A Dangerous Friend (16 page)

I understand. I offered the army clinic because it was closet; but she insisted.

It would have made no difference, Claude said.

Sydney nodded, afraid now of what he might hear.

The babies were stillborn.

Babies?

Yes, twins. A boy and a girl. Both dead. We had no idea there were two.

And your wife?

He paused before answering, and when he did his voice shook. They're not sure. They think she will be all right but they need to wait before they're sure. It's the way of doctors, isn't it? They always make you wait before they tell you something you don't want to hear. He slowly knocked his fists together while he looked at his muddy gumboots. She's under the anesthetic now.

I know she'll be fine.

There was an ocean of blood, Claude said. He looked skyward where two more helicopters were idling. I have never seen so much blood.

She told me that the hospital was excellent. Sydney thought to add, As good as anything in France.

It's an ordinary hospital, Claude said. But she knows the staff. She has confidence in them.

She told me you play tennis with the surgeon.

Claude smiled. She said that? It's true. He's a better doctor than he is a tennis player.

Well, Sydney said. They breed confidence in Chicago. It's one of their natural resources, along with money.

And at that, the Frenchman laughed. She has plenty of the first, not so much of the second. Her family did not care for it that she came to Vietnam with the embassy. And then when she married me ... He shrugged. Perhaps they had someone picked out for her. Do you suppose that was it?

Probably they thought Vietnam was dangerous. Or they were opposed to the war.

They liked the war, Claude said. They didn't like her in the war. They don't understand what she is doing with her life.

What does she say?

She laughs and says they are her family and are entitled to their opinions. Claude smiled at the monk, who continued to circumambulate the courtyard in six-inch steps.

Who is he? Sydney asked.

Claude replied that he was the monk injured in the explosion at the temple. They had rushed him at once to this hospital because they feared for his life in the Vietnamese hospital, where accidents had been known to occur. The American military hospitals were impractical. He is a bonze with many enemies, Claude said, some known, some not known. He was active in the demonstrations that caused annoyance. So they brought him here, where he would be safe. This hospital—and here the Frenchman paused fractionally—is neutral. It is like Switzerland in Europe. But he is not recovering as rapidly as they had hoped, so they are making arrangements to move him. There are many offers from overseas, eminent surgeons in eminent hospitals. But he thinks that if he leaves Vietnam he will die. Separated from his ancestors, his temple, and his prayer flags he is certain he will perish. They are trying to convince him otherwise.

Sydney was unsure exactly who "they" were—perhaps other members of his sect, perhaps political friends—but he asked no questions. He was surprised that Claude had divulged as much as he had.

I am sure that in America—

Yes, Moscow also. And Paris.

He must be a very important monk.

He is to them, Claude said.

Because he is political?

Because he is troublesome, Claude said. And independent. He organizes strikes. He publishes declarations that the government doesn't like. They try to silence him and he disappears into his temple. And when he believes the time is right, he reappears with his followers or with one of his declarations. Hanoi does not know his intentions so they withhold support, at least they withhold it publicly.

So he's a puzzle, Sydney said.

He is. And they all want a piece of him, Moscow, Washington, and Paris. But he is too shrewd for them. He remains in Vietnam. He represents a third way so he remains in Saigon, because to go abroad would be to declare gratitude to whichever government takes him in. He is stubborn and very sure of himself, though perhaps less stubborn and sure of himself since the bombing. He was badly hurt and not only in his body. In that way he reminds me of my wife, who insists on going places she should not go, her stake in the forest for the birds and the market for her Coca-Cola. I spoke to her about it many times. But as you say, they breed confidence in Chicago. And in Vietnam also.

Claude had been glancing in the direction of the French doors and now he excused himself, he wanted to make a final check with the doctors to see that his wife was resting comfortably. When he returned in thirty minutes he was wearing a fresh shirt.

Sydney proposed a rendezvous at the Continental Palace, with the world-famous terrace where everyone gathered for drinks and intrigue, but Claude Armand said no, the Continental was too crowded. There was too much politics at the Continental, where the walls had ears; the tables and floors, too. The drink would be on him at the Cercle Sportif, where no one ever talked politics. People came to the Cercle Sportif to forget about politics. They could sit in the bar and talk undisturbed because everyone would be at the swimming pool, even your ambassador. They tell me he comes every day for a swim in the afternoon, up and down the pool, six laps, no more. He always drinks a lemonade. Monotonous, don't you think? The ambassador is in the pool and the commanding general is on the tennis courts. Some war; no?

In the event, neither the ambassador nor the general was present. The tennis courts were occupied by athletic Americans in white, gray-haired staff officers from American military headquarters and diplomats from the embassy, sweating hard in the heat. Of course there were Germans and Belgians and Poles and Indians and Australians; but, really, it had become an American club. Budweiser had replaced "33" Export. The high-spirited crowd around the swimming pool was younger; teenage girls in bikinis and their boyfriends in tight trunks, showing off on the high dive or oiling themselves with Coppertone. The air was heavy with chlorine and frangipani. Under the blue canopy near the giant palm at the far end of the pool, four thirtyish women in sundresses played serious bridge. Claude explained that they were the wives of diplomats and journalists; the teenagers were locals, sons and daughters of Saigon merchants, government officials, and army officers. The boys had arranged deferments from the army and spent their days at the Cercle Sportif, dreaming of a visa to America.

Waiters in white shirts and dark trousers moved here and there with trays of lemonade and beer. Watching a waiter approach four teenagers at poolside, offering his tray, bending slightly at the waist with one hand behind his back, Sydney was reminded of afternoons at Abenaki. The boys took their drinks without looking up or pausing in their conversations, and the waiter strolled off to the tinkle of ice cubes and laughter—and it was then that Sydney noticed his frayed shirt and worn shoes, and the soldier leaning against the palm tree, smoking a cigarette and looking at the girls, his rifle slung carelessly over his shoulder, barrel down.

Security, Claude explained.

God, it's nice at the Cercle Sportif, Sydney replied.

And just then a girl in a coal-black bathing suit rose, yawning like a cat, stretching, her arms and heels rising as if she were reaching for a gymnast's high bar. She was lithe and beautifully built and when she stepped to the edge of the pool and dove, she entered the water like a knife, leaving no splash or wake. She swam the length of the pool underwater, undulating like a seal, and rose at the other end with feline languor; mission accomplished.

Yes, it is, Claude said.

Inside the cavernous clubhouse, they were ushered to wicker chairs by a barman who greeted Claude with a surprised smile and a little ironic bow. Apparently they had not seen each other for some time. They chattered in Vietnamese and Sydney knew without being told that the Frenchman was asking about the barman's family, the old people, the wife, the children. The barman shrugged, clucking, a comment Sydney interpreted as "the usual." Then Claude put his hand on the barman's arm and spoke to him softly, and from the shock on his face it was obvious Claude was speaking of his wife and their two dead children. In the end the barman only shook his head.

They were seated in the farthest corner of the room under a ceiling fan that turned with the patience of the second hand on a wristwatch. The barman brought them both a gin and tonic and retreated into the silent interior. They were alone in the quiet and coolness of the huge room. In the distance they could hear the thwack of tennis balls and high-pitched cries from the pool.

Sydney tipped his glass and said, Your wife's health.

Claude said, Yes, thank you, and they clicked glasses. He sat back and stretched his legs, relaxed as if he were in his own living room. With his sunburned complexion, his canvas trousers and gumboots, he looked like any planter in from the fields for a sundowner at the club.

I'm sorry about the babies.

Claude nodded, his face clouded and withdrawn. If you had not stepped in, it might have been much worse.

I thought she was wounded, Sydney said.

No, they wouldn't harm her.

Sydney took that in and decided not to pursue it; but he remembered the boy with the carbine who had nudged Dede Armand with his foot as you might an animal. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, and then he smiled, gesturing around the vacant room, its wicker and dark wood, ceramic ashtrays on the tables. It was as comfortable as a ship's saloon and as private; no way of knowing the time of day or the shape of things over the horizon or whether they were in Saigon or Darien.

So civilized, Sydney said. This must have been the way things were in the forties.

There was a war on then, too.

But Saigon wasn't involved.

Not in the obvious ways, Claude said. The old-timers have some grand stories from the period. Sydney waited for a grand story but Claude was silent. At last he said, Smuggling and the like. And most everyone acquired a taste for opium and gambling, though not at the same time. The Cercle Sportif was at the center of things, everyone came here for drinks and a game of cards or backgammon.

But not anymore, Sydney said.

No, not anymore.

So it's a sort of no man's land.

You might say that.

A neutral zone, Sydney said.

Not a neutral zone.

Of course, Sydney said. The Americans.

Claude smiled blandly and said it had been years since he had been inside the Cercle Sportif, although his wife had been a regular when she worked for the embassy. She came with one particular friend for a swim at the end of the day but things became impossible so she quit coming. When she married him, a resident Frenchman, conversation became awkward. There were always questions, how they lived, how the plantation operated and whether it made a profit, and aren't you frightened out there in the—what did they call it, a strange word?—doonblocks—

Boondocks, Sydney said.

Yes, what are they?

The provinces, Sydney said.

—and she got tired of answering the questions and so did I because the answers were no one's business. They wanted to know her routine, day by day, and she resented it. They wanted her to spy for them. The last time I was here, I had business with the ministry and stopped for a drink on the way back, two Americans introduced themselves as rubber brokers. They wanted to make a deal for my rubber. The price they were offering, I told them I harvested rubber not platinum, but they said they didn't care. They were interested in my operation and any information of a political nature that I might have. And if I happened to be aware of any military activity in my vicinity, why, the price would be increased. Of course they were people from your intelligence service, one of them my wife's friend. My God, so young. They couldn't have been more than a few years out of university. They wanted to give me ten thousand dollars as a down payment and I said no. And no again to twenty thousand. Then they said they could make things difficult for me and I said fine, go ahead. But I didn't like it. I walked out of the Cercle Sportif that day and haven't been back since. We have all had the same disagreeable experience with the Americans, who think this war is everyone's war and we owe it to you to collaborate, and when we decide not to, we're threatened with unspecified "difficulties," as if you owned the world and we had to pay rent to live in it. We're trying to get the rubber to market, that's all. We don't want anything to do with this other business. So we stay away from the Cercle Sportif. None of us come here anymore.

Sydney said, We?

Claude said, Planters.

How many are you?

Fewer every day. He rose stiffly and spoke to the barman. Then he used the telephone, leaning on the bar with his elbows, talking quietly into the receiver. The sun was lowering now, casting bright shafts of yellow light across the dark floor. There were no more sounds from the pool or the tennis courts but Sydney heard the growl of a jet overhead. Claude continued to talk on the telephone. The barman brought two fresh drinks and a bowl of nuts. On the margins of his vision, Sydney saw a figure in the doorway. He settled back in his chair; watching Rostok step into the sunlight and peer into the room. Rostok saw Claude Armand but paid no attention to him. Sydney, in the deep shadows at the far end of the room, sat motionless, his eyes cast down, willing himself invisibility. You have to remember that ordinary life goes on here, Rostok had said; and that was what this was, a routine drink at the end of the day. Rostok would be no help here, and Claude had had enough surprise for one day. Ros took a last exasperated look around, shading his eyes with the palm of one hand, and then he turned abruptly and left.

She's resting, Claude said when he returned.

Sydney nodded. He watched Rostok march down the path and disappear in the direction of the swimming pool.

They said they would call me if there was any change but you never know with them. They promised to keep a nurse in the room all night.