Up Country Part 12

The city was bustling because of the approaching Tet holidays, which to the Viets is like Christmas, New Year's Eve, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one, plus they all celebrate their birthdays on New Year's Day, and everyone is a year older, like thoroughbred horses, no matter when they were born.

The streets were jammed with vendors selling flowers, branches of peach and apricot buds, and miniature k.u.mquat trees. A lot of the vendors thought I needed these things for some reason, and they tried to entice me into buying fruit branches to carry around.

Some streets were crowded with stalls where vendors sold greeting cards saying Chuc Mung Nam Moi, and I thought about buying one for Karl and adding the words Phuc Yu.

The streets were also packed with cyclos, a uniquely Vietnamese form of transportation, a sort of bicycle with a one-seat pa.s.senger compartment up front. The driver pedals and steers from the rear, which is exciting. The cyclo drivers really wanted a Western fare, and they were bugging me to hop in and relax as they followed me through traffic and ma.s.ses of people.

There were also swarms of kids circling me like piranha, pulling on my arms and clothes, begging for a thousand dong. I kept saying, "Di di! Di di mau! Mau len!," and so forth. But my p.r.o.nunciation must have been bad because they acted like I was saying, "Come closer, children. Come bother the big My for dong." You could get people fatigue real fast here.

I found a street that I recalled from 1972, a narrow lane near the Cholan district, the city's Chinatown. This street was once lined with bars, brothels, and ma.s.sage parlors, but now it was quiet, and I guessed that all the nice girls had spent a little time in re-education camps, atoning for their sins, and now they were all real estate brokers. I'd been on this street as an MP, of course, not as a customer.

I took a few photos as I walked, but I'd determined that I wasn't being followed, so all this tourist stuff was kind of wasted, unless I got Karl to sit through five hours of slides back in Virginia.

I got my bearings and headed toward the Museum of American War Crimes, which Colonel Mang had urged me to visit.

Within fifteen minutes, I found the place on the grounds of a former French villa that had once housed, ironically, the United States Information Service during the war. I paid a buck and went into the compound, where a big, rusting American M-48 tank sat on the gra.s.s. It was quieter here, there were no beggars or hawkers, and I found myself actually happy to be at the Museum of American War Crimes.

I looked around at the displays, which were mostly photos housed in various stucco buildings, and it was all pretty depressing and sickening: photos of the My Lai ma.s.sacre, horribly mutilated women and children, deformed infants who were victims of Agent Orange, the famous photo of the naked girl running down the road burned by American napalm, the photo of the South Vietnamese officer blowing out the brains of a captured Viet Cong in Saigon during the '68 Offensive, a child sucking at the breast of his dead mother, and so on.

There was also a rogues gallery: Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, American generals including my division commander, John Tolson, and pro-war politicians, plus photos of anti-war protesters all over the world, and policemen and soldiers knocking college kids around, the Kent State shootings, and on and on. The captions in English didn't say much, but they didn't have to.

There were a lot of photos of the major American anti-war figures of the day: Senator John Kerry from my home state, who'd served in 'Nam at the same time I did in '68, Eugene McCarthy, Jane Fonda manning a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, and so forth.

There was also a display of American war medals sent to Hanoi by the recipients as a protest against the war.

I could hear the Sixties screaming in my head.

I found a particularly disturbing photographic collection with an accompanying text. The photos showed hundreds of men being lined up, shot by a firing squad, then getting the coup de grace with a pistol. But this wasn't another American or South Vietnamese war crime. The text explained that the victims were South Vietnamese soldiers, and pro-American hill tribespeople, the Montagnards, who'd continued the fight against the victorious Communists after the surrender of Saigon.

The text described the Montagnards as belonging to the FULRO, the Front Unitie de Lutte des Races Opprimees-the United Front for the Struggle of the Oppressed Races, a CIA-sponsored group of bandits and criminals, according to the caption. These photographs of the cold-blooded executions were supposed to serve as a lesson to anyone who had any thoughts about opposing the government. Actually, these photographs were not much different than the others showing American atrocities. The Hanoi government was obviously clueless about how these photographs would play to a Western audience. In fact, an American woman standing next to me seemed pale and shocked into silence.

As I looked at all this stuff, I wasn't sure what I felt. This was obviously an unbalanced presentation, omitting, for instance, the Communist ma.s.sacres at Hue, and the one at Quang Tri City that I saw with my own eyes.

I'd seen enough and went out into the sunlight.

The people around the museum were mostly American, and they were divided by generation; the older men, obviously veterans, were angry, and some of them were swearing about the "one-sided, propaganda bulls.h.i.+t," to use one overheard phrase. Some of the veterans were with wives and children, and they were a little quieter.

Well, enough fun for one afternoon. I walked toward the exit, and noticed souvenir stands selling pieces of army munitions, flower vases made out of sh.e.l.l casings, old American dog tags, and models of Huey helicopters made from sc.r.a.p aluminum, like works of origami. I saw old Zippo lighters, engraved with the names of their previous GI owners, along with mottoes, unit crests, and so forth. I spotted a lighter that was engraved with the same thing that mine was engraved with: Death is my business, and business has been good. Death is my business, and business has been good. I still owned the lighter, but I'd left it home. I still owned the lighter, but I'd left it home.

I went out through the gate onto Vo Van Tan Street and turned back toward the center of the city.

Now and then, out of the corner of my eye, and the corner of my mind, I'd see the remnants of the once proud ARVN-the Army of the Republic of Vietnam; middle-aged men who looked ancient, missing legs and arms, blind, lame, scarred, stooped and broken. Some begged from fixed spots in the shade. Some just sat and didn't bother to beg.

Now and then, one of them would notice me, and he'd call out, "Hey, you GI? Me ARVN!"

These were men of my own generation, my former allies, and I felt guilty ignoring them.

It was a short walk back to the Rex, and when I entered the lobby, the air-conditioning hit me like a Canadian cold front.

I inquired at the desk for my pa.s.sport, but no luck; no messages either. I got my key, went to the health club on the sixth floor, and scheduled a ma.s.sage. In the men's locker room, I undressed, got a towel, robe, and shower clogs, and took a shower, sweating Saigon out of my pores, but not out of my mind.

I lay on a tatami mat in a quiet room, easy listening music coming out of a speaker. An attendant brought me a cup of sake.

By sake number three, I was feeling a little buzz, and an instrumental of "Nights in White Satin" was coming out of the speakers, and it was 1972; I was puffing on a big, fat joint in a lady's apartment off Tu Do Street not far from here, and she was lying next to me wearing nothing more than a cannabis smile, and we pa.s.sed the joint back and forth, her long, black silky hair on my shoulder.

But then the lady began to fade, and it started to come to me that part of what I was feeling, being back here, was a sense of nostalgia for a time that was past; I was not young anymore, but I had been young once, in this place, which for me had been frozen in time. And as long as this place remained frozen in time, then so did my youth.

I must have drifted off because a guy was shaking me gently by the shoulder and saying I had a message, which turned out to be actually a ma.s.sage appointment.

A receptionist at the health club desk directed me to Room C. Inside Room C was a ma.s.sage table covered by a clean white sheet. I hung my robe, slipped off my shower clogs, and lay on the table, wearing my towel, stretching and yawning.

The door opened, and an attractive young woman wearing a short white skirt and sleeveless white blouse entered and smiled. "h.e.l.lo."

Without too much more conversation, she motioned me to turn over on my stomach, loosened my towel around my waist, and jumped up on the table with me.

She was really strong for a small woman and cracked every bone and joint in my body. She grabbed an overhead bar and walked on my back and b.u.t.t with her bare feet, kneading her toes into my muscles. I could get used to this.

There were mirrors on each of the walls, but this didn't seem too unusual, though I noticed that the young lady and I could look at one another in the mirrors, and she was smiling a lot.

Finally, she turned me over on my back and somehow I'd lost my towel. She was kneeling between my legs, and she pointed to a place she hadn't ma.s.saged yet. I had a feeling the s.h.i.+atsu part of the ma.s.sage was over.

She said, "Ten dollar-Okay?"

"Uhh..."

She smiled and nodded encouragingly. "Yes?"

Give this hotel another star.

Moral considerations aside, the words "s.e.xual entrapment" popped into my head. That's just what I needed-Colonel Mang coming through the door taking a video of me getting a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b in the ma.s.sage room of the Rex Hotel.

I sat up and found myself face-to-face with my new friend. I said, "Sorry, no can do."

She made a big pout with her lips. "Yes, yes."

"No, no. Gotta go." I slid off the table and slipped into my shower clogs.

Miss Ma.s.sage sat on the table and kept looking at me, pouting.

I took my robe from the hook and said, "Great ma.s.sage. Give you big tip. Biet?"

She was still pouting.

I put on my robe, left the ma.s.sage room, and went to the reception desk where I signed a hotel chit for the ten-dollar ma.s.sage, then added another ten for a tip. The reception lady smiled at me and inquired, "You feel good now?"

"Very good." I would have felt even better if I'd gotten the CID to pay for a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b.

Anyway, that little Southeast Asian interlude over, I went back to the locker room, got dressed, and left the health club, realizing that Colonel Mang wasn't part of that deal. I recalled that M never instructed James Bond to steer clear of s.e.xual entrapments. The Americans, on the other hand, especially the FBI, were very puritanical about s.e.x on the job. Maybe I should look into a foreign intelligence service for my next career. I mean, I was having so much fun already.

I went to my room, got a cold c.o.ke, and collapsed into an armchair. As I sipped my c.o.ke with my eyes closed, an image of Cynthia materialized. She seemed to be staring at me as if I'd done something wrong. I am basically monogamous, but there are times that try men's souls.

So, I sat there, deciding what I should wear to my seven o'clock rendezvous on the rooftop restaurant.

Then I noticed something. At the head of the bed near the pillow was the snow globe.

CHAPTER NINE.

I took the elevator up to the rooftop restaurant and exited into a large enclosed area that held a bar and c.o.c.ktail lounge. Mr. Conway hadn't been specific about where to meet my contact-the more unplanned it is, the more unplanned it will look. Right. But this was a big place, and through a gla.s.s wall, I could see a wide expanse of tables out on the roof itself. took the elevator up to the rooftop restaurant and exited into a large enclosed area that held a bar and c.o.c.ktail lounge. Mr. Conway hadn't been specific about where to meet my contact-the more unplanned it is, the more unplanned it will look. Right. But this was a big place, and through a gla.s.s wall, I could see a wide expanse of tables out on the roof itself.

I gave the bar and c.o.c.ktail lounge a once-over, then went out to the roof, and a maitre d' asked me in English if I was alone. I said I was, and he showed me to a small table. Service people all over the world address me in English before I even open my mouth. Maybe it's how I dress. Tonight I wore a blue blazer, a yellow golf s.h.i.+rt, khakis, and docksiders with no socks.

I looked around at the rooftop garden. There were enough potted plants to simulate a jungle, and I wondered how anyone was going to find me. The roof was paved in marble tiles, surrounded on three sides by a wrought iron railing, and the fourth side by the rooftop structure I'd just come out of. About half the tables were full, from what I could see, and the crowd looked divided about evenly between East and West. The men were dressed well, though no one wore a tie, and the ladies looked a bit overdressed in light evening gowns, mostly floor length. I hadn't seen much leg since I'd arrived, unless you count Miss Ma.s.sage. There was, however, one middle-aged American couple in shorts, T-s.h.i.+rts, and running shoes. The State Department should issue a dress code.

There were hurricane lamps on each table with lit candles, and colored paper lanterns were strung around the garden.

Toward the far end of the rooftop was a huge metal sculpture of a king's crown with the word Rex Rex in lights. Not a very socialist symbol. On either side of the crown stood a big sculpture of an elephant rearing up on its hind legs, and beneath the crown, a four-piece combo was starting to set up. in lights. Not a very socialist symbol. On either side of the crown stood a big sculpture of an elephant rearing up on its hind legs, and beneath the crown, a four-piece combo was starting to set up.

A waiter came by with a menu, but I told him I just wanted a beer. I inquired, "Do you have 333?"

"Yes, sir." And off he went.

I was glad they were still making Triple Three in the Socialist Republic-in Vietnamese, it's Ba Ba Ba, and it's a good luck number, like 777 in the West. I needed a little good luck.

The beer came in the bottle that I remembered, and I poured it into a gla.s.s, which I'd never done before. I noticed for the first time that the beer had a yellowish cast to it. Maybe that's why some of the guys used to call it Tiger p.i.s.s. I sipped it, but I couldn't recall the taste.

I looked out into the city. The sun was setting in the southwest and a nice breeze had come up. The lights of Saigon were coming on, and I saw that they stretched nearly to the horizon. Beyond the lights had been the war, sometimes close to Saigon, other times not so close, but always there.

The four-piece band started playing, and I could hear the mellow notes of "Stardust." There was a small dance floor near the band, and a few couples got up and tried to dance to this somnolent tune.

I don't know what I expected to find here, and I guess I was prepared for anything, but maybe I wasn't prepared for "Stardust" on the rooftop garden of the Rex Hotel. I tried to imagine the American generals and colonels and staff sitting here each night, and I wondered if they looked out to the horizon as they were dining. From this height, no matter how far off the war was, at night you could see the artillery and rockets in the distance, and maybe you could even see the tracer rounds and illumination flares. Certainly you could hear the thousand-pound bombs, unless the band was playing too loudly, and you surely couldn't miss the napalm strikes whose incandescent fire lit up the universe.

I sipped my beer, felt the breeze against my face, listened to the band, which had segued into "Moonlight Serenade," and I suddenly felt very out of place, like I shouldn't be here, like this was somehow disrespectful toward the men who had died out there in the black night. What was worse was that no one on this roof knew what I was feeling, and I wished Conway, or even Karl, was with me right then. I looked around to see if I was alone, then I spotted a guy my age with a woman, and I could tell by how they were talking and by how he looked that he had been here before.

I was halfway into my second beer, and the band was halfway into "Old Cape Cod"-how did they know these songs?-and it was twenty past the appointed hour, and still no contact. I fantasized about a waiter giving me a fax message saying, "The murderer has confessed-Tickets to Honolulu at the front desk." But what about my pa.s.sport?

While I was lost in my reverie, a young Caucasian woman had approached my table. She was dressed in a beige silk blouse, dark skirt, and sandals, and she was carrying an attache case, but no handbag. She seemed to be looking for someone, then came over to my table and asked me, "Are you Mr. Ellis?"

"No."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was supposed to meet a Mr. Earl E. Ellis here."

"You're welcome to join me until he arrives."

"Well... if you don't mind."

"Not at all." I stood and pulled a chair out for her. She sat.

She was about thirty, give or take a few years, with brown hair, which she wore long and straight, parted in the middle, like the Viet women. Her eyes, too, were brown and very big, and her face was lightly tanned, as you'd expect in this climate. She wore no jewelry, just a sensible plain watch, and almost no makeup, except a light pink lipstick, and no nail polish. Despite the Vietnamese hairstyle, she gave the impression of a business lady who you'd see in Was.h.i.+ngton, a lawyer or maybe a banker or stockbroker. The attache case reinforced the image. And did I mention that she was well built and pretty? Irrelevant, of course, but hard not to notice.

She placed her attache case on the empty chair, then reached her hand across the table and said, "Hi, I'm Susan Weber."

I took her hand, and thinking this was a James Bondian moment, I looked her in the eye and said, "Brenner. Paul Brenner." I thought I heard the band playing "Goldfinger."

"Thank you for letting me intrude. Are you waiting for someone?"

"I was. But let me buy you a drink while we both wait for our parties."

"Well... all right. I'll have a gin and tonic."

I signaled a waiter and ordered a gin and tonic and another beer.

Ms. Weber said something to the waiter in Vietnamese, and he smiled, bowed, and moved off.

I inquired, "You speak Vietnamese?"

"A little." She smiled. "How about you?"

"A little. Things like, 'Show me your ID card' and 'Put your hands up.' "

She smiled again, but didn't reply.

The drinks came, and she said, "I think they use real quinine. Something to do with malaria. I hate the malaria pills. They give me... well, the runs. I don't take them."

"You live here?"

"Yes. Almost three years now. I work for an American investment company. Are you here on business?"

"Tourism."

"Just arrived?"

"Last night. I'm staying here."

She raised her gla.s.s and said, "Welcome to Saigon, Mr.... ?"

"Brenner." We touched gla.s.ses.

Her accent, I noticed, had a touch of New England in it, and I asked her, "Where are you from?"

"I was born in Lenox-western Ma.s.sachusetts."

"I know where it is." Lenox was one of those picture-perfect postcard towns in the Berks.h.i.+re hills. I said, "I drove through Lenox once. Lots of big mansions."