The Comedy is Finished (16 page)

All of which was said with as much sincerity as though it meant something. Koo, regretting having initiated this interview, impatient to get it done with, no longer even trying to hide his dislike, said, “Don’t gobbledygook at me, boy.”

“It’s not gobbledygook, sir. You see, the capitalist system—”

“And don’t talk to me about capitalist systems. America’s no capitalist system, America’s a
democracy
.”

“No, sir, I’m sorry, it isn’t.” The smile Koo had thought of as weak now returned to the boy’s face, and Koo saw that it was actually mocking. “What do you think we’re doing
here
?” the boy asked. “In Korea?”

“Resisting Communist aggression,” Koo snapped. Even while he was saying the words, he knew they were his own form of gobbledygook, stock phrases from government announcements or newspaper editorials, but he couldn’t help himself. “Coming to the assistance,” he went on, “of one of our partner nations in the free world.”

The smile was openly mocking now; or at least it seemed so to Koo. The boy said, “Mr. Davis, you’ve been in Korea a lot. Do
you
think this is a free country?”

Koo hadn’t thought about it at all, and he didn’t now. He was embarrassed at the banality of the things he’d just said, and he struggled toward another mode of argument, saying, “Son, all of Korea I’ve ever seen is Army bases and helicopters, but I can guarantee you this much: The people of South Korea are a hell
of a lot more free than the Communist slaves in
North
Korea.”

“But that isn’t true.” The boy’s smile had gone again, replaced by his earnest-and-sincere expression. “North Korea is a People’s Republic,” he said, solemnly, as though the words were magic. “The people rule themselves. In South Korea, there’s nothing but a puppet government set up by the Americans.
America
rules South Korea.”

Koo shook his head, frowning at the wrongness of this boy. He was caught up now simply in the argument, no longer trying to understand or make contact with the boy himself, but only to pursue the difference of opinion. (Another linkage; this was the first time in his life that Koo ever tried to enunciate his political assumptions. Everything
did
start there, a quarter century ago, in Korea, and nobody even noticed.) Speaking out of his own conviction, but choosing his words as a debater would, for their value in the argument rather than their usefulness in clarifying his thoughts, he said, “Son, you’ve turned everything upside down. The United States isn’t like that. We don’t run any country except our own. Look around you. Who controls every Communist nation in the world? Russia! They’ve just been filling your head with a lot of crap up there.” Then, still wanting somehow to champion the boy despite his unlikeableness, to rescue him if it was at all possible, Koo said, “They starved you, right? And they don’t let you sleep. Then, when they’ve got you worn down, they fill your mind with all this garbage.”

But the boy was suffering some sort of political equivalent of rapture of the deep; he didn’t want to be rescued, he wanted to drown. “Mr. Davis,” he said, with all his pale fervor, “it isn’t like that at all. We had classes, we learned things. We could ask all the questions we wanted. They showed us facts, history, things our own leaders had said.”

“That we run South Korea?”

“That the Western nations, Europe and America, only survive by exploiting the colonial nations.”

His irritation growing, Koo said, “This is utter crap. Let me put you straight, once and for all. America is a rich country, and you know why? Any kid in school can tell you this. One, we’re rich in raw materials, coal and oil and metal and wood and water and whatever we want. Two, we’re a goddamn bright people. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison—Americans
invented
America. What’ve these Koreans got? What did they ever do for themselves? America is the first and only absolutely free country in the world, even more than England and France and anybody, and all we’re interested in in the world is democracy and freedom. Do you think we fought the Second World War for
colonies
? What colonies? Americans are
idealistic
, son, that’s the only reason we’re here. For an ideal. For freedom.”

“I know you believe that, Mr. Davis—”

“Of
course
I believe it, because it’s true!
Every
American believes it, for the same reason. What’s the
matter
with you?”

“American aggression,” the boy said, calm, dogged, hearing nothing, pushing his own parroted lessons into every silence, “robs the Korean people of self-determination. It is the historical reality that the capitalist aggressor must always widen the area of—”

“Jesus
Christ
! Listen to yourself! Do you even know what those words
mean
?
”

“Yes, sir, I do. I’ll tell you what they mean, sir, every—”

“You will not,” Koo said, getting to his feet. “You already told me too much. And now I’ll tell
you
something, boy. You aren’t even a person anymore. I don’t know what you were before they captured you, but all you are now is some sort of stupid machine,
you just jabber these words and they don’t make any
sense
.” Koo had worked himself up, he was almost visualizing himself as America personified, facing down Communism personified in this pitiful boy, as James Cagney used to personify America facing down the Gestapo in World War Two movies; but that was too ridiculous, too melodramatic for the true situation, and Koo’s reaction to his own excess was immediate embarrassment, and a turning down of the rhetoric. “I hope you come out of it all right,” he said, grudgingly. “I hope you get back to your right mind.”

“I’m not crazy, Mr. Davis. I just know more than I used to, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well—” But Koo shrugged and shook his head, seeing it was hopeless. No rescue was possible, no human contact was possible; there was nothing to do but leave. “Good luck to you,” he said, curt and impersonal.

“Thank you, Mr. Davis.” Some pale green flame burned within the boy, gave him his sustenance, provided him with the solemnity for what he said next: “But I won’t need luck. I have Truth, and History, on my side.” The capital letters were clearly sounded, brave flourishes in his gray speech.

“Oh, yeah?” Koo’s jokes were rarely sour, but this one was: “Well, one of them’s picking your pocket,” he said, which was an exit line, on which he left, and later over dinner with Colonel Boomer he agreed that he too couldn’t understand a boy like that. “How does it happen?” The officers around the table shook their heads.

By morning, with the familiar but still exhausting routine of the next move and the farewell and the chopper flight and the next hello, Private Bramlett slipped out of Koo’s memory all but completely, and he hasn’t actually thought about the boy from that day till this. Now Koo wonders what did finally happen. Did he go to
jail? Did he smarten up, did he recover from his brainwashing? Where is he now, Private Bramlett, a man nearing fifty by this time; does he still believe the things he said to Koo all those years ago?

And does Koo still believe the things
he
said to Bramlett?

And
is
there a connection between Bramlett and this fellow Larry, droning away about his African tribes and his Power Elites? Does Bramlett, alone and weak and hopeless and incomprehensible, nevertheless lead to all the Larrys of the Vietnam anti-war movement, in their infuriating thousands?

There’s another pause in Larry’s monologue, the kind of pause in which Koo has been able to offer nothing more encouraging than a smile or a nod—hopeless conversational gaps—but this time he fills the silence with one word: “Korea.”

And Larry brightens like a proud mother when the baby says Mama. “That’s
right
! Korea’s a
perfect
example. You do begin to see it, don’t you?”

“I think I do,” Koo says. “Tell me, uh... Do you know somebody named Bramlett?”

Larry is confused. “Bramlett?”

“He’d be—I guess he’d be forty-five by now, something like that.”

“Who is he?”

“A boy I met in Korea. Defector.” Then Koo frowns, trying to think. “Is that what we called them then? Brainwashed. They went to the Other Side.”

“They were martyrs, Koo,” Larry tells him, with that po-faced earnestness of his. “They were martyrs to History and Truth.”

“Jesus.” The old punch lines are losing their zing. Koo feels a sudden nervousness, like a man stepping incautiously, suspecting too late that beneath these dead leaves quicksand waits. “Maybe you’re brainwashing
me
,” he said. “Get me weak, get me sick...”

“Koo,
we
didn’t get you sick,” Larry objects reasonably. “And I’m not lying to you. Everything I’ve told you is facts, you can verify them yourself, look them up, you’ll see—”

“Mark,” Koo says.

Larry bewilders often. “What?”

“I want Mark, I’ll talk to Mark.”

“You mean—you mean
Mark
?”

“Now he’s giving me doubletakes,” Koo mutters. “I’ll talk to Mark,” he repeats, with emphasis. “Nobody else. Not you, nobody, just Mark. The king of beasts himself.”

“Koo, I don’t understand. Why on earth would you—?”

But Koo has turned his face away, has clenched his jaw, is staring mulishly at the opposite wall. He has said he will talk to nobody but Mark, and he will talk to nobody but Mark. Period.

The silence stretches between them, Koo determined, Larry dumbfounded, until finally Larry says, tentatively, “Koo, Mark isn’t—Mark isn’t
pleasant
.”

You’re telling me
. But Koo remains silent, unmoving.

“Also,” Larry says, then stops, then starts again: “Also, Mark isn’t...well, he isn’t very strong on the dialectics. I mean, if you have questions, it’s more likely I could answer them. At least, I could try. Mark is more...pragmatic.”

Nevertheless, if there’s any kind of sense in all this, Koo is convinced that Mark is the one with the answers. Larry clearly doesn’t even know what the questions are. Koo will not budge.

And at last Larry gives up, getting to his feet, shrugging in wimpish resignation, saying, “But if that’s what you want—I just don’t think he’ll be very useful, Koo, but all right. And I tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you.”

Koo turns his head, watches Larry’s good-guy face, waits.

“You talk to Mark,” Larry says. “
Then
you talk to me again. But
instead of me telling you things, you ask questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them. All right?”

“Sure,” Koo says. Because it doesn’t matter what happens afterward, not if first he can talk to Mark.

“I’ll go get him.” But Larry still hesitates, frowning, and says, “What was that name you asked me about?”

“Bramlett.”

“And he was a Korean War defector.”

“Right.”

“Bramlett. What made you think of him?”

Koo struggles to a more comfortable position in the bed. His arms and legs feel like too-thick bread dough. “He was sick, too,” he says.

It was years since Peter had slept a normal eight-hour night. The tensions of his life never permitted him more than three or four hours’ sleep at a time, so that he usually had to supplement his night’s rest with one or two naps during the day; short uncomfortable naps in which he remained very close to the surface of consciousness, still aware of the world around him, and fully dressed except for his shoes.

Now, at the first noise from the living room, he flung aside the blanket, bounded off the bed, stepped quickly into his shoes and hurried down the hall to find Larry sprawled on the living room floor while Mark, fists clenched, loomed over him, and Joyce was just running in, screaming, from the deck. Larry too was screaming, hoarsely, both hands clutching the side of his neck; as Peter entered the room, Mark deliberately kicked Larry in the stomach, and Larry’s screams dissolved into agonized gurgling as he doubled over around the pain.

But Mark wasn’t finished. He was reaching for Larry’s head, apparently planning to drag him up by the hair, when Joyce got to him and grabbed at his arm, yelling
don’t-don’t-don’t!
Unthinking, Peter crossed the room and slapped Mark hard across the face.

Mark, as though insulted, stared at Peter over Joyce’s bobbing head. “Don’t you do that,” he said.

Peter glared back, trying not to show his uncertainty: “Are you calm now?”

“I’ve been calm all along,” Mark said, then looked down at Joyce,
still clutching at him like an exhausted marathon dancer. “Let go of me, Joyce.”

But she obviously couldn’t. She seemed too terrified to think; all she could do was go on clinging to Mark, panting, staring up at his face.

Mark looked beyond her again at Peter, saying, “Get her off me.”

Peter was troubled, cautious, watching Mark as though he were some dangerous dog whose chain had snapped. Reaching tentatively forward, he tugged at Joyce’s elbow, at the same time continuing to watch Mark’s face. “All right, Joyce,” he said. “All right.”

Joyce finally did release her grip, moving back with Peter but staring constantly at Mark, who stepped back a pace and glared at them in apparent outrage. Larry, both forearms pressed to his stomach, was sitting on the floor now, hunched forward, wheezing hoarsely in his throat. Pointing at him, Mark said, “I won’t have that sniveling moron pestering me.”

Larry was trying to talk through his wheezes, but couldn’t. Even in pain, in panic, on the floor, unable to breathe, Larry went right on talking. Incorrigible.

Peter said, “For God’s sake, Mark, what’s this all about?”

“I won’t be part of Larry’s plans,” Mark said; then, obscurely challenging, he added, “And I’m not sure I’ll be part of yours.”

“Take it easy,” Peter said. “We’re still one group.”

Marks lips twisted in scorn, but all he said was, “Keep them away from me, Peter. All I need is to be left alone.” And he turned away, crossing the living room in quick nervous paces, leaving the house, slamming the door behind himself.

Joyce had now dropped to her knees beside Larry, was murmuring and cooing at him, touching his hair and his shoulder and his arms. Peter, exhausted and raw-nerved, seated himself on the
edge of the nearest armchair, elbows on knees as he leaned forward and down toward Larry, trying to hide annoyance and uncertainty with an expression of concern as he said, “Larry, for God’s sake what was that all about?”