by Lavie Tidhar
Oblivion waits him out, his face revealing nothing. Jeffries says, Laos. It’s in the middle of an ugly civil war. The Royals are desperately trying to hold on to power, the Commies – they call themselves the Pathet Lao – are Soviet-backed. The Americans have no official presence in Laos. Unofficially, though … he smiles. His teeth are yellow, and crooked. You’ll see, he says. Not pleasantly.
– Tell me about our involvement, Oblivion says, and this time the our has a different meaning, and he sees Jeffries flinch. That’s for you to find out, Jeffries says. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? Challenging him. You don’t like us, Oblivion says, and Jeffries laughs, an almost hysterical sound, and the realisation hits Oblivion, like an old remembered pain, what is he scared of, he is scared of you.
92. DONG MUANG AIRPORT, THAILAND 1967
– You’re the Brit?
The pilot is tall and tanned, with white even teeth and green agate eyes. Mike! he says. Oblivion says, Oblivion. They shake hands. Pleasure to meet you! Mike says. His hand sweeps the airfield. Welcome to Air America, he says.
They’re at an airfield outside Bangkok. A dozen Bell helicopters sit alongside a similar number of cargo planes, twin-engine de Havilland Caribous and Fairchild C-123s. It is early morning, but already hot. The pilot, Mike, examines Oblivion in admiration, his linen suit, his wide-brimmed hat. I dig your style, man! he says.
– Thank you, Oblivion says, gravely. Mechanics swarm over one recently arrived plane, its side peppered, Oblivion notices somewhat uneasily, with bullet holes. Mike follows his glance and laughs. Don’t worry about that! he says. I’ll get you there safe and sound. Oblivion shrugs and follows him down the field to a makeshift square building with the door open. A handwritten note on cardboard, in crude letters: Air America: Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. They go inside, where the light is dim. A television flickers in one corner of the room without sound, it shows the American president, Lyndon B. Johnson, talking to reporters in the White House, the image replaced with that of planes flying in formation, replaced again, something about the Israel-Syria War. A group of men in civilian clothes sit inside the room on upturned crates of beer. The air is rife with marijuana smoke. A radio plays Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’. For a moment Oblivion feels ripped out of time, transported to this alien place, this alien time. A couple of the men nod greetings. Mike, Someone says, Who’s the spook?
– Passenger, Mike says.
– One of ours?
– No, Oblivion says, with a slight apologetic air. I’m afraid not.
– A Brit? Then they seem to realise and suddenly the atmosphere changes, heads turn away, minutely. It’s funny, Oblivion thinks. Or – no, not funny. Strange. That the Americans, as much as they celebrate their heroes in public, in private shy away from them, as though they are unclean.
– Spliff? someone says, passing it around. Oblivion waves away the offer, accepts a beer instead. It’s warm. Don’t worry, Mike says, we’ll get you to Laos in no time.
– What’s it like? Oblivion says.
– Laos?
– The war, Oblivion says.
– What war? Mike says, and the others laugh – it has the feel of an old, worn-out joke. Don’t you know there’s no war on in Laos.
– I’ll tell you for free, one of the pilots says, I’m glad as fuck I’m not in the army. Fucking jungles, man. Viet fucking Cong.
– Yeah, Mike chimes in, it’s OK as long as you’re in the air, right?
A chorus of assent. Mike shakes his head. But down there? he says. You might as well be fighting fucking ghosts.
Ghosts? Oblivion says; a little sharply.
The others note his tone; look uncomfortable. Pilots, Oblivion realises. These guys are all pilots. An odd assortment, and he wonders how they’d all ended up here, working for the CIA.
– Ghosts, someone says, but softly.
– Yeah, someone else says. But they’re not looking at Oblivion. Looking away. Bad luck, someone mutters, and Oblivion knows it is him they are talking about.
– Come on, Mike says, standing up. Don’t mind these guys, they’re fried. Too many flights, too many joints.
– Not enough, someone says, and they all laugh. Oblivion smiles. Nice to meet you all, he says.
– Yeah, you too, spook. That laughter again – relief, he thinks, that he is going. The music changes, the first notes of the Monkees’ ‘Daydream Believer’ start up on the portable radio.
They emerge out into the sunlight. Mike talks briefly to a mechanic, nods. It’s ready, he says. They go to the plane, You can sit in the cockpit, Mike says, Oblivion says, What’s at the back?
Mike shrugs. Cargo, he says. Guns, bombs, dope, food, you … everything is cargo.
Oblivion stands there, takes a deep breath of the air, machine oil and fuel and that heavy, humid smell, and salt and tar from the sea. What is he doing here? This war is not their business, their war was a lifetime ago and in another place. And he is alone, he’s been alone for what, sometimes, very late at night, awaking in the cold, fog misting the window, feels like forever.
93. ISAN, THAILAND 1967
Mike’s playing ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ at full volume and Oblivion stares out of the aircraft’s grimy window, looking down at flatlands, the wind roaring outside. Flatlands and small villages of thatch and bamboo, herds of cows, banana trees, smoke rising from cooking fires – and again he feels that disconnect, that sense of being torn from time.
– Here it comes! Mike shouts over the engine noise and Lennon’s singing, and suddenly the land is cut by a deep gushing wound and the plane swerves, following it, and Mike shouts, The Mekong!
Empty land ends and a city begins on the other side of the river, as if, simply by crossing, they had transitioned from one world to another. Oblivion sees streets, colonial French buildings, Buddhist temples with golden roofs, a black stupa squatting like an ancient toad, cars and carriages and pedestrians, palm trees, the swimming pool of a modern hotel. The plane swoops past the Mekong and over the city and Oblivion can see other planes in the sky, rising overhead, a flock of ravens.
– Our city, baby! Mike shouts. Our city, our planes, our fucking war. The plane swoops down towards a landing strip, the Beatles stop singing and the music changes, and it takes Oblivion a moment to recognise the song – it’s Johnny Rivers’ ‘Secret Agent Man’.
94. VIENTIANE, LAOS 1967
Oblivion lands at Wattay Airport and the sky is full of wings. He can hear English spoken in a variety of American accents, as well as French and Lao. He’d not expected there to be so many people, so many planes, so much traffic. Hmong, Mike says, pointing at a group of men coming off a large helicopter, carrying heavy-looking boxes. Hill tribes. Oblivion says, What’s in the boxes? Mike shrugs, looking shifty, Shit, he says. What do I know.
A man in civilian clothes hurries over to them, Thank you, Mike, he says, you’re dismissed, Mike says, Jeez, we’re not in the army here, Bob, Bob says, Yeah, yeah, turns to Oblivion with a tired smile, says, Pilots, right?
In moments they’re in the city. The jeep stops sharply, jostling Oblivion. Come on! Bob says. Oblivion wonders if that’s the man’s real name. They’re outside the Samlo Bar, on Setthathirat Road. Inside it is dark and dim and full of smoke. There’s a long wooden bar and a pool table at one corner and a group of drunk pilots surrounded by girls, who all greet Bob effusively as he and Oblivion walk in.
– Come on, Bob says. He buys two pints of beer and carries them to an empty booth. There is no one else around. The juke box is playing the Beatles’ ‘Paperback Writer’. So, Bob says. Takes a long sip of beer and sighs when he’s done. The Old Man sent you.
– Yes.
– That fucking asshole, Bob says, and laughs. He has an easy, comfortable laugh. He’s been a pain in our ass for years, Bob says. No offence.
– None taken, Oblivion says.
– How’s the beer?
– Good, Oblivion says. Almost, we s
uspect, beginning to lose his patience. The beer’s good.
– Best in Southeast Asia, Bob says, with pride.
– I’m sure, Oblivion says, with his patience running increasingly thin. Now, tell me about your Übermenschen, Bob.
– It’s hardly our Übermenschen you’re interested in, though, is it, Oblivion? Bob says. Oblivion stares at him, the fine tanned wrinkles around the man’s eyes. Used to the outdoors, and smiling. And not to be underestimated, Oblivion thinks, a Company man, Central Intelligence Agency, the guys who won the last big war and can’t imagine losing one, ever. Although in that, he thinks, a little uneasily, it’s just possible they may be wrong.
– I understand the Viet Cong utilise Übermenschen in combat operations? Oblivion says, bluntly.
– And the Pathet Lao, Bob says, though there seems to be a bit of an ideological issue, there.
– How so?
– Remember your Orwell? Bob says. Smiles. Lights up a cigarette. War, Oblivion thinks, remembering. Everyone smoked in the war. All animals are equal, Bob says. But some animals are more equal than others.
– What does that mean?
– It means they don’t trust you, Bob says. Over-Men. Beyond-Men. Fucking Übermenschen. Whatever the fuck you guys are. All animals are equal but you’re – what are you? Are you even an animal, in this fucked-up metaphor? He was a Brit, wasn’t he, Orwell? I prefer Hemingway, myself. The Sun Also Rises? Fucking great book. Did you read it?
– No.
– Oh. Really? Bob looks a little surprised at that. You should, you know.
– I’ll make a note of that, Oblivion says.
Bob shrugs. Cigarette? he says.
Oblivion reluctantly accepts one. Not smoked in years, now this new mission, this new war. Takes him back. He says, So they do not employ Übermenschen on a regular basis?
No. Only—
Then Bob stops, as if he were about to say something he was not supposed to. He smiles and waves the cigarette in the air and downs the rest of his pint as if it were water. Listen, buddy, he says, standing up. He lays a hand on Oblivion’s shoulder, all friendly, but there’s steel in his grip. Stay a couple of days, he says. A week. Hell, stay as long as you want! Take in the sights, shoot some pool, find yourself a girl. Smirks at Oblivion. Or a boy. Whatever. Gestures at the bar. Just take your pick. Then go home. There’s nothing to see. Hell, boy – Laos is a neutral state. We don’t even have a presence here! Bob laughs. Lifts his hand, pats Oblivion on the back. See you around, he says. Leaves Oblivion sitting there, blinking in the darkness of the Samlo Bar.
95. VIENTIANE, LAOS 1967
What does it feel like to be Oblivion? Not Oblivion and Fogg, Fogg and Oblivion? Just Oblivion: Nothing to mask him from the world, no one to share the burden of the long years?
– Have there been any new ones, Oblivion? Fogg says.
– You know the answer to that.
– Then no.
– No, Oblivion says.
Alone, and yet not alone, for in the night, he doesn’t remember quite how it happens, the bar, too many drinks later, and a meeting of two strangers, about to become lovers, that knowledge between them, and then going back to the cheap hotel and making love on humid sheets and then.
The pipe. The ball of resin. That sweet and cloying smell, spreading over the room. He accepts the pipe, puts it to his lips, draws the sweet smoke of it into his lungs. Feels far away from anyone and anything.
He feels his world shrinking, the room compresses around him, becomes two-dimensional, a frame; it traps him inside it, and he tries helplessly to flee, the square like a window squeezing him inside.
He makes to move and is at once caught, suspended, in a new frame, and then again, each movement a frozen moment inside a panel. In the next his mouth opens in a helpless cry, the words emerge from his mouth: EEEIIIGGHHH!
What the— he thinks, and the thought bubbles above his head in the next frozen frame, like a cloud. Oblivion, scared, punches as a shadowy figure materialises beside him, KA-BOOM THWK! The shadow dodges, fires at him, BLAM! BLAM! Oblivion rolls, ahead of him is a light, an opening, he crawls through ever narrower frames, his body passing from one to the other, etched between cages of black ink, POW! A gunshot explodes, somebody screams, AAAARRGGHH! Oblivion crawls to the light and it opens, sucking him in, the frames, the shadows, all the black and the grey and the white—
He passes through blinding light into a world of rich primary colour. A red sun shines in the sky, tall skyscrapers rise into the air like silver rockets, men in hovercars jet jauntily through the sky, a man in blue walks past wearing red underpants and a cape, a woman like a cat with a mask on her face. Everywhere he turns, Oblivion sees masks.
A giant question mark forms over his head. He crosses the street, he can see people’s thoughts hovering over their heads, he sees a man with a giant smile etched into his too-pale face. He sees a man climb like a spider up a wall.
He falls.
Down into an opium darkness, he tries to open his eyes, a part of him is still in that hotel room, lying on the mattress on the floor, the naked body of another holding on to him, a pipe still burns, the night is humid, full of minute sounds, the lazy buzz of a mosquito but he falls, his eyes close and the inner world takes him and he:
Is bitten by a radioactive spider, falls into an acid vat, is trapped inside an Intrinsic Field Subtractor, is given a power ring by a dying alien, he is strapped to a table and experimented on by military scientists until he becomes the ultimate warrior, he is sent as a baby from his dying planet to Earth, he sees his parents murdered in front of his eyes leaving the opera, he is bombarded by cosmic rays, he dials a number in a telephone box, he is exposed to a gamma-ray bomb as it detonates, he eats spinach, he discovers a strange meteor, he finds an ancient mask that belonged to a god, he … he … he …
Oblivion whimpers on the naked bed, the bedsheets soak his sweat. A warm hand on his brow, Hush, hush, Oblivion whispers Hold me, another body presses into his, caresses, comforting, Oblivion thrashes, No, no, until at last the frames which hold him blow open, like windows, and set him free. Hush, now, the other man says, and Oblivion settles, like a child, on the bed and closes his eyes until, at last, he sleeps.
96. VIENTIANE, LAOS 1967
Rough hands shake him awake. We watch, we see: Oblivion on a mattress on the floor, the open window, the last remnants of a burning mosquito coil, that thick, nauseating smell, the humid bedsheets, rumpled, that nude sleeping form beside Oblivion, the pale flesh of a beautiful boy. Oblivion opens bleary eyes, they’re gummed together, his head, what happened to his head, thieves came in the night and took it, memory won’t come, where had the missing hours gone?
– Get up, you lazy son of a bitch, a voice says, the hands keep shaking him, they irritate Oblivion, he swipes a hand, it hits a table and obliviates the wood, a lamp comes crashing to the floor, the voice says, Whoa there, buddy, the sleeping form beside Oblivion stirs to life, alert, the voice says, Scram; the young man blinks sleepy eyes and smiles and touches Oblivion, briefly, on the shoulder; and scrams.
Oblivion sits up, leaning his back against the wall. The door slams shut. He stares.
– Tigerman? he says.
– Hi, buddy.
– It’s been a while, Oblivion says.
– No shit it has.
– What the hell are you doing here? Oblivion pats the mattress with a vague air. Where’s…? he says and trails off. What time is it?
– Time to get up, Tigerman says. Hi ho, hi ho. It’s off to work … and so on. Here, drink this.
Oblivion accepts the bottle of water. Drinks. The cold water revives him. So what, he says, you’re a spook, now?
– I’m me, Tigerman says. Oblivion examines him. Does not look any older than when he’d last seen him, when was it, forty-six? Forty-seven? Same arrogant grin, that mane of hair, that muscled physique. But something different about the eyes. The look in them is older, colder, hard. It feels, to
Oblivion, for just a moment, like staring into a mirror. A sensation like falling. Whatever happened to that partner of yours, Tigerman says, Oblivion says, Who, Fogg?
– Slippery character, never trusted him, Tigerman says. Do you know, in forty-six … trails off. Never mind all that, he says. You’re here sniffing about for the Old Man, I know, Bob told me, sniffing for Übermenschen.
– Are there any? Oblivion says.
Tigerman shrugs. Sure, he says, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese … who the fuck cares?
The balance, Oblivion thinks. The Old Man’s old maxim. Übermenschen on both sides cancel each other out. So? he says. Stands up, starts to gather his clothes. What had he done last night? he thinks. Tries to remember.
– So I’ve got one you will be interested in, Tigerman says, and when he speaks his mouth shifts, lengthens, his teeth become a tiger’s teeth, wet with saliva. Who? Oblivion says, and the other grins and says, Der Wolfsmann.
97. LAOS 1967
The chopper rises beyond the city, the Mekong left in the distance. Mountains ahead, peaked in snow.
– The Soviets are supporting North Vietnam, Tigerman shouts over the sound of the rotors. Warm air rushes inside. Oblivion nods, more politeness than interest. Money, training, equipment, Tigerman says. The usual deal. Jerks a thumb at the pilot and grins a feral grin. These boys, our very own Air America, they’re flying bombing missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, on the Lao border—
At Oblivion’s questioning look, Tigerman explains – The trail links North and South Vietnam, passing through Laos. Jabs his finger in Oblivion’s face. That’s where he is.