We both laughed in recognition of what we and everyone had been thinking before the assault began, and in that moment, we formed a communal bond with every soldier in history who ever waited for the sound of the bugle, the war pipes, the whistle, the red flare, or whatever it was that meant Go.
Go. You are no longer human, you have no mothers, no wives, no one you care about, except the man beside you. Go. This is the moment you have been dreading for as long as you can remember, this is the fear that comes to you in the night before you sleep, and the nightmare that wakes you out of your sleep. This is it — it’s here, it’s now, it’s real. Go. Meet it.
I wiped the clammy sweat off my face and dried my hands on my trousers.
And then there was the A Shau Valley.
When you think you’ve plumbed the depths of fear, when you’ve gotten to a place at the end of the tunnel, where it can’t get any more narrow or any more black, a place where you no longer have the capacity for fear, in a little corner of the tunnel where you laugh at death, you discover a secret room with the greatest fear of alclass="underline" inside that room is yourself.
I stood, left five dollars on the table, and walked over the bridge to the Citadel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I spent the next few hours sightseeing with my guidebook in hand, snapping photos, taking cyclos and taxis, doubling back on streets, and generally making life miserable for anyone who was trying to follow me.
The crowds around the sights were thin because of the late celebration the night before, and I had the feeling that my contact might wait until 2 P.M., when there were more people around.
Almost everyone who was meandering about were Caucasians, so I didn’t stick out. Most of the morning sufferers, I noticed, were with organized tour groups but as the morning got later, I saw a few Viet families out for a stroll. The walls of the Citadel were over two kilometers on each side, and I stayed within the walls where most of the people were.
At 11:30 A.M., I left the walled city through a gate that put me back on the river walk. I headed south along the embankment where there were a good number of people strolling, and dozens of cyclos, which followed me wherever I went, the drivers yelling, “Hello! Cyclo? Hello! Cyclo?”
The cyclomen, as in Saigon and Nha Trang, looked like what was left of the losing side in the war. The winning side looked like the cop in the Immigration police station. It had been one of those wars where the vanquished looked slightly more well adjusted than the victors. The only hope I saw in this country was in the eyes of the children, and even those eyes didn’t always look hopeful.
I continued along the river and came to the main gates opposite the flag tower where Susan and I had been the night before. The gates were open to the public today, and I re-entered the walled city and crossed the ornamental bridge where dozens of tourists were snapping pictures. I was now in the Imperial Enclosure, formerly reserved for the Emperor and his court. The Emperor’s Palace was also open, and I entered the huge, dark structure. The entrance hall was red and black lacquered wood, with lots of gilded dragons, and green demons with glassy eyes, the sort of stuff that doesn’t help a hangover.
I exited the rear of the palace and directly in front of me was the Halls of the Mandarins, Number 32 in my guidebook.
This was another ornate building, which, according to my book, had been resurrected from the ashes of 1968, and it had that old/new look, like a Disneyland pavilion. I snapped a photo.
It was 11:45, and I had no idea where, exactly, I was supposed to meet this person. The Halls of the Mandarins was big, and like all buildings, it had an outside and an inside, but Mr. Conway had not been specific, though common sense would dictate inside if it was raining, which it wasn’t.
I walked around the perimeter of the building, and by now I was certain I wasn’t being watched or followed. TV shows to the contrary, it’s almost impossible to tail someone for three hours unless you’re on a treadmill, and then it’s easy to spot your tail.
At this point, if I did spot someone who was watching me, it could very well be my contact, and I looked out for that, too.
The danger, I knew, wasn’t in me being followed; I’m better at shaking a tail than a married man with a jealous wife.
The real danger was that my contact might be well known to the Ministry of Public Security, Sections A, B, C, D, and E. It’s almost always the local amateur, hired by some half-wit in Washington, who shows up at a secret rendezvous with fifteen cops on his tail, half of them with video cameras.
Thank God this guy didn’t have to pass anything to me that would be incriminating, like a box full of documents marked “Top Secret.”
No one approached me, but I still had about five minutes, so I walked through yet another gate, this one leading into the Forbidden Purple City, which was the inner sanctum within the outer sanctum of the Imperial Enclosure. These emperors liked their privacy, and according to Susan, only the Emperor, his concubines, and his eunuchs were allowed in the Purple City. In other words, this whole compound was reserved for two balls. I need a place like this.
Actually, there wasn’t much left in the Forbidden Purple City — no emperors, no eunuchs, and unfortunately, no concubines — only wide expanses of fields and low foundation walls where buildings once stood. The only intact structure was the rebuilt Royal Library, Number 23 on my guidebook map, and my second rendezvous point at 2 P.M., if the first one didn’t come off.
There were a number of Westerners in the Purple City, and I overheard a middle-aged couple speaking in American English. She was saying how awful it was that the American military bombed these architectural treasures into rubble. He agreed and added, “We cause death and destruction wherever we go.”
I didn’t think he meant him and his wife, who only caused stupidity wherever they went. As part of my cover, I offered to take their picture together in front of a grassy expanse of waste and rubble. They seemed pleased and gave me their idiotically complex camera that had more stops than the Washington Metro.
As I focused, I said to them, “Did you know that the Communists attacked this beautiful city during the Tet truce, the holiest night of the Buddhist year? Smile. Did you know that the Communist political cadres executed over three thousand citizens of Hue, men and women, by shooting, bashing their heads in, or burying them alive? Smile.”
They weren’t smiling for some reason, but it was a photo that they’d remember, so I fired off two shots, the second with the guy coming toward me, holding out his hand for the camera.
The guy took his camera without a word of thanks, and he and his wife walked away, a little less ignorant than a minute ago, but obviously not happy with this new information. Hey, you’re supposed to learn things when you travel; I had.
I walked out of the Purple City, back to the Halls of the Mandarins, and wandered around inside. The place was big, and I had no idea how this person was going to spot me. If we both had tails, maybe the tails could sort of help us get together for a photo and a bust.
Despite my flippancy, I was getting a little concerned. Again, I knew I was alone, but I had not one iota of confidence that the other guy was similarly alone.
At 12:20 P.M., I was still wandering the building, and the fire-breathing dragons started to look like I felt.
I went outside. The sun was peeking through small cracks in the cloud cover, and it was a little warmer.
I circled the Halls of the Mandarins, but no one seemed to want to make my acquaintance.