‘You must have missed her very much,’ said Condley.
Pham nodded, speaking to Condley with a rare, deep emotion. ‘So, Cong Ly, now you know why I understand you. And yes, why I accept your emotions for my daughter Van. I lived in Moscow for five years, just as you lived in Sai Gon during the war. When I returned to Viet Nam I left behind people that I loved. I had to accept that I probably would never see them again. It took nothing away from my feelings for my family in Viet Nam or for my country, but I am forever torn in two. I am richer for it. But I will never be fully whole. Like you, Cong Ly. Never whole.’
Condley alternated his gaze from the happily smiling young woman to the serious gaze on the face of the man he once thought he fully understood. ‘You haven’t seen her for—’
‘Twenty years,’ said the colonel. ‘That does not mean I don’t love her. I send her money every month. Not much, but she is my daughter. My wife approves. Family, Cong Ly. Very simple but very complicated.’
Colonel Pham checked his watch. ‘What time do you want to leave tonight for our… obligation?’
‘Seven o’clock,’ said Condley.
The colonel smiled, putting an arm on Sasha’s shoulder. ‘So you don’t mind if I leave you until then?’
‘See you at seven, Colonel.’
Condley stood silently as Colonel Pham exited the hotel’s front door with his daughter on his arm. Yes, behind those forty-year-old industrial-strength glasses and that rabbit-skin hat that stank of mothballs was a man less different from himself than he had ever fully imagined. Finally he chuckled, muttering to himself, ‘Well, that wasn’t in Skip Rogers’s folder.’
And then he went to lunch.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A huge repair truck was parked incongruously at the edge of Red Square where they entered it, apparently broken down and abandoned for the evening by its crew. Passing it, Condley noticed a muddy old military hat hanging loosely where the gas cap used to be. The Square itself was fairy-tale gorgeous with its colourful spires and ancient buildings, all lit up with spotlights in the crisp night air. They walked briskly through it, gawking like tourists on their way to the subway. Condley shivered uncontrollably as they walked, the flaps of his fur cap down over his ears and his gloved hands pushed deep inside his overcoat. It had been decades since he had experienced winter, and Moscow in January was belly-whimpering cold.
He had shown Colonel Pham the map that Skip Rogers left inside his folder, and the old Viet Cong soldier had immediately taken charge of their hapless little patrol. On the far side of Red Square they reached the subway platform and marched down the steps toward the trains. They passed grand statues and walls covered with mosaic murals, all depicting heroic, muscled workers engaged in the never-ending struggle against – what? thought Condley, thinking of the decades since the murals had been done. Capitalism? Corruption? Or who knew, maybe in the end, communism itself? No matter, he decided. They were beautiful and if nothing else had provided someone with a job.
The train was nearly empty. They did not speak to each other as Colonel Pham counted the stops. The colonel sat expressionless, glancing now and then at the map and then outside, as if navigating. Condley stared straight ahead, rehearsing over and over in his mind the possibilities of the encounter to come, wrapped in an intensity that resembled the last moments before a combat mission.
Finally the colonel stood, nodding to him and walking to the subway door. The subway halted and Condley silently followed him onto the platform.
As they climbed the steps, the bone-biting, wintry darkness hit them as if they were forcing themselves through a wall. At the top of the steps Condley discovered they were in a residential neighbourhood whose nearly treeless streets were crowded with mammoth, dimly lit apartment buildings. The streetlights were out, and even the occasional cars that passed them in this section of the city drove only with their parking lights on. The darkness and the cold and his own electric anticipation made Condley’s limbs shake uncontrollably.
Oddly, Colonel Pham seemed completely unaffected by the weather, at home in the cold, greeting it with the same nonchalance as he did the steaming heat and rains of his favorite golf course in Sai Gon. He took a few deep breaths, gaining his bearings in the dark, then pointed toward a set of buildings far away, across an open field.
‘Over there,’ he said, and began walking.
They walked for fifteen minutes, neither of them saying a word as they trudged across treeless, empty fields and little-travelled streets. As they walked, Condley’s body generated some much-needed heat, and by the time they reached the huge apartment complex his limbs had ceased their shaking. Each building of the complex was huge and boxy, consisting of hundreds of units, as unimaginatively designed as a penitentiary.
Colonel Pham studied the buildings from the road that bordered them, then finally nodded, choosing one and heading toward it.
‘This one,’ he said, tapping Skip Rogers’s map. ‘I know, I know.’
Inside the dim-lit building, the air was damp and very cold. A large pile of stinking trash sat just inside the door, bottles and garbage spilling from the usual trash room into the doorway itself. Down the hallway the colonel found a metal-plated elevator and pushed the button, summoning it. The elevator light did not go on. Condley started shivering again as they waited for the elevator to descend. After a few minutes they finally realised that it wasn’t going to come.
The colonel pointed to a set of stairs and resolutely began climbing them, with Condley close behind. When they reached the fifth floor the colonel stepped carefully into the darkened hallway. He peered for a long moment down the corridor and then at the nearest apartment numbers to get his bearings. Deciding, he pointed to his left and began walking again. After a few steps his pace slowed considerably, as if he were a hunter on the prowl. Finally he stopped, turning back to Condley and pointing just ahead.
‘Right there,’ he whispered.
Condley checked his watch. It was ten minutes to nine. They were ahead of Skip Rogers’s schedule by ten minutes but were well within the boundaries of the CIA agent’s suggested time frame. It was important, Rogers had written, to arrive at the apartment after Anatolie Petrushinsky had returned from his daily sojourns but before he drank himself to sleep.
They stood silently for a moment in front of the iron-plated door. The colonel took a deep breath, gathering himself. Then he gave off a little shrug and knocked loudly on the door.
All was silent on the other side of the door. They waited for a full minute, staring nervously at each other. Then the colonel knocked loudly again. Several more seconds passed. They heard a shuffling and after that a scratching on the door itself, as if someone was undoing an inside lock. And finally came a deep, slurred voice, speaking in indecipherable Russian, its tone filled with suspicion.
As he listened to the words, the colonel’s face became filled with the same electric tension as Condley’s. He took another deep breath and answered in Russian, his own voice rich and surprisingly deep and his tone warmly upbeat. The only words Condley recognised were comrade Anatolie Petrushinsky and Viet Nam.
Another pause, as if the man on the other side of the door was measuring the validity of the colonel’s response against the possibility that he was being somehow tricked. Another question from the unknown voice, Condley able to decipher only Viet Nam from the words that drifted through the door. And the colonel giving a long, emotional response, seeming to alternate between pleading and scolding.
Then, with a clarity that shocked Condley as deeply as if he had grabbed on to an exposed electrical wire, the voice behind the door began speaking Vietnamese. ‘My friend,’ the deep voice intoned, suddenly devoid of the rich, slurring Russian tones, ‘if you have truly come from Viet Nam to see me, speak Vietnamese and tell me why.’
The colonel and Condley smiled to each other, neither hiding his sudden and overwhelming excitement. Then the colonel turned back to the door, as if speaking to the gi
ant curtain that hid the Wizard of Oz.
‘I was a soldier in our common cause for many years, and after that I lived in your country for five years, studying the way of the future,’ said Pham, now in Vietnamese. ‘I bring you the greetings of my government. I bring you our thanks for all of your assistance to us, both during and after our glorious war of liberation. I bring you the fond memories still carried in the hearts of many of our people. And finally I bring you a request for help, on a difficult matter that might only be solved with your assistance.’
‘You need my help?’
‘Yes. It is very important. Anatolie Petrushinsky, the people of Viet Nam are once more asking you to assist them.’
Another long pause, and then a low sound from the other side of the door, so heartfelt that it was almost primeval. ‘Anatolie nho’ Viet Nam nhieu qua!’ Anatolie misses Viet Nam too much.
‘Da’ smiled the colonel, moved by the comment but also knowing he had broken through Petrushinsky’s barriers. ‘Viet Nam cung nho’ Anatolie!’ Viet Nam misses Anatolie too.
The door swung slowly open. Petrushinsky filled it on the other side, mildly drunk, large and gray, wearing a rumpled black sweater and gray wool trousers. His sagging, wrinkled face was permanently burnt from the cold, streaked with tears. Reaching out with his enormous arms, he embraced Colonel Pham, pulling the little man off the ground as he kissed him three times, cheek to cheek.
‘Welcome, my little friend,’ he said in Vietnamese, choking on his sobs as he spoke. ‘It has been too long, too long!’ Releasing the colonel from his massive grasp, he noticed Condley standing with him in the dark hallway. ‘He is not a Russian,’ he said with renewed suspicion.
‘No,’ said the colonel. ‘But you must trust me, Anatolie. All of us are now working for a common good.’
Condley stepped forward, offering his hand and speaking in Vietnamese. ‘I am an American. I was on the other side,’ he said. ‘But that was a long time ago, Anatolie Petrushinsky. Colonel Pham and I are now co-workers inside Viet Nam. We wish to make peace and we need your help.’
‘You were an American soldier?’
‘I was a Marine.’
‘But you fought?’
‘Yes,’ said Condley, steadily holding Petrushinsky’s eyes. ‘In fact, I may even have fought you.’ Petrushinsky remained silent, and so he continued. ‘Quang Nam Province. The Que Son Mountains. In 1969?’
‘I was not there in 1969. Not in Quang Nam.’
‘In 1971?’
‘Perhaps. But we were only observers,’ said Petrushinsky carefully, now looking skeptically from Condley to Colonel Pham.
‘He is a good man,’ reassured Colonel Pham. ‘My friend. I have observed him for years. Ha Noi has allowed me to travel with him. So, Anatolie, we must talk. It is very important.’
Petrushinsky suddenly began to cough, continuing heavily for several seconds. Then, as if using reverse logic, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, all the while studying the two men with a mix of suspicion and longing. ‘Quang Nam?’ he finally said, nodding to Condley.
‘Quang Nam,’ said Condley. ‘Que Son, 1969. And other places, other years.’
Petrushinsky gestured with one huge arm toward the interior of his apartment. ‘At least you are a fellow soldier. And you are with my Vietnamese friend. So I welcome you inside my home.’
Inside the apartment Petrushinsky took another long drag on his cigarette and showed them into his living room. ‘This is where I live. This is where I remember what my life was like when I had a life. So, please, sit down.’
Following Skip Rogers’s instructions, Condley had brought Petrushinsky the finest bottle of vodka available at the hotel. He handed it to him as he entered the small living room.
‘To thank you for your hospitality,’ he said. ‘And in hopes that we might become friends.’
The former soldier’s eyes widened with pleasure as he examined the label. ‘Ah, very good! Very good vodka!’ He raised the bottle to Condley and Pham, walking from the room. ‘So, I think we should have a drink. I will be right back.’
The living room was furnished with a thin metal reading lamp, a small cloth couch, and two stuffed chairs. On one wall was a large bookshelf, and it was evident that, despite his recent hard times, Petrushinsky was an avid reader. A hundred books lined the shelves, and a half dozen others were stacked on the coffee table in front of the couch. But Condley’s eyes were immediately drawn to a shelf table behind the couch, against another wall, where three miniature models of Vietnamese village homes had been carefully constructed.
Condley and Colonel Pham walked together to the doll-house-size models, studying them with vast appreciation. Someone, perhaps Petrushinsky himself, had created a small hamlet in the living room. The models were intricately done, from the thatch roofs of the homes to the mud walkways surrounding them to the water buffalo pens that adjoined them off to the side. Tiny toy waterbulls were in the pens and in the fields behind the houses. Miniature Vietnamese villagers sat in the homes, washed at the wells, and rode atop the waterbulls.
‘Very good,’ commented the colonel, pointing at the models. ‘Mien trung,’ he said. Central Viet Nam.
‘Yes, mien trung,’ said Petrushinsky, appearing behind them as he re-entered the living room. He was carrying a small tray with three full glasses of vodka. ‘It took me more than a year to build them. But it is the way I am able to remember. When I look at them, sometimes I feel as though I am there again.’
The burly Russian carefully set the tray on the coffee table, pushing a few books out of the way to do so. Then he put one hand on his heart and made a fist with the other, a gesture of solidarity with the colonel. ‘Viet Nam! Viet Nam! I have been many places in my life. Germany. Poland. Cuba. Yes, even Afghanistan. But in my heart, Colonel, I have never left Viet Nam!’
He handed each of them a tall glass filled to the brim with Condley’s vodka. Then he raised his own glass into the air, his haggard face wretched with emotion. ‘I make a toast to you, Colonel. To my friend and my ally. And to our victory, because we did win, did we not? To Viet Nam!’
Colonel Pham raised his own glass. ‘To our liberation, yes? Doc lap va tu do! And to Russia! And to all our Soviet friends!’
Condley continued to hold his glass, declining to drink, watching the two men as each drained half of the vodka from his own glass. The colonel’s capacity for vodka was another little surprise. Finally they lowered their glasses, revealing reddened, suddenly cheerful faces. They were blissful in their shared ritual, living for that moment in a past that did not include him. Indeed, in a past where he had been the very object of their joined efforts. And yet undeniably a past whose boastful victories had long since disappeared.
Finally they turned to him, looking at him as if he were a voyeur intruding on their intimacy. And in a way he was. ‘Ah,’ muttered Pham, raising his glass to Condley and searching for words that would somehow include Condley as well. ‘And to the future. With new friends.’
Condley finally raised his glass, forcing a smile. ‘Yes. To new friends. Because you may have won, but then you lost, didn’t you? And we may have lost, but then we won. Didn’t we?’
‘You are too clever,’ said Petrushinsky darkly.
‘Perhaps, but I am only speaking the truth,’ said Condley, still holding his glass up near his eyes. ‘You’re gone. We’re back. And we’re not going to go away. And if you think about it, we’re pretty good people to have around. Ask the colonel.’
Pham watched Condley for a moment, then nodded to Petrushinsky. ‘We know him,’ said the colonel. ‘Sometimes he boasts too much, but we like him. This is not a bad thing.’
‘Well, I don’t know him,’ resisted the Russian, still frowning darkly. ‘And so far I do not like him. But he did bring the vodka. So I will drink with him.’ And the former soldier drained his glass.
The ceremonies over, Petrushinsky gestured to his two chairs, taking a seat on his couch. ‘I thank you for the
vodka, Mr. Condley. So now we must talk.’ He watched them closely as they took their seats, his face flushed and his eyes cloudy from that night’s ration of vodka, much of which had been taken even before they arrived. ‘Colonel Pham, my friend, you said that I could help you. What is it that you want from me?’
‘We are trying to find an American who was with you in the Que Son Mountains,’ said the colonel. ‘I think you would remember him.’
‘There were many westerners in the mountains,’ hedged Petrushinsky. ‘They drifted in, they drifted out. Our comrades had taken several German nurses and doctors from a hospital near An Hoa in 1969 and kept them for several years. There were a few American prisoners of war captured during the fighting on the ground who were being held in caves. Now and then a journalist. And a few others who worked with us.’ He hedged again, looking quickly at Condley. ‘Or with you, that is, Colonel Pham. As I said, I was merely an observer who offered… advice, from time to time.’
‘He worked with you,’ said Condley. ‘Salt and Pepper. A black man and a white man. We’re looking for the white man.’
Petrushinsky stared at him for a long time, as if measuring his own knowledge against his fears of betraying former comrades. ‘There was one we did not like,’ he said carefully. ‘A very bad man. We did not know what to do with him.’
‘And an Australian,’ said Condley, pushing the issue before Petrushinsky caught himself and changed his mind. ‘A photographer.’
‘The twins,’ said Petrushinsky immediately, his face alive with memories. ‘The good twin and the evil twin.’
‘The twins?’ Condley leaned forward, not letting Petrushinsky think.
‘They looked alike. We used to tease the photographer. His name was’ – Petrushinsky searched his mind, his eyes faraway – ‘like the bird. I don’t know English. I’m sorry.’
‘Larkin.’
‘Lark, like the bird. Yes,’ said Petrushinsky. ‘The happy bird. And the American’s name was like the devil. Good and evil twins. They looked alike. The devil was bigger than the lark, but not by much. He studied the lark, all the time. Not like a friend. Like a book.’
Lost Soldiers Page 29