For the Sake of All Living Things (92 page)

Vathana stood on the upper steps of the preaching hall. She had been praying for the doctor for three hours. Nem had joined her just before dawn. Sophan and a few nurses and aides had arrived moments later.

“Kosol will come,” Nem said from the step below her friend.

“I know,” Vathana answered.

“Truly. He said he would.”

“Yes. So he said.”

“It’s not too late. Do you really think they’ll release the doctor?”

“Sann said they would. He said he’d heard from his brother...”

“Little Sann, the orderly?”

“Yes. His brother’s a guard at the detention center.” Vathana turned, looked toward the camp. “Where is he?” she said quietly.

“One hundred days.” Nem pursed her lips. “Is that normal for ‘Communist sympathy’? I mean, he...oh...”—Nem noticed the direction of Vathana’s gaze—“...poets are like that, eh?”

Vathana looked down at Nem, then looked back north, up the highway toward the FANK facility. Others joined the vigil. A lay priest came, questioned them, left. In a short while he, several monks, a number of nuns and orphans, and teachers and students from the
sala rien
joined the congregation.

An hour passed. A monk led a group of refugees in prayer. A teacher gave her class a lesson in arithmetic. Street urchins hustled about the fringe attempting to sell small cakes of ice. Others raced the half mile up the roadway to within a stone’s throw of the prison gate, then raced back to the pagoda and back again toward the FANK post. By eleven most of the children—orphans, urchins, students—had wandered away seeking more interesting adventures or simply a place in the shade.

“There he is!” a hospital worker shouted. “He’s coming.”

“That’s not him. That’s an old man,” shouted a second.

“That’s him. I know him well,” the first yelled.

“Don’t crowd him. Just two go. Only two. Angel,” a third worker called, “you go. You’re his favorite.”

“Let’s cheer him,” the second worker yelled.

“No,” the third snapped. “Give him room. We’ll have time to cheer later. You don’t know what...”

Vathana and a man she did not know were nudged to the front of the crowd. Quickly they stepped toward the small approaching figure. Even at a hundred meters Vathana was not certain...the eye patch, the uncertain walk. A minute later the doctor wrapped an arm over the man’s shoulder then collapsed.

Vathana lifted his other arm, placed it about her neck, and the two helped Sam Ol walk the quarter mile to the pagoda. There they seated him on a monk’s pillow and brought him citrus water with honey and ice. At first Sam Ol did not speak. All about him people tried to get a good look, to catch his attention. Many called quiet, subdued wishes and encouragements. Some vowed to help him seek retribution. Vathana knelt by him, washed his face. This, she thought, this is destroying the infrastructure! She gently lifted the eye patch. The doctor lifted his hand to stop her. “Don’t.” His voice was sad, hoarse.

“Did they...” Vathana began.

“I can still see with the other,” Sam Ol said. Then he leaned forward and sobbed.

“Let’s take him to the hospital,” the man who’d carried him said.

Vathana nodded but the very mention sent a spasm of torment through the broken man. His sobs came louder. In the crowd people embarrassed for him shuffled back, wandered quietly away. Others embarrassed by their own inability to deal with his anguished cries put up various fronts—bitter, hostile, profane. They too left, but with angry oaths dripping from their tongues.

“Home,” Sarin Sam Ol pleaded.

Vathana looked to the man who had helped. He glanced back, then whispered, “to my home.”

Later Vathana snapped at Keo Kosol, “How can you write that?!”

“It’s
an ayay.
It’s good. Listen. I will call it ‘Doctor Ol.’ ”

“You didn’t come.” Vathana’s lips were pulled thin. “You never came. You didn’t see.”

“But you saw,” Kosol said. “And you described it to me. Especially the eye. He was disgusting, eh? Ha! I’ll read it at the Women’s Association tonight. Those sluts will love it.”

“What!?” Vathana spun in place. She had no outlet for her anger. For months she’d loved this old poet who had steadily become more of a burden to her. Now he looked to her too old, too pretentious. “Sluts?” She hissed the word. “Sluts?!” Never, not even in her mind, had she used the word.

“Oh come now,” Keo Kosol said. He stood, dropped his pen on the writing sheet. “That doesn’t offend you. I know the women who join. They sleep with everyone.”

“Is that what you think of me?”

“No. Not you. You only sleep with me and your foreign guy but I understand that...”

“You...you...” Vathana shook with rage. “ ‘Struggle Against Fire,’ ” she lashed out at him, “...your mother, was she...”

“She lives in Sisophon with my father. They have a big farm. They own lots of peasants. Ha! They...”

“
Get out of here
!” Vathana regained control. “I let you come into my hut and you...”

“And I what?” Kosol snarled sarcastically. “What, eh? You think you are some angel, eh? You’re like all women. You want catastrophe so you can play angel. Eech.” Kosol raised a hand, scolded her. “You listen. The Americans are pulling out. All our sacrifices, all our actions, are vindicated. Soon we’ll run...”

“They haven’t
all
gone.” Vathana bit the inside of her lower lip. “Mister Nixon’s been reelected. I don’t...” She couldn’t complete the sentence. Why was Kosol saying this? Who was he? What did American withdrawal have to do with his not coming to see Doctor Sarin? With his faking his personal experiences in the
ayay
?

Before Vathana’s questions could coagulate in her mind Kosol laughed maliciously. “It makes no difference. We believe, with or without Nixon, the American Congress will continue exactly as they have. Amendment after amendment. Cut off funds for their insidious military adventurism. It’s a matter of time. A short time.”

“Who?” Vathana did not know this man at all. “Who is this ‘we’?”

“You don’t need to know,” Kosol said. “Just continue doing what you do and you’ll be protected. Stay away from that disgusting doctor. You look at me, not him.”

Vathana could barely believe what she’d heard. She stood very still. Then slowly, anger and frustration drained from her face. Slowly, disbelieving, she shook her head. “Poets,” she said quietly, “are supposed to be driven by love and truth...” In her mind exploded the word
infrastructure.
“...not by hate.”

“Viskii,” the waiter said to Sullivan. They were in a backdoor restaurant in a southern section of Neak Luong.

In Khmer Sullivan said, “No. Not whiskey. Beer. A bottle of Singha if you have it.”

“Yes. I have Singha.” The waiter smiled at the foreigner’s decent Khmer. “A bottle for Angel, too, eh?”

“Maybe she’ll have the viskii,” Sullivan joked, and the waiter thought it was very funny.

“A cola for me,” Vathana said. “John.” She looked at his face. “You really have learned a lot. You’re very good.”

“I’m trying,” he continued in Khmer. “I still flip-flop the nouns and adjectives.”

“You’re better than any American, any Frenchman, I’ve ever heard. I’m so happy you came again. You’ll stay awhile?”

“Two days. I have to be back on the twenty-sixth.”

“For Thanksgiving dinner, I bet.”

He laughed. Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. Her teeth glistened. So close, she was driving him wild. “No. For the colonel. What do you know about Thanksgiving?”

“I’m trying, too.” She smiled. “Maybe too late?”

“Too late?”

“The cease-fire. The American withdrawal. You’ll go now?”

“No. Not yet. I’m...I can be carried on the embassy list.”

“Your job is done though.” Vathana sighed. Sullivan could not keep his eyes off her. To him, everything about her was exciting, perfect. Even this seemingly sad sigh. Did it mean she would miss him?

They had been together much of the afternoon, at the hospital tending to the helpless and the hopeless. They’d spoken little except about patient care, yet they worked well as a team and knowing that made them both comfortable. After cleaning up they’d walked by the river talking sporadically, becoming reacquainted. As always they spoke about the situation of the nation as much as, if not more than, about their own circumstances. Sullivan asked what he could tell Rita Donaldson. “If the war ends,” Vathana had said, “she won’t need me.”

“It won’t end,” he’d said.

“The fighting here is down.”

“Just a lull. Not even that. Everyone in South Viet Nam is scrambling to grab as much territory as possible before the cease-fire goes into effect. The NVA have shifted to that front. And Sihanouk has...”

“I know.” Vathana had stopped walking and they’d turned to each other. She put her hands flat against his upper arms, not pulling him in, not pushing him away, touching him lightly. To her he was, in some ways, such a boy. In other ways he was such a strong man. “I know,” she’d repeated. “But I don’t understand. Why would Prince Sihanouk reject Lon Nol’s offer of a cease-fire?”

“It’s a game,” Sullivan had said. “I saw a copy of a captured NVA document at the embassy. Signed by Le Duan of Hanoi’s politburo. It spelled it right out. ‘...take as much territory as possible before the cease-fire...then, for political reasons, our forces must scrupulously observe any cease-fire for the first sixty days. In that time the Thieu regime will undoubtedly violate the accord by attempting to retake lost land. After formal protests we will be justified to commence renewed military struggle.’ That’s exactly what it said. That’s the plan.”

“Then it’s a hoax!” Vathana held her hands as if praying, praying it would not be so.

“Yes. It’s a way of getting America out of the picture.”

“I hate this, John. I hate this all. This breaking the infrastructure! What it is doing to my people! When I told Mister Keo about the Americans breaking the NVA radio codes....”

“What? You told who?”

“Oh. A...an old poet friend. I haven’t seen him in weeks now...”

“Shit! Those things weren’t to be...ah, I guess it makes no difference.”

“It’s all inevitable now, isn’t it.”

“Nothing’s inevitable.”

“The Khmer Rouge, they move at will, they own the countryside. They can strike within the cities at will.”

“No. That’s not true. Believing it makes it worse. We’ve trained eighty-three FANK battalions in two years. There’s a core of good troops here. It’s the goddamned leaders...”

“They’re all fascists, aren’t they? Lon Nol, the Khmer Communists, Sihanouk. All of them. Extremist nationalists. Autocrats. Racists. How...”

“Do you remember when I wrote about the stages of Communist victory?”

“Of course. I shared it with the others.”

“President Thieu said a few days ago, ‘Coalition with the Communists means death.’ He’s right. Here or there.”

From the river they had gone to the Khsach Sa camp where old Sophan had greeted Sullivan with such an impassioned hug he’d reeled in shock for five minutes. How he had won her heart he didn’t know but he did catch amid the words she shot at Vathana, “This one, Angel, is better. The other is bad for you.”

For an hour John Sullivan had played with camp children while Vathana conducted camp business. Then they’d gone to eat.

Amid the small talk they again talked politics and war. Every moment they spent together, Sullivan felt he was being drawn to his destiny. They did not argue but agreed on most points, lamented some, felt bonded by the sadness which engulfed Cambodia. “There should be an alternative to Sihanouk and the Communists versus Lon Nol and the military,” Vathana said.

“If only we could have influenced the FANK command more,” Sullivan began.

“Doctor Sarin”—Vathana shook her head—“he says, ‘The roof leaks from the top down.’ He blames those at the very top.”

“He should. Lon Nol and his astrologers...”

“And Mister Nixon, too.”

“Definitely,” Sullivan agreed. For a long while they did not speak of politics or of war but ate and looked at each other, smiled, fed each other particularly tasty morsels from their plates.

When they returned to the camp the hut was vacant. Sophan, Sullivan realized, had taken the children so they could have privacy. Quietly they undressed each other. Slowly, for a long time, they made love. When they were temporarily sated Sullivan, still entwined in Vathana’s legs, whispered, “When I go, I want you to come with me.”

“To Phnom Penh?” Vathana cooed in his ear. A pang of guilt hit her for she sensed the possibility of escaping the responsibility of the camp and her growing fear of whomever Keo Kosol represented.

“Come to America with me,” Sullivan said. “Come with me. You and the children. And Sophan. Let me take you from this horrible place.”

Vathana pushed up on his shoulders. He raised so they were nose to nose. He began to nibble at her chin but she stopped him. “This horrible place,” Vathana said, a cool tone entering her voice, “this is my country.”

“Vathana.” Sullivan kissed her. “Marry me. I love you so much. Marry me. Be my wife.”

“But”—now she pushed him higher off her—“I’m already married.”

“Mar...” Sullivan stopped. It took a moment for the words to sink in. “I thought your husband was killed in action.”

“No.” Vathana held his shoulders, caressed them yet held him a foot above her. “Pech Chieu Teck, he’s my husband.”

“Teck? He’s your brother-in-law!”

“No. We don’t live together because he’s too...Our marriage, it is only a legal contract, but I am married. Teck, too, wants me to join him. In Phnom Penh. But I...”

“Wha—” Sullivan could not grasp what he was being told. “Married?!” He rolled sideways releasing himself from her legs, rolled farther, sat, next to her, alone. “Married? Is it permanent? I mean...are you, did you leave him? That’s not what I...whoa!” He rolled to his knees. Vathana put her blouse on. “I love you,” Sullivan said. He said it as much to himself as he did to her, said it as he’d said it a thousand times when he was in his room, on his cot, alone, talking to her. “I’ve wanted to marry you since...”

“Isn’t it enough to love me?” Vathana said. “I do lo—”