We continued north, and Hung Vuong crossed the Perfume River at the Trang Tien Bridge, near the floating restaurant. I could see the Dong Ba market on the opposite bank, where Mr. Anh and I ate peanuts and talked.
The taxi stopped at a bus terminal that also said Dong Ba, and Susan and I got out, got our luggage, and I paid the driver.
I said, “Are we going by bus?”
“No. But the terminal is open now, and that’s what the driver will remember. We have to walk to Dong Ba market, which is also open at this hour.”
We put our backpacks on, and I wheeled my suitcase down the road. Susan carried my overnight bag. I said, “I’m going along with this because you had some training in these things at Langley, and you know this country. So of course you know what you’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
We were in the Dong Ba market within five minutes, and it was already open in the predawn darkness; people who were probably restauranteurs were haggling over the price of strange-looking fish and slabs of meat.
A man stood under a naked light bulb hanging from a wire and said in English, “You come see number one fruit.”
I ignored him, but Susan followed him around to the back of a big produce stall. I followed.
The man opened a rickety door in the back of the stall, and Susan entered. The man stood at the door and said to me, “Come. Quickly.”
I went through the door and he closed it. We were in a long narrow room, lit by a few light bulbs. The room smelled of fruit and damp earth.
Susan and the man spoke in Vietnamese, then Susan said to me, “Paul, you remember Mr. Uyen from dinner at the Pham house.”
Indeed I did. To show him I really remembered him, I said in Vietnamese, “Sat Cong.”
He smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Sat Cong. Sat Cong.”
I said to Susan, “The kiwis look good.”
She replied, “Mr. Uyen has offered to help us.”
I looked at Mr. Uyen and said, “Do you understand that we are under surveillance by the Ministry of Public Security, and they may have seen us talking to you and your family after mass, and that they may have followed us to your home? Do you understand all that?”
His English wasn’t so good, but he understood every last word. He nodded slowly and said to me, “I do not care if I die.”
“Well, Mr. Uyen, I care if I die.”
“I no care.”
I didn’t think he understood that I cared if I died. In any case, I said to him, “If police arrest me with motorcycle, they find you. License plate. Biet?”
He replied to Susan, who said to me, “The plate was taken from a motorcycle that was destroyed in an accident.”
I said to Susan, “Okay, but if they trace the motorcycle to him, tell him we’ll tell the police we stole it from him. Okay? And tell him we’ll drop it in a lake or something when we’re done with it.”
She told him, and he replied in Vietnamese to Susan, who said to me, “He says he hates the Communists, and he is willing to become one who suffers… a martyr… for his faith.”
I looked at Mr. Uyen and asked, “And your family?”
He replied, “All same.”
It’s hard arguing with people who are looking for martyrdom, but at least I tried.
It occurred to me, too, that Mr. Uyen was probably motivated not only by his faith, but also by his hatred for what happened in 1968 and since then. Mr. Anh, too, was not completely motivated by ideals, such as freedom and democracy; he was motivated by the same hate as Mr. Uyen— they’d both had family members murdered. You can forgive battlefield deaths, but you don’t forget cold-blooded murder.
I said, “Okay, as long as everybody here knows the consequences.”
In the dim light, I saw a large tarp draped over what must be the motorcycle.
Mr. Uyen saw me looking at it and walked to it, and tore off the tarp.
Sitting there on the earth floor of the narrow room was a huge black motorcycle of a make that I couldn’t identify.
I went over to it and put my hand on the big leather saddle. On the molded fiberglass fairing it said BMW and under that Paris-Dakar. I wasn’t going to either of those places, though Paris sounded good. I said to Mr. Uyen, “I’ve never seen this model.”
He said, “Good motorcycle. You go to mountain, to big… road…” He looked at Susan and tried it in Vietnamese.
She listened, then said to me, “It’s a BMW, Paris-Dakar model, probably named after the race of the same name—”
“Dakar is in West Africa. Does this thing float?”
“I don’t know, Paul. Listen. It’s got a 980cc engine, and it holds forty-five liters of fuel, and it has a two-liter reserve, and the range is about five hundred to five hundred and fifty kilometers. Mr. Uyen says it’s excellent for mud, cross-country, and the open road. That’s what it’s made for.”
I replied, “I guess so if you can go from Paris to West Africa with it.” I looked at the big tank, which rode high on the frame so it couldn’t be punctured from the ground. With a range of over five hundred kilometers, we might only have to refuel once during the 900 kilometer trip to Dien Bien Phu. I knelt and checked out the tires, which were big, about eighteen inches, and they had good tread.
Susan was talking to Mr. Uyen, then said to me, “He says it’s very fast and… I think he means maneuverable… and it has not bumps. I guess that means it’s an easy ride. My biker vocabulary is a little thin.”
I turned to Mr. Uyen and asked, “How much?”
He shook his head. “Free.”
I hadn’t heard that word in any context since I’d stepped off the plane at Tan Son Nhat, and I almost fainted. I said to Mr. Uyen, “We cannot give motorcycle back to you. One way. Bye-bye. Di di.”
He was nodding, but I didn’t know if I’d made myself clear.
Susan said, “I already told him that. He understands.”
“Really? Where and when did you speak to him?”
“During dinner I mentioned I had a problem, and I was invited to breakfast Sunday morning. You were, too, but you had appointments.”
I seemed to recall she’d said she slept until noon. I said, “So this is a done deal?”
“Only if you want it.”
I thought about that and said to Susan in cryptic English, “Aside from my concerns that other people might be on to us, and on to these people, it’s a thousand klicks to you-know-where. That’s a lot of saddle sores and mud. You up for that?”
She said something to Mr. Uyen, and he laughed hard.
“What’s so funny?”
She said to me, “I told Mr. Uyen you wanted to know if he has an elephant instead.”
I wasn’t amused.
Mr. Uyen was patting the saddle and said, “Good motorcycle. Buy from French man. He…” He spoke to Susan.
She said to me, “There was a cross-country race here last year. Hanoi to Hue.”
“Did the Frenchman win?”
Susan smiled and asked Mr. Uyen. He replied, and she said to me, “He came in second.”
“Let’s find the bike that came in first.”
She was getting impatient with me. “Paul. Yes or no?”
Well, the price was right, so I jumped on the bike and said, “Take me through this.”
Mr. Uyen gave Susan and me a quick and confusing lesson on how to drive a BMW Paris-Dakar motorcycle. I had the impression Mr. Uyen didn’t really know how to drive this machine, or he drove it like all Vietnamese drive everything — by trial and error, with a lot of horn honking.
I got off the bike. “Full tank?” I patted the tank.
Mr. Uyen nodded.
“Okay…” I looked at Susan. “Okay?”
She nodded.
We opened the plastic bag and put on our Montagnard biker costumes: leather jacket for me, quilted jacket for Susan, fur-trimmed leather hats, and Montagnard scarves. Mr. Uyen was amused.
We emptied our backpacks into the big
saddlebags and stuffed the collapsed packs on top.
I said to Mr. Uyen, “You keep suitcase and overnight bag. Okay? Take care of my blue blazers.”
He nodded, then took a map from a zippered leather pouch mounted on the fiberglass fairing and gave it to me. He said, “Vietnam.”
“You got one of Paris?”
“Where you go?”
“To kill Commies.”
“Good. Where you go?”
“Dalat.”
“Okay. Good. Go safe.”
“Thank you.” I took out my wallet and handed him the last two hundred dollars I had, which was not a bad price for an expensive Beemer.
He shook his head.
Susan said, “He really wants to give us the motorcycle.”
“Okay.” I said to Mr. Uyen, “Thank you.”
He bowed, then looked around at his stack of fruit, chose a bunch of bananas and stuffed them into the Beemer’s saddlebags, then he took two liters of bottled water and lay them on top of the bananas. He motioned me to wheel the bike to the door, which I did.
Mr. Uyen went to the door, opened it a crack, and peeked out. He looked at us and nodded.
I zippered my leather jacket, wrapped the dark scarf around my neck, and put on the tinted goggles, then pulled on the leather gloves, which were tight.
Susan was doing the same, and we looked at each other. It was funny, but it wasn’t funny. She asked me, “Are you driving that thing, or flying it?”
“This was not my idea.”
Susan and Mr. Uyen exchanged Happy New Year greetings and bows. I shook hands with Mr. Uyen and said, “Thank you, again. You are a good man.”
He looked at me and in perfect English said, “God bless you and God bless Miss Susan and God bless your journey.”
I said, “And you be careful.”
He nodded and opened the door.
I wheeled the heavy bike out into the dark marketplace with Susan right behind me. I glanced back at Mr. Uyen, but the door was closed.
Susan said, “Keep wheeling the bike to the road over there.”
I wheeled the bike through the dimly lit marketplace. The drizzle had stopped, replaced by a cold river mist. A few people glanced at us, but my own mother wouldn’t have recognized me, so it didn’t matter.
Susan said, “Okay, I think the best way out of here is along the river road to the left. Ready?”
I jumped on the bike and started the engine. The roar sounded terrific and I could feel the power pulsating through the frame. I revved the engine and glanced at the gauges, which all seemed to be working. I flipped on the lights as Susan climbed on behind me. I kicked the bike into first gear, and off we went up a grassy slope to the river road.
I drove along the embankment with the Perfume River to our left and the towering walls of the Hue Citadel to our right. The bike had lots of power, even with two people on it. This could be fun. Then again, maybe not.
There wasn’t much traffic, so I was able to learn how to drive this big machine without killing us or anyone else.
We passed the two river bridges, then passed by the flag tower, then a few minutes later, the south wall of the Citadel ended, and Susan called out, “Turn right.”
I turned onto a road that paralleled the west wall of the Citadel and which ran north along the railroad track. The two-kilometer-long wall of the Citadel ended, and we crossed over the wide moat that surrounded the walls. The road got wider, and I realized I was on Highway One.
Susan tapped me, and I glanced over my shoulder at her. She had her arm out, and I looked to where she was pointing. Receding in the distance were the Citadel walls within which lay the imperial city of Hue, the capital of the emperors, the flower of Vietnamese cities, that had died in 1968, and was born again on the bones of its people.
I thought of Mr. Anh, and his father, the army captain, and of Mr. Uyen and the Pham family, and the sixteen-sided restaurant where Susan and I had dinner in the rain, and Tet Eve and the Perfume River, and the cathedral, and the holiday lights and the sky rockets. The Year of the Ox.
Susan wrapped her arms around me, put her mouth to my ear and said, “I always feel sad when I leave a place where I had a good experience.”
I nodded.
The sky was brightening in the east, and Highway One, the Street Without Joy, on which we’d traveled to Quang Tri and back, and hell and back, was filled with morning traffic.
I looked at the foothills in the distance as they caught the first light of the sun rising over the South China Sea. I remembered those hills and the cold rain of February 1968. Most importantly, I remembered the men, who were really boys, grown too old before they’d finished their boyhoods, and who had died too young, before any of their dreams could come true.
I always felt I had been living on borrowed time since 1968, and each day was a day that the others never had; so to the best of my ability, whenever I thought about it, I’d tried to live the days well and to appreciate the extra time.
I reached back and squeezed Susan’s leg.
She held me tighter and closer, and rested her head on my shoulder.
It had been a long, strange journey from Boston, Massachusetts; the destination was unknown, but the journey was a gift from God.
BOOK VI
Up Country
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
We continued north on Highway One, and the traffic became heavier as the sky lightened. Now and then I got the motorcycle up to one hundred KPH, and I got good at doing the Vietnamese horn-honking weave.
Susan said into my ear, “Before Cu Chi, when was the last time you drove a bike?”
“About twenty years ago.” I added, “You never forget. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering.”
We passed the turnoff for Quang Tri City, and we saw the abandoned tank and the destroyed Buddhist high school where this all began. A while later, we crossed the bridge where the pillbox sat with my name inscribed inside.
Fifteen minutes later, we slowed down for Dong Ha Junction and passed slowly through the ugly truck stop town. As we came to the intersection of Highway 9, we saw two policemen in a yellow jeep parked on the opposite side of the road. They barely gave us a glance.
Susan said, “Those cops thought we were Montagnards.”
“I don’t know what they thought we were, but this limited edition bike stands out.”
“Only to you. There are so many new imported goods in this country that the Viets barely notice anymore.”
I wasn’t totally buying that. I had another thought and said, “I don’t see any other Montagnards on motorcycles.”
She replied, “I saw two.”
“Point them out to me next time.”
I continued on toward the DMZ. We were north of Highway 9 now, in the old marine area of operations, and I’d been on this stretch of road only once, when I caught a convoy to go see the Boston friend of mine who was stationed at Con Thien. He was in the field on an operation, so I missed him, but I left a note on his cot that he never saw.
There was a string of market stalls along the highway north of Dong Ha, but once I cleared them, I got the bike back up to one hundred KPH. I could see now from this perspective that it wasn’t as dangerous as Susan had made it look on the road to Cu Chi.
Within fifteen minutes, the landscape changed from bleak to dead, and I said to Susan, “I think we just crossed into the DMZ.”
“God… it’s devastated.”
I looked at this no-man’s-land, still uninhabited, pocked with bomb and shell craters, the white soil covered with straggly, stunted vegetation. If the moon had a few inches of rainfall, it would probably look like this.
I saw some barbed wire in the distance, and the wreck of a rusting Jeep, sitting in a posted minefield where even the metal scavengers wouldn’t go.
Up ahead in the mist, I could see the hazy outline of a bridge which I knew must cross the Ben Hai River. I slowed down and said to Susan, “When I was here, the br
idge wasn’t.”
I drove onto the middle of the bridge and stopped. I looked at the river that had divided North and South Vietnam for twenty years and said, “This is it. I’m in North Vietnam.”
She said, “I’m still in South Vietnam. Pull up.”
“Walk.”
She got off the motorcycle, opened a saddlebag, and removed the manila envelope that held the photographs from Pyramide Island. With her cigarette lighter, she lit the corner of the envelope. The envelope blazed in her hand, and she held it until the last second, then dropped the flaming photos off the bridge and into the river.
We mounted up and continued on across the bridge.
On this side of the bridge was a statue of a North Vietnamese soldier, complete with pith helmet and an AK-47 rifle. He had the same lifeless eyes of the American statues at the Wall.
We continued on into former enemy territory. The farther we went away from the DMZ, the better the land looked, though there were still a large number of bomb craters and destroyed buildings dotting the landscape.
The road was no better here, and it was slick from the mist and drizzle. I kept wiping my goggles and face with my Montagnard scarf, and my leather jacket was shiny with moisture.
We passed a motorcycle going south, and the riders were dressed like we were. They waved as they passed, and we waved in return.
Susan said, “See? Even Montagnards think we’re Montagnards.”
Within an hour, we approached a good-sized town that had a sign that read Dong Hoi.
We entered the town, and I slowed down and looked around. What struck me was that the place looked more gloomy and run-down than anything I’d seen in the former South Vietnam. The cars and trucks were older, and there were not as many motor scooters or cyclos. Nearly everyone was riding a bicycle or walking, and their clothes looked dirty and worn. Also, there was not nearly as much commercial activity here as south of the DMZ; no bars, no shops, and only a few cafés. It reminded me of the first time I’d crossed from West Germany to East Germany.
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