“Bloody lot of people leaving,” Jill said. “We’re getting possessive about our friends.”
“Nobody wants to be the last rat,” Converse said.
Ian ordered another “33” beer. He drank “33” unceasingly from about four in the afternoon until after midnight.
“Poor old last rat,” Ian said. “God help him.”
Jill took her beer along the bar and started a conversation in Vietnamese with a bar girl opposite her. The other girls, softened by curiosity, leaned together to listen.
“What’s she saying?” Converse asked.
“She’s telling them her troubles.” The girls across from Jill had turned toward Ian and Converse and were nodding sympathetically. “Later she’ll come back and want them to tell her their troubles. She’s writing a report on Saigon bar girls.”
“What for?”
“Oh, for the information of the civilized world,” Ian said. “Not that the civilized world gives fuck all.” They drank in silence for a while as Jill told her troubles to the bar girls.
“One thing,” Converse said, “this war is going to be well-documented. There’s more information available than there is shit loose to know about.”
An image came to Converse’s mind of the sheets of paper onto which the computers clacked out useful information for the conduct of the war. The prettiest were the ones which analyzed the loyalties and affiliations of country villages — these were known, with curious Shakespearean undertones, as Hamlet Evaluation Reports. The thought of Hamlet Evaluation Reports made Converse hungry. Each Friday the Vietnamese used them to wrap food in.
“Let’s eat,” he said. “Before it rains again.”
They went outside and walked down Tu Do toward the river. On the first corner they came to, the MPs had a soldier in fatigues up against the wall and were searching his many khaki pockets while a crowd of silent Saigonnais looked on. Converse bought Jill a marigold necklace from a sleepy child flower-seller on the edge of the crowd. The marigolds when they were fresh smelled wonderfully on hot nights; they reminded Converse of Charmian.
“O.K.,” Jill said. “The Guillaume Tell, the Tempura House or the floating restaurant?”
The floating restaurant would be too crowded, and Ian said that the chef at the Guillaume Tell had run away because someone had threatened to chop his hands off. They took the long way to the Tempura House, walking beside the lantern-lit barges on the riverfront. Mosquitoes hurried them on and reminded Converse of his fever. As they walked, they smoked Park Lane cigarettes, factory-packaged joints with glossy filters. “33” beer was supposed to be made with formaldehyde, Park Lane cigarettes were supposed to be rolled by lepers. The grass in them was not very good by Vietnamese standards, but if you smoked a whole one you got high. Little riverfront children ran up to them, fumbling at their arms to see their watches, calling after them — Bao chi, bao chi.
At the Tempura House they entered merrily, wafted on fumes of Park Lane, removed their shoes and settled down among the dapper Honda salesmen. Ian ordered more “33.”
“Ever see Charmian?” he asked Converse. “I just left her. She’s the same.”
“Somebody told me,” Jill Percy said, “that Charmian had a habit.” Converse essayed a smile. “Bullshit,” he said. “Or else that she was dealing. I can’t remember which.”
“You never know what Charmian’s into. But if she had a habit, I’d know about it.”
“You don’t see her so much now, do you?” Jill asked. Converse shook his head. “Charmian,” Ian said, “has a friend named Tho. He’s an Air Force colonel. In the cinnamon business.”
“You ought to look into Tho,” Jill told her husband. “He must be looming large around here if Charmian’s found him.”
“I don’t think Tho is coup material,” Converse said. “He has a very satisfied look.”
The waitress, who was at least partly Japanese, brought them a plate of red peppers. They rinsed their flushed faces with cool towels.
“Ever hear Charmian’s Washington stories?” Jill Percy asked. “She tells super Washington stories.”
“Charmian belongs to a vanished era in American history,” Converse said. “Not many people can claim that condition at the age of twenty-five.”
“Ghosts,” Ian said. “The country’s full of ghosts now.”
Jill Percy whisked a pepper from the dish with her chop sticks and consumed it without flinching. “You can hardly call Charmian a ghost. There are plenty of ghosts out here but they’re real ones.”
“Wherever you have a lot of unhappy people dying young,” Converse said, wiping his hands on the cool towel, “you’ll get a lot of ghosts.”
“We had a right bastard of a ghost down in our village,” Ian Percy said. “One of the sort they call Ma. He lived under a banyan tree and he came out during siesta to frighten the kiddies.”
“After the war,” Converse said, “they should fly over the Ia Drang valley dropping comic books and French dip sandwiches for all the GI Ma. It must be really a drag for them.”
Ian started another beer, ignoring the food before him.
“I’m not sure you’ve been around here long enough,” he told Converse, “to talk like that.” Converse rested his chopsticks on the side of his plate. “The way I see it, I get to say any fucking thing I want. I
had my ass on the line. I been to war.” He turned to Jill, who was frowning at Ian. “Ain’t I, Jill? I appeared on the field of battle.”
“I was there,” she said. “I saw you, sport.”
“We went to war, Jill and me,” Converse announced to Ian. “And what did we do, Jill?”
“We cried,” Jill said. “We cried,” Converse said, “that’s what we did. We wept tears of outraged human sensibility and we get to say any fucking thing we want.”
Both Jill and Converse had gone to see the invasion of Cambodia, and both had had experiences which had made them cry. But Converse’s tears had not been those of out raged human sensibility.
“You’re an entertaining fella,” Ian said. “But in general I object to your being around.”
Secure behind her porcelain smile, the waitress placed bowls of fish and rice before them. A party of American reporters came in, followed by four Filipino rock musicians with pachuco haircuts. The Honda salesmen and their Japanese girlfriends grew merrier as the sake flowed.
“I mean,” Ian said, “I love this country. It’s not the ass hole of the world to me. I grew old here, man. Now when I leave, all I’ll be able to think back on is bastards like you in places like this.”
“Sometimes,” Jill said, “you act like you invented the country.”
“They’re a pack of perves,” Ian said. “You’re a pack of perves. Why don’t you go watch some other place die? They’ve got corpses by the river-full in Bangla Desh. Why not go there?”
“It’s dry,” Converse said.
A Vietnamese soldier with dark glasses and a white cane had been led in from the street by a little boy of about eight; they moved from table to table selling copies of the Saigon Herald. The American reporters reclining at the table behind Converse were watching them.
“Listen,” one of the reporters was saying, “he can see as well as you can. The guy uses about six different kids. He rents them in the market.”
“Yeah?” another reporter said. “I think he’s blind.”
“He’s got fresh Arvin fatigues on every day,” the first reporter insisted. “You know why he’s got fresh Arvin fatigues? ‘Cause he’s in the Arvin. And even the Arvin don’t take blind people.”