, addressing Susan instead. “He wants to shoot the chicken,” he says in French. “Stupid.”
He puts the rifle down on the table, then moves swiftly out the door. She hears the increasing chatter of the hen, some shuffling steps, flapping wings, the sounds louder and louder, the hen now squawking so loudly it might be crowing. Then, all at once, there is nothing at all. The silence is complete, as though someone has flipped a switch.
Or a wrung a neck, she realizes now.
They begin with the skin, which is seared by the flame of their fire and has the wonderful crackling texture of barbecued chicken. They sit on their heels, eating with their hands, pulling meat from bone with their teeth, moving the fat over their tongues as one might ice cream, savoring it. They eat every scrap of the chicken, even the brain and eyeballs, even the gizzard, sucking the bones afterwards, licking their fingers and lips. The bones are kept to make a soup, along with the feet and skull and beak. This bounty is packed away in a plastic bag at Minh’s hip. Just before setting off to go, Minh holds up the awful contents, delighting one last time, and the five begin walking together through the ravaged village. It is past dawn, the day rising quickly as though a curtain is rising on the horizon, letting in more and
more sun.
“Minh, go on, give it to me. I’ll hold it!” she teases.
Minh smiles and makes to push away her fake grab for the chicken parts. The collection of bones might be pirates’ loot, gold nuggets, a set of valuable coins from a Christie’s auction. He will not part with them for the world.
“Aww, come on!” she insists.
Son joins in, too. “I’ll be the keeper. Much better, me!”
“No chance,” says Minh. “Then the woman will get a hold of it for sure!”
Now they all laugh. Minh races forward with the bones. The food has cheered them up. She feels as though her blood has grown thicker, her energy returning in a surge of new-found strength. She is still tired, of course. Her eyes itch and remain gritty no matter how often she splashes them with water, but she can walk now without feeling she may trip and fall, without feeling her legs are somehow disconnected, even failing. It is remarkable, she thinks, how at its most basic level, the body is like a machine. It works by fuel. It fails by neglect, or injury.
Hamlets like the one they now walk through are always so cleverly laid out, with shaded walkways created by woven bamboo, wide spaces for the gathering of the people, shaded by coconut palms. There is always a center area with its pump and well, the carefully fenced places for animals, the meticulously attended gardens. Susan has visited such hamlets before, marveling at how comfortable the peasants are able to make their lives simply by using the natural materials around them, and with none of the conveniences of the city.
But this hamlet looks as though it has been ransacked by animals. They pick their way around or through, dodging the walls of the former houses that lie half-burned among the heaped contents of households, laundry and baskets and hemp bags and crockery. In some areas, there really is nothing left, just charred patches on the ground, great holes in the earth where an explosive has been thrown into a shelter, or a fire has consumed whatever structure it was set to. There are torn sheaves, parts of wooden implements, coils of electrical wire, glass and pieces of gnarled metal. The trees are burnt stumps, sticking up from the ground like the ribs of some ancient half-buried monster. Further on, the fruit orchards look the same. There are places that have somehow escaped the attack and they, too, stand, oddly pristine against the ruined landscape, a reminder of what used to be.
Susan is familiar with this kind of wreckage; it does not surprise her, and as always she finds herself searching for something human among it all. On the edges of the hamlet are signs of fighting, empty cartridge clips and shell holes. Whatever else occurred, there has been bloodshed. She has seen tree trunks against which people have been executed, the blood seeped into the bark, the darkened soil below. But that would not have happened here. Not this time. Here, it would have been the Americans who came and they did not execute people. They shot those who ran. They shot those who fired. Once in a while they shot somebody obviously innocent, but these cases were the exceptions—she still believes they are the exceptions, though she knows Marc does not. He says it’s random. Whoever runs is killed, and mostly whoever hides is killed. And if you don’t hide you are also in danger of being killed. So it would not surprise her, not at all, to find a body.
They no longer walk in the fashion of soldiers guarding prisoners. Anh leads the way with Son at his side. Minh pokes through the debris, using his sword. Hien looks sullenly at the surrounds, and then seems only to study his feet as he walks. The world has reduced itself to these few people: four young men with not enough food or clothes or medicine, herself among them.
They pass a low ditch around which are wet, ruined papers, plastic jugs of fluid, jagged pieces of burnt, melted plastic. She wonders if they are pieces of a bomb and asks Son about it. “No, those held chemicals. This was an area for photo processing, I suppose,” he says.
“Photos?” She cannot understand. “Whose photos?”
“The LNA,” he says. The Liberation News Agency, the Vietcong’s press. She sees now that he may be correct. The area, though now nothing more than a shelled ditch, would have been ringed by sandbagged walls, camouflaged from above by foliage and bamboo. The rudimentary darkroom with its photo dryers and processing trays has been destroyed, but she could see within the debris the sort of plastic that you would not normally find in such a small hamlet. There are broken containers of chemicals, unusual sheets of white that might be processing paper left half-buried in the ground. She sees that in appearance it was likely an area of quiet, indoor work. Yes, it could be a field unit for photography. To think that the VC had their own press corps, their own dedicated men cradling cameras as well as guns—of course, she knew this—but to see the evidence of it before her makes it seem all the more extraordinary.
“Were you trained as a soldier?” she asks Son.
Son looks at her, surprised, but not in an unpleasant way. He smiles; she thinks he looks almost pleased. “Of course,” he says, and walks on.
The sun has not yet become so bright and hot that they need to preserve their energy. They walk with a leisurely, easy gait, almost strolling. Minh, holding the remains of the chicken, seems especially pleased. He pauses to inspect some small matter, then runs to catch up as a child might. From a distance, he might even be a child. It is only when you see him close up that you get a sense of the dense, compact muscles, the powerful, low shoulders, the solid, broad frame of him. He is handsome; she can see that beyond the dirt and the bad haircut and the awful clothes and the sheer menace of him with his gun and his sword, he is a handsome young man. Before they set off, she caught him looking at a set of photographs, small faded rectangles that showed a girl with blue black hair and a dimple in her cheek. “Is that your girlfriend?” she’d asked him.
“My wife,” he replied, to her astonishment.
“A wife!”
“Aren’t you somebody’s wife?” he asked. It had been an innocent question and she found herself feeling tender toward him for asking it in the manner in which he had. First, because she imagined that the girl in the photographs was the only girl he had ever known, but also because, for all his superior knowledge as a soldier, he could not imagine the complicated explanation as to why she was not a wife and did not belong in that way to anyone.
“No,” she said. “Not yet.”
“Soon,” he said, smiling in his fetching manner, the missing tooth showing a slice of his pink tongue. He seemed to study her face. “Soon you will be a wife, I think,” he said.
Anh brings her a bit of wet newsprint, soggy, poor-quality paper as from a child’s exercise book. Copies of the same page lie here and there like leaves around the hamlet. The wind has blown wads of them against tree trunks and what is left of the foundations of houses. Anh hands her the sheet and she sees it is a piece of propaganda, this time American.
“What does it say?” he asks.
The paper is written in Vietnamese. The sentences are short, but even so she cannot read it. “I wouldn’t know,” she tells Anh. “It’s not my language.”
She speaks in a tone as though Anh ought to have understood this. Anh’s face darkens. He grabs the paper from her hands and she realizes in that instant that if you cannot read at all then all languages look the same. Vietnamese would look like French, which could look like Swahili for all that. Anh shoves the paper under Son’s nose and Son explains carefully what the paper says, that it is a warning not to help Vietcong or else your village will look like this. He turns it over and shows Anh the picture, a crude cartoon-style drawing of bloody corpses and burning houses.
Anh balls up the notice, throws it on the ground. They head north around the edges of the hamlet and Anh leads the way with fast, determined steps. The soldiers and Susan jog now to keep up, stepping around the remains of the trees, and then Anh suddenly turns back, his rifle off his shoulder, the sight to his eye. He aims and fires all at once, shooting a wad of balled paper, the same leaflet as before, which is lost instantly in the ash of the ground under a small canopy of smoke.
&
nbsp; Minh raises his eyebrows at Susan.
“The boss is angry,” she says in English.
“He’s got reason,” says Son.
V
He is asked over and again by the refugees for permission. Permission for more rice, to return to their houses, to receive more food or blankets or clothes. He constantly has to explain he has no authority. Bao chi, he says, but they don’t seem to understand what he means. The words bounce off them unnoticed. He is not sure, himself, what he means any more. If, indeed, he is a reporter he really ought to be seen writing.
He gets out his notebook, his pens. He scratches a few words across the pages, but for some reason whenever he begins to let himself work through a thought (describing, for example, the absurd notion that by caging everyone who isn’t VC in a camp the military might scourge the land of every trace of the enemy) he feels the same awful loss of Susan. He cannot understand how her disappearance re-establishes itself again and again inside him. Wasn’t he prepared anyway to give her up? Wasn’t she always going to leave, be reabsorbed back into the world, into the country he hopes for and longs for and cannot quite imagine himself now part of: America, a place that feels to him now like a large and distant planet? Once, in the cramped, windowless room that was given over to women reporters in Danang (a room into which he was not allowed but went anyway, crossing the small hallway with easy confidence as she was the only woman there), she lay on top of him in his arms and told him she would not go back. I cannot live in America again, she said. England is no better, not really, but it is perhaps easier to forget there. The heat was terrible in that room, the air so sticky it felt like a hot flannel over his mouth, his eyes. The fan had broken and he’d hauled one from the men’s quarters for her. For them.
The Man from Saigon Page 28
