The American Pearl

by Peter Gilboy

  Brian Pavlik composes himself. “Now get out. Please.”

  “Sir,” Julia says. “This is your wife we’re talking about.”

  “No, my wife is at home. Her name is Samantha.” He pauses and shakes his head. “What is it, then? You want to dig Pattie up? Check for DNA. Fuck you. Get out.”

  “We didn’t say anything about digging her up,” I tell him.

  “No, but they did. Said she might not actually be buried there, or some such insanity. You guys are sick, you know that?”

  “Look, I’m really sorry for barging in like this—”

  “It was tough for us being over there and being married. We were too young. But I loved her. More than almost anything, even today. You hear that? Even today.” He focuses on me. “Do you really think she might still be alive?”

  “No, I don’t,” I tell him.

  “Then what the hell did you come here for? Get out! I’m going to call security!”

  “Look, I’m just trying to do my job. We need to ask you something else, about a dentist over there. Captain Theodore Fountain. Missing around the same time as the same attack. Did you know him?”

  He tenses and stares at me, a fury growing inside him now. I know he’s going to erupt.

  In one motion his hand sweeps across the desk. Papers and pictures go flying. He quickly stoops to pick up the photos. He stands and faces me.

  “Look, Mr. Quintyn whatever your fucking name is, I’ll tell you what they found there that day. Pieces, just pieces. You have no idea. They said it was her. Her! They said I could take her home. Nothing was easy for a long time. Nothing. But I managed to put some things behind me. Okay? And I don’t remember any guy named T.R. Fountain. I suggest you put it all behind you too. It’s you guys who are fucked up, not me.”

  He glares. His pupils are still dilated. He’s breathing hard.

  “Now, unless you’re still looking for a red Fiesta convertible I’ll ask you to kindly get the fuck out of here and off this lot.”

  Back in the car Julia turns to me. “It’s like he wants her dead.”

  “Better than thinking she’s been alive all this time.”

  “He was right about one thing, though. He’s got a good memory.”

  I start the car. “What do you mean?”

  “He said he didn’t remember a T.R. Fountain.”

  “And?”

  “You called him Captain Theodore Fountain.”

  I brake the car. “Jesus, you’re right!”

  She smiles. “That’s why I came along.”

  “You see his eyes?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “They were dilated when we arrived, and they didn’t change even when he got angry. And that glass tumbler by the water cooler. Drinkers have their favorite glass. He was waiting for us to leave so he could close the blinds and get whatever’s in his bottom drawer. It’s his business, though, not ours.”

  “At least he verified something,” she said. “That even he’s not sure she came home.”

  I pull onto Roosevelt Avenue. “Sometimes I think no one came home,” I say.

  “You?” she asks. “What about you?”

  “No, no,” I tell her. “I’m back. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  32

  A VILLAGE IN SOUTH VIETNAM

  DAY 109

  SHE STARED AT THE yellow hat. Then his face. T.R. seemed different. Not just the clothes. Not the ragged haircut. Not the drooping mustache being gone. He was no longer the self-assured dentist. He looked jittery. He looked skinny. He looked scared.

  T.R. opened the doghouse door. She crawled out. He helped her stand. Then he handed her a fresh set of black pajamas. They looked almost new. Without a word she turned away and put them on.

  When she turned back, she noticed the machete hanging at his side and a cloth sack. His hands were coated with dirt. She pointed at the sack. He opened the drawstring and withdrew a whole orange, a piece of a root, and a heel of French bread. He handed them to her. She tore at the orange, then shoved a section into her mouth. Its acidic juice stung her gums but she felt giddy at the familiar taste. She sighed a deep breath. Her body began to relax.

  Next he withdrew a small ball of gelatin, glassy and thick. “Pork fat,” he said. He pulled out a mirror then. He held it out to her. It was broken and no larger than the size of her palm. She took the ball of pork fat but not the mirror.

  She looked around. There was no one else there. No one was watching them. She pointed to his machete.

  “They trust me,” T.R. explained in his Louisiana drawl. “They’re thinkin’ they got me on their side now.”

  She had forgotten about his southern accent. It was out of place, even ludicrous, here in the jungle.

  She grabbed her stomach and heaved violently. She coughed, then heaved again. She wiped her mouth with her fingers and kicked dirt over the vomit. She stepped away from it.

  T.R. pulled out something else. He unwrapped it. A stick of Wrigley’s gum. She snatched it from him and set it on her tongue without chewing. The forgotten taste of spearmint flooded her mouth and nostrils.

  “You’re pregnant?” he asked her.

  She eyed him suspiciously.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Where did they keep you?” she said.

  “How long?” he repeated.

  “I don’t know. What month is this?”

  “June. Almost July.”

  “Three months. I don’t know.”

  “We can fix it, ya know.”

  She drew back. “You don’t touch me! Nobody touches me!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Where did they keep you?” she demanded.

  “I didn’t even know you were alive, Patricia. They think I’m a regular doctor. I showed ’em how to put oil on white phosphorous burns to keep the air out of it so it can heal. They began to trust me then.”

  “There aren’t any more helicopters or planes,” she said.

  “You’re in bad shape,” he told her.

  “Isn’t the South still using them?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Why aren’t you in bad shape?”

  He pointed to the ball of pork fat. “Save it for later. It don’t look so good but it’s got calories.”

  “You eat it. Looks like they feed you all right.”

  “They make me walk to different jungle hospitals, Patricia. They know I need my strength.”

  “Make you walk?”

  “I’m a doctor, Patricia. People are in need here.”

  She bent and rubbed at her ankles. “I’m in need too.”

  “They’re embarrassed, Patricia. Because you’re pregnant. I’m supposed to treat you. To fix it. They said they’re going to let you go then. Both of us probably. They say there’s a peace treaty soon.”

  She almost wept, but held back.

  “I’ll tell them you need to wash in clear water. I’ll give you a shot too. B1. And I’ve got some sulfa guanidine tablets. And cod liver oil capsules. They want you to live, Patricia. And I have what they call

  gạo lức.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Rice without the bran removed. Gives you some thiamine to help with the B1.”

  He handed her some capsules and produced a canteen of water. She drank. The water was clean. Then she felt dizzy and out of breath. She sat down in the dirt. He sat down beside her.

  “How’s your Vietnamese?” he asked. “You able to pick some up?”

  “You said they were going to let us go.”

  “That’s what they said to tell you. I don’t know, really.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “You’re one of them now, aren’t you, T.R.?”

  “No, no, I only pretend to be.”

  “Then tell me where you’ve been.”

  “I didn’t know you were alive, Patricia. I would have come sooner.”

  “You’re helping them, aren’t you? I can’t believe it!”

  “T
hey’re just people. Like you and me.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you’re pretending.”

  “I think they know that I’m pretendin’. But they need me, my help. So it’s a standoff. There’s no way out of here, and they can’t lock me up. That’s my take. They’re going to try to break us with their propaganda. That’s their hearts and minds strategy. That’s why the treatment is so bad.”

  “Except yours.”

  “They want you to join them,” he explained. “They want you to join the National Front.”

  “You really are one of them!”

  He shrugged. “I gave up, Patricia. I had to. If I hadn’t given up, I’d be nothing now but a heap of pain.”

  “You mean you’d be like me.”

  He shook his head. “Look, all they want from us is propaganda. Did they have a rally in the village and an old woman came at you with a knife screaming her head off?”

  She remembered the village scene. She nodded.

  “It’s supposed to show you how much everyone hates you. And that only the National Front can save you.”

  It was then that she noticed the scar on his forehead. It had to be the wound from his capture. She pointed. “Was it bad?”

  “Least of my worries.”

  She pointed to the machete again.

  “They make me carry it,” he said. “I need it in the jungle, but they want me to carry it when I’m around Americans so they’ll think they’ll be treated better too if they go over to the other side.”

  “What Americans?”

  “Six others. I keep track of ’em. I’ve got their names and hometowns. Their units. I’ve got them memorized. For when I get back. I’ll be able to say who they are.”

  “Why don’t you just escape? You could try.”

  “How? There’s no place to go. And if they caught me, they’d kill me. They kill everyone who tries to escape. Not you, though. You’re a woman. You’re their prize, Patricia.”

  “They said that?”

  “Don’t have to.”

  “They let you keep that stupid hat.”

  “Yeah, I convinced ’em I need it for protection. So they can tell it’s me. I used to hear planes but I don’t know whether to wave at ’em or not. Anyway, I’m going to win ’em over. If there’s no peace agreement, then I’ll figure out how to escape. I’ll do it. The machete will help in the jungle.”

  “What about the six others,” she asked.

  “They’re about a mile away is all. Spread out in cages just like this one. I have the names so far—Roberts, Buckner, Williams, Stahl, Stanford, and James. There are others too, somewhere. I’m sure of it.”

  She focused hard. “Roberts,” she repeated, “and Buckner and Williams and Stahl…”

  “And Stanford and James,” T.R. told her.

  “They have to know about me too. Did you tell them about me?”

  “I didn’t know you were alive!”

  Patricia and T.R. were quiet for some time.

  “What happens after the peace talks?” she finally asked.

  He shrugged. “They’ll let us go, I guess. They have to. They can’t keep us forever.” T.R. thought a moment and then repeated it, as if trying to make it true.

  “They can’t keep us forever,” he said.

  Lieutenant Patricia Pavlik and Captain Theodore Roosevelt Fountain sat cross-legged on the ground not far from the doghouse. Their conversation was a real one, and it wandered the way a real conversation wanders; unforced, without cleverness, without games or fear.

  They reminded each other of popsicles and bucket seats and Birds Eye frozen corn. They talked about Nixon. They talked about George McGovern’s peace platform. They talked about the Beatles. Nylon stockings. College. What the latest hairdos and songs might be now. This was the best she had felt in her new lifetime.

  She finally picked up the mirror T.R. had brought. For the first time she saw her stringy hair and the hard-settled dirt in her pores. Her pale freckles were eclipsed by dirt and sweat. She itched again. Her stomach cramped. The bright sun torched the air around her.

  They lapsed into silence until T.R. suggested that he put medication on her back. She turned and lifted her pajama top. They didn’t speak as he applied a red liquid.

  After a time, they heard someone approaching. It was her liberator, Ông giải phóng. He came toward them walking erectly but leisurely in his crisp black uniform and tire-tread sandals. His face was immaculate. His mustache trimmed. His oiled hair lay flat and combed in grooves from a wide-tooth comb. He carried the walking stick under his arm.

  T.R. stood and faced him, a head taller than the smaller man. Patricia lowered the back of her pajama top. She brushed dust off her hair and shoulders.

  “Hello, Ông giải phóng,” T.R. said. He bowed his head. “We were talking about the peace process.”

  Ông giải phóng smiled pleasantly. “Peace can come quickly,” he said. “It depend on the American government.”

  “Yes, Ông giải phóng.”

  Patricia braced herself. T.R. was groveling. It was all a trick. He had fooled her. The dentist was really the enemy. He was one of them now. But she had not succumbed. She had not yielded. She had not accepted the lies and propaganda.

  Ông giải phóng motioned for her to get up. With difficulty she did. Her liberator handed Patricia his walking stick.

  “Come,” he said to them.

  He turned and started up the small hill. Patricia hobbled after him. The walking stick eased some of the weight off her ankles. T.R. walked beside her, his hand on her elbow for support.

  Ông giải phóng waited for them at the top of the incline. They caught up. Then she saw the village for the first time.

  It wasn’t much of a village, just a dozen or so shacks facing each other in a row, like a shantytown. A tiny hamlet, really. Some of the huts leaned precariously, but the lane between the homes was tidy. A chicken strolled about. A rusted bicycle leaned against a doorway. She smelled meat. Children emerged from one of the huts, running, playing a game that looked like tag. A young woman with long black hair crossed the lane from one hut to another. She looked at Patricia. There was no surprise in her eyes, no acknowledgment. The young woman went into another hut.

  Ông giải phóng led them past some of the huts and toward the center of the hamlet. A group of men sat around a table. Cigarette smoke rose like steam from the gathering. There was laughter and pointing and good-natured pushing. AK-47s and an M16 leaned against the hut. They were playing cards with a crinkled Rider deck. It seemed to be a version of slapjack, with someone alternately jumping up and forcefully throwing a card down on top of the pile.

  The men who were playing cards turned to Patricia. Their looks were stern but somehow without malice toward her. One of them, a young muscular man, smiled through his bad teeth and nodded pleasantly, like a passerby might nod to a stranger on a sidewalk. Another man was missing an eye, his eyelid sunken in its socket. He smiled at her, too, and nodded to her.

  Ông giải phóng stopped. “This is you enemy,” he said.

  There was the sound of a lone helicopter far off, but the men took no notice. The jungle grew irregularly over the huts, forming a canopy that sheltered them from almost any angle above.

  One of the men jumped up and cried out as he lost a game. The rest of them laughed and another man took his seat.

  “This is what you call the Viet Cong,” Ông giải phóng added. “This is you Charlie.”

  A new game of slapjack began, and Ông giải phóng continued down the lane between the huts. They followed him until they came to a hut where children were playing, running in and out of the doorway. When they saw Patricia, they stopped and raced inside, then peered out at her and T.R. from behind a mosquito net door.

  Ông giải phóng stopped again. “In you country,” he said, “they report on television how many of these people,” he pointed to the children, then back to the men playing cards. “They report,” he continu
ed, “how many of these people you killed. Twenty-five. Thirty-five. A hundred. I hear that you eat dinner and listen to the numbers.”

  He pointed to a tall young woman behind a hut, chasing a chicken. Another woman carrying a pot of water. “These are what you call the Viet Cong,” he said, and there seemed to be sadness in his voice. “These the enemies of you country. These are you Charlie.”

  Her mind worked quickly. This was part of their propaganda. It was but another staging, like the old woman with the knife. He was trying to turn her to his side.

  Yet it looked too real to be staged. The men seemed too inoffensive, almost neighborly. Was this the next step in her indoctrination?

  She faced Ông giải phóng. “The television also reports how many you’ve killed, Americans,” she told him.

  The dentist turned toward her in surprise.

  “Oh, you are right, Lieutenant Pavlik,” Ông giải phóng said.

  Her eyes opened wide. This was the first time he had used her rank and name. Lieutenant Pavlik. She felt something coming back to her, like she’d rejoined the ranks of human beings. Lieutenant Pavlik, she said to herself. Lieutenant Pavlik. An American soldier. A woman. That’s who I am.

  She looked into Ông giải phóng’s eyes. Were they different now, softer, more sympathetic toward her? More sincere? Was this just more of the game? More of the manipulation?

  Ông giải phóng continued toward the end of the hamlet, then farther on to what looked like a cemetery. There were fifty or more small mounds tucked under a canopy of banyan trees. He stood and waited for them to catch up.

  He pointed. “This is the Heroes’ Cemetery,” he said.

  The graves were marked with sticks. Some had crosses. Some were marked with empty bowls. Some had faded photographs tied to them. Ông giải phóng ushered them closer so they could look at the photographs of the men.

  “Heroes,” he said. And motioned again toward the graves.

  It was a game, she decided. She would not be fooled.