Tree of Smoke (53 page)

Crodelle said, “One of these days you and I and a technician will sit down and find out how all this works.”

Hao said, “It’s the same.”

“The same?”

He meant it’s all the same, it doesn’t matter, everybody’s lying.

K
im waited out front of the house beside the tree, its roots wrapped in newspaper, until her husband came home in a cyclo cab. She watched him climb from the cart and pay and come at her smiling, as if nothing had happened.

“Those people asked me about Trung,” she said. “Your friend.”

“They asked me too,” he said.

“Did you see me there?”

“I saw you in the basement.”

“What do they want?”

“It all concerns Trung. I think he’s in trouble.”

“They said he comes here to visit us.”

“No, Trung doesn’t come here. Have you ever seen him here?”

“No. They asked me if he comes here, and I said no.”

“They asked me too, and I said no, he doesn’t come to my house.”

“Good. If my grandmother’s ghost chases you tonight howling at you, I’ll tell you what she’s saying: Don’t scatter your kindnesses.”

“That’s the end of it,” he said. “No trouble.”

“This one’s exactly the same size as most of the others,” she said, meaning the tree. “I went to the market on my way home.”

“Kim,” her husband said, “listen to me: You know who I am.”

“I can’t find the shovel,” she said. “Do you expect me to dig with my hands?”

“You know me,” he said.

“Don’t make trouble.”

“I want peace.”

“Then listen to my grandmother. She always told us, Don’t scatter your kindnesses in the forest. Plant them where they’ll grow and feed you.”

“Good advice.”

“Are those Americans angry at you?”

“No. Everything’s good.”

“Did they give you money for a cyclo?”

“More than enough.”

“Me too. Where’s the shovel?”

“I don’t know.”

They went to the edge of the low ironwork fence, and there, using the corner of a small board and his hands and fingers, he scraped out a hole, and they put the tree in it. From the next street over they heard singing, firecrackers, the cries of children. With the side of her foot she kicked the dirt into the hole, careful to get as little as possible on her sandal. Her husband stared at this operation as if wishing he could grow tiny and throw himself in.

Tomorrow she’d have her fortune told. She’d been looking forward to it. Now it seemed a punishment.

“Ah,” he said, “I remember.”

“What?”

“The shovel is in the…”

“Where?”

“No, no. It’s not there,” he said.

T
he double had arrived.

He came to the villa in the black Chevrolet, with an entourage, Hao, Jimmy Storm, the colonel, even Hao’s young nephew Minh, formerly the colonel’s helicopter pilot, now back with the Viet Nam Air Force but not, today, in uniform. To Skip it seemed a gathering unnecessarily inclusive.

They all sat in the parlor—the double Trung on the divan, between the colonel in his loud Hawaiian shirt and the uniformed Jimmy Storm—and Sands ordered coffee and studied this person he’d waited two years to get a look at.

Trung was about five-six, and bowlegged. He could have been any age between thirty and fifty, but Skip understood him to be Hao’s old schoolmate, which would make him just past forty years old. He didn’t grease his hair; it spiked upward in the middle of his scalp. He had dark skin of the kind in which miscellaneous shallow scratches left scars. Thick eyebrows came together sparsely over the bridge of his nose. He had large ears, a weak chin. An ugly face, but friendly. He wore Asian-looking, strangely tinted blue jeans and a green T-shirt a little small for him—both quite new-looking—and black high-top tennis shoes, also apparently Asian-made, also new, and no socks. He kept his hands on his knees and both feet on the floor. Between his feet lay a forest-green knapsack, probably new; collapsed, probably empty. In a kindly way, Trung met his stare. The whites of his eyes had a yellow tint. Maybe his relaxed manner came from illness.

At this moment, the most genuine and legitimate in Skip’s journey as a Cold Warrior, his uncle seemed distracted, wouldn’t sit down, walked from window to window looking out, and failed to make introductions.

“Skip, come with me. I’ve got some news. Come out front with me.”

They stood outside the entry in the muggy morning, Skip thinking he should go upstairs and get into something besides bathing trunks and a T-shirt, and the colonel said, “Skip, I’ve got bad news.”

“It looks more like good news.”

“Yes, that’s him, that’s our man.”

“That
is
good news.”

“No. Yes,” the colonel said. “Now. Skip. Your mother has died. Beatrice. Bea.”

The statement struck him like a blow to the chest. Yet its meaning eluded him completely.

“What the
fuck
?” Skip said.

“The timing’s terrible. And the cable is three days old.”

“No. I don’t believe it.”

“Skip, sit down. Let’s sit down.” They rested themselves on the step. Cool, worn granite. His uncle was reaching into his breast pocket with his right hand. He placed his left on Skip’s right shoulder. Now Skip held in his hands a pale yellow piece of paper. Whenever afterward he reviewed this moment he was unable to suppress these details, he had to include them.

The colonel said, “I’ll be back with a drink,” and left him alone with the cablegram. He read it several times. In it his mother’s pastor explained she’d passed away due to complications following a routine radical hysterectomy. Whatever that meant. The pastor offered his sympathies and above all his prayers.

The colonel returned with a glass in his hand.

“‘Routine radical,’” Skip said. “How do you like that?”

“Here. Please. Here. You need a good stiff shot.”

“Jesus, okay.”

His uncle stood over him holding out the glass, but Skip failed to accept it. Palms up, he held the cablegram like a big delicate ash. “I’ll miss the funeral.”

“It’s bad stuff.”

“I hope somebody’s there.”

“She was a fine woman. I’m sure she has many mourners.”

The colonel drank away half the glass he’d carried here for his nephew. “The cable came three days ago. I was in Cao Phuc. They radioed me that a cable had come, and I meant to get in touch with somebody and find out the content, but I failed to make it a priority—there’s so much cable traffic, and it’s generally so picayune, as you know…And in all honesty, Skip, I was distracted.”

“Well, no, you don’t need to—you know.”

“It’s all done. No more Echo. Courtesy of Johnny Brewster, probably. But maybe not. For all I know, they’re just getting us out of the way so they can carpet-bomb the place.”

“Jesus.”

“So I’m sorry about the delay. When I got back, Trung said he was ready to move. In all the excitement about losing Cao Phuc, I’d almost forgotten him entirely.”

“The funeral is day after tomorrow.”

“Go, if you feel you have to.”

“Obviously, I can’t.”

“The folks back home understand. They realize you’re off to war.”

“Can I have my drink?”

“Oh, shit.”

Skip drained the glass.

“Skip, I’m going to leave you a few minutes to collect yourself. Then we’ll need you back inside ready to do your work.”

“I know. Jesus. Both in one day.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

“Sure. I’ll be in.”

Skip watched the road beyond the gate. Not thinking about his mother at all. He supposed he’d think about her later. He couldn’t predict the order of these emotional events, his mother had never died before. Nor anyone close to him. His father had gone before he could remember. His Uncle Francis had lost a young son, drowned while sailing off Cape Cod, to say nothing of all the comrades fallen in war. Skip himself had watched his uncle shoot a man who hung from a tree branch. Guess what? People died. He wished he didn’t have to take this moment alone. It was useless to him. He was glad when his uncle returned and sat by his side.

“Well, Uncle. I’m your orphan nephew.”

“Beatrice was a wonderful wife to my brother. I never thought of it before, Skip, but he must have died in the midst of his happiness. It was short, but she made him very happy.”

“They killed her. The butchers.”

“No, no, no. They know their stuff. You’ve seen what they can do. You bring in a foot soldier in half a dozen pieces—a year later he’s ready for the parade.”

Skip folded the cable in half and again in half but couldn’t choose which one of his pockets to defile with it. He tossed it overhand toward the road.

“You know what? Your dad knew what counted. He married early. He wasn’t like the rest of us. Hell, in our family none of us is like the rest of us. I’m five-foot-eight with shoes on. Your Uncle Ray is six-four.”

“Is he your senior?”

“Ray? He’s two years younger. Two years and three months.”

“Oh.”

“The point is, you’ve got family. You’re not an orphan. I guess that’s the point.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean it. But you know that. You always have. Now, listen, it’s bad stuff, and the timing’s terrible…”

“I’ll be fine. Let’s go in.”

M
r. Skip had said the local priest might know where to buy a certain kind of powdered bark from which Kim wished to brew a medicinal tea. These days her health seemed good. But herbs and medicines still enthralled her. Hao and his nephew left the Americans and went looking for the priest’s house, taking the creekside path for only a couple of hundred meters, passing behind a series of small yards, each with one or two or three monuments covering family graves, and entered the Catholic domain by the back garden.

In the homes up and down the creek old women boiled the day’s rice over charcoal or sticks of kindling, but no smoke came from the priest’s. Minh had to whistle twice. The little man came from the back of the house barefoot, cinching his belt, buttoning a long-tailed American-style shirt hanging nearly to his knees.

Hao felt irritation at finding him home. He’d only wanted to talk to his nephew about the family business.

“Yes, I know you,” the priest said when Hao began to introduce himself, and Hao explained he needed herbs for his wife. Also, perhaps, something for a bad tooth.

“I can give you directions, but I can’t escort you.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m not going out today,” the priest said. “I’m staying in. I had an important dream.”

Minh asked, “Did the dream tell you to stay indoors today?”

“No, I just want to be quiet and remember and understand.”

Hao wished he didn’t have to talk to such people. But his wife—ghosts, dreams, potions, every kind of nonsense. So here he was. “Do you know of an herbalist or not?”

“Take the road north out of town. The third hamlet you reach, ask for the Chinese family. They’re not really Chinese,” he added.

“Thank you.”

They walked back to the villa by the roadway. Hao decided this quest for phony remedies would end here. No enchanted powders for Kim. He’d make up a lie. “It doesn’t matter,” he told his nephew. “I only wanted to talk to you. We haven’t seen you for weeks. Three months, at least.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Minh said. “I’m the general’s slave. I can’t get away.”

“And the last time you visited you didn’t even stay for tea. It wasn’t us you came to the city for. It was your woman friend.”

“It’s difficult, Uncle.”

“I asked the colonel to bring you to my house today, or you probably wouldn’t have come.”

“And the colonel brought me here.”

“Is it such an inconvenience?”

“It’s a journey. I’m not necessary here, but I like to see you, and it’s good to see the colonel.”

“There’s a problem with my wife’s brother. Huy.”

“I know about it. Uncle Huy.”

“It’s impossible. Do you have guns on your helicopter?”

“It’s General Phan’s helicopter.”

“What kind of guns?”

“One machine gun.”

“I want you to attack the house.”

“Uncle Huy’s house?”

“He doesn’t belong in it. It’s my house. He owes me eleven years’ rental.”

“You want me to strafe the house?” Minh said, using the English word.

“No,” said Hao in English, “not strafe. Not strafe. Destroy.”

“With much love and respect, Uncle, that’s not a good idea.”

“You see how angry I am.”

“I see.”

“Then go back home to Lap Vung. Talk to your Uncle Huy, tell him how angry I am. Will you go home for Tet?”

“No, I can’t go. I’ll go for my aunt’s birthday.”

“His wife?”

“In March.”

“What date exactly?”

“March eighteenth.”

“Talk to him, please.”

“He’s a stubborn man. I don’t want to ruin Aunt Giang’s birthday.”

“Ruin it. I don’t care. You see how angry I am.”

They’d arrived at the low iron gate of the big villa in which his old friend Trung, surrounded by Americans, gambled negligently with his future. So. Trung had all along been completely sincere. Hao had never believed him.

Inside, the colonel was talking, seated on the divan next to Trung with a teacup in one hand and the other hand on Trung’s shoulder. Hao had seen little of the colonel lately, and in any case was terrified of him now. On Trung’s other side sat Jimmy Storm, his arms crossed in front of his chest and an ankle resting on his knee, as if someone had tied him in a knot and left him helpless. Trung, however, seemed completely at ease.

Hao and Minh took chairs at the border between parlor and office, not quite in nor out of the gathering. The colonel stopped talking to Skip in order to interrupt himself, saying, “It’s two families helping each other. In the end it’s all about family. Do you have family, Mr. Trung?”

Trung looked confused, and Hao translated.

Trung told Hao, “I have a sister in Ben Tre. My mother died a long time ago. You remember.”