The Man from Saigon

From Son comes a whining noise, like that of a dog, and when she hears it she realizes he has, indeed, been listening, noticing, that he has not been nearly so removed as he appeared all day. She feels his hand on her back through the thin material of the hammock, and with that touch she becomes calmer, more solid in herself. He rubs his palm in a short circular motion, then leaves it still for a long time. She cannot remember anything being so comforting. She’d like to reach to him, but dares not. It is the first time—the only time—he has touched her.

She met Son in a hospital in Pleiku about a week after her arrival in the country. He’d come in from the bush with a bunch of soldiers from the 4th Division, his lip cut, the blood all down his shirt, making the green cotton black. The lip looked awful, swollen so that he appeared to be pushing it out like a pouting child. It was the end of the day now and he was arguing with a nurse that he didn’t need any stitches, just give him a needle and thread; he’d do it himself. He claimed he’d stitched himself before in the field and it hadn’t even gotten infected. Please, he said as the nurse clasped his chin. Ah do it!

The nurse held his jaw in her hand, dabbing iodine on his face. Don’t move, Tarzan! she said.

Da nun show may! he said. He was a scrapper; he never stopped talking.

Why’re you moving so much? You want to split that lip worse? The nurse had her eye on his lip, squinting into it as though down a scope glass. She was angling his face for better light. On her smock was her name, Tracy Flower, sewn neatly in what might have been the same stitch being applied now to Son’s lip.

Da nuns! he tried again. Dey show may!

Nuns? Are you talking about nuns? I’m not a nun. Stop moving.

Tah so!

She let go his face and he cupped his hurt lip behind his palm to shield it. He saw Susan watching and pretended he had not. She could tell this by the way he moved away all at once, as though discovered. She’d seen him earlier while walking the lines of beds, trailing the triage nurse, passing through screens thin as kite silk that separated the living from dying, and again outside the muddy exit where the grim drums of gasoline lined up above their nests of fire. She had seen him and had felt instantly drawn to him, a feeling powerful enough that she had needed to remind herself it was invisible. It was as though he knew her, or wanted to know her, and she felt it that way, as a kind of invitation.

The nuns showed me how to sew, he said quickly before the nurse could grab him again. Susan realized now why he had got her attention. It was not the wound to the lip, not Son himself, but how he spoke during the temporary moment he had his jaw back. It wasn’t only that his English was good, though that in itself would cause her to take notice, but that the vowel sounds were British. That is what had seemed so oddly familiar to her. She knew the voice. She’d heard it that day at JUSPAO when she’d infuriated the lieutenant colonel by insisting he tell her what a WBLC was. Sampan, she remembered, and the voice of a young Vietnamese journalist who said, Can we have confirmation that a WBLC is a sampan, sir?

Son tried to smile now, but the lip prevented it. Susan smiled at him, but only for a moment. The nurse was giving him instructions again. She had a soft but commanding voice, reminding Susan of one of her father’s sisters, who had that same way of telling you what to do in the nicest fashion, but with an authority that meant you better do it.

Nuns? she was saying. Well, that’s just grand. Now keep still!

The nurse was as tall as he was. Her hair, pinned at her neck, had come loose from its clip and she blew it away from her eyes, still holding on to Son. He finally gave in, sighing into her palm, and stood quietly for the stitches. Susan could see the grit on his neck, the red mud smeared on his trousers, the caking of dirt around his fingernails. He was just in from the field and he’d sweated so much his hair rose straight up from his head as though the light were sending a current through him. He seemed to be trying to move away from the nurse and stand still at the same time, almost jogging in place. Finally, he gave up the struggle and stood without wincing as she put line after line of neat stitching across his mouth. In the middle of the procedure, in a gesture as casual as a wave, he held up a camera, angling it on to the concentrating nurse, and snapped several shots of her stitching his lip.

Who is that? Susan asked another nurse, someone she’d tagged herself on to, a woman named Donna who did not object to being followed around. Donna held two bottles of urine pinned under one arm and a third in her right hand. They didn’t have anything as useful as Foley bags but had to improvise even in this regard, using empty water or saline bottles to collect urine. The hospital operated out of little Quonset huts, corrugated-iron buildings, like pig arcs, maybe half a mile from the landing strip. Sometimes rockets intended for the airstrip hit the wards by mistake. They used to operate out of tents, held in place by sandbags, and the sandbags still lined the walls.

You’re still here? Donna said. She dried her palm against her thigh, pushed a swatch of heavy bangs from her forehead, and gave Susan an amused, slightly disapproving look. She wore a long smock with sleeves that she rolled as high as they would go on her arm. The smock was stained a rust color with damp patches beneath the arms. She nodded down at her bottles. You want a job?

Susan said, I really wanted to interview a surgeon, but I haven’t talked to one yet—

No, and you won’t, Donna said.

Then you’ll be stuck with me a little longer.

That’s okay. You on a deadline?

Susan told her yes, though this was not strictly true.

You can bunk with us. But really, I should make you do something! Donna moved with purpose, with the stamina of a plow horse. Everywhere she went in the ward she picked up one thing, deposited another; she carried rolls of bandages, ringers, drugs, sheets, plaster, splints, these items balanced across her chest or on her hip. You’re a nice girl, Susan, and we don’t mind you being here. But a reporter in a hospital! I mean, no offense, sweetheart, but really. Titties on a tomcat, you are.

They ran into Son in front of a supply room. What are you doing here? Donna said, and he slouched off, was herded off, in truth. Susan nodded at him, then looked at Donna, making a question with her hands.

Who knows? the nurse answered. Some gook with a hurt lip. Who gives a