A Dangerous Friend

by Ward Just

  Rostok paused for water, not a theatrical sip but one, two, three deep swallows, as if he were chugging beer. He smacked his lips and resumed, speaking of course without notes, moving his eyes to communicate with each member of the audience.

  Along the spine of the Annamite Cordillera in South Vietnam the mountains were rugged and covered by triple-canopy jungle with ravines deep enough to conceal a regiment. He quoted from the great French sociologist Paul Mus. He quoted from Camus's Myth of Sisyphus. He quoted from General Vo Nguyen Giap's monograph on Dien Bien Phu, a document only recently available. Our people's war of resistance was an all-out war waged by the whole nation ... a protracted war full of hardship but ... certainly victorious. And as he looked out over the polished table at the fountain pens racing across the bone-white pads—the racing had begun with the words "novelty and mystery of the effort" and had not paused—he said quietly, But we are not French. We are not colonialists. We have no territorial ambitions. And if we do not hold in Vietnam, the dominoes will tumble from Danang south to Singapore.

  Rostok wanted to give half a million dollars of the government's money to the Foundation for research into the psychology of the Vietnamese, independent research to ensure integrity, product the property of the government. Why was the Saigon administration unable to hold the allegiance of the people? The Vietnamese seemed unable to choose—and what was it about their anima that locked them in irons? The hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people were—terra incognita. Rostok gave an exaggerated shrug at the problem, mute acknowledgment that while solution was difficult, solution was also within grasp, given time and money and the sort of resources that the Foundation could bring to bear. We, too, require an all-out effort waged by the whole nation. He said then that what followed was classified; those who were taking notes must put their pens aside and agree to abide by the rules of deep background.

  Rostok was a menacing figure, always disheveled. He gave the appearance of just having returned from some unspeakable bivouac, and of course his brain was stuffed with secrets, more secrets than it could comfortably hold, so it would not be surprising if one popped out from time to time, owing to inattention or simple forgetfulness. So the group assembled before him, many of them years older, quietly put down their pens and prepared to listen, though what had come before did not give them confidence.

  He confided that the government had established a special group that was loosely tied to Embassy Saigon but not responsible to it. Llewellyn Group would report directly to the office of the secretary of defense, with a collateral brief from the office of the national security adviser in the White House. Obvious to everyone that the effort required a team outside the normal chain of command, not for intelligence or counter-insurgency—the CIA already had more people than the embassy, and its plate was full—but for research and rapid reaction when the usual channels broke down. The bridge that didn't get built, the medical team delayed, the market terrorized, the road cut—and the research to determine the effect on Vietnamese morale. Half a million dollars wasn't so much, and the knowledge it would bring would be worth that regiment hidden in the ravine. Public money without strings was essential for an effort of this kind. It ensured independence at a time when everyone had an ax to grind. In another sense it ensured the integrity of the process; let the facts fall where they may. Universities were already collaborating in the common effort. The nation was reaching the hour of maximum danger, Rostok concluded, quoting the late President.

  And then, before the polite applause had passed away, he made this observation.

  You have no idea how little we know.

  Sydney and the director spent an hour with him afterward. Rostok allowed that counter-insurgency in all its aspects was a slovenly business, not congenial to the straightforward can-do American spirit. Vietnam might well be a bridge too far, a war that could not be won by the means to hand. But that did not mean that the cause was hopeless. It did not mean that the war was not worth fighting. In fact, quite the reverse. What if it were the model for the future, in the way that Antietam was the model for the infantry tactics of the world wars of this century? And if America failed to learn its lessons, well then, America would fall behind. We'll see what we are made of as a people and as a government. Nothing in the national life was more important, nothing would have a greater effect on the generations yet to come. No less important was the confidence of the government in itself as guardian of the Union. We need the collaboration of the private community, its expertise and good sense. We need the best men, men who are unafraid of paradox, men who are eager to understand our Asian Antietam, and master it. Then Rostok had a fresh thought.

  Our situation is the opposite of the northern armies, who sought to bleed the South white and reduce it to poverty. What did Sheridan say? Enemy civilians should be left with "nothing but their eyes to weep with." And who did he say it to? Bismarck. And Bismarck listened. As we have done. We are in South Vietnam for the protection of innocent civilians, and that is why we need your support, Rostok said, and was not at all surprised when Sydney Parade enthusiastically backed him up. Time for the Foundation to become engaged, Syd said, not from the sidelines but from the front lines.

  But the director declined. He found Rostok—intellectually incomplete.

  Not our line of country, Mr. Rostok.

  The government would be grateful, Rostok said.

  That's not our line of country, either, the director said. He wondered momentarily exactly how grateful the government would be, and how it would make its pleasure known. But he thought he knew the answer to that, and on the spur of the moment decided to hedge. He offered Sydney instead. He offered a year's leave of absence if Sydney wanted to see for himself the...

  Modern world, Rostok said.

  And report back, the director said.

  Sydney agreed at once, with an alacrity that caused the director to look up sharply, the expression on his face so dismayed that Sydney was quick to assure him that he was fit, much fitter than he looked, and would be quite safe in the war zone, where the dangers were exaggerated.

  I meant, I thought you'd want to talk this over with your wife, the director explained with a pained smile.

  I will, of course, Sydney said. He was embarrassed at his misapprehension. Karla will understand what all this is about. She'll get it right away. She's been through the mill herself.

  That night he described to Karla what he was being called on to do, an odd locution but the one that had popped into his mind. He searched for words and was surprised at his incoherence. Such a simple matter and he could not find the proper thoughts, like he was some rattled witness at a congressional hearing. He looked around the living room, the heavy drapes and furniture, and Karla's Polish poster from the gallery two doors away, Literatura i Plakat Socrealistyczny. More agitprop, but that was the way of things downtown. Their building had a Stalinist feel to it, walls as thick as a fortress and as pleasing. He turned his back to the poster and looked into Karla's eyes. Certainly they loved each other and in a sense this mission was for them both, she would be with him in his heart. He mumbled something about the national security of the United States and the malevolence of Communist aggression against simple people who only wanted to be let alone.

  He said, You understand that from your own life. You've been through it.

  He watched her smile thinly, her eyes fixed on a point just above his head, and tried again, speaking gravely now, describing the war as Rostok had, a mighty effort that required the best men, educated men, civilian volunteers to support the boys in the infantry, you see. It's irresponsible not to respond. It's cowardly. There's an inequality, he said, not knowing exactly what he meant but believing he was close to a true thought. In any case, he believed the inequality of the sacrifice was immoral, a stain on the nation's honor. If you were in a position to help, you helped. Simple as that. I have to do it, he concluded.

  Sacrifice? she asked.

  Yes, sacrifice, he said.r />
  For what?

  For the effort, he said. In his mind he saw an infantry company motionless in a nameless field, providing security for medical teams as they vaccinated children, curious adults pressing close, worried at first and then grateful. Everyone was sweating in the terrible heat.

  Involving the national security and the nation's honor.

  Not only that, he said. Destiny was involved.

  I want to make certain I understand, she said thoughtfully, because some of what you said wasn't clear. It still isn't. It doesn't add up. And it's unlike you to talk nonsense to me.

  It's not nonsense—

  She undid the ribbon in her hair and tossed it aside, facing him now with her hands on her hips, talking rapidly without pauses. She knew that one day he would leave her. That was what men did when they were thirty years old and working routine jobs without the promise of romance, or power or riches or whatever it was they wanted for themselves. Send me onto another path, this one is worn out. It won't take me where I need to go. They suddenly tired of domestic life. But she had never guessed that a war would be the reason he would leave. She had never guessed that, never in a thousand million years that—one day he would announce that he had heard an inspirational message from the government. A war was in progress and he was essential to the effort because he was uniquely unafraid of paradox and eager to understand the nation's Asian Antietam, which was somehow tied to sacrifice and destiny, the national security, and the nation's honor. And he called it the modern world.

  She promised that if he chose to go to South Vietnam she would consider the marriage ended, kaput. She could never live with a war lover.

  Send me onto another path, this one is worn out. He thought, Send me into another life, one with promise and desire. He remembered each detail of the argument that went on and on. Their daughter, Rosa, fled to the television set, sitting curled in front of the screen holding her teddy bear, a splash of kinetic fluorescence on the furry surface of the bear. Tears streamed down her cheeks. When Rosa was disappointed her face knotted into obstinacy. He called her Rosetta Stone. When Sydney went to her she turned away and would not speak. When he pulled her close she froze, but he continued to whisper into her ear, Rosa-ta-ta Stone, describing the many marvelous animals in Indochina, elephants and stupendous tigers and black bears, and pythons and monkeys and birds by the gazillion. He would be back before she knew it. She sat with her thumb in her mouth watching a middle-aged man with a lampshade on his head. He knew that she did not understand things now but would someday if Karla did not poison her mind. Karla was capable of it, too, ruled as she was by her family's bitter and melodramatic history. He spoke a few more words, then left his daughter with her bear in the glow of the television set.

  Karla demanded that he pack his bags and leave, he had done enough damage for one evening, talking to their daughter about the wretched war and its terrible consequences for humanity and for this family. Rosa had seen some film the night before and she had begun to cry then, too, because she had seen a photograph of ' a dead child, Syd, and that upset her—reasonably so, wouldn't you say?

  He said, You shouldn't've allowed her to watch.

  They broke into The Flintstones, Syd. So that three-year-olds could see for themselves what bastards the Viet Cong are. The government brainwashing three-year-olds. She opened her mouth to say something more, then turned away and began to fuss with the phonograph. She slid a record from its sleeve and stood tapping it on the edge of the old Webcor, some rhythm she was hearing in her head. When Sydney approached and put his hands on her shoulders she did not move or give any sign she felt his presence. She placed the record on the turntable and set the arm, but the volume was turned so low all he could hear was the undulating hiss of the needle. They remained like that for a minute or more, Sydney hoping she had somehow misunderstood the situation, that in his confusion he had not explained himself properly.

  She said, You should go now.

  I don't deserve this, she added.

  It isn't what you think, he said.

  Probably not, she agreed. Probably it's something else, something I haven't thought of or even conceived of.

  It isn't a woman, he said.

  It's only for a year; he went on. Rostok wanted to give the Foundation a half million dollars to oversee a project, I can't say what it is because it's classified, but we're equipped to do it. And that idiot director wouldn't take the money. Everyone else wanted to. Made me ashamed, sitting there and being asked to help and the director saying No, it's not our line of country. And when I spoke to him later he said Rostok wasn't offering enough, that if we waited he'd offer more and we could do the job properly, meaning properly funded, you see. Normally we design and fund our own projects and this would be a new thing, a sort of joint venture—

  It's simple, she said. You want me and you want our daughter and you want to go to Vietnam to take part in your Effort, and when you're done you want us here where you left us, to welcome you home as if nothing had happened and you had never been away. Meantime, the peasants are dying by your hand. And you will die by theirs.

  He said patiently, I'm there to help them. It's the Viet Cong that's killing them.

  And in that year we will live in one universe and you in another and these will never meet. When you return to ours you will be unable to leave your own. It will be your prison. You will live in it forever and we will never understand what it is; and you will not be able to explain it to us any more than you can explain the workings of your own heart at this moment.

  Her woodsy accent had returned, the voice of an educated country girl. In her utter anxiety she had returned to her previous life. Her lips barely moved and her eyes were hard as stones. He said quietly, That isn't true. And that isn't the way you felt about your father. He stayed behind. He's still there, twenty years after the war.

  It took her a moment to answer.

  My father fought Nazis, she said, her voice thickening with each word. In Czechoslovakia, his homeland. The Nazis had invaded, just as you are doing. Listen. My father was not on your side. My father was on the other side. He still is.

  One of the commissars, Sydney thought but did not say. He had run out of ideas.

  She watched the turntable move, listening to the hiss. She said, A few years ago a pianist came to my school for a master class. He was performing Beethoven's sonatas for violin and piano, all ten. He was playing in Brooklyn here and then going on to Boston and Chicago. He gave his class and then spoke about the sonatas and how, playing them, you could follow Beethoven's life, his loneliness, his bad health, his money problems, one domestic crisis after another; his deafness. Playing these pieces, the pianist understood that the composer sacrificed his life for his music, a succession of masterpieces. Triumphs of will. Triumphs of concentration, of inspiration, of unspeakable courage. Of devotion, yes. She looked directly at him and said no more.

  He did not know what she meant. He murmured something about genius.

  There are no Beethovens here, she said.

  He shook his head, certainly not.

  But I thought when it came time for you to give your life, you would give it for me.

  He turned quickly and fetched his coat. When he looked back she had vanished. He let himself out, closing the door with a sharp bang. The neighbor down the hall stepped into the corridor; his face filled with alarm. When Sydney glared at him, he shrugged and stepped back inside. Standing in the bar on the corner, drinking one Scotch after another; Sydney thought about the kind of apartment building where raised voices were cause for concern. Everyone in the building had too much time on their hands, but instead of a devil's workshop they had created a police state where everyone knew everyone else's business and was quick to judge, and inform if need be.

  She, too. Quick to judge and to set the ethical standards which all the world was required to meet, except her; like an absolute monarch, she made her own laws. But he had hurt her and she had hurt him back
, and so that was that. The bar was dark, a family tavern with Rheingold on tap and pickled eggs in a glass jar and a silent white-aproned bartender with more troubles than you had. The place reminded him of the locker room at his father's club, the Abenaki, with its dark wood and odor of sweat and air conditioning, and the rustle of men's voices around the card tables near the fireplace, someone telling a joke and the laughter that followed. The bartender used an ivory spatula to clear the head from the beer steins. Sydney remembered languid afternoons with his father; the old man exhausted after eighteen holes and a hundred, hundred and five strokes, in and out of the rough. God, he was a terrible golfer but always cheerful, except the one time when he admitted that he hated not being able to keep up with his foursome. He'd played with them for thirty years. He didn't want to beat them, only keep up with them.

  So she was born in Czechoslovakia, his father had said. My goodness, she's a pretty girl. And a musician? I don't know about Czechoslovakia, he said, but I know about musicians. You'll have your hands full.

  Now it was ended. He stared at the Rheingold sign back of the bar while he fought to keep his fear in check. My God, what have I done? But there was no going back, too much had been said that could not be unsaid. Sydney had difficulty assembling her many arguments; he had not listened carefully to her any more than she had listened carefully to him. But wasn't that normal, the way of the world? Of course people carried their baggage with them. If you were brought up in a Connecticut suburb—church on Easter and a Ford in the garage next to the outdoor grill and the golf sticks—you carried that. If you were born in Czechoslovakia and fled at the age of four with your terrified mother; leaving your father behind to fight Germans, you carried that. And later, if Czechoslovakia seemed to disappear into a kind of civic limbo, neither Czech nor Soviet, neither toxic nor benign, you made what excuses you could. The Nazis were defeated and the Reds in charge. It would take time for the Czechos to find their own way. Karla and her mother had the mentality of displaced persons, worried always that their papers were not in order or that their belongings would be confiscated or that their husbands would disappear.