R&R

by Mark Dapin

  In the long room divided by curtains, sandy children played on the floor – a boy with one eye and a girl with one leg.

  Nobody in this country is complete, thought Shorty.

  Quyn drew a curtain and took Shorty inside. She helped him off with his shirt, and unbuttoned his pants. She kneeled in front of him and removed his shoes, then stepped out of her own clothes. She was shaved, where Betty had been hairy under his hands.

  She washed him in warm water. He was stiff, biting his lips. She could have finished him by gripping the handtowel and running it down him once, twice, maybe three times.

  ‘May I pat your pussy?’ asked Shorty.

  ‘What that, cherry boy?’

  ‘It’s not that I’m a pussy patter,’ said Shorty. ‘I just want to make sure.’

  ‘One dollar extra,’ said Quyn, ‘for pussy patting.’

  She bent over on the bed. ‘Here,’ she said, and opened herself with her fingers. ‘Pat.’

  When they were finished, they lay together, her head on his chest. Shorty had thought he could empty himself into her, and all the pain would be gone.

  ‘You big boy,’ said Quyn. ‘I like you.’

  Shorty felt he’d committed a sin.

  ‘How can I help Nashville?’ he asked her.

  Quyn shrugged and stroked him. She climbed on top of him and sat still, until Shorty’s own body forced him to move.

  When he rested with Quyn in his arms, Shorty said, ‘Nashville didn’t kill Caution.’ It was a kind of question.

  ‘Caution wanted to die,’ answered Quyn. ‘He found someone to kill him, that’s all. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself.’

  ‘I didn’t know you spoke such good English,’ said Shorty, and he stroked her.

  ‘Men don’t like it,’ said Quyn. ‘They want to think they’re using me. You don’t understand these things. You’re still a cherry boy.’

  ‘But I thought we . . .’ said Shorty, suddenly in panic.

  Quyn laughed. ‘We did, cherry boy,’ and she kissed him. ‘You’re a man.’

  Shorty was relieved.

  ‘But you’re a cherry man,’ said Quyn. ‘Why are you in the army? You should be back home.’

  Shorty stroked her hair. ‘I was called up,’ he said. ‘I volunteered for Vietnam.’

  Had he really done that?

  ‘To kill VC?’ asked Quyn.

  Shorty shook his head. ‘To halt the progress of aggressive Communism in South-East Asia,’ he said.

  Quyn giggled. Shorty liked it when she laughed, even when she was laughing at him.

  ‘What is Communism, cherry man?’ she asked.

  Shorty thought for a moment. ‘China,’ he said.

  ‘You want to fight China?’ asked Quyn. ‘Go to China.’

  He moved his hand to her breast. ‘We’re not at war with China,’ said Shorty.

  Quyn held his fingers over her nipple. ‘Are you at war with Vietnam?’ she asked.

  He kissed her on the neck. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  Quyn turned slowly, until she was pressed against him again. ‘VC don’t care about you, cherry man,’ she said. ‘You should go home.’

  Shorty yawned. ‘You know a lot about the VC,’ he said, as she opened herself to him again.

  ‘Everyone knows a lot about the VC,’ said Quyn. ‘Except you.’

  As soon as they had finished making love, Shorty felt nostalgic, as if the last time were many years ago, in a room just like this one.

  Quyn lit a menthol cigarette.

  ‘Do you like being with men?’ Shorty asked her, suddenly.

  She sighed, because she knew this question. ‘I come from a village,’ she said, ‘where there were two whores. The other women husk rice. We were the broken grains that fell through the sieve.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Shorty.

  ‘We must find some other use for our bodies,’ said Quyn.

  Tough veins ran down Quyn’s forearms, and netted the backs of her hands. Her brown skin stretched tight over muscles like a cycloman’s. Only her breasts were soft.

  ‘I was taken by a man when I was only a child,’ said Quyn. ‘If there was no war, I would still be a whore.’

  Shorty wished she wouldn’t say that word. ‘You could do something else,’ he said.

  She offered him her laugh. ‘What could I be?’ she asked.

  ‘A nurse,’ said Shorty.

  She sealed his lips with her finger. ‘You’re a fool,’ she said.

  He liked it that she was thinking about him, and the kind of person he was. ‘I’m a soldier,’ said Shorty, to remind her he was a man.

  ‘In a fools’ war,’ said Quyn.

  Shorty kept forgetting the war, but the war was behind everything. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the war.

  ‘Adams thought we couldn’t win,’ said Shorty.

  Quyn wished he would stop talking.

  ‘If you stay ten years,’ she said, ‘and kill five million, you will win. Americans and Australians will be kings of death. You’ll bury all the little brown people.’

  ‘That’s not why we’re here,’ said Shorty.

  Quyn lit a fresh cigarette from the tip of the last. ‘I know,’ said Quyn, ‘you’re here to lose your cherries. Because Australian women have no pussies.’

  Shorty reddened, which frustrated him, since he’d hoped he might never blush again. ‘That’s not it,’ he said.

  ‘So why are you here?’ asked Quyn. ‘You, Shorty. Here, in Le Boudin. You even have an Australian girl in Vietnam, but you came to me.’

  He looked at her tongue inside her mouth. ‘She’s not my girlfriend any more,’ said Shorty.

  Quyn nodded heavily, her chin almost touching her chest. ‘Because she has no pussy,’ she said.

  Shorty wouldn’t talk about Betty like this. No matter what he’d done, he was still a white man.

  ‘I’ve got to help Nashville,’ said Shorty. ‘But I don’t understand what’s going on. Who’s got Caution’s ears?’

  Quyn looked blank, a whore’s façade.

  ‘And why did they cut off that bloke’s head?’ asked Shorty.

  Quyn began to dress.

  ‘Please . . .’ said Shorty.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Quyn, fastening her bra.

  ‘I need to talk to the Mamasan,’ he said.

  ‘There is no Mamasan,’ said Quyn.

  Shorty made a fist, but hid it under the sheet. ‘Then who’s in charge?’ he asked.

  ‘Monsieur Moreau does as he likes,’ said Quyn.

  She slid into her dress. Shorty watched her sex disappear under silk.

  ‘Everyone knows two things, cherry man,’ she said. ‘The Yanks cut off the ears, the VC cut off heads. Everyone knows this but you.’

  ‘So who was the other bloke?’ asked Shorty.

  ‘Why don’t you ask the police?’ said Quyn.

  ‘Did the police kill him?’ asked Shorty.

  Quyn laughed, and went back to work. Shorty returned to the bar too, so he could look at her.

  ‘You had Quyn for two hours,’ said Moreau. ‘You want to buy her?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Shorty.

  ‘Je suis desolé. I forgot,’ said Moreau. ‘You’re a man now.’ Moreau gave him a beer. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Why won’t you help Nashville?’ asked Shorty. ‘He’s your friend.’

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ said Moreau.

  ‘You never see anything,’ said Shorty.

  ‘I was fighting this war when you were a schoolboy,’ said Moreau. ‘I was fucking Quyn before your balls dropped. I’ve seen everything.’

  Moreau was once a big man, but his muscle was wasting. He seemed to have become more drawn even in the weeks Shorty had known him. His eyes were milky and indifferent.

  He’s dying, thought Shorty.

  ‘Help me meet the Mamasan,’ he said.

  Moreau snorted.

  Shorty saw Quyn parade in front of a table of Aust
ralian sappers.

  ‘Ah,’ said Moreau, ‘take her for the night. In the morning, go back to Nashville and tell him it may take a little time, but everything will be all right.’

  Shorty wrapped his arm around Quyn’s waist like a dance partner, and walked her away from the sappers. Quôc the Deserter hurried to the front door, to help Baby Marie with her baskets of night-market manioc.

  Baby Marie saw Shorty and Quyn together, and felt as though another future had been stolen from her.

  Nashville was lying on the ground, dreaming of white-skinned women, when Hauser rapped on the bars of the holding cell. His flashlight made a halo for Nashville’s head in the early-morning darkness. Nashville turned his bruised face to Hauser and looked at him with puzzlement, as if he were a girl Nashville couldn’t remember buying.

  ‘Wake up, you sick motherfucker,’ whispered Hauser. ‘Pack your shit. You’re going.’

  Nashville rolled over, using his biceps for a pillow. ‘I ain’t got no shit,’ he said, ‘and I ain’t going nowhere.’

  Hauser reached through the bars and prodded Nashville in the ribs with his nightstick. Nashville pushed aside the tip of the baton with his thumb, and struggled to return to the long-legged ghost girls of his dream, but Hauser seem determined to ruin it for him.

  ‘You’re being moved to Long Binh at six hundred hours,’ he said.

  Nashville had known they wouldn’t keep him at the PMO, but hadn’t thought they’d send him to the stockade. If they locked up a military police with the other prisoners, the inmates would kill him.

  Hauser tossed Nashville a pack of Marlboro. He caught it in his swollen right hand, lit a cigarette and stuffed the pack into his sock. The effort of smoking helped him to raise himself. He felt stiff and heavy, as if he’d been chained. With the cigarette between his lips, he unbuckled his pants and pissed through the bars.

  ‘You sick motherfucker,’ said Hauser.

  ‘Everyone pisses,’ said Nashville.

  ‘This is from the guys,’ said Hauser, and passed Nashville a roll of banknotes. They were packed tight, like a bullet.

  ‘I’ll shove it where the flashlight don’t shine,’ said Nashville.

  ‘I knew Caution in Tennessee,’ said Hauser. ‘He had it coming.’

  Nashville was ready for the MPs when they came, two big spec 4s: one black, the other white. The black man had scars on his mouth, as if somebody had tried to unlock his lips with a bottle opener. The white man read out some army bullshit. Nashville smoked and smiled.

  The black man was the less nervous of the two.

  He’s first, thought Nashville.

  ‘Don’t think about what you’re thinking about,’ said the black cop.

  Nashville rubbed his head, as if that might stop the black cop from reading his mind.

  ‘If you don’t give us no trouble, we can help you,’ said the white cop. He had the honeyed voice of a womaniser, a bedroom liar.

  ‘I didn’t need no help until you came,’ said Nashville.

  ‘No,’ said the black cop, looking around the holding cell. ‘You were doing great.’ He held out the cuffs, like a gift.

  I’ll make my stand here, thought Nashville.

  ‘You don’t want me to draw my weapon,’ said the white cop.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Nashville. ‘I’m unarmed.’

  The white cop brushed the handle of his pistol. ‘You killed a man with your bare hands,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t kill no one,’ said Nashville.

  The white cop chewed gum. He believed it made him look calm. Nashville imagined him as Seamus, an Irish gumshoe. ‘So what’s your plan, cowboy?’ asked Seamus. ‘You want to go out like Custer and take one of us with you?’

  Both of you, thought Nashville, and he wondered why they had sent these two men in particular, what it was they were trying to tell him.

  ‘Caution was an asshole,’ said the black cop.

  Oh, that.

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Nashville.

  ‘Wouldn’t care if you had,’ said the black cop.

  Nashville smiled, because even this was funny in its way. ‘That’s mighty understanding of you,’ he said.

  ‘But not everyone feels the same,’ said the black cop. ‘You ain’t so popular with the good ol’ boys.’

  Fuck them all, thought Nashville. ‘That’s why I ain’t going to Long Binh,’ he said.

  The black cop acted like he was made of patience, as if he’d be happy to debate the issue all morning, so long as no one lost his head.

  He’s down, thought Nashville.

  ‘I believe I saw you in the Golden Gloves one time,’ said the black cop. ‘Would that be right?’

  He’d read Nashville’s file, that was all.

  ‘I remember you,’ said Nashville. ‘You lost.’

  ‘I learned,’ said the black cop.

  Nashville was surprised. If he’d seen the black cop before, he didn’t know it.

  ‘You’ll be in the most danger when you first go in to Long Binh,’ said the black cop. ‘They get you ass naked, then they beat the shit out of you.’

  ‘If we take you in,’ said Seamus, ‘you’ll be our prisoner. We’ll see you through processing. No one else’ll come near you. Once you’re in the tents, you’re safe.’

  Nashville felt suddenly weary. He didn’t have the energy for this. He was going to have to leave the holding cells eventually. If he fought them off, they could always hose him out. He could look after himself in Long Binh, and he knew Shorty wouldn’t leave him there. The boys wouldn’t forget him.

  ‘I guess I’m mighty lucky,’ said Nashville, ‘to get myself transported by you two social-worker types.’

  He held out his wrists, as he’d sworn he never would, and let the black cop cuff him. Once manacled, he tested the length and strength of the chain.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Shorty asked Quyn to take him to the house behind Le Boudin. He saw the pictures of the guys who’d promised to come back. They were always photographed in uniform. They wanted to be remembered as soldiers. Beneath the wall of missing lovers burned joss sticks in a jar.

  ‘Is this what you want to see?’ asked Quyn.

  Bucky and Tâm lay on a mattress in the living room. Bucky’s head was wrapped in a bandage. A tin bowl, which each of the bar girls kept under her bed to wash and flush and drip, was lodged between his pillow and the wall, and spattered with black, sticky blood. Shorty could see Bucky’s cuts were healing, but the blood was coming up from his lungs.

  ‘What you doing here, motherfucker?’ asked Tâm.

  ‘Americans nambawan,’ said Bucky, faintly, then spasmed and spat into the bowl.

  Tâm picked up the bowl and threw it at Shorty. It caught him on the forehead and tipped blood and mucus into his eyes.

  ‘Motherfucker!’ screamed Tâm, and leaped at Shorty. Her movement jolted Bucky, who rolled on the mattress and moaned. Tâm raised her arms above her head and slapped Shorty on the cheek, sliding her hand through the mess of fluid. ‘You didn’t help him!’ she screamed.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Shorty, and showed his hands, as if to say they were empty, or clean, or dirty, or bound.

  ‘Look what you have done!’ cried Tâm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Shorty.

  ‘Your cock will rot!’ she cursed.

  Quyn took Shorty’s arm and pulled him out of the house and into the long room behind the bar. He could hear another girl behind the curtains as they lay down.

  She squealed and sighed, and cried to her customer in English and Vietnamese. She told him she loved him.

  Quyn presented herself on all fours, like the animals on the farm. Every time they made love, she showed him something new. She was kind to him, and taught him to move more slowly but with greater purpose.

  When he was finished, she asked him to bring her cigarettes.

  Shorty walked past the storeroom where Moreau kept sacks of rice, crumpled like bound and ho
oded prisoners. Baby Marie stepped out from behind the curtain, naked, and punched him in the side of the head.

  ‘Bastard!’ she shouted.

  Everywhere Shorty went, women seemed to scream at him.

  Baby Marie, perfectly beautiful, smacked him in the eye for looking at her body. A GI scuttled behind her, his clothes bundled in his arms, dashing for the exit.

  The truth hit Shorty suddenly. He had chosen the old, dry woman against the soft, young girl, and he couldn’t remember why.

  Baby Marie stormed in on Quyn. ‘Whoregash!’ she shouted.

  ‘Stinkcunt!’ screamed Quyn.

  Baby Marie grabbed Quyn by the hair and slapped her. Shorty ran to pull her off. Baby Marie caught him with the back of her hand. With a short, fast fist, Quyn punched Baby Marie in the throat. Baby Marie gagged then thrust her head forward and bit Quyn on the breast.

  Shorty stepped back, unable to decide how best to break up a fight between two naked women.

  Baby Marie jumped on Quyn, bent one leg on her chest and pushed a knee under her chin. She slapped and scratched while Quyn squirmed and screamed and, despite himself, Shorty was fascinated. He knew it was something he’d never see again.

  Eventually, the noise of battle brought Tâm from the house behind. She screamed at both women, and kicked Baby Marie in the back. Baby Marie turned on Tâm, but Tâm was clothed and carrying a kitchen knife. When Quyn tried to use the moment to spring at Baby Marie, Tâm thrust the blade close to her belly.

  Quyn came towards Shorty, her arms open, but he was ashamed to look at her. She saw it and it hurt her. ‘I saved you, cherry boy,’ she cried. ‘Look at Baby Marie. Look at the stinkcunt!’

  Baby Marie covered herself with her hands.

  ‘Can’t you see she’s got a disease?’ yelled Quyn. ‘Oh, she’s got cunt disease, sure. But cunt disease can be cured by the cunt doctor: penicillin, no problem.’

  Tâm stood warily between Quyn and Baby Marie.

  ‘But Baby Marie has a special disease,’ shouted Quyn. ‘You dig into her gonorrhoea pussy, and she’ll tell you, “Oh, you big boy, I love you very much,” then you’ll go back to Le Loi or ALSG and you will die. She’ll kill you with her VC pussy, Shorty. Her first man died, your friend lost his arms. Baby Marie’s number twelve. She’s number thirteen, number four, the number of death.’