For the Sake of All Living Things (86 page)

He was not the same man. He’d made his report, then rewritten it, then been forced to reconsider and rewrite it again. His lament, his constant urgent depression: the provinces are being fucked over and those embassy bastards are drinking French wine. We must do more. He’d thought the thought a hundred times. He ran his own mental review: last week the NVA shelled Saigon with 122s, crippled Phnom Penh’s incoming freighter traffic, blocked the river, overran the border; and those guys in the embassy are in looney-tune land. The surface route between the capitals is all but closed and they swill cognac and suck down Camembert. Every day there’re new reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities—reconfirming what I wrote—but no one cares. They don’t really believe it.

Sullivan arched his back, neck, looked up without removing his elbows from his knees, thought of Sean Flynn decapitated in the paddy, of Suong, of the new major handing him the report and saying, “The whale that surfaces, Captain, is the one that gets harpooned.”

Sullivan rose. He walked to the wall, laid his head against the old plaster, leaned in and closed his eyes. There was fear in his eyes, behind them—a fear as if everyone he saw, everyone he’d seen while returning to his quarters, as if he’d seen them dead. The circle of men betting on fighting crickets—soon to be dead. Amid the celebrators, the students still demonstrating against Lon Nol’s disposal of Cheng Heng as chief of state—soon to be dead. The groups of boys and of FANK soldiers kicking and throwing their puppet-balls—a ritual game reaffirming friendship—all to be shot, not heroically like Suong, but ritualistically like those dead at Turn Nop and those he and his group had skirted on their slinking trek back from Tang Kouk. The wealthy rubbing shoulders with the starving, the jugglers and fortune-tellers performing for small fees, the monks being honored and casting blessings—“What’s he saying to them?” Sullivan asked the
samlo
driver. “He say, ‘Happy New Year.’ ” The driver smiled—and Sullivan smiled back and felt warm and then saw them, the monks, the blessed, the driver, soon dead too. Becoming Khmer, he thought. Accepting fate, he thought. So fucking un-American, he thought. The NVA 312th and 320th Divisions were pulverizing Kontum; the 324th and 304th Divisions, with fifteen thousand troops each plus fifteen thousand attached in support and surface-to-air missile units, were leveling Dong Ha and Quang Tri; Firebase Bastogne was under siege; and Saigon was again being shelled. Action, America, he thought, and he felt good about the thought that B-52s had begun revenge bombings of Hanoi and Haiphong.

Sullivan returned to his cot, picked up the novel, reread the page he’d been on for two days. “...this was to be the last time we would see any uniforms at all except as the walking symbols of defeated men’s pride and...” He closed the book. “...the walking symbols of defeated men’s pride...”

Fuck it, he thought. He stood, snapped up straight, rolled his shoulders. Conklin was chiding him in his memory. “I got me a fine young lady...the most wonderful smile...How come you ain’t got a gal, L-T?” “No time to commit, Conk,” he’d said, or, “Haven’t found the right lady.” But in his mind too, Huntley reminded him, “...in Neak Luong...she was missin ya. She was real concerned.”

Sullivan breathed deeply. Everything was such a clusterfuck. His “advising” had blown over and he’d been allowed restricted roaming privileges, but then “advising” had rereared its horrible head and he’d been reconfined. He squeezed his hands into fists, flexed the fingers back as far as they’d go, stretched his arms up until the ceiling fan ticked his fingernails, bent straight-legged and palmed the floor. He moved to the desk. They could have rotated him, to Saigon, to the World, even to the new training facility being built in Thailand, but they’d kept him in Phnom Penh writing and rewriting the same report until he was completely sick of thinking about it...until he was confused as to what was real, what he’d invented.

She is the right lady, he said inside. He repeated it in a nearly audible mumble, then again in a clear soft voice that sounded alien to his ears.

Sullivan sat, opened his box of thin airmail sheets, removed one and in French began,
Ma Amante Vathana
...He stopped. He had not thought of what to write.

Again, as you surely know, I have been restricted. I think of you every day. I think of the war, of what I’ve seen, of the psychic roller-coaster we are on. It is so good to be alive—why must some spoil that for all? Life is wonderful. It
should
be fun. Unconquered obstacles bring suffering and the wonder stops but that’s not necessary. It is not inevitable. Though I am not allowed to leave the capital I have been able to secure some supplies for the camp and orphanage.

Sullivan paused. He would not give her the full figures but would cut them in half. If the pilfering was less, she’d be elated with the extra.

Food is being rationed to the refugees here but much becomes sidetracked. I have been able to secure the return of 2,500 kilos of cassava flour but for it to be replaced into the system would cause the shipper and warehouse manager great loss of face. It is yours. Also, via the mother of an embassy employee, we have obtained materials to build and equip a health station for your camp. Since Ron Huntley left, other items seem harder to scavenge.

Again Sullivan paused. He had not seen Vathana for two months, not since agreeing to take the wedding photo album to her mother-in-law. The longer he was away the more he pined, the more he fantasized, the more perfect she became. Come to Phnom Penh, he thought to write. Come live with me. Come be my wife, forever. But he did not write those words. Instead he reread his last line and then continued.

I am again very afraid for you. There is a pattern to Communist revolution. (1) The corruption of the established regime leads to disenfranchisement of the masses which is a vacuum for insurgency—the initial blame lies with the old guard. (2) Idealists and nationalists, with good intent and reason, are attracted to insurgent agent-led associations. The revolution begins in the countryside. (3) Once victory over local or national government is achieved, the core Communists of the associations emerge. There is then a second revolution—the Communists attack the leading idealists and nationalists. This is what occurred in North Viet Nam in 1946 when the Lao Dong Party began its liquidation of non-Communist, anti-French nationalists—about thirty groups. (4) After the second victory the Communists become more ruthless and eliminate all non-Communist rebels. (5) After the third victory they disarm and purge all elements other than their own hard-core elite. (6) Finally the hard core directs a fourth revolution against the leader-less and unarmed masses—a revolution which stands the culture on its head—the communization of all property and all patterns of life. At this stage the population is reduced to serfs or slaves depending on the benevolence, or belligerence of the new regime.

Dear Vathana, enclave Cambodia is in stage two; “liberated” Cambodia, the reports we all ignore, is at stage four or even five! How can I urge you not to be seduced into the morass of sincere-sounding Communist altruism? What can I say to convince you it is only bait, a lure to bring you under their control? With what is happening across the border—ARVN intelligence has broken the NVA radio codes and the Communist army is being smashed—it is more important than ever that you remain independent. The depths of Communist deception are bottomless. I’ve told you before some of what I’ve learned. Now our embassy has picked up radio traffic of North Korean “engineers” directing Khmer Rouge units in combat against

FANK. And yet the key to our victory remains simple: destroy their urban political structure while counterattacking their main-force units in the countryside. (FANK is reorganizing to divisions, which is both beyond its leadership capacity and, since Chenla II, its spirit.)

Perhaps I go on too long. But it is because I worry about you and because I [Sullivan hesitated then finished the line] love you.

J. L.

PS: I was not able to give your album to Madame Pech but left it with your brother-in-law, Teck. He was very grateful and immensely kind.

Vathana entered quietly. She padded softly behind the audience looking into the dim room for her new friend, Ney Nem. At the front of the room, on a small raised platform, was Keo Kosol, the poet. Vathana spied Nem seated on a mat to the right. Quietly she moved to her and sat. Kosol began his newest
ayay
, “Broken Land, Broken Heart.” Nem squeezed Vathana’s arm in greeting, said nothing, stared at Keo Kosol.

Two hours earlier the rain had stopped, the children had lain down and fallen asleep and Sophan had gone to assist in the health tent. On Vathana’s sleeping mat was the unopened letter from Captain Sullivan. Vathana had had an urge to open it immediately upon its arrival but had instead denied herself the knowledge of its content, telling herself to conquer the passion and to strengthen her self-control. The letter remained unopened for two days. She stared at it. It was fat. As a New Year’s precept she’d vowed to refrain from sexual misconduct. Not seeing, not acknowledging Sullivan lessened her anxiety over their affair. The letter raised it. Perhaps, she thought, this is not self-denial.

From deep in the camp a radio began blasting Western rock ’n’ roll. She tried to shut her ears. Life was more complex than ever. Every day people were murdered—by bombs, by artillery, by terrorists. The camp population was again increasing. Neak Luong was again a government island in a war-torn sea. Vathana unsealed the flap, removed the pages, read, reread, returned the letter to the envelope. “...destroy their urban political structure...” she thought. “...idealists with good intent...” she thought. Sullivan’s arrogance irritated her. Perhaps it was something more. Perhaps, she thought, it was that he was American and she Khmer. I should stay with Khmers, she thought vaguely.

She dropped the envelope on the mat. With her left hand she smoothed her hair. Samnang’s noisy breathing in sleep mixed with the buzz of mosquitos and flies and the loud distant music. Since the New Year she had not allowed a single grain of sugar, not a single smile other than a compassionate softening of her features to a patient, to part her lips. Tonight that precept was over. When Sophan returned, Vathana kissed the sleeping children and left for the meeting.

Keo Kosol’s voice was very beautiful. His
ayay
, or talking blues poetry, to Vathana was the most lyrical and meaningful she’d ever heard. And he, older than she, gaunt, intense, was the most holy
laic
—layman—she’d ever seen. When he finished the sorrowful “Broken Land, Broken Heart” Vathana’s face glistened with tears. Nem put her arm about Vathana and whispered, “This next one is more frightful. I heard him last night at the Women’s Association meeting. I think it’s his best.”

Keo Kosol’s sonorous voice filled the vacant store, its deep bass resonating into every individual. “I wrote this poem,” he said; “after my first night in the Khsach Sa camp. My mother had been killed only that morning. My father was paralyzed in grief. It is called ‘Struggle Against Fire.’ ”

“He lives in the camp?!” Vathana whispered to Nem.

“Yes. Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

No sound but the moth’s wing on the saffron-flowered hibiscus

No smell but the aroma of the blossom

Monks’ robes flutter in gentle Kampuchean zephyrs

Thmil
sky fires saffron blood roar devouring moth flower

“Mother,” cries the child father brother...

Outside a posse of young “cowboys” ran by the storefront. Some shouted ugly words. Some screeched. Vathana reached to her neck. She unbuttoned three buttons, reached in, removed the Buddha statuette and kissed it. Kosol continued. Vathana’s concentration broke. She glanced outside. For days the city had been under internal siege by groups of old residents demanding lower rice prices. Since January inflation had increased fifty percent, food prices were up twenty-four. Many stores, like the one in which the Patriotic Youth Club and the Khmer Patriots for Peace were now meeting, had closed. Owners vanished. Shops were looted, stripped.

Two jeeps sped by. Then an amphibious vehicle with large Black Cobra insignias. Vathana brought the statuette back to her lips, kissed it, whispered a prayer. Then she looked back to the stage. Kosol was staring at her fingers as they caressed the amulet between her breasts. He had finished “Struggle Against Fire.” People were congratulating him. Two lanterns were lit and the room became bright.

“May I have your attention, please,” someone began.

“Isn’t he wonderful,” Nem said to Vathana. All about them people were standing, talking, exchanging phrases of kindness and caring. Several women produced ceramic dishes with curried eel and rice and invited all to share.

The man on the platform again called for attentions then ceased trying to overcome the drone of individual conversations. Nem clasped her hands and beamed. “Mr. Keo...”

“Kosol,” he said, not looking at her but at Vathana.

“Kosol,” Nem said self-consciously. “I heard ‘Struggle Against Fire’ last night. And tonight. It’s so sad. So moving.”

“Did you like it?” Kosol addressed Vathana.

She still clutched the Buddha. His eyes flicked from her face to her breasts, then back. “Yes,” she said simply. “But I think I must hear it again.” For an instant she thought he looked like her father, thinner, not as old, handsome, better looking up close than onstage. “When the army went by I began thinking of...of the Americans. They’ve broken the North Viet Namese radio codes, you know. Their bombing has been devastating to the Communists.”

The man on the platform stood on the chair Kosol had read from. In smiling joyous tones he began ranting, “The citadels of U.S. imperialism shake with the sights and sounds of International Workers’ Day. Everyone must be mobilized...”

“Then I will recite it just, for you,” Keo Kosol said. He reached out and gently grabbed her wrist. “Where do you hear this about radio codes?”

“...as we stride toward the day in the future when all peoples of the earth shake off the yoke and seize power...”