Authors: Nelson DeMille
This was a very angry man, and I couldn’t even take any personal pleasure in getting him angry because he hated me before I walked through his door.
I recalled Mr. Conway’s advice to express remorse for the war, and I realized this wasn’t just a suggestion, but a requirement. I said, “The war was a terrible time for both our people, but especially for the Vietnamese, who suffered so much. I regret my country’s involvement in the war, and especially my own involvement. I’ve come here to see how the Vietnamese people are living now in peace. I think it’s good that so many American veterans are returning, and I know that many of them have contributed
time and money to help heal the wounds of war. I hope to be able to do the same.”
Colonel Mang seemed pleased with my little speech and nodded approvingly. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but I doubted it.
He asked me, “And where do you go between Hue and Hanoi?”
Actually, on a secret mission, but I replied, “I don’t know. Any suggestions?”
“Surely you will visit some of your old battlefields?”
“I was a cook.”
He gave me a conspiratorial smile, like we both knew that was bullshit. He said in a flattering tone, “You seem to me like a man who would not be satisfied stirring a pot.”
“Well, I was a real sensitive kid. The sight of blood on the pork chops used to make me sick.”
Colonel Mang leaned across his desk and said, “I killed many Americans. How many Vietnamese did you kill?”
I kind of lost it right then and there, and I stood and replied, “This conversation has become harassment. I’m going to report this incident to my consulate in Saigon and to my embassy in Hanoi.” I looked at my watch and said, “I’ve been here half an hour, and if you delay me one more minute, I’m going to demand that you let me call the consulate.”
Colonel Mang, too, lost his cool, stood and slammed his hand on the desk. He shouted for the first time, “You will make no demands on me! I will demand of you! I demand from you a full itinerary of your travels in the Socialist Republic!”
“I
told
you, I
have
no specific plans. I was told I could travel freely.”
“I am telling you, you must give me an itinerary!”
“Well, then, I’ll think about it. Please give me my passport and visa.”
Colonel Mang got himself under control and sat. He said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, “Please be seated, Mr. Brenner.”
I remained standing long enough to piss him off, then sat.
He informed me, “I will hold your passport and return it to you before you leave Ho Chi Minh City. At that time, you will provide me with a full and accurate itinerary of your time between Ho Chi Minh City and Hue, and between Hue and Hanoi.”
“I’d like my passport now.”
“I do not care what you like.” He looked at his watch and said, “You have been here ten minutes, this was a routine passport and visa check, and you are now free to leave.” He pushed my visa across the desk and said, “You may take this.”
I stood and took my visa, leaving the snow globe on Mang’s desk, and walked toward the door.
Colonel Mang needed a parting shot and said, “This is my country, Mr. Brenner, and you are not the one with the guns any longer.”
I had no intention of responding, but then I started to think about this guy’s anger, his obviously traumatic war years as a combat platoon leader. I’m not a very empathetic guy, but because we were both combat veterans, I tried to put myself in his place.
But even if Mang was partly entitled to his anger, it wasn’t doing him any good. I asked him, “Don’t you think it’s time to make peace with the past?”
Colonel Mang stared at me, then stood. He said in a soft tone that I could barely hear, “Mr. Brenner, I have lost most of my family and most of my friends to American bombs and bullets. My high school class are nearly all dead. I don’t have a living male cousin, and only one of my four brothers survived the war, and he is an amputee. Now, if that happened to you, would you be able to forgive and forget?”
“Probably not. But history and memory should serve to inform the next generation not to perpetuate the hatred.”
He thought about that for a few seconds, then said, “You can do whatever you wish in your country. I hope you learn something here. I suggest adding to your itinerary a visit to the Museum of American War Crimes.”
I opened the door and left.
Standing outside was Pushy, who motioned me to walk in front of him. I re-traced my route down the narrow corridor and into the main terminal. Pushy gave me a little shove toward the baggage carousel. I walked across the deserted terminal and saw my suitcase and overnight bag, sitting at the feet of an armed soldier.
I reached for my suitcase, but Pushy grabbed my arm. He thrust a piece of paper toward me. I took it and read the handwritten words in English:
$20—Arrival Tax
.
My little guidebook had mentioned a departure tax, but I had the feeling
that Pushy invented the arrival tax. I don’t like being shaken down, and it was time to push back. I crumpled up the blackmail note and threw it on the ground. “No.”
This sent Pushy into a frenzy, and he began shouting in Vietnamese and waving his arms around. The soldier stood by impassively.
I picked up my bags, and Pushy didn’t try to stop me. In fact, he shouted, “Di di! Di di mau!” which means get moving, and is not very polite.
I started to turn away, then I had a good idea that would make everyone happy. I put my bags down, reached into my breast pocket, and took a twenty-dollar bill from the envelope. I showed it to Pushy and gestured toward my bags. He wrestled with this temptation for a minute, weighing about three weeks’ pay against his dignity. He looked around, then shouted at me to walk to the door as he picked up my bags. If he’d been nicer, I would have pointed out the retractable handle and wheels on the suitcase.
Anyway, I went out into the hot, humid air, which smelled heavily of exhaust fumes. The rain was now a drizzle, and there was a covered walkway that led to a line of taxicabs. A few people did double takes at the sight of a uniformed guy carrying my baggage, and they probably thought I was a big-shot American.
We got to the lead taxi, and the driver wanted to put the bags in the trunk, but Pushy had the drill by now and threw both bags in the trunk.
I held out the twenty, and Pushy snatched it rudely. I really wanted to knee him in the balls, but that might have cost me another twenty. Pushy said something to me in a nasty tone of voice, then yelled at the taxi driver and stomped off.
The driver closed the trunk, opened the passenger door, and I got inside the small Honda, not much bigger than a Civic. It stank of cigarette smoke and mildew.
The driver jumped in the car, started it up, and sped off.
We got clear of the airport in a few minutes, and the driver said, in passable English, “You American? Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Come from Seoul?”
“That’s right.”
“Why take you so long?”
“The moving walkway was stuck.”
“They ask you questions?”
“Yes.”
“Communists eat shit.”
This took me by surprise and I laughed.
The driver took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and held the pack over his shoulder. “Smoke?”
“No, thanks.”
He lit his cigarette with a match and steered with his knees.
I looked out the window and saw that the city had crept out to the airport. In place of the ramshackle bamboo huts and concession stands that I remembered on this road, I saw stucco structures. I noticed electric lines strung everywhere, and I saw TV antennas, and even a few satellite dishes. There were also a lot of small trucks and motor scooters on the road in place of the ox-drawn carts I’d remembered. Now, as then, there were a lot of bicycles. Something else new was a lot of plastic and paper trash along the road.
I didn’t expect to see the old Vietnam, which in many ways was picturesque and pristine, but this horn honking and the TV antennas were a little jarring.
I thought about Colonel Mang for a moment and decided that the whole incident was, indeed, random. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, my run-in with the authorities had compromised the mission. I had to decide whether to push on or abort.
The driver said, “Hotel?”
“The Rex.”
“American General Hotel.”
“Really?”
“You a soldier in Vietnam. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“I know. I drive many soldiers.”
“Do they all get stopped and questioned?”
“No. Not many. They come out of building . . . you know? They come . . . how you say?”
“Alone? Late?”
“Yes. Late. Communists eat shit.” He broke into loud laughter, warming to his subject. “Communists eat dog shit.”
“Thank you. I get the picture.”
“Mister, why the soldier carry your bag?”
“I don’t know. What did he say?”
“He say you are American important person, but you are imperialist dog.”
“That’s not nice.”
“You important person?”
“I’m the leader of the American Communist Party.”
He got real quiet and shot some glances at me in the rearview mirror. He said, “Joke. Right? Joke?”
“Yes, joke.”
“No Communists in America.”
The conversation had a little entertainment value, but I was jet-lagged, tired, and cranky. I looked out the window. We were in old Saigon now, on a wide, well-lit boulevard whose street sign said Phan Dinh Phung. I seemed to recall that this boulevard passed the Catholic cathedral and in fact, I caught a glimpse of the cathedral spires over the low, French-style buildings.
My new friend said, “My father a soldier. He was American ami. You understand?”
“Biet,” I replied, in one of my few remembered Vietnamese words.
He glanced back at me, and we made eye contact. He nodded, turned back to his driving, and said, “He prisoner. Never see him again.”
“Sorry.”
“Yes. Fucking Communists. Yes?”
I didn’t reply. I was, I realized, more than tired. I was back. Thank you, Karl.
We turned onto Le Loi Street, Saigon’s main drag, and approached the Rex Hotel.
I never saw any of Saigon when I was an infantryman. It was off limits, except for official business, and the average grunt had no official business in Saigon. But during my brief tour as an MP, I got to know the city a little. It was, then, a lively place, but it was a besieged capital, and the lights were always dimmed, and the motor traffic was mostly military. Sandbags were piled up at strategic locations where Vietnamese police and soldiers kept an eye on things. Every restaurant and café had steel gratings in front of the windows to discourage the local Viet Cong on motor scooters from tossing satchel charges and grenades at the paying customers. Yet despite the war, there was a frenetic energy about the city, a sort of joie de vivre that you see, ironically, when death is right outside the walls, and the end is near.
This Saigon, this Ho Chi Minh City, looked frenetic, too, but without the wartime psychosis that used to grip the town each night. And, surprisingly, there were lighted advertisements all over the place—Sony, Mitsubishi, Coca-Cola, Peugeot, Hyundai—mostly Japanese, Korean, American, and French products. The Commies might eat shit, but they drank Coke.
The taxi stopped in front of the Rex, and my friend popped the trunk and got out.
A doorman opened my door while a bellboy grabbed the bags from the trunk. The doorman said in good English, “Welcome to the Rex, sir.”
My driver said to me, “Here my card. Mr. Yen. You call me. I show you all city. Good tour guide. Mr. Yen.”
The ride was four dollars, and I tipped Mr. Yen a buck.
Yen looked around to make sure no one was listening, and he said, “That man in airport is security police. He say he will see you again.” He jumped back in his taxi.
I entered the Rex Hotel.
The lobby of the Rex was a big, polished marble affair, with vaguely French architecture, and hanging crystal chandeliers. There were potted plants all over, and the air-conditioning worked. This was much nicer than Colonel Mang’s office.
I also noticed that the lobby was decorated for the Tet holiday, which I was here for in ’68 and ’72. There were lots of flowering fruit branches stuck in big vases, and a big kumquat tree in the center of the floor.
There were a few people in the lobby, but at this hour—it was after midnight—it was pretty quiet.
I went to the check-in desk where a nice young Vietnamese lady, whose nametag said
Lan
, greeted me, took my voucher, and asked for my passport. I gave her my visa, she smiled, and again asked for my passport.
I informed her, “The police have taken it.”
Her nice smile faded. She said, “I’m sorry, we need a passport to check you in.”
“If you don’t check me in, how will the police know where I am? I gave them this address.”
The logic of this impressed her, and she got on the horn and jabbered awhile, then came back to me and said, “We will need to hold your visa until you check out.”
“Fine. Don’t lose it.”
Lan began playing with her Japanese computer terminal. She said, “This is a busy season. It is the Tet holiday, and the weather is good for tourists.”
“It’s hot and sticky.”
“You must come from a cold climate. You will get used to it. Have you stayed with us before?”
“I walked past the place a few times in 1972.”
She glanced up at me, but didn’t reply. Lan found me a deluxe suite for my hundred and fifty bucks a night and handed the key to the bellboy. She said, “Have a pleasant stay, Mr. Brenner. Please let the concierge know if there is anything you need.”
I needed my passport, and to have my head examined, but I said, “Thank you.” I was not supposed to call or fax anyone regarding my safe arrival. Someone would call here, which they’d probably done already, and they were wondering why I hadn’t yet checked in.
Lan said to me, “Chuc Mung Nam Moi. Happy New Year.”
My Vietnamese was mostly forgotten, but my pronunciation was once good, and I was able to parrot her. “Chuc Mung Nam Moi.”