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The Saigon leave truck rolled out of the area, to the brigade and onto the highway. Sitting in the back, Andrew Lucas flicked through in his mind what he planned for the day; look up an old friend working at the British embassy on the 7th floor of the Caravelle, down to the market area to do some photography, and then a few drinks before going back.
He had already decided on the bar for his drinking----Violon Doux, off Đáng Yêu Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ street. There, the beauteous Nhu worked as cashier. On their first leave to Saigon some weeks ago. Fleming and two friends had casually walked into just another bar, with just another set of girls. But behind the bar was every man's dream of an Asian woman: gleaming black hair, beautifully set, to complement the lovely features---high, clear brow, arched eyebrows, slanting dark eyes, peach bloom cheeks, cupid's bow lips, and a firm, delicate chin. Nhu's voice was low, so one had to strain to hear her perfectly spoken Vietnamese, and her laugh was like tinkling silver bells. Her dresses were always beautifully cut ao dais in lovely colors. She worked in Violon Doux solely as a cashier to pay off a debt her parents had incurred against the club owners, chubby, smiling Mr. Hoi and his wife, the happy "Mama-San."
Nhu immediately invoked the "big brother" feeling in the British and Americans who came to Violon Doux, to admire her, drink, and eventually go with Ho, Vang, Denise, Tammy, or one of the other girls. There was a great roar of laughter when a huge black paratrooper insisted on buying Nhu a Saigon tea, the cold tea the customers bought with their own beer or whisky and that was credited to the girl. With cries of encouragement from the girls and customers, smiling Mr. Hoi and Mama-San nodding, and the big black man standing there, Budweiser in one upraised hand and a tiny Saigon tea glass in the other, blushing, smiling Nhu wrote out the ticket for the drinks, inscribing a delicate Nhu on the tea ticket and, greatly daring, eyes downcast, the paratrooper thrust the girl's half down the front of her high-necked ao dai, clapped and cheered by the entire bar, the huge black booming out, "Ain't she just a little honey?"
Beautiful, delicate Nhu---a lovely figure in the midst of the garbage heap of Saigon.
After lunch in Dang Yeu Tho Nhi Ky Street, and his photography, Lucas strolled into Violon Doux, fairly sure of whom from the leave truck he'd find there.
Slightly under the weather, grinning cheerfully, the happy gum-chewing Ho on his right, sat Tony Fleming.
"Hey, Andy ya bastard! Where ya been? Come an' have a beer, guv'nuh. Hey, garcon, mot bia pour mon ami ici," in a potpourri of French and Vietnamese.
"Garcon," appeared with a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Andrew slid into the booth opposite Fleming, smiling at Nhu and greeting Ho.
"Hope you've been behaving yourself, you old bastard," to Fleming.
"Course I have, guv'nuh. Ho and I went to lunch at a very suave little street stall, then up to her room to work off the dreaded D-Zone, dirty water, and here we are. Scar and Ollie just left, an' they'll see us at the truck. Hey, isn't that one of them Yanks wo came out with us before?"
"Yeah, so it is. Roger O'Connor, I think."
"Oi, Yank! Roger! Come an' have a beer!"
"Hey, Englishman! How's it going, man? Hi there, Fleming. How you goin' honey?" to the toothily smiling Ho.
"Sure can squeeze in one itty bitty beer," as garcon placed a can of Falstaff before him.
The three chatted easily for some minutes, oblivious of the crowd, then gradually became aware of a loud voice dominating the room. They looked up to see a corpulent, squat, red-faced, crew-cut, gray-haired American civilian, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and checked Bermuda shorts, ankle socks and Hush-Puppies, wit a saturated cigar in one corner of his mouth under a prominent, purple-veined nose, brandishing a roll of notes at Mr. Hoi.
"I got the money and I want her," pointing at Nhu. "None a these others! Her! That little one!" jabbing a broad-nailed finger at the shrinking Nhu. Mr. Hoi and Mama-San weakly protested, "She no bar girl. She just cashier," eyes fixed on the roll of piasters, US "green" dollars and Military Payment Certificates, MPCs only good on military bases.
"Bullshit! How much you want? Makes no nevermind to me, goddamn it!"
The bar girls were watching, inscrutable masks over their faces, the customers frowning, trying to understand what was happening.
Andrew began to understand when he focused on Nhu standing against the wall, tears rolling down her cheeks, muttering, "Khong, khong, khong....."
he began to rise to his feet when Ho caught his arm, "Please, you no can do nothing! Nhu parents owe much money Mr. Hoi. Nhu here to work. That man, he give beaucoup dollars for Nhu. If Mr. Hoi say go, she go. What you do? Sock American? Police take you to jail. Take Nhu away? Mr. Hoi make trouble her parents. You pay more than Yankee? Today you go. Tonight he come again. You think find Nhu another job another bar? Where? It here parents owe money Mr. Hoi! She must go. Anyway, it no big deal. Time she have man. She can make beaucoup money, very beautiful."
Andrew subsided and looked at Fleming. "That right, Tony?"
"Yeah, Tony. I feel like a goddamn mongrel just sitting here. But anything we do will only make it worse for her. That's how it is in that fuckin' place," and in a spasm of rage, he crushed his beer can.
Roger O'Connor turned from staring at the fat civilian, at the folds of red skin bulging over the Hawaiian shirt collar. "Fellas, this is one time I'm goddamn ashamed to be an American. That motherfucker has probably done more for the VC in his time in-country than twelve VC propaganda teams."
The civilian took the sodden cigar from his mouth, spat into an ash tray, and coldly and triumphantly pierced Nhu and Mama-San with his glass-chip eyes. "Well, c'mon, goddamnit! How much?" secure in the unquestioned power of the US dollar.
"Okay okay, she number one virgin. Never go with man. Thirt' t'ousand p. 'kay?"
"Thirty thousands p? Okay, okay, here," and began peeling off 500s from the roll.
Nhu's wide eyes followed each note from the roll to the mounting pile on the bar, and she moaned, dropped her face into her hands for a moment, then took a deep breath and looked up and around the bar in a final appeal for help, with the swimming eyes of a frightened doe. Fleming dropped his gaze, clenched his fists, and said through his teeth, "There are good men on both sides out in the J dying for what they want this country to be. Both sides want it to be without rotten bastards like him and the corrupt swine running it at the moment. They're out there, and the scum are in here making fortunes, grinding everything down with the sheer weight of their money," and as the squat shape strode out into the sunlight with the weeping resigned girl held by one arm, "C'mon, Andy, let's get out of here. Coming, Roger? That prick ruined her life and my day off, today and for some time to come. See you, Mama-San, Mr. Hoi, if you were burning in the gutter, I wouldn't piss on either of you."
"Oh, good day, good day, Uc Dai Loi," busily counting 500 piaster notes.412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzsOijx0OeD
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On that morning, half a world away in Great Britain, Abigail McFadden delivered the kids to school and was steering the Ford Cortina into the driveway when she noticed the huge removal van, all yellow and red, at the end of the street. Tracy Richards moving out.
Abigail knew very few people on the street, as they have moved in with such haste, and Cruz had gone immediately, and people were wary of inviting a lone woman, a stranger, and a grass widow to boot into their house.
The children had been unsettled and puzzled by the rush to move into this strange house and by the disappearance of their father. To them, this house was not home, home was where they had been before, with dad as well as mum. This was something different, from the inexplicable world of the growunps. However, they sound found that Hector Richards was a classmate whose father was also in Vietnam---whatever that was---and linked by the children. Abigail and Tracy had swapped greetings when they met in the street or at the shops.
Bringing the children back from school one afternoon a fortnight ago, Abigail had seen the green army sedan outside the Fleming gate and realized what it meant. She took the children inside, turned on the TV, and made a fuss of them with ice-cream, Coke, and cake---as much to keep them away from the Richards home and what was happening there, as to lavish good things on them in some blind offering to the gods to demonstrate how she did love them, petitioning the gods, please don't make them fatherless.
She had stood watching the kids, their eyes fixed on the TV screen, lips coated with ice-cream, spoons clinched in chubby fists, and knew more strongly than ever that they and Ricky were all she ever lived for, and prayed again for his return, but not a gentle Christian plea: "God, even if you have to kill them all, please let Ricky come back to us, you can let all of the others go, take them all, but not my Ricky!"412Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkaZdbUpjbh
Now, in the driveway, she saw down the street the men carrying a wardrobe out of the house, and Tracy standing in the yard with an elderly couple who looked as if they might be her parents. She drove into the carport, calculating how much was left of the chocolate cake and the biscuits in the tin---she'd pop down and invite Tracy and her parents for a cup of tea when the movers had finished.
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