Up Country Part 60

Susan and I walked silently down to the river where we did a leech check. She was clean, but I had a land leech on my back starting to bloat with blood.

I said to her, "Light up."

She lit a cigarette, and I instructed her to heat the leech's rear end without burning it or me. She put the cigarette close to the leech, and it backed off. She plucked it off my back and threw it away with a sound of disgust. She said, "You're bleeding."

She put a tissue on the leech bite and held it there until it stuck. We put our clothes on, and we sat on a rock by the riverbank.

She smoked, and I said, "I'll take a drag."

She handed me the cigarette, and I took a long pull, coughed, and gave her the cigarette. I said, "These aren't good for you."

"Who said they were?"

We sat there quietly and listened to the flowing water.

She finished her cigarette and asked, "How are you doing?"

"Okay." I thought a moment and said, "Men who've been here have worse stories than that to tell... and I've seen worse... but there's something about hand-to-hand. I can still smell that guy and see his face, and I can still feel his hair in my hand and the knife cutting into his throat..."

"Finish it."

"Yeah... well, afterward, I was sorry I killed him. He should have lived. You know, like a defeated warrior who's shown bravery."

"Do you think he would have let you live?"

"No, but I shouldn't have taken his head. An ear or a finger would have been enough."

She lit another cigarette and said to me, "That's not what's really bothering you."

I looked at her, and our eyes met.

We sat there, watching the river. Finally, I said, "I frightened myself."

She nodded.

"I mean... where did that come from?"

She threw her cigarette in the river. She said, "It came from a place you never need to go to again."

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel good about it... about taking the challenge and killing him."

She didn't reply.

I said, "But like a lot of traumatic events, I buried it very quickly, and by Day One in Nha Trang, it was the furthest thing from my mind. Except, now and then, it would pop back in my head."

She nodded and lit another cigarette.

I said, "Then after I got home, I started to think about it more... like, Why did I do that? No one was egging me on, except him, and there was no rational reason for me to throw down my rifle and try to kill this guy with my shovel while he's trying to hack me up with his machete. What the h.e.l.l was I thinking?"

"Sometimes, Paul, it's better to leave these things alone."

"I suppose... I mean, I've seen war psychosis, and I've seen guys in combat who lose all fear for some reason, and I've seen the most inhuman and brutal behavior you can possibly imagine from normal guys. I've seen skulls used as paperweights or candle holders on the desks of officers and sergeants, I've seen American soldiers with necklaces made out of teeth or dried ears or finger bones, and I can't tell you all the day-to-day atrocities I've seen on both sides... and it makes you wonder about who we are, and about yourself when you barely pay attention to it, and you really start wondering about yourself when you start partic.i.p.ating. It was like a cult of death... and you wanted to belong..."

Susan stared at the flowing river, the smoke rising from her cigarette.

"Most guys arrived here normal, and they were shocked and sickened by the behavior of the guys who'd been here awhile. Then within a few weeks, they'd stop being shocked, and within a few months, a lot of them joined the club of the crazies. And most of them, I think, went home and became normal again, though some didn't. But I never once saw anyone here who had gone around the bend ever return to normal while they were still here. It only got worse because in this environment they'd lost any sense of... humanity. Or, you could be nice and say they'd become desensitized. It was actually more frightening than sickening. A guy who'd sliced off the ear of a VC he'd killed that morning would be joking with the village kids and the old Mama-sans that afternoon, and handing out candy. I mean, they weren't evil or psychotic, we were normal, which is what really scared the h.e.l.l out of me."

I realized I'd gone from "they" to "we," which was the whole point; "they" became "we," and "we" became me. f.u.c.k Father Bennett, f.u.c.k St. Brigid's church, f.u.c.k Peggy Walsh, f.u.c.k the Act of Contrition, f.u.c.k the confessional booth, and f.u.c.k everything I'd ever learned in school and at home. Just like that. It took about three months. It would've taken less time, but November and December in the Bong Son were kind of quiet. After Tet, Khe Sanh, and the A Shau, I would have killed my own brother if he was wearing the wrong uniform; in fact, a lot of the Vietnamese did.

Susan was still staring at the river, motionless, as though she didn't want to make any abrupt movements while I was carrying my sharpened shovel.

I took a deep breath and said, "I don't mean to pretend that I was the chaplain's a.s.sistant. Far from it. We'd all gone crazy, but we all figured it was temporary and conditional. And if you're lucky, someday you go home. But unfortunately, you take it home with you, and it changes you forever because you went to that dark place in your soul, the place most people know exists but have never been to, but you've been there for a long time and didn't find it so terrible, nor do you feel an ounce of guilt, and that itself becomes the fear... and you go on with your life in the U.S.A., mingling again with normal people, laughing and joking, but carrying this thing inside you... this secret that Mom doesn't know, and your girlfriend can't guess at, except sometimes she knows something's wrong... and now and then, you run into one of your own, someone who was there, and you swap stupid stories about getting drunk and getting laid, and hot landing zones, and dumb officers who couldn't read a map, and the worst case of black clap you've ever had, and poor Billy or Bob who got greased, and this and that, but you never touch on things like those villagers who you blew away by accident, or not by accident, or about how many ears and heads you collected, or the time you cut someone's throat with a knife..."

Susan asked, "Was anyone... normal?"

I thought about that and said, "I'd like to say that there were men among us who... who held on to some degree of morality or humanity... but I really can't remember... I think maybe. A combat unit is self-selecting... you know, guys who couldn't handle it either never made it to the front, or were sent back. I remember guys who cracked very quickly and were sent to the rear to do menial jobs, and that was sort of a disgrace, but we got rid of them... and yes, there were men among us who held on to their religious or moral beliefs, but I think that in war, as in life, the good ones die young and die first..." I said to her, "That's the best answer I can give you."

She nodded.

I looked at the river, which I'd crossed so many years before with my own tribe, chasing the deer who led us into the dark rain forest to a darker place than we'd ever been before.

We re-crossed the river at the rock ford and started back to A Luoi. As we walked on the straight path through the ground mist and the farm fields, Susan said to me, "I feel that anything I say would be trivial or patronizing or stupidly sensitive. But let me say this, Paul-what happened here, to you and the others, was history, in both senses of the word. There was a war, you were in it, it's over."

"I know. I believe that."

"And if you're wondering, I don't feel any differently toward you."

I didn't reply, but I wanted to say, "You say that now. Think about it."

Susan took my hand and squeezed it. She said, "And there I am, having dinner on the roof of the Rex Hotel, bugging this total stranger about not wanting to talk about the war. Can I apologize for that?"

"No need. This whole trip has done me good. And if you weren't along, I might not have been as honest with myself as I'm being with you."

"I appreciate that."

I changed the subject and said, "Somewhere in this valley, in May of 1968, a North Vietnamese soldier named Tran Quan Lee was killed in battle. Found on his body was a letter from his brother, Tran Van Vinh, also a soldier in the North Vietnamese army."

I didn't elaborate and waited for her to respond. Finally, she asked, "And you found this body and letter?"

"No. Someone else did."

"And you saw this letter?"

"Yes, about a week ago. Do you know anything about this letter?"

She looked at me as we walked and said, "Paul, I'm not sure what you're getting at."

I stopped and she stopped. I looked at her. "Susan, do you know anything about this letter?"

She shook her head, thought a moment, then said, "This has something to do with why you're here."

"That's right."

"You mean... someone found a letter on the body of an enemy soldier... who found the letter?"

"An American soldier in the First Cavalry Division found the letter."

"You knew this man?"

"No. It was a big division. Twenty thousand men. This guy who found the letter kept it as a war souvenir, and recently the letter was translated, and what was in the letter is the reason I'm here."

She mulled that over, and I looked at her. I knew this woman by now, and I could tell she knew something and was trying to fit it in with what I'd said.

I asked her, "What "What did they tell you?" did they tell you?"

She looked at me and replied, "Only that some new information had come to light and that you had to find someone here and question that person about it."

"I told you that."

"I know. And that's all they told me in Saigon. Is this letter the new information?"

"It is."

"What does the letter say?"

"Well, what it says is one thing, what it means is something else. That's why I need to find and question the person who wrote the letter."

She nodded.

We continued on toward the village of A Luoi, about a hundred meters away across the flat terrain. It was irrelevant where and how Tran Quan Lee died, but it would be interesting to know. If I'd had time back in Was.h.i.+ngton, I'd have found and questioned Victor Ort, and maybe swap some A Shau Valley stories.

I was certain that Victor Ort had made a photocopy of the letter for himself, or had kept the original and sent the VVA the photocopy. In either case, Victor Ort had an original text that I could have had translated rather than relying on the altered translation I'd seen. But probably Karl sent someone to Ort's house and got the letter. Bottom line, Karl wasn't going to let me do any standard detective work on this case; he'd made certain I went off half in the dark to Saigon on a weekend, where Susan Weber did some smoke and mirrors until I was on the train to Nha Trang.

Also, I didn't see how that letter and Susan's statement about Cam Ranh Bay fit together, if indeed they did. That could be smoke and mirrors, too.

Susan asked me, "Do you have a copy of the letter?"

I replied, "You must have skipped a few cla.s.ses at Langley."

"Don't be sarcastic. I'm not a trained intelligence officer."

"Then what did they teach you there?"

"How to be useful. I a.s.sume your contact in Hue told you how to find... what's his name?"

"Tran Van Vinh. And yes, he did." I asked her, "Does that name mean anything to you?"

"No. Should it?"

"I suppose not." But I'd had another thought that Tran Van Vinh had become a high-ranking member of the Hanoi government, and somehow the true translation of this letter could be used to blackmail him into cooperating with the Americans on something, like maybe Cam Ranh Bay.

Mr. Vinh could actually live in Hanoi and be in Ban Hin only for the Tet holiday, which would make sense. But if he was going to be blackmailed, why did they want him dead? It was possible that Was.h.i.+ngton didn't want him dead, and just told me that as more bulls.h.i.+t so I couldn't figure this out. But if that were the case, why did Mr. Anh in Hue give me that message, which as far as I knew, were my final instructions from Was.h.i.+ngton?

It's very difficult to solve a case when all the evidence you have is written or verbal, and the written evidence is bogus, and the verbal stuff is lies.

The truth of the matter lay in the village of Ban Hin-formerly known as Tam Ki-in the person of Tran Van Vinh, a simple peasant and former soldier, who might well be neither of those things. In fact, he might be long dead, or about to be dead, or about to be bribed or blackmailed.

War, as I've said, has a stark simplicity and honesty to it, like trying to kill someone with a shovel. Intelligence work was, by its nature, a game of liar's poker, played with a marked deck and counterfeit money.

Susan said, "I'm sorry I can't help you with that letter. But I can help you find the guy who wrote it, and if he doesn't speak English I can give you an accurate translation of what he says to you, and you to him." She added, "I'm pretty good at winning the confidence of the Vietnamese."

"Not to mention h.o.r.n.y American males."

"That's easy." She added, "Trust me, or don't trust me. You're not going to find anyone better than me to help you."

I didn't reply.

We reached the outskirts of A Luoi, where an old woman was throwing rice to a flock of chickens in a bamboo enclosure behind her house. She looked at us in surprise, and our eyes met, and we both knew why I was here. This valley certainly wasn't an attraction for the average tourist.

We walked through a cl.u.s.ter of houses and back into the square. The RAV sat where we'd left it, and Mr. Loc was sitting under a thatched canopy in what looked like a primitive cafe or canteen filled with locals. He was drinking something by himself and smoking. Most Viets, I'd noticed, never sat alone and would strike up a conversation with anyone. But Mr. Loc gave off bad vibes, which the Viets in the canteen recognized, and they kept their distance from him.

Susan asked me, "Do you want to get something to eat or drink?"

"No. Let's head out."

She went to the canteen and spoke to Mr. Loc, then came back to where I was standing near the vehicle. "He'll be ready in a few minutes."

"Who's paying for this trip-him or me?"

"I don't think he likes you."

"He's a f.u.c.king cop. I can smell them a mile away."

"Then maybe he has the same thought about you." Susan asked me, "Do you want a picture here?"

"No."

"You'll never be back this way again."

"I hope not."

"Do you have pictures of when you were here last time?"

"I never once took my camera out of my backpack." I added, "I don't think anyone took a picture here, and if they did, the odds were that their family developed them when the deceased's personal effects were sent home."

She dropped the subject.

Mr. Loc finished whatever he was drinking and approached the vehicle.