“Hanoi? You want go Hanoi?”
“Yeah. Is there a train? Bus? Airplane?”
“Airplane. Bus very dangerous. No train. French people go plane. Plane no go tomorrow, go samedi. But maybe no place for you. Biet?”
“How about car and driver?”
“No. Tet now. No driver go Hanoi. Lundi driver go Hanoi. You want driver?”
“Maybe. Okay, thanks for the history lesson. Viet people very brave.”
He almost smiled, then pointed to himself and said, “Ong die here. You understand? Grand-père.”
“I understand.”
We left the guide and walked up the dirt road, back toward the town. We passed a gutted tank and a few French bunkers overgrown with weeds. I observed, “This is somehow quieter and more dignified than Cong World or DMZ World.”
Susan replied, “The north is more somber and less commercial. Plus, they’re dealing with the French here, who are a little more dignified and solemn than some of our compatriots at Cong World or Apocalypse Now.”
I said, “I’m Canadian.”
She informed me, “I barely understood that guide’s Vietnamese. They speak a different dialect up here.”
I had the suspicious thought that Ms. Weber was setting me up for some juke and jive if we got to speak with my star witness. I said, “The written language is the same. Correct?”
She hesitated, then replied, “Mostly.”
“Good. Bring a pen.”
We kept walking, and she asked me, “What’s the plan now?”
“Our mutual rendezvous person in Hue, Mr. Anh, suggested I go to the market and chat with a few Montagnards. Didn’t he tell you that?”
“Yes, he did.”
“That’s the plan.”
She inquired, “Are you concerned about what may have happened to Mr. Anh?”
“I am.”
“Do you think he’d crack under interrogation?”
“Everyone does.”
She didn’t reply.
We turned onto a street at the edge of the town. There were enough Westerners around so that we didn’t stand out, and they were mostly middle-aged or older people, and no backpackers, which was a treat. I saw the bus station to our left; an old stucco building with two incredibly dilapidated buses in front of it.
She saw me looking at the buses and asked, “Why did you ask the guide about transportation to Hanoi?”
“I might want to take my witness to Hanoi. I can’t take the motorcycle unless you’re willing to stay behind.”
She changed the subject and said, “You need to tell me now the name of the village we’re looking for.”
If I believed her, this was the one thing she didn’t know, and if I told her, then she didn’t need me any longer. But the time had come, and I said to her, “It’s called Ban Hin. It’s about thirty kilometers north of here.” I added, “If something happens to me, you push on.”
She didn’t reply.
We got to the market, which was a partially paved area covered by roofs in long rows.
As we walked through the market, I noticed that no one was badgering us to buy anything. I remarked on this to Susan, and she said, “The merchants in the north are not aggressive or pushy. As a businesswoman, I find the North Viets hopeless.”
I said, “You can drop your cover, Ms. Weber.”
“I have to stay in practice for the next guy I do this with.”
I looked around the market and noticed lots of porcupines hanging, along with weasels, red squirrels, and other tasty wildlife. I asked Susan, “So, what’s our story? We have relatives in Ban Hin? A pen pal? Looking for a retirement spot?”
She said, “I’ll take care of it.”
There was a whole section of the market taken up by Montagnards and their wares, and we walked through this area. Susan said to me, “Meet me in Aisle 8, paper products and light bulbs.”
I looked around to see if the aisles were actually numbered, and she laughed at me. “Go find the tea section. I’ll find you there.”
I kept walking, then glanced back and saw Susan sitting cross-legged on a blanket, talking to some Montagnard women and handling some ladies wear while she smoked a cigarette; the salesladies smoked whatever was in their pipes. Maybe they were less pushy because they were stoned out of their minds.
I found the covered stall where tea leaves lay on the ground in wicker baskets. The vendors were mostly Montagnards of the same tribe, and they were brewing tea, so I got a bowl of hot tea for two hundred dong, about two cents, and sipped it. It was awful, but it was hot and I was cold.
This was a weird place, and I was sure that nearly all the Westerners were with organized groups. Only an idiot would come here alone.
Four soldiers with AK-47s came into the tea area, and they gave me the eye, then ordered bowls of tea.
They stood not ten feet from me, drinking tea, smoking, and talking softly. One of them kept glancing at me. Do I need this shit?
If it weren’t for the Colt .45 stuck in my belt, I wouldn’t be too concerned. Yet, when you’re carrying, and you’re not supposed to be carrying, the fucking gun seems to get bigger and bigger under your clothes, so that in your mind, it’s the size of an artillery piece.
The four soldiers finished before I did and walked away.
I stood there listening to my heart beat.
Susan appeared and put down a large plastic bag filled with brightly colored clothes. She ordered tea, sipped from the bowl, and said, “That feels good.”
“How’d you make out?”
“Pretty good. Ban Hin is about thirty kilometers north of here.”
“I know that. How do we get there?”
She said, “These Montagnards are all Tai and H’mong, and they live in the north hills and walk into Dien Bien Phu with their wares, or sometimes they take a pony, or the once-a-day bus, and the rich ones have scooters or motorcycles.”
“Is that a fact? How do we get to Ban Hin?”
“I’m getting to that. I found a lady who lives near Ban Hin.”
“Good. She draw you a map?”
“No. But I got directions. Problem is, she and her people use a lot of trails and shortcuts, so she wasn’t clear on the road route. Plus, I couldn’t understand half her Vietnamese. The Montagnards have a worse accent than the North Viets.”
“Go back and get the directions written out.”
“They’re illiterate, Paul.”
“Then get her to draw a map.”
“They don’t understand the concept of maps. Maps are abstract.”
“To you and her maybe. Not to me.”
“Take a break. I think I can follow her directions.”
I thought about all of this. Mr. Anh had been very clear about not asking an ethnic Vietnamese anything because they’d run off to the cops if they thought you were up to something. Montagnards were all right because they kept to themselves. But Mr. Anh failed to mention that they spoke differently, took trails instead of roads, were illiterate, and had never seen a map in their lives. Minor problems, but Susan thought she knew the way to Ban Hin.
I asked her, “What did you tell her about why you wanted to go to Ban Hin?”
“I said I’d heard there was beautiful jewelry made there.” Susan added, “It’s a girl thing.”
I rolled my eyes, but I don’t do that well, and Susan missed it.
She said, “She mentioned that Ban Hin was a Vietnamese village, not Montagnard, as we probably knew, and that the Vietnamese made bad jewelry, plus she never heard of jewelry being made in Ban Hin.”
She finished her tea, then went around to other stalls and bought some bottled water, rice cakes, and bananas. I looked for a taco stand.
We left the market carrying plastic bags and walked toward the motel, a hundred meters up the dirt road. We went into Unit 7, packed our stuff in the BMW’s saddlebags, and I wheeled the bike out of the room and down to the reception office.