Eastman Was Here

by Alex Gilvarry

  “Of course it is, it’s late. This is what colleagues do.”

  She was thinking about something, the way she chewed on her bottom lip. She had missed her floor, he knew that, but didn’t say anything. She hadn’t pressed the button. He was willing to take her up to his room but the thought of it made him nervous. Once they were in the room he didn’t know what he would do. Maybe they could talk some more and have another drink. He had a fifth of rum in the nightstand. He’d leave it to her.

  The elevator door opened to the third floor and he got out. Channing remained in the small elevator. She was going back down.

  “I missed my floor,” she said. “I’m on two.”

  “I’ll walk you.”

  “No, that makes no sense. I’ll see you tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Goodnight, Channing.”

  He walked over to the banister of the central staircase and listened as she got off the elevator on the floor below. She walked to her room. He heard her fumble with her keys, enter the room, and then close the door for the night.

  14.

  She hadn’t pressed her floor’s button on purpose when they were in the elevator because she was entertaining going to bed with him. And when he got out on his floor she changed her mind and took the elevator back down.

  She was attracted to him in a sad kind of way. He had a riveting presence, and she felt they had arrived at a moment. She didn’t need anyone to protect her, she had done just fine on her own, though she liked holding his hand when they crossed the square. She was reminded of an old boyfriend in New York, one who was prone to holding hands. She had broken up with him before she left for Vietnam. Their relationship had been touch and go, and she was surprised when he cried as she told him it wouldn’t work out.

  She went about her breakfast in the courtyard. Up early, coffee, soup. The same table at the same time. Today was the day she was going to meet the cook, this time for an interview. He was willing to talk to her but only with Lin present to translate. The cook, she had learned, was indeed a spy for the North Vietnamese. He was something of a courier. As she understood it, he put people in touch with other people. She didn’t know for sure if that meant rebels or weapons. This is what she wanted to find out.

  She was thinking of the assassin in the square the other night. There were other incidents, bombings of American establishments, Vietnamese owned. There were real threats in the city and this is what she wanted to focus on in a larger work—the reporter and the city of Saigon.

  The day she met Lin they had gone for lunch at the cook’s restaurant in Cholon. She had a noodle soup and ate very little. Lin was less shy and encouraged her to eat while they waited. If she didn’t eat, Lin said she would make the cook nervous and that this wouldn’t be good for her chances. So she ate as much as she could and tried to take her mind off meeting a spy.

  There were so many Americans dining at the restaurant. The clientele appeared to be nonmilitary. The cook was right under their noses.

  It was only when the restaurant began emptying that the cook came out from the kitchen and joined them at their table. He said a few words to Lin that she couldn’t understand and Lin was able to get him to sit for a minute. The man didn’t address her, only Lin. They talked about arrangements, and she found out that he would allow her to interview him because he needed help getting his family out of the country. He had relatives who had worked for the Americans and could not stay here much longer if Saigon were to fall. This was a lucky sign, that he needed something. Channing could not make promises, but she said she would share their names with her contact at the embassy. Once things were settled, the cook turned to Channing and nodded in agreement.

  He would talk with her at the Continental. Lin would arrange their meetings. He gave her little information to go on, no details about what he did. It gave him power, she realized, to leave her in a state of speculation. This is how things were: you accepted it; a good story demanded it.

  She had been practically celibate in her eighteen months in Vietnam. She was afraid of the stigma, afraid of the hotel staff and the other correspondents talking about her, which was strange because she had never cared about such things in the States. A few months ago she learned of a friend, Elaine, who had slept with a CBS newsman. When Elaine tried to keep it casual she developed a reputation. The men Channing’s age were not discreet, they got together to drink and gossip every night at the Caravelle. If you were a woman among them you sensed their intentions. She witnessed how they went after their female counterparts. She’d seen asses grabbed and had notes passed to her in press conferences. I love you, Channing. Let’s fuck. They made passes at you even when you were shaken up from a firefight, it didn’t matter. These boys were relentless. Many lied about not having wives and children back home. She stayed on the safe side of things, not sure how long she’d remain in Saigon. She worked, filed her stories, kept notes for her book.

  The only affair she had in Vietnam was with an older man, Davis, her friend at the embassy. When she met Davis she felt she deserved a break from her routine. He was handsome and a good listener. He knew the city and took her to places different from the American restaurants along Tu Do Street. He introduced her to his many Vietnamese friends, who in turn became her friends. He had a patience the younger men didn’t have and that she found attractive. With him she felt like a better version of herself.

  Davis had an apartment just west of the city center, which he kept up year-round. She stayed with him for a week once. He had good books and a turntable with some jazz records. The kitchen was small, but he had cookware, spices, olive oil, onions hanging from a basket over the sink, pasta and canned tomatoes in the cupboard. They made spaghetti, tomato sauce with fresh basil, drank wine, and listened to the stereo. It felt comfortably domestic to be with such an able person, even for just a short period. Davis would return to the States frequently to visit his wife and kids, and he usually rented the apartment out to other correspondents. She wasn’t expecting too much to come of it, not of any of her relationships out here, and she didn’t feel guilty about having an affair with a married man. She was always on the move, everyone was, including Davis, and so this wasn’t a time for attachments. When it ended, she was as relieved as he was.

  Since then, she had been careful, overly cautious. She thought of Eastman again and applauded her decision not to go to bed with him.

  • • •

  The cook was to arrive at six in the evening and she waited in the lobby for him. He would be coming with Lin and they would go up to her room together for the interview.

  She had to assume the cook had contacts inside the Continental—everyone was working for somebody else. It’s the only reason he would agree to meet here. She was probably being watched by the staff, the room boys, or the waiters at breakfast. He knew more about her than she did about him. He was a spy, after all. They took precautions that reporters did not.

  Lin she trusted and she didn’t quite know why.

  He arrived first, limping his way into the lobby. The cook followed behind. She greeted them and shook their hands.

  They went up to her room on the second floor. The cook sat down in the green lounge chair and Lin pulled up a desk chair to sit beside him to translate. Channing sat across from them and asked if it was okay that she record the meeting. She said it would be confidential and no one but her would hear the tape. Of course, this was untrue, because she would have a translator at the bureau make a transcript for her. The truth needed to be fudged, part of the correspondent’s arrogance. Get everything you can by any means necessary. But be careful not to promise anything. Be vague when you can, regarding all forms of repayment.

  The cook said no to the taping and Channing agreed to just take notes. He spoke English extremely well. She was taken aback. They hadn’t conversed in English at the restaurant, Lin had translated for them. She supposed this was a great adv
antage for a spy, to understand what was being said while you were invisible to the Americans. He went by the name of Pham, which was probably not his real name, but this is what she could call him for ease of conversation.

  “You have contacts at the American Embassy?” he asked.

  “I have some and I will do what I can to help your family. I can’t make any promises, because it’s not within my power. After we finish you can write down the names and phone numbers of those in question.”

  The cook pulled a list of five names out of his pants pocket and handed it to Channing. She looked over it carefully and then placed it beneath her pad. That seemed to settle the matter and he was ready.

  “To begin, can you tell me about what you do,” she asked.

  “I handle information,” he said. “Information that would be considered time sensitive. This can be anything. Knowing where people are and where they will be. Who is in Saigon at this time and who needs to know. Information of all kinds. This goes direct to North Command.”

  “How long have you been doing this work?”

  “Many years. That’s not important. Right now is an important time.”

  “How so?”

  “Saigon will soon come under attack, beyond what happened during Tet. There will be an invasion and I won’t know about it until it happens. I am never handed information, I gather it. I will be left alone, on my own. Some of my family will be captured. I cannot help the ones on the list because they have been employed by the Americans.”

  It wasn’t new information—the South falling to the North. The sentiment had been going around for some time now. It was speculation and it didn’t seem likely that Pham knew more than anyone else.

  “What about the Paris peace treaty? The cease-fire?” she asked.

  “The North will not settle until this country is united as one. Now that America has retreated under the conditions set by the treaty, the South is weak. What we want, even in the South, is one united Vietnam. Not like Korea, divided. This is simple, something you already know.”

  “America is hoping for the treaty to work and to hold.”

  “To divide the country is to leave it fractured. This is not a solution for Vietnam. It will take time and the Vietnamese people are very patient. They will wait years. And when the time is right they will take what is rightfully theirs. It will not stop until this solution is reached. Both sides want the same thing. Unified as one.”

  “Is this the opinion of your countrymen as well?”

  “The peace treaty is for the Americans. So that they may go. And Vietnam wants very much for them to do so. So we will agree, what choice do we have? When America goes home, nothing gets resolved in Vietnam. Still the same problem exists. There may be quiet time, but each side will try to liberate the other. Nothing’s changed by the American war. Think of your Civil War. Would not fighting continue if America remained divided, North and South? There would be another war, an inevitable war, to unite all. We are behind you in history but we are not so different.”

  “Many people in America sympathize with you on that point. It has been in our interest for years to withdraw from Vietnam and only now is it becoming a reality. Is there no sense of relief on your side?”

  “Yes. Now we have to deal with ourselves only. No longer involvement from foreigners. And once we are united quickly, then we can defend our way of life against the next imperialist.”

  “I understand that you have permission to talk about these things with me.”

  “It is the desire of my superiors to express this to the American press so they will understand.”

  He seemed as if he could go on and on, but she wasn’t interested in his opinion of what would happen. She wanted to know the things that she could not see when she walked around each district of Saigon. She led him to the recent bombings of American bars and restaurants. It was causing a flurry of closings and Western civilians were staying in. There were shootings targeting ARVN units, like the two soldiers killed in the square.

  The cook shook his head no, and he looked at Lin. He would not be made to comment on rebel activity.

  “There was a shooting in front of this hotel two nights ago,” she said to Lin. “Ask him if he knows about it.”

  Lin complied. The cook sat back in his chair and said nothing.

  “Ask him if he knows who the boy was who killed the two soldiers.”

  The cook shook his head no.

  “No he didn’t know him or no, no comment?”

  “Both,” said Lin.

  “This does not matter,” said the cook. “I’ll tell you a story. A close relative of mine, my cousin, was captured by the Americans and imprisoned. Near Tan Son Nhut. He was North army, captured near the Laos border. In prison they were treated like dogs, pestered and beaten. But soon, he was set free to live his life in Saigon. This meant one thing. That he had cooperated. What information he could have given them, I don’t know. He may have only told lies. When I was informed by my eyes and ears in Saigon what my dear relative had done, I was put in a position. I would need to inform on him to my superiors and then await an order from them. Would he live or would he die? I would be the one to relay the order. I would be his executioner. Should anyone ever be in this position? As long as a divide exists, we will be made to ask such questions of life and death for generations to come. The war goes on until we are unified.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I did my duty.”

  “And what happened to your relative?”

  “This is why I give you the list of my family.”

  They seemed to talk in circles about the same thing. Unification. And when she asked something that diverted from this topic he sat in silence then spoke in Vietnamese to Lin, a displeased look on his face. Lin was apologetic to him. All the while on her lap was a list of names given to her by the cook. What was she to do with this? She couldn’t write her book collecting lists of names from Vietnamese, it would be impossible to negotiate. Her willingness to accept such a list became a promise in itself, and she would have to carry this around. Sure, she would get the material for her book, but at what cost? Channing didn’t know if she should continue with it—interviews with dark characters in her hotel room. Should she scrap the book and just do her job? Attend the four o’clock follies and write mediocre stories? She could go into Cambodia, it had been calling to her for some time, it would fit in at the end of the war narrative.

  The meeting ended, the cook left first, alone, and she thanked him. A few minutes later she walked with Lin downstairs into the lobby and watched as he slowly exited the hotel.

  Back upstairs, Channing consulted her notes and quickly began typing them, expanding on what she remembered from the interview. When describing the cook’s physicality—the way he sat in the green chair and the way he was silent when he was asked a question he did not like—she realized that she was writing in loose imitation of Alan Eastman’s style. She usually wrote in the plain voice of the Herald, a straight report without any style of her own. Now when faced with the blank page of a book, she had no other language in which to tell it. She had yet to discover how to portray this war in her own words.

  She spent an hour writing out details from the meeting and then decided to break. She lit a cigarette and thought of the shooting outside the hotel. She remembered she’d dropped off her roll of film at the bureau this morning. So she got up and walked down the hall to see if the pictures were ready.

  Bob H. was back from Manila. He was drinking coffee at his desk by the window. “Anne,” he said. “Have you met our celebrity writer?”

  “Yeah, we had a drink last night.” Already she didn’t like the way that sounded. Too casual. So she added, “He was at the Jerome and Juliette. I wanted to hear about The American War and the old days of publishing. He’s full of stories about himself.”

  “Oh is h
e? Watch out for him. He’s got a reputation.”

  “What do you mean, Bob?” Bob was protective of her, he was of all of his correspondents, but he had never been so forward about who she should see. “You’re the one who told me to help him. Now what are you telling me?”

  Bob looked concerned and turned a little red. “Just that he has a reputation of being an antagonist,” he said. “Forget it.”

  Now she felt she was being overly sensitive and perhaps misread Bob’s tone. Eastman did have a reputation, Bob was right. He didn’t mean any harm. She apologized, blamed it on a lack of sleep. She told him about the shooting in the square.

  “I heard. Damn shame.”

  “Want me to file it? I got photos.”

  “Not really. I know it’s close to the hotel, but there were no Americans killed and I don’t want to panic three hundred press corps families.” He had a point. She suspected it would be a no. “Has he asked for much help?” said Bob.

  “He seems to be getting along,” she said. “He had a meeting with General Burke of MACV.”

  “That I heard. Everyone’s kind of pissed. It’s funny that Burke is still here when MACV disbanded months ago. What is he up to, I wonder?” Bob had that New York cynicism that she missed from home. Everything seemed to cause him distress. He was an ace worrier, highly caffeinated and combustible. She liked how he ran the bureau.

  She walked to the bathroom and knocked on the door before entering to make sure no one was developing film. She was called in. Inside was An, one of their Vietnamese photographers. He was hanging photos in the bathtub under the red light. Many of the photos were hers.

  “This happened the other night,” she said. There were photos slightly out of focus, taken as she ran to the body of the boy assassin. Then the soldiers getting her to stand back, hands in her lens. She was able to get low and shoot the boy on the ground between their legs. He was still bleeding in these. The clearer photos were of the soldiers in the jeep. Young, green, and forever lifeless. An told her that her photos were quite good and that it was a shame this had to happen so close to the Continental. “And during the cease-fire,” he added.