“Do you want him to know where you’re going?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then make it up. This is not an efficient police state. You want to see another famous place?”
“Sure.”
“Are you having fun?”
“I have fun at this speed.”
She reached back and patted my knee. She said, “I’m going to get the beast later, and we’ll drive out toward the Michelin rubber plantation. I want to get out of the city. Okay?”
“Maybe I should stay close to the hotel in case this Commie colonel needs to see me.”
“It’s Sunday. He’s home reading the biography of Ho Chi Minh while his wife cooks the family dog.” She laughed.
I, too, laughed. I mean, you have to laugh.
For some guys, Susan Weber would be pure male fantasy. But I had this thought that Susan Weber was like the country she was living in: beautiful and exotic, seductive like a tropical breeze on a starry night. But somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the clicking of bamboo sticks getting closer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We went up Le Duan Street, a wide leafy boulevard, and Susan pulled over onto the sidewalk and pointed across the street. “Do you recognize that place?”
Beyond a high concrete wall with guard turrets was a massive stark-white building about six stories high; another Sixties-type structure of preformed bombproof concrete. It took me a few seconds to recognize the former American embassy.
Susan said, “I’ve seen that news footage of the Viet Cong breaking into the embassy during the Tet Offensive.”
I nodded. That was February 1968, the beginning of the end; the end itself came seven years later in 1975 when the embassy became the Fat Lady, singing the last aria in an overlong tragic opera.
I looked up at the roof and saw the smaller structure where the last Americans had left the city by helicopter on April 30, 1975, as the Communist troops approached. It was yet another of those famous or infamous video scenes that were emblematic of the whole sorry mess; the marine guards fighting with screaming and crying Vietnamese civilians and soldiers, who had overrun the compound and wanted to escape, the embassy staff trying to look cool as they made their way to the helicopters, embassy files burning in the courtyard, the city of Saigon in chaos, and the Ambassador carrying the folded American flag home.
I’d seen this on the TV news with a bunch of other soldiers, as I recalled, on a television in the NCO club at Fort Hadley, where I was still stationed. I recalled, too, that no one around me said much, but now and then someone would say softly, “Shit” or “Oh, my God.” One guy actually wept. I would have left the room, but I was mesmerized by the image of this real-life drama, and further fascinated by the fact that I’d actually been to the embassy a few times, which made what I was watching even more surreal than it looked to most people.
Susan broke into my time trip and said, “The building is used by the Vietnamese government oil company, but the American government is negotiating to get it back.”
“Why?”
“They want to level it. It’s a bad image.”
I didn’t reply.
“It’s American property. They may build a new consulate building there. But I think the Communists might want to make it another tourist attraction. Six bucks at least. Free to Vietnamese.”
Again, I didn’t reply.
Susan said, “The Americans are back, the people want them back, and the government is trying to figure out how to get their money without getting them. I live this every day on my job.”
I thought about my own reason for being in this country, but there were still big gaps in my understanding of this mission, which is not the usual way to send a man on a dangerous assignment. This only made sense if I put Susan Weber into the equation.
Susan asked, “Do you want a picture of you with the embassy in the background?”
“No. Let’s go.”
We drove through central Saigon, crossed a small bridge over a muddy stream, and she said, “We’re on Khanh Hoi Island, mostly residential.”
This was a low-lying piece of land, swampy in areas, with clusters of wood shacks near the wetlands, and more substantial residential blocks on the higher ground. I asked, “Where are we going?”
“I need to get my motorcycle.”
We drove through a warren of wooden houses with gardens, then a cluster of multi-story stucco buildings. Susan turned down an alley and into a parking area that was actually an open space beneath a stucco building, elevated on concrete pillars. The parking space was jammed with bicycles, motorbikes, and assorted odds and ends.
We dismounted, and she chained her motor scooter to a rack.
She walked over to a big black motorcycle and said, “This is my beast. The Ural 750. It’s illegal for foreigners to own anything over 175cc’s, so I keep it here.”
“To look at?”
“No, to drive. The police check up on what foreigners have around their house. Friends of mine, the Nguyens, live in this building.”
“What happens when you take it on the road?”
“You move fast.” She added, “It’s not a huge problem once you’re out in the country. From here, Khanh Hoi Island, I can head south over a small bridge and be out of town in another fifteen minutes. The motorcycle has Vietnamese citizen plates, and is actually registered to a Vietnamese national — another friend of mine — and the police, when they stop you, have no way to check who actually owns it. And if you give them five bucks, they don’t care.”
“You have been here too long.”
She unchained the big bike with a key from her pocket and said to me, “Ready for adventure?”
“I’m trying to keep a low profile. Do we need to take the illegal bike?”
“We need the muscle on the hills. You weigh too much.” She patted my stomach, which sort of surprised me.
I said, “You should wear a helmet for highway driving.”
She lit a cigarette. “You sound like my father.”
I looked at her and said, “It’s a long way from Lenox, isn’t it?”
She thought about that, then said, “Indulge me in my petty acts of rebellion.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “You wouldn’t have recognized me three years ago.”
“Just don’t get yourself killed over here.”
“You, too.”
“Hey, I’m on my third tour. I’m a pro.”
“You’re a babe in the woods is what you are.”
She took out her cell phone, and still smoking, she dialed someone, spoke in Vietnamese, listened, spoke sharply, then hung up. She said, “A message for you that they didn’t call me about.”
“Would you like to share it with me, or are you not finished complaining about the desk clerk?”
“The message was from Colonel Mang. He said you are to report to the Immigration Police headquarters tomorrow morning at eight, and ask for him.” She added, “I’ll help you make out an itinerary.”
“I can study a map.” I pointed out, “I may be going home, and I know the way.”
She asked me, “Did you say or do anything to get this guy angry with you?”
“I was firm but polite. However, I may have said something to honk him off.”
She nodded, then asked me, “Do you think he knows something?”
“There’s nothing to know. Thanks for your concern, but this is not your problem.”
“Of course it is. You’re from Massachusetts. Plus, I like you.”
“Well, I like you, too. That’s why I want you to stay out of this.”
“It’s your show.” She jumped on the big Ural, and I got on the back, which was much roomier and more comfortable than the motor scooter. She had a backrest, which had a grip for me to hold on to. She started the engine, and the roar echoed off the low ceiling.