Up Country (26 page)

Midnight came and midnight went. The band was playing the Doors now, and my grip on reality and chronology was slipping.

Now and then, when the band stopped for a few minutes, a loudspeaker would blast a cavalry charge, followed by Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

As far as theme bars went, this was right up there with Planet Hollywood.

Somewhere in the conversation, we got around to places to see and where we’d already gone. I said to them, “You’ve got to get out to the Cu Chi tunnels.”

“Yeah? What’s there?”

“These really big tunnels, the size of train tunnels, where the VC had hospitals, dormitories, supply rooms, kitchens. You go in with electric golf carts. It’s a great tour, and you can have lunch and cocktails in one of the VC dining halls. I think they have ladies silk shops in there, too. The wives will love it.” Why do I do things like this?

The guys made a note of it.

The four airmen came to a belated realization that my First Cavalry Division and the First Cavalry Division in the movie and the theme bar were one and the same, and this called for another round of beers and more war stories.

We ran out of ammunition, and one of the guys asked me, “Who’s the lady?”

“What lady?”

“The lady you’re with.”

“Oh . . . just somebody I met last night. She lives here.”

“Yeah. So she said. That’s some good-looking woman.”

I’m never sure what to say when someone says that, but I said, “Your wives are very attractive.”

They all agreed that their wives were wonderful and were saints to put
up with them. I agreed with this, too, but they wanted to get back to Susan. One guy asked me, “You on top of that?”

“We’re negotiating.”

They all got a big laugh out of that, and that in turn led them to the subject of hookers. We all got a little closer for this conversation, and one guy said, “We’re trying to get them to go shopping on their own.”

“The hookers?”

“No. The wives. All we need is a few hours, but they won’t go by themselves. The city scares them.”

“Get them a female English-speaking guide from the hotel.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. See, Phil? He agrees. Get them a guide, and we’re on our own.”

I recommended the Monkey Bar. “Wall-to-wall whores—don’t pay more than five bucks for the prostitutes, but the waitresses and barmaids can be had for a few bucks more. Then take the wives to Maxim’s for a late dinner.”

They hatched the plot right then and there and did high fives. I thought army guys were bad, but flyboys were worse. I remembered an old army joke and told it. I said, “What’s the difference between an air force pilot and a pig?”

“What?”

“A pig won’t stay up all night trying to fuck a pilot.”

They roared. Good one. Were we having fun, or what?

One o’clock came, and one o’clock went. I needed to take a leak, and I excused myself.

I found the men’s room in a passage that led to another crowded room in the back. When I got out of the men’s room, Susan was waiting for me. She said, “There’s a garden in the back. It’s quiet, and I need some fresh air.”

“Why don’t we leave?”

“We will. I just want to sit down a minute.”

Susan led me to an enclosed garden with little café tables that had candles on them. The garden was strung with paper lanterns, and it was quiet here, and the air smelled better.

We sat at an empty table, and I looked around at couples holding hands. I guess this was sort of like post-Apocalypse, where you went after you died or something.

I also noticed the smell of incense in the air, and the smell of cannabis burning. In fact, I saw little glowing fireflies dancing around the tables as the Js were passed, inhaled, and passed again. I had a sudden urge for a joint, something I hadn’t felt in twenty years.

Susan said to me, “You seemed to be having fun.”

“Good guys.”

“The wives were nice, too. They wanted to know if we were a couple.”

“Is that all women talk about? Sex, sex, sex.”

“We weren’t talking about sex. We were talking about men.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Do you want some tea?”

“What kind of tea?”

“Real tea. The other tea is BYO.”

She called over a waitress and ordered tea.

We sat there in the dark garden, and neither of us spoke. A pot of tea came with two little teacups, and I poured. I don’t even like tea.

We sipped the hot, flavorless tea for a while. I inhaled the steam, and my lungs started working again.

I was exhausted and even Susan yawned, but it was beyond the hour that would have mattered in regard to a good night’s sleep, so we sat there and sipped this horrible tea. After about ten minutes, I realized this was quite pleasant.

Finally, Susan said, “You know what would make me happy?”

“What?”

“If you went home tomorrow.”

For some reason, I told her, “It would make me happy if
you
went home.”

This was a somewhat intimate exchange between two people who hadn’t yet been intimate. I said, “You need to get out of here before something happens to you . . . I mean mentally.” I heard myself saying, “You’re worried about me, but I’m worried about you.”

She stared at the flickering candle for a long time, and I saw tears running down her face, which surprised me.

We were both a little drunk, and this moment wasn’t real, or even rational. With that in mind, I said softly, “When I was here . . . there was this story going around among the troops . . . the story of Gordon’s Kingdom. Gordon was supposed to be this Special Forces colonel, who went off into the jungle to organize a tribe of Montagnards to fight the VC,
but Gordon went around the bend, went native, and got really messed up in the head . . . you know the story. It was a version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but somehow the story got transferred to Vietnam . . . this apocalyptic story that they made into this movie . . . but apocalyptic or not, it was a warning . . . a fear that we all had, that we would stop wanting to go home, that we would get really messed up in the head, and we couldn’t go home anymore . . . Susan?”

She nodded and let the tears keep flowing.

I gave her my handkerchief, and we sat there, listening to the night insects, and the muffled sound of sexy Janis Joplin from the bar, punctuated by “Ride of the Valkyries.” I couldn’t even guess at what caused her to weep.

I held her hand, and we sat there awhile longer.

Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “Sorry.” She stood. “It’s time to go.”

We left Apocalypse Now and went out to the street. We got into a taxi, and I told the driver, “Dong Khoi.”

Susan shook her head. “We need to go to the Rex.” She said something to the driver, and he pulled away.

As the taxi moved through the streets, Susan said, “I get weepy when I drink too much. I’m okay now.”

I said, “You must have Irish blood. My whole family and all my Boston friends get drunk, sing Danny Boy, and cry.”

She laughed and blew her nose into my handkerchief.

Within a few minutes, we were at my hotel. Susan and I got out, and she said, “Let’s check that message and see if there’s anything else.”

“That’s okay. I’ll call you at home if there’s anything new.”

“Let’s check.”

So, we entered the hotel and went to the front desk. I got my room key and an envelope. The message inside, in barely readable English, said:
You to meet Colonel Mang at Immigration Police headquarters, 0800, Monday. You to bring all travel documents and to bring travel itinerary.

It would appear that I was going to get my visa and passport back in exchange for an itinerary. That’s what I would do if I were Colonel Mang. I had aroused his curiosity, and also pissed him off. He wanted me around.

Susan looked at the message, then got businesslike again and said, “I’ll see you here in the morning when you return from your appointment. I suggest you pack and check out before you leave to see Colonel Mang, and have
the hotel hold your bags in the lobby. You may not have a lot of time to spare. I’ll have tickets with me for something by the time I get here, or I’ll have the tickets delivered here. I’ll go with you to the train or bus station, or wherever you need to go. In any case, I’ll be here at nine, waiting.”

“If I’m later than noon, do not wait. Leave the tickets here and contact my firm.”

She took her cell phone out of her bag and gave it to me. She said, “I’ll call you from my apartment in the morning with some tips for your meeting, and I don’t trust the hotel phones.”

I asked, “Is your apartment phone secure?”

“It’s another cell phone. I have a landline, but that’s only for long distance.” She added, “Call me if you need anything, or if something comes up.” She looked at me and said, “Sorry if I kept you out too late.”

“I enjoyed my day. Thank you.”

She smiled, and we gave each other a friendly little hug and kiss on the cheek, and she turned and left the hotel.

I stood in the lobby another few minutes, waiting, I guess, to see if she came back, the way she’d done on the Rex roof. The door opened, but it was just the doorman, who said to me, “Lady in taxi. Okay.”

I walked to the elevators.

I
woke before dawn and took two aspirin and one malaria pill.

I’d decided to wear what I wore when I first met Colonel Mang: khaki slacks, blue blazer, and a blue button-down shirt. Cops like to see suspects in the same clothes each time—it’s a psychological thing, having to do with a cop’s negative knee-jerk response to people who change their appearance. This outfit would be fixed in Colonel Mang’s little brain, and with any luck, we’d never see each other again.

I put the snow globe in my overnight bag to give to Susan as a thank-you present. As I was making a final check of the room, Susan’s cell phone rang in my pocket. I answered it and said, “Weber residence.”

She laughed and said, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, except for the chay long rong parade outside my window, and the Ride of the Valkyries running through my head.”

“Same here. I’m a little hungover.” She added, “Sorry if I got weepy.”

“Don’t apologize.”

She got down to business. “Okay, any taxi knows where the Immigration Police headquarters is. It’s actually in the Ministry of Public Security. Give yourself fifteen minutes because of rush hour. Don’t hold your taxi—they don’t like to hang around that building.”

“Maybe Colonel Mang will offer me a ride back to the Rex.”

“He may actually do that if he wants to see some kind of ticket to Nha Trang. But most likely he’ll instruct you to report to the Nha Trang Immigration Police.”

“If he does come back to the Rex, make yourself scarce.”

“Let’s see how it plays.”

I asked her, “Are you glad you got involved with this?”

“Beats going to work. All right, I have an e-mail from my travel agent, and she’s working on transportation to Nha Trang. Leave my cell phone with the front desk, and I’ll pick it up when I get there.”

“Okay.”

“Now, regarding Colonel Mang—try not to piss him off. Tell him you saw the Cu Chi tunnels, and you’ve earned a new respect for the people’s anti-imperialist struggle.”

“Screw him.”

“When you get to the Ministry of Public Security, you want Section C—that’s the Immigration Police. Stay away from A and B, or we may never see you again.” She chuckled, but she wasn’t kidding.

She continued, “You’ll be directed to a waiting room, then you’ll be called, but not by name. It’s random, but old people go first in Vietnam, so you’ll be called first. You then go into another room, and the guy there asks what you want. He’s nasty. Most people are there because they’ve been stopped with an expired visa, or they need visa extensions, or work or residence permits. Low-level stuff.”

That didn’t explain why I was told to go there, but I didn’t point this out.

She continued, “You have an appointment, so ask the nasty guy for Colonel Mang. The word for colonel is dai-ta. You ask for Dai-ta Mang. Give the nasty guy something with your name on it.”

“They’ve got everything with my name on it.”

“Give them your driver’s license or your hotel bill or something. They’re supposed to speak foreign languages for their job, but they don’t, and they don’t want to look stupid. So make it easy for them.”

“You’ve been to this place?”

“Three times after I first got here. Then, somebody in my office told me to stop answering their summonses. So I did, and now they come to my office or my apartment every few months.”

“Why?”

“Paperwork, questions, and a tip. They call it a tip, like they just did me a service. Usually takes me about ten minutes and ten bucks to get rid of them. But don’t offer Colonel Mang any money. He’s a colonel, and maybe a pure and true Party member. You could get arrested for bribery, which is
the biggest joke in this country because you usually get arrested for non-bribery.”

“Right.”

“But if he
asks
for money, give it to him. The going rate to ransom your passport and visa is fifty bucks. Don’t ask for a receipt.”

I thought about this and about my conversation with Colonel Mang at the airport, and I was fairly certain that money was not what Colonel Mang was after.

She continued, “Some of these guys are nothing more than corrupt former South Vietnamese police who’ve managed to stay on the job with the Reds. But some of them are northerners, trained by the KGB, and they still have KGB heads. Also, the higher the rank, the less corrupt. Be careful with Colonel Mang.”

“Right.” And this raised the question of how I got lucky enough to meet Colonel Mang in the first place.

Susan asked me, “Did he seem old enough to have fought in the war?”

“He remembers the war quite well.”

She stayed silent for a few seconds, then said, “Maybe you can turn your shared experiences into something positive.”

“Yeah. Look, I’m not going there to bond with the guy—I just want my papers, and I want out of there.”

“But you don’t want him to kick you out of the country.”

“No, and he has no intention of doing that. I’m not going home today—I’m going to Nha Trang, or to jail—so be prepared to fax my firm either way.”

“I understand.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s about it. See you later.”

“Okay . . . look, Susan . . . if I don’t see you later . . . thanks—”

“See you later. ’Bye.”

I hung up, turned off the cell phone, and put it in my jacket pocket.

I gathered my bags and took them down to the lobby. I went to the front desk and saw that one of the clerks was Lan, the same woman who had checked me in. I gave her my room key and said, “Checking out.”

She played with her computer and said, “Ah, yes, Mr. Brenner. I check you in.”

“You did.”

“Did you enjoy your stay?”

“I really did. Saw the Cu Chi tunnels.”

Lan made a face and didn’t reply. As the bill printed out, she asked me, “Can we assist you in any way with your travel plans?”

“Yes, you can. I need to go now to the Immigration Police to get my passport. You remember all that.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“So, I’ll leave my luggage here and with luck—ba ba ba—I’ll be back shortly to collect it.”

Again, she nodded, then handed me my bill. She said, “Your room has been pre-paid. How would you like to settle the extra charges?”

I scanned my bill and felt I needed to explain that I hadn’t gotten a blow job in the spa, despite the big charge. But I replied instead, “I’ll settle it when I return with my passport and visa, and collect my luggage.”

Lan thought about that a moment and replied, “As you wish.”

It’s got to be tough running a four-star hotel in a totalitarian state. I mean, your guests disappear without a trace, the police come to search the rooms and upset the maids, and there are so many phone taps that you can’t make a dinner reservation without getting a cop on the line.

I gave Lan Susan’s cell phone and said, “A young lady, an American, will be along shortly to pick this up. Please see that she gets it.”

“Certainly.”

I took the snow globe out of my overnight bag and gave it to Lan. “Also, please give this to her and tell her I said thank you.”

Lan examined the snow globe, but didn’t comment on it. To a Vietnamese, it may have looked like a layer of rubble around a partially destroyed building.

Lan called over a bellboy, who gave me two receipts for my luggage and who got a dollar in return. Lan said to me, “Thank you for staying with us. The doorman will call a taxi for you.”

I went out to the sidewalk and a taxi appeared. I said to the doorman, “Tell the driver I need to go to police headquarters. Ministry of Public Security. Biet?”

The doorman hesitated for a beat, then said something to the taxi driver as I got in.

We pulled away from the curb and headed west on Le Loi Street.

We drove through a section of the city that looked as if it held every
cheap hotel and guest house in Saigon, and between the cheap lodgings were cheap eateries. The area was filled with young backpackers of all races and colors, boys and girls on a great adventure; a far different Vietnam experience than my own at that age, when I, too, carried a backpack.

The taxi turned into a street named Nguyen Trai, and continued on. I looked at my watch: It was five minutes to eight.

We pulled over and stopped near a three-story building of dirty yellow stucco, set back from the street behind a wall. The driver motioned to the building, and I paid him and got out. He sped off.

The structure was big and seemed to be part of a larger compound. There was a flagpole out front that flew a red flag with a yellow star.

There were two armed policemen at the open gate in the wall, but they didn’t challenge me as I passed through. I guess no one tries to break
into
this place.

I crossed the small forecourt and entered the building into a sparse lobby.

In front of me was a high, ornate wooden desk, like a judge’s bench, which looked very Western, like it had been left over from the French. A uniformed guy sat there, and I said to him, “Immigration Police.”

He stared at me awhile, then handed me a small square of green paper that had the letter C on it. He pointed to my left and said, “Go.”

So, off I went, thinking, “Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go.”

I walked down a wide corridor that had offices on either side, and through the window of an open office I could see a large interior courtyard. The Ministry of Public Security was obviously a big and important place with much work to do. I had no doubt that the courtyard was used for executions under the French, and maybe under the South Vietnamese, and the Communists.

I passed a few uniformed cops, and a lot of badly dressed bureaucratic types with attaché cases. They all eyed me, but the little green pass got me to the end of the corridor to a door marked C. Above the door was a sign that said
Phong Quan Ly Nguoi Nuoc Ngoai
. Nuoc, I know, means water, and Ngoai is foreign, according to Susan’s license plates—so this was either the ministry that imported foreign water, or it was the place where foreigners from overseas had to report. Betting on the latter, I walked through the open door and entered a medium-sized waiting room. The room held about two dozen plastic chairs and nothing else. There were no windows, only
louvers near the ceiling, and no fans. Also, there were no ashtrays, judging by the cigarette butts all over the tile floor.

Four of the chairs were occupied by young backpackers, with their packs on the floor. They were chatting with one another—three guys and a girl. They looked up at me, then went back to their conversation.

I took a seat. On one wall was a big poster showing a condom. The condom had a face, two feet, two arms, and was carrying a sword and a shield. Dangling from the sword was the word
AIDS
, and written on the condom was the word
OK
. Some comedian had written on the condom in English,
Vietnamese Fighting Meat Puppet Show—People’s Theater
.

On another wall was a poster of a Vietnamese woman and a Western gent embracing, and the words in English said
AIDS Can Kill You
.

On the far wall was a poster of Ho Chi Minh surrounded by happy peasants and workers, and next to that was a sign in English that said
Not to cause big disturbances and not with radio
. This enigmatic message was repeated in several languages, and I hoped that at least one of them made sense.

A few more people entered the room, mostly young people, but then a middle-aged Vietnamese couple entered, and I guessed they must be Viet-Kieus with a visa problem.

The young people were all chatting with one another in English, and with various accents ranging from American to Australian to several European-sounding accents. I heard the word “fuck” pronounced six different ways.

Also, from what I could overhear, most of these kids were looking for a visa extension, but some of them were looking for their visas and passports that had been officially stolen by the police. None of them seemed particularly concerned. The Viet couple, however, looked frightened, and also astounded at the backpackers who didn’t. Interesting.

It was ten after eight, and I decided to give it ten more minutes before I caused big disturbances not with radio.

A few minutes later, a guy in a khaki uniform entered the room and looked around. He saw me and motioned for me to come with him. It’s a pretty good deal being old in a Buddhist country.

I followed the guy out into the hallway, then into another room, an office, across the hall.

A uniformed officer in khakis with shoulder boards sat behind a desk, smoking. He said to me, “Who you? Why you here?”

This must be the nasty guy. I looked him in the eye and said in slow,
simple English, “I—” I tapped my chest, “here to see Dai-ta Mang.” I tapped my watch, “Appointment,” then gave him my hotel bill. I didn’t want to give him my driver’s license because these clowns had enough of my official identification, and I pictured myself out in the street with no ID, except my monogrammed handkerchief.

In any case, the guy seemed okay with the bill, which he examined for some seconds. He then looked at a sheet of paper and seemed to be trying to match names. His cigarette ash broke off and landed on my hotel bill. I looked around for a fire extinguisher, or an exit sign.