A Dangerous Friend (29 page)

T
HE PHOTOGRAPH
that appeared on the front pages of the world's newspapers that Sunday became a morbid emblem of the early days of the war. Reading from left to right, Sydney Parade, Captain Smalley, and Dicky Rostok—Smalley towering over them both, his hands crossed abjectly in front of him, his head listing at a strange angle, his hollow eyes staring downward as if something there had caught his attention. Rostok had removed his bandages for the picture. Parade and Rostok were suitably solemn in the presence of one who had survived such an ordeal—and while the picture captions were tactful, even uplifting, most readers turned from the page in pity at the sight of the helpless giant between the two healthy nondescript civilians. He looked as if he were their prisoner.

The full story of the rescue of Captain Smalley was one of the small secrets of the war. On that, Rostok kept his word. Military headquarters disclosed no details, citing confidentiality of methods and sources. CAS similarly was silent. The bombing of Song Nu disappeared from all after-action reports. For a while there were tantalizing newspaper accounts purporting to describe the activities of the little-known Llewellyn Group, since it was assumed that Rostok and Parade had something to do with Smalley's liberation, a premise that Rostok did nothing to discourage but would not confirm, either. These stories were of the working-quietly-in-the-shadows-of-the-war-without-fanfare variety, and earned Rostok favorable notices where it counted at Highest Levels. Of course, without fresh details to animate his story, the hero captain vanished—only to be reborn some months later when the photographer won a prize. Where was he now? He was at Walter Reed Army Hospital, doing splendidly and improving each day. No, he was unavailable for interviews. He had been promoted to major. He had been awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. No, Major Smalley was not expected to return to active duty. His uncle, the congressman, said in a statement that his family still hoped for a full recovery.

One more related secret remained.

When Pablo Gutterman arrived home that night, his wife was not there. He was alarmed and waited nervously in their garden, listening for her footsteps, eating one mango after another. When she appeared at last she was distraught, her eyes damp with grieving. She said that the hamlets of Song Nu had been destroyed, with terrible loss of life. And the people there were blameless! VC had tortured the American and left him in the hamlet for the people to dispose of as they saw fit. They notified Monsieur Armand, who seems to have notified the American authorities. How could he do such a thing? What business was it of his? This was not his affair, but he should have left it alone. And now there was nothing left but rubble and a hill of dead. And now you are involved, Pablo. You share responsibility. They do not blame you alone. But they are very angry. There must be something you can do to settle your own account.

Armand was not involved, Pablo said, lying to his wife for the first time in their life together.

He
was
, she said. And this Parade—

Sydney wasn't involved, Pablo said, and then thought, Second time.

Who then? Who was responsible?

Rostok took charge of Smalley when I brought him out. The arrangement was that he would return Smalley to the authorities and that there would be no reprisals. But he called the military, and the military decided to bomb. Revenge for what was done to Smalley and the others who had been captured. Rostok broke his word.

You must have nothing more to do with Rostok, she said.

I know, he said.

You must promise me that.

You should have seen Smalley, Pablo said. He was pathetic.

I saw the hill of dead, she said. That was pathetic also.

Pablo left early the next morning in the Fiat. The sky was lowering again and rain was in the air. He thought of the many seasons he had lived in Saigon, the governments that had come and gone and the revolution that went on forever. He and his wife lived in a state of ambiguity, always knowing more than they could tell and never knowing quite enough. There were always mysteries, and boxes within boxes, all surrounded by rumor and innuendo. The level of violence was predictable and logical in its own way, and then VC practiced their black arts on Smalley and as a consequence a village disappeared. He found nothing to admire in this war, no principle worth a single human life. For years he had lived on the war's margins and knew now that an avalanche would sweep them all away. He only wanted to live normally with his wife in their bungalow in the suburbs. He had arranged a kind of disappearance for himself. On the weekends of the hottest months they traveled to her family's cottage in the mountains of Dalat. They fished. They played golf. They loved each other. Then the revolution came to Dalat; or perhaps it was always there and he hadn't noticed. After many seasons he found himself accepted, more or less; in any family there were seven circles of intimacy and he reckoned he was at the third or fourth circle. He and his brother-in-law were fast friends. Now there was a chance they would cast him out, and if that ever happened his marriage was ended. He did not know what he would do then. He could not imagine himself living in Vietnam without his wife and he could not imagine himself living in Florida under any circumstances; or anywhere in the vast and unencumbered United States. He was an expatriate, but that did not make him a colonial. He was an American who worked for Americans, but that did not make him an imperialist. He only wished to get on from day to day living normally.

Song Nu was important to his wife's family for reasons he only dimly understood. It would have something to do with his wife's cousin; perhaps there were other ancestors buried there. He would never know the full truth of it, because the deepest part would be inexplicable even to his wife. But he could see in her eyes that part of her own soul was lost when Song Nu vanished. Then he remembered poor Smalley; part of his soul had disappeared also. Pablo wondered if in some region of his mind Smalley thought he was going home to a fine Main Street parade. But no, the captain's mind was occupied by appalling shadows; there was no room in it for marching bands and a welcome by his uncle and a speech by the mayor, his mother so proud.

Pablo showed his pass at the gate and was escorted to the office on the third floor, the one where they double-checked ID at the locked and guarded door. His old friend the colonel was waiting for him with coffee.

Pablo related the events of the day before, omitting no names when he gave the source of the information. The colonel did not take notes, nor did he interrupt. Pablo described the walk in and the discovery of Smalley and the walk out. He described the guides and the empty hamlets. He said he saw no VC, which did not mean that they were not there, only that he had not seen them. He believed in his heart that they had evacuated Song Nu altogether; leaving Smalley as the object lesson. If this analysis was correct it meant that the bombing killed only civilians, the very civilians who had been trying to help. They were the ones who had sent the map to Claude Armand.

The colonel nodded, sighing. He looked out the window, then back at Pablo.

He said, We had to do something.

Why is that? You had Smalley.

You saw what they did to him. We couldn't let it pass unnoticed. Song Nu was what we had. Song Nu was a target of opportunity and we took it. And no one here suggested we refuse it.

And the mission was to destroy it.

Totally, the colonel said.

Once you had the information from Rostok—

The colonel gave a little wag of his head, affirmative.

He should have kept his mouth shut, Pablo said.

Well, he didn't. The colonel offered a little wintry smile and said there was an aftermath, amusing if the entire matter wasn't so grisly. Rostok wanted the undersecretary to be leading the reception committee but something—some sixth sense perhaps related to conscience—told him that was a bad idea and he told Rostok he'd pass. He'd stay where he was, at the ambassador's residence. Godspeed, he said.

Rostok can't be trusted.

You were outstanding, Pablo. Just outstanding. If you hadn't volunteered to go in, that boy would be there now, most likely dead.

Do you agree you owe me a favor?

I agree I owe you a favor, Pablo. The army does, too.

Pablo walked the colonel through the conversation he had had with his brother-in-law. He gave the precise location of the warehouse and the contraband inside. Then he identified the owner the enterprising Madame Vinh, whose husband was so prominent in the Ministry of Defense. Pablo suggested that a platoon of sappers could do to the warehouse what a wing of Phantoms had done to Song Nu.

The colonel said, Shit.

Too tough for you?

Tough enough. The general is an untouchable. That makes his wife an untouchable. Two untouchables and you want me to blow up her warehouse.

Good luck to you then, Pablo said, rising.

Pablo Gutterman resigned from Llewellyn Group the next week and went to work for one of the Texas construction companies surveying the port at Cam Ranh Bay. They needed translators and someone who knew the region and could talk convincingly to the Vietnamese military. Soon, however, everyone understood that Pablo was persona non grata at the Ministry of Defense, and in certain sections of the American command as well. He was let go after a month and went to work for one of the charter airlines, but that ended badly, too.

Six months after the bombing of Song Nu he found something with a Swiss agency involved with refugees. The Swiss complained constantly of the heat and the food, the corruption and bloody-mindedness of the Vietnamese, and the indifference and arrogance of the Americans. But they were serious about their work and allowed Pablo free rein in the countryside, where he spent most of his time. Eventually he dropped from sight.

Rostok hated to see him go.

Pablo got things done, Ros said. He was an asset. I don't mind admitting that I was hurt that he never even said goodbye. I wanted to give him a party, he and the frau. I know he held me responsible for the bombing. He never understood that things get complicated in wartime. Logic doesn't rule. It's a sort of whirl, Syd.

Sydney did not reply. He was watching a Taiwanese vessel motor slowly upriver in the direction of the main wharf, mindful of the German hospital ship tied up at the long quay in front of the Majestic Hotel. The river was not wide and on its far side the shacks amid the plain of reeds that went to the water's edge were clearly visible. A few months before a sniper had wounded a water-skier who had ventured too close to the reeds. Nurses leaned over the rail of the hospital ship, laughing and drinking Coca-Cola in the brutal heat of midday. The nurses were blonde and looked as if they belonged in dirndls. One of them waved at an officer on the deck of the Taiwanese freighter. He nodded and turned his back before he made the obscene gesture.

I walked in to work that Monday and he was gone, Rostok went on. His desk was cleaned out. He never said goodbye, never left a note. After that mess with the charter airline I heard he went to work for the Swiss, and that's just as well. He can't get into trouble with the Swiss. Pablo never had the heart for dirty work.

They were standing under the awning of the Majestic, having finished lunch at the rooftop restaurant. Sydney said, Let's walk to the wharf.

Now you, Rostok said. Just when you're learning the ropes, you're leaving. That's the trouble with the effort; the minute a man learns what's what, his tour's up and he heads home. And the joke is, what you learn here isn't transferable. It's specific to this time and this place. Our hard-won knowledge ain't fungible, Syd.

Sydney waved at one of the nurses and she waved back.

So now I'll be holding down the fort with George Whyte. That's not much firepower. Still, he's a pretty good man with the accounts. Not as good as Dicey Dacy but good enough. Wonder what the hell ever happened to Dacy, don't you?

I'm sorry about your dad, Rostok said after a moment. They were walking along the crowded street that bordered the river a warren of warehouses and rundown cafés, and here and there a tailor's. Rostok's Nungs followed at a respectful distance. Prostitutes in miniskirts loitered in the doorways but paid no attention to the American civilians, so obviously officials of one command or another out for an after-lunch stroll. The Taiwanese freighter moving upriver was searching for an anchorage out of sniper range of the shacks on the opposite shore. There were two other boats maneuvering in the channel and another tied up at the main wharf, the offloading about to begin.

You were close, Rostok said.

Yes, we were. We tried to stay in touch, but.

Isn't it awful, the way the time flies?

He was no better on his end. Difference was, I knew what he was up to and he had no idea what I was up to because I never explained. Too difficult. I'd write him a letter and the sentences fell apart. I was happier writing fairy tales to my daughter.

I'm sorry about the screw-up with the cable. They sent it to the consulate by mistake and it took them a while to locate you.

By the time I got word he was already in the ground. His wife didn't want to wait, and I can't say I blame her but I wish to hell she'd held off for a few days so I could have been with him. He didn't even know he was sick. They gave him a death warrant one day and he was dead three days later. Sydney opened his mouth to continue, then didn't. This was not Rostok's business. When he called his stepmother the next day she told him what she had omitted in the cable. Fred killed himself, she said in a voice filled with contempt. He went to his workshop, took one of his Brownings from the closet, and placed the barrels on his heart. He leaned into the barrels and just managed to trip the trigger with his thumb. That was his answer to the doctor's death sentence. I found the body, she went on, as he expected I would. I believe he wanted me to. He had a record on the phonograph and a square of walnut in his vise, and there was no note, so I have no idea what was going through his mind, except that he was determined that I find the body, which I did minutes after the explosion. Not a pretty sight, as you might imagine. Missy came for the funeral. Karla couldn't make it. I didn't know where you were. So we went ahead with our plans because there seemed no reason for delay. I will be selling the house, by the way, and moving to Florida. If there's anything of your father's that you want, you better make a list. The police have the shotgun.