‘Boxing?’
‘Not all the time. Sometimes just fighting.’ Condley shrugged slyly. ‘Any kind of fighting. Fighting in a war, fighting in a bar, fighting with your friend, fighting with your boss, fighting with your wife.’
‘So you are like the Vietnamese,’ said the colonel. ‘Golf and fighting, very good!’ They both laughed. He was standing over his ball now, trying to figure out which club to use. Condley’s comments had amused him greatly. He loved to hear stories about America, and Condley knew that later on he would retell them to his associates, probably with great embellishment.
‘So, I think the three iron,’ decided Colonel Pham.
‘I don’t even know what a three iron is. If it was up to me I’d put that ball in my pocket and walk it all the way to the clubhouse.’
The colonel pulled out a three iron and took a mighty swing. The club splashed in the water just before it hit the ball, taking away the power of the swing, and the ball rolled forward another fifty yards or so. Pham swore under his breath, putting the club back into his golf bag, and marched forward yet again. Following him, Condley secretly checked his watch.
The colonel caught his gesture and smiled. ‘You are in a hurry?’
‘Colonel, you are my trusted colleague, so I will tell you the truth. You are a very slow golf player. Very dedicated, but very slow.’
‘Then it is time for me to take a break, yes?’ Colonel Pham stopped walking, giving Condley a quick, knowing look and then reaching inside his golf bag for his liter of bottled water. ‘You’re just back from Hawaii? You have some good news, I hope?’
‘Well, not exactly.’
‘So that’s why you found me here instead of in my office.’
They traded wry grins that were so similar one might have thought they were brain twins. Both of them possessed razor-like intuitive skills that had been fiercely honed on the kind of battlefield where detecting a bent grass blade or a broken tree branch was often the difference between living and dying. That they had been on opposite sides only sharpened their ability to read each other’s intentions. So there was little room for hypocrisy or cant between them.
‘There are very few places to speak privately in Viet Nam,’ said Condley.
‘A golf course on a hot day,’ laughed Colonel Pham.
‘I have a sensitive matter, on which I would like to ask your advice.’
‘So, he was not a battlefield casualty,’ said the colonel, studying Condley’s face for further clues. ‘Or you would be very happy to report the identification of his remains.’
‘We don’t even know that much,’ said Condley, choosing his words carefully. ‘We still don’t know who he was. But we are trying to solve a curious mystery. All we know for sure is that he was wearing the dog tags of another man when he was found.’
‘Maybe they were going steady,’ teased the colonel. ‘Don’t they trade rings and necklaces in America?’
‘Actually I was thinking they might have had a mix-up getting dressed in the dark,’ answered Condley dryly.
‘You were a good soldier,’ said Pham, laughing. ‘You know how to fight without getting mad.’ He took a long pull from his bottle of water, pleased that he knew enough about Americans to have made his little joke. ‘Why do men wear necklaces and earrings in your country, Mister Condley? It reflects a certain insecurity, I think.’
‘Freedom, Colonel.’
‘Freedom? What do you mean?’
‘Like playing golf in the rain.’
Colonel Pham tilted back his pith helmet, nodding his head with appreciation. ‘Doing foolish things that make you happy.’
‘If you want to.’
‘Choosing to be foolish. So that is your definition of freedom.’
‘No, it is one aspect of it.’
‘You always talk in circles,’ announced the colonel, indicating that their frivolities were done. ‘In your last life I think you were a politician. What can you tell me about these bones?’
‘We don’t know about the bones, but our scientists will soon find out. The dog tags belong to a soldier who was a murderer and a deserter, Colonel. And there’s another problem. We have evidence that he was fighting for your side.’
The colonel watched him carefully. ‘Half of your country was fighting for our side,’ he said, delighting in another minor provocation.
‘Not by killing our Marines.’
For the first time Colonel Pham lost his jaunty air. ‘You are sure?’
‘We are positive.’
‘Is he still alive?’
‘We don’t know yet. I think he is, though. He apparently killed this man in order to take his identity. He was hoping the body would be found and the Americans would assume he was dead, so they would stop looking for him. But the war ended, and they didn’t find the body either. We don’t know where he went. If he’s still alive he could be living anywhere. Even here.’
Condley took out an envelope from his trouser pocket and handed it to Colonel Pham. ‘We are not talking about this publicly. We are not looking for a confrontation with the Vietnamese government. But we intend to find him. His personal information is inside this envelope. Maybe you can bring me some news about… how he helped your government and if they know where he went.’
‘This will be difficult,’ said the colonel, choosing his own words very carefully. ‘I know of no such cases.’
‘That’s why I came here to see you. I must ask you personally, because I am confused. Can you tell me what usually happened to the Americans who fought for your side after the war ended?’
‘I know of no such Americans.’ Colonel Pham had stiffened into an abrupt formality. Condley sensed that his posture was driven more by bureaucratic fear than any sort of anger. ‘Mister Condley, I must remind you that it is the position of our government that there are no Americans from the war who are still alive in Viet Nam.’
‘I’m only asking for your advice, Colonel. The question is for my personal education.’ Condley studied the colonel’s face carefully, looking for clues. ‘And I have another question, because my memory troubles me. When I left Viet Nam at the end of the war, there were a few thousand American deserters living in Sai Gon and another five hundred or so living in Da Nang. Can you help me discover what happened to them?’
Colonel Pham lifted his chin, his face becoming intransigent. ‘As you know, I spent the war in the mountains. I know nothing of what happened here in the city during those times. But there were no living Americans in Ho Chi Minh City at the end of the war! I am sure of this!’
‘All of them got out before your side took over? Every one of them? Where would they have gone so quickly?’ Condley sensed the hopelessness of pursuing the matter further, at least at that moment. ‘Excuse me, Colonel, you are an honest man and I am not questioning your word. I am merely trying to think through this problem, so that I can advise my government.’
A small smile crept onto Colonel Pham’s face. A negotiation that could cause both of them serious trouble was taking place behind their friendly banter. Pham was wordlessly thanking Condley for not pursuing the matter to the point where either of them would lose face. ‘I have no idea who was in Ho Chi Minh City before April 30,1975, but I have had many discussions inside our government since I started working on the issue of Americans who remain missing in action. I can tell you that there has never been a report of Americans anywhere in Viet Nam from that date forward, Mister Condley. So we must help your government solve the problem in a more constructive manner.’
‘Except for Garwood.’
The name of a famous turncoat deserter hung between them like a bad dream that would not die. Garwood, a former Marine who had aided the enemy, had suddenly surfaced in Viet Nam several years after the war, asking to go home. Watching Pham’s face, Condley knew that he had subtly trapped the colonel. Pham had two choices. He could either take the bait and admit that others might have remained in Viet Nam, which was most likely the truth, or seize
upon Condley’s offhand statement to end the discussion.
‘You are right,’ said the colonel. ‘Except for Garwood. A very strange man, Garwood. We did not know what to do with him because for a long time he did not want to leave.’
‘And the others?’
‘What about the others?’
‘They wanted to leave?’
‘There were no others, Mister Condley.’
Pham took another drink and then put away his bottle of water. He was thinking, avoiding Condley’s waiting gaze, his eyes searching forward to where the ball had landed a few minutes before. Finally he nodded, as if agreeing with some unknown counselor. ‘All right, I will be honest with you, because after many years of working with you I trust you. I know what I am supposed to say, but in reality I do not know the answer to these questions. I will try to help you. I will ask the question inside my government.’ He turned to Condley now. ‘But please understand, it must be approached very carefully.’
‘Thank you, Colonel. We don’t want an incident, but I have a duty to investigate the matter.’
‘Carefully, Mister Condley.’
‘Carefully. But thoroughly.’
‘I will do my best. You know that.’
‘You have always helped me more than I deserve, Colonel. That I know.’
Colonel Pham regained his smile, satisfied that he and Condley had recovered their normal rapport. ‘My wife is waiting for you. She was very moved by your offer to go to temple.’
Condley smiled graciously, knowing that the colonel’s invitation was an indication that their relationship had not been hurt by his questions. ‘I would be happy to pray with her at any time.’
‘Then you can come to our house later this afternoon?’
‘It would be my honor.’
‘Van will be there.’ Colonel Pham searched Condley’s face expertly as he made his announcement and found exactly what he had been looking for. ‘She liked you very much.’
‘She is a very beautiful woman.’
‘Her French friend Mr. Petain hates you.’
‘Then he should learn to control his emotions.’
The colonel laughed at that. ‘Yes,’ he said, with an irony that informed Condley they shared the same view of Petain. ‘One should never waste his emotions in Asia, should he?’
‘What else is left for the French in Asia besides emotions?’ Condley checked his watch. ‘May I come at five o’clock?’
‘My daughter is very spoiled, you know.’
‘Beautiful women deserve to be spoiled, Colonel.’
‘In your country, perhaps.’
‘It’s the freedom thing again.’
‘Perhaps, but you said freedom is for being foolish. She’s not foolish. Only spoiled.’
‘Yes, but I think she is beautiful enough to make other people do foolish things.’
The colonel laughed, scrutinising Condley’s face once more. Again seeing what he wanted to find, he gave Condley a small wave and took out another iron. ‘I have to finish my game. See you at five o’clock!’
Chapter Ten
Dzung sat forlornly in his cyclo, smoking cigarette after cigarette and reading through that day’s edition of the popular newspaper Tuoi Tre. Every now and then he would glance up at the midday traffic, looking for the meter taxi that would announce Condley’s return from Thu Duc. Having been starved for information during the years in the re-education camps and the other years of near-total news blackouts, Dzung was an avid, even voracious reader. And being the product of a culture that had endured centuries of dominance and hidden resistance, like most Vietnamese he found great pleasure in looking past the surface of each story to guess which reality was being contorted for the benefit of the governing powers. Reading what was said, Dzung was very good at knowing what was not being said. And as always he felt a huge lament that he could not find a way to tell the communists how to fix the country’s problems. For even on this isolated Dong Du Street sidewalk, Dzung knew how and where they could be finding answers.
But I am gia, he thought again. An old Viet Nam Cong Hoa soldier, never to be listened to or trusted.
A half-block away, a muscled but toothless vendor named Truong had set up two vertical stalls filled with maps and books and T-shirts and was awaiting the tourists who might pass him on an afternoon stroll. On Dzung’s other side, amid the garbage and the muck from that morning’s rain, a sad and shriveled old woman who still refused to tell him her name was peddling rice cakes and just-warmed noodles to a stream of hungry street people. A cat continually licked the old woman’s feet. Two puppies she was fattening for sale devoured leftovers that she dumped in puddles just off the curb.
Gloom covered Dzung’s face. He had been waiting for Condley all day, and his thoughts were overwhelming him. He studied his own bare feet, impervious to the usual array of hustlers and cretins as they came and went. Hai, the one-armed, one-eyed beggar, walked up, pulling briefly at Dzung’s sleeve, hoping for a few hundred dong for lunch. Hai had stepped on a mine as a communist soldier in Cambodia in 1985 but begged from western tourists by telling them he had been blown up in ‘America’s’ war. Dzung ignored Hai, who quickly moved down the street toward other targets.
Others flitted past Dzung, carrying out their daily routines. Old Ba Thuc, shriveled and hunchbacked, nodded as she shuffled silently by, sweeping last night’s trash from the damp and treacly gutter with a waist-high, loose-bristled broom. Two tough street urchins pulled a flatbed wagon along the broken sidewalk, heading for the fertile begging grounds at the intersection of Le Loi and Nguyen Hue Streets. Their rented passenger was a hapless quadriplegic lying face-down on the wagon’s boards, his bone-thin arms and legs twisted behind him like pretzels. Delicate, moon-eyed little Ahn, sent onto the street every afternoon by her mother with a ream of no-win lottery tickets and a book of worthless stamps, tried to tease him out of his misery. Then, when he did not respond, the angel-faced child cursed him fluently for half a block as she retreated.
But Dzung did not care. He was sad, afraid, portentous, living under a pall. The cars and motorbikes drove by, their noxious fumes wafting over him. To Dzung, the gasoline odors smelled like money, opportunity, even freedom. Condley was at Thu Duc in a car. He knew that the American rode on his cyclo purely out of loyalty, that if it had not been for their friendship Condley would be driving himself in a car or on a motorbike while in Sai Gon. True, Dzung was just as loyal, looking after Condley and always listening among the gossipmongers on the street for news that might affect his friend’s fortunes. But for some reason, he felt a change coming. Condley would not ride like this forever. And without Condley’s generous salary of ten dollars a day, his life might become impossible.
And there was another problem that would not go away. Slowly, as if exploring, Dzung put a hand at the center of his chest and felt his heart beating. Then he tried to imagine what it would be like if his heart suddenly stopped, forever. Would his baby know when that happened? Would he panic in his mind, even though he could not move? Or would it be a merciful and swift deliverance?
He had no right to question fate. These things happened. He had been a good son, a good husband, and a good father, so it could not be a punishment. And it did no good to grow bitter over that which one could not control. But what would be so terrible if the great god Chua, or his messenger the temple-master Phat, granted the little boy a reprieve?
Finally the meter taxi arrived, dropping Condley off in front of the Vien Dong Hotel. An energy lifted the American’s face as he paid the taxi driver and headed across the street toward Dzung. It was the energy that had caused Dzung to worry. All the years before, Condley had seemed much like Dzung himself: lost and poetic, living neither in the past nor the future, skimming by on the raw power of Sai Gon’s daily roar. Condley had been along for the ride, here because there was no better place to go. But in all that time he had gone into nothing too deeply. There had been women, but never for longer than a few days. There ha
d been friends, but none with whom he shared even the emotions of the past. Other than Dzung himself.
Something had happened. Perhaps in Da Nang. Perhaps in the Kieu Hoa restaurant the week before. Perhaps back in Hawaii. But Condley had gone through a subtle change, and with his piercing insight Dzung felt that his friend was slowly drifting away.
As always, Dzung jumped down from his cyclo and waved happily to Condley. ‘Where we go, Cong Ly?’
Condley pointed toward the hotel. An excitement lifted his voice. ‘I’ll come back in one hour. Then we go to Colonel Pham’s house.’
‘We go his house?’ Dzung tried to hide his amazement.
‘One hour!’
‘You never go his house, Cong Ly. He VC.’
‘He’s a good VC, Dzung.’
‘There no good VC. VC no good, Cong Ly, you know that.’
Condley stopped for a moment, making himself focus in on the confused and increasingly stubborn face of his long-time friend. Finally he patted Dzung on a shoulder. ‘Dzung. This is very important to me. I’m your friend. Trust me.’
Dzung held Condley’s eyes for several seconds, then regained a weaker version of his normal smile. ‘I am old Cong Hoa soldier, Cong Ly. We always trust the Americans, even in 1975. You know that.’
It was a bitter shot, and Condley knew it as he watched Dzung walk back across the street toward his cyclo. And both of them were still stinging from it when he returned an hour later.
* * *
Dzung pedaled Condley up Hai Ba Trung to Dien Bien Phu Street. It was a long journey through dense, noxious traffic. Dzung was sweating heavily. He did not seem happy. In fact, for the first time ever, Dzung seemed to be in a sulk. Condley, on the other hand, could barely restrain his excitement.
It was December, the month of chap ma, a time to look after the resting places of the dead. Only then could the living enjoy the New Year’s celebration of Tet that would follow. The Vietnamese cared for family above government and on a par with God. In fact, dead family members became deities, worshiped and indulged by the living, looked to for advice and often for consolation. In Viet Nam the ghosts were never far away. And after decades of struggle, there were a lot of ghosts.
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