If all this sounds a little odd, well, that’s the way it was. I was feeling a little odd, and I sat down. I went to the edge of the hill in a bald spot in the weeds and I sat down and I tucked my legs up to my chest and I looked for a few moments at the breakers all along the shore, but I soon turned my eyes back to the men. They were winding down the path and they were moving, I knew, like they were on some patrol in some real hot battle area in Vietnam. They were just gliding, keeping low, and they were halfway down the hill, heading toward the brick building.
All of a sudden Frank pulled up and raised his hand in the air like he’d heard something. Vinh must have been watching the path at that moment because he ran right into Frank and nearly knocked him over. They were suddenly standing chest to chest and talking fast, both of them, and waving their arms.
I leaned forward and I grunted in frustration, loud enough for Eileen to get alarmed. “Are you going to be sick?” she said.
“No,” I said, and I guess she was still looking out to sea, dreaming about whatever it was that made her close her eyes to the breeze. I wondered just for a moment if she was thinking of Frank as he once was, or maybe somebody else altogether. But there was no shifting of my attention, really. The men were arguing and I was out of earshot and that made me angry. A Vietnamese woman never curses, especially aloud and especially in the presence of some other person, but I came very close at that moment.
I wanted to get near the action but I knew I couldn’t just run down there. It would stop the words for sure. I wanted this thing to follow its own course. Then I determined to use all of my powers of observation and figure it out. And I did pretty well, I think. I started by keeping in mind the way they’d been going down the hill. Low, silently, like they were on patrol in the war. It had something to do with all that, I figured.
The men had begun to take turns talking and it was Vinh’s turn at the moment. I watched his hands. It’s hard to ruffle Vinh, but when he does get worked up, he has very expressive hands. His right hand flipped with its palm upturned at Frank as if to say, This is what you did. Then Vinh pointed up the path they’d followed. He quickly traced it down the side of the hill to show the way they had come, and then he squared around to face Frank. He raised both his hands, slowly brought them together, and then flared them out, talking all the while, and it was like I could hear him: You led us down this path and it’s the obvious place for the VC to put booby traps; I was watching the path and not you because you put us in danger by doing the obvious thing.
Meanwhile Frank had his arms folded over his chest and when Vinh finished his point, Frank opened his arms and tilted his head like he was being indulgent with a bright child. Frank made a sweeping gesture to indicate the low weeds all along the path down the hill, and I imagined I knew his words, too: That area is no more safe than the other; at least you can see what there is on the path better than in the weeds. Then he turned and pointed at the two-story brick building to remind Vinh of their objective, where they had to be the most watchful. And Frank ended by motioning off to the trees that were tall and thick just behind the building: That’s where they are; the enemy’s out there in the trees.
Some of this maybe I figured out a little later from what happened, but I was pretty sure right away that this was basically what the argument was about. Who was right? I don’t know. Vinh had an answer for Frank, but he crossed his arms on his chest, so I couldn’t figure it out. Frank answered that, and he stuck his fists on his hips and I had lost any feeling for the conversation and I whispered, “Damn,” very softly.
The two men kept talking and finally they loosened up a little bit. They dropped their hands and they jangled around and Frank even laughed, a friendly, rearing-back kind of laugh. Vinh nodded and nodded again and he looked around.
I have to admit I was disappointed. It struck me as odd even at the time. It wasn’t ‘just that I had missed the argument, had only been able to guess at it, though that was certainly part of my disappointment. I’m pretty observant and I felt I’d gotten the pieces right that I’d figured out from the gestures, but there was something else going on, something even beneath the words they were speaking. I needed to hear those words, needed to turn my talent on the words themselves, looking deeper. Then Frank even cuffed Vinh on the shoulder. I said it louder: “Damn.” Now they were friends again. I’d missed it all and there didn’t even seem to be any hard feelings that I’d be able to observe later. Foolish men. They didn’t even know how to hold a grudge.
They were gesturing. I leaned forward. Frank pointed at Vinh and then off to the trees. He touched his own chest and swept his arm toward the sea. Then Vinh pointed at the brick building and they nodded. I didn’t figure this out very quickly. It even puzzled me when they both stooped down and studied the path and separated, picking things up off the dirt and stuffing them into their pockets. This was very strange. Then Vinh stood up briefly with one of the things from the ground in his hand. He held it up and it looked like a stone, a rather large stone, and Frank came up behind him and looked, too, and shook his head no. He held something up and it must have been another stone, smaller. Vinh nodded and dropped the large stone and they both kept looking. But when Frank’s back was turned, I saw Vinh return and pick up the big one.
I was beginning to understand. They finally had enough stones in their pockets and they approached each other once more and spoke briefly and then they stood back to back, Vinh facing the trees and Frank facing the hillside and the sea. It was like in all the old movies where two men are going to fight a duel. I wondered for a moment if that’s what they were going to do, if they’d just go ten paces, turn, and throw rocks at each other.
But they had something else in mind. At some signal between them they began to walk away from each other, but they just kept walking. Frank went over the edge of the hill and disappeared. Vinh kept going until he splashed through a narrow stream and came up to the edge of the woods. I understood now that this was some kind of little war game. They were going to stalk each other or something. Maybe try to capture and control the brick building. When this hit me, I suddenly grew aware of Vinh’s red shirt, how it would stand out among the trees. But, as it sometimes happens between husbands and wives, Vinh seemed to have the thought just as I did. Or maybe I sent it to him. I don’t know. But he stopped at the trees and looked back, looked briefly for Frank, and when the man was not in sight, Vinh took off his red shirt and rolled it up and put it under his arm.
My husband’s chest and arms are quite strong, really, and I tilted my head at seeing them suddenly like this, across a field, against those trees, the breeze coming off the bay, and I felt a little wiggle of something in me, a snaky little romantic feeling that started in my chest and then, as Vinh moved into the woods and the dark skin of his broad back faded into the shadows, the feeling slithered out of my chest and down inside me real fast and I looked out to the sea and closed my eyes.
Here I was in this little pose and if someone was watching me who knew what to look for in people, she would wonder if I was thinking of Vinh as he once was, or maybe someone else altogether. The answer was that I was thinking of neither of these. As soon as I closed my eyes, I was aware only of myself; I stepped out of myself and saw me, and that was all that was in my mind. The romance was gone right away. I’m sometimes too observant for my own damn good. It should’ve been Vinh as he once was who I was thinking about. That would have been nice, that moment.
But instead I remembered Eileen sitting in this same way nearby, and I opened my eyes. The hillside and the brick building and the woods were deserted. I glanced over to Eileen and she was lying on her back, her forearm over her face. She seemed to be asleep.
I looked back down the hill and that feeling of being let down that I’d had earlier came back. The whole scene in front of me kind of blurred. Even all the things that my mind knew were beautiful seemed flat all of a sudden, like a postcard you’d buy in a hurry at the airport.
But I
did wonder where the men were. So I looked harder. Frank had claimed the shore and the hillside, and I figured it would be easier to spot him at this point. The slope went down and then rolled over a crest and into another slope I couldn’t see, and beyond, there was the meadow with the naked foundation in the center. Farther on was another crest and another invisible slope, this one dropping down to the shore and the sea. I figured Frank was on one of the far slopes and I waited for a few moments and he was staying out of sight and so I peered into the woods where Vinh had gone.
It seemed like a pretty silly game to me. I wasn’t sure what they were doing. They weren’t exactly stalking each other, or they probably would’ve both gone into the woods. But maybe they were stalking. Frank had to defend his earlier actions out here in the open, going down the path and all. Maybe he was the force that had taken the beach—like those first Marines coming ashore in Ðà Nng or something. And Vinh was the other side—would he actually play the part of the Vietcong, who he hated? Perhaps. Perhaps if this American had given him no choice, he would play the Vietnamese no matter what the politics. I didn’t know. And I guess it’s important to realize that I didn’t know what Vinh would do in this situation. The man in the woods was hidden from me, too.
Then I saw Frank. His black shirt and shorts would have been good camouflage in the shade of the trees, but against the meadow he was very clearly visible. He was moving in that low glide of his and he crouched behind the stone foundation. He peeked up and looked in the direction of the brick building, which was maybe a hundred and fifty meters across the meadow and up a roll of the hill. I didn’t know what he was waiting for, if the point was to go take the building. Vinh was nowhere in sight, and I didn’t know what Vinh was waiting for either.
The truth be told, my husband was in the airborne, but I think he was mostly back at the base camp giving orders and organizing supplies and looking after paperwork. He is a businessman, always has been and I guess he always will be. And Frank said himself he was a helicopter mechanic. These men weren’t fighters, in spite of their nearness to a war.
I scanned the tree line and then I saw Vinh. He was sliding around a tree, and it struck me that I was watching this old movie. These men were crouching and hiding and sneaking around like all the old movie actors in all the old war and spy and detective movies ever made, all those wonderful old unreal movies. that made my hours after midnight so peaceful. Vinh was a heavy sleeper and I had good hearing and so I could watch these films in my bed. I would pull the sheet up to my nose and lie there on my Posturepedic mattress and I was in the United States of America in an era of peace and prosperity in spite of the deficits and I could hear the wind outside as a Louisiana summer storm blew in and I was safe and I was cozy and I was watching a whole world of men with steel pots or fedoras on their heads and they were in the middle of big trouble, but boy, could they sneak around and glide around, and they were never going to get hurt by anything, you knew that for sure.
Vinh slipped out of the woods and I realized that Frank didn’t see him because the brick building, was between the two of them. Vinh stood by the little stream and he looked up to the top of the second floor of the building and sighted from there down to his feet on the bank of the stream. Then he laid his rolled red shirt next to a rock and he crouched low and stepped over the flowing water.
I looked at Frank and he was moving. He was going around the far side of the foundation in his low crouch and he was heading, I guessed, for the building. Meanwhile, Vinh was edging his way around the near end, his neck craned hard to his left so he could catch early sight of Frank if he should suddenly appear. But Frank was circling wide now to approach from the other direction, and so the men were still unaware of each other.
Vinh made it to the side staircase that led to the upper floor. He climbed it quickly but he slowed abruptly and ducked down as he neared the top. Then he peeked over to make sure that Frank wasn’t already there, and when he saw that the place was deserted, I swear I could see his body actually ripple in delight. He scrambled up on top of the building, went to the back edge so he could view his red shirt by the stream, and he dug into his pocket and placed some of his stones beside him.
Frank was high-stepping down a slope and he disappeared as soon as I saw this. I waited, and then a few moments later, his head popped up at the crest of the hill at the far side of the brick building. The head disappeared again and then popped up once more.
“Aren’t they lovely?” This was Eileen’s voice. Needless to say, the sentiment surprised me. I turned to her and she was still on her back but she had moved her forearm off her eyes. She was looking up into the sky. I followed her gaze. There were some high, white clouds.
“That one is the head of a pony,” she said. The head of a pony. Do I sound like that sometimes? I bet I do. Eileen and I probably respond to the same things. Not even the head of a horse. She saw a sweet little pony. Of course. A lonesome little pony, and the little girl makes a long-distance phone call to the pony and it isn’t lonesome anymore. If they filmed that and put it on between the soaps, I’d weep at that one, too. The little pony shaking its forelock in delight as someone holds the phone up to its ear. I’m a sucker for any of that. But at this moment the pony struck me as pretty uninspired. Dumb, even, seeing a pony in the cloud and getting dreamy-voiced over it.
But I said, “It sure does” as sincerely as I could and I turned to see Frank spank across the grass and throw himself—out of my sight now—against the far wall of the building. Vinh raised his head and looked over his shoulder. He had probably heard the impact. I waited and I expected to see Frank ease his way around the comer and come along the front wall. But he was apparently suspicious of the front, because I waited and waited and so did Vinh, though he eventually turned his face back to his shirt at the stream.
Finally I saw Frank. Vinh tipped me off by suddenly lowering his head. A moment later I saw Frank slip up and press himself against a tree at the back of the building. He was looking toward the woods now, and I wondered if he saw the shirt. Even as I thought this, Frank did a double take. A real double take, a little bit like the cartoon characters, though Frank’s eyes didn’t bug out. His face extended forward and he looked at the red color, and connections were going off in his head.
He looked all around and he studied the tree line carefully and then he dug into his pocket and armed himself with a rock—I could imagine him whispering to himself, “Lock and load, troop.” And Vinh was all this time sneaking little glances over the edge of the roof, his rock already in his hand. I wondered if it was the big rock that Frank had made him throw down. I figured it wasn’t, however. Not at this point. Vinh even held the stone up briefly, perhaps to see if it was the roundest one, the one he could throw most accurately, and it didn’t look from this distance like the big one. I was glad. I was sure if he used the big one that Frank would get very angry.
Frank was slung low and creeping up to the stream, eyeing the red shirt very carefully. He stopped just across the stream and he looked at it and he cocked his head and finally he even straightened up. I don’t know what he was thinking. So it was Vinh’s shirt. Did he expect that to help him find the man? Obviously Vinh wasn’t in the shirt. But I think Frank was very pleased with himself for finding it. It seemed meaningful to him. Then Vinh’s stone hit him right on the point of his left shoulder.
Frank spun around and I could hear his curse even from this distance. Vinh immediately jumped up and raised his arms in the air in victory. Frank rubbed his shoulder and then he darted away, behind a tree, and then to another, and then he ran to the near side of the building and pulled up and pressed himself against the wall. Vinh was clearly agitated. He thought he had already won. He flapped his arms in exasperation and I could see Frank was ready for more war. He had a stone in his hand as if to throw it. He looked up above him and dashed to the foot of the steps and again pressed back against the wall. Vinh called out something that I could not hear. Probably Frank�
�s name. Probably telling him that the little game was over.
But Frank was creeping up the steps and obviously wasn’t answering my husband, and finally Vinh dug in his pocket for more stones and moved into the center of the roof. He figured that Frank was on the way up. This time Vinh looked very carefully at the contents of his pocket and I knew even before he held it up that he had the big stone.
I stood up, afraid for them both. But there was nothing I could do, of course. Frank figured he was just wounded, since Vinh had only hit him in the shoulder. Vinh figured the war was over and was really angry when it turned out that it wasn’t. I wanted to call out to them, but I could find no words. This was a distant event, farther from me even than the Hollywood studio-set wars I watched from under the covers. It was as far from me as my husband was far from me; as far as that secret, silent part of him that was so difficult a thing between us.
Frank stopped just before his head was ready to show itself to Vinh. My husband was now poised in the center of the roof with the big rock in his right hand and cocked back over his shoulder, ready to throw. Frank waited and I could feel him mustering his strength, focusing on one leap into the open, his own rocks flying. Just like in the movies. But for a moment I wondered if Vinh would kill him, if Vinh would fire at the first sight of the man’s head and hit him in the temple with the big rock and that would be the end. I could not draw a breath. “How lovely,” Eileen Sighed.
Then Frank clambered up the final few steps, very slowly, it seemed to me, although his legs and arms were obviously straining to make this a lightning strike. Hold, hold, I cried in my mind to Vinh’s arm. Don’t aim at the head.
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories Page 22
