by Alex Garland
At the time I was having a smoke outside the kitchen hut, trying to reconstruct my splintered nerves. ‘No, Jean,’ I managed to reply, relatively steadily. ‘Not at this exact moment. I’m smoking a cigarette.’
‘Ah.’
‘Would you like one?’
‘Oh no!’ he said hurriedly, looking quite alarmed. ‘I do not want to take your cigarette.’
‘Go ahead. Keaty’s bringing me some back from Hat Rin.’
‘No, no. I can smoke grass.’
‘… OK.’ I returned his smile, willing him to fuck off with all my heart.
But he didn’t. He scratched his head and shuffled his feet a bit. I had the impression that if he’d owned a cap he’d have been holding it in his hands. ‘You know, Richard, I was thinking.’
‘Mmm?’
‘Perhaps you would like to see the garden one day. Sometimes you would come to see Keaty, but now it has changed. After Keaty was fishing, I made the garden even larger. Now it has seven areas.’
‘Seven?’ I said tightly. ‘Great.’
‘So one day you will come to see it?’
‘It’s a date.’
‘A date! Yes!’ He let out a roar of laughter, so theatrical that for a few seconds I thought he was taking the piss. ‘A date! Then we will see a film!’
I nodded.
‘A date,’ he repeated. ‘See you on our date, Richard!’
‘See you then,’ I replied, and mercifully he began to back away.
I avoided visiting Jed until darkness was beginning to set in. I didn’t want to be seen entering the hospital tent. I knew that this would be a tacit acknowledgement of Christo’s existence – which, under our consensus, was perhaps the most important of the Things To Ignore.
If possible, conditions were even worse inside the tent than they had been before. Stench-wise it was the same deal, but the trapped heat seemed more intense and there were puddles of dried and drying black liquid everywhere. Blood from Christo’s stomach, soaking in the sheets, collecting in the folds of the canvas floor, and smeared across Jed’s arms and chest.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, feeling sweat begin to prickle my back. ‘What the fuck’s been going on in here?’
Jed turned towards me. He was lit from below by his up-ended Maglite. It made the stray hairs of his beard glow like light-bulb filaments and hid his eyes in absolute darkness. ‘Do you have good news for me?’ he murmured. ‘I’m tired of bad news now. I only want to hear good news.’
I paused, squinting at the shadows in his eye-sockets, looking to see some form inside them. Something about his manner was threatening and his demonic glow made me wonder if I was having a hallucination. So much so that I felt I should confirm his realness if I was going to stick around. Eventually I reached for the Maglite and shone it directly at his face. His hand flicked up to shield the glare, but I saw enough flesh to reassure me.
I rested the torch back on the floor. ‘I’ve got news. Zeph and Sammy are dead.’
‘Dead,’ Jed said without emotion.
‘Shot by the dope guards.’
‘You saw it?’
‘No.’
He cocked his head to the side. ‘Disappointed?’
‘No. I saw them get beaten and…’
‘That was enough for you.’
‘… It made me feel sick,’ I finished. ‘I didn’t expect it to, but it did.’
‘Oh.’ The bright filaments of Jed’s beard twitched as some invisible expression passed across his features.
‘… Aren’t you pleased? Not pleased, I mean relieved… In away.’
‘I’m not relieved at all.’
‘…You aren’t?’
‘No.’
‘But it means the beach is safe. Tet and morale… and our secrecy…’
‘I don’t care about the beach any more, Richard.’
‘You… You don’t care about the beach?’
‘Would you like to hear my news?’
I shifted my weight to disguise my unease. ‘… OK.’
‘Today’s news is that there isn’t any.’
‘… No visitors.’
‘That’s right, Richard. No visitors. Again.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t seen a single soul, except his and maybe mine… Can’t stop thinking about why that might be… Why do you think it is, Richard? Me and Christo, waiting here all day long, with no visitors…’
‘Jed… We’ve been over this before.’
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘… No.’
‘So we can go over it again.’
‘… OK. It’s just like you said, people are trying to get back to normal. They don’t want to be reminded.’
‘And it would be the same if it was Sal in here.’
‘It might be different if it was Sal. She is the boss. But I don’t think…’
‘What if it was you?’ he interrupted.
‘In here?’
‘In here dying. What if it was you?’
‘Some people would come, I guess. Françoise and Étienne. Keaty…’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. You’d come.’ I laughed weakly. ‘I hope.’
Jed let the laughter hang in the air, making it sound unpleasant and alien. Then he shook his head. ‘No, Richard, I meant what if it was me in here.’
‘… You?’
‘Me.’
‘Well… people would come to see you.’
‘Would they?’
‘Of course.’
‘Would they?’
‘… Yes.’
‘But I am in here, Richard.’ He leant towards me, blocking the Maglite, throwing the whole of his upper body into shadow. I pulled back at once, unsure of how close he was. When he spoke, hissed, he can’t have been more than five or six inches away. ‘I’m in here all fucking day and all fucking night. And nobody comes to visit.’
‘I come to visit.’
‘But no one else.’
‘I… I’m sorry.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry too…’
‘But…’
‘Sure.’
A couple of seconds later he sat back, and we watched each other across Christo’s stained body. Then his head dropped and he absently began rubbing flakes of dried blood off his forearms.
‘Jed,’ I said quietly. ‘Do me a favour.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Get out of the tent for a while. I’ll stay here with Christo and…’
He waved a hand dismissively. ‘I think you miss the point.’
‘You really should…’
‘I don’t want to see those fuckers outside.’
‘You wouldn’t have to. You could go down to the beach.’
‘Why?’ he said, suddenly sounding very clear and definite. ‘To clear my head? To get me thinking straight and keep me sane?’
‘… If you like.’
‘As sane as everyone else?’
‘It would help you get some perspective.’
‘It would help nothing. It doesn’t matter where I am. I’m still in this tent. I’ve been in this tent since the day I got here, just like Christo. Just like Karl and Sten. The tent, the open sea, the DMZ. Out of sight and out of…’
Just for the briefest moment I heard a thickness in his voice. I held my breath, oddly panicked by the prospect of him in tears, but he appeared to regain control and continued.
‘When the Swedes arrived and Daffy freaked… Daffy vanished… I really thought it would change… With him gone, I thought it would change… But he was so sly… He came back… so sly…’
Jed’s voice faded to an indistinct whisper. Then he rocked forwards and touched his temples with his fingertips.
‘Jed,’ I said, after a pause. ‘What do you mean, he came back?’
‘Killed himself,’ he replied. ‘… Came back.’
I frowned, dislodging the build-up of sweat in my eyebrows. It ran down my face and stung the corners of my mouth. ‘You’ve seen him?’
‘S
een him… yes…’
‘When?’
‘Ko Pha-Ngan, first… Should have seen him earlier…’
‘You saw Daffy on Ko Pha-Ngan?’
‘With your friends. Your dead friends…’
‘With Zeph and Sammy?’
‘He gave them the map.’
I hesitated. ‘Jed, I gave them the map.’
‘No…’
‘I’m telling you, I gave them the map. I remember doing it clearly.’
‘No, Richard.’ He shook his head. ‘Daffy gave them the map.’
‘You mean… They had the map before I gave it to them?’
‘I mean he gave them the map when he gave it to you.’ Jed sat upright again. The movement drew the canvas floor tight and unbalanced the up-ended Maglite. As it fell it briefly dazzled me, then rolled to rest as a single beam. ‘He gave the map to Étienne,’ he said, carefully replacing the torch. ‘And to Françoise, and Zeph, and Sammy, and the Germans, and all the others…’
‘The others?’
‘The ones we haven’t seen yet. The ones that will arrive next month, or week, and the ones that will arrive after them.’
I sighed. ‘Then… you see Daffy when you see me.’
‘Not so much before… But now, yes.’ Jed nodded sadly. ‘Every time I see you… Every time…’
Same-Same, But Different
As I got into bed, the first into the longhouse that night, I heard the sound of Bugs and Keaty returning with the Tet supplies. There was a lot of excited chatter when people saw what had been brought for the celebration, and later I heard Keaty calling my name. Later still, Françoise joined him. I didn’t answer either of them. I was lying on my back with a T-shirt draped over my head, waiting for sleep. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to wait too long.
The clearing had always been a clearing. It had almost doubled in size as the camp had grown, but had existed in some form since the rocket-ship trees were saplings. Two hundred years ago? Maybe more. The only way I know how to date a tree is to cut it down, but it wasn’t hard to imagine those rocket-ship trees having seen a few centuries through.
‘A Herculean task,’ said Mister Duck thoughtfully. He was standing in the spot where the longhouse now stood, thigh-deep in ferns. ‘Diverting the stream. We only attempted it in the second year, when there were fourteen of us living here. Couldn’t have done it without Jean, of course. Not just the know-how. He worked like an ox… kept us going… I wish you could have been with us, Rich. I wish you could have been with us from the very beginning. Me, Sal and Bugs… The mood, you can’t imagine…’
I pushed carefully through the shrubs, pacing out the distance from the longhouse door to where I estimated my bed must be. It was curious to be in the position where I knew, at that moment, I was also sleeping. ‘I can imagine the mood,’ I said, stepping sideways, disconcerted by the idea that I was standing on my head. ‘I can imagine it easily.’
Mister Duck waggled a finger at me. ‘If I didn’t know you better, Rich, I’d take offence at that. There’s no way you can imagine the way we felt. Apart from anything, you’re too young. On and off, I’d been travelling with Sal and Bugs for over eleven years. Eleven years, Rich! How can you imagine what it’s like, living with cancer for eleven years?’
‘… Cancer?’
‘Sure, cancer. Or AIDS. What do you want to call it?’
‘Call what?’
‘Living with death. Time-limits on everything you enjoy. Sitting on a beautiful beach, waiting for a fucking time-limit to come up. Affecting the way you look at the sand and the sunsets and the way you taste the rice. Then moving on and waiting for it to happen all over again. For eleven years!’ Mister Duck shivered. ‘… Then to have that cancer lifted. To think you’ve found a cure… That’s what you can’t imagine, Rich.’
The waterfall and its pool, at least, were exactly the same. A few shrubs different, I suppose, and doubtless a few invisible branches had broken in the trees, but not enough differences to warrant a double take.
One major difference perhaps, but one that would have taken me a while to notice. The carved tree hadn’t been carved, and as soon as we arrived by the pool, Mister Duck produced a pocket knife and set about cutting in the names.
I watched him for a while, interested by the concentration on his usually restless face. Then, as he began to write the zero calendar, I asked, ‘Why me?’
He smiled. ‘I liked the way you talked when I threw the joint at you. You were so indignant and funny… But mainly, I chose you because you were a traveller. Any traveller would have done the job. Spreading the news is in our nature.’
‘Our?’
‘I’m no better than you. I’m just the same.’
‘Maybe worse…’
Mister Duck completed the last zero with a twist of his wrist, and an oval of bark dropped cleanly on to his lap. ‘Hey,’ he said happily. ‘I’d forgotten I did that. How amazing.’
‘Maybe worse,’ I repeated. ‘If I had a part in destroying the beach, I did it unwittingly. You did it on purpose.’
‘Who says I destroyed this place? Not me, pal. Not from where I’m standing.’ He glanced at his crossed legs. ‘Sitting.’
‘Who was it then?’
Mister Duck shrugged. ‘No one. Stop looking for some big crime, Rich. You have to see, with these places, with all these places, you can’t protect them. We thought you could, but we were wrong. I realized it when Jed arrived. The word was out, somehow out, and after that it was just a matter of time… Not that I acted on it at first. I waited, hoping he was a one-off, I guess. But then the Swedes arrived and I knew for sure. Cancer back, no cure, malignant as fuck…’ He stood up, dusted the earth off his legs, and flicked his bark zero into the waterfall pool. ‘Terminal.’
I punched him as hard as I could, square on his solar plexus. Then, when he doubled up, I pushed him on the floor and kicked him in the face.
He took it all without any attempt to fight back. He let me lay into him until my knuckles were cut and my ankle was twisted. Then, when I’d run out of breath and had collapsed on the grass beside him, he uncurled, pulled himself up, and started to laugh.
‘Shut the fuck up!’ I panted. ‘Shut your fucking mouth!’
‘Cripes,’ he chuckled, spitting out a broken tooth. ‘What’s got into you?’
‘You tricked me!’
‘How? What did I ever offer you? What did I ever say I’d provide?’
‘You…’
‘I never offered you anything but Vietnam, and only because you asked for it. It so happens you wanted the beach too. But if you could have had Vietnam and kept the beach, it wouldn’t have been Vietnam.’
‘I didn’t know that! You never told me!’
‘Exactly.’ Mister Duck beamed. ‘That was the beauty of it. You not knowing was Vietnam too. Not knowing what was going on, not knowing when to give up, stuck in a struggle that was lost before it started. It’s incredible really. It all works out.’
‘But I didn’t want that Vietnam!’ I began. ‘I didn’t want that kind! I wan…’ Then I stopped. ‘All?… Wait, you’re saying it all works out?’
‘All. Right to the bitter end.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘You know, Rich, I always thought euthanasia was a kindness. But I never dreamed it could be so much fun.’
BEAUCOUP BAD SHIT
Spud-Bashing
I watched Sal from just inside the longhouse door. Everyone was standing in a big circle and she was in the middle, glowing, marching round, dishing out orders like they were birthday presents. For Greg and Moshe’s teams, special fish quotas to achieve; for Bugs and the carpenters, an eating area to construct; for Unhygienix and the gardeners, a feast to prepare; for Ella, seven whole chickens to pluck.
‘Meat!’ I heard one of the Yugoslavian girls say. ‘I have not eaten meat since… since…’
Since the last Tet celebration, it was generally agreed. Nine or ten months ago, a few had eaten a monkey that Jean had k
illed. Monkey, which tasted more like lamb than chicken, Jesse reported. Something Sammy might have found interesting, as an exception to his rule of exotic food.
Watching Sal’s skilful organizing, I wondered how she’d react if I explained that our respite with the rafters was temporary in the extreme, and that all our efforts to protect the beach would come to nothing. I wondered if this news would frighten her as much as it frightened me.
When everyone had woken that morning and the longhouse had begun to buzz, I’d pretended to be asleep. Difficult, when Françoise tried to rouse me, but Sal soon called her off.
‘Leave him be,’ she’d said, doubtless realizing I was faking. ‘Richard had a tough day yesterday, collecting all the dope for tonight.’
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the longhouse to empty and I was able to remove the sheets from over my head, light a candle, and a cigarette. I’d actually been awake a good two hours before the others, itching for nicotine all that time. I should have crept out when I had the chance. It would have meant I wasn’t trapped in the longhouse. But at five a.m. I knew it would still be dark outside, and darkness was something I didn’t feel ready for. I didn’t know what it might be hiding. So instead, I had two hours of my imagination running riot, trying to second-guess Mister Duck.
The only thing I could be sure of was that if Vietnam was heading for a bitter end, I was too. Past that, I couldn’t be sure of anything. Working through the possibilities, the areas the end might come were as good as infinite. As an infantry man, all it might take was an ill-advised command from my CO. One that pushed my luck in the DMZ, accepted against my better instincts. Equally it might come from random bad luck. The same luck that jammed a soldier’s M16 at the wrong time could make me slip as I jumped from the waterfall.
But knowing Mister Duck in the way I did, these were not the threats that scared me the most. They were real enough, but they didn’t have his nightmare hallmark. When he spoke about the bitter end, deep down I knew he only meant one thing. The VC. The fall of Saigon.
I was fortunate that, in her attempt to wake me, Françoise hadn’t tried to pull the sheets from my head. If she had done, she’d have discovered that they were soaking wet and cold with sweat.