I was hungry and light-headed enough to believe that. I noticed that everyone around us had brought lots of food and drink. I said to Susan, “I’ll have some yogurt.”
She put a spoonful of this white goo in my mouth. It wasn’t all that bad.
We finished the water and yogurt, and Susan wanted to switch places, but there was no room in the aisle, so she squeezed onto my lap, then I slid across to the aisle seat. I said, “Let’s do that again.”
She smiled.
Susan lit up an after-dinner cigarette and blew the smoke out a crack in the window. She had a copy of the London Economist with her, which she read.
A half-hour after we’d left Cam Ranh Bay, and about six hours after we’d left Saigon, the train began slowing down as we approached Nha Trang.
We came in from the west, and the landscape was spectacular with mountains running down toward the sea. Picturesque brick towers—which Susan said were Cham Towers, whatever that is—dotted the foothills. There was a huge Buddha statue in the hills to our left, and on a small hill ahead, overlooking the train station, was a Gothic-style Catholic cathedral, which I remembered.
The train slowed down and stopped at the station.
This was the last stop, and people grabbed kids, luggage, and packages, and headed for the doors as the mob on the platform fought to get in.
As we pushed toward the door, Susan said, “Just keep pushing. You’re the biggest guy on the train, and everyone behind us is counting on you.”
We finally popped out the door onto the platform.
It was cooler here than in Saigon, and the air was about a thousand times cleaner. The sky was blue and wispy clouds floated by.
Susan and I walked along the platform into the small station house, then outside where dozens of taxis waited for fares.
We got into a taxi, and Susan said something to the driver, who did a double take at her Vietnamese, then pulled away from the station. Susan asked me, “What do you remember about that R&R hotel?”
“It was toward the south end of the beach. It was a French colonial structure, maybe three stories. It could have been white, or maybe pale blue.”
She said, “Not bad for an old guy.” Susan spoke to the driver. He listened as he drove and nodded.
We passed through Nha Trang, which looked like many other seaside resort towns—white stucco buildings and red tiled roofs, palm trees, and climbing bougainvillea. The town was in better shape than I remembered it, when it was filled with military vehicles and soldiers. It had been a generally safe haven from the war, and I didn’t recall any major war damage, though now and then Charles would lob in a few mortar rounds from the surrounding hills. Also, the CIA had a big sub-station in Nha Trang, a sure sign that the place was safe and had good restaurants and bars.
Within a few minutes, the taxi turned south along the beach road. The beachside buildings to our right ranged from ramshackle to bright new hotels and resorts. To our left was the beach, miles of white sand, palm trees, beach restaurants, and turquoise water under a bright sunlit sky. The beach was crescent-shaped, and two headlands jutted out into the South China Sea from the north and south. Across the water were several intriguing-looking islands of dark green vegetation. Susan said, “Oh, this is beautiful.”
“It is.”
“Is this how you remember it?”
“I was here only three days, and I believe I was drunk the entire time.”
The taxi stopped, and the driver pointed and spoke to Susan. About a hundred meters beyond a concrete balustrade that ran along the road was a big, white, three-story stucco building with two wings jutting out from the main section. A blue and white sign read Grand Hotel.
Susan said, “The driver says this was one of the hotels used by the Americans during the war. It was called the Grand then, got a Communist name change to Nha Khach 44—which just means Hotel Number 44—and it’s now the Grand again. Look familiar?”
“Could be. Ask him if there’s a waitress named Lucy in the bar.”
Susan smiled, said something to the driver, and he drove in between two tall pillars, into a circular driveway, in the center of which was an ornamental pool.
The place did look familiar, including the veranda out front where people were sitting and drinking. I could almost picture Lucy waiting on tables. I said, “This has to be the place.”
The driver let us off at the front steps, we collected our bags from the trunk, and I paid him.
As the taxi pulled away, I said to Susan, “They might not have any rooms.”
“Money talks.”
We carried our bags up the wide steps, through a set of screen doors, and into the lobby.
The lobby was very run-down and sparse, but had fifteen-foot ceilings with crumbling plaster moldings, and an air of having once been elegant. Along the right-hand wall was a long counter with a keyboard on the wall, and behind the counter sat a young clerk, asleep in a chair. Susan asked me, “So, is this it?”
I looked through an arched opening off the left side of the lobby and saw the dining room, more faded elegance, and open French doors that led to the veranda. I nodded. “This is it.”
“Great.”
Susan hit the desk bell, and the clerk jumped like he’d just heard the whistle of an incoming round.
He composed himself, and he and Susan began the negotiations. Susan turned to me and said, “Okay, he says he has only expensive rooms left. He has two on the third floor. Each room has its own bath, and hot water in the morning. They’re big rooms, but big is relative here. He wants seventy-five bucks a night for each room, which is a joke, and I offered him two hundred each for the week. Okay?”
Last time I was here, the army paid, and this time, the army was still paying. I said, “Fine. You staying the week?”
“No, but I made a better deal for the two weekly rates. He wants dollars.”
I took out my wallet and began counting out four hundred dollars, but Susan said, “I’m paying for my own room.”
“Tell this guy I was here during the war, and they had hot water 24/7, and the place was a lot cleaner when the American army ran it.”
Susan informed me, “I don’t think he cares.”
We filled out registration cards and showed our passports and visas, which the guy absolutely insisted he had to hold on to by law. Susan gave him ten dollars instead.
We each gave him two hundred dollars, and he gave us receipts for a hundred dollars, which was interesting math. He gave us each a key, then hit his bell, and a bellboy appeared. The kid looked about ten, but he managed to get Susan’s backpack on and carry my suitcase up three flights of stairs. As we climbed the stairs, Susan asked, “Is the elevator broken?”
“The elevator runs fine, but it’s not in this building. It’s in that nice new place next door.” I added, “You can stay there, if you’d like. I have to stay here.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to complain. This is actually quite . . . charming. Quaint.”
We got up to the third floor. The hallways were wide, and the ceiling was high. Above each door was a screened transom to provide for cross-ventilation.
We came to my room, Number 308, and the kid went in with the luggage.
Susan and I followed. The room was actually big and held three single beds, as though it were still an R&R hotel for soldiers. Each bed had a wooden frame around it, from which hung mosquito netting. I remembered the mosquito netting from last time. Nostalgia is basically the ability to forget the things that sucked.
The plain stucco walls were painted a strange sky blue, and there was an odd assortment of floor fans, lamps, and cheap modern furniture arranged haphazardly around the large floor space. A paddle fan hung from the high ceiling, which was also painted blue.
The evidence that the Americans had once been here was a lot of electrical wiring in metal channels running along the walls to standard American electrical outlets, which now had adapters plugged into them to accept Asian-made appliances.
Yes, this was definitely the place.
I said, “Well . . . not bad.”
Susan, trying to be a sport, said, “Great mosquito netting.”
I opened the louvered doors to the balcony, letting in a nice sea breeze.
We stood on the balcony, looking out across the front lawn, the circular drive, and the ornamental pool, to the palm-lined white beach across the road. I could see a lot of chaise lounges on the beach, but not a lot of people around.
Susan said, “Look at that water and that beach and those mountains and those islands out there. This was a good idea to come to Nha Trang. Okay, I’ll go to my room and unpack and get cleaned up.” She looked at her watch. “Let’s say drinks on the veranda at six. Is that okay?”
I said, “Make it six-thirty. I have to drop by the Immigration police station, and tell them where I’m staying.”
“Oh . . . do you want me to come with you?”
“No. I’ll see you on the veranda at six-thirty. If I’m late, don’t be overly concerned, but if I’m very late, then make inquiries.”
“Let them know you’re traveling with someone. They’re not as likely to try anything if they know you aren’t alone.”
“I’ll see how it plays. You may have noticed that there’s no telephone in the room. So, if I need to call you, I’ll have the front desk look for you. Let them know where you’ll be.”
“Okay.” She looked at her key and said, “I’m in 304.”
“I need to get some photocopies made.”
“Post office. Buu dien.”
“See you later.”
She left with the bellboy, and I stayed on the balcony, looking at the sea.
It was hard to believe that not so many days ago, I was on the other side of that water and across a wide continent.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I always knew I would come back to Vietnam. And here I was.
The sleepy desk clerk called a taxi for me. I went outside and within a minute one pulled into the circular driveway. I got in and said, “Buu dien. Le Bureau de poste. Post office. Biet?”
He nodded and off we went to the buu dien in the center of town, about a ten-minute drive. I told the cab driver to wait, and I went inside. For a thousand dong, about ten cents, I had three copies each made of my passport and visa, and three copies of Colonel Mang’s note.
I got back into my taxi and told the driver, “Phong Quan Ly Nguoi Nuoc Ngoi.” I guess I got that right because a few minutes later, we pulled up to the Immigration police station, instead of a bottled water vendor. The cabbie pantomimed that he’d wait down the block.
The police station was a modest stucco building with an open archway instead of a door. The waiting room was light and airy, and was populated with the usual suspects—backpackers and Viet-Kieus, trying to deal with bureaucratic stupidity and laziness.
This little police facility seemed a lot more informal than the forbidding Ministry of Public Security in Saigon, and there were bicycles in the waiting room as well as sand on the floor from the beach.
I presented photocopies of my visa and passport to a bored-looking policeman sitting at a desk in a small alcove, and showed him a copy of my note from Colonel Mang. He read it, picked up his phone, and called someone. He said to me, “Sit.”
I stood.
A minute later, another uniformed guy came into the room, ignored me, and took the note from the desk guy and read it. Then he looked at me, and said in passable English, “Where you stay?”
“Grand Hotel.”
He nodded, as though the Grand Hotel had already called and reported my presence, and most probably the presence of my traveling companion as well. I was also sure that Mang had alerted the Immigration Police to my expected visit.
The guy asked me, “You here with lady?”
“Meet lady on train. Not my lady.”
“Yes?” He seemed to buy this, probably because of the separate rooms.
The cop said to me, “You stay one week.”
“Maybe.”
“Where you go leave Nha Trang?”
“Hue.”
All this was going on in the waiting room with an interested audience of Aussies, Americans, and others.
The cop asked, “Lady go with you?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, you leave passport and visa. Give you later.”
I was prepared for this and knowing firsthand that cops don’t like negative responses, I said, “Okay.” I took the photocopy of my passport and visa from the other cop’s desk and gave them to him, along with a five-dollar bill, which he quickly pocketed.
I said, “Have a good day.” I turned and headed for the door.
“Stop.”
I looked back at the cop.
He asked, “How you go to Hue?”
“Bus or train.”
“Yes? You come here and show ticket. You need travel stamp.”
“Okay.” I left.
The taxi was waiting down the block, and I got in. “Grand Hotel.”
The taxi headed south along the beach road. I recalled spending a lot of time on the beach when I was here, along with the other two guys in my room, both of whom were combat vets, but not from my unit. All of us had done something really brave and stupid to get this three-day R&R, and all of us had varying degrees of jungle rot, which was helped by the sun and salt water.
There were maybe a hundred guys in the Grand Hotel, and the place resembled a home for burnouts during the day. We slept too much, and we drank too much beer on the beach.
At night, the walking wounded came alive, and we’d stay out until dawn, hitting every bar, whorehouse, and massage parlor in town until the sun came up. Then we’d sleep on the beach or in the hotel, and do it all over again on night two, then again on the last night. Men came and went, and not everyone’s three days coincided, but you could tell the first-day guys from the third-day guys: Day One was sort of culture shock—you couldn’t believe you were here. Day Two, you drank and fucked your brains out. Day Three, with what was left of your brain, you drank and fucked even more because you were going back to hell.
Aside from some improvement in my jungle sores, crotch rot, and immersion foot, I rejoined my unit in much worse shape than when I’d left. Everyone did, but that’s what rest and recuperation is all about.
The taxi pulled into the driveway of the Grand and deposited me at the front steps.
Inside my room, I unpacked and showered in cold water. There was no soap or shampoo, but there was a towel, and I left the bathroom and dried off in the bedroom where there was some ventilation from the fan and the open balcony.
There was a knock at the door. I went to the door, but there was no peephole. I said, “Who is it?”
“Me.”
“Okay . . .” I wrapped my towel around me and opened the door.
Susan said, “Oh . . . did I catch you at a bad moment?”
“Come in.”
She came in and closed the door behind her. “How did it go?”
“It went fine.” She was wearing white slacks, a gray T-shirt that said Q-Bar, Saigon, and sandals. I said, “Don’t peek, and I’ll get dressed.”
She went out on the balcony while I put on a pair of black chinos and a white golf shirt. As I dressed, I related my brief meeting with the Immigration Police, mentioning that they knew we’d checked in together. I said, “Okay. I’m decent.”
She came back into the room, and I slipped into a pair of docksiders and said, “Let’s go have a drink.”
We got down to the lobby, walked through the empty dining room that had a service bar in the corner, and went out onto the veranda.
Only about half the café tables were filled, and we seated ourselves near the railing.
The sun was behind the hotel now, and the veranda was in the shade. A sea breeze blew across the lawn and rustled the palms.
The other guests were all Westerners, mostly middle-aged. The Grand Hotel was a bit upscale for backpack
ers, not quaint or charming to Japanese and Koreans who had money, and absolutely unacceptable to any class of middle-aged Americans, except maybe schoolteachers. I concluded that everyone there, except us, were Europeans.
It was very nice on this old-fashioned white stucco veranda with paddle fans overhead, the smell of salt water, the wide lawn, and the turquoise waters stretching out to the green islands. It would have been perfect if I had a drink, but there were no serving people around. I said, “I think we have to get our own drinks.”
“I’ll go. What do you want?”
“I’ll go,” I said, as I sat on my ass. Women understand that this is total bullshit, and Susan stood. “What do you want?”
“A cold beer. And see if they have any snacks. I’m starving. Thanks.”
She went through the French doors into the dining room.
I recalled sitting here almost thirty years ago, and I remembered when the female staff were plentiful and very attentive, thrilled out of their minds to be working here for the Americans while out there, their country was disintegrating, and their fathers, brothers, and husbands were bleeding and dying alongside the Americans who were so far from home; but here in Nha Trang, there was a sign outside the barbed wire that said Off-Limits to Death. Not a literal sign, of course, but an unspoken understanding that you were not going to meet a violent end in this place.
And for the infantrymen and the helicopter door gunners and the chopper pilots and the long-range patrol guys and the tunnel rats and the combat medics, and for all the guys who had seen what the insides of people looked like, Nha Trang was more than a haven; it was a reaffirmation that somewhere amid all this shooting and dying, a place existed where people didn’t carry guns, and where the day ended with a sunset that you knew you’d live to see, and the night held no terror, and the morning sun rose over the South China Sea and illuminated a beach of sleeping, not dead, bodies.
Susan came back without the drinks and said, “The waitress will bring our drinks.” She sat. “You’re in luck. The waitress is Lucy.”
“Great.”
An elderly woman came through the French doors carrying a tray. She looked about eighty, with a weathered face and betel-nut-stained teeth and lips, but she was probably closer to my age.