The Quiet American (3 page)

“He didn’t confide anything to you the last time he saw you?” . “No.”.

“When was that?”

”Yesterday morning. After the big bang.” “He paused to let my reply sink in-to my mind, not to his: he interrogated .fairly. “You were out when he called on you last night?”

“Last night? I must have been. I didn’t think. . .” “You may be wanting an exit visa. You, know we could delay it indefinitely.”

“Do you really believe,” I said, “that I want to go home?”

Vigot looked through the window at the bright cloudless day. He said sadly, “Most people do.” “I like it here. At home there are-problems.” “Merde,” Vigot said, “here’s the American Economic Attaché. He repeated with sarcasm, “Economic Attaché.”

“I’d better be off. He’ll want to seal me up too.” Vigot said wearily, “I wish you luck. He’ll have a terrible lot to say to me.”

The Economic Attaché was standing by his Packard when I came out, trying to explain something to his driver. He was a stout middle-aged man with an exaggerated bottom and a face that looked as if it had never needed a razor. He called out, “Fowlair. Could you explain to this darned driver...?” I explained.

He said, “But that’s just what I told him, but he always pretends not to understand French.” “It may be a matter of accent.”

“I was three years in Paris. My accent’s good enough for one of these darned Vietnamese.” “The voice of Democracy,” I said. “What’s that?”

“I expect it’s a book by York Harding.” “I don’t get you.” He took a suspicious look at the box I carried. “What’ve you got there?” he said.

“Two pairs of white silk trousers, two silk robes, some girl’s underpants-three pairs, I think. All home products. No American aid.” “Have you been up there?” he asked. “Yes.” “You heard the news?” “Yes.”

“It’s a terrible thing,” he said, “terrible.” “I expect the Minister’s very disturbed.” “I should say. He’s with the High Commissioner now, and he’s asked for an interview with the President.” He put his hand on my arm and walked me away from the cars. “You knew young Pyle well, didn’t you? I can’t get over a thing like that happening to him. I knew his father. Professor Harold C. Pyle-you’ll have heard of him?” “No.”

“He’s the world authority on under-water erosion. Didn’t you see his picture on the cover of Time the other month?”

“Oh, I think I remember, A crumbling cliff in the background and gold-rimmed glasses in the foreground.”

“That’s him. I had to draft the cable home. It was terrible. I loved that boy like he was my son.” “That makes you closely related to his father.” He turned his wet brown eyes on me. He said, “What’s getting you? That’s not the way to talk when a fine young fellow...”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Death takes people in different ways.” Perhaps he had really loved Pyle. “What did you say in your cable?” I asked.

He replied seriously and literally, ‘”Grieved to report your son died soldier’s death in cause of Democracy.’ The Minister signed it.”

“A soldier’s death,” I said. “Mightn’t that prove a bit confusing? I mean to the folks at home. The Economic Aid Mission doesn’t sound like the Army. Do you get Purple Hearts?”

He said in a low voice, tense with ambiguity, “He had special duties.” “Oh yes, we all guessed that.” “He didn’t talk, did he?”

“Oh, no,” I said, and Vigot’s phrase came back to me, ‘He was a very quiet American.’ “

“Have you any hunch,” he asked, “why they killed him? and who?”

Suddenly I was angry; I was tired of the whole pack of them with their private stores of Coca-Cola and their portable hospitals and their wide cars and their not quite latest guns. I said, “Yes. They killed him because he was too innocent to live. He was young and ignorant and silly and he got involved. He had no more of a notion than any of you what the whole affair’s about, and you gave him money and York Harding’s books on the East and said, ‘Go ahead. Win the East for democracy.’ He never saw anything he hadn’t heard in a lecture-hall, and his writers and his lectures made a fool of him. When he saw a dead body he couldn’t even see the wounds. A Red menace, a soldier of democracy.”

“I thought you were his friend,” he said in a tone of reproach.

“I was his friend. I’d have liked to see him reading the Sunday supplements at home and following the baseball. I’d have liked to see him safe with a standardised American girl who subscribed to the Book Club.”

He cleared his throat with embarrassment. “Of course,” he said, “I’d forgotten that unfortunate business. I was quite on your side. Fowlair. He behaved very badly. I don’t mind telling you I had a long talk with him about the girl. You see, I had the advantage of knowing Professor and Mrs. Pyle.. “

I said, “Vigot’s waiting,” and walked away. For the first time he spotted Phuong and when I looked back at him he was watching me with pained perplexity: an eternal elder brother who didn’t understand.

The first time Pyle met Phuong was again at the Continental, perhaps two months after his arrival. It was the early evening, in the momentary cool which came when the sun had just gone down, and the candles were lit on the shalls in the side streets. The dice rattled on the tables where the French were playing Quatre Vingt-et-un and the girls in the white silk trousers bicycled home down the rue Catinat. Phuong was drinking a glass of orange juice and I was having a beer and we sat in silence, content to be together. Then Pyle came tentatively across, and I introduced them. He had a way of staring hard at a girl as though he hadn’t seen one before and then blushing. I was wondering whether you and your lady,” Pyle said, would step across and join my table. One of our attaches. ..”

It was the Economic Attaché. He beamed down at us from the terrace above, a great warm welcoming smile, full of confidence, like the man who keeps his friends because he uses the right deodorants. I had heard him called Joe a number of times, but I had never learnt his surname. He made a noisy show of pulling out chairs and calling for the waiter, though all that activity could possibly produce at the Continental was a choice of beer, brandy-and-soda or vermouth cassis. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Fowlair,” he said. “We- are waiting for the boys back from Hanoi. There seems to have been quite a battle. Weren’t you with them?” “I’m tired of flying four hours for a Press Conference,”

I said He looked at me with disapproval. He said, “These guys are real keen. Why, I expect they could earn twice as much in business or on the radio without any risk.” “They might have to work,” I said. “They seem to sniff the battle like war-horses,” he went on exultantly, paying no attention to words he didn’t like. “Bill Granger-you can’t keep him out of a scrap.”

“I expect you’re right. I saw him in one the other evening at the bar of the Sporting.” “You know very well I didn’t mean that.” Two trishaw drivers came pedalling furiously down the rue Catinat and drew up in a photo-finish outside the Continental. In the first was Granger. The other contained a small, grey, silent heap which Granger now began to pull out on to the pavement. “Oh, come on, Mick,” he said, ‘come on.” Then he began to argue with his driver about the fare. “Here,” he said, “take it or leave it,” and flung five times the correct amount into the street for the man to stoop for.

The Economic Attaché said nervously, “I guess these boys deserve a little relaxation.”

Granger flung his burden on to a chair. Then he noticed Phuong. “Why,” he said, “you old so-and-so, Joe. Where did you find her? Didn’t know you had a whistle in you. Sorry, got to find the can. Look after Mick.” “Rough soldierly manners,” I said.

Pyle said earnestly, blushing again, “I wouldn’t have invited you two over if I’d thought. . .”

The grey heap stirred in the chair and the head fell on the table as though it wasn’t attached. It sighed, a long whistling sigh of infinite tedium, and lay still. “Do you know him?” I asked Pyle. “No. Isn’t he one of the Press?”

“I heard Bill call him Mick,” the Economic Attaché said. “Isn’t there a new U.P. correspondent?” “It’s not him. I know him. What about your Economic Mission? You can’t know all your people-there are hundreds of them.”

“I don’t think he belongs,” the Economic Attaché said. “I can’t recollect him.” “We might find his identity card,” Pyle suggested.

For God’s sake don’t wake him. One drunk’s enough. .anyway Granger will know.”

But he didn’t. He came gloomily back from the lavatory. Who is the dame?” he asked morosely. “Miss Phuong is a friend of Fowlair’s,” Pyle said stiffly. We want to know who. . .”

“Where’d he find her? You got to be careful in this town.” He added gloomily, “Thank God for penicillin.” “Bill,” the Economic Attaché said, “we want to know who Mick is.” “Search me.” “But you brought him here.” “The Frogs can’t take Scotch. He passed out.” “Is he French? I thought you called him Mick.” “Had to call him something,” Granger said. He leant over to Phuong and said, “Here. You. Have another glass of orange? Got a date tonight?”

I said, “She’s got a date every night.” The Economic Attaché said hurriedly, “How’s the war, Bill?”
                   

.. “Great victory north-west of Hanoi. French recapture two villages they never told us they’d lost. Heavy Vietminh casualties. Haven’t been able to count their own yet but let us know in a week or two.”

The Economic Attaché said, “There’s a rumour that the Vietminh have broken into Phat Diem, burned the Cathe-chased out the Bishop.”

“They wouldn’t tell us about that in Hanoi. That’s not a victory.”

“One of our medical teams couldn’t get beyond Nam Dinh,” Pyle said.

“You didn’t get down as far as that, Bill?” the Economic Attache asked. “Who do you think I am? I’m a correspondent with an Ordre de Gireulation which shows when I’m out of bounds. I fly to Hanoi airport. They give us a car to the Press Camp. They lay on a flight over the two towns they’ve recaptured and show us the tricolour flying. It might be any darned flag at that height. Then we have a Press Conference and a colonel explains to us what we’ve been looking at. Then we file our cables with the censor. Then we have drinks. Best barman in Indo-China. Then we catch the plane back.” Pyle frowned at his beer.

“You underrate yourself, Bill,” the Economic Attaché said. “Why, that account of Road 66--what did you call it? Highway to Hell-that was worthy of the Pulitzer. You know the story I mean-the man with his head blown off kneeling in the ditch, and that other you saw walking in a dream...”

“Do you think I’d really go near their stinking highway? Stephen Crane could describe a war without seeing one. Why shouldn’t I? It’s only a damned colonial war anyway. Get me another drink. And then let’s go and find a girl. You’ve got a bit of tail. I want a bit of tail too.”

I said to Pyle, “Do you think there’s anything in the rumour about Phat Diem?”

“I don’t know. Is it important? I’d like to go and have a look,” he said, “if it’s important.” “Important to the Economic Mission?” “Oh, well,” he said, “you can’t draw hard lines. Medicine’s a kind of weapon, isn’t it? These Catholics, they’d be pretty strong against the Communists, wouldn’t they?”

“They trade with the Communists. The Bishop gets his cows and the bamboo for his building from the Communists. I wouldn’t say they were exactly York Harding’s Third Force,” I teased him. “Break it up,” Granger was shouting. “Can’t waste the whole night here. I’m off to the House of Five Hundred girls.

“If you and Miss Phuong would have dinner with me. . .” Pyle said.

 
“You can eat at the Chalet,” Granger interrupted him, “while I’m knocking the girls next door. Come on, Joe. Anyway you’re a man.”

I think it was then, wondering what is a man, that I felt my first affection for Pyle. He sat a little turned away from Granger, twisting his beer mug, with an expression of determined remoteness. He said to Phuong, “I guess you get tired of all this shop-about your country, I mean?”

“Comment?”

“What are you going to do with Mick?” the Economic attaché asked. “Leave him here,” Granger said.

“You can’t do that. You don’t even know his name.” “We could bring him along and let the girls look after

The -Economic Attaché gave a loud communal laugh. He looked like a face on television. He said, “You young people can do what you want, but I’m too old for games. I’ll take him home with me. Did you say he was French?” “He spoke French.” “If you can get him into my car. . “ After he had driven away, Pyle took a trishaw with Biranger, and Phuong and I followed, along the road to Ghholon. Granger had made an attempt to get into the trishaw with Phuong, but Pyle diverted him. As they pedalled us down the long suburban road to the Chinese town a line of ‘”French armoured cars went by, each with its jutting gun and silent officer motionless like a figure-head under the stars and the black, smooth, concave sky-trouble again probably with a private army, the Binh Xuyen, who ran the Grand Monde and the gambling halls of Cholon. This was a land of rebellious barons. It was like Europe in the Middle Ages. But what were the Americans doing here? Columbus had not yet discovered their country. I said to Phuong, “I like that fellow, Pyle.”

“He’s quiet,” she said, and the adjective which she was the first to use stuck like a schoolboy name, till I heard even Vigot use it, sitting there with his green eye-shade, telling me of Pyle’s death.

I stopped our trishaw outside the Chalet and said to Phuong, “Go in and find a table. I had better look after Pyle.” That was my first instinct-to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

When I reached the House of the Five Hundred Girls, Pyle and Granger had gone inside. I asked at the military police post just inside the doorway, “Deux Americains?”

He was a young Foreign Legion corporal. He stopped cleaning his revolver and jutted his thumb towards the doorway beyond, making a joke in German. I couldn’t understand it.

It was the hour of rest in the immense courtyard which lay open to the sky. “Hundreds of girls lay on the grass or sat on their heels talking to their companions. The curtains were undrawn in the little cubicles around the square-one tired girl lay alone on a bed with her ankles crossed. There was trouble in Cholon and the troops were confined to quarters and there was no work to be done: the Sunday of the body. Only a knot of fighting, scrabbling, shouting girls showed me where custom was still alive. I remembered the old Saigon story of the distinguished visitor who had lost this trousers fighting his way back to the safety of the police post. There was no protection here for the civilian. If he chose to poach on military territory, he must look after himself and find his own way out.

I had learnt a technique-to divide and conquer. I chose one in the crowd that gathered round me and edged, her slowly, towards the spot where Pyle and Granger struggled. “Je suis un vieux,” I said. “Trop fatigue.” She giggled and pressed. “Mon ami,” I said, “il est tres riche, tres vigoureux.”

“Tu es sale,” she said.

“I caught sight of Granger flushed and triumphant; it was as though he took this demonstration as a tribute to his manhood. One girl had her arm through Pyle’s and was trying to tug him gently out of the ring. I pushed my girl in among them and called to him, “Pyle, over here.” He looked at me over their heads and said, “It’s terrible. Terrible.” It may have been a trick of the lamplight, but his face looked haggard. It occurred to me that he was quite possibly a virgin.

“Come along, Pyle,” I said. “Leave them to Granger.” I saw his hand move towards his hip pocket. I really believe he-intended to empty his pockets of piastres and green-backs “Don’t be a fool, Pyle,” I called sharply. “You’ll have them fighting.” My girl was turning back to me and I gave her another push into the inner ring round Granger. “Non, non,” I said, “je suis un Anglais, pauvre, tres pauvre.”

Then I got hold of Pyle’s sleeve and dragged him out, with the girl hanging on to his other arm like a hooked fish. Two or three girls tried to intercept us before we got to the gateway where the corporal stood watching, but they were half-hearted.

“What’ll I do with this one?” Pyle said. “She won’t be any trouble,” and at that moment she let go his arm and dived back into the scrimmage round Granger.

“Will he be all right?” Pyle asked anxiously. “He’s got what he wanted-a bit of tail.” The night outside seemed very quiet with only another squadron of armoured cars driving by like people with a purpose. He said, “It’s terrible. I wouldn’t have believed. . .” He said with sad awe, “They were so pretty.” He was not envying Granger, he was complaining that anything good -and prettiness and grace are surely forms of goodness- should be marred or ill-treated. Pyle could see pain when it was in front of his eyes. (I don’t write that as a sneer; after all there are many of us who can’t.) I said, “Come back to the Chalet. Phuong’s waiting.” “I’m sorry,” he said. “I quite forgot. You shouldn’t have left her.” “She wasn’t in danger.”

“I just thought I’d see Granger safely-” He dropped again into his thoughts, but as we entered the Chalet he said with obscure distress, “I’d forgotten how many men there are...”

Phuong had kept us a table at the edge of the dance-floor and the orchestra was playing some tune which had been popular in Paris five years ago. Two Vietnamese couples were dancing, small, neat, aloof, with an air of civilisation we couldn’t match. (I recognised one, an accountant from the Banque de I’lndo-Chine and his wife.) They never, one felt, dressed carelessly, said the wrong word, were a prey to untidy passion. If the war seemed medieval, they were like the eighteenth-century future. One would have expected Mr. Pham-Van-Tu to write Augustans in his spare time, but I happened to know he was a student Wordsworth and wrote nature poems. His holidays he spent at Dalat, the nearest he could get to the atmosphere of the English lakes. He bowed slightly as he came round. wondered how Granger had fared fifty yards up the road. Pyle was apologising to Phuong in bad French for having kept her waiting. “C’est impardonable,” he said. “Where have you been?” she asked him. He said, “I was seeing Granger home.”