The Man From Saigon (23 page)

But the major had already taken another question and was answering it fully, slowly, and with the concentration of a surgeon.

Later, Marc went to the hotel room, showered and changed, then to the offices, where he made himself a drink and promptly fell asleep at his desk. He got a call an hour later from JUSPAO, waking with a start as though the phone were inside him, rattling against his rib cage, or straight against the throbbing behind his eyes. He had a headache, as usual.

It was a colonel asking why Marc seemed to want to report Loc Ninh as some kind of defeat when quite clearly they’d prevailed against enemy forces despite the aggression of the attack.

A thousand enemy dead, only light casualties on our side and you are reporting it as an indication of
our
weakness?
The military line made the colonel’s voice sound as though it were being broadcast from the end of the earth. He was shouting the words, in part so he could be heard at the other end, but for other reasons, too.

Marc pressed his right temple with the pads of his fingers. It helped contain his headache. Then he said,
I’m sure we never used the word “weakness.”

I’m using the word weakness because that is the image you’ve delivered!

The film was already shipped. He told the colonel so.
We got statements from the briefings which we have also included in our story. But the city was held by enemy forces for three days. That is what we saw, and we have to report that, too.

That would be a mistake.

Marc listened to the line sizzling with static. He wondered if the colonel meant that the reporting was mistaken, or filing the story was a mistake. He said,
Thousands of refugees, the city now almost completely destroyed. I believe that is correct, isn’t it?

There was a pause on the other end of the line, then the colonel’s voice once more, this time heartier, more encouraging.

Go back in a few days’ time and it will be up and running.
Our guys will put it all back together. You’ll see.
He sounded lighter, almost friendly. They might have been talking about cleaning up after a hurricane, how the people would be happier once the flood water had receded and the village hall was restored.

It’s a matter of confidence
, Marc said.
Whether the people believe we can keep them safe. If they think their city is going to be an area of contention between forces, they will not stay.

Of course we can keep them safe.

So they were back to square one. He might have pointed out once again the three-day loss of the city, but instead he promised a follow-up. He tried to get off the phone but the colonel wasn’t done yet.

I’d be grateful if you could alter the story as it stands today
, he said.

The story is gone. It was gone even before I got to the briefing this afternoon.

I have some news just breaking you might like to hear about. Down in the Delta. You’ll get briefed by Lieutenant Colonel Halliday. Take a trip down there. Talk to Halliday.

He had no interest in going to the Delta. He’d been asleep when the colonel rang. He wanted to go back to sleep, this time in an actual bed, preferably for half a day or more. His head felt as if there was a nail boring through it. The thought of another chopper ride anywhere near a battle made him groan.
I’ve got a lot going on right now
, he told the colonel.

You’ll want to know about this
, the colonel said.
It isn’t confirmed yet, but for you, I would think this was a bigger story even than Loc Ninh. Much bigger.

If you are asking me to kill that story, I won’t. I can’t.

You could call your network and explain that when you reviewed the situation, you realized there were a few inconsistencies in the reporting.

There were no inconsistencies.

You may want to change your mind.

He was getting more annoyed. He held the phone against his ear and listened to the confident voice on the other end, thinking he didn’t have the energy for this. He fished out two aspirin from his pocket, downed them with some flat cola that had been left on his desk. He was searching for a third aspirin and talking at the same time.
Thank you for your call, Colonel. I will welcome any help on a follow-up on Loc Ninh.

Davis, you need to change your original story. Special Forces will help you as much as possible if you do.

He’d had enough now. He was about to say as much when the colonel spoke again.
Your friend, Susan Gifford, and her photographer are missing. In the Delta. Are you aware of that?

The words seemed to hang stinging in the air. Her name coming from the colonel’s mouth, sounding so far away on the dreadful line, the word
missing
that hissed from across the miles.

No, he was not aware of that. Not aware. He heard what was being said and was plunged into this new understanding as though pushed underwater. He could not accept it, tried to stop it from entering into him. Suddenly, it was as though some essential part of him had dropped right out; the only thing that seemed to hold him up was the desk, the chair, perhaps even the telephone which he clutched now with two hands.

Davis, are you still there?

He cleared his throat.
I am.
He’d been swallowing the third aspirin when the colonel dropped the announcement into the conversation, and the place where it slid down his throat felt like glass.

We really do want to help you with this one
, the colonel continued.
It would be a favor to us and we’d be grateful. Give the Loc Ninh story some time. Meanwhile, we can help you with this new, uh, incident.

Go on.

She had been missing sixteen hours. The first fact. The rest
came in quick statements, just as he’d heard all the news of the war: the snatches of information, the reeled numbers and positions and dates and times. All the loaded shorthand of the military that might mean that bodies were being collected in ponchos and bags, that napalm had splashed down on villages, that half a platoon just got wiped out, that Vietcong suspects have been captured, detained by the US, or tortured by ARVN, who the US military could not influence away from such practices as beatings and water torture, even if they tried to, which they did not. He was used to writing dispassionately about the entire business of the war, and in this same manner he wrote down the information about Susan on his steno pad. The words sat on the soiled blue-lined pages alongside other news of the war: the names of those he had interviewed, the home towns of soldiers, things he wanted to remember later, or which might later become important. He wrote down everything the colonel told him and when he’d finished he suddenly wished the man would not hang up the phone. He had a feeling that when the conversation ended he would find it difficult to know what to do. His job had only ever been to gather information, not to act upon it. He’d only had a few hours’ sleep, and even that had been sitting slumped in a chair, fully clothed, so that his head now swam and throbbed.

Do you have any more for me?
he asked, his voice different now, plaintive, grasping.
Do we know what condition she, they, were in when captured?

On the other side of the crackling line, the colonel took a breath.
No, son, we do not
, he said, speaking as he might to one of his own men.
But you get down to where I told you and Halliday will help you with any further developments.

And so he had learned. In the dead hours just past curfew, while walking back to his hotel in deserted streets, hoping to God he wouldn’t come across anyone, that he could get back to his room, the information sank into him the way that a
burn settles into the skin. Surely, Son would be killed outright. He was almost certain this would be the case. He hoped they hadn’t executed him in front of Susan and told himself they would not have done so, as they would hope to return Susan to the press with a story of their compassion, not their blood-lust, with a nice positive spin on the patriotism and humanity of the communist position. No, they would not execute Son in front of her. In fact, it was possible they would march him miles away to kill him. Or maybe they would not kill him. Or maybe they would kill them both. It was difficult for the Vietcong to understand that a woman could be a reporter, and therefore valuable for their own propaganda. They might think she was a spy. He hoped she had her press tags. Of course, she would. She never went anywhere without them. None of them did.

He tried not to think; he was too tired to think. He was glad to be breaking curfew; it gave him something immediate to worry about, as the police would shoot on sight at this time of night.

Flying to the Delta this November day he decides that after the war he will never again fly in a C-130. There is a whole list of things he will never do again—eat food from cans is another example, or wear anything in olive drab—but flying in C-130s is at the top of the list. The planes are unlined and, of course, have no seats. He sits on the floor watching the levers on the ceiling move the wings, enduring the deafening noise of the engines, waiting for the appalling landing. It is the landing that disturbs him most, how the plane spirals down, tightening its turn as though trying to fix itself into an ever-narrowing tunnel. That’s the beginning, the anticipation of which was worse than anything, when the plane dives at speed, gear and flaps down, as though deliberately crashing. It takes on even more force just before the ground opens up below, when the pilot raises
the nose, moving to a less angled approach. Then the nose wheel drops and the cargo compartment makes a tremendous jolt, rattling as though the whole plane is coming apart as it goes careening down a runway.

The runway held its own perils. It was often a bit on the short side, coming to an abrupt end in front of a line of rubber trees, or so narrow the wings hang out over brush. At night, if the runway has no lights, the landing area will be lit with battery lights mounted in what look like large bean bags. Sometimes an oil drum or two. Once, because they were riding with badly needed blood, they landed by the headlights of two jeeps. He turned to Locke and said,
This will he interesting
, because inside the cargo area it seemed as though they were landing into absolute darkness, which could only mean they were landing in water. When he got out and saw the headlights, two jeeps angled with their brights on, he thought perhaps it was all becoming a little close. A little too close, all of it. Since then, he has dreamt several times of crashing in such a plane, and in each of the dreams it is nighttime. There is a fire outside. The plane tumbles down in darkness with that same deafening roar. He tries to think of this dream not as cautionary but as only a dream and nothing more. Whenever Susan asks him what he is dreaming about, he always says he can’t remember. Fear is a kind of disease, like the tuberculosis that plagues the peasants, and he didn’t wish to visit it upon her. She was still new to the war. He thought she had months, maybe even longer, depending on where she went in the country, before anything would bother her like this, staying with her while sleeping. He hadn’t wanted her to think the way he has come to think, or dream as he now dreams. There have been times when he has envied those who stayed in Saigon and reported whatever was given them by JUSPAO. It undoubtedly made life easier.

It has been a long spell of changeable weather. They are lucky because a tropical storm has moved away, allowing them
to travel. Even so, it is windy. All through the flight there have been great troughs of turbulence. He can hear the force of the wind against the skin of the plane, feel the way it pushes them up from below, or presses down like a sudden wave from above. Puke weather is what Locke would call it. But Locke isn’t here, isn’t speaking to him, is still fuming over the fact he killed the Loc Ninh story.

What in hell did you do that for?
he’d said when Marc told him.
You believe it will make any difference anyway? That our boys are going to launch some all-out effort to find her because you decide not to run
one
story!

She’s not
her.
She’s Susan. Use her name.

You’ve lost sight of exactly who you are, Davis. Nobody here gives a shit about your story! And they don’t give a shit about her, either.

Susan.

Okay, that’s it, fuck you!
Locke said.

Marc turned away. The end of their friendship was set in motion. He heard Locke’s words, directed now at his back.
I was out there for five days to get that story and you think I’m just going to roll over and say, “Fine, Davis, it’s your call”? I’m saying no such thing. That was my story, my footage
—

I’m going to try to get some information. Be reasonable.

Reasonable? You’ve lost your mind!

He pushes Locke out of his thoughts, distances himself once more from the whole Loc Ninh affair. It doesn’t matter anyway. It was only a story. Perhaps he hadn’t gotten a fact or two correct. There was always that possibility. Besides, someone else will run a similar story; that always happens. There would be no consequence for killing the story, except the fallout from Locke.

As the plane turns now into its descent, he feels a shift in himself, a kind of relief that finally all they have to do is pass through this last, dramatic finale. He fixes himself into position,
sitting on a metal cargo pallet, holding tightly with one hand while the other pulls his satchel closer against his rib cage. He is surrounded by concertina wire, bags of cement, boxes of ammunition, pitchforks, shovels, hessian bags, drums, so much it might be a warehouse of the stuff. He works out the exact path to the emergency exit, watching the loadmaster to see if he seems at all concerned. The loadmaster, his face gray in the dim light, smokes through the flight. He nods at Marc as they begin to fall straight down, landing as though through a hole in the sky, the hole that has opened up hundreds of times before, and it feels just the same every time.