Susan stayed quiet awhile, then said, “And this is where you saw the elephant?”
“This is where I saw the elephant.”
She thought awhile, then said, “When we were being shot at back there… I think I caught a glimpse of the elephant.”
“Did you go ice cold with fear and feel your mouth go dry and your heart trying to burst through your chest?”
“I did.”
“Then you caught a glimpse of the elephant.”
Up ahead, I could see a bridge that I recalled, and which passed over the An Lao River, on the other side of which was the town of Bong Son.
Susan put on her sunglasses and asked, “Do I look like a co-dep?”
I looked at her in the rearview mirror. With her long, straight hair parted down the middle, and with the shades, she could pass for a Vietnamese woman in a dark moving car. I looked at Mr. Cam. He could pass for a Vietnamese, too, because he was Vietnamese. The problem was me.
I looked at Mr. Cam again, and I had the impression he was going to make a break for it when we hit the town.
I pulled onto the shoulder and said to Susan, “Get the shoelace from one of my docksiders in my suitcase.”
She got out of the car, opened the rear hatch, and took a few things out of the luggage. She called out to me, “It’s getting cold out here.”
I lowered my window, and it seemed to me that it was still warm, but I hadn’t lived here for three years. I remembered the smell of the wet night earth and the river.
Susan closed the hatch and got back into the car. She handed me a leather lace from one of my deck shoes. She also had one of her high-necked silk blouses, which she put on over her polo shirt.
I took the strip of leather and motioned for Mr. Cam to lean forward and put his hands behind his back. He seemed happier about being tied up than being strangled, and he cooperated fully.
I tied his thumbs together, then tied the loose ends of the leather lace to his belt.
Susan handed me my sunglasses and said, “Slicky boys wear these day and night. You won’t look too weird.”
I put the glasses on, but as far as I was concerned, I still looked like a six-foot Caucasian with wavy hair and a prominent nose.
I put the Nissan into gear, and we drove toward the bridge. I said to Susan, “See those concrete bunkers on the corners of the bridge? They were built by the French. American platoons took turns manning the bunkers. It was good duty — better than out in the boondocks. There used to be barbed wire all over and minefields. Every few weeks, Charlie would come around to see if we were awake. They really wanted to blow that bridge, but they never got past the barbed wire and the minefields. The minefields were laid by the French, and we didn’t have a map of the mines, so when Charles blew himself up out there, we couldn’t go in to retrieve the bodies. They’d lay out there and feed the buzzards and maggots for weeks. This place used to stink a lot. Smells okay now.” I raised my window.
Susan had no comment.
We drove onto the bridge across the An Lao, which flowed into the South China Sea. I put the Nissan into second gear and slid down in my seat.
We came off the bridge into the main street of the town of Bong Son. The town seemed to be as I remembered it. The stucco buildings were fairly nice, and there were palm trees planted here and there. Bong Son had apparently not been hit hard by the war.
There were a few restaurants on the street, and I remembered that a lot of ethnic Indians and Chinese once lived here, who owned most of the shops and restaurants, but I saw no evidence of them now. The GI bars, massage parlors, and whorehouses had been on a side street, away from the good citizens.
Back to the present, I saw that there were a lot of motor scooters and bicycles on the street, and more important, there were a few cars moving around, so we didn’t look too out of place.
I said, “Up ahead, at the end of town, used to be the headquarters of the National Police. They were mostly guys from well-connected families, and police service kept them out of the army. They were also sadistic. See that stone wall over on the right? And those big wrought iron gates?”
“Yes.”
“Inside the wall is a French colonial building. I think it was the town hall or something. One night, a bunch of VC infiltrated the town and attacked the building. The National Police killed and captured about a dozen of them. A few days later, I came into town with a bunch of guys in a Jeep to see what we could buy or barter on the black market. The National Police had hanged a dozen VC bodies from those gates. Most of them were full of holes, but some had been hanged alive, and not by the neck — but by their thumbs. The bodies were rotting in the sun.” I added, “The ARVN would just shoot captured VC in the head. The National Police were not so nice.”
I looked at Susan in the rearview mirror. She was not looking at the gates, but I looked at them as we passed by, and I could see those bodies hanging there. “I still remember the stench.”
She had no comment.
“We reported it to our company commander, and he passed it up the line. The National Police were pissed at us for interfering in their object lesson. Don’t get me wrong — we were no angels, either, but you have to draw the line somewhere. War is one thing, but this wasn’t war. On the other hand, the Vietnamese had been at it so long, and they’d lost so many friends and family, that they’d gone around the bend long before we got here.”
I continued, “The First Cavalry was moved out of Bong Son after the new year, and we went up to Quang Tri, which turned out to be a lot worse than this place.”
Again, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that Susan was sitting very still. I said, “I was eighteen years old.”
The National Police headquarters came up on our left, and I saw a red flag with a yellow star hanging from the building. There were four yellow jeeps parked out front, and about six policemen, smoking and chatting. I turned my head away as we passed close by and kept going.
I said, “After the Communist victory, the big bloodbath that everyone had predicted turned out to be not too bad. The executions were selective, and most enemies of the state wound up in re-education camps. But the National Police, who were hated by just about everyone, were systematically hunted down and executed by the new National Police.” I added, “What you sow, you reap.”
Susan, I saw, had a pack of cigarettes in one hand, a lighter in the other, but she just sat there. Finally, she said, “I never understood any of this in Saigon.”
“It was a very dirty war in the countryside. But it’s history. Memories fade, and life goes on. The next generation might be okay.” I looked at Mr. Cam and wondered about his own history. Maybe I’d ask him later.
The town of Bong Son stretched on along Highway One for a hundred more meters, then we were out in the countryside again. I said, “The big American camp, called Landing Zone English, was a few kilometers from here to the left. There’s a valley there called An Lao, where the river starts in the hills. We cleared out all the population of the valley, and resettled the people in strategic hamlets so that they couldn’t aid the local VC or North Vietnamese army with food or labor. The An Lao Valley became a free-fire zone, and anything in the valley that moved was shot — including farm animals left behind and wildlife. We even went bird hunting with Browning automatic shotguns. We burned every structure, killed every fruit-bearing tree, oiled the rice paddies, and leveled the forest with these things called Rome Plows. Then we air-dropped cardboard barrels filled with crystals that produced noxious, choking gas. We renamed the An Lao Valley the Valley of Death.” I paused. “I wonder if anyone lives there now.”