The Man From Saigon (15 page)

How would he have gotten any morphine?
Susan managed.

I don’t know, but he did. Must have stolen it from somewhere. They all have suicide contingencies, these gooks.

But he couldn’t even move! He was so bad
—

He was a train wreck, but damn if he didn’t get hold of a syringe. He probably had it hidden under the mattress. They are not like you and me, these people; they have unbelievable physical resources. You should write about that. They are not the same kind of human. Must be some kind of genetic thing, super strong, believe you me. I don’t get it.

Donna sat on the end of the cot, nearly lifting it from the ground. Susan got the impression she’d been a rather stout woman when she first started in the army. She still had substantial hips but the flesh hung on her arms and throat as though she’d suddenly lost whatever it had been attached to. She thought she never wanted to have to work this hard, the way Donna worked. The way all of them worked out here.

They’re just people
, Susan said.

I know they’re people! I’ve seen them inside and outside, and you are right they look the same, but I am telling you now
—

They were interrupted by a sound outside, an explosion, not too near.

Don’t worry about that
, Donna said.

In the dim light Susan could make out the shadows under Donna’s eyes, the hollow between her brows. Her face looked ragged. Her hair hung in sections, unwashed. She’d changed from the smock she’d had on earlier, but the way she sat, the way she held her arms in her lap, showed her fatigue. Susan wondered if this was what happened to a person if they spent enough time at a hospital in Pleiku. Maybe their biology changed so that they no longer slept normal hours. Maybe they felt wired all the time and there was no way down, no place to land after flying an all-day adrenaline high. She imagined Donna falling asleep, her body finally collapsing, limb for limb, like a camel dropping slowly to the ground. It would almost be a forced thing, she thought, an insistence from the body, like a sudden blow.

What’s in your canteen?
Donna asked.

Water
, Susan said.
I’ve got water in my canteen.
She gave her the canteen, sitting up now.

That’s good, ’cause I’ve got some whiskey!
Donna patted her hips for matches, looked on the table, and found a lighter there, swigged out of the canteen, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
He wasn’t going to talk, that VC.

I thought he was a North Vietnamese regular.

Yeah, well, they’re all VC.

Outside the bombs continued, not too close, the sound like a thunderstorm. That was okay. That was safe. When it felt as if you were on the inside of a drum, being pounded from all sides, was when it was close. Donna didn’t look worried, but Susan felt each distant explosion inside her like a little hammer on the casing of her ribs. What she worried about mostly was if one of their own fell short.

That is outgoing, right?
she asked meekly.

Oh, yeah. You’ll know when it’s incoming. Now that the Russians are giving them rockets, what you really want to listen for is the whining sound before the explosion. You hear that, take cover and say hello to Jesus. I’ll tell you when.

Take cover
, Susan repeated. She wondered where. She wondered how you get to a place where you can calmly smoke a cigarette as Donna was now doing and listen to artillery as though to a song on the radio. She wanted to get back to Saigon where the illusion of safety was much greater.

Aren’t you scared ever?
she asked. She knew Donna would have had no idea what was in store when she signed up. The enlistment people told nurses they couldn’t be posted to Vietnam unless they volunteered. That was the first lie. Others followed.

Donna shook her head as though to say no, but out of her mouth came,
All the time.
Then she said,
That little fucker, I still don’t know how he got it. Must have grabbed it out of one of our pockets. Or maybe it fell.

Susan tried not to remember how she’d massaged the arm muscles to work the blood down, what the arm felt like in her hands. She wondered if he’d been afraid of being tortured, and that’s why he’d killed himself. Or maybe it was a case of not wanting to give information. Whatever the reason, he was dead, and the war continued very well despite this fact.

There were high windows in the hootch. From her angle, Susan could see red tracers in the night sky; the white flares that suddenly illuminated, then were gone. She could hear the shelling, like a constant Fourth of July.
They’re making more work for you out there
, she said.

They’re always doing that. Did you get the story you wanted?

I’m fine.

That photographer asked about you. The gook with the lip. He wants to show you his pictures.

Oh yeah?

They’re always trying to sell you something, these guys. Just be careful.

They smoked their cigarettes, listening to the bombs. Donna dumped the rest of her scotch into Susan’s canteen and took a long swallow, offering it back with a nod. She told Susan that when they dropped white phosphorus it just made her crazy.

You have to keep neutralizing the burn or else it continues right to the bone, like it’s aiming for it. I wish they’d stop that shit. We don’t have the time, you see, to do what you have to do to treat those casualties. Napalm is bad but the Willie Pete takes full up every minute you’ve got. Hey, how about you put that in your article?

The scotch had a lovely, warming effect. Susan began to feel a little more relaxed. She smiled at Donna, who slouched on the other end of the cot.

Man, I’m beat. I’m going to hit the hay
, Donna said.
Write that thing and let me see a copy. We don’t get anything interesting to read up here.
Stars and Stripes
is all. Closest thing we
get to a women’s magazine is a Sears Roebuck catalog. Tell them not to strafe with the Willie Pete, please. We’re already flat out. And send me a copy.

I’ll tell them
, she said, though of course nothing like that would make it into the article. If she wrote in the problems of treating burn victims it would be edited right out.

This night in the jungle she is thinking about Donna, about the white phosphorus, the fireballs of napalm, the VC captain suiciding in a hospital bed. It didn’t seem such a bad idea now, she thought, a suicide pill. Some kind of poison. Reporters who carried guns often did so for this one reason. A kind of Plan Z when all the other plans fail, if you had any plans to begin with. She can’t think of any right now, except to try to eat enough, to drink enough, to rest enough. Maybe to hide, she thinks. Wouldn’t that be nice? Just hide and wait and let it pass over.

All the bits that your god had left over after making the world
, Son once told her,
he heaped into the jungle and they grew there in a big tangled mass. You see, all the trees, vines, fronds, everything piled on the smoking, moldy floor of the jungle is nothing but spare parts. A celestial junkyard. Buddha’s rubbish heap.

She laughed when he told her that.

That’s religious lesson number one
, he said.
I will teach you more about your god tomorrow in religious lesson number two.

Your god?
she asked him.
Do we each have separate gods?

What do you think I am? A pagan?

What could you possibly know about an English god anyway?
she teased.

That he built the world in seven days. That he brought the animals in seven by seven
—

Two by two
, she corrected.

No, seven by seven. Only the unclean ones went two by two.

Son, you are remarkable.

Good with numbers
, he replied, touching his temple with the tip of his forefinger.
We Vietnamese very good with all things numbered.

Numerical.

Indeed, it is! A miracle!

You pretender!
she said.
You know
exactly
what I said!

You said
miracle—

Numerical.

New miracle? I’m sorry, perhaps I misunderstand
—

He was teasing her, of course. His English was perfect. She knew he was teasing and he knew she knew. But it was all part of the joke, somehow funnier because he play-acted.

Oh, Son, youuuuu!

He would do that, pretend to be the awkward, fumbling native, struggling to please colonial powers. At cocktail parties she would watch him as he lit another man’s cigarette like a waiter, or insisted he had no idea how to dance until she dragged him on to the floor for a waltz and he glided with her so easily it was clear he’d been taught. He would behave as though he was nothing more than a translator, a Saigon orphan grown now into a useful coolie, and then she’d turn around and see him talking to an admiral with all the confidence of his equal. He was quiet one minute, and the next a small crowd would gather round him as he explained what he thought about a particular political leader or the strategy of the communists. Everyone knew him. She had no idea how he became so educated in Western ways, but of course the French taught them, were still teaching them. And he was Son, therefore unique.

Religious lesson number two went like this.
There was all this water not good enough for the ocean, but too good to throw away. Plus, really, there were no drains. So your god combined water and grass and mixed it in a big rice bowl and that became a large
portion of our country. Every day he tries to cook the water and grass to make stew, which is why it is so hot.

I’ve read nothing of this in my King James
—

This is Hoàng Van Sons version. Official, original edition.

So your point is that we are actually in God’s kitchen?

Exactly. But Buddha disapproves of this practice and so nothing ever gets done and your god goes hungry. Poor chap.

He’d always been like that and whatever warnings people like Donna might give her, she found him irresistible. After the night she sat up with Donna, she had gotten on a chopper out of Pleiku to An Khe, and there was Son, one among others. She recognized him right away, of course; tall for a Vietnamese, stitches on his lip, alone, as was she.

She was still so new that helicopters scared her. She decided early on that they had the aerodynamics of a chest freezer and was never sure whether she should move her leg or shift her weight when riding one, lest it topple to the ground. Unlike airplanes, helicopters seem to struggle to stay airborne. They cannot glide. It is difficult to fly one in the rain, and it rained all the time in Vietnam. Every noise was a piece of the rugged effort to keep the thing flying and there was no room between her and all the parts that made it fly. She couldn’t stand helicopters. Riding in them felt like being inside the heart of a giant machine, but there was no choice. She got used to them. She even got used to how the doors were left open for the gunners, so that the wind came through in a wild and constant rush. And to the fact you could not hear unless you wore headphones, and then you could only hear the pilot’s transmissions.

A helicopter is not a great place to hold a conversation, but Son was determined to do so.

He was sitting on a couple of mail sacks. His buff-colored trousers were so loose he had to strap his belt up high to keep them on his waist. Holding on to his ball cap, hugging himself with his free arm, he smiled at her, shivering a little. She pointed
at her lip and mouthed the word “ouch.” He pointed at a star on one of the bags, the stripe of his open neck shirt, and mouthed “American?” They conversed like that, in an odd mix of mime and charades. He managed to tell her his name, where he was heading, and that he loved birds. She wasn’t as good as he was, not nearly so precise and communicative. When she tried to mime typing, he got it into his head that she was an entertainer. Later, they had their first real conversation.

How long have you played the piano?
he asked.

I don’t play the piano. That was supposed to be a typewriter. I’m a reporter.

So does that mean you are not twelve years old either?

Not recently.

You are American?

Yes. My father’s side. My mother is English.

Well, I really do love birds
, he said.
It’s a shame you can’t play piano.

He convinced her to meet him in Saigon the next day. He said,
Good! Excellent! I will show you my photographs and perhaps we can work together. I would love to work with you!

He said it so easily, as though there was nothing more to explain or decide upon. When she didn’t respond, he said,
I’m a good photographer.

She told him she was sure he was good, but it wasn’t up to her what photographs were bought or used.
Someone else pays me
, she explained,
and they don’t have much money either. Or at least they aren’t very…
She thought of her editor, how she never once took her to lunch or asked her how she was feeling when she came back after a sick day or offered anything that could possibly be construed as a raise. One time she came by Susan’s desk with a package she presented as though it were a gift, handing her the crisp brown paper bag and saying,
I’ve got something for you.
Inside was a can of Crisco oil and a couple of lemons. She wanted Susan to cover a riot.
For you
, she said.
Useful for getting the tear gas off.
Susan looked at Son. How could she explain someone like this editor to such a man?
They aren’t very generous
, she began, hoping he’d understand her meaning. She remembered, too, how her editor had left the package on her desk and swept out of the newsroom.
Oh
, she added, looking over her shoulder,
oil for the skin, lemons for the eyes.