‘Enough of this, I have a job to do,’ said Manh with crisp formality.
‘I accept that,’ said Dzung. ‘And I do not hate you for it. In fact, I think I pity you.’
Manh stubbed out his cigarette, becoming adamant. ‘For the last time, I am warning you! Do not talk to me like that! I have a task to perform, and you are a part of this task. I will hear no more lectures from the nguy enemy soldier who is so smart that he lives without water in District Four with too many children and a baby who is dying. Oh, yes, Dzung, I know all about you. And your puppet-general father. And especially your friendship with the former American soldier and intelligence operative who now pretends to be looking for the bones of dead veterans as he makes his way around our country and reports to his superiors on how to begin some new aggression. And I will have no more comments about the revolution or the war, in which I would like to point out my father gave his life. Yes, when I was a young boy! So talk to me about love and being willing to die for your children, and complain all you want about the camps, but you are still alive. And you will either listen to me and co-operate with me or you will be taken away for further political instruction. I have the authority to make this decision. It would not be subject to review until you are re-evaluated in the prison camps. And such a re-evaluation can take a very long time.’
‘I am sorry about your father,’ said Dzung, reading the loss in Manh’s usually fierce face.
‘It was a long time ago,’ shrugged Manh, recovering.
‘I miss my own father every day.’
‘Your father was a traitor.’
‘I loved him. So did his soldiers. He talks to me frequently. That’s how I know he died.’
‘We are not here to talk about your father.’
‘So why did you bring me here?’ Dzung spoke quietly now, his mood deflated by the slow realisation that he had just come within a few words of being marched away to the oblivion of another prison. ‘What did I do?’
‘You have become suspicious,’ said Manh simply, as if the answer was in the word itself. ‘You want a license to operate a business. Where are you going to get the money for a license? And a car. Why should the American buy a car for you? What great skill do you have to offer, what connections with important people, what family history? We have many who suffered greatly during the war, who served proudly on behalf of the revolution, who still have nothing. Why should we allow an enemy soldier to move ahead of them? And I must ask something vitally important, Dzung. Your future hangs on it. What is it that has put all of these things into motion, just at the moment your American friend is probing too deeply into the past?’
Dzung looked at the floor, confused and disappointed. ‘I have no knowledge of what Cong Ly does. He is my customer for a very long time. I take him places when he is not working. I don’t even know what his work is. He is generous. A good man.’
‘Cong Ly! Cong Ly!’ Manh spat the words out. ‘All of you have perverted his name as if you are speaking code, twisting his very image into that of justice! Is he asking you to help him?’
‘I am serious, I don’t even know what he does, except that he looks for bones,’ answered Dzung. ‘He told me he would buy a car and that we could have a business. That when we made money I could move my family out of District Four, maybe to Song Be.’
‘The government tells you when you have permission to move. Not an American spy.’
‘We were talking only of possibilities,’ answered Dzung quietly. His mood had irreversibly sunk, because he was beginning to understand. He had tried to warn Cong Ly, and he knew now that the whole scheme had been hopeless. Not only hopeless, but destructive, summoning up the magnifying glass of the Interior Ministry’s intrinsic paranoia.
‘We do not understand this man.’ Manh was peering intensely at Dzung, as if he were asking a question. ‘We have followed him for years. We listen to him. We watch him. And still we do not know him.’
We do not know him. Instinctively, Dzung knew that an offer had just been placed before him, one that was negotiable if he chose to accept it, and even promising if he was careful. Despite himself, he felt an odd thrill. It was his first moment of power in more than two decades. And just as quickly he felt a tightening in his throat and a roll of nausea deep inside his stomach. For if he chose to negotiate he could not stop. And if he began and then negotiated badly, either he or Condley would certainly lose.
‘I know him only as a man,’ said Dzung. Compromising, he decided to tell Manh secrets that the government certainly already knew. ‘He spent many years in Viet Nam during the war. He was in love with a Vietnamese woman who died. He believes she was killed by people from your side.’
Manh’s dark eyes flashed. He suddenly smiled, as if welcoming Dzung into his home. And Dzung knew that the negotiation had begun. ‘We know that. Has he remained bitter?’
‘He loves Viet Nam,’ shrugged Dzung. ‘He is like us, I think. He knows that to love our country is to experience tragedy.’
‘We do not believe he is so pure. Does he also love Colonel Pham’s daughter, then?’
‘I know nothing of that. He respects Colonel Pham.’
‘Why is he obsessed with the story of the Americans who were once missing in the mountains of Quang Nam Province?’
‘I told you, Manh, he never mentions where he goes or what he does when he is not in Ho Chi Minh City. I know nothing of that.’
Manh grunted, unconvinced. ‘He is your friend for many years and you know nothing of what he does? Don’t you find that strange? Most Americans are like little children. They want you to know everything. They constantly need approval.’
‘He is very Vietnamese, Manh. Like an older brother. Sometimes he acts foolishly but he believes he is taking care of me.’
‘And why would he do that, for someone like you?’ Manh’s face was filled with a befuddled curiosity. ‘Yesterday he goes to District Four and passes out loaves of bread to your neighbours. Is this not an odd thing, meant to encourage unrest? The day before that he is with Colonel Pham and his wife at temple. That night he is with their daughter at his hotel. Today he is with Colonel Pham in Quang Nam Province, searching for the answers to a story that might embarrass the revolution. Colonel Pham speaks favorably of him and has offered to take responsibility for his actions. But Colonel Pham is getting old, and perhaps his daughter cares for this man. Perhaps the colonel has lost his judgment. Condley claims that he had no connection with American authorities for many years before coming back to Viet Nam, but why would he stay in Asia, and why would he come back here? I must tell you, he has all the mannerisms of a highly trained agent.’
Dzung found himself shrugging helplessly. ‘You must believe me. I do not know.’
Manh eyed Dzung shrewdly for several seconds, measuring him. ‘You would like to move out of District Four, though. Would you not?’
‘Of course I would like to move,’ said Dzung. ‘Even the cockroaches and the rats dream of escaping District Four.’
‘And to take care of your family?’
The question was too pointed. A bomb exploded inside Dzung’s brain. ‘What do you want, Manh?’
Manh ignored Dzung for a moment, returning to his thick file, flipping studiously through the pages to emphasise the point he was about to make. Finally he looked up to Dzung, giving him a sly smile. ‘You were a skilled marksman when you were a soldier.’
‘I was qualified as an instructor in many weapons.’
‘Do you like to shoot?’
‘It’s been a very long time,’ The reality of what Manh was putting before him crept up Dzung’s spine on soft little scorpion’s feet, causing him to suddenly shiver.
‘Why are you trembling?’ asked Manh.
‘I am not used to air conditioners.’
‘Of course,’ said Manh. Then he closed Dzung’s file, setting it to one side of his desk as if done with it. ‘I’m going to take you shooting. Just an hour or so a day. Report here every morning at seve
n o’clock. I will have you back at the Rex Hotel in time for you to begin working as usual.’
‘What do you want me to shoot?’
‘Targets,’ said Manh. ‘To improve your skills.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it has been decided that you will do it.’
‘It has been a long time,’ said Dzung carefully. ‘What if I don’t want to shoot anymore?’
‘You do want to take care of your family, don’t you?’
‘What if I’m no good?’
‘You are a natural shot. An expert. It is in your files.’ Manh lit another cigarette, his dark eyes dancing mischievously. And then he waved a hand, dismissing Dzung for the day. ‘I will see you tomorrow morning. And when the time comes, you will know why.’
Chapter Fifteen
Quang Nam Province
They drove south from Da Nang toward Que Son on Highway 1, a narrow, often broken road that was euphemistically named the National Highway. Colonel Pham sat in the front seat of the new Toyota sport-utility vehicle, next to a driver who had been hired along with the car itself in Da Nang. Condley and Hanson Muir sat in the back, quietly conversing with each other. The car crossed low bridges and made its way through a dozen noisy, cluttered little villages that in another life Condley had known with an intimate certainty. Traffic was thick, dominated by bicycles, motorbikes, and very old trucks, many of them creaking, repainted American military ‘six-bys’ left over from the war.
The Toyota’s driver, whose name was Ngoc, was in his late thirties. Whenever they were out of Colonel Pham’s earshot, Ngoc would grin conspiratorially to Condley and speak to him in the pidgin English that the children of Quang Nam had used with the Marines during the war.
‘Hey, Honcho, you souvenir me boo-coo chop chop, numbah one, huh?’
Conversing in their odd idiom, Condley and the driver would laugh together as if they were long-lost friends. But as soon as the colonel reappeared, the driver would immediately lose both his smile and his voice, worried that Colonel Pham would disapprove and report him for being overly familiar with the Americans. Now, as they made their way toward Que Son, Ngoc the driver stared straight ahead at the road, unsmiling and unflinching, as if he were both deaf and mute.
Colonel Pham would never understand, but Ngoc and his childhood friends secretly loved Americans. Except in the worst areas further out from Da Nang, the children had always crowded around the American perimeters during the war. They had chosen special friends among the Marines and whiled away the lonely, boring hours with them, helping them wash at village wells, joking with them, playing cards, competing for their favors and for rewards of food, cigarettes, and chewing gum, even mourning the ones who were killed or wounded. True, many of the children gave information to the other side about Marine gun positions, morale, and casualties. But they still remembered the Americans with an intimate, knowing fondness that all the propaganda since the war could never erase.
It took an hour to drive the twenty miles to Que Son. The rivers were swollen underneath the bridges. The rice paddies on all sides of them were lush and wet. The slate-gray sky was reflected in the paddy water and the rivers until the water and the eastern sky connected seamlessly, with only little dots of villages among the glassy paddies to mark the horizon. To the west the distant mountains were masked by a bank of dense low clouds that huddled just above the ground like fog. And at the edges of almost every village they passed the soldiers’ cemeteries.
The ornate cemeteries for the communist soldiers who died during the war were among the few new structures along the road. They were clearly visible from the car, expansive reminders of the cost the communists had paid for their victory. Their entrances were usually the same: a stone gateway with a sign overhead – Nghia Trang Liet Si – and above the sign a gold star affixed to a circular red plate. Row after row of white gravestones filled the cemeteries, many with red stars on their fronts, reflecting the loss of hundreds upon hundreds of local soldiers even here among the midsize villages. A garish pinnacle stood at the center of most cemeteries, with either a primitive, heroic sculpture or a large communist symbol. Frequently, Ho Chi Minh’s rallying slogan appeared at this pinnacle: Doc Lap va Tu Do – Independence and Freedom.
Hanson Muir had nudged Condley when they passed the first vast cemetery, reading the words above the gate. ‘What do those words mean?’
‘Nghia Trang Liet Si. The Resting Place of Heroes, Professor.’
‘A lot of heroes,’ grunted Muir.
‘Anybody who doesn’t believe the body count from the war can go add them up now.’ Condley’s eyes scanned a thousand graves in one village cemetery as the Toyota chugged along the highway. ‘Their side, anyway. They plowed under our guys.’
‘What was that, Brandon?’
‘Our guys. The ARVN soldiers. The communists plowed the ARVN cemeteries under after the war.’
The thought seemed to fascinate the huge, cerebral anthropologist, who brooded over it as they passed cemetery after cemetery. Finally, as was his wont, Muir gave a little speech. ‘The reason is terrible but simple, Brandon. Guglielmo Ferrero wrote about it more than a century ago in his book Principles of Power, referring to the leaders of the French Revolution: The more blood they shed the more they needed to believe in their principles as absolutes. Only the absolutes might still absolve them in their own eyes and sustain their desperate energy.’ He gave Condley one of his ceremonial nods, his eyes off into the horizon. ‘I’m rather proud I remembered that. It was a direct quote.’
‘You need to watch more TV,’ grunted Condley.
‘I’m drawn to timeless thoughts,’ said Muir. ‘They elevate me from the mundanity of my own life.’
‘Well, I tried to introduce you to some interesting women back there in District Four.’
Muir laughed aloud. ‘Speaking of antiquities?’
‘Just your style, Professor. A living, walking bone dig.’
‘Call me odd, Brandon, but there’s a fascination in being able to measure what’s around you against the context of history. And that’s what we’re seeing. They erect grand monuments at the same time they plow under the ARVN cemeteries. The Romans plowed salt through the soil of Carthage, so that nothing would ever grow there again. Why did they do that? Same principle. Here, the more the communist leaders went to the people and demanded their sacrifices, the greater their burden of proof became that their cause was not simply just, but sacred. A hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, eight hundred thousand, a million – every dead son another warning that if they were not right, if they did not prevail, they would join history’s black pages as the slaughterers of their own people. And so every communist soldier’s death has become a hero’s, elevated to the point of a national religion, while every anti-communist death was traitorous, evil, and without justification. Plow them under. Erase them from history before some new generation comes along and starts thinking otherwise.’
Just past the little town of Dien Ban the road was undergoing an emergency repair. They slowed, watching bent and filthy men and women fitting rocks into place by hand, one by one. Tar was being heated in fifty-gallon barrels at the roadside, over an open flame, and then poured from buckets onto the rocks. The workers wore long-sleeved shirts and the cylindrical straw non la hats usually found in the countryside. Their faces were wrapped in bandannas to keep the smoke and tar out of their lungs.
‘Isn’t that amazing,’ muttered Muir, watching them. ‘Individually the people have so much energy, so much resilience. And yet nationally they are so incredibly inept. A brick at a time, a bucket of tar at a time, to fix the national highway. Look at that! One American road crew would have that job done in an hour.’
‘But they make great cemeteries, don’t they, Professor?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Cemeteries. And monuments to themselves. While the cities and the highways fall to shit.’
Muir chuckled softly, watching Condley’s strained face wi
th a gentle patience. ‘Oh, sometimes I forget, Brandon. I see all of this as predictable, a matter of history playing itself out almost beyond anyone’s control. And you’re always looking for answers.’
At Thang Binh they left the beaten two-lane highway, heading west into a valley along a crumbling asphalt road. The recent rains had washed out the road in several places. Ngoc the driver cursed mightily as he shifted into four-wheel drive. Colonel Pham turned to Condley, smiling and shrugging his apology. They passed little villages, their crude houses built up against the road, interspersed with narrow stands of trees planted decades before on both sides of the road by forced laborers from the re-education camps.
Staring at the row of trees, Condley thought again of a younger Dzung, fresh from the battlefield, planting saplings under the watchful eyes of those he once had fought. Had he been here twenty years before?
The sights became predictable again. Young children stood in front of the houses, many naked from the waist down, waving and calling to the car as it passed. Hopeful vendors sat behind weathered little stalls, offering soft drinks, water, and local fruits. An old one-legged woman struggled slowly along the roadside, pulling a cow behind her as she worked a crutch with her other hand. At one point they halted for a young man who was herding a hundred little ducklings across the road, walking behind them and keeping them together by tapping a twenty-foot pole from side to side.
Across the valley to their north, the Que Son Mountains rose from the mists, the wet fog cascading down their slopes like huge, rolling balls of cotton. Muir pointed quizzically at the steep blue mountains. Noticing his gaze, Condley answered his unspoken question.
‘The Que Sons, Professor. We’re on the eastern end of the mountains, opposite from Ninh Phuoc. Maybe fifteen miles away.’
Lost Soldiers Page 18