A Dangerous Friend (11 page)

Rostok scraped back his chair and rose. He walked slowly to the kitchen and peeked in, said a few words, and returned to the table. After a while the waiter arrived with two bottles of beer and fresh glasses, muttering something that sounded like an apology. Rostok watched him with a half-smile, following him with his eyes all the way back to the kitchen.

Sydney's attention had begun to wander at the solatium payments, and the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that went with it. This was not the Dicky Rostok he remembered, the one who could see around corners and knew what you were thinking before you thought it, the Rostok who believed in thorough preparation and displayed always a sunny pessimism toward the way of the world, a mysterious passage always beyond reach, though not beyond bluff. Yet the Dicky Rostok before him sounded now like the branch manager of a tight-fisted savings and loan association waiting for the examiners to show up; and then he remembered the hard little eyes of Mai at Group House, her eyes comprehending what her ears couldn't. And Minh, too, stubbornly silent as he piloted the Scout from Tan Son Nhut to Tay Thanh, dodging American convoys. Probably it was only jet lag but Sydney did not feel entirely in the picture. He was looking hard at it but he wasn't in it. He was aware suddenly that Ros had stopped talking and was looking at him with a sympathetic smile.

You'll get used to it, Syd. It takes a minute. Of course you need a lust for complexity. You need ambiguity in your heart. But there's a kind of romance to life here in-country. Anyhow, it's what we have. We didn't get to choose, it's our secret reward. So we work with it, best we can. Hope for victory. Make it happen. Rostok began to laugh, turning to watch the commotion at the door. A slender Vietnamese in a pale blue ao dai made her entrance, hesitating, then floating to the side of the Chinese businessman. He rose with the others at the table, bowing formally. She had left two men at the door and now, at her nod, they disappeared into the darkness. The woman sat and poured tea from the pot on the table. Sydney guessed her age at somewhere between thirty and fifty; almost certainly an entertainer, and a successful one from the look of her. She wore huge rings on her fingers and a gold chain circling her throat, a presentation vaguely French, as if she had just arrived from a cabaret somewhere in Montmartre. It was hard to tell at that distance, but the watch looked like a Rolex.

He said, Who's that?

Madame Le, Rostok said. A singer. Everyone's friend.

I wonder if she needs a sideman.

I forgot. You play, don't you.

Trombone. I doubt if she needs a trombone. There wouldn't be a trombone in her ensemble.

Your wife played the cello.

Yes, we were a musical family. Same tunes, different instruments. Sydney shook his head as if to clear it. I can't remember what I expected to find in Tay Thanh. I've been here less than a day, it seems like a century. But I don't think it was this. I don't think it was her, Madame Le. Or the Chinese in the shantung suit. Or Cao.

Ros pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair; nodding at a new arrival who stood importantly in the doorway. He said, You have to remember that ordinary life goes on here as it does everywhere else. Forget everything you've read or been told by the briefers, who're only interested in their war, their American dream where everyone's either shooting or being shot at. Truth is, children go to school. People go to church, love each other; even in this situation. People quarrel and gossip and have dinner with their friends. Mow the lawn. Listen to music. And here he is now.

Rostok rose and shook hands with the new arrival, then introduced him, General Binh, the III Corps commander. The general's face was perfectly round and unlined, his hand soft as a child's and carefully manicured. He and Rostok talked sotto voce, alternating English and Vietnamese, something about an "incident," the incident unspecified but apparently not serious, for the general was smiling benignly. After a moment he joined the other table, laughing at something Ros had said. Sydney saw that another bottle of Chivas Regal had materialized with a fresh glass for the general.

That's a general? Sydney asked.

One of the better ones, as a matter of fact, a product of our own National War College. He's quite an expert on the Napoleonic campaigns. Normally I like to talk to him in his office, a more private venue. But he often isn't in. Or isn't in to me. So I take my opportunities where I find them.

He doesn't look like a general, Sydney said.

Neither did Bonaparte.

Rostok thumbed a cigarette from the pack in front of him, then patted his pockets unsuccessfully for a match. Instantly Cao was at his elbow, producing a Zippo, lighting it, waiting for Rostok to inhale. He tapped the Zippo on the tabletop and pushed it across to Rostok. This is Mr. Parade, Rostok said.

Cao nodded and shook hands.

Mr. Parade will be helping me in Tay Thanh.

Welcome to Tay Thanh, Mr. Parade.

Thank you, Sydney said.

You need anything, you ask me, Cao said.

I will, Sydney said.

I am always here, Cao said. He stood lopsidedly with both hands on the table, palms down to steady himself.

Sydney said, When did your foot become infected?

Cao looked questioningly at Rostok, who translated.

Many years, Cao said.

Have you seen doctors?

It's congenital, Rostok said. He pocketed the Zippo and handed Cao a wad of piaster notes.

Or a parasite, Cao said, and with a nod he was gone, scuttling crabwise across the floor; the useless leg swishing behind him.

He's well spoken, Sydney said. He did not want to admit that he had thought the boy was retarded, incapable of speech or much else; and he was not a boy, either, but a man nearing middle age.

Yes, well spoken. Cao—finds things. Things go missing and Cao finds them, a jack for your car, a deck of cards, a pound of sugar. Cao and Dacy were great friends until Dacy crashed. Rostok started to say something more but signaled for the check instead. He began to drum his fingers on the table, looking sideways at General Binh and the Chinese deep in conversation. Madame Le had disappeared. The table of Americans had departed also and the restaurant was so quiet Sydney could hear the rustle of the river water outside. Rostok sighed and flexed his fingers.

Marriages are going to hell everywhere, he said suddenly.

Sydney looked up but did not reply. He was watching Cao in the corner; counting the notes Ros had given up. He was not interested in discussing marriage. Ros often employed the creative non sequitur to keep people off balance or to fill dead air when he became bored.

I don't mean you, he said.

It's what happens, Sydney said.

I don't know how happy Janet is in Hong Kong. Rostok again began to drum nervously on the table. The apartment's nice and we have it cheap. Janet has friends. But she's been talking about going back to Virginia and that's all right, too, if it's what she wants to do. She doesn't care for Asia. She doesn't like the food. She doesn't like the heat. She says she's lonely. It's harder and harder for me to get away for long weekends, and when I'm there she complains that Pjm really still here, and that's a low blow because I make a hell of an effort, getting away. You can't just leave a war whenever you want to. Women have a hard time putting themselves in someone else's shoes, don't they?

Rostok sighed and rapped the table sharply.

He said, Strange thing is, in the year we've been here, she's aged ten. You can see it in her face and the way she moves, her conversation. She's gained weight. She's careworn. She hates the war because I'm in it. She thinks I'll be hurt and that's reason enough to get out. She spends too much time at the press club playing bridge, listening to the horror stories. They don't know anything, you see. The newspaper people look at our war zone through a telescope and they think they know what it is because they see the outlines of a hill or a valley. Sometimes they see the dimensions of a human being. But they can't know what it is really because they're not invested. They're bystanders, notebook people. They're defeatists and Janet's defeatist, too. She expects the worst, and when she doesn't get it she thinks it's a trick they're playing. Janet used to look for things out of life. We always knew there was a jackpot somewhere and if you wanted it badly enough and were willing to work hard enough you'd find it, or it would find you. That's what drew us together, the idea of the jackpot. My God, we're still young! Or I am. She isn't. Suddenly she's a defeatist and prefers Virginia to Hong Kong.

Sydney was silent. Janet Rostok was always the quiet one at the table, chain-smoking Pall Malls and nursing a single highball. She was known as a good sport who excelled at tennis and bridge, utterly without personal ambition—and then Sydney realized he had no idea what her ambitions were. Whatever they were, she never spoke of them. She seemed to be focused on tennis and bridge and, by general agreement of their friends, on Rostok. He often said he could not survive without her.

Gutterman manages it, I don't know how. Or rather I do know. He's married to a slope, has been for years. You'll meet him tomorrow, my deputy Pablo Gutterman. But you'll never meet his wife because she lives behind the scenes, strange-looking woman, refused to speak English the one time I met her, strictly by accident in the central market. Pablo was buying shoes and she was choosing them, as if Pab didn't have sense enough to find the right ones. I didn't recognize him. I stood next to him for the longest time and then he said something and I looked up. He went red in the face when he saw me. He tried to escape but saw he was trapped and forced to introduce his wife. She's a dumpy thing, middle-aged like him, eyes too big for her head. She offered her hand, almost weightless but hard as stone. And after a pleasantry they were gone, like
that,
disappeared into the crowd. Damnedest thing, Pablo looked like the others, all the other men in the market, so I didn't recognize him.

And that's how he manages? Sydney asked.

I suppose it is, Rostok said. Buying shoes in the market with his frau, and then a cup of tea somewhere, and a game of mahjongg at the end of the day, after he mows the lawn. I don't think Pablo knows where he is. My God, this is the adventure of a lifetime. I mean in the sense of a long sea voyage, the ship alive under your feet, strange ports of call, an untested crew, a skipper who never shows his face, and nasty weather all day long. He laughed loudly, savoring the caprice.

Maybe it isn't her adventure, Sydney said. Any more than it is Janet's.

It's everyone's adventure, Rostok said. You'll discover that there aren't enough hours in the day to do what you have to do, and at the end of them you'll have energy left over. You'll have energy to burn, more energy than you know what to do with because the war doesn't take. It gives and gives and then it gives again. It's like being plugged into an iron lung, Syd.

The waiter arrived with the check and Ros threw down another wad of piasters.

So I suppose it's finished, he said.

We married when we were young, he added.

Before Sydney could make the pro forma protest, Rostok was out of his chair and walking toward the door.

Let's take a walk, he said.

The street was dark. Even the forest seemed to sleep, the only sound the swish of water somewhere. Stars were visible overhead but the constellation was not familiar. The fetid odor of the forest was not familiar. A vast anonymity seemed to settle over the street, the wooden shacks on either side of it, and the forests and hills beyond. They began to walk in the direction of Group House—his house, Sydney thought, his private address now. He thought of the
IN
and
OUT
boxes on his desk and the work that would begin tomorrow. Down the street a dog barked twice and was silent.

I love it, Rostok said softly. I love this place.

Why, Ros?

He stretched his arms wide, looking at the sky and the blurred stars. I love the freedom, he said. I love not knowing. The shape of things in the morning.

And being in charge, Sydney said.

Yes, that, too.

They walked on. Far in the distance they heard the chop-chop of a helicopter. A light flared in one of the houses nearby, and as suddenly went out. Rostok began to laugh quietly, muttering something about night sounds in the countryside, everyone gets used to them and when they're absent, you miss them.

Do you ever dream, Syd?

Now and again. I don't remember them, though.

Rostok cleared his throat and said, I receive Ho Chi Minh in my dreams. He visits me often, though not in the form you might think. He's in the kitchen of the Carlton making pastry under the direction of the great Escoffier, bending over the marble counter with his poche à douille filled with batter. He makes cygnes en pâte à choux, the swans reminding him of the beautiful birds on the Petit Lac and the Red River at Hanoi. He squeezes out teardrops of batter, all the time remembering the lake and the river, and Trotsky's teachings and the cruelty of the French and the titanic struggle for doc lap, independence, a struggle that he knew would not be won in his lifetime but was inevitable. He must give his life to it. Meanwhile, he has his patriotic pastry to attend to. I watch him. He never says a word, never looks up from his pastry table. His hands are frail. His skin is the texture of old paper. He never smiles, never looks up as he continues to squeeze the pastry bag, replicating one swan after another. And when I wake up, he remains on the margins of my vision. When he vanishes at last, I am sorry to see him go. But I know he will return, in that form or in another, chef or president. And in time these dreams will have meaning for me as they did for Goya, who described his subjects arriving when he was asleep; and when he woke he drew them exactly as he remembered them, his sueños. They are most detailed, most suggestive. They are among his finest works. Still half asleep, Goya made extensive notes on a pad he kept on his bedside table. In the morning he went to work, bringing his sueños to the canvas. And I do the same, make notes when I rise, and one day I will bring them to life.