Sand in the Wind (69 page)

Kramer looked at his watch. It was late. ‘Maybe she won’t come.’ He didn’t try to tell himself it made no difference. Tomorrow he’d go back to the Arizona, and tonight he wanted to see her. During the past few days he had tried to convince himself that he merely wanted to fuck her; but now he admitted that he wanted more, and that if nothing else were possible, he at least wanted to talk to her. Again he looked at his watch. The bar would be closing in less than an hour. It seemed like his last chance to ever see her again, and he began to believe that he wouldn’t get that chance. He ordered a drink and downed it quickly, as much for its effect as to have something to do. His thoughts no longer made him feel ridiculous. It was important that he see her, he admitted this now. His glass was empty, and the Scotch began to dull his mind. He ordered another drink. When it came he let it rest on the bar while he moved his fingers up and down the outside of the wet glass. He now felt there was no chance of her being there tonight, if for no other reason than because it meant too much to him.

Again his thoughts drifted back to the only other thing he had been concerned about during the last few days. He tried to remember what had happened the morning before he stepped on the booby trap. He didn’t expect to remember the actual explosion, but he knew something had happened a good while before that. He tried to concentrate, to carefully recall all the events that led up to that blank spot in his memory. Forest had come over to tell him that the day before, while Second Platoon had been killing the Phantom Blooker, First Platoon had killed six NVA soldiers. He remembered Forest staring at him, waiting to be complimented. He also remembered Trippitt asking him who the Professor was. It was then. It was then that something happened. Someone shouted, he couldn’t remember what, and then it happened — not the booby trap. That was later. He was sure of it.

Kramer stared at his drink. The ice cubes were almost melted. He looked up across the bar. She wasn’t there. Again he glanced at his watch. It was late. The bar girls were almost finished cleaning up. There were four other Marines still in the bar. Three of them got up to leave, and Kramer watched them head towards the door. He didn’t want to be the only one left. A single Marine lay slouched over one of the tables in a drunken stupor. One of the bar girls began shaking him. Kramer looked towards the door in the back of the room. He had once seen Tuyen emerge from it, and he waited for it to open, thinking that it wouldn’t.

The bar girl was now helping the drunken Marine out the front door. Kramer noticed a dim wedge of light spread upon the floor and then disappear. It had come from the back room. He saw Tuyen walking towards the far end of the bar. She had seen him. He knew it. She stopped at the other end of the bar and glanced towards him, but gave no sign of recognition.

Kramer turned away and stared at the mottled and clouded mirror behind the bar. His reflection was little more than a shadow. He waited for her to walk over to him. A quick glance towards the end of the bar revealed her still standing there. He tightened his grip on the glass, hoping that it would shatter. ‘The bitch, the lousy fucking bitch. She won’t even look at me.’ He wanted to throw the glass at her, at the same time thinking, ‘Fuck the bitch! I’ll fuck the living shit out of her.’

He stared coldly at her. But his stare began to soften almost immediately. He had to admit to himself that she was as beautiful as he had remembered. There was no recognition in her face, only the same proud yet sad expression. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Even when he realized there was a slight smile on his face, he made no effort to hide it. Instead he silently moved his lips, saying, “Come here.” She waited a few seconds before walking towards him, her stare hardening as she did so, a stare that looked above and past him. Again he felt weak in her presence, but also warm. Looking down at his drink and with a childish grin on his face, he asked in a serious tone, “I’m David, remember?”

“I remember,” she said without expression.

Her tone in no way irritated him. He was glad merely to hear her voice. “I stepped on a booby trap so I could come and talk to you again.”

“You are a fool then.”

“Maybe
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
not stupid, but maybe a fool.” As he said this, Kramer noticed the last remaining bar girl walk to the door.

“You know we are closed?”

“I know. It’s much quieter now. I like it better when it’s quiet.”

“You must leave,” she said, no coldness in her tone.

“I thought maybe we could talk for a while.”

“We are strangers. There is nothing to talk about. I am Vietnamese. You are American.”

“Maybe if you were nice to me, I’d go away and never bother you again.” Something close to a smile appeared on her face as she asked, “You promise me this?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you buy me a drink also?” Kramer nodded and Tuyen indicated with a glance that he should move to a table in the back of the room. Kramer sat down at it while she turned out most of the lights and locked the door. She placed a bottle of Scotch and a glass in front of Kramer before sitting down across from him. “Where’s your glass?” he asked.

“I do not drink?”

“Oh, you’re a head?”

“Ahead?”

“A pot head.” She looked at him questioningly. “You smoke marijuana.”

“No. You smoke marijuana?”

“Sometimes.
  
.
 
.
 
. It makes you think too much.
  
.
 
.
 
. Should I have brought some?”

“I do not care.”

“Would you have smoked with me?”

“No,” she answered curtly.

“You don’t like people who smoke marijuana?”

“This is not true.
  
.
 
.
 
. I think you are smarter if you smoke marijuana.”

“Smarter?”

“I think it make you smarter.”

“Why don’t you smoke it then?”

“I do not need to be smarter.”

“Oh, but I need to be smarter.”

“You are an American.
  
.
 
.
 
. Is they who smoke marijuana.”

“I get the feeling sometimes you don’t like Americans.”

“No, I do not like Americans.”

“Who do you like, the French?”

“No, I do not like the French.
  
.
 
.
 
. They are better than the Americans, but I do not like them.”

“Who do you like?”

“I am Vietnamese.
  
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.
 
. I like Vietnamese people.”

“You said your family fled the Communists. They’re Vietnamese.”

“They are better than the Americans.”

Kramer knew no reason why she should think otherwise, but it irritated him a little to be told this by a South Vietnamese. “You don’t care if they win the war?”

Her expression became more sad than proud. “Is too long. Many people have die.”

“Many Americans too.”

“More Vietnamese have die.
  
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. My brother he is missing three years. His plane crash.
  
.
 
.
 
. They say he is dead.”

Kramer hesitated before saying, “Maybe he wanted the Americans here.”

“So now he is dead.
  
.
 
.
 
. Too many people have die. Many years they are fighting.
  
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. Someday they tell my son to fight too.”

These words were a shock to Kramer, but he suppressed it as he asked, “Your son?”

“Yes, he is in Hue.
  
.
 
.
 
. I never want him to fight.”

Again the sad beauty of her face left him numb. “His father?” Kramer asked, wanting to be told that he was dead.

“He also is dead, long ago.”

“The war?” he asked, now sorry he had heard what he had then wanted. She nodded. “You think he died for nothing?”

“They all die for nothing, too many people.”

“I know,” he said softly, but then added without conviction, “Maybe if it was my country I wouldn’t think so.”

“Is the same. They all die for nothing.”

“Maybe they didn’t think so.” She looked at him with a sad, questioning expression on her face. “Your husband and your brother.”

“My husband I think he knew he would die. He would not say is for nothing.”

“Even if he knew the Communists would win?”

Her eyes focused on Kramer for the first time. “My husband he was Viet Cong.”

A feeling of guilt sickened Kramer, and he wondered how she could even look at him, an American, without spitting in his face. He felt choked as he asked her, “Did the Americans kill him?”

She stared down at the table. “No, the South Vietnamese.”

Kramer felt as if he was torturing her, not even guessing that she actually wanted, needed to talk. He kept telling himself that he should leave, but he couldn’t. He wanted to be able to look at her, to hear her voice. “You must hate them very much.”

She shook her head. “I hate no one.
  
.
 
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. My brother, I love him also. He fight with the South Vietnamese.” The proud, superior expression had long since left her face; but her beauty stemmed from more than this, and she retained it. It seemed to Kramer that he was somehow the cause of all her suffering, and he wondered why she allowed him to make her relive it. He made up his mind to leave, the last thing he wanted to do. Just as he was about to stand, she began speaking again, and he knew that he must wait a little longer. “You see why my son must not fight?” He nodded, and she continued, “His father, he never saw him. He always ask me where is his father, and I tell him he will someday come home. One day someone come with a message for me, the first time in a year. My husband says he is coming home for the birthday of his son. He will be four. I think I will surprise my son, but then I have to tell him. He ask me if he can have his birthday now instead. I tell him no, he have to wait. We both wait. Two days before the birthday of my son, I go out to buy things. They are waiting when I come home. They ask me where is my husband. I tell them I do not know. They do not believe me, but they leave. I know they still watch. Someone tell them. I could do nothing. I wait. I know they wait also. I can do nothing. When is his birthday, my son ask me where is his father, and I am crying and he ask me why also. I cannot tell him. It get dark, and I take my son to his bed. He is crying because his father did not come. I wait, and I hope he will not come. Then I hear them shout, and the guns.
  
.
 
.
 
. I know is too late.”

As she had told Kramer this, she seemed always in control of herself, yet on the verge of tears. He wanted to reach out and touch her face, to make her stop. But he couldn’t. She was now looking down somberly at the table. Kramer had little desire to talk, but he was afraid she would leave him if he didn’t. “Is your son all you have left?”

She nodded, but then said, “No, my aunt, she take care of him.”

“They live in the house you told me about
 
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on the Square of the Four Dragons?” She nodded. “You must want to go back there very badly.” Again she nodded. “Why do you stay here?”

“For money.”

“Is money so important?”

“With money I can send my son away when he is older.”

“You were wealthy once, weren’t you?” Again Tuyen nodded. “Didn’t your father leave you any money?”

“They take it away. They say he stole it from the country.
  
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.
 
. Then they kill him.”

“Did he steal it?”

“I do not know.
  
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. It makes no difference. I love him very much.
  
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. When he die, I have enough to buy this, no more.”

“You could have gone to France, couldn’t you?”

“Maybe
 
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.
 
.
 
maybe I could have go, but I tell myself I cannot. Ahn, my husband, he is dead. I meet him at the Sorbonne. Our families they know each other, but I never have meet him before. Before I meet him, I want to go back to Vietnam. Soon I did not care. He take me everywhere in Paris, and we were very happy, more happy than I have ever been in my life. When we come to Vietnam, our families they let us be married. But soon there are many bad things. He says he must fight because the government is bad. I want to go back to Paris, but he say no. Two more times I see him, then no more.”

There was a few seconds silence before Kramer said, “The war can’t last forever.”

“Always I tell myself this, but I do not know. Sometimes I try to remember when there was no war, but is hard.”

“You can remember Paris, can’t you?”

A faint smile appeared on her face as she answered, “Yes, we were happy. At first I always wait for it to end, but soon I forget it will. Everything was so beautiful — the cafés, the flowers, the sky. Ahn, he knew it would end, but he too was happy.”

“Someday you’ll go back, and it’ll be beautiful again.”

Tuyen slowly shook her head. “No. It cannot be
 
.
 
.
 
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only when I think of it. Maybe this is why I do not want to go back. What I remember is mine. Is beautiful, and can not be taken from me. Maybe if I go back, I will see is no longer the same.
  
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. Hue will be the same. Is more beautiful. There I was often sad, but always it was beautiful.
  
.
 
.
 
. It will be the same.”