by Peter Gilboy
“Yeah, simple,” Alec says.
“You sure,” I ask, “that it means ‘pearl’?”
“Like I said, I don’t know about R-O-W. And with B-E-C, I’m not saying that it means ‘pearl.’ Just that it could.”
“Jesus,” Alec says again.
“What?”
“Thanks, Melvin,” I tell him. “It’s a good lead.”
“Wait. Norcross, you don’t think it could be anything else?” Alec asks him.
“Yeah, could be someone playing scrabble in the jungle?”
“You can go,” Alec says.
“Did I tell you about the two spy satellites that got married.”
“I said you could go, Norcross.”
“It wasn’t much of a wedding. But the reception was good.” He smiles.
Towers laughs.
Alec points to the door.
Norcross won’t stop. “These two satellites walk into a bar…”
“We’re done here!” Alec says.
Melvin motors away. We wait until the door closes. At first no one speaks. I look over at Alec. He’s staring at the screen.
Towers is the first to speak.
“What’s a pearl, sir?”
20
A VILLAGE IN SOUTH VIETNAM
DAY 61
LIEUTENANT PAVLIK WAITED FOR Vang. He came almost each day at this time. She understood now about “hello.” She remembered that the Vietnamese have the same word for hello and good-bye. Vang must think it’s the same for English.
From the way the guards deferred to Vang, he must be an elder of this village; maybe its leader. Maybe he was responsible for everything, even for her. He could be Viet Cong too. Or maybe he had to defer to their ruthlessness. They could come and go as they wished and make their demands on him. He would have to maintain a precarious balancing act of life and death for his village. Perhaps the whole village was now in Viet Cong hands, though unwillingly so.
Vang finally arrived, shuffling in, leaning on his walking stick. She welcomed him with her eyes. Without any greeting he pushed away the mosquito net and pulled her to her feet. Then, almost apologetically he motioned to the door and said, “Đi.” She knew it was the Vietnamese word for “go.”
Before she could take a step there was a rush at the doorway. Two cadre members stepped into the hut. They moved to the side, and another man entered brusquely with an authoritative air. He was smaller than the other two, seemingly hollow-chested. His cheeks were drawn out toward his pointed nose. Thin whiskers ringed his mouth. Like a mouse, she thought. She could smell the pork on his breath and in his pores. Was this the man? Was this the one who had forced her those nights?
The mouse-faced man wore the same clothing as the others, with no rank at all. But it was clear who was in charge. He barked at the two other cadre, who immediately left. But Vang didn’t move. He continued to watch the mouse-faced man as if he knew him and didn’t trust him.
The mouse-faced man spun Patricia around and tied her hands. Then he inspected her like an excited fisherman examining his biggest catch of the year. He pointed to the door.
“Đi!” he ordered loudly.
She turned to Vang. Maybe he could help. But he just stood there. She braced herself. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Đi!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, then grabbed her by the arm and shoved her through the doorway and onto the village path.
Once outside, the mouse-faced man shouted something and villagers immediately rushed forward and encircled Lieutenant Pavlik. They screamed and shook their fists at her. Patricia instinctively shrank back from the shouts, stooping and backing away from them. She fell backward, mashing her hands that were tied behind her. The villagers closed in around her and above her, still screaming.
With another command the shouts immediately died. The mouse-faced man strutted through the crowd toward her. She attempted to stand, but he grabbed her by the skin of her throat and threw her to her knees again. She gasped for air through her windpipe. He forced her head down, making her bow to the village.
The mouse-faced man began to speak then, and though his words were incomprehensible to her, she knew it was a kind of speech to the villagers because it was punctuated with shouts in unison from the crowd.
She was still gasping for air when she saw legs stepping toward her through the crowd. She glanced up, hoping to see Vang. Instead she saw the reflecting shimmer of steel, a jagged knife, and the contorted face of the peasant woman who wielded it.
The woman shrieked wildly and thrust the knife down at Patricia’s neck.
Patricia rolled to her side to escape the blow. She looked up. The mouse-faced man held the woman’s wrist. The knife was still in midair. The peasant woman’s face was still distorted in anger. She wailed so wildly that spittle flew from her mouth onto Patricia.
The mouse-faced man pushed the wailing woman away, scolding her. He turned back to Lieutenant Pavlik and stood over her with his arms folded. He shouted again, pointed at her. He punched his hand hard into his palm. The villagers shouted. Then again and again he punched his hand, and the villagers screamed louder each time.
He pulled on Lieutenant Pavlik’s arms then, as if trying to jerk her to her feet; but before she could straighten, his foot slammed her cheekbone and jaw. White bursts of light flashed in her eyes as her body rocketed backward. She landed on her back, her falling weight mashing her hands again. The wound on her forehead reopened. She could feel blood in her eye and rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes stung from where blood vessels had burst. She was going to die. They would kill her now. She had to fight them. She planted a foot under her and sprang, lunging headfirst into the mouse-faced man, hitting him square in his chest, knocking him back but not down. He was surprised, but then he laughed. He swung hard, knocking her to the side with a single blow. Then more blows came, this time to her stomach and back. She crumpled, panicking for breath as he continued to kick her ribs and head.
Unable to stand or even push herself up with her hands tied, Patricia scrambled on her knees toward the hut, tumbling every few feet in the dirt against the side of her face. He kicked her as she scrambled, and each kick launched her forward onto her face as she continued to move as fast as she could. She coughed out loose dirt and pebbles caught between her lips each time she fell. A coat of grit caught at the back of her throat. She heard no more shouts from the villagers, who just stood now, seemingly no longer impassioned.
“Dừng lại.”
This time it was Vang’s command. It was not directed at her, but at the mouse-faced man. It was not spoken harshly or even loudly, but with the quiet authority of one who knows he will be obeyed.
The blows immediately stopped. But now there was more shouting, this time from the mouse-faced man. He was shouting at Vang. Patricia waited on her stomach, the side of her face flat against the dirt, her hair fanned out.
She did not know, but perhaps it was Vang’s command that sent two villagers to lift her under her arms and carry her back to the hut. Once inside they untied her and lowered her carefully to her mat. They gestured for her to get under the mosquito net. Still gasping for air, she lay doubled in a tight ball. Nausea and pain gripped her stomach. She could feel the warm blood flowing from her forehead. She coughed to clear her mouth. She swabbed her lips with her tongue to clear the grit. She had no strength for anything else. Maybe just one rib was broken. Or maybe two ribs. She couldn’t be sure. But she was alive. And she was still determined.
Despite the pain, exhaustion overtook Lieutenant Pavlik, and soon she collapsed into a deep sleep. Blood continued to flow from the cut that had been reopened, puddling in one eye and flowing over the bruises on her cheek. She slept on her side, in a ball. Her whole body shook as she slept, sobbing internally.
But externally there were no tears.
Hours later, Patricia awakened. She sat up, recalling that in her first days, she had wondered how she would describe all of this to her father and to Brian. Bu
t it was different now. Each day crowded out those thoughts with just one thought: survive.
The Americans had to be looking for her. They wouldn’t give up. They might already know exactly where she is. And what about T.R.? Had he escaped and made it back? He would tell them that she was alive. Maybe even where she was. She remembered the little Marine on the beach, the deserter, the one who tried to save them. She wondered if he had survived and gone for help. Perhaps the Viet Cong were holding her now just to be exchanged.
Suddenly, Vang was at the doorway, his dark silhouette against the brighter outdoor light. He waited a moment as his eyes adjusted. Then he moved toward Lieutenant Pavlik. She jumped back.
He shook his head. “Dừng sợ,” he said softly, as he had done before. He was saying that he wasn’t the enemy. He squatted in front of her just as he had on his previous visits. He said nothing. He had a cloth, and he reached out to press it against the cut on Patricia’s head.
She recoiled.
He shook his head. “Dừng sợ,” he said again, then added, “Xin lỗi về điều đó.”
She understood his tone, not his words; but she felt it was an apology of some sort. She leaned forward so he could treat her wound then, and he attended to her silently, and gently, and with great focus.
In the past Patricia had spoken to him with a mixture of pleading and anger, knowing that he could not understand her demands. How long will I be here? What happened to my friend? When will you let me go?
Now she had no more words. Vang sat before her as motionless as an ancient statue. His eyes seemed kind. His hands and face were the color of the earth with hundreds of deep lines on his forehead. The long hairs from his mole hung like white threads to his neck and were the same color as the feeble threads of his beard.
Vang stroked his wispy white beard as he continued to study her. Though she was drenched in perspiration, he seemed quite comfortable. He smiled pleasantly at her, showing his gums and blackened teeth. He wasn’t the enemy. She understood that.
“Hello, Vang,” she said.
He smiled and nodded to her. “Hello,” he said. “Hello, Phatri.”
“Why do you come here?” she asked.
He smiled, not understanding. He had given up trying to speak to her in French, each time disappointed that her vocabulary went little beyond the ordinary greetings.
“Phatri,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Một cây đứng cao cho đến khi nó chết.”
“What?”
“Một cây đứng cao cho đến khi nó chết,” he repeated. This time he motioned with his hand as if asking her to say it also.
“I don’t understand.”
He motioned again and spoke slowly. “Một cây đứng cao cho đến khi nó chết.”
She tried to repeat the words if only to humor the old man. He corrected her pronunciation. She tried again. He smiled at her. After repeated attempts he finally nodded to her.
“But I don’t know what it means,” she said.
He smiled and nodded that he understood what she was saying. They sat silently then, each foreign to the other and unable to communicate. He was close enough to her that she could smell nước mắm on his breath. She wanted some of the fish sauce.
Finally, he rose and moved toward the door.
“Vang.”
He turned back to her.
“Before. You say I go home…soon.”
He shrugged, not comprehending.
“Go home…Soon…You say.” She pointed to herself. “Me. Phatri.”
He looked at her with gentle eyes and nodded. “Yes, Phatri. Soon.”
“Home?”
He shrugged again as if not understanding. Then he said. “Yes.”
“When is soon?”
He smiled kindly and nodded again. “Soon.”
“When? When is soon?” she demanded, making every effort to control the desperation in her voice.
He nodded again. “Hello, Phatri,” he said, and then he left.
21
JANUARY 16, 2006
SECTION ONE,
12:22 P.M.
JIM GELTZ AND SAM Greene had signed up together. Fort Benning together. Fort Dix together. They even flew over together. You could do that back then. They talked about their hometown. About the girls there. Bonnie in particular. We heard all about Bonnie. Her look. Her sweaters. The way she teased. How they both had kissed her. How they both wanted to marry her.
We liked to hear about Bonnie’s shape. Bonnie’s walk. Bonnie’s red fingernails. She was real to us. We all shared her, and we were all respectful of her. She was ours.
One day Sam got a letter from her. And his buddy Geltz too. It was the same letter. She could have mimeo’d it. It was about her college, how she was doing well, and how she met this guy who reminded her of them. His name was Howard. He was tall. He was nice looking. He played basketball. She was going to marry him.
Now Bonnie was a two-timer. A bitch. Howard had pimples. Couldn’t get it up. Couldn’t make a free throw. Who’d want her anyway? He could have her. Fish in the sea, and all that.
In the ditch that day, those three days, we worried that our last coordinates hadn’t been received and that the chopper wouldn’t find us. The radio was down, and we had no chance to resend the coordinates. Still we talked about Bonnie. Geltz said that when he got back he’d go see her, see what this Howard looked like, size him up, maybe knock him down. Sam said, yeah, maybe do more. His teeth maybe.
The thing was, we’d all lost her. We’d all been fighting for Bonnie. She was our America. We knew that.
Bump said that now that she’s gone, we have to fight for something else. Maybe for cars, those new G.T.O.s. Geltz said that was shit. That G.T.O.s are shit. That we’d fight for something else. Not for Nixon, he said. Not for Westmoreland. They could kiss his ass. Let’s fight for bras. Yeah, for bras. We all could picture bras, lots of them, all shapes, and so that was what we’d fight for. Yeah, that was it. Sam liked that, and he sat back, satisfied, smiling. He said that he never met a bra he didn’t like.
“What’s ‘pearl’ mean, sir?” Towers asks again.
We’re at his station now, across the main room by the windows. His station is a circular-type cubicle with a glass-top desk and large screens in two rows above his desk.
“What do you know about the French in Vietnam?” I ask.
“That they started taking over in the 1850s and ran the country until the Japanese invaded.”
“Right,” I say. “And when the Japanese were defeated, the French returned. They claimed they were ‘protecting’ the Vietnamese. Then the Vietnamese fought the French again.”
“Until 1954, sir,” Towers adds, “when the French were defeated.”
“But there was a problem,” I tell him. “Both sides agreed to release their prisoners of war, except the Vietnamese didn’t. They held back a lot of the POWs, keeping them in city and jungle prisons. They called them ‘pearls.’ Because they were white and valuable.”
“Jesus, sir.”
“That’s what that green-and-yellow ribbon was, Towers, the one you were wearing at the restaurant. It had been awarded to French POWs.”
“I didn’t know, sir.”
“And over the years the North Vietnamese traded back their pearls, their POWs, to the French government, one at a time, for cash, munitions, or diplomatic niceties.”
“So you think these ROWBEC letters were made by one of those pearls?”
“A French pearl? No. What is it, fifty years since the French left? Not a chance. Besides, if the person making the ROWBEC letters was French, he’d spell out the French word for ‘pearl,’ not the Vietnamese phonetic.”
“Then it’s someone who’s heard the word spoken, but he isn’t French.”
“That’s right.”
“Could it still be a tourist?”
I give him a look. Slowly, Towers’s eyes go wide. “But if it’s an American—.”
“Or an Australian or New Zealander,” I add. “They were over there too. They speak English and are mostly white.”
Towers thinks a minute. “Are any soldiers still missing, sir? From back then?”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, sir.”
“Over a thousand soldiers are still missing, son. Most of them presumed dead, though.”
“Oh,” he says quietly. He settles back in his chair, thinking.
I settle back too.
“Okay, Towers,” I say. “What do we have? Assuming BEC means ‘pearl.’ Assuming. We have nothing on ROW. Maybe it’s just the verb, ‘to row.’ Maybe it’s a hometown. Or part of a last name, Rowe, Rowles, or Rowden. Maybe there’s no connection at all. It could be a drug lord signaling to a plane. It could be the name of some secret military operation.”
“Yes, sir.”
I instruct Towers to pull up the military database of soldiers who fought in Vietnam. Nearly three million in all, listed alphabetically.
I point at the names. “How many were killed in action, Towers?”
“It says 58,220 in all, sir.”
“Subtract from that the number of bodies that actually came home—56,596.”
He does that math in his head. “That leaves 1,622 who didn’t come back. Dead or alive.”
“Nice, huh? We call them BNR—body not recovered. They’re still there, somewhere. We don’t know where.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now let’s check those BNRs with names starting with B-E-C,” I say.
Towers checks. “Sir, there’s only four. Edward Eugene Beck, Terry Lee Beck, James Becker, and Harry Beckwith.”
“Where are they missing from?”