Up Country (69 page)

I looked around to see if the aisles were actually numbered, and she laughed at me. “Go find the tea section. I’ll find you there.”

I kept walking, then glanced back and saw Susan sitting cross-legged on a blanket, talking to some Montagnard women and handling some ladies wear while she smoked a cigarette; the salesladies smoked whatever was in their pipes. Maybe they were less pushy because they were stoned out of their minds.

I found the covered stall where tea leaves lay on the ground in wicker baskets. The vendors were mostly Montagnards of the same tribe, and they were brewing tea, so I got a bowl of hot tea for two hundred dong, about two cents, and sipped it. It was awful, but it was hot and I was cold.

This was a weird place, and I was sure that nearly all the Westerners were with organized groups. Only an idiot would come here alone.

Four soldiers with AK-47s came into the tea area, and they gave me the eye, then ordered bowls of tea.

They stood not ten feet from me, drinking tea, smoking, and talking softly. One of them kept glancing at me. Do I need this shit?

If it weren’t for the Colt .45 stuck in my belt, I wouldn’t be too concerned. Yet, when you’re carrying, and you’re not supposed to be carrying, the fucking gun seems to get bigger and bigger under your clothes, so that in your mind, it’s the size of an artillery piece.

The four soldiers finished before I did and walked away.

I stood there listening to my heart beat.

Susan appeared and put down a large plastic bag filled with brightly colored clothes. She ordered tea, sipped from the bowl, and said, “That feels good.”

“How’d you make out?”

“Pretty good. Ban Hin is about thirty kilometers north of here.”

“I know that. How do we get there?”

She said, “These Montagnards are all Tai and H’mong, and they live in the north hills and walk into Dien Bien Phu with their wares, or sometimes they take a pony, or the once-a-day bus, and the rich ones have scooters or motorcycles.”

“Is that a fact? How do we get to Ban Hin?”

“I’m getting to that. I found a lady who lives near Ban Hin.”

“Good. She draw you a map?”

“No. But I got directions. Problem is, she and her people use a lot of trails and shortcuts, so she wasn’t clear on the road route. Plus, I couldn’t understand half her Vietnamese. The Montagnards have a worse accent than the North Viets.”

“Go back and get the directions written out.”

“They’re illiterate, Paul.”

“Then get her to draw a map.”

“They don’t understand the concept of maps. Maps are abstract.”

“To you and her maybe. Not to me.”

“Take a break. I think I can follow her directions.”

I thought about all of this. Mr. Anh had been very clear about not asking an ethnic Vietnamese anything because they’d run off to the cops if they thought you were up to something. Montagnards were all right because they kept to themselves. But Mr. Anh failed to mention that they spoke differently,
took trails instead of roads, were illiterate, and had never seen a map in their lives. Minor problems, but Susan thought she knew the way to Ban Hin.

I asked her, “What did you tell her about why you wanted to go to Ban Hin?”

“I said I’d heard there was beautiful jewelry made there.” Susan added, “It’s a girl thing.”

I rolled my eyes, but I don’t do that well, and Susan missed it.

She said, “She mentioned that Ban Hin was a Vietnamese village, not Montagnard, as we probably knew, and that the Vietnamese made bad jewelry, plus she never heard of jewelry being made in Ban Hin.”

She finished her tea, then went around to other stalls and bought some bottled water, rice cakes, and bananas. I looked for a taco stand.

We left the market carrying plastic bags and walked toward the motel, a hundred meters up the dirt road. We went into Unit 7, packed our stuff in the BMW’s saddlebags, and I wheeled the bike out of the room and down to the reception office.

Inside, we checked out early, and got our passports and visas back. I hoped they hadn’t yet faxed copies to the Ministry of Public Security, but I wasn’t going to ask.

There was a guy behind the desk, and he asked me, “Where you go now?”

I replied, “Paris.”

Susan said to him, “We drive Hanoi.”

“Ah. Big water, Road 6. You go only Son La. You wait Son La. Two day, three day.”

I said, “Thanks for the traffic and weather, sport. See you next season.”

We left the office, and I said to Susan, “Am I to understand that Route 6 is blocked by floods or mud slides?”

“Sounds that way. Mr. Anh said this was common, but they usually get bulldozers and open it up in a day or so.”

“What the hell is wrong with this place?”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“Okay, how do we get to Hanoi from here if Route 6 is closed?”

“There is another route along the Red River. Goes right to Hanoi.”

“What if we have three people?”

She replied, “There’s a train along the Red River at a place called Lao Cai on the Chinese border, about two hundred kilometers north of here.”

“Okay, how do we get to Lao Cai with Tran Van Vinh?”

“Maybe by bus. Let’s worry about that after we get to Ban Hin and see how many people we need to get to Lao Cai. Also, the trains start running again tomorrow morning. It’s about 450 kilometers from Lao Cai to Hanoi, so we should make it in ten to twelve hours.” She looked at me and said, “In case I’m not with you, you know the way.”

I nodded.

She said, “If all else fails, find a Hanoi-bound logging truck. The only questions they ask is if you have ten bucks and if you’d like to buy some opium.”

“Did Mr. Anh tell you all this?”

“Yes, but we could have read it in the guidebook, if you hadn’t given it to Mr. Anh. When you give someone a signal object, you don’t use something you need. Use a bag of peanuts or something. Were you sleeping during that class?”

“I’m retired.” I asked her, “Why didn’t you get the book back when you saw him?”

“I didn’t know he had it.” She added, “Another amateur.”

“And you?”

“Investment banker.”

“Right.” We mounted up, and I pulled onto the road. I headed south, in case anyone was looking, and I was out of Dien Bien Phu in a few minutes. I pulled over near the hill where the tank sat. A sign informed me that this was Dominique. I wondered what happened to all the general’s ladies, and I wondered if any of them had ever come here to see their namesakes.

Susan got off the bike and opened a saddlebag. We put on the fur-lined leather caps and the goggles, and Susan took out two dark blue scarves she’d bought and said, “H’mong tribe.”

“I know that.”

She laughed. “You’re so full of shit.”

We wrapped the scarves around our necks and chins, and she said, “Unfortunately, the tribespeople here don’t know how to set dyes, and you’ll have blue dye on your face.” She showed me her hands, which indeed had blue dye on them. No one in Washington was going to believe this shit.

I studied the map for a few minutes, and I said to her, “Where’s Ban Hin?”

She pointed to a place on the map and said, “Someplace up here in the Na River Valley. It’s not marked, but I can find it.”

We looked at each other, and I said, “This is going to be okay.”

She got on the motorcycle, I twisted the throttle, and we sped off.

I found a dirt trail that ran through the rice paddies and, within a few minutes, we were on the road that ran past General de Castries’s command bunker. I also wondered what happened to him, and if he ever saw his seven mistresses again. If I had seven mistresses, I might decide to stay in a POW camp.

We drove through the vegetable fields, passed the rusting tanks and artillery pieces, and traveled north toward the hills and mountains we’d come out of last night, though by a different road, this one west of the one I’d taken to Dien Bien Phu.

I looked at my watch and saw it was not yet noon. This one-lane road was dirt, but dry, hard-packed, and smooth between the wheel ruts, so I was doing thirty KPH without too much trouble. In about an hour, unless we got lost, I’d be asking someone in Ban Hin if they knew a guy named Tran Van Vinh. I couldn’t even guess at the outcome of this day.

This road that was marked Route 12 on the map ran through the Na Valley, which was not even five hundred meters wide in most places. The river was small, but swift-flowing, and the road was actually a levee that ran along the side of the river.

The hills got higher and towered over the narrow valley, which was no more than a gorge in some places. Wherever the valley widened, there were flooded rice paddies and peasant huts on both sides of the dirt road. The few people we saw looked to be ethnic Vietnamese in traditional black silk pajamas and conical straw hats, working in the rice fields much as they did on the coastal plains, but very far from their ancestors.

The hills were over two thousand meters high now, and a constant headwind blew down from the north, through the tunnel-like valley, and Susan and I had to lean forward or get blown off the bike.

No one was working in the fields, and there was no traffic on the one-lane road. I remembered it was the last day of Tet, and people stayed home, including, I hoped, Tran Van Vinh. The Viets who had traveled to get to their ancestral homes wouldn’t be on the road again until tomorrow or the next day. It occurred to me, of course, that Tran Van Vinh might have an earlier ancestral village on the coast, and he may have gone there
for Tet. But if that was the case, I’d catch him on his way back to Ban Hin, though that would be pushing my time frame. I really wanted to be in Bangkok Sunday, or anywhere other than Vietnam. But I knew I’d stay until Mr. Vinh and I had a talk.

In the hills, I could see Montagnard longhouses clinging precariously to cleared ridgelines, and it struck me that two very different civilizations existed in the same space, but vertically to one another.

About an hour after we’d started, I saw on the odometer that we’d come thirty kilometers. “What do your directions say?”

“Ban Hin is right on this road.”

“It is? You made it sound complicated.”

“Sometimes you want to leave me behind, so I need to sound invaluable.”

I didn’t reply to that interesting statement, but said to her, “See that hut there? Go ask about Ban Hin.”

“We speak only to Montagnards. We haven’t come this far to blow it at the last minute.”

We continued on slowly, north on Route 12. About ten minutes later, coming toward us, were three young men, Montagnards, on their ponies.

I stopped the motorcycle and shut it off.

As the Montagnards approached, I could see that the ponies were sad-dleless, which they always were, and there were sacks of something tied over their backs.

Susan and I took off our scarves, hats, and goggles, and Susan dismounted and walked toward the riders. She greeted them with a wave, and they reined up, looking at her.

She spoke to them and they were nodding. They looked at me, who had been a Montagnard myself just two minutes ago, then looked back at Susan. Almost simultaneously, the three of them pointed back over their shoulders. So far, so good.

Susan seemed to be thanking them and was about to walk away when one of them reached into his sack and pulled out something, which he gave to her. She waved and walked back toward me.

The three riders overtook her and chatted again. They obviously liked what they saw. They came abreast of me and the motorcycle, and sort of saluted as they continued south.

Susan walked up to me and said, “They were nice. They gave me this
skin.” She held up a two-foot-long animal skin with black fur on it. She said, “I think it’s a wolverine. Unfortunately, it isn’t tanned and it smells.”

“It’s the thought that counts.” I said, “Get rid of it.”

“I’ll hold it awhile.”

“Where’s Ban Hin?”

“Up the road a piece.”

“How far?”

“Well . . . they apparently don’t measure in time or distance. They travel by landmarks, so it’s the big village after two small villages.”

“Good. Mount up.” I added, “You have blue dye on your face.”

She mounted up, and I started the engine and kicked the bike into gear. We continued on without our Montagnard accessories.

Within five minutes, we passed a small cluster of huts. Village One.

Five minutes later, we passed small Village Two.

Five or six minutes later, we approached a bigger village situated along the right side of the road. In front of the village were four stucco structures set back from the road, and I could tell that one was a modest pagoda, the other a clinic, and the third was a school. The fourth flew a red flag with a yellow star, and had a dark green military jeep parked in front of it. I knew this had been too easy. I stopped the bike.

Susan said, “This is Ban Hin.”

“And that’s a military jeep.”

“I know. What do you want to do?”

I said, “I haven’t come this far to turn around.”

“Me neither.”

I went quickly past the military post, then cut into the landscaped yard in front of the pagoda, and pulled the bike around to the rear, out of sight of the road and hopefully of the military building.

I shut off the engine, and we dismounted.

Susan said, “Okay, how do you want to ask if Tran Van Vinh is alive and at home?”

I replied, “We’re Canadian military historians, who speak some French. We’ll ask about some veterans of the Tet Offensive, then get down to the battle of Quang Tri. Wing it. You’re good at bullshitting people.”

We got our backpacks and cameras out of the saddlebags, and Susan went around to the entrance of the pagoda.

I followed her through the open doors, and there was no one inside. Tet
blossoms were stuck in ceramic urns, and there was a small shrine at the far end of the small, windowless structure, and joss sticks burned on the altar.

Susan went up to the altar, took a joss stick, and lit it, then threw a few dong in a bowl. Hey, whatever it takes.

She turned and joined me near the front door. She said, “Today is the last day of the Tet holiday, the fourth day of the Year of the Ox. We have arrived in Ban Hin. Let’s go find Tran Van Vinh, then let’s go home.”