Chapter 12 chapter Ten

1 It was very uncomfortable returning to Saigon for the first time with no one to greet me.At the airport, I wish I could hail a taxi somewhere other than Rue Catina.I thought to myself: "Is the pain a little less than when I left?" Then I tried to convince myself that it was indeed less.When I got to the stairs, I saw the door was open, and I had hope beyond reason, and my breathing became a little short.I walked slowly towards the door of the room.Until you reach the door, hope is still there.I heard a chair creak.When I got to the door, I saw another pair of shoes, but not women's shoes.I walked in quickly.Pyle stood up from the chair Feng Er used to sit in, looking a little embarrassed.

He said, "Yo, Thomas." "Oh, Pyle. How did you get in here?" "I ran into Dominguez. He brought you a letter. I asked him to let me come in and sit for a while." "Did Feng'er forget something?" "Oh no, Joe told me you went to the legation. I think it's easier to talk here." "About what?" He made a gesture of bewilderment, like a child who has a position in school and is invited to speak, but cannot think of the words that adults use. "You've been outside all this time?" "Yes. What about you?"

"Oh, I've been running around too." "Still playing with plastic?" He grinned unhappily, and said, "Here are all your letters." I could tell at a glance that there was nothing in the pile of letters that interested me: one was from a London newspaper, some looked like bills, and one was from the bank where I had deposited my money.I asked, "How is Feng'er?" His face automatically lit up, like an electric toy that responds to certain sounds. "Oh, she's fine," he said, and immediately shut his mouth shut again, as if he'd said too much.

"Sit down, Pyle," I said. "I beg your pardon, but I will read this letter first. It is from my newspaper." I opened the letter.How unluckily the unexpected happened.The editor-in-chief wrote to say that he had considered my latest letter, and in view of the confusion in Indochina after the death of General Delater and the withdrawal of the French from the Palace of Peace, he agreed with my suggestion, A Foreign Affairs News Editor has been temporarily assigned and I hope I will be in Indochina for at least another year. "We'll keep that position until you come back," he comforted me without understanding my mood at all.He thought I cared a lot about the position and about the paper.

I sat down across from Pyle, and reread the late letter.For a moment, I felt smug, like waking up without remembering the past. "Is it bad news?" Pyle asked. "No." I said to myself, it doesn't make any difference at all: a one-year delay in returning home can't stand up to the post-marital property settlement agreement. "Are you married?" I asked. "Not yet." He blushed—he blushed very easily. "Actually, I'd like to get a special leave of absence. Then we can go back home and get married — with dignity." "Is it more respectable to marry at home?"

"Well, I think--it's hard to talk to you about these things, you're so mean, Thomas, but it's solemn to be married at home. My father and mother were all there--she sort of came into our house . This is important given the past. " "Thing of the past?" "You know what I'm talking about. I don't want to keep her in the house and get a bad name..." "Are you going to keep her in the country?" "I think so. My mother was a great old lady--she'd walk her around, introduce her to friends, you know, make her more or less acclimated. And she'd help Feng Er Arrange a home for me."

I don't know if I should feel bad for Feng'er - she used to look forward to seeing skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty so much, but she had no idea what it was about, Professor and Mrs. Pyle, those women's lunch clubs , would they teach her to play canasta?I think of her on that first night in the great world: in a white dress, only eighteen years old, moving so beautifully and lightly, and I think of her again a month ago: in the butcher shops on the Boulevard Somme Bargain for meat.Would she like the clean, bright little grocery stores in New England?Those shops even sell celery wrapped in cellophane.Maybe she will like it.

I can't tell.Oddly enough, I found myself saying as Pyle might have said a month ago, "Treat her well, Pyle. Don't push her. She'll be sad just like you and me." "Of course, of course, Thomas." "She looks so small and fragile, not like our girls, but don't think of her as...as an ornament." "Funny, Thomas, how things turned out differently. I've been afraid to talk to you. I thought you'd be rough." "The last time I was in the north, I had time to think about it. There was a woman over there... Maybe what I saw was the same one you saw in that brothel last time. Fenger went away with you, which is a good thing." Good thing. One day I might leave her for someone like Granger. Be a firework girl."

"So we can still be friends, Thomas?" "Certainly. Only I don't want to see Feng'er again. In fact, there are enough things around here to remind me of her. I must find another house--as soon as I can." He spread his legs and stood up. "I'm so happy, Thomas. I can't tell you how happy I am. I said that before, I know, but I wish I hadn't met you." "I'm glad it was you, Pyle." The meeting was not what I had foreseen: beneath the superficial, angry plans, from a deeper plane, of course, a real course of action had taken shape up.His innocence always pissed me off, but inside me a certain standard of judgment summed up and I sympathized with him, taking his idealism, his imperfect conception from the books of York Harding, and My cynicism compares.Oh, I'm right about the facts, but isn't he also right about being young and making mistakes?A girl wants to spend her whole life with someone. Is it better to be with him than with me?

We shook hands reluctantly, but a somewhat formulaic apprehension made me follow him to the landing and stop him.Perhaps there is a prophet and a judge within us who make real decisions. "Pylestone puts too much faith in York Harding's arguments." "York!" He looked up at the first turn of the stairs, looking at me with wide eyes. "We're the people of the old colonial country, Pyle, but we've learned a little from reality, we've learned not to play with fire. The power of the Third Force - it's from the books, that's all. . General Tay was just a bandit leader with thousands of men under his command: he did not represent national democracy. "

He seemed to be looking at me wide-eyed through the letter-box slot on the front door to see who was outside, and now he lowered the lid to shut out the unwelcome stranger.His eyes are gone. "I don't know what you mean by that, Thomas." "Those bike bombs. That was a big joke, even though one guy actually got his foot blown off. But, Pyle, you can't trust a guy like General Tay. That guy wouldn't take the East from communism saved them. We know who they were." "us?" "That is to say, old colonialist." "I thought you weren't on either side." "I'm not on either side, Pyle, but if one of your people has to mess things up let Joe do it. You take Feng'er home. Forget about the Third Force ." "Of course, I have always respected your opinion, Thomas," he said solemnly. "Oh, we'll see you again." "I think we'll probably see each other again." 2 Fast forward a few weeks, but somehow I still haven't found a new room.It's not because I don't have time.The war's annual crisis had passed again: hot and humid. The rachin has begun in the north: the French have pulled out of Peace House, the rice season campaign in the Tokyo area is over, and the opium season campaign in Laos is over.Dominguez can easily interview news from the south that is needed by himself. Finally, I managed to force myself to see a room in a so-called modern building (perhaps from the 1934 "Paris Exposition" era?) just beyond the Hotel Continental, at the other end of Rue Catina .It is the temporary residence of a rubber manor owner in Saigon. He is going back to France, so he wants to sell it all.I still don't know what was in those vats in his house: as for the treasures, it was a large number of engravings, all from the Paris Salon between 1880 and 1900.The most common feature of those prints is the big-breasted woman with a very special hairstyle and tulle, which somehow always exposes the two halves of the big buttocks and hides the private parts.In the bathroom of that suite, the rubber manor was even more daring, with reproductions of oil paintings of nudes. "Do you like art?" I asked.He smiled at me triumphantly, as if I were his accomplice.He was fat, with a black beard and thinning hair. "My best paintings are all in Paris," he said. In the living room, there is an unusually high ashtray made into the shape of a naked woman with a small bowl in her hair, and some china decorations, all of which are naked women hugging tigers, and there is a very strange girl, Topless, riding a bicycle.In the bedroom, facing his big bed, was a large glossy oil painting of two girls sleeping together.I asked him how much it would cost to buy a house without his collections, but he was unwilling to sell them separately. "So you're not a collector?" he asked. "Oh, no." "I still have some books," said he, "I'm going to give them all away, but I meant to take them back to France." He unlocked a glass-doored bookcase, and showed me his collection. —the illustrated, expensive editions of Nana, The Wild Girl, and even a couple of Paul de Kirk.I really wanted to ask him if he would be happy to sell himself and his collection: he was part of it: he represented the end of that period."If you're alone in the tropics, these paintings and calligraphy are good companions," he said. I thought of Feng'er again, just because she wasn't there at all.It has always been this way: when you flee into a desert, the silence always screams in your ears. "I don't think my newspaper will allow me to buy a collection of art." "Of course these things are not written on the receipt," he said. I'm glad Pyle didn't see this man: the man's features would have been on Pyle's imaginary "old colonialist" face.He was repulsive enough without his looks.I saw the house and came out, it was almost half past eleven.I went as far as the gazebo to have a cold beer.Gazebo is a coffee shop that all European and American women like to patronize.I am convinced that I will never see Feng'er there.Seriously, I know exactly where she is at this time—she's not a girl to change her habits, so I'd have crossed the street from the rubber manor's house to avoid the milk shop, because by then she must be drinking her chocolate malted milk there.Sitting at the next table were two young American girls, neatly dressed on such a hot day. They were eating ice cream with spoons, and each had a similar leather bag over their left shoulder, all bearing brass eagle badges.Their legs were the same, long and thin, and their noses were a little crooked.They ate ice cream with such concentration that it was as if they were experimenting in a university laboratory.I don't know if they are Pyle's colleagues: they are all very charming, and I want to persuade them to go back to America too.They finished their ice cream, and one girl looked at her watch. "We'd better go," she said, "and play it safe." I wondered idly what appointment they had. "Warren said we couldn't stay past eleven twenty-five." "It's past eleven twenty-five." "It's going to be exciting to stay. I don't know what the hell is going on, you know?" "I don't know for sure, but Warren said it's better not to stay." "Do you think it's going to be a demonstration?" "I've seen so many demonstrations," said another impatiently, like a tourist who's tired of churches.She stood up and put the money for the ice cream on the table.Before leaving, she looked around the cafe, the mirrors reflecting her form from every spotty angle.I was then alone in the shop with a middle-aged, sloppy-dressed Frenchwoman who was putting on her face with considerable care and futility.The two girls hardly needed any make-up, just a hasty application of lipstick and a comb of hair.For a moment the American girl's eyes fell on me--not a woman's, but a man's, very direct, meditating on some course of action.Then she turned quickly back to her companion. "We'd better go." I lazily watched them walk out side by side, onto the sun-dappled street. It's impossible to imagine either of these two being the prey of an inappropriate relationship: very messy sheets and post-coital sweat have nothing to do with them.Do they go to bed with deodorant on?I found myself envious of their sanitized world for a moment.That world was so different from the one I lived in—the world I lived in suddenly and inexplicably broke into pieces.Two mirrors on the wall flew towards me, cracking halfway.The disheveled Frenchwoman was kneeling among a pile of ruined tables and chairs.Her compact was wide open and dropped perfectly onto my lap.Strange to say, I was still sitting exactly where I had been, although the table in front of me had become part of the ruined pile of chairs and tables around the Frenchwoman.There was an odd, garden sound in the café: the sound of a spring dripping evenly.I looked over to the wine cabinet and saw rows of bottles all burst open, and the various wines in the bottles merged into a stream of colorful water—red wine, orange cuantello, green chana. Toast, a dark yellow ouzo, flows over the café floor.The Frenchwoman sat up and looked about calmly for her compact.I handed her the compact back and she sat on the floor and thanked me very solemnly.I realized I didn't catch what she was saying.The explosion was so close that my eardrums hadn't recovered from the stress of the explosion. I thought rather annoyed, "Another plastic joke: what does Mr. Hang expect me to write this time?" But when I got to Rue Garnier and saw the thick smoke, I realized it wasn't a joke .The smoke was coming from the many burning cars in the parking lot in front of the National Theatre, which were blown apart and scattered debris across the square.A man, with both legs blown off, was lying on the edge of a garden in the middle of the street, twitching uncontrollably.People flocked from the Rue Catina, from the Boulevard Bonnard.The sirens of police cars, the bells of ambulances and fire engines came one after another to my shocked ears.For a moment I forgot that Feng'er must be in the dairy across the square.I couldn't see what was going on there because of the thick smoke. I went out, into the square, and a policeman stopped me.They have already formed a circle around the square, and no crowds are allowed to come.Stretchers for the wounded have begun to appear.I talked to the policeman in front of me, "Let me go across the way. I have a friend..." "Stand back," he said. "Everyone has friends here." I stood aside to let a priest pass.I tried to follow the priest, but the policeman pulled me back."I'm a journalist," I said, fumbling vainly for my wallet.My press card was in my wallet, but I couldn't find it anywhere.Did I come out without my wallet today?I said, "At least tell me how the dairy is doing." The smoke was clearing, and I tried to see, but there were too many people in the middle.He said something, but I didn't hear it. "What did you just say?" He repeated, "I don't know what's going on over there. Back off. You're blocking the stretcher bearers." Will I leave my wallet in the gazebo?I turned and walked back, and Pyle was there.He yelled, "Thomas." "Pyle," I said, "Jesus, where's your embassy pass? We gotta go over there. Feng'er's in that dairy." "No, no," he said. "Pyle, she's over there. She always goes there. Eleven thirty. We've got to get her." "She's not there, Thomas." "How do you know? Where is your pass?" "I warned her beforehand not to go." I turned and walked up to the policeman again, trying to push him aside and run across the square: he might shoot: I don't care anymore—and that's when the word "warning" hit me.I grabbed Pyle's arm. "Warning?" I said. "What do you mean by warning?" "I told her not to come up here this morning." The pieces came together in my mind. "And Warren?" I said. "Who's Warren? He warned the girls too." "I don't understand what you're saying." "Americans must have no casualties, right?" An ambulance forced its way into the square from the Rue Catina, and the policeman who had stopped me stepped back to let the car pass.The policeman next to him was arguing again.I took advantage of this, pushed Pyle ahead of us, and rushed into the square before the police could stop us. We arrived among a large mourning crowd.The police could prevent other people from entering the square: they were powerless to clear the square of those who got away with it and who ran in first.The doctors were too busy to take care of the dead, so the dead were left to the care of the families, for one could claim a dead as one could claim a chair.A woman was sitting on the ground with what was left of her baby's limb in her lap, and she covered it with her straw peasant hat with great solemnity.She was silent and motionless, and it was the silence that caught my attention most in the whole square.It was like a church I once visited where Mass was being held—the only sounds were those of the deacon, and here and there some Europeans murmured and complained, and then fell silent again, as if seeing the East. Ashamed of human composure, patience, and propriety.The legless body at the edge of the garden was still twitching like a chicken without its head.Judging from the undershirt the man was wearing, he might be a tricycle driver. Pyle said, "It's uncomfortable." He looked at the blood on the shoe and said in a disgusted voice, "What's this?" "It's blood," I said. "Have you never seen blood before?" He said, "I have to polish my shoes before I go to the envoy." I don't think he knows what he's talking about yet.It was the first time in his life that he saw a real war: he used to hold a boat to Phat Diem, like a schoolboy dreaming.Anyway, soldiers are nothing in his eyes. I put a hand on his shoulder and forced him to look around.I said, "The place is always full of women and children at this time—it's the time when people buy things. Why choose this time?" He said feebly, "There was going to be a parade." "You hope to kill some of the colonels. But the parade was canceled yesterday, Pyle." "I don't know." "Don't know!" I pushed him into the pool of blood where a stretcher had just been placed. "You should be better informed." "I was out of town yesterday," he said, looking down at his shoes. "They should have called off the operation long ago." "Didn't you miss the joke then?" I asked him. "Are you really expecting General Tay's demonstration to fail? It's better than a parade. In a war, women and children are news, soldiers aren't. It will get the attention of the world's press. You have succeeded in making General Tay It's become very important, Pyle. You've put the Third Force and National Democracy in their proper place. Go home and tell Feng J of your heroic dead There are dozens less things to worry about." A small, fat priest hurried past, carrying a tray with something in it, covered with a napkin.Pyle has been silent for a long time, and I have nothing more to say.Really, I've said too much.He was pale and depressed, and he was about to faint.I thought, "What good is that? He's always innocent. You can't blame innocent people, they're always innocent. All you can do is control them or kill them. Simple ignorance It's a mental disorder." He said, "General Tay wouldn't do something like that. I'm sure he never would. Someone must have tricked him." It's a communist..." His mind was impregnably armed with good intentions and simple ignorance.Leaving him standing in the square, I walked forward along the Rue de la Catina to the point where the huge pink cathedral blocked the way.Quite a few people had already poured in: it must be a comfort to them to be able to go to those dead things and pray for the dead. I'm not like them, and I have every reason to be grateful, because isn't Feng'er still alive?Didn't Feng'er get a "warning" in advance?What I can't forget, though, is that figure without legs in the square, that baby lying on its mother's lap.They were not forewarned: they were not important enough.If the parade did take place, would they be there too, out of curiosity, to see the soldiers, to hear the speeches, and to drop some flowers?A two hundred pound bomb is indiscriminate.When you're building a National Democratic Front, how many colonels have to die for a baby or a pedicab driver?I hailed a motorcycle tricycle and told him to take me to Mito pier.