by Dale A. Dye
Thai stepped closer, shaking her head so the man could catch the scent of the fresh limes she’d squeezed into her hair after bathing in the stream. She pointed at the bundle near her feet. “I mean no harm. I just want to bring him some food.”
“That one is crazy,” the guard said. “He sees no one and no one is to see him. Anyway, he would probably kill you if you woke him.”
Thai knew getting past the guard would not be easy. She steeled herself thinking of the only future she might have under the protection the black man. They would live like turtles hiding in a shell, but they would live…and maybe even find some small joy. She wanted that desperately, more than anything else she could think of just then. She began to slowly unbutton her blouse.
The sentry took her roughly from behind with his rifle leaning against the tree and a painful grip on her hair for leverage as he thrust. It was over quickly and she bargained with him as he buttoned his trousers and lit a cigarette. “If something happens, I will swear that I snuck in before you came on duty.”
“Nothing better happen,” he said in a threatening whisper. “I know nothing about this, understand?”
She faltered at the door of the hut, staring into the gloom and wondering if she might be making a fatal mistake. What did she know of the black giant other than what she felt in the savage beating of her heart? They said he was crazy and he’d killed a guard. What if he killed her? What if the cadre killed them both? What if he rejected her?
From the dark interior of the hut she heard the squeak of a bamboo sleeping platform and the ragged sibilance of the giant’s breathing. As he inhaled, she entered, feeling herself being sucked in, sensing the fecund warmth of his body. He was naked on the sleeping mat, lying on his back, dark and still in the pale glow of moonlight that showed through a nearby window.
She undressed silently and moved toward the sleeping platform. As she stood over him, watching, trembling, fighting the fear in her belly, she saw the ebony eyes open and roll slowly toward her. The giant stared, his eyes widening until she could see full circles of white around the black centers. Still, he did not move, did not start or acknowledge her presence in any way. She took it for a good sign and slid down next to him letting her flesh mold to the hard contours of his body.
Suddenly he stiffened, sprang up and straddled her. Thai felt his hard hands squeezing her neck. She wheezed and choked, trying to reassure him, but his huge thumbs pressed hard against her windpipe. She felt her eyeballs bulging as tears rolled down her cheeks and onto his fingers. The pressure eased just enough to permit a hoarse whisper. “I won’t hurt you…I need you…we need each other.”
The pressure of his huge hands eased a bit more. She felt the massive weight of his chest flatten her breasts. Thai brushed at a teardrop dribbling across his cheek with her left hand. With her right hand she reached between his legs and began to stroke and squeeze. When he was rigid and throbbing under her caress, he took his hands away from her throat and began to stroke her hair.
“Hunh...hunh...hunh.” He whined and grunted as she splayed herself wide and wrapped her legs around his thrusting hips. She didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. For Trinh Thi Thai in that moment life had either started or ended.
j
Two days later, after Thai had settled in the black giant’s hut and shared the food left outside by the women who fed him, an Army command representative appeared with the local cadre commander. The beams from their flashlights stabbed through the dark just before dawn. She bolted upright in fear, but the black giant pushed her back down on the sleeping mat, rolled over her, and sprang to his feet. He was massive, angry, and ominous as he stood coiled and threatening in cones of yellow light. There were some muted words as the light played around the room and settled on her. Her giant growled ominously as a pair of cadre officers slowly entered, keeping as much distance as they could from the hulk confronting them. The hut floor shook as the black man stomped in their direction with his hands extended, ready to grab anything he could reach and tear it apart.
“Go away!” Thai shouted. “We just want to be left alone!”
The flashlight beams disappeared and she could hear the officers talking outside the hut. She was safe for a while. They could do nothing more than wait and see what was to become of them. Whatever happened later in the day, Thai intended to stay glued to her giant’s side. They would have to kill her to separate them and she was fairly confident that would prove fatal for anyone that tried it.
j
The Cadre Commander of Camp 410 offered the visiting political officer a cigarette as they walked away from the black American’s hut back toward the administrative offices. In the only close look they got at the situation, they had only seen a few things. The black giant was not afraid to die, and the woman had some influence over him. Beyond those observations, nothing seemed clear-cut in this unusual dilemma. When they’d tried to enter and speak with her, the giant rushed, driving them both back out the door. And he stood there, his muscles bunching and showing an angry defiant glare. He never even blinked when the political officer aimed a pistol at him. He was immune to that sort of threat, and what to do about it required some high-level thinking.
Over tea in the administrative hut, the visiting officer who had been called in from district headquarters as counsel on the situation pondered what seemed like very few options. “The militia guard who let her pass must be disciplined,” he finally said.
“Of course,” the commander agreed. “He had to know she was in there. They nearly woke the camp with their rutting.”
“What do you intend for him?
“There is a work detail, clearing brush up near the Chinese border. Its hard labor in an area infested with snakes and centipedes. He will join the others I’m sending up there tomorrow.”
“What of the woman—assuming we can find a way to separate her from him.”
“Without killing him you mean?”
“Of course we can’t simply shoot the man. There are strict orders from the politburo about that.”
“Then we are left with little choice.” The Cadre Commander shrugged. “I suppose we’ll have to leave them together. It will be hard on discipline here, but I see no other option. Unless you would be willing to consider a transfer to another camp?”
Truong Li Xuan, the Regional Political Officer, finished his cigarette and his thought. “Perhaps this woman has solved a problem for us,” he mused. “We cannot dispose of this foreigner despite his infirmities that make him dead weight. We are forced to guard him, to feed him, and to deal with a madman until Hanoi decides what’s to be done with him eventually.” He reached for one of the militiaman’s cigarettes and lit it. “You heard what she said. They just want to be left alone, remember? I think we should stash this pair of mongrels out of sight, banish them even farther into the jungle, and then see what develops. If we get lucky, they will both die before anyone asks about it.”
“Wise counsel, Comrade…and how far into the jungle would be sufficient?”
The Regional Political Officer thought for a moment and then examined the map pinned to the wall of the hut. “You are just eight kilometers from Laos,” he said. “I think out of sight in another country should be sufficient. Explain it to the woman, Comrade Commander. I feel certain she’ll convince him to go along with anything that gets them out from under our ministrations.”
CAMP 413
“Furthermore, Comrade Xuan, I demand to know why I am kept like a prisoner in this remote camp. You must know that my role in the revolution was very special? No other American had the courage to fight alongside the victorious Liberation Front forces.” Comrade Emory sipped green tea and cleared his throat. His thoroughly rehearsed words were flowing with just the right mix of grit and fervor. Despite the blank expression on the Regional Political Officer’s face, Emory thought his arguments were hitting home.
“There was one other, Comrade, as you will likely re
member.” Xuan paused to light a cigarette, sensing the man across the low table from him, judging his mental state and mostly disregarding his plaintive arguments. This was a difficult case right on top of the other difficult case he’d recently solved at Camp 410. These two Americans might be the death of him, and he wished yet again that he could get permission to simply have them both shot.
“And you know that he was killed in the same air raid that wounded me,” Emory said showing his scarred and stiffened arm.
Xuan waved his hand in the air as if he were swatting mosquitoes, an impolite gesture designed to let the whining American know the courteous parlay was coming to an end. “You are wrong about that Di Anh…as you are wrong about so many other things. Your fellow American is alive. He lives not far from here…with a wife…and perhaps children soon.”
“But I thought that he…”
“You seem upset by this information, Comrade.” Xuan interrupted again and shot a stream of smoke across the table to further irritate the American. “A star does not shine so bright when its light must be shared, eh? Comrade Clay assimilates the new order, becomes one with the people and the land. And you sit here complaining about your treatment. The cadre tells me you fall behind in your education and you do not display the proper attitude.”
“I have a special value, Comrade, to the revolution, to the building of a new world order!”
The pompous bleats and honks of the man’s mispronounced Vietnamese had softened to a pleading drone. The Regional Political Officer crossed his arms and stared out a window as if he wasn’t at all interested—which in fact, he wasn’t.
“If I were sent to Hanoi, if I were used properly by the politburo, I could serve as serve as an example to westerners. I could tour the emerging countries as a symbol of solidarity.”
There was more, but Xuan tuned it out as he thought about the orders he’d received after making his report at the conclusion of his last swing through the camps in his region. The black one is no longer a concern to us, a Deputy Minister for State Security said. He is damaged goods; no value whatsoever.
“As for this white one, the one you are keeping at Camp 413,” the Deputy Minister said, “a more subtle approach is required. His father is a power-broker, a rich industrialist with worldwide influence. He believes his son was killed—a hero of the Imperialist Army. That may play in our favor one day, and there is always the possibility that the son can be used in one fashion or another to influence the father.”
“So he remains in the camps?”
“Yes, and under tight control. If news leaks that he is alive and in our hands, it would only serve to reopen American wounds that are just beginning to heal.”
Xuan briefly returned his attention to Emory, who showed no sign of running out of verbal steam in his ridiculous arguments. Who was this foreign idiot to dictate how the State might use him or how he should be treated? He was a foreign fighter who made little if any contribution on the battlefield during the long, bloody struggle. Despite his platitudes, the man had few genuine political motivations and certainly no understanding of the long-range struggle. It would be so simple and gratifying if only Xuan dared to draw his pistol and shoot the man between his ugly blue eyes. The veteran political officer hated Americans, hated them for their smug, superior attitude, for their false pride, for their weakness in the face of adversity, for their rootless political convictions. And especially for their bombs that killed his sister, brother-in-law, and nephews near Haiphong.
Xuan rose stiffly when Emory finished talking and began to pace around the small hut borrowed for this meeting from the Cadre Commander of Camp 413. He decided to put the man in his place once and for all.
“I have listened patiently to what amounts to petty complaints and foolish plans,” he said. “Now it is time that you learned the realities. If the State decides to use you in any fashion in the future, it will be when and where the State chooses. And that will not be until you have fully and truly demonstrated your commitment to the cause of worldwide socialism. Until that time, you would be best served to wait and work like any other citizen for the good of the revolution, for the betterment of the people.”
Emory watched the adamant officer glaring at him and tried to think of a ploy, a plan that would deliver him. His arguments were being ignored and his situation was bleak at best. He saw himself in flashes of imagination as an old, angry man somewhere in the jungle, sun-blistered and bent, squatting like a frog and spitting betel nut juice through the stumps of rotten teeth. He saw himself forgotten in the backwater of time, doomed to poverty, perversity, and oblivion. He took a deep breath and fired his last remaining shot at redemption.
“I wish to be repatriated.”
“You wish what?” Xuan leaned across the table and glared at him.
Cleve Emory stared past him at the bamboo walls of the hut. “I wish to be returned to the United States. I wish to go home!”
“You cannot go home, fool!” Xuan hissed into his ear. “You have no home.”
“I have influence! My father is a powerful man!”
Xuan had been waiting for that card to be played. He opened a folder in his field pack and tossed a pile of newspaper clippings on the table. “Read those,” he said walking toward the door. “I will be back when I’ve had some tea to wash the taste of this meeting from my mouth.”
Emory shuffled through clippings and read his own obituary. He read the reports about his father’s press conference, and the medal he’d received for heroism in action against enemy forces in Cambodia. It was all nonsense, and it meant only one thing. His father didn’t know he was still alive; in fact, believed he died a hero. There was no mention of the truth of his defection to fight on the other side. As he read the clippings, Emory realized that he had indeed been exploited, but in the opposite way from what he’d planned. He’d become a propaganda tool, but for the wrong side. It was all wasted, all the pain and suffering and frustration...all wasted.
Xuan returned and collected the clippings. “And so you see,” he said. “You can’t go home. And if you did, what would happen? You would be denounced as a traitor, spend the rest of your life in an American prison. Your family would be shunned and spit on for what you did here. You are a pariah, a man with no country except this one. Don’t even mention this subject again. If you continue to create problems, you will be dealt with harshly. Do you understand?”
“It is hard for me to accept,” Emory finally said in a quiet voice, “but I see the situation clearly now.”
Emory had been dismissed and sent limping back toward his quarters for just a few minutes when the Cadre Commander entered the hut. “I’m hoping to hear that one will be moved to another camp,” he said. “I am sick to death of listening to him whine.”
Xuan looked up from the notes he was making for his report and shook his head. “You have my sympathies, Comrade, but he stays right here. And don’t be fooled when he tries to convince you that he’s seen the error of his ways. Bear in mind, Comrade, a man who betrays his country once will not hesitate to do it again. He is now an escape risk. You will guard him vigilantly.”
“He is to be treated like a prisoner?”
“Yes, Comrade. Like a prisoner who will bolt at the first opportunity.”
j
Emory was not surprised when he was moved out of the communal hut to an isolated single shack near the center of Camp 413. Nor was he surprised when an armed guard escorted him on his morning chores checking fish nets and turtle traps. He’d been banished and isolated, but he knew how things worked in the camps. His guard and escort the next day was his old friend and trading partner Trung Si Dinh who was anxious to know if the provisions he wanted were still available now that the situation had changed. Emory had taken care of that chore long ago and stashed the food in a secret place, all except for the fish and a few other perishables that he would provide just before Dinh planned to leave.
“Everything i
s ready,” he said. “There is enough for a month on the road if you conserve. When you are ready to leave, let me know and I will put out some fish and other things. You can pick them up and eat them before they spoil.”
Dinh handed over two more packs of American cigarettes. “I wish it could be more,” he said. “Maybe I can send something back after I reach Thailand.”
“Do you know where to look for your family?”
“Only that they are supposed to be in one of the refugee camps along the border,” Dinh said.
“And what will you do when you find them?” Emory asked. “What will you do for money? It will take a lot of money to get set up in a new life.”
““I know…but there is no money. We will survive.”
“I could tell you of a way to make money if you will do me a favor.”
“You are a prisoner now. Helping you escape would get me killed.”
“You could help me after you reach Thailand, Dinh. There are people there—Americans—who would pay you lots of money for information about me.”
“Who are these people? Where would I find them?”
“Just find an American, Dinh. Tell him you saw me here. I will give you something, some proof that I am alive. They will give you great rewards for this information.”
Dinh was thinking hard as he escorted Emory along the river bank to check the turtle traps. On their way back to camp, Emory pointed out the cache he’d hidden in the jungle. When they reached Emory’s new home in center of the camp, Dinh took up his guard post near the door and listened carefully as Emory whispered instructions.
“You’ve seen the ring I wear? The one with gold initials on it? Those initials stand for Cleveland Herbert Emory, my real name. Show the ring to any American you can find and tell him you know there is an American prisoner in Vietnam. Tell them my name. I have it written down for you in English. Tell him where this camp is located. You will be rewarded with lots of money. I promise you this.”