I raised my glass and said, “Thanks for your help and your company.”
We touched glasses, and she said, “Thanks for inviting me.”
We both got a laugh out of that.
We sipped our drinks and watched the sea. It was one of those perfect times when sun, sea, and wind were just right, the beer is cold, the hard day’s journey has ended, and the woman is beautiful.
Susan asked me, “What did you do when you were here besides get drunk?”
“Mostly lay in the sun and had some good food.” I added, “A lot of the guys were stressed out, of course, so we played a lot of cards, and most of us had jungle sores, so the sun and sea were good for the skin.”
She lit a cigarette and asked, “How about women?”
I replied, “Women, except for employees, were not allowed in the hotel.”
“Were you allowed out of the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, ha. And were you involved with anyone from home when you were here?”
“I was. Her name was Peggy, a good Irish Catholic Southie.”
She drew on her cigarette and looked out to sea. “And how about in ’72? Were you involved with anyone then?”
“I was married. It was a brief marriage, and it ended when I returned. In fact, before I returned.”
She thought about that awhile and asked, “And since then?”
“Since then I made two promises to myself — never go back to Vietnam and never get married again.”
She smiled. “Which was worse? Combat or marriage?”
“They were both fun in their own way.” I asked her, “And how about you? You’re on.”
She sipped her drink, lit another cigarette, and said, “I’ve never been married.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Do you want a sexual history?”
I wanted to get to dinner before eight, so I said, “No.”
The old woman came by, and I looked at her as Susan ordered another round and chatted with her. She could have been Lucy, but Lucy existed in my mind as a happy, funny girl, who traded mock insults with the soldiers who were all in love with her, but she wasn’t for sale. Guys always want what they can’t have, and Lucy was the grand prize at the Grand Hotel. Assuming this old crone was not Lucy, I hoped Lucy had survived the war, married her Viet soldier boyfriend, and that they were happy somewhere.
Susan asked me, “What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that the last time I was here, you weren’t even born.”
“I was born, but not toilet-trained.”
The second round came, and we sat watching the sky darken. I could see lights in the thatched cafés and souvenir stands down on the beach. The breeze picked up, and it got cooler, but was still pleasant.
About halfway through our third round, Susan asked me, “Don’t you need to contact someone back in the States?”
“I was supposed to contact you in Saigon and say I’d arrived. But you’re here.”
She replied, “The hotel has a fax machine, and I faxed Bill at his office and his home and told him we’d arrived, and where we were staying. He knows to contact the consulate, who will contact your people.” She added, “I stood over the clerk while he faxed, got my original back, and ate it. Okay?”
“Good tradecraft. Was Bill surprised to get a message from you in Nha Trang? Or did you tell him about your trip when you called him from the Rex?”
“I still wasn’t sure I wanted to go with you at that point.” She added, “I haven’t gotten his reply yet.”
“If I’d gotten a message from my girlfriend that she went to a beach resort with a guy, I might not bother to reply.”
She thought about that and said, “I asked him to acknowledge receipt.” She added, “When Westerners who live here travel, they always tell someone where they’re going… in case there’s a problem. Also, this is official business. Right? So he needs to reply.”
“Or at least acknowledge receipt.”
“Actually… I was feeling a little… guilty. So I asked him to join us here.”
This sort of took me by surprise, and I guess my face betrayed that surprise, and maybe something else. I said, “That’s nice,” which was pretty lame.
She stared at me in the dim light. She said, “What I really told him was that it was over between us.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat there.
She went on. “He knows that, anyway. I didn’t want to do it that way, but I had to. This has nothing to do with you, so don’t get an inflated ego.”
I started to say something, but she said, “Just listen. I realized that I was having more fun… that I’d rather be in the Q-Bar with you than him.”
“High praise, indeed.”
I saw that I’d interrupted a moment of true confession with my big mouth and said, “Sorry. I just sometimes get… uncomfortable—”
“Okay. Let me finish. You’re an interesting man, but you’re very conflicted about life and probably love. And part of your problem is that you don’t read yourself very well.” She looked at me closely and said, “Look at me, Paul.”
I looked at her.
She asked, “How did you feel when I told you I’d asked Bill to join me?”
“Lousy.” I added, “My face dropped. Did you see that?”
“It fell in your beer.” She informed me, “You’ve been giving me a hard time, and I don’t like that. You could have blown me off anytime you wanted, if you really wanted me gone. But instead, you—”
“Okay. Point made. I apologize, and I promise to be nice. Not only that… I want you to know I not only enjoy your company, I look forward to your company.”
“Keep going.”
“Right. Well, I’m extremely fond of you, I like you a lot, I miss you when you’re not around, I know if I let myself go—”
“Good enough. Look, Paul, this is an artificial situation, you’ve got someone back home, you’re here on important business, and this place is silently freaking you out. I understand all this. So, we’ll just compartmentalize these few days. Fun in the sun, and whatever happens, happens. You go to Hue, and I go back to Saigon. And, God willing, we’ll both find our way home.”
I nodded.
So we held hands and watched the night turn from purple to black. The stars over the water were brilliant, and the waning moon cast a sliver of light on the South China Sea. A boy brought oil lamps to each of the tables, and the veranda shimmered in lights and shadow.
I paid the bill, and we walked across the lawn, across the road, and down to the beach, where Private First Class Paul Brenner had walked a long time ago.
We picked an outdoor restaurant called Coconut Grove, set among palm trees and trellises.
We sat at a small wooden table lit with a red oil lamp and ordered Tiger beers. The breeze was stronger here, and I could hear the surf fifty yards away.
The menus came, and they were in Vietnamese, English, and French, but the prices were in American.
Most of the selections were seafood, as you’d expect in a fishing town, but for ten dollars, I could experience bird’s nest soup, which seemed to be an addition to the menu, since it was harvested only twice a year, and lucky for me, this was a harvest month. The nest was made of red grass and sparrow saliva, but the real selling point was that this delicacy was also an aphrodisiac. I said to Susan, “I’ll have the bird’s nest soup.”
She smiled. “Do you need it?”
We ordered a huge plate of mixed seafood and vegetables, which the waiter grilled at tableside over a charcoal brazier.
The people around us seemed to be mostly northern Europeans, escaping the winter. Nha Trang, which had been founded by the French, had once been called the Côte d’Azur of Southeast Asia, and it seemed to be making a comeback, though it had a long way to go.