Up Country Part 34

The old woman came by, and I looked at her as Susan ordered another round and chatted with her. She could could have been Lucy, but Lucy existed in my mind as a happy, funny girl, who traded mock insults with the soldiers who were all in love with her, but she wasn't for sale. Guys always want what they can't have, and Lucy was the grand prize at the Grand Hotel. a.s.suming this old crone was not Lucy, I hoped Lucy had survived the war, married her Viet soldier boyfriend, and that they were happy somewhere. have been Lucy, but Lucy existed in my mind as a happy, funny girl, who traded mock insults with the soldiers who were all in love with her, but she wasn't for sale. Guys always want what they can't have, and Lucy was the grand prize at the Grand Hotel. a.s.suming this old crone was not Lucy, I hoped Lucy had survived the war, married her Viet soldier boyfriend, and that they were happy somewhere.

Susan asked me, "What are you thinking about?"

"I was thinking that the last time I was here, you weren't even born."

"I was born, but not toilet-trained."

The second round came, and we sat watching the sky darken. I could see lights in the thatched cafes and souvenir stands down on the beach. The breeze picked up, and it got cooler, but was still pleasant.

About halfway through our third round, Susan asked me, "Don't you need to contact someone back in the States?"

"I was supposed to contact you in Saigon and say I'd arrived. But you're here."

She replied, "The hotel has a fax machine, and I faxed Bill at his office and his home and told him we'd arrived, and where we were staying. He knows to contact the consulate, who will contact your people." She added, "I stood over the clerk while he faxed, got my original back, and ate it. Okay?"

"Good tradecraft. Was Bill surprised to get a message from you in Nha Trang? Or did you tell him about your trip when you called him from the Rex?"

"I still wasn't sure I wanted to go with you at that point." She added, "I haven't gotten his reply yet."

"If I'd gotten a message from my girlfriend that she went to a beach resort with a guy, I might not bother to reply."

She thought about that and said, "I asked him to acknowledge receipt." She added, "When Westerners who live here travel, they always tell someone where they're going... in case there's a problem. Also, this is official business. Right? So he needs to reply."

"Or at least acknowledge receipt."

"Actually... I was feeling a little... guilty. So I asked him to join us here."

This sort of took me by surprise, and I guess my face betrayed that surprise, and maybe something else. I said, "That's nice," which was pretty lame.

She stared at me in the dim light. She said, "What I really told him was that it was over between us."

I didn't know what to say, so I just sat there.

She went on. "He knows that, anyway. I didn't want to do it that way, but I had to. This has nothing to do with you, so don't get an inflated ego."

I started to say something, but she said, "Just listen. I realized that I was having more fun... that I'd rather be in the Q-Bar with you than him."

"High praise, indeed."

I saw that I'd interrupted a moment of true confession with my big mouth and said, "Sorry. I just sometimes get... uncomfortable-"

"Okay. Let me finish. You're an interesting man, but you're very conflicted about life and probably love. And part of your problem is that you don't read yourself very well." She looked at me closely and said, "Look at me, Paul."

I looked at her.

She asked, "How did you feel when I told you I'd asked Bill to join me?"

"Lousy." I added, "My face dropped. Did you see that?"

"It fell in your beer." She informed me, "You've been giving me a hard time, and I don't like that. You could have blown me off anytime you wanted, if you really wanted me gone. But instead, you-"

"Okay. Point made. I apologize, and I promise to be nice. Not only that... I want you to know I not only enjoy your company, I look forward to your company."

"Keep going."

"Right. Well, I'm extremely fond of you, I like you a lot, I miss you when you're not around, I know if I let myself go-"

"Good enough. Look, Paul, this is an artificial situation, you've got someone back home, you're here on important business, and this place is silently freaking you out. I understand all this. So, we'll just compartmentalize these few days. Fun in the sun, and whatever happens, happens. You go to Hue, and I go back to Saigon. And, G.o.d willing, we'll both find our way home."

I nodded.

So we held hands and watched the night turn from purple to black. The stars over the water were brilliant, and the waning moon cast a sliver of light on the South China Sea. A boy brought oil lamps to each of the tables, and the veranda shimmered in lights and shadow.

I paid the bill, and we walked across the lawn, across the road, and down to the beach, where Private First Cla.s.s Paul Brenner had walked a long time ago.

We picked an outdoor restaurant called Coconut Grove, set among palm trees and trellises.

We sat at a small wooden table lit with a red oil lamp and ordered Tiger beers. The breeze was stronger here, and I could hear the surf fifty yards away.

The menus came, and they were in Vietnamese, English, and French, but the prices were in American.

Most of the selections were seafood, as you'd expect in a fishing town, but for ten dollars, I could experience bird's nest soup, which seemed to be an addition to the menu, since it was harvested only twice a year, and lucky for me, this was a harvest month. The nest was made of red gra.s.s and sparrow saliva, but the real selling point was that this delicacy was also an aphrodisiac. I said to Susan, "I'll have the bird's nest soup."

She smiled. "Do you need it?"

We ordered a huge plate of mixed seafood and vegetables, which the waiter grilled at tableside over a charcoal brazier.

The people around us seemed to be mostly northern Europeans, escaping the winter. Nha Trang, which had been founded by the French, had once been called the Cote d'Azur of Southeast Asia, and it seemed to be making a comeback, though it had a long way to go.

We kept ordering more seafood, and the waiter was kidding Susan about getting fat. This was a very pleasant place, and there was magic in the night air.

Susan and I kept the conversation light, the way people do who have just had an intense talk that pushed the table limits higher.

We skipped dessert and took a barefoot walk on the beach, carrying our shoes. The tide was going out, and the beach was covered with seash.e.l.ls and stranded marine life. A few people were surf-casting, backpackers had lit fires on the beach, and couples strolled hand in hand, including Susan and me.

The sky was crystal clear, and you could see the Milky Way, and a number of constellations. We walked south, away from the center of town, along a widening beach where new hotels sat along the coast.

About half a mile down the beach, we came upon the Nha Trang Sailing Club, an upscale place where a dance was going on inside. We went in, ordered two beers, and danced along with a lot of Europeans to some terrible, loud Seventies music played by the worst band anywhere along the Pacific Rim-maybe the world. But it was fun, and we chatted with some Europeans and even switched partners now and then. A few of the men pegged me for a Vietnam veteran, but that's as far as it went; no one, myself included, wanted to talk about it.

I don't know if I was drunk, mellowed out, or just happy about something, but for the first time in a long time, I felt at peace with myself and my surroundings.

We left the Nha Trang Sailing Club after one A.M. A.M. and as we walked back toward the colored lights of the cafes on the beach, Susan asked me, "Is what you're doing here dangerous?" and as we walked back toward the colored lights of the cafes on the beach, Susan asked me, "Is what you're doing here dangerous?"

"I just need to find someone and question him, then go to Hanoi and fly home."

"Where is this person? Tam Ki?"

"I don't know yet." I changed the subject and asked her, "Susan, why are you here?"

She took her hand out of mine and lit a cigarette. She said, "Well... it's not as important or dramatic as why you're here."

"It's important to you, or you wouldn't be here. What was his name?"

She took a long draw on her cigarette and said, "Sam. We were childhood sweethearts, dated through college-he went to Dartmouth. We went to B-school together-you may have seen his picture in my office, the group shot."

Harry Handsome, but I didn't say that.

"We lived together in New York... I was totally crazy about him, and couldn't imagine a world without him. We got engaged, and we were going to get married, buy a house in Connecticut, have children, and live happily ever after." She stayed silent for a while, then continued, "I was in love with him since we were kids, and right up to the time he came home one day and told me he was involved with another woman. A woman at work. He packed his bags and left."

"I'm sorry."

"Well... these things happen. But I couldn't believe it was happening to me me. I never saw it coming, which made me wonder about myself. Anyway, I couldn't get over it, and I quit my job in New York and went home to Lenox for a while. Everyone there was totally stunned. Sam Thorpe was the boy next door, and the wedding was all planned. My father wanted to do an autopsy on him while he was still alive." She laughed.

We continued walking, and she said, "Well, I tried to get over it, but there were too many memories in Lenox. I was crying too much, and everyone around me was starting to lose patience with me, but I missed him, and I just couldn't get myself together. Long story short, I looked around for an overseas job that no one else wanted, and six months after Sam left, I was in Saigon."

"Did you ever hear from him again?"

"I sure did. A few months after I got to Saigon, he wrote me a long letter, saying he'd made the biggest mistake of his life, and would I come home and marry him. He reminded me of all the good times we had as kids-school dances, our first kiss, family parties, and all that. He said we were part of each other's lives, and we should be married and have children and grow old together."

"I guess the other thing didn't work out for him."

"I guess not."

"And what did you reply to him?"

"I didn't." She took a deep breath. "He broke my heart, and I knew it could never be the same again. So, to save us both a lot of misery, I just didn't answer his letter. He wrote a few more times, then stopped writing." She threw her cigarette in the surf. "I heard from mutual friends that he got married to a girl in New York."

We walked along the water's edge, and the wet sand and surf felt good on my feet. I thought about Susan and Sam, and while I was at it, about Cynthia and Paul. In a perfect world, people would be like penguins and mate for life and stay close to the iceberg where they were born. But men and women get restless, they stray, and they break each other's hearts. When I was younger, I thought too much with my d.i.c.k. Still do. But not as much.

I asked Susan, "Would it have made a difference if he had come to Saigon, instead of asking you to come home?"

"That's a good question. I went home once on leave, and I think he knew I was home, though by that time, I guess we both knew we couldn't see each other again. But I don't know what I would have done if he'd shown up on my doorstep on Dong Khoi Street."

"What do you think?"

"I think that a man who did what he did, and who was truly sorry, would not have written a letter. He would have come to Saigon and taken me home."

"And you would have gone with him?"

"I would have gone with a man who had the courage and conviction to come and get me. But that wasn't Sam. I think he was exploring his options by mail." She glanced at me. "Someone like you would have just come to Saigon without the stupid letters."

I didn't respond directly to that, but I found myself saying, "Cynthia and I live a few hundred miles from each other, and I'm not making the move, though I think she would."

"Women will usually go to where the man is. You should think about why you're not going to where she is."

I changed the subject back to her and said, "You got away from what you were running from. Time to move on."

She didn't reply, and we kept walking along the wet sand. She threw her sandals onto the beach and walked into the water up to her knees. I waded in beside her.

She said, "So, that's my sad story. But you know what? The move to Saigon was one of the best decisions of my life."

"That's a little scary."

She laughed and said, "No, I mean it. I grew up real fast here. I was spoiled, coddled, and totally clueless. I was Daddy's girl, and Sam's sweetheart, and Mommy's perfect daughter. I belonged to the Junior League, for G.o.d's sake. But it was okay. I was happy." She added, "I think I was dull and boring."

"You certainly fixed that problem."

"Right. I realized that Sam was bored with me. I never even flirted with other guys. So, when he said he was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g this woman at work, I felt so betrayed... I should have gone out and f.u.c.ked his best friend." She laughed, then said, "Are you sorry you asked?"

"No. Now I understand."

"Yeah. So, anyway, when I first got here, I was terrified, and I almost turned around and went home."

"I know the feeling."

She laughed. "My tour here can't possibly compare to yours, but for me, this was a big step toward growing up. I knew if I went home, I'd... well, who knows?" She said, "I told you, you wouldn't have recognized me three years ago. If you'd met me in New York, you wouldn't have spoken to me for five minutes."

"I'm not sure about that. But I hear you. So, is your character development nearly complete?"

"You tell me."

"I told you. It's time to go home. There comes a point of diminishing returns."

"How do you know when that is?"

"You have to know." I said to her, "During the war, the military limited the tour of duty here to twelve or thirteen months. The first year, if you survived it, made a man out of you. If you volunteered to stay, the second year made something else out of you." I added, "At some point, as I mentioned in Apocalypse Now, you couldn't go home, unless you were ordered to leave, or you went home in a body bag." have to know." I said to her, "During the war, the military limited the tour of duty here to twelve or thirteen months. The first year, if you survived it, made a man out of you. If you volunteered to stay, the second year made something else out of you." I added, "At some point, as I mentioned in Apocalypse Now, you couldn't go home, unless you were ordered to leave, or you went home in a body bag."

She didn't respond.

I said, "Look, this place isn't so bad now, and I see the attraction, but you've got your Ph.D. in life, so go home and use it for something."

"I'll think about it." She changed the subject and said, "We should take a boat out to those islands."

We stood there in the water, and I took her hand, and we looked out at the sea and the night sky.

It was pushing 2 A.M. A.M. by the time we got to the hotel, and a guard let us in. There was no one at the front desk, so we couldn't check for messages, and we walked up the stairs to the third floor. by the time we got to the hotel, and a guard let us in. There was no one at the front desk, so we couldn't check for messages, and we walked up the stairs to the third floor.

We got to my room first, and I opened the door and checked for a fax message. There was none, and we walked to Susan's room.

She opened the door, and there was a single sheet of paper on the floor. She went into the bedroom, turned on a lamp, and read the fax. She handed it to me, and I read: Your message received and transmitted to proper authorities. I am very hurt and angry, but it's your decision. Not mine. I think you're making a terrible mistake, and if you hadn't gone to Nha Trang with someone, we could have discussed this. Now, I think it's too late. Your message received and transmitted to proper authorities. I am very hurt and angry, but it's your decision. Not mine. I think you're making a terrible mistake, and if you hadn't gone to Nha Trang with someone, we could have discussed this. Now, I think it's too late. It was signed It was signed Bill. Bill.

I gave the fax sheet back to her and said, "You didn't have to show that to me."

"He's such a romantic." She added, "Notice he didn't bother to come to Nha Trang."

"You're tough on men. G.o.d knows what you're going to say about me over drinks in the Q-Bar."

She looked at me and said, "Anything I have to say about you, I'll say to you."