"I told you-she was out." I was absurd to subject her to this passion for truth, an Occidental passion, lile the passion for alcohol. Because of the whisky I had drunk with Pyle, the effect of the opium-was lessened. I said, "I lied to you, Phuong. I have been ordered home."
She put the pipe down. "But you won't go?" "If I refused, what would we live on?" "I could come with you. I would like to see London." "It would be very uncomfortable for you if we were not married."
"But perhaps your wife will divorce you." "Perhaps."
"I will come with you anyway," she said. She meant it, but I could see in her eyes the long train of thought begin, as she lifted the pipe again and began to warm the pellet of opium. She said, "Are there skyscrapers in London?" and I loved her for the innocence of her question. She might lie from politeness, from fear, even for profit, but she would never have the cunning to keep her lie concealed. "No," I said, "you have to go to America for them." She gave me a quick look over the needle and registered her mistake. Then as she kneaded the opium she began to talk at random of what clothes she would wear in London, where we should live, of the Tube-trains she had read about in a novel, and the double-decker buses:* would we fly or go by sea? "And the Statue of Liberty . .
." she said. "No, Phuong, that's American too."
CHAPTER II
(1)
At least once a year the Caodaists hold a festival at the Holy See* in Tanyin,* which lies eighty kilometres to the north-west of Saigon, to celebrate such and such a year of Liberation, or of Conquest, or even a Buddhist, Confucian or Christian festival. Caodaism was always the favourite chapter of my briefing to visitors. Gaodaism, the invention of a Cochin* civil servant,* was a synthesis of the three religions. The Holy See was at Tanyin. A Pope and female car-dinals. Prophecy by planchette. Saint Victor Hugo.*
Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney*
fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in technicolour.* Newcomers were always delighted with the description. How could one explain the dreariness of the whole business: the private army of twenty-five thousand men, armed with mortars made out of the exhaust-pipes of old cars, allies of the French who turned neutral at the moment of danger? To these celebrations, which helped to keep the peasants quiet, the Pope invited members of the Government* (who would turn up if the Caodaists at the moment held office*), the Diplomatic Corps (who would send a few second secretaries with their wives or girls) and the French Commander-in-Chief, who would detail a two-star general* from an office job to represent him.
Along the route to Tanyin flowed a fast stream of staff and C. D. cars,* and on the more exposed sections of the road Foreign Legionaries threw out cover across the rice-fields. It was always a day of some anxiety for the French High Command and perhaps of a certain hope for the Gaodaists.for what could more painlessly emphasise their own loyalty than to have a few important guests shot out-side their territory?
Every kilometre a small mud watch-tower stood up above the flat fields like an exclamation-mark, and every ten kilometres there, was a larger fort manned by a platoon of Legionaries, MoroccansorSenegalese.Like the traffic into New York the cars kept one pace-and as with the traffic into New York you had a sense of controlled im-patience, watching the next car ahead and in the mirror the car behind. Everybody wanted to reach Tanyin, see the show and get back as quickly as possible: curfew was at seven. One passed out of the French-controlled ricefields into the ricefields of the Hoa-Haos and thence into the ricefields of the Caodaists, who were usually at war with the Hoa-Haos: only the flags changed on the watch-towers. Small naked boys sat on the buffaloes which waded genital-deep among the irrigated fields; where the gold harvest was ready the peasants in their hats like limpets winnowed the rice against little curved shelters of plaited bamboo. The cars drove rapidly by, belonging to another world. Now the churches of the Caodaists would catch the attention of strangers in every village; pale blue and pink plasterwork and a big eye of God* over the door. Flags increased: troops of peasants made their way along the road: we were approaching the Holy See. In the distance the sacred mountain stood like a green bowler hat above Tanyin-that was where General The held out, the dissident Chief of Staff who had recently declared his intention of Fighting both the French and the Vietminh. The Caodaists made no attempt to capture him, although he had kidnapped a cardinal, but it was rumoured that he had done it with the Pope's connivance.
It always seemed hotter in Tanyin than anywhere else in the Southern Delta;* perhaps it was the absence of water, perhaps it was the sense of interminable ceremonies which made one sweat vicariously, sweat for the troops standing to attention through the long speeches in a language they didn't understand, sweat for the Pope in his heavy chinoiserie* robes. Only the female cardinals in their white silk trousers chatting to the priests in sun-helmets gave an impression of coolness under the glare: you couldn't believe it would ever be seven o'clock and cocktail-time on the roof of the Majestic, with a wind from Saigon river.
After the parade I interviewed the Pope's deputy. I didn't expect to get anything out of him and I was right: it was a convention on both sides. I asked him about General The.
"A rash man," he said and dismissed the subject. He began his set speech,* forgetting that I had heard it two years before: it reminded me of my own gramophone records for newcomers: Caodaism was a religious synthesis. . . the best of all religions . . . missionaries had been despatched to Los Angeles ... the secrets of the Great Pyramid. He wore a long white soutane and he chain-smoked.* There was something cunning and corrupt about him: the word love' occurred often. I was certain he knew that all of us were there to laugh at his movement; our air of respect was as corrupt as his phoney hierarchy, but we were less cunning. Our hypocrisy gained us nothing-not even a reliable ally, while theirs had procured arms, supplies, even cash down.
"Thank you, your Eminence." I got up to go. He came with me to the door, scattering cigarette-ash. "God's blessing on your work," he said unctuously. "Re-rmember God loves th& truth." "Which truth?" I asked.
"In the Caodaist faith all truths are reconciled and truth is love." He had a large ring on his finger and, when he held out his hand I really think he expected me to kiss it, but I am not a diplomat.
Under the bleak vertical sunlight I saw Pyle: he was trying in vain to make his Buick start. Somehow, during the last two weeks, at the bar of the Continental, in the only good bookshop, in the rue Catinat, I had continually run inio Pyle.* The friendship which he had imposed from the
beginning he now emphasised more than ever. His sad eyes would inquire mutely after Phuong, while his lips expressed with even more fervour the strength of his affection and of his admiration-God save the mark-for me.
A Caodaist commandant stood beside the car talking rapidly. He stopped when I came up. I recognised him-he had been one of The's assistants before The took to the hills.
"Hullo, commandant," I said, "how's the General?" "Which general?" he asked with a,shy grin. "Surely in the 'Caodaist faith," I said, "all generals are reconciled."
"I can't make this car move, Thomas," Pyle said. "I will get a mechanic," the commandant said, and left us. "I interrupted you."
"Oh, it was nothing," Pyle said. "He wanted to know how much a Buick cost. These people are so friendly when you treat them right. The French don't seem to know how to handle them." "The French don't trust them."
Pyle said solemnly, "A man becomes trustworthy when you trust him." It sounded like a Caodaist maxim. I began to feel the air of Tanyin was too ethical for me to breathe.
"Have a drink," Pyle said. "There's nothing I'd like better."