by Adib Khan
‘Bosnia was not the same, Ron,’ Martin says wearily. ‘Our experiences were different.’ But he is unable to completely put aside Ron’s accusation.
‘What different experiences?’ Ron is now aggressive and not interested in a reply. ‘We’re all bloody hypocrites! Point the finger at someone else and pretend that we’re the genuine stuff with reserved places in Heaven. Do our soldiers always behave according to army rules? Did we? Are the rituals of bastardisation any less barbaric than what goes on in war? Yet it happens in peacetime under our noses. Gooks, geeks, nogs, slopes, chinks—anything to suggest they were inferior. We killed them and screwed their women.’
MARTIN CAN STILL recall her face in every detail. Dark eyes and short hair. A mole, with a single strand of hair in the middle, on her left cheek. My-Kim. She had been to a convent school and could speak French and English.
For several years he has not thought about her. The memory of the times he spent with her has been dumped in an unused locker. He met her in a bar. She had wanted to know about Australia.
‘It’s a very big country. Clean and peaceful. Not many people. But we are fun-loving. Friendly.’
‘Then why you come here to fight?’
‘Well…I think it has something to do with keeping our way of life. Protect South Vietnam from communism and all that. Doesn’t that make sense to you? No?’
They made love in semi-darkness and then lay in bed, smoking and drinking beer. My-Kim smelled of cheap perfume and tobacco. Martin tried to smother himself with her presence, pretending that the war was someone else’s problem. He felt safe and calm in her company. He told her morally neutral stories about Aborigines and white settlement in Australia, using the tales to escape into the safe corners of history where he was not pressured to make judgements. For a few precious hours the tropical jungles and Nui Dinh hills receded into the hazy distance of his mind, where that world teemed only with animal and bird life, a landscape stripped of human predators. He snuggled against her sweaty softness, sojourning in a fragile shelter. He did not tell her about Moira or his plan to marry as soon as he returned to Melbourne.
My-Kim was curious without being intrusive, not quite being able to grasp the ways of this other culture with its boisterous outspoken men. At times she found him very funny.
When Martin felt moments of guilt, they came from the image of a soldier he had shot through the neck. His first kill. A frenzied burst of firing with an M60 machine gun had accidentally found a target. He came across the woman’s twisted body fallen over a log, her right hand clutching a rifle and her face already covered with ants. In those seconds Martin was only aware of the surrounding trees, like witnesses tall in silent accusation. He stood shivering over her. But the immensity of it was transformed in a moment by the cheers of the platoon. ‘It’s either them or us,’ the commanding officer had tried to console Martin. ‘No compromises. No in-betweens. Forget the fact that she was a woman. With an automatic rifle in her hand, she could be just as lethal as a man. You did your job.’
My-Kim and Martin were strangers. He knew that she accepted his money and gifts as readily as she took offerings from other men. She had said a little about her life, and to Martin it was enough. ‘I must like someone before I go out with him. Even without knowing a man, a woman can tell if he is capable of kindness,’ was what she said first. Later she let him know that her husband, a village official, had been assassinated by the Vietcong. There were no jobs for her, but there were many foreign soldiers, with money. Her two children were small and had to be fed and clothed. ‘When there is no other way,’ she explained, ‘you do not think or feel. There is no right or wrong. All I know is that my children are not hungry when I go home.’
Martin bought her costume jewellery, trinkets and cosmetics. He always left plenty of cash. For six months he brought toys and sweets for the children, rations of tinned food and whatever clothing he could muster. Then the war separated them.
On the morning after he last saw her, the jungle was thick and lush, dripping with the rain that had fallen at dawn. By now, monsoon rain, illness and combat fatigue had corroded the morale of the 8RAR troops. Diarrohea and fever could be life-threatening. There had been injuries. And an infantryman had been killed during an unsuccessful operation.
They approached a creek on this day, hunting Vietcong guerillas who had blown up an ammunition dump with mortars. The fast-flowing water was inviting, and potentially dangerous. A possible fire lane. Some of the men fanned along the bank and crouched in the high grass. Martin was among the first members of the platoon to wade across the creek at its shallowest point. They took up a position of vigilance on the other side, allowing the remaining troops to cross over. It was a tense manoeuvre, but without incident. Then they moved quickly away from the bank, relieved to be swallowed up in the foliage.
For a bare instant they relaxed. There was relief on their faces. Then one of them stepped on an M16 mine.
Barry Hobart—a shy lumbering man from a farming community in northern Queensland—was ripped apart without uttering a whimper.
Martin was a few metres behind Barry. As he hit the ground, he felt a warm wetness on his hands. Where was his injury? Why couldn’t he feel pain? There was no panic. Only uncertainty. Was he alive?
The trees in front of him did not waver. His vision was clear. Gingerly he moved his hands. There was a train of thoughts: home, Moira, Melbourne winter mornings, the roar of crowds at the MCG. Fragments. Slowly he turned on his back, leaning over to touch Moira. Instead he found himself grabbing the sleeve of a soldier next to him.
‘Bugger off!’ The man shrugged off Martin’s feeble hold.
The first wave of pain rippled along his forearms. He sat up and looked at his hands. Red streaks and coagulated blobs of blood. Dead leeches. He looked closely and realised that there were bits of Barry’s flesh, skin and bones stuck to him.
His sob must have been audible. He jumped up, shaking his hands in a frenzy, trying to get rid of the pieces of the dead man. He began to yell. Birds went flying. Then he was grabbed from behind, wrestled to the ground.
The palm of a hand cracked against his lower jaw and he felt pressure on his mouth. It was as if he had to swallow his screams and send them surging through his veins.
This was the way they’d all trained, to deal with indiscipline, to handle those who were unable to cope under pressure. His throat and mouth felt dry. He was frantic to stand endlessly under a hot shower and scrub himself, right through the pores, clean.
His arms began to throb. His back hurt. The flattened mat of grass was wet under his belly. He closed his eyes and stopped struggling.
The pain spread through his limbs.
Maybe now he would discover the death experience and whatever happened afterwards. But the whispered voices were all too familiar.
The platoon doctor came. Carefully he touched the cuts on Martin’s arms and legs. He worked efficiently, masking any revulsion about scraping bits of human remains off Martin’s body. A needle jabbed Martin’s arm. Someone held up his head. He was made to swallow aspirin tablets and given a drink of water.
After a while he was able to open his eyes. He saw two men walking away briskly, carrying the ends of a zipped-up plastic bag that looked empty. The doctor encouraged him to flex his arms and legs. He felt stiff. Two men helped him to sit up and lean against a tree trunk.
The section commander arrived and knelt down beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He whispered toneless words of reason, to comfort, placate, make Martin accept the unavoidable misfortunes of such operations. Martin ran his fingers over the lump on his jaw He performed the drills to prove that he would not be a handicap to the rest of the troops.
Ashen-faced and weary, the soldiers moved forward, checking the ground in front of them for more mines. It took Martin several minutes to steady himself on his feet.
‘You okay?’
He nodded. The soldier crept past him, engulfed in self-preserv
ation.
After this, Martin could never see My-Kim again.
RON RETURNS WITH the plastic bag. He runs the fingers of his left hand between the belt and the back of his jeans.
‘You look as if you’ve suddenly put on weight.’ Martin winks knowingly. ‘Back to normal again.’
Ron scowls and checks his watch.
‘It’s pretty late.’ Martin looks at his friend, hoping that he will take the hint. ‘I might go home now’
‘Fine by me,’ Ron says coldly.
‘Don’t you think—’
‘I’m staying right here,’ Ron interrupts. ‘I want to drink more beer.’
Martin hesitates. He remembers a conversation with Ron.
ONCE, SITTING IN Martin’s backyard, drinking beer on a summer’s evening, Ron had turned to him. ‘What has been your loneliest moment?’
Martin had to think hard. ‘Walking past church one Christmas morning. I could hear voices. I envied their togetherness and the hope of their song. Yet something prevented me from going in. I wanted to join in and belong. But I kept walking. The sound of my footsteps drowned that calm singing. I stopped to look around. There was no one else on the street.’
‘You know what I fear most, even more than death? That I may be alive when my friends have gone. You can only rely so much on your family members for understanding and support, especially when there’s such an age difference, and when you can’t share some of the important experiences of your life with them. There’s no curse worse than the loneliness of your own past.’
Ron looked old and haggard that day. He sat with hunched shoulders and sagging jowls, aimlessly moving a coaster on the table with two fingers.
MARTIN REACHES FOR his wallet and walks back to the bar.
TEN
The next evening Ron phones Martin to extend an invitation to his daughter’s place in Canberra in August. It will be her son’s birthday, and Ron is eager to see his grandson again. ‘It would be terrific if you could come.’ He sounds subdued. It is his way of acknowledging his regret at the failure of the previous night. Martin promises to think about taking some time off. Maria is not expecting her baby until towards the end of October…
‘But nothing boring, like last time!’ Ron warns, referring to their previous visit to the national capital. ‘You’ve never explained why you stood in front of that painting for so long. Told me to go away when I suggested leaving. An hour later you were still there!’
Later, Martin smiles as he recalls Ron’s bewilderment.
They had driven in a leisurely way to Canberra, stopping overnight at Lakes Entrance and then for lunch at Cooma the next day. Ron was excited about seeing his first grandchild, and curiosity about the national capital had prompted Martin to undertake the trip. He discovered that there was an exhibition of Expressionist painting, with prominent displays of Kandinsky, Klee and Otto Dix. On their penultimate day in the city, Ron reluctantly accompanied Martin to the exhibition, convinced that he was sacrificing the morning to visual boredom. Ron moved quickly from one exhibit to the next, and within fifteen minutes he was back where he’d started, only to find that Martin had not moved. To Ron’s dismay, Martin said he was likely to spend another hour or more among the Expressionists.
‘I might go for a walk,’ Ron declared. ‘Have a coffee.’
‘I’ll wander through and have a look at the Australian collection as well.’ Martin was relieved that Ron would not be there to shadow him and make him aware of the time passing.
Martin had no idea when Ron returned and stood behind him. He was hunched in front of a picture, his chin resting between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, and his body absolutely still. He was focused entirely on the painting. Army Shower. It was signed Albert Tucker ‘42.
Martin had been unaware of the existence of Tucker’s painting, until now. Initially it was the title that caught his attention. This was at a time when he still awakened in the middle of the night and felt the urge to stand under a hot shower and scrub away the memories of Vietnam. He felt itchy and unclean whenever he remembered Barry Hobart. One minute the big man was almost next to him, close enough for him to hear the Queenslander breathing. Within seconds Barry had drawn ahead, only to be exploded into bits of bones and flesh.
Martin looked closely at the bald downcast figure of the man in the foreground. The posture epitomised failure and dejection. Eyes closed. The left arm was extended around the back of the head, the hand clenched in a fist. The bent right arm extended upward across his chest, with a thin strip of white towel draped over the wrist. This patch of white contrasted glaringly with the backside of the other man depicted under the shower in the background. Despair. Shame. Was the figure in the foreground waiting to cleanse himself, or had he given up the effort to wash away the filth of war? His stance seemed an acknowledgement of human limitations. The nakedness of both men was the stripping away of humanity down to its essentials of bones and skin. Without beauty, nobility or grace. The depressing barrenness of the box-like shower chamber enhanced the futility. Did Tucker know about the burden of memories that could not be exorcised?
They had treated Martin kindly after the platoon returned to camp. Frantically he had stripped off his clothes and stood under the makeshift shower, sobbing and allowing the water to run over him. Eyes closed, he soaped his body until he resembled a gigantic meringue cast in a human shape. He rubbed, scratched and clawed himself as though self-hatred was the only emotion left in him. None of it happened, he tried to convince himself. He imagined Barry ducking and weaving, bypassing the mines, running beside him. Later they would drink ice-cold beer and pretend to forget the fear. There he was, in front of Martin, a blurry shape—he had returned to confess a tasteless hoax. ‘Barry?’ Martin whispered. He washed away the lather from his face and opened his eyes. It was almost dark. An ashen-faced Colin stood in front of him, holding a towel.
PART TWO
ELEVEN
A wayward afternoon has slipped away. The scrawny flyridden dog irritates Martin. It stands growling next to the mound of rubbish, too weak to move. Nearby a food vendor looks forlorn as he stir-fries rice noodles with mushrooms and bhok choy. Nervous pedestrians look around and scurry along the dirt track. There are ragged children splashing in the shallow puddles of rainwater, squealing with delight.
He notices the white woman in a blue dress standing under the shade of a matching umbrella on the opposite side of the path. There is an imperial aloofness about her, as if the locals are unworthy of her attention. Her presence is an imposition on the landscape. She waves to Martin and calls his name.
Nora? He tenses. She is out of place, a lost time-traveller from the future. He is partly awakened by her presence, but the images do not disappear. ‘You do not belong here,’ he hears himself saying. The moment explodes in a confetti of shrapnel and bursts of gunfire. She falls to the ground, an arm stretched in his direction. He crouches behind a massive chunk of concrete, paralysed with fear. Nora is beyond help, he convinces himself. Above the noise of confusion there is the shrill sound of an alarm. The vendor has disappeared but the dog does not move. It begins to bark, almost in recognition of the return to normalcy. Violence. He peers over the block of concrete. Nora lies among the Vietnamese, equal in the silence of death.
Martin twitches and slides to one side of the bed. The back of his hand hits the side-table. Drowsily he gropes for the clock, relieved to find himself in the cold bedroom. Images stop swirling around him. He clutches the doona and digs his fingers into its feathery softness, then flicks the switch of the electric blanket. In about twenty minutes the stiffness of his limbs should begin to ease.
He relishes the thought of a break from his everyday routine. ‘We could use your help with the house, Dad,’ Frank had said to him. It was so rare for Frank to speak to him this way that, instead of a quick visit, Martin now plans to stay in Daylesford for a few days.
He listens. It is the neighbour’s dog barking in the backyard.
That fits into the pattern of the dream. But Nora? An inexplicable intrusion. Undoubtedly Andrew could find a reason for her presence. ‘We have no direct control over the composition of our dreams,’ Andrew once said. ‘Perhaps that is why there is so much truth in them.’
‘And the truth?’ Martin mutters, curling his toes and rotating his ankles. ‘What the hell is that?’ He is disturbed. ‘It was only a dream,’ he murmurs. ‘In real life I would have run to her assistance.’
He lies on his back, regulating his breathing and cajoling his body to relax. The melancholy greyness of dawn begins to filter through the window. He feels rested and pleased with his restraint the previous evening at Frank’s. He had only drunk orange juice and mineral water.
HE HAD FINISHED work by half-past four. But then Frank’s greeting was edged with irritation that his father had turned up early. He lingered in front of Martin before stepping aside to let him enter the flat.
‘Thought I’d give you a hand,’ Martin said lamely, embarrassed by what he now saw as an error of judgement. Inside, he deduced that there must have just been a serious disagreement between Frank and Maria. She was red-eyed and Frank was sullen. In the small kitchen they negotiated their way around each other frostily. Trays of finger food were being prepared with grim efficiency. Martin stood against the kitchen’s sliding door, uncomfortable and sadly unable to think of anything clever or funny to say. They’d been looking forward to this party.
He readily volunteered to go to the service station for the bags of ice that Maria had forgotten to pick up on her way back from the delicatessen. ‘I won’t be long.’ Without stopping to determine how many bags were required, he left.
He drove slowly past the service station until he located a vacant parking spot. He crossed the road to a milkbar for a takeaway coffee. Inside the ute the windows had fogged up, blotting out the traffic and pedestrians. There was nothing that could be done about the noise in the street. He was content with his own company Martin held the rim of the polystyrene cup with both hands. The trembling stopped. A minuscule world, without any discordance, was his to control again. He could allow himself half an hour. There was the possibility that someone else might arrive early for the party. Maria’s parents, most likely. Martin was edgy about meeting them. He was not one of those resilient people who could immediately strike up a conversation with strangers. There was also the awkwardness of contending with their Vietnamese background. He was more concerned about what he should not say to Maria’s parents rather than the ways in which he might get to know them. It occurred to Martin that since he had returned home after the war, he had not been in contact with any Vietnamese, barring chance encounters with the odd greengrocer and, in one instance, a baker.