The Man from Saigon

He put the magazine to one side. He looked up and he saw her; he saw Susan. She was by the door, standing in the exact spot he’d been next to Murray. For a moment, it seemed almost as though she had stepped out of his own imagination, or wasn’t really there at all, for in his mind she was somehow consigned to the north. He’d expected to see her in Danang or Chu Lai, or even once more in Con Thien. But of course it made more sense to find her here in Saigon among the press, the crowded bars and restaurants, the hotels. She would have been at the daily press conferences, the five o’clock follies, that he could barely bring himself now to attend. He’d heard from Locke that there was a new English girl in town, some girl journalist, Locke had said. The minute he mentioned her, Marc knew it was the same. I think I know the one, he replied. But even so, he always thought of Susan up north, not here. It shocked him, seeing her among so many people he knew.

She was framed in the doorway, her hands on either side of the opening. It seemed to him she was hesitating, taking in the geography of the room, the people inside. Murray was trying to talk to her—what was he, a sentry at the gates?—and from this distance she appeared to be answering him politely, her head tilted to one side. She looked shy, sweet, young. He wanted to go over to her but he hesitated, watching, and then she was swept up with a group and he didn’t want to intervene. Somebody asked him for the Life magazine and he handed it over wordlessly.

Davis—he heard, Hey, Marc! Someone was calling his name, a man, not her. He kept walking.

He tracked her, a few steps behind. It was a game at first. To see if she noticed him. He watched her pass through the party in a thin dress, its sleeves shaped like flute glasses from which her wrists seemed surprisingly delicate. He could still recall how she’d clung to him in the bunker, her arm looped over his knee, and the strength of that grip. The dress made her seem more fragile than she was, and in this manner he found her appearance deceptive, as though he was being shown a pretend version of Susan, when he knew full well how strong she was, how fast she could run. He could still see her racing down that hill, her feet swinging up to her hips as she pushed forward through the dust and stones to the jeep. Tonight she looked altogether different, and it was like looking at a beautiful portrait that showed some other new and lovely aspect of her person. He could hardly stand to look away.

He felt a hand clap around his calf and he stopped, frozen, staring down. It was Curtis, a soundman he occasionally worked with when he was lucky enough to get a soundman. He was arranged on the floor with some friends, sitting absurdly close to the speakers, which blasted the Stones so loudly you could feel the vibration in the air. The guys asked if they could mooch just a little weed as were down to seeds and stems. Marc patted his empty pockets, shrugging.

I’m all out, he said. The music was so loud he had to lean down, shouting into Curtis’s ear. From a distance it would have appeared as though he were telling Curtis a secret.

Curtis said, Bullshit, you’re never out.

I am. I swear.

We don’t have anything even halfway smokeable. Come on, man!

You’re out of luck, I don’t—

Curtis pushed two fingers into Marc’s shirt pocket and uncovered a dime bag he’d forgotten about.

You’re not awake, Davis, Curtis said.

It’s this new dreamy image he’s projecting, another of them said. Like he’s here but not here.

Very cool.

The coolest.

Probably thinking about a girl.

Don’t tell his wife!

Curtis laughed. I think he was just holding out on us.

Marc shook his head. He watched Curtis pinch a spray of the weed and stuff it into the blackened bowl of a small bong with dirty water, some marks on the plastic where it had burned.

Keep it, Marc said, nodding at the bag.

They told him to sit down, share a bowl with them, but he shook his head. His eyes floated across the room once more, searching for Susan, hoping she hadn’t left already. She was dressed carefully, her hair newly washed. She was probably going off for dinner later. He shouldn’t even have talked to these guys. He knew what they were after anyway. He should have just dropped the pot into their open palms and kept on tracking her. But he had honestly forgotten he had any. He wondered if the bag had gone through the laundry.

Over the course of the hour the hallway filled. People filed in from their offices, or on their way back from other parties, from restaurants or clubs or straight out of the field. They came and everyone packed in, some never getting as far as the stairs. He stepped over the legs of those with their backs up against walls, using Coke bottles for ashtrays, sharing rolling papers and pizza brought up, dried and cold now, curled in boxes. He saw some guys from the bureau and fell into conversation about an assignment. Curtis’s girlfriend arrived in a miniskirt and unshaven legs, looking like a scruffy cheerleader, and kissed him full on the mouth. Locke showed up, holding court with one group, then another. People called him ‘The Information’, a name he didn’t seem to mind. A couple of guys would go off to find some more beer, or better beer, or more pot, or better pot. A group would bring in a few more records and then, for no reason, a song would be interrupted halfway through as the LP was changed, the great scrape of the needle across vinyl singing in the speakers and someone calling out, Shiiiiit, what are you doing, man? A bicycle was hauled up the stairs—it belonged to a student who didn’t dare leave it on the street. A guy whose two silver bars said he was a captain borrowed it off him and was now trying to wheel it through the crowd. The captain was here only because his girlfriend lived in the hotel. She was nothing to do with the war, but exported goods to the US.

War talk, all of it. Locke described a particular hill battle near Kontum and how he’d traded cigarettes for grass, ounce for ounce, and all the better ways they could have used the Montagnards as fighting soldiers with American advisers, but didn’t, and now they’re giving information both sides, what a fucking waste. The guy he was talking to said he’d lost three cameras: one stolen, one ruined by water, and another hit by shrapnel.

While you were using it?

No, man, it was in my hag.

There were correspondents, and soldiers—officers—and two GIs on R&R planning to bunk in the room, guys who worked construction or something anyway and didn’t talk about the war or anything but just sat stolidly and drank one bottle of 33 beer after another, lining up the empties in neat rows like game pieces.

It was odd to see anyone sober, or anyone over thirty. He watched Susan and noticed that she didn’t drink much, that she didn’t know many people. She seemed to flit about, talking only briefly here and there, not entirely at ease. She had some friends among the exhausted nurses, who slumped on the floor with their oversized drinks, and pulled her down to talk to them. There were women: wives or girlfriends, some who worked for the USO or other relief organizations, the nurses who’d been brought in by jeep by some bunch of seriously in-breach soldiers. The women had their moments of peculiar talk and outrageous flirtations, except for the nurses who looked so tired they might lie down and sleep right there across a doorway if that’s where they fell. They sat on the floor or lay on the floor, their hair falling all around them like lank seaweed, looking up at the ceiling fan going round and round, or staring at the smouldering end of their lit cigarette, or leaning into the arms of one guy or other, crowding around the air conditioner, laughing, drinking, once in a while bursting out crying.

At last he found her alone at the window, one of three large sash windows with great swags that had grown dusty and old now, the ornate gold piping frayed along the seams. He went to the window next to where she was standing, amazed that she had not noticed him yet, much less recognized him. It occurred to him that she might be avoiding him. The way she studied the sidewalk outside seemed almost a deliberate turning away, and in one respect this gave him hope. That he’d had an impact on her, that she hadn’t forgotten the bunker in Con Thien, what passed between them in those minutes, what he thought had passed. If she wanted to avoid him, then it must be that she remembered, that she knew the power of their first, extraordinary meeting when she fled like Cinderella from the ball, holding her helmet with one hand, her notebooks in the other. In his day dreams he had often entertained himself with that last image of her, running toward the jeep, leaping up on to the open bed. It seemed wholly at odds with the woman he saw now, in a dress that hugged her hips, her hair falling in a fan across her shoulders, and the contrast he found dazzling, exhilarating. He didn’t know if he dared talk to her.

He glanced through the window and saw army trucks and clusters of careening bicycles, people rushing from the first throes of evening rain. The pedicab drivers leaned into the motion as they worked. The kids traded money and sold things they’d found or scrounged, pens and card packs, pictures of naked girls, all of them getting soaked now, getting drenched. A boy in a T-shirt three sizes too small and a pair of underpants, nothing more, darted across the crazy street like a dog, trying to avoid being killed outright, selling cigarettes that nobody wanted to buy. It began to rain harder and his hair shined with it, his underpants dragged down his hips, his bald little legs splashed in puddles. At some point the boy looked up and saw Marc at the window and called out Wanna buy? Marc reached into his pocket and found a clump of notes, dropping a colorful bill down to the boy who stood with his hand stretched out, his chin to the sky, rushing one way, then another as the note floated, swooped and dived to the street below. It felt mean to have made him work so hard for the note, so he threw some change and the boy ran for it, too; other children, hearing the coins scattering on the pavement, started doing the same. A crowd gathered, rushing in from adjoining lanes, not just children but old men, teenage girls, all of them rushing now. A child with only one arm danced below the window trying to lift the coins from the road with her single outstretched hand. A round woman with long gray hair pushed a child to one side. They were all running for the coins, calling up, screaming for more. But the rain was fierce, banging down on to the steaming tarmac and bouncing up again, streaming down the edges of the road, soaking the clothes and hair of the people below and drowning out their voices.

Suddenly, a spear of lightning cracked across a piece of sky to the west and all the lights went out. The street went black as though it had disappeared altogether, like a stage across which the curtain has been drawn. Inside, too, the room, the party, was suddenly immersed in darkness. He glanced away from the street and into the sudden gray shadows of the hotel—he didn’t even know whose room it was—and looked across at the adjacent window, blinking, searching for Susan, but she was gone.

The lights stayed off but no one was alarmed. It was a city of precarious amenities. Water, light, access down a particular street or building, at a particular hour or a different one, were granted or not granted. One night, as the guest of an embassy official (someone he assumed to be a spook), he’d been in one of Saigon’s best French restaurants when a blackout had taken hold of several city blocks. The waiters hurried with hurricane lamps and table candles, reassuring the diners that all was well. They had a generator for the kitchen, the food would not be a minute delayed. The waiters carried small flashlights, like theater ushers, and set out a line of lanterns at the station where they brought orders. He and the official carried on with their meal, though the man seemed suddenly quite awkward, straining through the darkness to see the other restaurant guests, who paid no attention at all to the blackout. If anything, they seemed to enjoy it. Outside, the streets were lit by headlamps and starlight; while the restaurant, now cloaked in the candles’ amber glow, felt like a festive cavern. Everyone spoke more softly than before, as though the candles enforced a kind of secrecy, and Marc found himself having to drop his own voice, leaning across the table and into the cloud of light made by the flickering flame between him and the official, in order to hear the man speak. They carried on for a few minutes and then he saw the official’s face suddenly glaze over. He was staring into a small spray of flowers that had been on the table all the time but, until now, had gone unnoticed. They were tiny lavender buds, each one the size of a thimble, and they let off an unusually strong scent in relation to their small size. In an abrupt move, the official dropped his napkin on to the table. Let’s get out of here before someone takes us for a couple of faggots, he said, standing. He summoned the waiter for the bill, threw some money on the table. One of the waiters followed them out apologetically, suggesting that they at least finish their main course, but the official said, Wrap it up, give it to someone. He looked down at the plate of change the waiter had brought, rumpled bills on a saucer of white porcelain. To Marc, he said, They give you these dirty notes so you’ll leave them as a tip. Why should I give him all that? The place doesn’t even have working lights. Then he said, Come on, let’s get something to drink.

Marc remembered this now, standing in the darkened party, and it made him smile and cringe at the same time. He listened as someone bemoaned the dead stereo, the unexpected discontinuation of music. Laughter erupted from down the hall where the darkness was almost complete. The party guests, unable to contain themselves in the excitement of the abrupt night, moved in waves in one direction, then another, guided only by the momentary hiss of a lit match, the glow of cigarettes, the few penlights that passed from hand to hand like batons.

And then, just as he least expected it, she was by his side. He recognized her profile in the darkness, her nose, her chin, the shape of her hips in the dress. Her voice was new to him. He’d never before heard her speak. I know you, she said, standing at his shoulder. He took her in, straining his eyes to see her more clearly. He remembered how in the bunker a few weeks earlier the darkness had obscured her, and how she’d arrived with the unexpected tide of light from the sergeant’s lamp. He could picture her face then, streaked with mud, a few scratch marks, her eyes frozen in fear, pupils wide, her mouth open, unsure whether even to take in a breath. He reminded himself that he had once held her, crying, in his arms. It gave him confidence to remember that, to tell himself that she had found solace this way.

She said, I wasn’t sure, at first, and then I thought maybe—I don’t know—that you wouldn’t want me to bother you.

The rain was heavy now, the drops splattering the floor near the window, open for the necessary breeze it allowed into the crowded room. He saw a fat raindrop land on her bare arm, another on her shoulder, and it was all he could do not to reach out and wipe them away. You’re getting wet, he said, leading her from the window. Lightning came and went; with every bolt she became temporarily visible, the opaque whiteness making her skin seem pale, almost translucent. Then she seemed to disappear altogether as his eyes adjusted to the dark wake of the vanished electricity. He was fascinated by her presence, he couldn’t say why. He had anticipated this meeting for weeks, guessing at where he might see her, and under what circumstances. He’d been careful how he asked after her, allowing himself to display no greater interest than he would in any new journalist he might see in the field, or at least not much more. He knew her name, who she worked for, a few places she had been recently. He looked at her now, wondering whether to tell her how he had sought her out, how her memory had dogged him. They had met in such honest isolation, both of them terrified, neither hiding nor able to hide anything about themselves. He had never admitted, nor would admit, to that kind of fear, certainly not to another journalist. But she’d been there, witnessed it, given him the gift of her trust as she clung to him in the bunker. Now she said I know you, and it seemed so right and appropriate a greeting. She did know him, had seen a part of him he did not allow himself to dwell upon; he had considered at that time the possibility that they would suffer a direct hit, that the bunker would disintegrate and take them with it, that he would die with her there. He’d thought of that very thing and he knew, too, that she had.

The lightning came and went once more, a kind of shutter through which they saw each other and then did not. When he was able to focus again he saw her blinking up at him, smiling. He had not seen her smile before and he drank it in, greedy for it. She was so alive, so vibrant before him. He had found her once more. That, in itself, seemed a miracle. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and twirl her.

I wasn’t sure whether to come over or not, she said.

I’m glad you did.

I used to see you on the news all the time. Before I arrived here, I mean.

He nodded, at first confused. She carried on talking now, listing some of the news reports she’d particularly admired, one of which he hadn’t done at all—it had been a colleague of his at the network—and at some point he realized that when she’d said I know you this is what she’d meant. That she’d seen him on television.

His stomach soured; the euphoria of a few seconds earlier drifted away. He felt himself receding, as though he had somehow been suddenly transported to the ceiling and was now looking down upon himself talking to this woman, a young and attractive woman who had no idea who he was except as he appeared on television when he did his best to sound as much as possible like Walter Cronkite. He wanted to rewind to that moment by the window, or even before when he followed her around the crowded rooms. He found himself shaking his head slowly, unintentionally back and forth. She had no idea who he was. Whatever he thought of their meeting in Con Thien, it held nothing for her. She seemed to him suddenly just like any girl, like anyone else at the party. He watched her grow silent in front of him, aware perhaps that something inside him had shut down, that he was no longer listening.

I’m sorry, he said, his voice filled with disappointment, sounding overly contained, even robotic. I thought you were someone else.

The lights went on again and a great round of applause erupted from the party’s guests. He could see her plainly now, and though the storm continued to rage outside it no longer felt as if it were here in the room, even between them. The record went back on, so loud that the guests raised their voices to shout over the heavy beat. Some began dancing, colliding into those who stood with drinks and some who sat. She leaned toward him so that her mouth was just under his chin, her brow knit, and said in a clipped manner, Then I beg your pardon.

She turned and walked in one deliberate, fluid movement, leaving him unsure whether to follow or let her go. He was angry and he had no right to be angry. He wanted to call to her, even to argue with her, this stranger, a woman whom (he reminded himself now) he did not even know. Unable to get her attention in the din of the party noise, the blaring music, the waves of laughter that seemed to come from the corners of the room, he went after her once more. When he was close enough, he reached forward and touched her shoulder and she turned, her eyes fierce upon his. Now he saw her as he remembered her, the strength of her emotions connecting them. It comforted him somehow, to see her once more as strong and clear as she’d been those weeks ago, not hiding a thing about herself. She could hate him if she wanted; that was understandable. He’d humiliated her—he realized that—but it hadn’t been deliberate and he wanted to tell her so. Instead, what came out was altogether different, a plea from inside him that he hadn’t reckoned on. He said, You were in that bunker by the observation post. We sat across from one another. You don’t remember that?

She looked confused at first and he thought for one brief, dreadful moment that somehow he’d gotten the wrong girl altogether, that it was his mistake. It didn’t seem possible that the girl in the bunker was some other English girl. He knew her face, her eyes. But there was no point in carrying on. It had happened, finally, even inevitably: they had met again. Never in all his imaginings did the event have so little importance.

I’m sorry, he said. Never mind.

He looked down, trying to decide how best to navigate himself away, out of the room, the hall, the hotel. He thought he could go to the bureau, or somewhere.

Then she said, Con Thien?

He felt something between them relax. He looked up and saw her face, the awareness arriving like a slow-growing wave. She began to fidget, holding her elbow with one hand, pressing her fingers over her mouth. She looked at him newly, her eyes scanning his face, his chest, his hands. Finally she said, I remember that.

He hadn’t moved, was standing close, still holding her arm.