He sat at his kitchen counter and opened the card. It had a picture of a wave on the outside, and Frye could readily imagine himself tubed in the thing. It looked African — Durban, he thought, or Cape St. Francis. Inside it said: “Thanks. You asked me on the beach what I wanted. I want a reason to believe in anything. Best — Cristobel.”
He sat on the patio with Stanley Smith’s manuscript in front of him. He checked his watch. Two hours until fight time at the Sherrington. I’ll explain to Mr. Mack that I can retract the article, print an apology, anything he wants. A man needs work. And I could use a press pass, a WATS line, and some movie passes.
He found his place in Li’s story and began reading.
Huong Lam, Lt. Frye and I began to meet once a week in the courtyard by the plantation. Often, Private Crawley would attend. Sometimes Tony, Lam’s liaison officer, would be present. The lieutenant always brought a notebook but rarely wrote anything in it. He always seemed pleased by my information. Sometimes it was specific, such as the names of Viet Cong leaders, the places they could be found, the exact location of new tunnel entrances, which were always being built. Sometimes all I had was a feeling that something was about to happen. More than once I was correct. I would sense from the nervousness of the fighters I entertained that something large was to happen.
At the end of our fourth meeting, while Lam was walking ahead of us to the jeep, Lt. Frye put a piece of paper from his notebook into my hand. When I read it later that night by my candle, it said: “Li — You are beautiful to me.”
I thought of him as I lay on my plank bed that night. I could see his eyes, blue as the feathers of a chai bird.
About this time, Lam began to make advances toward me. On our walks to meet the jeep, he would attempt to take my hand. He would often arrive at my hut before the scheduled time. He looked at me in certain ways. A woman knows. He brought me a bunch of lilies once and they were quite lovely, but I took them under a feeling of obligation. My feelings toward him were good, but not of love.
Soon, we began to bring food to our meetings. I would bring red yams, tender bamboo, and eggplant. Lam would always bring French champagne — two bottles — and he never would say where he got it. I know he spent a lot of money for it on the black market. It gave him pride to provide such a luxury. Lt. Frye brought fresh bread and often a meat of some kind I know was expensive. Then Lam started bringing three bottles. He saw this as a competition with Lt. Frye. We would spread a canvas tarp on the ground if the weather was good, and if it was raining we would go into the cottage.
Frye saw the three bottles of French champagne sitting on Li’s dressing room table. He wondered.
There was always a time when they would ask me to sing. I wrote songs for these occasions. They were the sentimental love songs that the Viet Cong no longer allowed me to perform. These songs, at the beginning, were written to no man in particular, but I could see they brought great pleasure to both Lam and the lieutenant. That brought me pleasure too. Sometimes I could see a very quiet but deep love pass between these men. They each seemed to be aware of the thin string from which life dangles in war. They were far apart in many ways, but the war, just as it tore so many apart, brought some together. I’ll always remember the way that, after we drank all our champagne one afternoon, Lt. Frye put his silver-wave necklace around Lam’s neck and hugged him. They were alike in one important way. Each man was silent and deep and would never tolerate even a tiny betrayal. They were like oceans. With Lt. Frye and Huong Lam, you were either an enemy or a friend. You either floated on their calm surface, or you sank under terrible waves.
Entertaining the Communists became easier. They responded well to me. The “theaters” were always makeshift and often underground. The caverns were small and poorly lit, and I was limited to three-minute songs so that the ventilation shafts could be opened in silence to give us air. Sometimes the sound of artillery or bombs would drown out the music. One time I remember the famous American, Bob Hope, was performing for the troops above ground, while I sang underground, not a half mile from him. There was great glee in the tunnels at this situation. But life was hard and dirty there, and my audiences could never applaud or sing with me. I resented being given material to sing, but the longer the war went on, the more I was forced to perform songs that would rally the Communists to victory. The good thing about being an entertainer was that I was moved from tunnel to tunnel, from camp to camp, from crater to crater to perform. I was always able to gather new information. I never worried that I would be found out, because by the time the Americans could take action on my intelligence, I was gone and not suspected.
One day Lam did not come to my hut. I set off alone through the jungle and came to the road to wait. When Lt. Frye came, he was alone, too. Private Crawley, he said, had another task at the base.
We went to the plantation courtyard and ate our food. Then the rain came and we ran inside. I sang over the rain and Lt. Frye lay on a cot and smoked. Then, for a long time, we talked of our families and our past, our hopes and our fears about the war. For the first time I saw a gentle spirit in the lieutenant that he never showed before. He touched my cheek and I wanted to run, but I knew there was no place to go. He seemed ashamed to have frightened me. We rode back to the turnout point very quietly.
Lam was waiting there when I got home. He was obviously drunk, leaning against my hut like a palm in monsoon. His eyes were fierce and heavy from the drink. He said he loved me. He accused me of terrible things I will not repeat. He grabbed my arms, and I hit him very hard. Finally he let go and stumbled off into the rain.
In the morning there was a bough of holly and some lilies outside my door. Lam had written a note that expressed his deep sorrow and apology for his behavior, and said he wished only to be forgiven. That day in the marketplace he stood while I spun cloth, and I told him I forgave him. He was happy and ashamed still, but he walked away with his head up and I felt good.
Even Lam had his woman problems, thought Frye. He could still taste Cristobel; still smell the faint dark perfume she wore; still feel her cool, hesitant fingers on the backs of his arms.
There’s so much inside her that wants to come out.
Skate over the silences. They’re hard as ice...
It was two months after our first meeting that things began to go wrong for Lt. Frye’s operations. First, he and his men were ambushed by Viet Cong in Hien Phu, which they believed was friendly. Later, when they had fought off the attack, they found several of the villagers dead nearby, and the rest they never found. How had the Viet Cong known they were coming? Then a tunnel entrance that I had told them about — a new one — was found just where it was supposed to be. It was booby-trapped, and one of Bennett’s men lost his eyes. Then a trip wire was found by Lam, who was walking the trail first. There were other incidents.
As we sat in the courtyard of the plantation one day, he told us that information was leaking from his men to the Viet Cong. Lam agreed. For a brief moment I felt Lt. Frye’s suspicion hover in the air around me like a silent bird. Then I saw Lam looking down to the ground, and I knew that he felt it too.
For two weeks nothing happened. Then, on a night patrol near the Michelin Plantation, Lam became lost and the men were ambushed again. Two of them died, and Lam became separated from the platoon. It was an hour later that he found them, still lost, and managed to lead them back to the base. Later, Lt. Frye told me that this was the point he became sure that Lam was the traitor.