A Dangerous Friend (25 page)

He's not a spy, Sydney said.

If they knew he was a spy, they'd shoot him.

He's not, my word.

I'll let them know, Claude said.

You've spoken to the people who have him?

Not directly, Claude said.

Indirectly, then.

I get word, Claude said vaguely.

Sydney hesitated, then asked, Is it good for him? Is it better for him to be somebody or nobody? Does he have a better chance if he's somebody or if they think he's somebody? Do they know what a congressman is?

Maybe, Claude said.

And if they don't, someone could tell them.

Claude was toying with a rubber band, wrapping it around one finger and then another, drawing it tight like a bowstring, and holding. I don't know what they think, he said finally. I don't know how they think. It's one of the things I like about the Vietnamese, because they don't know me, either.

The poor bastard, Sydney said. He had a sudden image of Smalley curled in a bamboo cage, disarmed, exhausted, thirsty, feverish, frightened, near tears. He had always been the biggest boy in his class. His size protected him. Probably he had heard a lecture at Bragg, What to Do If You Are Captured. Lesson one: don't be. And when the laughter died down in the darkened auditorium, he gratefully fell asleep. They said he was a nice boy, just a big dumb blond. It wasn't likely that he would talk his way out of it, or make a marvelous escape.

Claude raised his eyebrows, continuing to toy with the rubber band, pulling it until his fingers stung; and then it snapped. He said, It isn't pleasant for him. And it'll only get worse. They have no facilities. They're—very young. They're inexperienced. They're nervous. They don't want to make a mistake because they know they're responsible if something goes wrong. Something goes wrong, and they're in as much trouble as Captain Smalley.

Sydney said, So they might execute him to have done with it.

Claude said, Might.

Sydney said, Why are you telling me this?

Claude did not reply for a moment. He was looking at his fingers, white where the rubber had made its noose. Dede had moved off the verandah and onto the lawn, out of earshot. He said, Perhaps there's something to be done. I don't know what it is but your Rostok might. If he's as clever as you say he is.

I'll tell you something, he said.

What you do with it is your business, so long as you leave us out of it.

Claude leaned close and confided that one of his workers had brought him a message. Captain Smalley was in the district. Local cadre were holding him until one of the headquarters commissars could take charge. Their radio was broken so they had sent a runner to Central Office in Tay Ninh. The local cadre were waiting for instructions and until then were keeping their American in one of the caves. But they're nervous and worried that they've done the wrong thing. And the American—and here Claude allowed himself a sympathetic smile—is not responding well to captivity.

Do you know where he is exactly?

No. They would never tell me that.

Can you find out?

I would never ask, Claude said.

Why did they tell you anything at all? What was the purpose of their message?

Claude sighed. They're out of their depth.

I'd say they are.

They're just local boys, Claude said. They don't want much. They want to be let alone, mostly. And for the Saigon administration to resign and the Americans to resign with them so they can set about building their socialist paradise. They think that once Uncle Ho is in charge everything will be fine and they can go back to their villages, their farms, and their girlfriends. Meanwhile, they have an American officer they don't know what to do with.

And they want your advice?

Not in so many words, Claude said.

But they sent you a message?

One of my workers brought me a message, Claude said.

So they trust you, Sydney said.

They don't think I'm their enemy. I have nothing against them. What is an enemy, anyway? Someone who has what you want or has taken what you think is rightfully yours. Or you see something in a man that reminds you of your worst self. I want nothing from them except their labor in return for wages. I suppose in the socialist paradise they will confiscate this plantation. But they'll still need someone to run it, and it makes no difference to me who I report to. That will be an affair between Hanoi and Paris. The work itself will not change. We are governed by the seasons, by temperature and rainfall. It's the same for farmers everywhere.

Sydney listened impatiently to this strange recital.

A few nights ago one of your bombs almost got them. It missed by a hundred meters. So they decided to move their bivouac. And they wanted me to know.

Sydney ignored the obvious question and said instead, You could tell them the Americans would make an arrangement. Ransom, if you like.

They don't take instructions from me, Claude said.

Still, Sydney said. Obviously you have some influence with them.

I have no influence. That I am not their enemy does not make me their friend.

They sent you a message, Sydney said. That counts for something.

That is what I think, Claude said abruptly. Take it for what it's worth. I believe that if it was up to them, they'd keep Captain Smalley for themselves. They'd like to make their own arrangements for Captain Smalley. But it isn't up to them. Once the commissar arrives from Tay Ninh, the captain is out of their supervision, probably on the trail north under escort. Either that or the commissar orders an execution. Captain Smalley disappears, fate unknown. Perhaps the commissar is angry that the captain was not killed on the spot because, believe me, at Central Office they know about the congressman, who he is and what he does, and his specific gravity in his own milieu. They would be calculating his propaganda value alive and his propaganda value dead; and that would depend on who is being propagandized. So it's logical that there's important radio traffic between Tay Ninh and the North. What do we do with this captain? It's probably a decision made at the top, maybe Giap personally, or even Ho.

Sydney nodded, wondering what the captain knew of this. Most likely nothing, but hoping all the same.

The commissars don't like our locals, Claude went on. Peasant boys always in need of reeducation, often too independent for their own good, and generally naive. Often politically unreliable. Our locals know who's in charge and don't like it. They're loyal southern boys and don't like being dictated to by the hard-faced northerners. They're proud of what they did a week ago. They took an infantry company out of action and they captured a captain, and not just any captain. And now they're waiting for instructions. Unless they already have their instructions and are carrying them out right now.

It's been ten days, Sydney said.

It takes them time, Claude said.

Will you talk to Rostok?

Out of the question, Claude said. He looked over Sydney's shoulder, out the window to the lawn and the plantation beyond.

What should I tell him, then?

Not much. As little as possible, since these events are unpredictable and he won't be in charge. When I know more, I'll get a message to you.

Claude, Sydney said patiently. That isn't helpful. Smalley may have only a day or two to live, maybe less. Whatever we can do, we must do. He opened his mouth to continue, then held back. He looked at the bright cover of
Paris-Match,
a radiant Princess Grace rising to mock him. He took a sip of cognac, the taste sweet and smoky, a man's drink for the end of the day. The coffee had gone cold and he was out of cigarettes. He wondered what Smalley would make of this afternoon, so controlled and civilized; a fine lunch, a rambling, intimate conversation, and binoculars for the birds. So you want me to keep this information to myself, Sydney said dully.

For the moment, Claude said.

We don't have a moment, Sydney objected.

You feel sorry for your big dumb blond, Claude said. You want to help him. But as it happens, so do I.
So do I,
he said again, fiercely, scowling suddenly. Then he was out of his chair and looking wildly out the window, tapping on it, muttering Oh merde. In a moment he was out the door and striding down the long green slope, Sydney in pursuit. Dede was nowhere in sight. Claude called loudly but she did not answer. They entered the plantation and at once were inside a watery green world. The light seemed to stop at the great overarching branches above them, the air almost viscous, redolent of raw latex and rotting vegetation. Claude hurried along the narrow path between the bare trunks of the rubber trees, leaping now and then to avoid fallen branches, and in minutes they were deep in the wilderness of the plantation, the house invisible behind them. Here and there were signs of occupation, footprints, a scrap of paper; empty tins, animal bones, a plastic sandal, a cold campfire. The sour odor of human sweat hung in the vast silence, along with the intimation of urgent conversations just ended. Sydney's shoes slipped on the slick path and when he steadied himself against the trunk of a tree he noticed the long diagonal cut, a vessel at the base to collect the creamy latex. He fell behind and when he halted, listening for Claude, all he could hear was his own breathing and the rustle of his clothes when he waved his arms to brush the mosquitoes away. The light was an unnerving milky gray, shadowless and without definition. He knew he was hopelessly lost in a place without landmarks. Sydney followed Claude's tracks farther into the symmetry of the plantation.

He was almost upon the Frenchman before he saw him standing at the edge of a clearing. His wife was kneeling before two gravestones. There were other gravestones round and about. The ones at Claude's feet were from the previous century, the names both French and Vietnamese. At the far end of the clearing were prayer flags, black lettering on white cloth, the cloth frayed and so thin you could see through it. Buddhists believe that the winds carry the prayers over the surface of the earth, consoling the dead and the living. In the flat light the graveyard had the aspect of a surreal painting, things out of place, the flags jittery, the latex vessels overflowing, Dede in white against the green earth, the gravestones standing straight as soldiers and overhead a late afternoon moon, pale as ashes.

When she rose, Sydney could see the dirt on the hem of her dress. She turned and looked directly at him but gave no sign of recognition; and then she bowed her head to say a final prayer to her children. Claude came up behind her and put his arm around her waist, saying a few words. She took his hand and gripped it, her head moving this way and that, as if she were not in control of her movements. She began to keen in a voice so thin it could not be heard twenty feet away. When a breath of air caught the prayer flags, she fell silent, watching them shudder, their skirts flaring, sighing some kind of fantastic language of the dead.

Sydney turned away, leaving them alone. He picked his way slowly back down the path. The sound of a helicopter in the distance brought him back to the task at hand. He thought about Smalley all the way to the Armands' house, in deep shadows when he arrived; and by the time he reached the main road, night had fallen and the moon was bright. His heart was cold and he wondered now if that was the cause of his bad conscience or the result of it.

P
ABLO GUTTERMAN
sat staring glumly at his Panama hat. The hat rested on the metal table next to the tall glass of lemonade that was sweating in the heat. It was nine in the morning on the all but empty terrace of the Continental Palace. The city struggled to life, the street filled with the racket of engines and exhaust fumes. From the river came the hollow-sounding horns of freighters maneuvering in the narrow channel. Cigarette girls were in place on the sidewalk across the street. Pablo's brother-in-law had complained that they were selling dope along with Chesterfields, and any day now they would be selling themselves. There were so many GIs in town spreading wickedness. Pablo nodded at something Sydney Parade said, then resumed his contemplation of the hat.

Sydney continued to explain. Even his explanations had explanations.

Perhaps it was time for a new hat, not that anyone sold genuine Panamas in Saigon; this model, bleached the color of clotted cream, was the one favored by Miami gangsters, and Orson Welles in the sunny summer scenes of
Citizen Kane.
Pablo raised his eyes to survey the street, damp from last evening's rain. You would think that rain would freshen the atmosphere, bring the tang of the sea inland where it would do some good, serve to remind the population of distant Asian horizons, meaning a sense of possibility. But it never did. The rain was a monotonous peninsular rain that did not even clear the dust from the city's sultry climate, blue with exhaustion. Pablo watched Mrs. Han, the pharmacist, open the door to her shop, step outside, and stare disapprovingly at the cigarette girls on the corner. Then she glared at the ashen sky. A low sheet of cloud moved west to east but at street level there was no breeze. More rain was on the way.

So that's the broad picture, Sydney said, pausing but briefly before he moved into another digression, a detail he'd forgotten, something about Claude Armand's loyal Vietnamese workforce and trouble with production quotas.

Mrs. Han disappeared into the interior of her shop, not before glancing at the terrace, raising her eyes fractionally at the sight of Pablo in conversation with the young American in blue jeans. Pablo gave a little nod of his head but she did not acknowledge it. Only the night before, his brother-in-law informed him that a shipment of pharmaceuticals had arrived in Cholon and was being sold on the black market. Penicillin was the most sought-after but it was also the most likely to be adulterated, fabricated in unsanitary conditions or simply bogus, sugar tablets in a counterfeit vial. People were likely to die unless the shipment was seized, and that was highly unlikely because—and here his brother-in-law named the wife of a general in the Ministry of Defense, owner of a successful trading company. Can you find out about it, Pablo? And let us know what you discover? We can give you the location of the warehouse, but the Americans will have to be responsible for the confiscation of the goods. Our own police can't be trusted. This is all the fault of the Americans. If they were not in our country, there would be no black market. So tell them they must do what is right. Pablo said what he always said, that he would do what he could. In this case, everything depended on how much the Americans valued the general's good will. Pablo looked at his watch, waiting for Sydney to finish.