Up Country (62 page)

The rain blew in on the terrace but we sat there drinking, and within a few minutes, we were soaking wet and cold.

It was easy to imagine it was the winter of 1968 again; the Tet Offensive was raging, and to the north of here, the city of Quang Tri lay burning across the flooded rice paddies, and we were dug into night positions, into the mud, and we waited for the retreating enemy army trying to reach the hills behind us, pursued by the American and South Vietnamese troops.
Hammer and anvil, it was called. We were the anvil, the pursuing troops were the hammer, and the poor bastards in between were hamburger meat.

I may have seen Tran Van Vinh that night and may have fired a burst of rounds at him. I would have to ask him, when I saw him, how he’d escaped from the cauldron of the embattled city.

Susan asked me, “Wet enough?”

“Not yet.”

“Where are you now?”

“In a foxhole, outside Quang Tri City. It’s raining, and the artillery is firing.”

“How long do you need to be there?”

“Until I’m ordered to leave.”

She stood. “Well, when you get ready to make love, not war, I’ll be waiting.” She tousled my wet hair and went inside.

I sat in the rain for another few minutes, did my penance, and went inside.

Susan was in the shower, and I got undressed and joined her.

We made love in the shower, then went to bed.

Outside, the thunder clapped and the lightning lit up the dark room.

I slept fitfully, and the lightning and thunder provided the background for my bad dreams of battle, and I was aware of a cold sweat on my face, and a trembling in my body. I kept reaching for my rifle, but I couldn’t find it. I knew none of this was real, but my body reacted as if it were, and I dreamed that I’d been knocked unconscious by an explosion, and when I awoke, I was being flown to a hospital ship, the USS
Sanctuary
, in a very quiet helicopter.

I opened my eyes.

I sat up in bed with the feeling that something black and heavy had been lifted off my heart.

I
looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. It said 4:32, or, as we say in the army, Oh-dark-thirty. I could hear rain, but not thunder. I turned toward Susan, but she wasn’t in bed.

I got out of bed and checked the bathroom, but she wasn’t there. My thrashing around might have woken her, so I went into the sitting room of the suite and checked the couch, but she wasn’t there either.

I picked up the telephone and dialed her room. As the phone rang, I pulled it toward the terrace, but she wasn’t on the terrace, and she wasn’t answering the telephone.

I went back to the bedroom to get dressed so I could go to her room, or to the garden out back.

As I was dressing, I heard the door open in the sitting room. I went into the room as she turned on a lamp. She was dressed in jeans and a black sweater, and she was wearing a black quilted jacket, which I hadn’t seen before. She was also carrying her backpack and some other items in a large plastic bag, which she threw on the couch.

I said, “Going somewhere?”

“Going up country.”

“Are the elephants watered and fed?”

“They are.”

“And you left the gun in the garden?”

“I did.”

“Swear?”

“Swear.” She said, “We need to check out by five-thirty and meet someone.”

“Who and where?”

“Are you showered?”

“No.” I yawned. “Why should I be?”

“Go ahead and shower. Look, I bought you a backpack when I went shopping Sunday, and this leather jacket, and two rubber rain ponchos, plus some other stuff for the road. You need to pack light and ditch your luggage and dress clothes.”

I moved toward the couch and said, “How will anyone know I’m an American without my blue blazer?”

“That’s the point. Look.” She buttoned her quilted jacket, put on a pair of biker goggles, tied a Montagnard scarf around her neck and face, and put on a black fur-trimmed leather hat with earflaps. “Voilà.”

“What are you supposed to be?”

“A Montagnard.”

“What tribe?”

“I’ve seen pictures of them in newspapers and magazines and on TV. This is how they dress in the highlands and the hill country when they’re riding their motorcycles in the winter.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes. And as you know, they’re a little heavier and stockier than the Viets, so we should be able to pass as Montagnards from a distance.”

“What distance? Ten miles?”

She added, “Also, there are a number of Amerasians left over from your visit here, and many of them live in the hills . . . they’re sort of outcasts.”

I said, “There won’t be any Amerasians on the other side of the DMZ; I never got that far.”

She said, “Well, then north of the DMZ we’re Montagnards. Point is, you want to blend in. From a distance.”

I didn’t reply.

She took a dark brown leather jacket from the plastic bag and handed it to me. She said, “I bought you the biggest one I could find. Try it on.”

I tried it on, and I was able to get into it, but it was tight, and barely reached my waist.

Susan said, “You look sexy in leather.”

“Thank you. I assume we’re going by motorcycle.”

She looked at me and said, “I can’t think of another way. Can you?”

“Yes. Four-wheel drive and a driver. I’m going to check out the private tour companies today—Slicky Boy Tours, Hue office. I’ve got some days to get to where I’m going, so I’m not pressed.”

She shook her head and said, “You don’t want a third party involved. Colonel Mang will be all over this town interrogating private tour operators, if he hasn’t already.”

“Well . . . let’s go to another town to hire a car and driver. Or we can just ask any guy in a four-wheel drive. Any Nguyen will drive us to Dien Bien Phu for three hundred bucks.”

Susan replied, “That may be true, but my idea is better and doesn’t involve a third party, and gives us complete control of the agenda.”

She was right, up to a point. Transportation in this country was a matter of making the least bad choice. I asked her, “Where did you get a motorcycle?”

“Go shower. I’ll start packing for you.”

I turned, went back into the bedroom, peeled off my clothes, and went into the bathroom. I tried to remember when I’d given Susan control over this mission.

Through the bathroom door, I could hear her rummaging around in the bedroom. I called out, “Can I have one blazer for Hanoi?”

“It’s a small backpack.”

I shaved, showered, and took my malaria pill.

I came out of the bathroom wearing a towel, and Susan had my suitcase and overnight bag on the bed, plus a dark green backpack. My clothes were strewn on the sheets. I said, “I’ll do that.”

I spent the next ten minutes putting the bare necessities in the backpack; everything that I was going to ditch, I put into the suitcase and overnight bag.

She saw me packing my docksiders and Ho Chi Minh sandals and said, “Just wear your running shoes. You have too many pairs of underwear. Why don’t men wash underwear when they travel?”

Now I remembered why I wasn’t married. I said, “It’s easier to throw them out. Okay, how’s that?”

She rolled up a rain poncho, pushed it in my backpack, and strapped it shut. “Good. That’s it. You want to get dressed?”

I took off the towel and put on the outfit I’d kept aside—athletic socks,
one pair of underwear, jeans, a polo shirt, and my black running shoes. I slipped my passport and visa into my wallet and put that into a little waterproof pouch that Susan had bought. I said, “Where’d you go for this stuff ? L. L. Bean?”

“I went to the central market. They have everything.”

We gathered her quilted jacket and my leather jacket, plus the two hats, two pairs of leather gloves, and a bunch of Montagnard scarves, and stuffed them in the plastic bag so no one downstairs could see and remember them. I put my camera in a plastic laundry bag along with my exposed and unexposed film and shoved it in a side pouch of my backpack. This reminded me too much of 1968.

Susan said to me, “I’ve got my camera, so we can ditch one to save space.”

I knew I’d have to photograph Tran Van Vinh’s souvenirs if he wouldn’t sell them to me, and I’d definitely have to photograph Mr. Vinh himself, or his grave. Also, I needed to photograph his house and locale, so if he wasn’t dead, someone could come by later, find him, and kill him. I said to Susan, “I need a camera for this job, so we’ll take two to play it safe.”

“Okay.”

I asked her, “Is all your exposed film accounted for, including the roll Colonel Mang confiscated?”

She nodded. “I never had the film out of my sight.”

“Good.” I asked her, “You have that snow globe?”

She didn’t reply for a second, then said, “No. It’s missing again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What difference does it make?” She forced a smile and said, “I can pick it up at the Metropole in Hanoi.”

I replied, “You can be sure that we’re not going to the Metropole when we get to Hanoi.”

She informed me, “It’s impossible to find a no-questions-asked place to stay in Hanoi. They report every guest to the police. It’s not South Vietnam.”

“We’ll deal with that when we get there. Ready?”

“Ready.”

We carried everything down to the lobby and walked to the front desk. We checked out, and I noticed on my bill a hundred-dollar charge for the Vidotour car and driver, which wouldn’t have been unreasonable, except that the driver was a secret policeman, who’d left us stranded in the next province. But I didn’t want to quibble over this with the clerk.

Susan asked the clerk, a young man named Mr. Tin, “Can you check to see if we have any messages?”

I said to him, “I’m also expecting a small parcel, a book, which someone was to deliver this morning.”

“Let me look.” He went to the key box and took out a few notes, then went into the back room.

Susan asked, “What book?”

“My Lonely Planet Guide.” I explained it to her and she didn’t comment.

Mr. Tin returned with a fax message, and a manila envelope that was not thick enough to be a book. He said to me, “Here is a fax for you, Mr. Brenner, and this envelope is for the lady.”

I asked, “And no book?”

“Sorry, sir.”

I moved away from the desk and looked at my watch. It was only 5:35 and still dark outside the lobby doors. I asked Susan, “What’s the latest we can leave here?”

“Now.”

I thought a moment. I had no way of knowing if Mr. Anh had been picked up by the police after our rendezvous. Therefore, I had no idea if Colonel Mang had already applied electric shocks to Mr. Anh and learned of my destination.

Susan said, “Sorry about the early departure, but I had no choice. Let’s be optimistic that the book would have been here in a few hours.”

“Yeah . . . okay. We’ll try to call here later.” I opened my fax envelope and read the short message:
Dear Paul, Just a quick note to say have a good journey to Hanoi. Heard from friends in Saigon that all went well in Hue. C is looking forward to seeing you in Honolulu. God bless. Love, Kay. P.S. Please reply.

I handed the fax to Susan, who read it and handed it back without comment. I said, “It would seem that my contact here in Hue did contact Saigon, and said the rendezvous came off okay. But I still don’t know if this man got picked up later.”

I went to the desk, got a fax form, and wrote:
Karl, replying to your fax— meeting in Hue was successful, as you know. Went to A Shau, Khe Sanh, and Quang Tri City Monday. Very moving. You need to come back, Colonel. Leaving now by private transportation to find T-V-V. Ms. W will accompany me. She has been an invaluable asset, translator, guide, and companion. Remember that, whatever happens. Ran into Colonel M in Quang Tri. He seems to suspect I’m here to start a Montagnard insurrection. Look up FULRO, if you don’t know about it. Mang to meet me in Hanoi, or sooner, so Metropole is out. I’ll try to contact Mr. E in USEmb in Hanoi on my arrival. I’m still visualizing success. My love to C.
I hesitated, then wrote:
For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is my possible extended stay here, do not have C make journey to Hawaii. I’ll see her in the States. See you wherever and whenever.
I added:
I gave this my best shot, Karl, but I feel somewhat used. Biet?
I signed it
Paul Brenner, Chief Warrant Officer, retired.

I gave Mr. Tin two dollars and said, “Let’s fax this now.”

“Sorry, sir, the fax machine—”

“It’s six o’clock in the morning, pal. The fax machine is not busy.” I came around the counter and helped Mr. Tin into the back room where the fax machine was. I also helped him dial and within a few seconds, the fax was sent. I borrowed matches from Mr. Tin, emptied a trash can on the floor, and burned the fax in the can. I looked at Mr. Tin, who didn’t seem happy with me in his space. I said to him, “Mr. Tin, I’m going to call you later. I want to know if that book arrived for me. Biet?”

He nodded.

I patted him hard on the shoulder, and he stumbled sideways. “Don’t disappear.”

I left the back room, came around the counter, and walked over to where Susan was sitting on a couch. She had her envelope open, and I could see photographs on the coffee table and on her lap.

I sat next to her and said, “Okay, I got the fax off, and I told Mr. Tin I’d call later about . . .” I looked at the photographs lying on the coffee table. I picked one up. It was a color photograph of a beach, taken from a high elevation on the land side of the beach. It took me a second to recognize the beach at Pyramide Island, and the photo had been taken from the pyramid rocks where the bird’s nest collectors had been climbing.

I picked up the photograph that had first caught my eye and saw it was a grainy image of Susan walking out of the water, obviously taken with a telephoto lens. It was a full frontal nude and there I was in the background, still in the water.

I looked at a few other photos—Susan and me embracing in the water, Susan talking to the Swedish couple, and me lying facedown in the sand
while Susan sat on my butt. I put the pictures down and looked at her. She had a faraway look on her face, staring out at nothing.

I said, “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”

She didn’t reply or move.

“Susan? Look at me.”

She took a deep breath, then another, and said, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“All right . . .” I gathered up the photos and put them in the envelope. I stood. “Ready to go?”

She nodded, but didn’t stand. She said softly, “That bastard.”

“He’s an asshole,” I agreed. “A sneaky, perverted, sadistic, sick little shit.”

She didn’t reply.

“Okay, let’s go.” I took her arm and lifted her up. She stood motionless for a second then said, “That bastard . . . why did he do that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She looked at me and said, “He could mail those pictures to Bill.”

Actually, the pictures were already on the way, and not just to Bill.

Susan said, “And my office . . .”

“Let’s go.” I took her arm, but she wasn’t moving.

She said, “And . . . my friends here . . . my family . . . the police have my home address in Lenox . . . my office in New York . . .”