Chapter 2 Chapter One

After supper, I sat down in my room in Rue de Catena and waited for Pyle, who said, "I'll come to you around ten o'clock at the latest." After midnight I couldn't sit still any longer, so I went down Lou went to the street.Many old women in black trousers sat on the stairs: it was February, and I thought they thought it was too hot in bed.A tricycle driver pedaled slowly towards the river.I could see the bright lights where they unloaded the new American plane. Pyle was nowhere to be seen on Long Street. Of course, I thought, he might be stuck with something at the American Legation, but then he'd have called the restaurant long ago--he always pays attention to these little details.I turned around to go back into the house, and saw a girl waiting for someone at the next door.I couldn't see her face, only the white silk trousers and the long flowered cheongsam, but I already knew who she was after seeing these.She used to stand in this place waiting for me to come home at this time.

"Feng'er," I said--which means Phoenix, but now all is no longer allegorical, and there is no phoenix in the ashes of the fire.Before she could tell me, I knew she was waiting for Pyle, too. "He didn't come." "Jesals. Jetalvuse ulghfen Etre." "You'd better go upstairs and wait," I said. "He's coming." "I can wait here." "Better not here. The police will get you." She followed me upstairs.I thought of a few sharp, unpleasant jokes I could have made, but neither her English nor French was good enough to understand my sarcasm.Strange to say, I didn't mean to hurt her, or even myself.The old women turned their heads away as we walked up the stairs.When we just passed by, their voices rose and fell again, as if they were singing together.

"What are they talking about?" "They thought I was back again." In my room, most of the yellow flowers on a potted tree I set up for Chinese New Year a few weeks ago have fallen.They landed in the keys of my typewriter.I pulled out those petals one by one. "Tuestroublo," Feng'er said. "It's not like him. He's always been on time." I took off my tie, took off my shoes, and lay down on the bed.Feng'er lit the gas stove and started to boil water to make tea.This situation is almost the same as it was six months ago. "He said you were leaving soon," she said.

"Maybe." "He likes you very much." "Come on, I don't care," I said. I saw that she was changing her hair so that it fell to her shoulders in black.I remembered that her hair was combed very well before, she thought she looked like the daughter of a rich family.Pyle once criticized that hairstyle. I closed my eyes, and she was exactly the same as before: boiling water, jingling and pouring tea from a teacup, needed at a certain moment of the night, and guaranteed a good night's rest. "He's coming soon," she said, as if I needed reassurance if he wasn't coming.

I don't know what they talked about when they were together.Pyle was serious.I've had enough of his lectures on the Far East.Speaking of the Far East, the months he spent there were about the same number of years I spent there.Democracy is another topic for him—his ideas about what America is doing for the world are explicit and exasperating.As for Fenger, she was surprisingly naive, and if we happened to mention Hitler in our conversation, she would interject and ask who Hitler was.It was more difficult to make it clear to her, for she had never met a German or a Pole, and had only the vaguest knowledge of the geography of Europe, though she knew a great deal about Princess Margaret. Of course more than me.At this time, I heard her put the cigarette tray down on the bedside.

"Does he still love you, Feng'er?" Going to bed with an Annan woman is like sleeping with a bird.She will squeaky and sing beside your pillow.There was a time when I felt that no Annan woman had a voice as beautiful as Feng'er's. I reached out and touched her arm - the bones of Annan women are as fragile as those of birds. "Is he here, Feng'er?" She laughed out loud.I heard her strike a match. "Are you in love?"—maybe love is a word she doesn't understand. "Shall I burn you a pipe?" she asked me. By the time I opened my eyes, she had already lit the cigarette lamp, and the cigarette tray had already been placed.When she was frowning, leaned close to the lamp, and concentrated on burning a small opium bubble, the cigarette stick in her hand was twirling, and the light from the lamp turned her skin into a deep yellow amber color.

"Hasn't Pyle smoked this yet?" I asked her. "No smoking." "You should get him hooked, or he won't come home." It was a superstition among them that a lover who smoked opium would always come back, even if he went off to France.A man's sexual function might be impaired by opium, but they always preferred a faithful lover, and that was all right. Now she was pinching the little hot bubble against the edge of the pipe.I can already smell the aroma of opium.There is no fragrance like it.Next to the bed, my alarm clock said twelve twenty, but my nervousness was over.Pyle has faded away.When Feng'er was concentrating on it, she was bending over the lamp to take care of the long pipe like a child, and the lamp illuminated her face.I like my bong very much: a straight bamboo tube more than two feet long, with ivory embedded in both ends.The bottom two-thirds of the bamboo tube is the pipe.It is like a twisted bindweed, the rounded edges of which have been worn smooth and black from the constant kneading of opium.At this time, with a twist of her wrist, she inserted the stick into the small eye of the pipe, filled the bubble, and turned the pipe on the lamp.Hold on to the bong and wait for me to shoot.When I inhale, the smoke foams smoothly and slightly.

An old smoker can smoke a bag of cigarettes in one breath, but I can't.It always takes me a few breaths to get through.Once the shot was over, I lay back straight with my neck resting on the leather pillow, and let her arrange the second pouch. I said, "You know, really, it's pretty obvious. Pyle knows I'm going to smoke a few pipes before I go to bed. He doesn't want to bother me. He'll be here early in the morning." The stick was inserted into the pipe and I smoked a second bag.As I put down my bong, I said, "There's nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about at all." I sipped my tea and ran my hand over her disaster shelter. "After you've left me," I said, "it's a good thing I can rely on this bastard. There's a good smokehouse over there in the Rue d'Orme. What a fuss we Europeans make. You shouldn't live with a man who doesn't smoke, Fenger."

"But he's going to marry me," she said, "soon." "Of course, that's another matter." "Shall I burn you another bag?" "it is good" I wondered if she would agree to sleep with me that night if Pyle hadn't come, but I knew I wouldn't need her any more after I'd smoked four packs of cigarettes.Of course, it was nice to feel her in bed with my lap next to mine - she always sleeps on her back.When I wake up in the morning, I can take a sip, so as not to be alone. "Pyle won't be coming now," I said. "Just stay here, Feng'er." She handed me the bong and shook her head.After I've smoked that pipe, it doesn't really matter if she's with me or not.

"Why didn't Pyle come?" she asked. "How do I know?" I said. "Did he go to see General Tai?" "I wouldn't know either." "He told me once that if he couldn't have dinner with you, he wouldn't come here." "Don't worry. He'll come. Light another pipe for me." As she leaned over the lamp, I thought of this poem by Baudelaire: "MO lenkfi, ..." What follows Woolen cloth? Aimerd lolslr Aimere tmotlrlr Anpays quiieres semble. There are many boats moored by the river outside, "donthu me ures tvaga bonde." I think, if I smell her skin, it must have a faint scent of opium smoke, and her complexion is just like the small flame of a lamp.I have seen the kind of flowers painted on her clothes by the small rivers in the north.She is as innocent and natural as a piece of fragrant grass, I really don't want to leave her and go back to my hometown.

"I wish I were Pyle," I said aloud, but the pain I felt was limited and tolerable now--the benefit of opium.Someone knocked on the door. "It's Pyle," she said. "No. That's not how he knocked." Someone impatiently knocked again.She got up quickly, and came across the young tree with yellow flowers, and the petals fell on my typewriter again.The door opened. "Mr. Fowler," one called out. "I'm Fowler," I said.It's a cop, and I don't get up for a cop—if I don't look up, I can see the khaki shorts he's wearing. He explained in almost incomprehensible Vietnamese French that the police wanted me to go right away—right away—quickly. "Is it the French public security department or the Vietnamese public security department?" "French." In his mouth, the word "France" sounded like "Françon." "For what?" He doesn't know: he's just been ordered to call me. "TO Illlssi," he said to Feng Er. "You have to be polite when you're talking to a lady," I told him. "How do you know she's here?" He just repeated that it was his order. "I'll come after dawn." "Suriec hung," he said, a well-dressed, rather stubborn, small fellow. It was no use arguing with him, so I got up, tied my tie, and put on my shoes.Here, everything is up to the police: they can take back my pass, they can ban me from press conferences, they can even refuse to issue me an immigration pass if they want.These are public and legal means, and in a country at war legality is not essential.I just know a man whose cook suddenly disappeared for no reason - he searched around and found the Vietnamese police department, and the police officer there told him that his cook had been released after being questioned.The cook's family never saw him again.Perhaps he has joined the Communist Party, perhaps he has been drafted into a private army.There are many such private armies around Saigon—either the Hehao Jiaojun, the Gaotai Jiaojun, or the troops of General Tai.Perhaps, he was locked up in a French prison.Perhaps, he is making a fortune from the girls in the embankment area where overseas Chinese live.Perhaps, while they were questioning him, he had a heart attack.I said, "I'm not going on foot. If you want me to go, you have to pay for a tricycle." One has to maintain one's dignity. That's why I went to the public security department and refused the French police officer to offer me a cigarette.After three sacks of opium I felt clear and flexible: it was easy to make such decisions without losing sight of the main question—what do they want from me when they come to me?I'd met Vigot before at a couple of dinner parties - I noticed him because he seemed to love his wife too much.The lady ignored him.She was an ornate and tacky blonde.It was already two o'clock in the middle of the night, and Vigot was still sitting in the cigarette smoke, tired, depressed, hot and stuffy, with a green sunshade on his head, and a book of Pascal's works spread out on the table to pass the time .When I refused to leave and allowed him to question Feng Er alone, he immediately gave in and only sighed, perhaps indicating that he was tired of Saigon, the sweltering weather, or the whole human situation. He said in English, "I'm sorry, but I have to invite you." "I was not invited, I was ordered." "Oh, these local cops—they don't understand." He fixed his eyes on a page in the Meditations, as if he were still engrossed in the sentimental arguments. "I wanted to ask you a few questions—about Pyle." "You'd better ask him himself." He turned to Feng Er and questioned her sternly in French. "How long have you been living with Mr. Pyle?" "A month—I don't remember exactly," she said. "How much did he pay you?" "You have no right to ask her that," I said. "She can't be bought with money." "She used to live with you, didn't she?" he asked suddenly. "Living together for two years." "I'm a journalist and I'm here to cover your wars—that is, if you'll allow me to. Don't ask me to contribute to your gossip papers, too." "What do you know about Pyle? Answer my question, Mr. Fowler? I don't mean to ask. But it's a serious matter. Trust me, it's a serious matter." "I'm not a snitch. You know all I can tell you about Pyle. Age: Thirty-two, Works for the U.S. Economic Aid Mission. Nationality: American." "You sound like you're a friend of his," Vigot said, looking from me to Feng'er again.A local policeman came in with three cups of black coffee. "Would you rather have tea?" Vigot asked. "I'm a friend," I said. "Why shouldn't it be? One day, I'm going back home, right? I can't take her back. It's fine for her to stay with him. It's a reasonable arrangement. And he's going to be with her." Married, he said. He probably did, you know. He's a nice guy for what he is. Serious. Not one of those loud bastards at the Continental. A quiet American," I judge him as precisely as I might say "a blue lizard," "a white elephant." Vigot said, "Yes." He seemed to be looking for words on his desk to express exactly what I meant. "A very quiet American." He sat in the stuffy little office, waiting for either of us to speak first.A mosquito came buzzing to bite people, so I paid attention to Feng'er.Opium smoke sharpens the mind—perhaps because it calms the nerves and stabilizes the mood.Everything, even death, seemed unimportant.I don't think Feng'er has noticed Vigot's bleak and decisive tone.Her English was poor, and she waited patiently for Pyle as she sat in the hard office chair.At that time, I had given up waiting.I could see Vigot taking both. "How did you first meet him?" Vigot asked me. Why should I explain to him that Pyle met me?Last September, I saw him walking across the square towards the bar of the Hotel Continental: an unmistakably young and inexperienced face that appeared out of the blue.With two wobbly legs, short rower-style hair, and big eyes, he looks like a college student. He seems to be incapable of doing anything harmful.Most of the tables on the street were full at that time. "You don't mind?" he asked gravely and courteously. "My name is Pyle. New here." He pulled up a chair and sat down, ordering a beer.Then, quickly, he looked up at the dazzling noon sky. "Is it the explosion of a grenade?" he asked excitedly and hopefully. "Probably a car with a blown tire," I said, suddenly feeling sorry for his disappointment.One quickly forgets one's boyhood: I used to be interested in what people, for lack of a better name, call news.But the grenade explosions had long since become commonplace to me. They were the last page of the local paper—how many had happened in Saigon last night, how many had happened on the Embankment.This kind of thing doesn't make the newspapers at all in Europe nowadays.From the other side of the avenue came now some lovely flat girls--white silk trousers, and long, tight jackets in pink and purple patterns, with slits slit up to the thighs.I watched them, knowing that I would miss them when I left this part of the world for ever. "They're cute, aren't they?" I said over my beer.Pyle glanced at them briefly as they walked down Catina Street. "Oh, indeed," he said nonchalantly: he turned out to be a very serious man. "The minister is very concerned about these grenade explosions," he said. "It would be embarrassing if something happened--I mean if it involved one of us." "One of you involved? Yeah, I think that would be serious. Congress wouldn't like it." Why should I tease the innocent?Perhaps only ten days ago he had walked home from the Boston Common with his arms full of books on the Far East and China.That's what he was rushing to read before he set off here.For the moment, he doesn't even hear me: he's already preoccupied with the problems of democracy and the responsibilities of the West.It was not long before I learned that he was determined to do something good, not to any one person, but to a country, a continent, and the world.Yes, he can be said to be in his right place to come and improve the entire universe. "Is he in the morgue right now?" I asked Vigot. "How do you know he's dead?" It was a stupid question from a policeman, unworthy of a man who read Pascal's article, and who loved his wife so much.If a person does not have keen insight, he will not talk about love. "No crime," I said.I thought to myself that he really was dead.Hadn't Pyle always had his own way?At this point, I checked my emotions, even resentment at being suspected by a policeman, but there was nothing.No one but Pyle should be held accountable.Wouldn't it be better if we were all dead?The opium smoke reasoned in my heart.But I looked at Feng'er cautiously, because this incident was very uncomfortable for her.She must have loved him the way she did: hadn't she liked me and then left me for Pyle?She had an automatic liking for youth, hope, and seriousness, and now they were more tormenting her than aging and disappointing me.She sat there, looking at the two of us.I don't think she understands what's going on.Maybe I can manage to take her away before it's all out, and that might be a good thing.I'm ready to answer any questions, if I can make this interrogation vague and quickly over, I can take a moment and tell her in private, out of these hard chairs in the office, out of the way of a policeman. The unshaded light bulb around which the moths are flying. I said to Vigot, "What period of time do you want to know about my activities?" "The period between six and ten o'clock." "At six o'clock, I was drinking at the Continental Hotel. The waiters there will remember. At six forty-five, I walked to the riverside pier to watch the American planes unload from the ship. I met at the door of the Majestic Hotel Wilkins of the Associated Press. Later, I went into the movie theater next door. They might remember--they had to give me some money when I bought the ticket. From the movie theater, I hailed a tricycle Went to the Old Mill - I think I got there around eight-thirty - had dinner alone. Granger was there - you can ask him. Then I took the tricycle back home, about It's quarter past nine. Maybe you can find the pedicab driver. At ten o'clock I was expecting Pyle to come, but he didn't come. " "Why are you waiting for him?" "He called me and said he needed to see me, it was something urgent." "Do you know what it is?" "I don't know. It's all important to Pyle." "And this woman of his?—do you know where she was then?" "She was waiting for him outside at midnight. She was in a hurry. She didn't know anything. Oh, can't you see she's waiting for him even now." "I can see that," he said. "You don't really think I killed him out of jealousy—or what did she kill him for? He's going to marry her soon." "right" "Where did you find him?" "In the water under the bridge to Darko." The Old Mill is right by that bridge.There are armed policemen on the bridge, and the restaurant has an iron fence to prevent grenades from being thrown in.At night, it was not safe to walk across that bridge, because the Viet Minh world was beyond the river when it got dark. So I must have been within fifty yards of his body at dinner last night. "The problem," I said, "is that his social relationships are too complicated." "Honestly," Vigot said, "I don't feel bad at all. He's been in a lot of trouble." "May God always keep us," I said, "from some naive, nice people." "Good old man?" "Yes, good old man. As far as he is. You're a Catholic, and you don't appreciate his manners. He's a sleazy Yankee, anyway." "Would you please identify the body, please? I'm sorry. It's a routine, an unpleasant routine." I didn't bother to ask him why he didn't wait for the people from the American Legation to come.I already understood this point.By our standards of indifference, the French approach is a bit old-fashioned: they believe in conscience, in the sense of guilt, that a criminal should be allowed to face his crime, and maybe he will break down and show himself.I told myself again: I am innocent, while Vigot walked down the stone steps to the basement where the freezers were humming. They dragged him out like a tray of ice cubes.I took a closer look.Several wounds were frozen and smooth.I said, "Look, these wounds don't open again in front of me." "Want to comment?" "Isn't that one of your goals? Test it with a real object. But you have frozen him. In the Middle Ages, there were no strong freezing equipment." "Do you recognize him?" "Oh, of course I do." He looked even more out of order now: he should have stayed at home.I've seen him in one of his family photo albums, riding horses on a vacation farm, swimming on the Long Island beach and posing with colleagues on the twenty-third floor of an apartment building. "He deserves to live a life of skyscrapers and direct elevators, ice cream and straight martinis: milk for lunch, chicken sandwiches in commercial buildings. "He didn't die from that wound," Vigot said, pointing to a wound on his chest. "He was smothered in the mud. We found the mud in his lungs." "You guys are pretty quick." "In this climate, it has to be fast." They pushed the body back into place and closed the door.There was a muffled click on the rubber edge on the door. "You can't help us at all?" Vigot asked. "Can't help at all." Feng Er and I walked all the way back to my residence.I don't pick it up anymore.Death took vanity away—a husband must not show any pain when his wife is with someone else, but I didn't even have this vanity at the time.Feng'er still didn't understand what was going on, and I didn't have the ability to tell her slowly and calmly.I'm a news reporter: headlines are all I can think of. "American officials were murdered in Saigon." The people who worked in the newspaper didn't know how to tell people the bad news, and even now I couldn't help but think of my paper and I had to ask her: Just a moment, will it work?" I asked Feng'er to stand on the street, went in alone to send a telegram, and then came out to return to her side.It's just a posturing: I'm well aware that the French journalists have already got the news, or if Vigot is not partial (which is likely), the censors will withhold my telegrams until the French journalists Our telegrams were sent and resent.My newspaper will first receive a telegram from Paris.Not because Pyle was important.If he sent back his real experience in detail, saying that he was responsible for at least 50 lives before his death, that would not work, because it would damage the relationship between Britain and the United States, and the American Minister would be very unhappy.The Minister held Pyle very seriously—Pyle had a good degree—in the kind of subjects that only Americans can get degrees: maybe public relations or stagecraft, maybe even Far Eastern problems (he had read a lot of books like that). not less). "Where's Pyle?" Feng Er asked me. "What are they looking for you for?" "Go home first," I said. "Will Pyle come?" "He might come." The old ladies were still chatting on the stairs, where it was cooler.When I opened the door, I saw immediately that my room had been searched: everything was tidier than when I left. "Want to smoke another bag of cigarettes?" Feng'er asked. "Ok." I undo my tie and take off my shoes.The episode was over: the night was almost normal again.Feng'er squatted on the bedside and lit a cigarette lamp. Monenfant, masoeur - amber skin. Sadouce languenatale. "Fenger," I said.She was pinching the foam on the pipe. "Estmort, Feng'er." Holding the cigarette stick in her hand, she looked up at me, frowning like a child. "Pyk68tmart,ASSSSSSllle." She put down the stick, sat back on her heels, and looked at me.No cries, no tears, just musings--the kind of long, private musings one has when one has to change the whole course of one's life. "You'd better stay here tonight," I said. She nodded, picked up the cigarette stick again, and started burning opium.After smoking opium, I usually fell asleep for a while, at most ten minutes, and seemed to have rested all night.That night I awoke from one of these deep sleeps to find my hand again where it had been at night, between her legs.She was asleep and I could barely hear her breathing.After so many months, I was no longer alone again, but suddenly I was angry at the thought of Vigot sitting in the police station wearing a hood, and the quietness in the corridors of the American Legation. , there was no one, and thinking of my hands touching the soft, smooth, hairless skin, "Am I the only one who really cares about Pyle?"