He took this walk many times while in Saigon, venturing a little farther each time. He got about a radius of a mile and a half out from the hotel, and then circled the Continental for days. To the east was the Saigon River, a busy waterway with boats like cargo trains. It was not a pleasant place to be at night. There were water lilies or some type of shrub growing on the water’s surface along the banks, a few houseboats scattered in between, that rocked all day from the brown river’s traffic.
The day he met Wheeler he had taken such a walk, and when he returned to the hotel in the early evening there was already a crowd of newsmen drinking on the terrasse. He went in and saw Wheeler at a table with a woman of indiscernible age. Neither young nor middle-aged, she was attractive in a mysterious way, her posture alert and yet distanced as she sat and smoked. Wheeler was chain-smoking, talking very fast. The amphetamines he was taking made him sweat more than they all were in this heat.
Wheeler waved him over and he made his way to the table and sat down. They had all come from a press briefing that Wheeler said lasted but ten minutes with not enough bullshit to report.
As Wheeler jabbered on, Eastman’s eyes kept shifting to Channing. He was interested in her and he couldn’t tell why. It wasn’t just raw attraction, it was more arresting than that. He felt as if he couldn’t get close to her. He was ready to dismiss her after a drink, but suddenly she turned to him and began asking questions about his brief time in Vietnam and they began to talk.
“I’m curious,” he said. “You seem to know so much about this place. How long have you been in Saigon?”
“Eighteen months total, but with brief trips out of the country. Otherwise I’ve been here since the cease-fire and the Paris treaty. While it was still an American war. I mean, it still is.”
“Talked to a General Burke this afternoon and he seemed to imply it was over. Just the fellas at the embassy were the only troops left.”
“Sure. Only he’s still here walking around under the guise of a civilian. So are two hundred other guys. What’s happening right now is that they’re trying to fix their unfixable problem. A political problem. But all of this doesn’t matter. It’s soon going to come down on their heads. Personally, I don’t think we have much time left.”
“You think the city will fall to the North.”
“The city and the whole country.”
“Is that what everybody’s saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Everyone’s still here because they want to see how it will end. They need to see how it will end.”
“Have you been up to Hanoi?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I haven’t.”
“Would you know how one would get there? I’ve had trouble acquiring a visa. The Herald was supposed to have it squared away and that didn’t happen.”
“The American Embassy will say you are on your own. But there are ways. You’d have to move through Cambodia or China. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be a major pain in the ass. If that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I haven’t figured it out yet.”
She sat back and picked up another cigarette. Channing liked to drink and it was exciting (that word, again) to share a round with somebody who liked to drink as much as he did. The women in his life didn’t behave like this, not anymore.
Circling them were young Saigonese men with sunglasses and sparse mustaches. They were pimps, he assumed, because there were a hell of a lot of bar girls working the room. Wheeler seemed to know most of them.
He wanted to ask her more questions. She was much more interesting than Wheeler.
“What paper are you with?” he asked.
“She’s with us,” said Wheeler.
He did remember now seeing Channing’s name in the Herald once or twice before and he was impressed with her writing, as he was with most of the war reporting from Vietnam. The writing was different from the stuff he did back in his youth, the articles were frank and honest with respect to the truth, they redefined patriotism and America’s meaning. Yes, the dispatches of this war were some of the best goddamn reporting he had ever read, and Channing could be counted among the best.
“I went by the office today,” said Eastman. “I’ve met our friend David here but I’ve yet to meet Bob H.”
“He’s in the Philippines,” said Channing.
“Manila, I heard,” said Eastman. “You’ve been with the Herald here for a whole eighteen months! You might have some advice for someone who just arrived.”
“Try not to walk alone at night. The square outside is pickpocket central, so watch your camera, your watch, any jewelry.” She looked at his hand.
Eastman became conscious of his wedding ring and he wished he hadn’t worn it. She must have seen it, which meant what? That she was interested in him? He was talking rather quickly, rapid-fire questions. He was acting nervous. He couldn’t help seeing her as someone he could go to bed with. This used to invigorate his pride. Now he knew he had no control over going to bed with anyone. He knew he was being flirtatious—it should have been the last thing on his mind at a time like this. He was an old man getting caught up in an old man’s daydream and it made him uncomfortable in his own skin, to have at his age the self-consciousness of youth.
She seemed to be enjoying sitting there talking with him. Her eyes frequently broke into a warm smile, telling him not to be nervous, not to leave.
Wheeler said to Eastman, “I found you a translator. Someone good and he’ll be coming round tomorrow.”
“That’s great, I have to thank you.”
“You can buy me a drink,” said Wheeler.
They ordered another round.
He asked both Wheeler and Channing what went on at the press conference earlier in the day and Channing said, “Reports of miscalculated deaths and overestimated progress.”
“Our daily horseshit briefing,” said Wheeler. “Complete and utter horseshit.”
“Anything to report as news?” he asked.
“If you need to keep your name in the paper,” she said. “If not we can skip it and look for something real. I don’t know how much of the city you’ve seen, but it’s a horrible place.”
Eastman disagreed. He was falling in love with Saigon. The street smells, the garbage, the stink—bad stuff, like the cigarettes burning in the ashtray, like the whiskey in his glass. It was all vice.
“It doesn’t seem so bad,” he said.
“You’ve been here four days. Nothing’s blown up in your face yet. No one’s ripped off your wallet or broken into your room. You haven’t gone out there and come back to this.”
“I guess I’m a rube. I don’t know my way around yet, and I’ve just been eating pizza and burgers.”
“You’ll get sick of it,” said Wheeler. “We all do. Try a Vietnamese sandwich. Try a noodle soup.”
“Soup? It’s too hot for soup.”
“Not here, it ain’t. Me, I don’t eat much. Ask her.”
“I don’t think about his dietary habits,” she said.
“You think about a lot more. You have something in the works, Channing. She’s writing a book.”
Channing shook her head. Their playful banter made Eastman a little jealous.
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about the war. The people I’ve met in the war. What they do when they arrive home, if I can track them down. I shouldn’t be talking about it because I haven’t written a word.”
“I find that the more you talk about it the more real it becomes. You’ve told people about it now. Therefore you’ll have to write it if you want to be someone who keeps her word. There’s no backing out once you’ve made it public. The stakes are too high.”
“Are you a man of your word?” said Channing.
“Most definitely.”
“Have you told people about
the book you’re writing now?”
“You’re familiar with my work?”
“Very,” she said. “Everyone’s read that one book in particular. What was it called?” She smiled and he knew she was kidding.
“I have told people about the book I’m writing now. I’m under contract for it. It makes the book quite real, although I haven’t written it yet either. We’re in a similar bind.”
“No, we’re not. No one’s waiting for a book by me.”
“So you get to take your time.”
“I’m writing a book I haven’t written, too,” said Wheeler. “I’ve been not writing it for five or six years now. Ask me about it.”
Eastman was about to when Wheeler gave him the finger.
He was having a good time until the conversation seemed to get away from him, away from him being the center of attention. It was his nature to take over an evening or a conversation, and he grew bored whenever people moved out of his orbit. That’s probably why he used his accents. Texas, Irish, British. He remembered a time at a party in New York in the sixties. It was a boring party, thrown by Adrien McClure, his then editor. He fought off boredom whenever he could because the boredom made him feel self-conscious, which led to a type of anxiety he found hard to control, even with alcohol. And so he went full Texan at that party and though the night ended in disaster, he was able to keep himself entertained for the rest of the evening. He needed things to go his way. When they didn’t he was miserable.
Wheeler and Channing spoke more and more about things that didn’t interest him. But because he was intrigued by Channing, he thought he would relax, not take over. Allow the evening to go where it may. He needed things from these people, more than he needed to be entertained.
He wondered if Wheeler and Channing had slept together or were doing so currently.
Around the time of their fifth drink, after a cool breeze came in through the open arches on the terrasse, the conversation turned to insurgents and terrorists and spies. This was a topic that interested him.
“Saigon is a city of spies,” said Channing. “They pay the people who work in the hotel to report on things. There are American spies pretending to be contractors. There are Northern spies pretending to be cooks and room boys.”
“Why is it that you’re so paranoid, Channing?” said Wheeler. “Where does this mistrust in the good Vietnamese people come from?”
“I’m paranoid?” she said. “You’re being a hypocrite.”
“Maybe I’m paranoid, but it’s not for the reasons you think. I don’t think people are conspiring against journalists.” He looked at Eastman to back him up but he didn’t take the bait.
“You came from the same news briefing I did,” she said. “There is what we know and what they don’t tell us. So we work to find out. And there are the people who don’t want us to find out.”
“But we always find out,” said Wheeler. “This is the most transparent war in history. You covered World War II, didn’t you?” he asked Eastman. “You only just got here, but I bet you know the fucking difference between this war and those others just from reading about it.”
Eastman was following now and was able to formulate his own questions. “When you say it’s a city of spies, I’m interested in how you know. I believe you. I do. How do you get to them? How do you penetrate these people?”
“Why, you want to write a spy novel?” Wheeler asked.
Eastman ignored Wheeler. He was concentrating on Channing, working on some kind of trust.
She smiled because she either knew something he didn’t or was too careful not to share what she didn’t know. Journalists were protective of their stories, he remembered now. This is why everyone acted the way they did in the bureau. An outsider was a threat, someone who would scoop you if you weren’t careful.
She said to Eastman, “The only way into Saigon is to be here for eighteen months. Misery brings clarity. If you’re here long enough.”
“I’ve been here since sixty-eight,” said Wheeler.
“Five years,” Eastman said.
“Five fucking years, man. Do I look happy to you?”
“Maybe you guys are the story I’ll write,” Eastman said. “The men and women reporting the war, living the war. Someone somewhere is going to have to write about you. They did about us in my day.”
“We wouldn’t give you access,” said Channing. She was joking, but there was always truth in humor. Especially with someone who had her brand of intelligence.
It was about time to change the subject so he wouldn’t seem too eager.
That night he went back to his room thinking about her, the woman with the cigarettes and the mysterious posture. He wondered if he would ever see the inside of her room. What she looked like underneath, what she felt like, how she slept. He imagined himself sharing a cigarette with her after, talking about absolutely nothing. She would be a great mistake, but for the first time since he arrived here he wasn’t thinking about his wife, he wasn’t bedridden and emanating sorrow. Saigon was a city of spies. He was a little drunk at this hour but he couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop thinking about Anne Channing.
Saigon was a city of spies.
He was lying on his back under the ceiling fan when he got the idea. Someone in this hotel knew something about her. It was late but he was feeling giddy; he got up and peeked outside, down the dark hallway. The light from his cracked door woke the room boy sleeping on a mat on the tiled floor. The room boy was on his side and his eyes were open. Eastman waved him over with two fingers and the boy jumped up and ran hurriedly on the balls of his feet. He was hesitant to enter a guest’s room, so Eastman left the door open and they stood in the inside corridor by the closets under the light, letting the heat in.
“Listen, kiddo.” Eastman got out a few piastres and held it out between them. “There’s a woman staying here in the hotel, you understand?” He didn’t. “There’s a woman with dark hair, shoulder length. She was downstairs with me on the terrasse. We were talking. You know who I mean?” The room boy didn’t. “Channing. Anne Channing. You know that name?” The room boy nodded yes. “What can you tell me about her?” The room boy was silent. “I want to find out where in the hotel she’s staying. Find out what you can about the woman Anne Channing. Find out her room. When you come back to me with the information I’ll pay you more.”
The room boy had no issues understanding commerce. He was eager to be paid. Eastman, still a bit drunk, was too exhausted to push the boy any further on whether what was being communicated was understood. To his relief, the room boy said, “The woman.”
“The woman. Yes. You come back when you find her. The woman Channing.”
The room boy took the money and Eastman was satisfied. At the very least he was glad to have somebody on his side in Saigon, helping him get information. A little spy of his own, under the employ of the Herald.
Eastman went back inside, undressed to his underwear, and aired himself in front of the window unit. He looked out at the Caravelle, whose rooftop bar still seemed to be going. The square was quiet, just a jeep parked in front of the National Assembly, the old Opera House, with two ARVN troops keeping watch. He went to the other window and opened the French doors that led out to his two-foot terrace. Chatter from the Caravelle could be heard. He felt the need to listen to some music. Jazz would be appropriate, that was his sound. Mingus or Monk. But that didn’t play over the airwaves here, at least not at this hour.
Below, there was a boy defying curfew, walking fast across the square along Tu Do. The ARVN men shouted to the boy and he stopped in his tracks. They waved him over and the poor son of a bitch had to comply. “Leave the kid alone,” Eastman said.
He pondered the sky and then the Caravelle. Nothing doing. When he looked back down at the jeep, the boy had a gun drawn on the two soldiers and fired on them, emptying out a round into
the jeep.
Eastman dropped to the floor of the terrace and got his head down. He peeked out over the flower box and saw the kid, running away in the direction of the Caravelle. The chatter from the roof was now silent. People on the ledge looked down while more people came to their windows.
Soldiers ran out of the National Assembly and into the square. They took a knee and aimed at the boy, who was still running, and quickly put him down in the middle of Tu Do Street.
Eastman’s hand was covering his mouth. Still on his knees he cowered behind the flower box on the terrace.
He’d never before witnessed a murder. Not when he was in the war. Not anywhere. He’d never seen a kid transform into a gunman, either.
There was some shouting below in Vietnamese, echoing in the square. Bao chi! Bao chi!
It was Channing, running across Lam Son Square to the cluster of ARVN soldiers surrounding the body. She ran toward the men with guns. She was snapping photos.
13.
Had he been transformed, Eastman reflected, metamorphosed into a man of action, fully restored to his long-lost self, no longer a pathetic being? The trip to Vietnam, as promised in his head, was supposed to incite the change he sought for Penny’s sake. He thought of all the people he had written about over the years, starting with the marines of his first book, to the profiles of actors and politicians and all the imagined faces in his failed novels. These characters followed a simple formula. They are in peril when we meet them and by will or stamina or chance they have a transformative experience. By the end, if they are still alive, they are changed, altered, enlivened, sentimental, gloomy, up, down. Within a book, life was molded, shaped into something that made sense. There was a morality in the act of storytelling. Reporting fact, or creating fiction, they weren’t so different. He was not the author of his own life. He was the author of his own books. Books imitated life but told of life cleanly, in a manner of comprehension. His life was not a book, his purpose in Vietnam was not adding up to a book, and his own story felt backed up like a constipated shit.
Eastman Was Here Page 17