Dog Soldiers (2 page)

“
Some people don
’
t like it there. We always loved it. I
’
ve only been away for a day and I
’
m already missing it so.
”

“
Going to the States?
”

“
Yes,
”
she said.
“
For only three weeks. It
’
ll be my first time back.
”
Her smile was mild but resolute.
“
My husband was back last year, just before he was taken
from us. He said it was all so odd. He said people wore wide colorful neckties.
”

“
A lot of people do,
”
Converse said. Taken?
“
Especially in the big cities.
”

He had begun to sense a formidable strength in the lady
’
s bearing. She was quite literally keeping her chin up. Softness in the eyes, but what depths? What prairie fires?

“
In what sense,
”
he asked,
“
was your husband taken?
”

“
In the sense that he
’
s dead.
”
Clear-voiced, dear-eyed.

“
They
’
d left us pretty much alone. One night they came into our village and took Bill and a fine young fella named Jim Hatley and just tied their hands and took them away and killed them.
”

“
God. I
’
m sorry.
”

Converse recalled a story he had been told about Ngoc
L
inh Province. They had come into a montagnard hootch one night and taken a missionary out and tied him up in a mountain shelter. To his head they fixed a cage in which a rat had been imprisoned. As the rat starved, it began to eat its way into the missionary
’
s brains.

“
He was a happy man all his life. No matter how great your loss is, you have to accept God
’
s will with adoration.
”

“
God in the whirlwind,
”
Converse said.

She looked at him blankly for a moment, puzzled. Then her eyes came alight.
“
Land, yes,
”
she said.
“
God in the whirlwind. Job Thirty-seven. You know your Bible.
”

“
Not really,
”
Converse said.

“
Time
’
s short.
”
The languor was leaving her voice and manner, but for all the rising animation no color came into her face.
“
We
’
re in the last days now. If you do know your Bible, you
’
ll realize that all the signs in Revelations have been fulfilled. The rise of Communism, the return of Israel…
”

“
I guess it looks like that sometimes.
”
He felt eager to please her.

“
It
’
s now or never,
”
she said.
“
That
’
s why I hate to give up three weeks, even to Bill
’
s parents. God
’
s promised us deliverance from evil if we believe in His gospel. He wants us all to know His word.
”

Converse discovered that he had moved toward her on the bench. A small rush o
f admiration, desire, and apoca
lyptic religion was subverting his common sense. He felt at the point of inviting her … inviting her for what? A gin and tonic? A joint? It must be partly the fever too, he thought, raising a hand to his forehead.

“
Deliverance from evil would be nice.
”

It seemed to Converse that she was leaning toward him.

“
Yes,
”
she said smiling,
“
it certainly would. And we have God
’
s promise.
”
Converse took his handkerchief out and cleared his eyes again.
“
What sort of religion do they have up in Ngoc Linh? The tribespeople, I mean.
”

She seemed angry.

“
It
’
s not a religion,
”
she said.
“
They worship Satan.
”

Converse smiled and shook his head.

“
You don
’
t believe in Satan?
”
She d
id not seem sur
prised.

Converse, still eager to please, thought about it.

“
No.
”

“
It
’
s always surprised me,
”
she said softly,
“
things being what they are and all, that people find it so difficult to believe in Satan.
”

“
I suppose,
”
Converse said,
“
that people would rather not. I mean it
’
s so awful. It
’
s too spooky for people.
”

“
People are in for an unpleasant surprise.
”
She said it without spite as though she were really sorry.

A breeze came from the river carrying the smell of rain, stirring the fronds and blossoms and the dead air. Con verse and the lady beside him relaxed and received the wind like a cooling drink. Monsoon clouds closed off the sky. Converse looked at his watch and stood up.

“
I
’
ve enjoyed talking to you,
”
he said.
“
I
’
ve got to move on now.
”

The lady looked up at him, holding him with her will.

“
God has told us,
”
she said evenly,
“
that if we believe in Him we can have life eternal.
”

He felt himself shiver. His fever was a bit alarming. He was also aware of a throbbing under his right rib. There was a lot of hepatitis around. Several of his friends had come down with it.

“
I wonder,
”
he said, clearing his throat,
“
if you
’
ll be in town tomorrow would you care to join me for dinner?
”

Her astonishment was a bit unsettling. It would have been better, he considered, if she had blushed. Probably she couldn
’
t blush. Circulation.

“
It
’
s tonight I
’
m leaving. And I really don
’
t think I
’
d be the sort of company you
’
d enjoy. I suppose you must be very lonely. But I think I
’
m really a lot older than you are.
”

Converse blinked. A spark from the Wrath.

“
It would be interesting, don
’
t you think?
”

“
We don
’
t need interesting things,
”
the lady said.
“
That
’
s not what we need.
”

“
Nice trip,
”
Converse said, and turned toward the street. Two moneychangers came out of Eden Passage and moved toward him. The lady
was standing up. He saw her ges
ture with her hand towa
rd the moneychangers and the ar
cade and the
terrasse
of the Continental Hotel. It was a Vietnamese gesture.

“
Satan,
”
she called to him,
“
is very powerful here.
”

“
Yes,
”
Converse said.
“
He would be.
”

He walked past the moneychangers and on to the oily sidewalk of Tu Do Street. Afternoon swarms of Hondas crowded in the narrow roadway, manned by ARVNs in red berets, mascaraed bar girls, saffron-robed monks, priests in stiff black soutanes. The early aperitif crowd was arriving on the
terrasse
; an ancient
refugee woman displayed her cre
tinous son across the potted shrubbery to a party of red necked contractors at a table overlooking the street.

Across the square from the
terrasse
was the statue of two Vietnamese soldiers in com
bat stance which, from the posi
tioning of the principal figures, was locally known as the National Buggery Monument. The National Buggery Monument, as Converse passed it, was surrounded by gray-uniformed National Policemen who were setting up barricades on a line between the statue and the National Assembly building besid
e it. They were expecting a dem
onstration. They had been expecting one for weeks.

Converse walked the several blocks to Pasteur Street and hailed a taxi, taking care not to signal with the Offending Gesture. As he was compressing himself into the ovenlike space of the little Citroen, the rain broke.

“
Nguyen Thong,
”
he told the driver.

The monsoon battered
them as they drove in the direc
tion of Tansonhut; the rain darkened the ocher walls of the peeling villas and glistened on the bolls of barbed wire along the curbs. The Arvin
sentries in front of the politi
cians
’
houses ducked into their tarpaulin shelters.

It was a drive of about fifteen minutes to Nguyen Thong, and by the time they pulled up to the end of the alley where Charmian lived, the p
otholes were filled to overflow
ing.

Blinded by rain, Converse waded through the ruts until he stood struggling with the latch on Charmian
’
s gate. When he was inside he saw her sitting on the verandah watching him. The bleached white
jellaba
she wore, with her straight blond hair hanging back over the cowl, made her look like a figure of ceremony, as though she were there to be sacrificed or baptized. He was glad to see her smiling. When he came onto the porch, she stood up from her wicker chair and kissed him on the cheek. She had come from the shower;
her body smelled of scented Chi
nese soap.

“
Hi,
”
Converse said.
“
The man been here?
”

“
Sure enough,
”
she said. She led him into the enormous room where she slept and which she had filled with Buddhas and temple hangings and brass animals bought in Phnom Penh. Her house was half of a villa which had been

owned by a French brewer in colonial days. She was always finding old family photographs and novena cards in odd corners of the place.

“
The man been,
”
she said. She lit a joss stick, waved it about and set it down in an ashtray. They could hear her washing lady singing along with the radio in the wash house across the back garden.

“
You
’
re high,
”
Converse said.

“
Just had a little hash with Tho. Want some?
”

Converse shook his head.

“
Weird time to get high.
”

“
John,
”
Charmian said,
“
you
’
re the world
’
s most fright
ened man. I don
’
t know how you live with yourself.
”

She had walked to a metal cabinet against one wall and was kneeling down to open a combination lock on the bot tom drawer. When the drawer was open she took out a large square package wrapped in newspaper and held it out for him. The newspaper in which it was wrapped was the liberal Catholic one, identifi
able by the strips of blank col
umn which it carried to chafe the censors.

“
How
’
s this for terrifying?
”

She set it down on a desk beside the smoldering joss stick and folded back the newspaper. There were two snow-white cotton ditty bags inside with their tie strings done in dainty bows. Each was lined with several layers of black plastic U.S. Government burn bag and the plastic sealed with masking tape. Charmian peeled away the tape to show Converse that the bags were filled with heroin.

“
Look at it down there,
”
she said,
“
burning with an evil glow.
”

Converse looked at the heroin.

“
It
’
s all caked.
”

“
So what? It
’
s the dampness.
”

He gently put his finger into the powder and worked a tiny amount onto the nail.
“
Now let
’
s see if it
’
s really shit,
”
he said, sniffing at it.

She watched him amused.
“
Don
’
t think you won
’
t get off on that. This is nearly pure scag. Can you imagine?
”

She was standing on tiptoe with her hands tucked into the folds of her white jellaba. Converse rubbed his nose and looked at her.

“
I hope you
’
re not doing this crap.
”

“
My opiate,
”
Charmian said,
“
is opium. But I
’
ve been known to take a little Sunday sniff now and then same as anybody. Same as anybody. Same as you.
”

“
Not me,
”
Converse said.
“
No more Sunday sniffs.
”

It seemed to him that he wa
s able to feel a faint cold eas
ing down from his sinuses, cooling the fever, numbing his fear. He sat down on a cushion and wiped the sweat from his eyes.

“
Scag isn
’
t me,
”
Charmian said.

Charmian
’
s daddy was a judge in north Florida. A few years earlier she had been secretary and dear friend to a one-man ant army named Irvine Vibert, who had come crashing out of the Louisiana canebrake one morning — young, smarter than hell, and insane with greed. The newspapers described hi
m as an influence peddler, some
times as a
“
wheeler-dealer.
”
He had had many friends in government and all of his friends were nice to Charmian. They went on being nice to her after the inevitable scandal broke, and even after Vibert
’
s death in a curious flying ac
cident. The farther away she kept from Washington, the nicer they were. For a while Charmian had worked for the United States Information Agency, no
w she was the nom
inal correspondent of an
Atlanta-based broadcasting syn
dicate. She liked Saigon. It was a bit like Washington. People were nice.

Converse was suddenly
aware that he had stopped sweat
ing. He swallowed, mastering a small spasm of nausea.

“
Christ, it
’
s merry
little
shit.
”

“
Tho says it
’
s fantastic.
”

“
How the hell would he know?
”

Charmian retaped the bags and wrapped them up. Struggling a bit, she lifted the package and handed it over to Converse. He took it, supporting its weight with his forearms. It felt absurdly heavy. Three kilos.

“
You
’
re gonna have to balance your weight right when you walk with that in the bag. Otherwise you
’
re gonna look comical.
”

Converse put the package in the briefcase and zipped it up.

“
You weigh it?
”
She went into the kitchen and took a bottle of purified water out of the refrigerator.

“
‘
Course I weighed it. Anyway, you don
’
t get burned with scag by getting short weight. You get it cut on you.
”

“
And this isn
’
t?
”

“
Uh-uh. No way. Like I know a lot more about scag than Tho does and he
’
d be scared to burn me first time out. I own a hydrometer.
”
Converse eased back on the cushion and rested his elbows on the tile floor, facing the whitewashed ceiling.

“
Jesus,
”
he said.

“
That
’
ll learn you, messing with the pure. Don
’
t get sick on my cushion.
”

Converse sat up.

“
Your friends can pick up from my wife on the twentieth in Berkeley. She
’
ll be home all day. If she
’
s not there, have them call the theater where she works. It
’
s called the Odeon — in the city off Mission. She
’
ll have a message for them.
”

“
She better be around.
”

“
We already talked about that.
”

“
Maybe there
’
s a side to her character you don
’
t know about.
”

“
In all modesty,
”
Converse said,
“
there isn
’
t.
”

“
She must be a pretty good kid. You ought to spend more time with her.
”
Charmian sat down beside him on the cushion and rubbed at a mosquito bite over her Achilles
’
tendon.

“
Maybe she
’
s keeping bad company in your absence. Maybe she
’
s hanging around with some far-out hippies or something who might encourage her to weirdness.
”

“
If you don
’
t trust us,
”
Converse said,
“
pay me off and move it through somebody else.
”

She closed her eyes.

“
I
’
m sorry, John. I can
’
t stop doin
’
it.
”

“
I understand. I think it
’
s very professional of you. But stop anyway.
”

“
Damn,
”
she said,
“
I
’
d hate to make my living this way.
”
Charmian poured them
out two glasses of the cold bot
tled water.
“
How much do you think your friends in the States will make?
”
Converse asked her.

“
Depends on how much they cut it. It
’
s so good they can cut it down to ten percent. They could make a couple of hundred thou.
”

“
Who are they? I mean what sort of people are they?
”

“
Not the sort you might think.
”

She stood up and shook the hood of her robe to free her hair.
“
What they make is no concern of mine. I don
’
t want their trouble.
”

“
No,
”
Converse said. She was watching him with country caution; her eyes held a measure of contempt, a measure of suspicion.

“
What are you gonna do with your money, John? Such a dedicated non
-
swinger as you are.
”

“
I don
’
t know,
”
Converse said.