Some men sing in the shower; I think. And what I thought was that no one and nothing here in Saigon or in Washington was as it seemed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I went into the exercise room, found Friday’s Wall Street Journal Asian edition on a chair, sat, and read.
It was quiet in the empty building, and from behind the door of the ladies’ locker room, I could hear a muffled voice, and I was fairly sure it was Susan making her promised phone call to Bill.
About ten minutes later, Susan came out of the locker room wearing a long yellow sleeveless silk dress, and slung over her shoulder was a small leather pouch. The dust was off her face, and she was very tan. Her hair was neatly parted in the middle and hung over her shoulders. A little lip gloss completed the makeover. I stood and said, “You look lovely.”
She didn’t reply to my rare compliment, and I had the impression she’d had a little tiff with Bill. I said, “Maybe I should go back to the Rex and change.”
“You’re fine.”
We went into the reception area, the elevator came, and we got off in the lobby. She said to me, “I’ve had enough driving. We’ll take cyclos.”
I followed her out the doors and onto the sidewalk. We walked for about ten seconds before a flock of cyclos descended on us.
Susan haggled with the cyclo drivers, and I looked at them. They were poorly dressed, scrawny, and not young. A guy I knew who’d been here told me the cyclo guys were mostly former ARVN, and this was one of the few jobs open to them as former enemies of the state.
Susan cut a deal with two of them, and we each hopped into a cyclo and off we went up Dien Bien Phu Street. Susan called over to me, “It cost me double for you because of your weight.”
I looked at her and saw that she wasn’t kidding. I said, “You’re lucky they don’t charge by IQ.”
“You’d ride for free.”
Dien Bien Phu Street was a wide boulevard, heavy with motor traffic, bicycles, and cyclos, and it was a little unnerving sitting in an open compartment with the driver in the rear and cars and scooters cutting in and out.
The city was very lively on a Sunday night, horns honking, boom boxes blasting, and pedestrians crossing in mid-block and against red lights.
Susan pointed out a few sights as we made our way along the boulevard. She said, “This street, Dien Bien Phu, was named after the final battle between the French and the Viet Minh—the predecessors of the Viet Cong. The Viet Minh won.”
“Whoever wins gets to name the streets.”
“That’s right,” she said. “In ten years, this will be called Avenue of the Multinational Corporations.”
Susan took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to her driver, who took it, then the two cyclos came close so she could hand the pack to my driver. She said to me, “My guy wants to know if you’re a veteran.”
I hesitated, then said, “Tell him First Cavalry, Quang Tri, ’68.”
She relayed this, and they both said something to her. Susan said to me, “They are both veterans. My driver was a jet fighter pilot, yours was an infantry captain. They say, good to see you again.”
I looked at her driver and made the V for victory sign. He returned the sign, half-smiled, then stared straight ahead.
We rode around central Saigon, and Susan pointed out the sights, but mostly we just watched the street show.
She said, “See those apartment blocks? They were built by the Americans in the ’60s for CIA and embassy people. They now house Communist party officials.”
The apartment blocks were drab gray concrete, without the usual balconies, and they looked like a penal institution. I said, “Serves them right.”
We passed Notre Dame, and I noticed that the small square was filled with people promenading. The uniformed cops seemed to have disappeared, and I assumed the plainclothes cops took over after dark. And yet, by outward appearances, Saigon did not look like a police state. In fact, it looked like everyone was going out of the way to break some law or another—public drinking, prostitution, sleeping on the sidewalks, running traffic lights, jaywalking, and whatever else they did that I couldn’t see.
On one level, the South Viets were second-class citizens in their own country, ruled like an occupied nation by the cadres of Communist carpetbaggers from the north, and exploited by the Asian and American capitalists. Yet, on another level, they seemed happier and more free than the Communists, like Colonel Mang, or the capitalists, like Susan Weber.
We were at the northern end of Dong Khoi Street now, and it was as if we’d entered Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. The brightly lit street was choked with pedestrians, cyclos, bicycles, and motor scooters, all heading south toward the river.
The facades of the old French-style buildings were nearly covered with neon advertisements, and names of places like Good Morning Vietnam, Ice Blue, and the Cyclo Bar. There were also a number of upscale French and East Asian restaurants and a few grand hotels from another era. I recognized the Continental, where the war correspondents used to stay and make up news stories in the bar.
The metamorphoses from Rue Catinet to Tu Do to Dong Khoi had not been complete, and it seemed like all three versions of the same street co-existed as one. I did remember Tu Do, and I saw a building now and then that I thought I recalled, but too much time had passed and all the names were changed. I called out to Susan over the noise, “Is there still a place called Bluebird? Or Papillon?”
She shook her head. “Never heard of them.” She added, “I understand that the Communists shut everything down in 1975.”
“They’re not fun guys.”
“No, they’re not. A lot of places started to reopen in the late ’80s. Then in ’93, the Communists got annoyed with all the bars and karaoke places and pulled a raid all over the city and shut everything down again. Some places were allowed to re-open, but only if they used Vietnamese names and cleaned up their acts. Little by little, it all came back, bigger, brighter, and crazier than ever, and with Western names again.” She said, “I think, this time, it’s all here to stay. But you never know. They’re unpredictable. No respect for private property and business.”
I pointed out, “They could kick you out.”
“They could.”
“Where would you go?”
She replied, “I have a book called The Worst Places in the World to Live. One of those.” She laughed.
I tried to locate the little alleyway that led to the cul-de-sac where my friend used to live. It was on the left side as we headed down to the river, but I didn’t see it. I said to Susan, “You live on this street?”
“I do. It’s not so bad five nights out of the week. And I’m on the fifth floor and closer to the river. I’ll show you.”
The throngs on the street were mostly young; boys and girls in T-shirts and jeans, the guys chatting up the girls, the girls mostly in groups.
I could see the end of Dong Khoi, and the moonlight on the Saigon River in the distance. Susan called out, “That’s my building.”
She was pointing to the left at a stately old French-style building on the last corner before the river. On the ground floor was a Thai restaurant, and next door was another old hotel called the Lotus, which Susan informed me was once the Miramar, and which I remembered.
She said, “Top floor. Corner apartment, river view.”
Sounded like a real estate ad in the Washington Post. I looked up at the corner apartment and noticed lights in the window. I said, “Someone’s home.”
She replied, “Housekeeper.”
“Of course. You like those corner locations, don’t you?”
The cyclos swung onto the river road where a nice breeze was blowing across the moonlit water. The nice breeze smelled of God knows what, but if you held your nose, it was beautiful. The shore across the river, I noticed, was almost totally black, which I recalled from last time, and there seemed to be not a single bridge over the river. I said to Susan, “That’s still undeveloped over the
re.”
“I know. There are thousands of acres of flower farms there—orchids, exotic plants, and all that. When I go to sleep at night, I dream about subdivisions and shopping malls, then when I wake up and look out my window, it’s all flowers—a waste of prime property.”
I looked at her and realized she was putting me on. I smiled to show her I was a good sport.
The cyclos went a short block, then swung north onto Nguyen Hue Street, which ran up to the Rex and was parallel to Dong Khoi. This was a wider street, and it, too, was filled with humanity and vehicles.
Susan said to me, “It’s a clockwise circuit—down Dong Khoi, then along the river, and up Nguyen Hue, then right at the Rex on Le Loi, and right again on Dong Khoi. An all-night parade.”
“You mean I have to listen to this from my hotel?”
“Only until about dawn. Then it gets quiet until rush hour starts ten minutes later.”
“Did you pick the Rex for me?”
“I did. It’s close to my apartment, as you can see.”
“I see.”
“I like the rooftop restaurant. I like slow dancing.”
We turned right on Le Loi and continued east. Susan said, “The kids call this circular parade chay long rong—means living fast.”
“We never got above walking speed.”
“I don’t make up the language—I just translate it. It’s like cruising, living in the fast lane; it’s metaphor, not physical speed.”
“I have problems with metaphors. Time for dinner.”
She said something to her driver, and we continued on.
Within five minutes, the cyclos pulled up alongside a big building that looked like an old French opera house, and which Susan said was now a people’s theater, whatever that means. Along one side of the theater was an outdoor café whose tables were filled with Westerners and a few well-dressed Viets, male and female.
We got out of the cyclos, and Susan insisted on paying the drivers—a buck for hers and two bucks for mine. She was being uncharacteristically generous, but I wasn’t comfortable with that, so I gave each of the guys another dollar.
They wanted to shake my hand, so we all shook, then Susan’s driver—the guy who in another life had flown jet fighters—said something and Susan translated. “He says his wife and children were allowed to emigrate to America four years ago. But he wasn’t allowed to leave because he was an officer in the South Vietnamese air force. But under the . . . what we call the Orderly Departure Program that the Americans have negotiated with Hanoi, he hopes to be allowed to leave next year.”
I said, “Tell him I wish him good luck.”
She translated, he said something, and she said to me, “He thanks America for taking his family. They are doing well and send him money. They live in Los Angeles.”
“Well . . . I hope they wind up someplace nice.”
My driver, the infantry captain, didn’t have anything to say, and I had the impression he was well beyond any hope for anything.
We walked into the outdoor café whose name, according to a small sign, was the Q-Bar. It seemed to occupy a piece of this theater building and was very minimalist, sort of like a trendy Washington yuppie hangout.
There was an inside section with tables and a bar, and on the walls were murals of what looked like Caravaggio paintings, but it was hard to tell through the cigarette smoke.
A young Vietnamese waitress in a black and white uniform greeted Susan in English, “Good evening, Miss Susan, and where is Mr. Bill tonight?”
I was happy for the opportunity to speak English and replied, “He’s washing his Princeton sweater, but he’ll be along shortly.”
“Ah . . . good. Table for three?”
“Two.”
Susan didn’t clear up the confusion.
The waitress showed us to a table near the railing, lit by an oil lamp. Susan ordered a California Chardonnay, and I asked for a Dewar’s and soda, which didn’t seem to be a problem.
The waitress moved off, and Susan lit a cigarette. She said, as if to herself, “Washing his Princeton sweater.”
“Excuse me?”
“Was that the best you could do?”
“It was short notice. It’s late.”
We let that go, and I checked out the patrons. They dressed like they made more than a buck a day, and on the street, I saw a few Japanese luxury cars—Lexus and Infiniti, which I hadn’t noticed during the day.
The drinks came. I would have raised my glass to my hostess and said something nice, but I had the feeling she’d heard enough from me. In fact, she said, “Probably I should have taken you someplace else.”
I said, “Of all the gin joints in Saigon, she takes me here.”
She smiled.
I said, “What if Bill shows up?”
“He won’t.” She raised her wine glass. We clinked and drank. “You can get a great burger and fries here. I thought you might be in the mood for that.”
“I am. Good choice.”
Susan said, “This place is owned by an American from California, and his Vietnamese-born wife, who’s also a Californian. The Q is a play on the word kieu—a Viet expat who’s returned. Viet-Kieu. Get it?”
“Got it.”
She said, “This place is popular with the American community and Viet-Kieu high rollers. It’s expensive.”
“Keeps out the riffraff.”
“Right. But you’re with me.”
To show her I wasn’t completely at the mercy of her hospitality and to show some savoir faire, I said to her, “A Frenchman on the flight in gave me the names of a lot of good restaurants and bars.”
“Such as?”
“The Monkey Bar.”
She laughed. “Wall-to-wall whores. And very aggressive. They put their hands down your pants at the bar. You can go to the Monkey Bar after we leave here.”
“I was just checking up on what this guy said.”
“Well, he wasn’t doing you any favors.”
“He recommended a restaurant called Maxim’s—like the one in Paris.”
“It’s a ripoff. Bad food, bad service, overpriced, just like in Paris.”
My French friend was batting zero for two. I asked Susan, “Do you know a woman named Mademoiselle Dieu-Kiem?”
“No. Who is she?”
“A courtesan.”
She rolled her eyes and didn’t reply.
I said, “But I’d rather be with you.”
“So would ninety percent of the men in Saigon. Don’t push your luck, Brenner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” So, my attempt at independence and suavity was squashed like the ugly little bug that it was. “Thank you for bringing me to one of your special places.”
“You’re welcome.”
The waitress brought over tiny menus. Susan ordered fruit and cheese for herself and another wine. I got my burger and fries and ordered a Corona, which they had.
It was cooler than last evening, but I had a film of moisture on my face. I remembered Saigon as hot and unhealthy when I’d left here in June of ’72. I asked Susan, “Do you have a summer house or a weekend place?”
She replied, “That concept hasn’t developed here yet. There’s no running water in the countryside. If you go into the country, you step into the nineteenth century.”
“So, what do you do on weekends in the summer?”
“I sometimes go up to Dalat where it’s cooler, or to Vung Tau, formerly known as Cap Saint Jacques.”
“Not to Nha Trang?”
“No. Never been there. It’s a hike.” She added, “But I’d love to see it. I’m sorry I can’t go with you.”
I let that one alone and asked her, “How difficult is it to travel into the interior of the former North Vietnam?”
She thought about that a moment, then said, “Generally speaking, anywhere along the coast is relatively easy. Highway One, for instance, goes from the Delta all the way to Hanoi, and it’s being improved every year. The Reunification Express?
??that’s the train—also links the north and south now. But if you mean heading west toward Laos, it’s difficult. I mean, the Viets do it, but they have a lot more tolerance for washed-out roads and bridges, landslides caused by overlogging, steep mountain passes, and vehicle breakdowns. And it’s the winter rainy season up there—a persistent drizzle called crachin—rain dust.” She asked, “Are you headed that way?”
“I’m awaiting further instructions. Have you gone into the interior?”
“No, I’m just reporting what I hear. A lot of Western scientists go there—biologists, mostly. They’ve actually discovered previously unknown species of mammals in the northern interior. They just found an ox that no one knew existed. Plus, there are still tigers in the interior. Have a good trip.”
I smiled. “I actually saw a tiger here once. And an elephant. And they weren’t in the Saigon Zoo where they belonged.”
“Well, be careful. You really can get hurt or get sick out there, and the conditions are very primitive.”
I nodded. At least with the army, the medics were good, and the helicopters got you out of anywhere within half an hour, and onto a hospital ship. This time, I was on my own.
Susan said, “If you’re going into the interior, you may want to pass yourself off as a biologist or naturalist.”
I looked at her. I’d had the same thought as she was telling me about the unknown species. And now I had a new thought: I was getting the briefing I never got in Washington. In fact, a lot of what had seemed like Viet trivia today may have had a purpose.
The food came, and the burger and fries were terrific, and the Corona was ice cold with a lime in it.
She asked me, “Where do you live?”
I replied, “I live outside Falls Church, Virginia.”
“And this is your last assignment?”
“Yes. I retired last year, but they thought I should press my luck and do Vietnam, Part Three.”
“Who are they?”
“Can’t say.”
“And what are you going to do after this?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”