We sat close together in our booth listening to Dionne Warwick walking on by and, in the way that two human beings who are sexually interested in each other — and in very close proximity — understand exactly what is going on, neither of us needed to say anything. Messages had been sent and received.
‘I don’t have anywhere to stay tonight,’ John said, taking my hand.
John Oberkamp. Saigon, Vietnam, 1968.
‘I have an uncomfortable daybed in my horrible flat, if you’re interested.’
‘I might well be. Can we check it out?’
And so we left, after a final drink, and wandered back to my place and one thing led to another, as we both intended it should, and John Oberkamp and I made love several times over the next twelve hours.
In the afternoon — we rose late — I had Truong drive me to MACV for the ‘five o’clock follies’ press briefing. John wandered off to pick up a plane heading for Nui Dat.
We kissed goodbye, chastely, and John said he’d be back in a week. I said fine — you know where to find me — and off he went, glancing over his shoulder, giving me a wave. I felt a warmth that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I had no illusions — it was the classic Saigon encounter — but I had needed it. John Oberkamp was the first man I’d slept with since Sholto. Some personal sexual Rubicon had been crossed, as far as I was concerned, and I felt pleased and strangely fulfilled. Sholto’s ghost laid to rest.
As it turned out I was sorry that he’d gone back to Nui Dat because that evening I had a Telex from the New York office informing me that one of my photographs — that I’d called ‘The Confrontation’ — had won the Matthew B. Brady Award for war photography. It was an honour that brought with it a cheque for $5,000.
I went out on the town with Mary Poundstone and a couple of other photographer acquaintances — we went up one side of Tu Do Street and then back down the other, and wound up with a bunch of AP staffers in the bar of the Majestic — and in the course of the evening we duly drank ourselves into an agreeable state of quasi-insensibility. But all the time I was thinking: I wish John Oberkamp were here. It would have been altogether better with John.
Mini-Tet was more or less over by the end of May. As the fighting in the suburbs fizzled out I came to realise that what had disturbed me as much as the nightly show of flares, artillery and the throbbing pulse of helicopters passing over, had been the sense that the city had been surrounded by the Viet Cong and the NVA. There had been fighting in the north and in the south; in the south-east of the city and the north-west and so on round the compass. It seemed unreal — this is the capital, what’s going on? — but a little further thought was destabilising. If they’re everywhere, if they’re this close, how long can we realistically hold out? What happens the next time. .?
‘The Confrontation’, winner of the Matthew B. Brady Award, 1968.
I visited areas of Cholon where the street battles had been fiercest and took photographs — none of which were ever used. Restaurants were open; the streets were a honking gridlock of traffic and shoppers, and then you’d come across a shattered building, pitted, scorched and blasted apart; a gaping shell crater steadily filling with rubbish or the carbonised remains of an Armoured Personnel Carrier. And there was a strange reek in those streets that seemed to cling to your clothes and hair when you went home at night — like a sweet brackish perfume of smoke, cordite, charred wood, decomposing bodies, gasoline — that you could still smell when you woke in the morning.
Even in early June at night from the roof bar of the Caravelle you could see the flares going up and the nervy chatter of a machine gun sending its looping beads of tracer up into the black sky. First-time visiting journalists were very impressed as they sipped their drinks. I heard one Englishman say that he felt like Lord Raglan on the heights of Balaclava.
I was in my makeshift darkroom in the bureau checking my supplies of developer, stopper and fixer when Renata Alabama peered in the door and said, ‘There’s some crazy Australian out here insisting on talking to you.’
I hadn’t seen John since our night together — a week ago — and I felt that breathless rush of anticipation as I went downstairs and along the corridor to reception, running my hands through my hair and wishing I’d put on some lipstick that morning. Fool, I said to myself — you’re not sixteen years old.
But I could see at once he was in a state, ill at ease. We shook hands — Renata was hovering, curious — and he asked if we could go somewhere quiet where we could talk properly. I picked up my bag and we left, heading down the street to Bonnard’s, a French-style café where they played American Forces Radio at low volume — you could talk without raising your voice.
We took our seats, ordered coffee, I lit a cigarette.
‘I’ve missed you,’ I said. ‘Silly me.’
‘Queenie’s run away. Run away home.’
‘Well, you know what these—’
‘She’s pregnant.’
‘Bargirls get pregnant, John. Occupational hazard.’
‘She says it’s mine.’
‘Come on—’
‘It can only be mine, she says.’
I felt a weariness of spirit descend on me. Fool, I rebuked myself for the second time in ten minutes. You were a one-night stand, old lady. I tried to reason with him but he didn’t want reason.
‘You can’t be sure it’s yours.’
‘Yes I can. She wouldn’t lie to me.’
‘What’s it got to do with me?’ I asked, letting some cynical steel into my voice. I was, I had to admit, a little hurt.
John explained. He knew where Queenie’s parents lived, in a village called Vinh Hoa on Highway 22 north out of Saigon, on the road to Tay Ninh. He needed someone who spoke French to be able to explain the situation to them — Queenie’s parents spoke French, she was proud of that, which was how he knew. I could see the panic rising in him so I said: whatever I can do to help, just tell me. He wanted to go directly to Vinh Hoa — he was sure Queenie would be with her parents — also he wanted me to bring my photos of her as a means of identifying where the family lived.
‘Hang on,’ I said, remembering. ‘There’s still fighting on Highway 22.’
‘Very sporadic. They’re mopping up. It’s only thirty clicks up the road, anyway — an hour, max.’ He wouldn’t stand for any caution. ‘Traffic is flowing. I checked.’
‘I’ll try and get hold of Truong.’
‘We can’t wait. I’ve got my bike with me. Come on, Amory — it’s very important. You owe it to me.’
I bridled at this: I owed him for a fuck?
Then he leant forward and kissed me and I forgave him.
‘She’s carrying my child. I can’t just let her vanish. I’ll never find her if I don’t go immediately. It’s now or never.’
He was right, I supposed, or so I thought as we walked back to the bureau. I wanted to take one precaution — I insisted — we had to tape BAO CHI1 in large letters to his bike.
‘Of course, anything,’ John said. ‘We can tape it to the leg shields.’ He pointed at a dirty old red and white motorbike, paint smirched and flaking.
‘What kind of bike is this?’ I asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I just like to know these things.’
‘It’s a Honda Super Cub.’