The Ugly American (6 page)

They were listening intently. These men had lived long with the threat of violence and death just at their back. They could not be deceived by soft words. They would recognize the truth, even if it were hard.

"The first thing is that we must decide very surely and exactly what it is we want. Before we make the smallest move we must agree on that," Finian said. And then he asked them, with absolute openness, "What is it that we wish to do?"

There was an electric moment in the clearing, a thin tense shred of silence. About each of the men there was a tautness, an expectation that was almost palpable.

"Tell us what is to be done?" U Piu asked. He did not look up.

Finian knew that this was a critical moment, a point of balance. U Piu, he sensed, was testing him.

"It is not for me to say," Finian said flatly. "It is for all of us. It is your country, your souls, your lives. I will do what we agree upon."

Subtly, so subtly that it was beyond the capacity of the eye to tell what was happening, the line of men seemed to become straighter, more firm. Their backs went straighter, their hands stopped playing with twigs and pieces of dirt; they looked up at Finian. The tiny invisible things that make up a posture of decisiveness, Finian could not detect. He only knew that it had happened.

This was, he was sure, the first time that these men had ever been told by a white man that a big and important decision was entirely their own . . . and would be followed by the white man.

"The big thing? That is what we must name?" one of the men said softly, his mind revolving around the question. "The big thing we want is that all of our people become Catholics."

A few of the Burmans looked at Finian for his reaction, but his face was impassive. His pain had come back, but no expression crossed his face. He was taller and more clumsy than any of the Burmans, and he knew it was important that he crouch as they did.

"No, that is not the final big thing we want," U Tien said. He spoke slowly, reaching carefully for the right words. "I do not care if there are Buddhists or Anamists among us. Or if there are Methodists or Baptists, or even nonbelievers. Before the Communists came there were such people among us and they did not forbid me to worship the way I wanted or to raise my children in my faith. But the Communists have made all worship impossible except the worship of Stalin, Lenin, Mao. In the areas the Communists control everyone must believe in one
single
thing: Communism."

Again there was a moment of silence, as the men thought of what had been said.

"U Tien is right," one of the Burmans said. "I too am a Catholic, but I do not require that all of us be Catholics. What this means, I think, is that the thing we want is a country where any man can worship any god he wishes; where he can live the way his heart says. That, I think, is the final big thing."

There was some more discussion, some of it heated. Once or twice the Burmans looked at Finian, but he merely stared back at them. Finally they came to agreement and they fell silent . . . their silence indicating their agreement with U Tien.

"If you wish, I will sum up what you have said," Finian said. "The important thing, the big thing, is a country where any man may worship and live as he wishes." Then he added, humbly, "It is not my right to approve or disapprove, but I agree with you."

The Burmans' faces lighted, and the tiny wet clearing rang with laughter. U Piu, who was more exuberant than most Burmans, smacked his hands together with pleasure. Finian, for the first time in five weeks, was unaware of the sullen pain of dysentery.

"Now, the next step is harder, more difficult to think through," he said quietly. "It calls for great honesty and much information and much thought. It is this: Why do we not now have the freedom to worship or live as we please? Why is this?"

"Because the Communists do not permit it," one of the men said quickly, almost automatically. "They burn the churches; they beat men who follow the politics of U Nu; they ridicule confession and confirmation. The Communists deny us all freedoms."

"But why do Burmans believe what the Communists say?" Finian asked quietly. "Once the Communists were only a few. Now they are many and they control many areas. They are Burmans like you. It means nothing to say Communists deny us freedom. Why do we allow them to deny us the freedom?"

"Mostly because many of our people believe in what they say," U Piu answered.

"But
why?"
Finian asked stubbornly, and his posture made it clear he would not attempt the answers.

The argument became so heated that Finian could not always follow it. Several times one or more of the men were angry. One man, Toki, who was a withdrawn and silent man, stood up, walked over to a tree, and pulled off a branch in his hands as if the intensity of what he felt could only be dissipated through his fingers. But in all the wild, loud talk Finian could tell that there was a pride and a sharp sense of discovery. Finally the talk quieted. Then men looked at U Tien as if he were their spokesman.

"What we think . . . and the words may offend you, Father ... is three things," U Tien said slowly. "First, the Communists can deny us freedom because many Burmans have become Communists. Secondly, many Burmans have become Communists because they think that the Communists are against the white man . . . the Westerner. I apologize. Father, for saying this. It is hard, but most of us feel that the white man has not always been just. It is a hard thing, but it is true. Thirdly, many Burmans are for the Communists because they think the Communists will do good things for the people . . . for the peasants and cheap-pay workers. Give us land and more food and maybe automobiles and radios and chea' medicine. That, we agree, is why the Communists are al to deny us freedom to worship."

"That seems to me sound and true," Finian said, as if he were merely summing up their statement. "First, that what we want is freedom to worship and to live. Secondly, that we will not have that freedom again until many Burmans stop being Communists; and they will only escape when they realize that Communism is evil for all. I am sure in my own mind that the Communists care nothing about white men or brown men or black men, but only for power. But you must not take my word for any of this. Together we will look at the facts and see what we discover." He paused and his teeth came together sharply from the pain.

"Tomorrow, if you wish, we will meet again at the same time and will read together what the Communists say they want and how they go about getting it," Finian said. "We will read and find this from things that the Communists themselves write and from things they themselves do. Then, perhaps, we will have the truth and will know what we must do."

He stood up and the pain was suddenly so great that he felt he would faint. His face paled and the beads of sweat broke out on his face and rolled with a salt taste into his mouth.

U Tien made a movement toward him, a quick gesture of support, but Finian shook his head. He slowly shook hands with each of the men and thanked them for coming.

The next afternoon the Burmans were back. This time they were eager to talk, full of enthusiasm and words. They had thought since they left and they were, in a quiet way, desperate to communicate their views.

"Father, before we do anything we must have all the information that it is possible to have about the Communists in this area, I think," one of the Burmans said. "It is right to know what we want in a faraway day, but first we must know the difficulties that lie in the way."

Finian held back a smile of excitement. What the Burmans were proposing was exactly what Finian was going to propose as the third step: the gathering of intelligence.

The rest of the Burmans nodded agreement. Eagerly and in great detail they began to disclose the extent of local Communist power. They told of merchants who were secret Communists, revealed which students were leaders, and which democrats, who were propaganda carriers, where the arms were cached, the extent of guerilla warfare. They talked steadily for two days. They drew sketches in the ground, pointed out locations on maps. They were astonished at the extent of their knowledge and also somewhat frightened—for no single one among them had realized that the Communists were so powerful. There was no village which did not have a shadow apparatus of Communists, no Western organization which was not spied upon. In some villages the Communists dominated everything with a chilling ferocity. Elsewhere they merely propagandized endlessly on the two themes of the evil of the Western white man and the love of the Communists for the common people.

"Now we know all that we can possibly know of the Communists and we know it equally. Each of us is as informed as the rest," Finian said. "We are not like the Communists who carefully conceal information from their people. Now we must decide what can be done. What shall we do?"

The argument raged every afternoon for two weeks. Ideas, words, enthusiasm, anger, commitment, and excitement boiled in their meetings. And finally, painfully and chaotically, agreement came.

Many months later Finian summed up in his report what they had done. By then it was possible to see things more clearly.

"What we discovered," he wrote, "is that men are persuaded of things by the same process, whether the persuading is done by the Catholic Church, Lutherans, Communists, or democrats. A movement cannot be judged by its methods of persuasion for, short of violence, most successful movements use the same methods. What we discovered in our long discussions in the jungle were these things: