Up Country (33 page)

Susan came in, and I stood.

She was wearing the Nha Trang T-shirt I bought her—
tell the dears at
home
—and it came down to her knees. She had on sandals and was carrying her new tote.

She smiled and said, “Love your sandals.” She took a plastic cup out of her tote, filled with white powder. She said, “This is boric acid. You sprinkle it around your bed and luggage.”

“Then what? Pray for rain?”

“It keeps the bugs away. Specifically, cockroaches.”

I put the cup on my night table and we left the room. On the way down the stairs, I said, “I have all my valuables in this plastic bag. Can I trust these with the front desk?”

“Sure. I’ll take care of it.”

We got down to the lobby, and Susan spoke to the desk clerk. The deal was that we had to inventory everything, including Susan’s money and passport as well as my own stuff. As all this was going on, I said to her, “Mind if I snoop through your passport?”

She hesitated a second, then said, “No. Terrible photo.”

I looked at her photo, which, of course, was not that terrible, and I noticed that the passport had been issued from the General Passport Office a little over three years before, which was consistent with her arrival here. I looked at her photo and saw that her hair was much shorter then, and there was something very sad and innocent about her expression—but maybe I was just projecting because of what she’d told me. In any case, the woman standing beside me looked a lot more confident and assured than the woman in the passport photo.

I flipped the pages and saw that she had three entry stamps for the U.S., two for New York and one for Washington. That was not totally consistent with her claim that she’d never been to Washington—but it could have just been an entry point for a connecting flight to somewhere else, like Boston.

Her Viet visa stamp was different from mine, and was probably a work visa rather than a tourist visa. It had been renewed once, a year ago, and I pictured her at Section C of the Ministry for Public Security, two years into her tour, and giving everyone a hard time.

She’d also been to Hong Kong, Sydney, Bangkok, and Tokyo, which was either for R&R or business. Nothing tricky there. But the Washington thing stuck out.

I put the passport back on the counter, and the clerk gave us the handwritten receipt, which we all had to sign, and Susan gave him a dollar.

We walked across the road, and the beach was fairly empty. We picked two chaise lounges, and a hundred kids descended on us, carrying everything in the world we’d ever need. We took two chaise mattresses and towels, two peeled pineapples on sticks, and two Cokes. Susan passed out dong and chased off the kids.

I pulled off my gym shirt and Susan removed her T-shirt. She was wearing a skimpy two-piece, flesh-colored number, and she had an absolutely voluptuous body, all tanned and nicely toned.

She noticed I was glancing at her—staring, actually. I looked at the water. “Nice beach.”

We sat at the edge of our lounges and ate the pineapple on a stick.

As we ate, vendors came by, selling food, beverages, maps, silk paintings, Viet Cong flags, beach hats, and things I couldn’t identify. I bought a tourist map of Nha Trang.

We went down to the water, and Susan left her tote on the chaise lounge, which she said would be safe.

We waded out until we were standing up to our necks, and I could see brilliant tropical fish in the clear water. I said, “I remember big jellyfish all along the coast. Portuguese man-of-war.”

“Same at Vung Tau. You have to keep an eye out. They can paralyze you.”

“We used to throw concussion grenades in the water. It stunned the jellyfish, and hundreds of other fish would float to the surface. The kids would gather them up. They’d eat the squids alive. We thought it was gross. Now I pay twenty bucks in a sushi restaurant for raw squid.”

She thought about that and said, “Concussion grenades?”

“Yeah. They’re not fragmentation grenades. You throw them in bunkers or any confined space, like tunnels. Causes concussion. Somebody figured out that you can fish with them. They cost Uncle Sam about twenty bucks apiece. But it was one of the perks of the job.” I added, “Feeding people through high explosives.”

“What if you needed the grenades later?”

“You order more. Munitions is one thing we never ran out of. We ran out of will.”

We swam. Susan was a good, strong swimmer, and so am I, so we stayed out about an hour, and it felt great.

Back on the chaise lounge, as we dried off, the vendors returned. They
could pester the hell out of you, but they didn’t steal anything because within a short time, they had all your money anyway.

Several young ladies approached with bottles of oil and hand towels. Susan said to me, “You haven’t had a massage since the Rex Hotel. Let me treat.”

“Thanks.”

We both got massages on the beach. I was feeling more like James Bond again.

We lay there on the chaise lounges; Susan read a business magazine with her sunglasses on, and I contemplated the sea and the sky.

I thought, someday I should come back here without any government involvement. Maybe Cynthia would like to join me, and we’d take a month and explore the country. But that presupposed that when I got out of here, I was not persona non grata, or persona in a box.

I looked over at Susan and watched her reading. She sensed me looking at her and turned to me. She said, “Isn’t this nice?”

“It really is.”

“Are you glad I came along?”

“I am.”

“I can stay a few more days.”

I replied, “If you go back to Saigon tomorrow, I think you can smooth it over with Bill.”

“Who?”

“Let me ask you a personal question. Why did you get involved with him if you think so little of him?”

She put down her magazine. “Good question. Obviously, the pickings are a little slim in Saigon. A lot of the guys are married, the rest are fucking their brains out with Vietnamese women. Bill, at least, was faithful. No mistress, no prostitutes, no drugs, no bad habits—except me.”

In retrospect, Bill Stanley didn’t seem to me, in my brief meeting with him, to be quite such a Boy Scout. There was more to Bill Stanley, and I needed to keep that in mind.

At 6
P.M.
, we packed it up.

Back in the hotel, we got our stuff from the desk clerk, and we arranged to meet on the veranda at seven.

I went to my room, showered in cold water and orange soap, and took a little siesta in the raw. I woke myself up at quarter to seven, got dressed,
and went down to the veranda. Susan wasn’t there, but Lucy was, and she got me a cold beer.

Susan appeared a few minutes later, dressed in one of her new silk blouses, a pink one, with a little black skirt. I stood and said, “The blouse looks good on you.”

She sat and said, “Well, thank you, sir. You look all tanned and rested.”

“I’m on R&R.”

“I’m glad this is the R&R part of your visit.” She added, “I’m going to worry about you.”

I didn’t reply.

“I was thinking . . . I need to take a business trip to Hanoi. Maybe I can meet you there. Metropole. Saturday after next. Right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I snooped through your papers while you were snooping through my passport.”

“You should forget what you saw.”

“I will, except the Metropole, Saturday after next.”

“I’ll only be there one night.”

“That’s okay. I just want to be there when you arrive.”

This woman knew all the right words, and she was starting to get to me. I said, “Metropole, Hanoi, Saturday after next.”

“I’ll be there.”

We had a few beers until it got dark, then took cyclos into town.

We found a restaurant with a garden out back; a pretty hostess in an ao dai showed us to a table.

The air was fragrant with blossoms, and the cigarette smoke was carried away by a nice breeze.

We ordered fish because it was the only thing on the menu, and we talked about this and that. Susan brought up the subject of Colonel Mang, and I mentioned that I had reminded him that this was a new era of Vietnamese-American relations, and that he should get with the program.

Susan looked thoughtful, then said, “The last time we had an embassy in this country, it was in Saigon, and it was April 30, 1975. The U.S. Ambassador was on the roof of the embassy, carrying the American flag home, and General Minh was in the palace, waiting to surrender South Vietnam to the Communists. Now we have a new ambassador, this time in Hanoi, and
we have some consulate staff in Saigon, including economic development people, looking for a nice building to set up shop when Hanoi gives us the go-ahead. This will be an important country for us again, and no one wants to see this new relationship screwed up. I’m talking billions of dollars in investments, oil, and raw materials. So, I don’t know why you’re here, or who actually sent you, but please tread lightly.”

I looked at Susan Weber. She had a better grasp of geopolitics than she’d led me to believe. I said to her, “Well, I know who sent me, though I’m not sure why. But believe me when I say that it’s not important enough, and I’m not important enough, to affect anything that’s already been accomplished.”

She replied, “Don’t be so sure of that. There are lots of people in Hanoi and in Washington who don’t want the two countries to have normal relations. Some of these are men of your generation, the veterans and the politicians on both sides, who will neither forgive nor forget. And many of these people are now in positions of power.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

She looked at me and said, “No, but I sense something . . . we have a history here, and we’ve learned nothing from that history.”

“I think we have. But that’s not to say we’re not going to make new mistakes.”

She dropped the subject, and I didn’t press it. It seemed to me that her concerns were those of a businessperson. But there was more to this than business; if it was just business, and an unsolved murder, then our new ambassador in Hanoi would now be talking to the Vietnamese government asking their help in finding the witness to an American homicide case. So, this was about something else, and whatever it was, Washington wasn’t telling Hanoi; they weren’t even telling me.

After dinner, we took a stroll down to the beach and walked the beach back to the hotel. The subject of Vietnam did not come up again.

Upstairs, I walked Susan to her room and went in. There were no messages left on the floor, and no clear signals to me from Ms. Weber. I said, “I had a nice day.”

“Me, too. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

We arranged to meet again for breakfast at 8
A.M.

She said, “Don’t forget boric acid and the hot water heater.”

Back in my room, I sprinkled the boric acid around my bed and my luggage. A really first-rate hotel would do that for you.

The sun and sea had knocked me out, and I was half asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

My last thought was that I didn’t recall seeing the snow globe on Susan’s night table.

I
got to the veranda before Susan, found a table, and ordered a pot of coffee.

It was another perfect day in Nha Trang.

Susan appeared, dressed in yet another pair of cotton pants, green, this time, with a white boat-neck pullover. That backpack must have been bigger than it looked.

I stood, pulled out her chair, and said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” She poured herself some coffee and said, “Last night I dreamt of you.”

I didn’t reply.

“We were in the Metropole in Hanoi. I’ve stayed there, so I could visualize it. It was very real.” She laughed at me. “We had cocktails, dinner, and danced in the hotel lounge.”

I said, “Let’s try to do that.”

The waiter came by, and we ordered Breakfast Number One, pho.

She said, “I could turn this place into at least a two-star hotel for American servicemen who stayed here. The R&R Grand. Hooker Night in the Full Metal Jacket lounge. I’ll make Lucy the hostess. What do you think?”

I didn’t reply.

She said, “That was a little insensitive. Whatever you did to get here wasn’t funny. I do apologize.”

“Forget it.” In fact, it wasn’t funny, and I couldn’t forget it. I said, “Battle of the A Shau Valley, May ’68. You should look it up someday.”

“I will. But I’d rather you tell me about it.”

Again, I didn’t reply.

The pho came, and I sipped it with my coffee spoon. I asked Susan, “What exactly is in this?”

She was sipping out of her bowl, and replied, “Well, it’s the national dish. It’s basically noodles, veggies, and broth seasoned with ginger and pepper. You can add a little uncooked chicken, or pork if you’re rich. The hot broth cooks the meat and veggies.” She added, “When in doubt about the sanitation, order pho because they have to get the water hot enough to cook the meat, so you know the water is sterilized.”

“Good tip.”

She said, “Hey, I make a mean pho. I’d love to cook it for you someday.”

I said, “That would be nice. I make chili.”

“Love chili. I miss chili.”

We had another cup of coffee. I said to Susan, “I didn’t see the snow globe on your night table.”

She thought a moment, then said, “I didn’t notice . . . I’ll check when I get back to the room.”

“You didn’t move it?”

“No . . . the maids are usually trustworthy, if you put a few dong on the bed for them.”

“Right. So, what’s the plan for today?”

She said, “Well, I had the desk guy book us a boat, and we’re going to explore the islands. I thought it would be nice for our last day together. Bring a bathing suit.”

I paid for breakfast. Still two bucks.

We went up the stairs, and when I got to my room, I said to Susan, “Check for that snow globe.”

I went into my room and put my swimsuit on under my last pair of clean khakis. I decided to go with my Ho Chi Minhs instead of my docksiders. As I was ready to leave the room, I noticed, on my nightstand, the snow globe.

This thing gets around.

I went down to the lobby, and a few minutes later, Susan appeared with her tote. She said, “I can’t find the snow globe.”

“That’s okay. It’s in my room.”

“How did it get there?”

“Maybe the maid got confused. Let’s go.”

We went outside where a taxi was waiting for us. Susan said to the driver, “Cang Nha Trang.”

The taxi drove out to the beach road and turned south. Susan said to me, “That’s not possible.”

“What?”

“How the snow globe got in your room.”

“Well, the thing gets around.” As we drove, I told her the story of the snow globe from Dulles Airport, to Colonel Mang’s office at Tan Son Nhat, then to my room at the Rex.

She didn’t say anything for a long time, then said, “That’s . . . I can’t believe that. Someone was in my room.”

“Why do you find that hard to believe? Do you think you’re in Lenox? It’s a police state. You may have noticed.” I added, “If we had phones, they’d be tapped. And there may be bugs in the rooms, and the boric acid won’t help.”

She stayed silent, then nodded. She asked me, “But what’s the point of the snow globe?”

“I guess it’s just Colonel Mang playing mind games. He should be keeping a low profile, so we don’t think about things like bugs in the room. But he’s amusing himself.”

“That’s a little sick.”

“Maybe it’s a slow week at the Ministry of Public Security.”

The road followed the long, crescent-shaped beach, and we passed the Nha Trang Sailing Club, then a few kilometers farther, there was a sprawling new resort of red tiled villas, whose sign said Ana Mandara. It looked as if it had been floated in from Hawaii.

A lot of money was pouring into this country, not only in Saigon, but also the hinterlands, from what I could see from the train, and here in Nha Trang.

As we got closer to the docks, I saw a cluster of nice old villas, set on three lush hills right on the beach. “Look at that.”

Susan asked the driver about the villas, and she translated, “Those are the Bao Dai Villas, built by the last emperor of Vietnam and named after his humble self. It was his summer home. Then, it was used by the South Vietnamese presidents—Diem and Thieu. The driver says you can rent a room there, but a lot of Party officials use the place, and Westerners are not always welcome.”

“Hey, I can party with the Party.”

“Is that head injury bothering you today?”

We continued on the beach road toward the southern headland, which ended at a big squat hill. At the base of the hill was a picturesque village, and across the road, I could see boats around a long wharf that jutted out into the South China Sea.

We pulled up to the foot of the wharf, I paid the driver, and we got out. It wasn’t much of a facility, and most of the boats looked like pleasure craft, if your idea of pleasure isn’t too well defined. There were also a few fishing boats, all painted a midnight blue with red trim, like all the fishing boats I’d seen in Nha Trang. It must be a local custom, or the only paint available.

We walked onto the wharf where about twenty guys were offering to take us anywhere we wanted to go. How about the Potomac River?

Susan was looking for a particular guy, and she called out, “Captain Vu? Captain Vu?”

Amazingly, everyone there was named Captain Vu. We finally found the real Captain Vu, and he led us to his boat, which was not a pleasure craft, but actually one of the blue and red fishing boats. It looked like a sturdy craft, about twenty-five feet long, with a low stern, a high bow, and a wide beam. Sort of like a cartoon tugboat. We all got aboard.

There was a small wheelhouse set amidship, made mostly of glass windows, and a fishnet hung along the port side of the boat.

Captain Vu spoke a little English and said, “Welcome on board man and lady.”

The boat smelled a little fishy because it was a fishing boat, and what else was fishy was why the desk clerk hadn’t gotten us a pleasure boat. Obviously the clerk and Captain Vu were related, or in business together. I said to Susan, “This is a fishing boat.”

“Isn’t it great? A real Nha Trang fishing boat.”

“Right.” Some people need to experience everything. At my age, I try to experience as little as possible. Been there. Six times. Done that. Twelve times.

Captain Vu showed us a chest of ice, beer, water, and soft drinks. He said, “For you.”

Captain Vu smoked and was delighted that Susan smoked, too, and they fired up a couple of Marlboros. The captain spread a nautical chart on the engine housing, and he and Susan looked over the chart and chatted for a while.

Susan turned to me and said, “We can probably visit four or five islands.”

“Let’s make it four.”

“Okay. The last island I wanted to visit is called Pyramide—still has a French name. It also has a nude beach.”

“Make that five islands.”

“I figured.” She spoke to Captain Vu, and he chuckled.

I suggested, “Make Pyramide the first island.”

He understood this and laughed louder.

Anyway, a kid of about fourteen was on the wharf, and he helped us cast off, then jumped on board. The kid said he was named Minh, after the great leader, Ho Chi Minh. I showed the kid my sandals, and he approved.

Captain Vu went into the wheelhouse, and a minute later, the engine kicked over, coughed, and caught. Minh and I shoved off, and we were on our way.

There were two plastic chairs in the stern, and Susan and I sat. I looked in the cooler beside me and found a liter of bottled water, which we shared.

The sea was calm, and Captain Vu opened the throttle a little. We headed southeast, toward a small island.

Susan had the chart on her lap and said to me, “That island there is Hon Mieu—South Island. There’s a fish farm there. Want to see it?”

“No. Where’s Pyramide Island?”

“The next island is Hon Tam, then Hon Mot, then we’ll go to Hon Cu Loa—Monkey Island, then the big mountain island of Hon Tre, which means Bamboo Island.” She gave me the chart. “Take a look.”

“Where’s Pyramide Island?”

“It’s on the map, Paul.”

“It’s called a chart. Where’s that island?”

“North.”

“Right. I see it.” Of course, it was the farthest away. I folded the chart. Well, something to look forward to.

Our first port of call was Hon Tam, where there was a small resort. We rented two kayaks and paddled around awhile. We also had a beer at the resort and made a pit stop.

Then, on Hon Mot, we rented some snorkeling gear and spent an hour looking at brightly colored tropical fish and incredible coral reefs in crystal clear water. I also watched Susan Weber underwater, who had on another skimpy bathing suit, this one white.

Then on to Monkey Island, where these obnoxious monkeys harassed a lot of stupid tourists. One of them—the monkeys—tried to lift my wallet,
and I thought I was back in Saigon. Another one, obviously an alpha male, hung by his toes from a branch and grabbed Susan’s boob. And he hadn’t even bought her dinner.

These disgusting monkeys had absolutely no fear of people, and that was because no one had ever broken one of their necks. You only had to break one neck, and the others would get the message.

Anyway, we bid adieu to Monkey Island, and I insisted that we skip Bamboo Island because I didn’t want to miss Pyramide Island, though I didn’t say that. I said, “There’s bubonic plague on Bamboo Island. Read about it this morning.”

Ms. Weber didn’t seem to believe me. She said something to Captain Vu, and he took a new heading.

I asked, “Where are we going?”

“Oh, I thought we’d call it a day. It’s pushing 3
P.M.
”

“What happened to Pyramide Island?”

“Oh . . . right. Do you still want to go there?”

“Yes. Now.”

She smiled. “That’s where we’re headed. You’re so basic.”

Susan sat back in her chair and lit a cigarette. The wind was blowing through her long hair, and she looked very good. She said to me, “When I first met you, I had the initial impression you were a little repressed.”

“I was.”

“Then I realized you were just putting on a cool act.”

“I was being professional.”

“Me, too.”

That, I thought, depended on her profession.

Within half an hour, I spotted land dead ahead. Captain Vu turned to us from the open wheelhouse. He pointed and said, “Hon Pyramide.”

We approached this tiny island from the west, and Captain Vu pulled back the throttle while the kid got out on the bow to look for coral reef and sandbars. I could see a long dock extending out from the shore, and there were about a dozen boats of all types and sizes tied up there.

Pyramide Island indeed looked like a pyramid with steep rocky sides that sloped up to a blunt point at the top. There were people rappelling down the rocks for some reason.

Captain Vu pulled alongside the dock, and cut the engine while Minh and I jumped out and tied the boat.

Captain Vu came out of the wheelhouse, and I said to Susan, “Ask him what those people are doing on the rocks.”

Susan asked him and said to me, “This is one of the islands where they collect the sparrow nests for bird’s nest soup.” She added, “The higher the nest, the bigger erection you’ll get.”

“You made that up.” I said to Susan, apropos of nothing that was being discussed, but something that was on my mind, “Ask Captain Vu if he’s seen any Russian warships while he’s been out fishing.”

She hesitated a moment, then asked him. He replied, and she said to me, “Not so much anymore. But they still come into Cam Ranh Bay now and then. Maybe once a month.”

“Ask him if he’s seen any American warships.”

She asked, he replied, and she said to me, “Lately he’s seen a few. Why are you asking?”

“Just curious.”

Captain Vu gave us directions to the nude beach and said to me, in English, “You like.”

We took a few Cokes, put them in the tote, and told Captain Vu we’d be back at sunset. The kid wanted to come along, but Captain Vu wanted to fish, and he needed the kid for the nets. Minh didn’t look happy.

Susan and I walked along the dock to the shore and turned onto a trail that cut through the brush along the shoreline.