The Man from Saigon

Thank you, sir! came Son’s voice from somewhere across the room. She did not know who was speaking. But Son had noticed her from the start, even that first week. He never admitted this, but later she pieced it together. Marc, of course, had not been at the briefing. She met him the following week, after deciding she’d better get out of Saigon and see the war for herself.

It was on a battlefield. Marc came on a convoy out of Cam Lo, riding in the open bed of a truck with his cameraman, Locke, and a dozen marines. They smoked and talked to the soldiers and looked out over the landscape shimmering with the day’s heat. Never in all the time they pitched over the bumpy roads did he think there would be a women ahead; but she had travelled out the day before and was about to beat him to a story.

They arrived at the base of a hill where a row of bodies, faces blackened as though burnt, waited to be taken back in those same trucks, a captain yelling for more bodybags and ponchos, men in gas masks working the duty. He didn’t see her yet, not her or any other journalists. He got out his notebook, his recording equipment. Locke trained his camera on the bodies stacked to their right, only briefly of course so as not to be seen doing so. The smell of the bodies was revolting. Marc kept himself from looking and held his breath as much as he could until they went up the hill on foot, out to the camp. They were brought to the observation post. No bodies here, just miles of dusty, red dirt, low-lying shrubs, rubble and artillery and sandbags and men in foxholes.

There was sporadic fire, plenty of incoming but none of it that close. Then an onslaught of artillery. He didn’t know when the serious shelling began, but it did, like a storm gathering and settling upon them, ceaseless and consuming. They dived into an open bunker, marines beside them curled up around the edges of the pit, their faces pressed against the shallow walls, their legs and arms seized up beneath them. They could not have gotten any smaller. Locke tried to work the camera, getting as much footage as he could. Occasionally, they became brave; moving cautiously over the dusty grounds standing at the rims of foxholes, desperate to get some good pictures, but equally ready to dive underground as the storm of firing continued. There had been explosions all morning, coming every thirty seconds, every fifteen, landing at first some distance off and now much closer. They thought they were up here doing a story about the morale of marines, asking them how they felt about being there, Con Thien, the meat grinder, the graveyard, three featureless hills right up against the Demilitarized Zone. But the incoming was so heavy there was hardly enough time between explosions to get even a quick on-camera.

The marines were extraordinary. After so many days and weeks of fighting they seemed to know how close a shell was by the sound of it, and would remain on their feet longer than he would dare to. He tried to be that brave but the rockets came cracking out of the sky—no sooner was he standing up than he was flat on his front again. He felt suspended in time, as in a dream when you cannot quite get your limbs to move. They needed the footage and surely this battle was something they ought to record, but they couldn’t get much. He would see Locke rolling film across the hills where the explosions followed a line of men in defensive positions, then both Locke and the camera would disappear. He clutched the microphone, trying to record some natural sound, but no sooner had he made the effort than he found himself once more on his face.

Something happened. The earth itself seemed to tip and now he was on his hands and knees, the tape recorder covered in dust, the microphone, the wires, sprawled out on the dirt. He didn’t know where Locke was; calling out would be useless. There was constant firing in both directions, the ground lifting up beneath him. Someone grabbed his shoulder and threw him into a bunker. It was Locke. He could tell because the camera knocked him in the face. They’d been up there less than an hour, maybe much less, but he did not know, and would not be able to recall.

No light, the earth shaking, artillery shrieking above. He was aware of other people in the bunker, of the walls of sandbags, the dry earth pressing around them with every blast, red dust showering down from the sandbags over their heads, raining on his shoulders. On the floor, hugging his knees, neck bent, arms over his head, hands over his ears, he told himself that unless they got a direct hit, they’d survive. His cheek swelled, the place where the camera had hit him. He was missing his eyeglasses and then he realized he had them in his hand.

The bunker was only a few feet high, not much wider, hot. He felt the sweat on his back, his chest, running down his face. Another explosion, this one so close he called out, the sound rushing from his lungs as though forced out by the blast, his heart screaming inside his chest. He recalled reading an account by a survivor of the Ia Drang massacre, a soldier whose company had nearly been wiped out. The soldier had told how when his buddies were hit in the belly or chest, they let out a terrible scream and they kept on screaming, until they were hoarse, until the blood filled their mouths, until they died. He wished he hadn’t read that account, which had been in the Saturday Evening Post. He thought of it now; he didn’t know why. The noise was so loud, so penetrating, it seemed to alter the way his body worked. During the blasts he saw bright orange and red behind his eyelids, felt his skeleton acutely within the soft tissue of his muscles. Strange bits of information hung around the edges of his thoughts. Body counts from other battles, a line from a childhood prayer, a drive toward silence, the need for which was reaching desperation point. He was alternately blinded by darkness, then by light. Nothing happening now, not one thing, was natural.

He heard the metallic click of a cigarette lighter; a flame illuminated the bunker. He opened his eyes. Across from him, not ten inches from his face, was a woman. Her helmet was lopsided, the hair hanging beneath its rim coated in dirt, scratches across her cheek. Her eyes were open and glassy. He didn’t know her. Didn’t know why she was in the bunker or the base, or in the country itself. The world had receded to this one, small place, and here she was before him. The sergeant with the lighter lit a kerosene lamp. Nobody looked at each other, except him and the girl. They locked eyes and kept them locked, as though through doing so they might somehow stay more focused and right thinking. Already, he felt himself begin to settle. Despite the shelling, which continued. Despite the sound of air attacks charging north. He tried to get out his notebook and pen, but his hands were shaking too much. He couldn’t write. He dropped the notebook and let it rest by his boot, by her boot. His pen, too, lay between them.

Outside the air was one large fist of sound. It was a constant pummeling, endless, almost rhythmic. The noise seemed to go inside him; he could feel it in his bones and teeth, straight down his spine. He had, of course, been through such things before. This was not his first war. But that didn’t matter now. The only thing that had any weight, any significance at all, was this isolated moment, then the one that followed. He felt his legs begin to shake, the adrenaline coursing through him. He felt a low weight in his stomach. The girl across from him began to cry silently, her face frozen in an internal agony he understood, understood completely. His throat was dry, his mouth gritty with sand. His arms didn’t seem to have any strength in them. He felt weighted and immobile, a statue of himself, buried in the ground. It seemed to take all his strength to raise his hand, fingers trembling, and touch the girl’s face. He looked at her, breathing purposely in and out, trying to calm herself. He put the back of his hand on her cheek, on the soft skin beneath her jaw. He wanted to offer her something. It seemed the least he could do, sitting so close to her, and through all these minutes.

She reached forward and hooked his knee with her arm, leaning toward him. It helped. He couldn’t say why. The explosions continued, stretching out so that they seemed to follow on, each from each, in one long, continual crashing song. Occasionally, he moved his hand across the girl’s face, and over the top of her forehead, as though soothing a fever. She gripped his knee and he felt her fingers gratefully, needing her touch. The lamp went out, the darkness so sudden it made him almost sick with fear, and then the sergeant wearily, hesitantly, relit the wick. He saw now that the sergeant was frightened, even him, and he felt sorry for him, sorry for them all.

It felt as though they had been tricked. That there had been some terrible swindle and as a result they would now die. He had always thought he would recognize the moment of his death—through some sixth sense or a moment of dread that informs. Now he decided the opposite was true. It would come like fire when it came. It would revolve everything, crush his guesswork, all of his imaginings.

The girl sobbed silently, her shoulders shaking, and he held her until she stopped. The siege lasted twenty minutes or more, and when he and the girl finally, tentatively, pulled themselves apart and climbed, one by one, out of that hole he felt connected to her, as though he’d known her for ever, known her through the very end of the world and now, its new beginning. He held her arm as she climbed up, stood close to her as they crawled up on to the flat, featureless scrub, this place of unending battle, destined always to be so, now and until the end of the war. At some point they moved forward in a column, each man a few meters apart. He watched her walk ahead of him, then run. A jeep was backing up at the foot of the hill, getting ready to go back up the road to Cam Lo and she moved like a bullet towards it. He steadied his eyes on her as she ran, arms flailing, cameras whipping against her back, a notebook clutched in one hand, the other holding her helmet, heading for the jeep. The jeep was full already, no room at all, but she ran and kept running until it slowed to turn and the men inside lifted her aboard among the bodies. They did so effortlessly, as though plucking a flower from the ground. She balanced herself on the rim of the thick bed and he thought he could see her moment of revulsion at having to travel with the dead. Don’t look at their faces, he wanted to tell her, and when you get to the other side go straight for the bar. You had to be careful what you focused on in the war, he thought, and he watched until he could see nothing of the girl or the jeep, just the dust rising in columns.

He didn’t know who she was, hadn’t seen her before. She turned up just like that and he fixed on her in a manner he could not shake.

She learned about taking cover, the things you needed to look for, how quickly you needed to drop. From the pages of the Handbook she read, Look for a tree stump, a wall, a rock. Holes are good, buildings are good. Bunkers are good if you don’t get killedtrying to reach them. She learned, too, that diving to the ground under fire is almost an instinctive act, although there are many new to the field who will stand, listening to bullets whiz by them, behaving as though they are nothing more than annoying insects swarming overhead. The Handbook had something to say about that. It said, What you hear are not bees. What you hear are bullets at the end of their range and they are probably too slow now to kill you, but it would make sense to avoid them anyway.

She had intended to avoid them; she had intended never to come under fire at all, but as the weeks dropped away she became less certain that any kind of safety could be ensured even within Saigon, let alone if she went to crazy places like Con Thien. That had been a mistake; that had been chancing it.

But even on supposedly safer ground there were no guarantees. She’d been a block away when a small bomb blew up a diplomat’s car. The next day a bar frequented by Americans took a grenade, injuring dozens and killing two soldiers and three of the bar girls who drank overpriced “tea.” Even so, Saigon itself did not frighten her. The assaults she suffered were not by artillery but by the prostitutes on Tu Do Street who called her names as she passed. Or when she walked, trying to stay beneath the thin shade of the plane trees, and soldiers sidled up to her asking where she was from, what was her name, where was she going. The hotel was one street down from the flower market and sometimes the air around it was so fragrant that if she shut her eyes she could make herself believe she was in the lushest garden in all of Southeast Asia. At night, the smell of flowers disappeared and the rats arrived, traveling up from the rivers, feasting on garbage. Beneath streetlamps the air clouded with insects. There were candy shops that sold Belgian chocolates and marzipan flown in from Spain, restaurants that brought in fresh lobster so that you could choose your own dinner from a tank. In the cosy heat of early evening, sitting on the terraces of the better restaurants, she would look up at the colorful sky, its reds and oranges set like a painting above her, unable to imagine anything more beautiful.

But there was contrast at every corner. People slept outdoors in the shaded entrances to shops, or flat out on benches, or sometimes curled on the steps of the cathedral until moved on. Market stalls sold goods quite obviously wrangled from the military post exchange or off the bodies of dead soldiers: combat fatigues, helmets, boots, even guns if you followed the vendor to the back room where they were kept. Old women sold tea, Marlboros and marijuana. Some sold only marijuana. Children sold pictures of naked girls, and the older ones sold the girls themselves. They stole the pens from your pockets, wrangled spare change from your hand. She lost a camera the first week and had to buy a new one. That is, purchase someone else’s camera, also stolen, but now displayed on a cardboard box propped up in a makeshift stall.

She was settling in, getting to know the places to meet, who to speak to, where to go, but also she registered an unease that (she would learn later) never truly lifted from a visitor to Saigon. The city surprised her in a million ways. There were mysterious chirpings and whistles that arrived with dawn, along with the onslaught of traffic, a ceaseless commotion that exhausted her as much as the temperature that she measured not in degrees but by how many times each day she had to immerse herself in water.

There were other sounds, too, that required attention. One night, shortly after her arrival, she heard something like thunder that confused her senses, making her imagine a storm when the night was clear. But the storm was not the reason for the noise; it was bombing to the west of the city, which from the street she could not see, but thought she could feel, detecting a kind of vibration in the air. The sound of the bombers was heard not only as thunder, but in a sudden heightened awareness of people around her, who appeared to step up their pace, or crowd themselves at doorways, or create even more knots of traffic in the swarming streets. The war registered itself in the way the window glass rattled, how the strings of lights upon railings flickered and were still. Closet hangers danced, making their tinny sound; dogs that roamed freely began to shout into the night.

In Susan’s own small room the pendant lamp above her bed was set in motion, barely noticeable, as rhythmic as a metronome. Plaster broke away and splattered on the floor, the war approaching and receding like a tide. Even if she wasn’t in the room at the time, she would notice upon her return the broken tile, the settling of dust, feeling almost as though someone had been through her things and moved them all a millimeter or two in a ridiculous but unsettling act. Sometimes, with a group of other journalists, she stood on the rooftop terrace of the Caravelle Hotel, watching the bombing, tracking tracers and bullets many miles off that poured from the guns of a US airship as though from a firehose. She watched the sudden red of bombs meeting their targets, trying to determine exactly where they were falling. There really was no more to it than that. She hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of artillery, or to be under those bombs. In her cocktail dress recently purchased from Marshall Field’s, during those first few weeks in Saigon, while clasping the delicate stem of a drink from someone she’d just met, whose name she couldn’t recall as she clinked his glass, she could not imagine such things.

It turned out not to be a matter of time, but of distance. It was a decision you made, where you put yourself in the country, who you traveled with. It began slowly enough, going out with soldiers until something—an angle, a profile, an interview, a sudden, newsworthy event—happened her way. It had almost become a game she played—how close could she get to the war without getting too close. She wore chinos and a short-sleeved blouse, interviewing those who set up refugee camps and orphanages, her hair limp in its ponytail, her cheeks newly sprinkled with freckles. A gradual change was taking place; she settled into her role. She realized two weeks into what was now being called her “tour,” while trudging through a dusty, crater-filled village, barraged by gangs of children demanding their piastres, swearing in mixed-up English at her if she didn’t pay, that it was precisely because she hadn’t hungered after battlefields, and in fact had no definite opinion one way or another on whether the war was ethical or winnable, that she’d been sent in the first place. The magazine would never have chosen a “political” reporter. They’d chosen her because she was quirky enough to train horses in her spare time and because they thought—they really did think—that she would never leave Saigon. That is, all except her editor. She’d received a telegram a few days earlier:

GET STORIES OUTSIDE THE CAPITAL STOP YOU ARE AS GOOD AS ANY OF THEM STOP

She carried that telegram with her for days. It made her think she could do it, made her know. It was still too early for her to have bad dreams; too early for her to be woken in the night by them. She wished only to understand truly what was happening in this one small country and everything she did was a process of this unfolding. It was not unpleasant. Quite the contrary: it was exhilarating. The trip up to Con Thien had both terrified and intrigued her. She then went to Pleiku and wrote a good story about a small hospital there. That was when she came across Son, whether by fate or by deliberate intent on his part, she never knew. The country was full of random occurrences and anyway it was not surprising that she should meet him—everyone knew him. While Western correspondents came and went, staying a few weeks or a few years, their numbers growing exponentially with each season, Son remained, a kind of ambassador to the war. He’d watched the number of newsmen in Vietnam increase tenfold and more. He’d watched Saigon fill up like a dam.

His full name was Hoàng Van Son. He had a couple of identical Nikon F cameras, a heavy zoom lens which was a recent acquisition, and he filled his pockets with Ektachrome color and a few rolls of Kodak Tri-X black and white just to walk down the street. He had a long mouth that curled up at the ends, blocky white teeth that aligned as though he’d had years of orthodontistry, which he most certainly had not. He was quite handsome—Susan thought so—but in a way she was not used to and which kept her from fully acknowledging it. He spoke English very well—that was the main thing. He knew how to cover the war. They decided to form a partnership, him as a still photographer, her as a print reporter. He was her friend—she believed they were friends—and also her translator and her entrance into combat reporting. One afternoon, still during those early weeks in Saigon, he showed her how to fall to the ground when mortared. That is, he tried to convey how fast she needed to move. But she didn’t understand.

Is there a certain technique? she asked innocently. They were at the hotel. He’d been checking out the bathroom to see whether he could use it for a darkroom. The bathroom had a broken doorknob that occasionally locked solid, and for this reason there was a screwdriver behind the tap. The room looked as though a poltergeist lived there: rotting tiles that came off the wall and broke in pieces on the floor, plaster dust, handles that dislodged themselves overnight, doors that swelled with the humidity and wouldn’t shut or wouldn’t open. The bath was moldy; the grout grew a tenacious fur. Insects everywhere, occasional rats, which she discovered had gnawed spaces in the plaster where the pipes were laid so that they could navigate the whole of the building through the maze of its plumbing. Despite these flaws, Son said it was perfect. The bathroom would be ideal for developing his film. But could they put a board across the bidet (rust-colored water; jammed, immobile taps) and use it as a small table? Could they get rid of the flouncy shower curtain Susan bought because there had been none when she arrived? Could he move the towels? In short, could she do without a bathroom?

You want me to tell you how to fall down? he said. His cigarette bobbed in his mouth as he spoke; his large white teeth reminded her of piano keys, and though he was smiling he seemed completely baffled when she nodded and said yes. It was one of those moments between them—one of many—in which he seemed as confused by her as she was by him, by the whole of his country, and especially the war. He could have admitted he was equally mystified by Western women, and particularly by Susan, but he might have thought that this fact was already quite plain. Fall down? he said now. Just…his hands beside his head showed his confusion. Have you never done that?

Not deliberately, she told him.

If a vehicle is hit, it can easily blow up, and vehicles of any description are one of the favorite targets of the Vietcong, who attempt to take out as many supplies as possible on their way to the field.

She read this in the Handbook, but she had no idea what it meant, what it really meant, until Son threw her off a flatbed in the same manner in which you might throw off a bale of hay. She learned also in those long minutes that once you’ve heard the shooting and jump over the side of the truck, you should follow immediately wherever the soldiers are running. And they will be running toward the bullets. Again, this was not initially for her a voluntary act; she was hauled along by a marine who held her like a bag of groceries in his nonsmoking hand.

She was getting closer all the time. She didn’t realize how close.

She got a telegram from her editor:

EXCELLENT WORK ON HOSPITAL STORY STOP PHOTOGRAPHS BY HOÀNG VAN SON FIVE DOLLARS NO MORE STOP

She had to tell Son five dollars was all that the magazine would give him. She was embarrassed by how cheap her editor could be, or whoever it was who decided such things. Sorry, Son, we can’t really argue with them, but you could sell the photographs elsewhere, she said. It’s so little money, I’m embarrassed.

No arguing, said Son. Celebrating, yes, but no arguing.

But I hear Associated Press is paying fifteen a pop—

Susan, that is blood money.

Blood money?

I don’t think you understand what is danger yet. The first few months you won’t. What were you doing up in Con Thien? You’ll begin to judge these things better. Well, I hope so.

He looked at her as though she were a live circus act. As though trying to decide if she’d fall off the wire.

First there had been the bunker in Con Thien, then Marc saw her at a party in Saigon. It wasn’t like him to go to such a party. He’d been in Vietnam a long time, been to more than his share of events in hotel rooms and embassies and restaurants, private rooms and villas, hotels and offices and bars. He’d grown weary of them. But tonight’s casual, crowded gathering took place in his own hotel, one floor down. He’d have had to make an effort to escape it and there had already been enough talk about him. About how solitary he’d become, how remote. The rumors—that he kept his own M16 under his bed, that he was never without the dried hind foot of a rabbit, either in his pocket or around his neck; that he, in fact, had a mojo bag full of talismans and holy cards, wore a St. Christopher’s, counted backwards from seven before jumping from choppers—used to make him laugh. But lately, he’d come to wonder if he appeared strange to his colleagues, enough so that they thought some explanation was in order. So he went to the party, arriving at the door to the welcome of Brian Murray, about whom no rumors were ever put forward. The man never seemed to travel five minutes for a story these days.

Oh, good, the press has arrived, Murray said. Murray was a print reporter and his comment might have been yet another little dig at television reporters who—it was understood—were not nearly as informed as those who wrote for newspapers. Marc never really understood the rivalry, and he didn’t see why Murray always felt compelled to remind him of it. It felt like a reprimand, coming from the older man.

You look well, Marc said. Murray wore crisp cream-colored trousers, a new belt. His shirt had been diligently pressed, undoubtedly by one of the Vietnamese girls who worked in the hotel. His shoes, too, were unscuffed, even glowing, beneath the layers of polish that had been applied.

I’m in one piece, he said.

You’ve had a lot of print lately.

The wire has. It’s Sanchez. He’s always out there, him. But not me. Not as much as I’d like. Murray said something else, too, but Marc found it difficult to hear him. The music blared from four speakers, rigged up in the corners of the room. Murray was a quiet guy. He didn’t look like he belonged in such a gathering. He looked like he should be at home with his wife and children, with a dog at his feet and a warm drink and a pipe. His hair curled in graying locks and his pale skin showed exactly how little he got out. He probably never left the city any more. He probably was at the door now because it was the quietest place to stand.

You going to let me in? Marc said.

Oh yeah. Sorry, Davis. Come in.

Marc looked for the bathroom, where undoubtedly there would be a tub of beer swimming in melted ice. He looked for Locke, but couldn’t find him. He was probably asleep. They’d been up most of the night before, flying the milk-run from Danang, hoping to get back before the weather turned. Marc got a drink and talked with a few guys from a French paper. The French pouted into their drinks and passed each other Gauloises cigarettes. They always looked so miserable at American gatherings; he wondered why they never appeared to miss a single one.

He picked up a Life magazine, thumbing through its pages for the stories about Vietnam, but it was all about protestors this week, photograph after photograph of marches and rallies. He glanced through the articles, looking at the images of streets and squares so crowded with people he could not pick out a single feature of cities he knew well. He tried to imagine himself there again, back home in the States. The country—his country—felt far away, almost impossible to reach. Sometimes, when they packed the film to be sent to San Francisco and then on to New York, it seemed to him like magic that the parcel could reach those same streets he knew, that the city blocks and buildings with all their shining windows existed at all, and even more astonishing, that they existed exactly as he remembered them, untouched, unbothered by the chaos he reported daily.