Black Buddha

by Richard Waters

  Jacques thought about it; it was close enough to get to by car… Louis’ Citroen? No, too obvious. And while Jacques could leave Vietnam tomorrow, his friend would have to deal with the fallout if things turned sour. By bike? Maybe. He’d have to go under cover of darkness, and tonight. ‘I’ll come.’ Said Jacques.

  Then as they were about to part company, out of the blue the Colonel said, ‘Congratilations. You’re going to have a son. This time next year your wife will be pregnant.’

  Just hearing him speak of Penelope sent a sheet of anger through him. ‘What?’ he said clenching his jaw and bunching his fists.

  Carabas looked at a row of sugar palms then back at Jacques, his eyes strangely dark and dead. ‘I don’t know how I can tell you this, I just know. I’m getting good at this too, so far everything I’ve predicted has come true.’

  ‘And can you predict what will happen to you as well as others?’ said Jacques sarcastically, still smarting over the intrusion.

  The Colonel angled his head like a cat watching a bird, the eyes, despite the sunlight upon them, no more than two black pools. ‘You’ll try and kill me.’

  - 15 -

  At school a pupil in my year took to beating up much smaller kids. I had no idea until the end of the year by which time it was too late to undo the damage he’d inflicted; they’d never forget it. Let’s face it, we never do. Most of our triumphs fade with time but the humiliations we suffer stay fresh as if their memory is encased in formaldehyde. In our final term of our final year, I caught the bully behind a closed door tormenting a friend of mine in the lower year. He was a very artistic kid, people thought him a little weird with his crimped goth hair and silent manner, but I liked him for it. Any kid who reads Nietzche and listens to the Birthday Party at fifteen is worth sticking up for. I didn’t even think about it, I calmly took the bully’s hair in my hand and banged his head against the wall, three times. I can still remember the hollow sound of it. When he fell to the floor, I dragged him out into the corridor where everyone could see him for what he was, a coward.

  After that I didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day, my stomach knotted with violence; one of those rare occasions I’d been granted a glimpse into myself, and I knew a little more about what I was really made of. I wasn’t proud of it, but I knew these genes came from my father. And hearing King’s story of the Shark only confirmed this further. Good or bad I was stuck with them.

  I walked back through the old quarter past the gas-blue flames of tinsmiths, even at this time of evening they were still hard at their trade. In the narrow streets, coloured lanterns glowing faintly with tealights, swung in the breeze. My room looked out over the rooftops of Hanoi, a vista of roofgardens and temples. The sky turned purple as I thought about Skip being buried in Devon, and I tried not to catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  At twilight I took a cyclo to the French quarter. As I was walking across the wide road by Hoan Kiem lake I remembered the tip from the guide book - namely that you kept walking at the same pace so bikes and mopeds could sweep around you like water flowing around a rock, but were you to stutter, you’d get hit. I kept to an even pace but even so - almost immediately - a moped came crashing into me and I fell to the ground. Amid a tumult of bells and jabbering faces, the first thing I noticed was an exhaust pipe had charred my shin and there was a Nikon camera with an outsized zoom lens lying next to me.

  ‘Oh Jesus, I’m sorry! You alright?’ I knew I’d seen her before,

  ‘I’m okay.’ I said, almost glad to have bumped into her again. ‘Not sure about your hardware though.’ I picked up her camera and handed it to her. She had on a pink fleece sweater and long cotton skirt that flowed to her ankles. She looked mortified. She also looked very beautiful, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. The traffic carried on undeterred, entire families perched on single mopeds navigating around us.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away… you just sort of appeared and then bang, we’re on the floor!’ she said with an accent that was hard to regionalize. Even in the wan light her eyes were a coral blue, her face crowded with olive-brown freckles. She smiled nervously and put her hand on mine. ‘You’re shaking. Let me buy you a drink to make up for it. That is if you’re not too busy.’

  ‘No, not too busy. But I don’t drink.’ I replied.

  She laughed, I could see she was shivering. She picked up the Honda moped and motioned for me to climb on.

  ‘Well maybe I’ll drink instead! Where are we going?’

  ‘I was on my way to the Metropole.’

  The red-laquer bridge was strung in golden lights casting reflections into the lake. Before I knew it, we were buzzing past tinkling bicycles and a crowd of people queuing outside the Water Puppet Theatre. I buried my face from the wind behind her head and caught the perfume of her hair; it smelt of cocoa. Her sides were strong and firm, her shoulders wiry as Artemis. As my hands gripped her loosely, I felt them rise and fall with the motion of her breath.

  The lawns around the Metropole were immaculately manicured; an old black Citroen was parked outside recalling the glory days of French occupation. This girl seemed very comfortable with silence.

  ‘You’re a photographer?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’m on assignment here.’

  ‘So you’re not from Vietnam?’

  She smiled back, ‘When was the last time you saw a Vietnamese woman tall as me? I’m Thai-American.’

  Her black hair was free and wavy down her back, there was something about her that made me nervous and threw charges down to my crotch and fingertips. When we came close, I wanted to reach out and kiss her. Once inside the plush corridors of the hotel, she removed her fleecy and wrapped it around her waist. Her arms were freckled and slim, her breasts firm and shapely through her t-shirt. I couldn’t stop looking at her. A receptionist glided over the marble floor and asked us in impeccable English if we were requiring a room for the night. I told him we were here for the club sandwiches.

  We sat in dimpled leather chairs straight out of a Conan Doyle gentleman’s club, there was no one in the bar save the barman, who also kept looking at her surreptitiously and rubbing the brass bar-top with a white cloth. She was the most naturally attractive woman I think I have ever seen - not just her tapering colt’s legs, the blueness of her eyes and olive glow of her skin, it was something in the way she carried herself, a sense of wilfulness hidden in folds of grace.

  ‘How’s your leg?’ she asked,

  ‘I still have one spare.’

  ‘So, what are you doing in Hanoi?’ she asked while we assessed one another.

  ‘Just travelling, making notes for a book.’ I said.

  She sipped her Coke, her pink tongue curling around an ice-cube, ‘Interesting, a man on a mission.’ She picked up a copy of CNN Traveller and an out of date Vogue.

  ‘Well I wouldn’t go that far, but that’s my excuse for being here. It’s part of my job. What’s you assignment?’ I asked. I couldn’t fathom the azure of her Lynx-like eyes within the shape of an oriental face; it seemed almost too perfect, an impossibly exotic mix. There was something else too, the curve of her mouth and full lips, a hint of cruelty. That intrigued me even more.

  ‘My assignment? Oh, boring stuff,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to photograph the Perfume Pagoda, the lakes around Hanoi. You know, tourist shots?’

  ‘I know how you feel. Trying to get a different take on something that has been done a thousand times is not always easy.’

  Her gaze lingered playfully, ‘Finally, someone who knows where I’m coming from.’

  ‘Are you here for much longer?’ I asked as ingenuously as I could manage.

  ‘That depends on what comes up. I guess once I’ve photographed what I need to, my magazine will want me back in Bangkok. You know how it is, budgets are tight… Wish I could stay a bit longer, it
’s a beautiful city isn’t it?’

  ‘So far it’s very beautiful,’

  She opened the magazine, was about to turn the page when she stopped and doubletaked. ‘Hey! Is that?’ she said holding up the contributors’ page and looking over at me. ‘It is you.’

  ‘My better looking younger brother,’ I said. ‘It’s an old photo, I had less lines and more hair back then.’

  She read the contributor biog with a smile. ‘”Alain Deschamps, amateur boxer, author and journalist, lives in London with his fiancé.” Her eyes flattened, ‘Still live in London? Still live with your fiancé?’

  ‘Look at the date, it was written last year. A lot changes, apart from the still live in London. I’m not fighting anymore either, that last bit was a bit of braggadocio… I gave it up years ago.’

  ‘Good for you, keep those braincells intact. What a way to learn someone’s name. It’s nice to meet you Alain Deschamps of London. I’m impressed.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be, at least not by the article. Do I get to know your name?’ I picked up the Vogue as if to find her at the front.’ She seemed to find this amusing. When she smiled her face split into sunburnt creases, the kind of face you see beaming from an Evian commercial. Not a face I’d expect to take an interest in me.

  She slyly slipped the hotel’s magazine into her camera bag, ‘A little night reading for later,’ she said and crossed her legs as if to hide the sin.

  Our sandwiches arrived. ‘So you must travel a lot?’ I asked, trying to turn the conversation over to her. I suppose she was about twenty-eight, but something I couldn’t put my finger on made her seem older.

  ‘I guess I do. Are you here on your own?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I was in Bangkok before.’

  ‘You sound like it got the better of you?’

  ‘That transparent?’

  She nodded and tucked into her sandwich. A little mayonnaise spurted onto the side of her cheek. ‘Bangkok’s a weird place. I don’t like it either. By the way, my name’s Giselle.’

  She regarded her watch, let out a yawn and looked as if she was ready for bed. I started feeling paranoid I was boring her; perhaps the glamour of the magazine was wearing off.

  ‘If it’s not too personal,’ she asked, ‘when did you break up with your girl?’

  ‘About eighteen months ago,’ I said. ‘Thanks to her Ieaving I put some of my life back together.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at a separation I guess. What was it that so sorely needed putting back together?’

  Who’s the journalist? I wondered. ‘I had a drink problem. And she couldn’t have kids.’ I said evenly.

  At this admission, maybe the drinking, the kids, or being single, the atmosphere palpably changed. ‘How long you been off the sauce if you don’t mind my asking?’

  Jesus Christ! Twenty questions or what? I pulled a face and sighed, ‘Over seven months, until I came unstuck a few days ago in Bangkok.’

  ‘I’m sorry… seven months is a real achievement. Something bad happened?’

  ‘Yeah a fight and a drink in the same day. They usually come in threes.’

  There was no dirt on her. ‘So what about the third thing?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘You said “things” - and I guess you mean bad things - come in threes. So what was the third?’

  ‘Actually it was the first of the three, that led to the other two, but I’d rather not talk about that.’ I didn’t want to sit there discussing my friend’s death like a post match autopsy. Just to break the ensuing discomfort, I said. ‘And you? Since we’re selectively digging into and revealing one another’s psyche, what are your demons?’

  She smiled bashfully. ‘I guess I better be going soon, I’ve got an early start tomorrow. It was nice meeting you though… really nice. Do you want me to run you back to your hotel?’

  I felt as if I’d been pissed on from a great height, as if I’d been bluffed into confession only to be informed afterward that the priest wasn’t on the other side of the grille. Maybe she figured me as trouble. ‘No, that’s ok.’ I said, trying to hide my irritation. ‘It was good meeting you too, maybe we’ll bump into each other again.’

  She laughed at the pun. Despite the imbalance of our conversation I wanted her to follow me up the winding stairs to my room at the top; needed her distraction from my own company. She got up to leave. ‘I’m sorry again for crashing into you. Is your leg hurting?’

  ‘I’m fine. Honestly.’

  ‘Alain?’ she turned to me, her head backlit by the rose glow of tiffany lamps, ‘I know I shouldn’t ask and maybe I was seeming to pry back then but… well you seem really sad about something and in my book I always try and come clean rather than keep stuff bottled up – I’m sorry if I was so forward. Are you ok?’

  ‘Yes,’ I let out a sigh. ‘Well, not really but I don’t want to bother you with it. And thanks for the apology, but no need.’

  She took hold of my hand, the gesture took me completely by surprise. Hands so warm they made my skin tingle. ‘You can tell me if you want. Travelling alone, you never get used to it… it can be lonely in our profession - endless hotel rooms and travellers around us who have the time to enjoy themselves but not us.’

  ‘I guess it’s an occupational hazard. Tonight is the not the night for me to burden you with anything though. It’s been lovely and let’s leave it at that. Maybe we can do it another time before you leave the city. Before we both leave.’

  We walked out of the bar. After her apology, her frankness, I felt as if a layer or two of the onion had been peeled away; strangely comfortable with her, almost as if we’d been supposed to meet.

  ‘Where you headed after Hanoi?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe London, maybe not.’ I answered, ‘Wherever my research leads me I suppose.’ Truth was I had no idea where I was going.

  She smiled. ‘I like that… sounds very zen.’

  We were in the lobby now, the receptionist looked up from his paperwork and watched as she glided toward the entrance. ‘And you, where are you going, Giselle?’ I asked savouring her name as if it were something edible.

  ‘I may be going to Laos… depends.’ This time her smile lingered longer on me and I felt another tingle in my loins. It may as well have been a caress.

  Wind rippled through the willow trees bordering the lake as couples sat on benches and nuzzled one another self-consciously. Local wisdom said the lake was inhabited by magical tortoises. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. Instead I climbed on the back of her bike and we rode away to the old quarter.

  ‘Good night then,’ she said as she dropped me outside my guesthouse.

  I asked if we could meet again, she hesitated a moment then nodded. I watched her black hair and pink shoulders swallowed up in the lightless street. I shook the smile from my face and lit a cigarette. I had to find out why had King mentioned ‘fucked up cults’ without any invitation?

  - 16 -

  Half a mile down the coast-road, thunderheads scudding off the ocean flats, Jacques parked the bicycle in a ruined catholic church and changed into his costume. There were no passing trucks headed for the DMZ at this hour, and but for the occasional bray of buffalo, the night seemed his own. Running against the clock, by the time he reached the mountain road to Lang Co he was breathless. Overhead a B52 returning from an aerial assault thundered across the moonlit sea. He left the bike and crept on, secreting his pistol in his fisherman pants and tamping the moustache flat against his upper lip.

  From the tombstones of the colony they appeared in their lepers’ cowls, drawing silently closer, the outlines of their rifles sharpening in resolution.

  ‘Dong la! Stop.’ They looked at him curiously, an old bewhiskered man twice their size with a long face and head of grey hair. Jacques looked
at the floor as they led him by candlelight toward a peeling building, self consciously covering his face in case the beard fell off.

  The room smelt musty, the scent of old books left to mildew. He bent down to allow the soldiers to blindfold him. Brusquely they led him down a series of passageways, smooth stone floors seguing to rough terrain as they walked down a cold tunnel. After a time he was seated, a man addressed him in French. ‘Why are you here, old man, to mock the afflicted?’

  ‘No to protect you. If I can save one child from the flames, then it’s worth the danger I’m risking to come here tonight.’

  ‘This thing you protect us from, where will it come from?’

  ‘From the sky. Tomorrow night.’ answered Jacques.

  ‘Why should we trust you?’

  The room smelt of stale tobacco and urine, the stench of too many men in a confined place. He didn’t have long. ‘Tomorrow night the gunships will come and then the soldiers. Innocent children will die and your village will be covered in fire. If I’m mistaken then all I’ve wasted is time, if I’m right and you take my warning, you’ll live to fight your war a little longer.’

  The interrogator was no more impressed with his disguise than he was. Deschamps held up his hands in submission, ‘Now, you must let me go.’ Jacques made to get up but a hand pushed him down. ‘You have very young hands for an old man.’ said the voice.

  A sweat began to bead on his forehead, he could hear the agitated shuffle of a man behind him, his slippers grating on the earthen floor.

  ‘Perhaps we should look a little closer at you.’

  ‘Please, move your people from the village and this building before tomorrow evening. Now take me back to the gate or shoot me.’

  As the bike freewheeled down the mountain road he knew he’d done the right thing; if he could save a few people it might go some way to appeasing the guilt he was feeling for the family Carabas had slaughtered in the boonies and the children in the ville by the paddies, but somehow he doubted it. Toward 03:00 he arrived at the old graveyard. One of the French mausoleums had been robbed, its stone door cracked and open. He wadded his disguise into a ball and placed it inside the tomb along with the paste and moustache – no one would find it and if they did what would they make of it?