Authors: Viet Thanh Nguyen
It was up to the Congressman, of course, to signal the appropriate moment for us to talk about why we were really there. He did so over the baked Alaska and after several rounds of cocktails. Gentlemen, the Congressman said, there is a serious reason for our meeting today and renewing our friendship. The General has come to talk to us about the plight of our old ally the South Vietnamese soldier, without whom the world would look much worse than it does today. Indochina did fall to communism, but look what we saved: Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and Japan. These countries are our bulwark against the communist tide.
Let us not forget your Philippines, said Dr. Hedd. Or Indonesia.
Absolutely. Marcos and Suharto had time to put their communists down because the South Vietnamese soldier was their firewall, said the Congressman. So I think we owe this soldier something besides simple gratitude, which is why I asked you to come here today. Now I turn it over to one of the finest guardians of freedom Indochina has ever known. General?
The General pushed away his empty snifter and leaned forward with his elbows on the table, his hands clasped. Thank you, Congressman. It is my humble honor to meet you all. Men like you have built the world’s greatest weapon, the arsenal of democracy. We could never have fought as long as we had against overwhelming forces without your boys and your guns. You must remember, gentlemen, how arrayed against us were not only our misguided brothers, but the entire communist world. The Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans—they were all there, just as on our side were the many Asians you had befriended. How could I ever forget the South Koreans, the Filipinos, and the Thai who fought with us, as well as the Australians and the New Zealanders? Gentlemen, we did not fight the Vietnam War. We did not fight alone. We only fought the Vietnam battle in the Cold War between liberty and tyranny—
No one is disputing that there is still trouble in Southeast Asia, said Dr. Hedd. I had ever only seen the president dare to interrupt the General, but if he was offended, which he surely was, he betrayed no sign, merely smiling just a touch to express his pleasure at Dr. Hedd’s contribution. But whatever the troubled past, Dr. Hedd went on, the region is quieter now, Cambodia aside. Meanwhile there are other, immediately urgent issues to worry us. The Palestinians, the Red Brigades, the Soviets. The threats have changed and metastasized. Terrorist commandos have struck in Germany, Italy, and Israel. Afghanistan is the new Vietnam. We should be worried about that, wouldn’t you say, General?
The General furrowed his brow just a bit to show his concern and understanding. As a nonwhite person, the General, like myself, knew he must be patient with white people, who were easily scared by the nonwhite. Even with liberal white people, one could go only so far, and with average white people one could barely go anywhere. The General was deeply familiar with the nature, nuances, and internal differences of white people, as was every nonwhite person who had lived here a good number of years. We ate their food, we watched their movies, we observed their lives and psyche via television and in everyday contact, we learned their language, we absorbed their subtle cues, we laughed at their jokes, even when made at our expense, we humbly accepted their condescension, we eavesdropped on their conversations in supermarkets and the dentist’s office, and we protected them by not speaking our own language in their presence, which unnerved them. We were the greatest anthropologists ever of the American people, which the American people never knew because our field notes were written in our own language in letters and postcards dispatched to our countries of origin, where our relatives read our reports with hilarity, confusion, and awe. Although the Congressman was joking, we probably did know white people better than they knew themselves, and we certainly knew white people better than they ever knew us. This sometimes led to us doubting ourselves, a state of constant self-guessing, of checking our images in the mirror and wondering if that was really who we were, if that was how white people saw us. But for all we thought we knew about them, there were some things we knew we did not know even after many years of forced and voluntary intimacy, including the art of making cranberry sauce, the proper way of throwing a football, and the secret customs of secret societies, like college fraternities, which seemed to recruit only those who would have been eligible for the Hitler Youth. Not least among the unknown to us was a sanctum such as this, or so I reported to my Parisian aunt, a hidden chamber where very few of our kind had appeared before, if any. As aware of this as I, the General was on mental tiptoes, careful not to offend.
It is funny you bring up the Soviets, the General said. As you have written, Dr. Hedd, Stalin and the peoples of the Soviet Union are closer in character to Oriental than Occidental. Your argument that the Cold War is a clash of civilizations, not just a clash of countries or even ideologies, is absolutely correct. The Cold War is really a conflict of Orient and Occident, and the Soviets are really Asiatics who have never learned Western ways, unlike us. Of course it was actually I, in preparation for this meeting, or audition, who had summarized for the General these claims in Hedd’s book. Now I observed Dr. Hedd closely for his reaction to my prescription, but his expression did not change. Still, I was confident that the General’s comments had affected him. No author was immune from having his own ideas and words quoted back to him favorably. Authors were, at heart, no matter how much they blustered or how suavely they carried themselves, insecure creatures with sensitive egos, as delicate in the constitution as movie stars, only much poorer and less glamorous. One only needed to dig deep enough to find that white, fleshy tuber of their secret self, and the sharpest tools with which to do so were always their own words. I added my own contribution to this effort and said, It is undisputed that we should confront the Soviets, Dr. Hedd. But the reason to fight them is related to the reason you advocated for fighting their servants in our country, and why we continue to fight them now.
What reason is that? said the ever Socratic Dr. Hedd.
I’ll tell you the reason, said the Congressman. And not in my words, but in the words of John Quincy Adams when he spoke of our great country. “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be . . . She”—America—“is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”
Dr. Hedd smiled again and said, Very good, sir. Even an Englishman cannot argue with John Quincy Adams.
What I still don’t get is how we lost, the assistant district attorney said, beckoning to the headwaiter for another cocktail. In my opinion, said the personal injury lawyer, and hopefully you gentlemen will understand, we lost because we were too cautious. We feared harming our reputation, but if we had simply accepted that any damage to it wouldn’t last, we could have exerted overwhelming force and showed your people which side deserved to win.
Perhaps Stalin and Mao had the right response, the General said. After a few million have died, what’s a few million more? Didn’t you write something to that effect, Dr. Hedd?
You have read my book more closely than I expected, General. You are a man who has undoubtedly seen the worst of war, as have I, so you will forgive me if I speak the unpalatable truth about why the Americans lost Vietnam. Dr. Hedd pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose until his eyes finally peered through the lenses. Your American generals fought in World War II and knew the value of your Japanese strategies, but they didn’t have a free hand to run the war. Instead of waging a war of obliteration, the only kind of war the Oriental understands and respects—nota bene Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki—they had to, or chose to, fight a war of attrition. The Oriental interprets that, quite rightly, as weakness. Am I wrong, General?
If the Orient has one inexhaustible resource, said the General, it is people.
That is right, and I will tell you something else, General. It saddens me to come to this conclusion, but I have seen the evidence for myself, not only in books and archives, but in the battlefields of Burma. It must be said. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. And as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it—Dr. Hedd paused—life is not important. Perhaps it is insensitive to say, but the Oriental does not put the same high price on life as the Westerner.
I wrote to my Parisian aunt that a moment of silence fell on the table as we absorbed this idea and as the waiters returned with our cocktails. The Congressman stirred his drink and said, What do you think, General? The General sipped from his cognac and soda, smiled, and said, Of course Dr. Hedd is right, Congressman. The truth is so often uncomfortable. What do you think, Captain?
All the men turned their attention to me, my brimming martini glass halfway to my lips. I reluctantly eased it down. After three of these libations and two glasses of red wine, I felt full of insight, the air of truth having expanded my mind and needing to be let out. Well, I said, I beg to differ from Dr. Hedd. Life actually
is
valuable to the Oriental. The General frowned and I paused. No one else’s expression changed, but I could feel the static electricity of tension accumulating. So you’re saying that Dr. Hedd is wrong, said the Congressman, as affable as Dr. Mengele must have been in the right company. Oh, no, I hastened to say. I was sweating, my undershirt damp. But you see, gentlemen, while life is only
valuable
to us—I paused again, and my audience inclined toward me by a millimeter or two—life is
invaluable
to the Westerner.
The attention of the men turned to Dr. Hedd, who raised his cocktail to me and said, I could not have phrased it better myself, young man. With that, the conversation finally exhausted itself, leaving us to nuzzle our cocktails with the affection one reserved for puppies. I made eye contact with the General and he nodded approvingly. Now, our hosts satisfied with our parley, I could ask a question of my own. Perhaps this is naive, I said, but we thought we were coming to a country club.
Our hosts roared with laughter as if I had told a most excellent joke. Even Dr. Hedd seemed to be in on it, chuckling over his Manhattan. The General and I grinned, waiting for the explanation. The Congressman glanced at the headwaiter, who nodded, and said, Gentlemen, now’s a good a time as any to introduce you to the country club. Don’t forget your cocktails. Led by the headwaiter, we filed out of the dining room with cocktails in hand. Down the hallway was another door. Opening it, the headwaiter said, The gentlemen are here. Inside was the room I had been expecting, with wood-paneled walls on which was mounted the head of a buck, its rack of antlers sporting sufficient points for all of us to hang our jackets on. The air was smoky and the lighting was dim, the better to flatter the comely young women in slinky dresses arranged on the leather sofas.
Gentlemen, said the Congressman, welcome to the country club.
I don’t get it, the General whispered.
I’ll tell you later, sir, I muttered. I finished my cocktail and handed the glass to the headwaiter as the Congressman beckoned to a pair of young ladies. General, Captain, let me introduce you. Our companions stood up. Elevated by high heels, they were taller than the General and myself by two or three inches. Mine was an enormous inflated blonde whose enameled white teeth were not quite as hard and shiny as her Nordic blue eyes. In one hand was a coupe of fizzy champagne, and in the other a long-stemmed cigarette holder with a half-smoked cigarette. She was a professional who had seen the likes of me a thousand times, which I could hardly complain about, given that I had seen the likes of her a fair number of times myself. Although I cranked my cheeks and lips into the facsimile of a smile, I could not muster inside myself the usual enthusiasm as the Congressman introduced us. Perhaps it was the way she casually flicked the head of ash from her cigarette onto the carpet, but instead of being magnetized by her iron beauty I was distracted by a striation below her jaw, the hemline between the unadorned skin of her neck and the white foundation coating her face. What’s your name again? she said, laughing for no good reason. I leaned forward to tell her and nearly fell into the well of her cleavage, my sudden vertigo induced by the chloroform of her thick perfume.
I like your accent, I said, pulling back. You must be from somewhere in the South.
Georgia, honey, she said, laughing again. You speak real good English for an Oriental.
I laughed, she laughed, and when I looked to the General and his redheaded companion, they, too, were laughing. Everyone in the room was laughing, and when the waiters arrived with more champagne, it was clear we were all going to have a most excellent time, including Dr. Hedd. After handing a glass to his buxom companion and another to me, he said, I hope you do not mind, young man, if I use your memorable turn of phrase in my next book. Our female companions looked at me without interest, waiting for my reply. Nothing could make me happier, I said, even though I was, for reasons unspeakable in this company, quite unhappy.
CHAPTER 16
T
he General delivered a surprise to me as we parked outside his unlit residence later that evening, a little past midnight. I’ve been thinking about your request to return to our homeland, he said from the backseat, eyes visible in my rearview mirror. I need you here, but I respect your courage. Unlike Bon and the others, however, you’ve never been battlefield tested. He described the grizzled captain and the affectless lieutenant as war heroes, men whom he would trust with his life in combat. But you’ll need to prove you can do what they can. You’ll need to do what must be done. Can you do that? Of course, sir. I hesitated, then asked the obvious question: But what is to be done? You know what needs to be done, said the General. I sat with my hands still on the steering wheel at ten o’clock and two o’clock, hoping I was wrong. I just want to make sure I do the right thing, sir, I said, looking at him in the rearview mirror. What exactly needs to be done?