Highways to a War (64 page)

—At eight o‘clock, I stood up, deciding to search for her: at her uncle’s house, then all through the city, if I had to. I’d cancel going to Saigon.

—How has this happened to me? Without her, there’s no life. I want her jokes, I want her anger, I want the way we talk together. I want everything that she is.

—I walked out the door, and met her coming up the stairs. She was carrying a small brown paper package, and looked at me with an expression of alarm. This alarmed look was half comical, half apologetic: more excitiing than a smile or a look of tenderness would have been. She threw her arms around my neck, and I backed inside the door, dragging her. We said nothing until we’d made love.

—Then she said that she’d behaved badly. I’m jealous, she said. Also, I’m prejudiced against Vietnamese. We all are, she said: all Cambodians. They are always our enemies, and never to be trusted. This isn’t rational, I know, but I feel betrayed when you go there now. Now that we are almost lost, I want you only to care about Cambodia and me. know you don’t love that old aunty; I know that. You only want to save her; you want to save everyone. So go and do it, she said. But please come back quickly.

—Only two days, I said. And I told her I’d grab a Right back if there was any change. If there’s any sign of trouble, I said, get in touch with Aubrey Hardwick. He’s still in town; he’ll help you.

—And I gave her the address of the Frenchman whose villa Aubrey was staying in.

—When I come back, I said, you and I are going across into Thailand. If commercial flights stop, we’ll get out with the Americans.

—Yes, she said, and we’ll take Sary, won’t we? We’ll get a villa on the border, not far from Battambang, and marry and make a home. We’ll help the Khmer Serei, she said, and live there until Cambodia’s free again.

—This was a story we told each other: half a game, half something we believed.

—The brown paper package was lying beside us on the bed, and she handed it to me. I brought you a present, she said.

—As I unwrapped it, the package made a crying noise. It turned out to be a small, furry toy cat with orange stripes, made in Japan. It mewed when you tipped it up. We both started laughing. She buys a lot of silly presents for me like that: the apartment’s full of them.

—Take it to Saigon, she said. A mascot. It will protect you; I’ve told it to. I have Sary to look after me here.

 

APRIL 12TH

—Phnom Penh fallen: the Americans gone. No commercial or military flights. Tried to charter a plane. None available.

—Can’t raise Ly Keang’s number at home; nor the one at her newspaper.

—Phoned Aubrey at his friend’s villa: no answer. The phone system between here and Phnom Penh was always bad: easier to phone New York from the Hotel Royal than to phone Saigon. Now it seems to have broken down completely. The switch at the Royal doesn’t answer; no proper ring at my apartment or Vora’s; none at Ly Keang’s uncle’s house.

-Christ. It’s like a wall.

 

APRIL 13TH

—Tried all day to charter a flight to Phnom Penh. Impossible.

—One AP man is still there: a Cambodian, still sending wires. He tells AP on the telex that nothing’s happening in the city: the Khmer Rouge still haven’t arrived.

—Ed Carter asked him to contact Ly Keang for me. But he sent a message back that he can’t find her.

 

APRIL 14TH

—Stitt can’t charter a plane. Still can’t make telephone contact with Ly Keang.

—She must surely have gone to Aubrey, as I asked her to. I’ve been trying to find out where Aubrey is, without success; today I rang the PR business in Bangkok. Donald Mills answered. He said that Aubrey went to Europe immediately on coming out of Phnom Penh: he rode a chopper out with the U.S. embassy staff. But Mills told me that Aubrey said that he didn’t see Ly Keang at all, in the period after I left: not even on the day the U.S. embassy pulled out.

—I could try to go over the border, but I know my chances of reaching Phnom Penh would be nil.

 

APRIL 22ND

—Midnight. Sitting in my room at the Continental. Can’t sleep. Everything ending here too: it can’t be more than a week before the South surrenders. When Indochina’s gone, and the war’s finally over, what’s going to happen to my life? And if I can’t find Ly Keang?

—Just went to look for cigarettes in my overnight bag. Found the toy cat that she gave me. When I picked it up, the sound it made was like a baby crying. Why is a silly thing like that so hard to bear?

—Littte things; always the little things. Like when the Count died: the odds and ends in his box. When Ken died: his Digger hat, hanging on the verandah. And when Mum died, the old chocolate tin I found in her wardrobe: inside, baby photos of all of us, and an invitation to a ball in Hobart, before she was married. Miss I. Olsen. Nothing else: she left nothing else. Why did she keep that invitation? Was that her happiest night? And why were those little things all that was left of her? The invitation’s among my photographs and papers and diary tapes: a good thing I got Jim and Lu Ying to store them for me. The Khmer Rouge won’t get those. But what about Sary? She’ll be killed and eaten if she strays.

—Keang, where are you? I should never have come to Saigon.

The office of Pacific Consultants is in Ratchadamri Road, a block away from the square where the Newsroom stands. Hardwick and Mills no doubt chose this location because of its proximity to the foreign media offices.

My taxi gets here just after eight in the evening: the time of the appointment I’ve made with Donald Mills on the phone. I left my hotel early, to allow for the city’s traffic jams. Darkness has set in, and a downpour’s in progress; neons and headlights are reflected in the torrents that rush across the road. I hurry from the curb to the shelter of a glass-and-concrete cube called the Raja Damri Building: the name is fixed on the awning in heavy metal letters. But the office proves difficult to find.

It isn’t included in the golden list of firms lettered in English and Thai on the glass doors, and I run down a lane at the side, the rain soaking my shirt, to find myself in a square that smells of drains, where boys running food stalls watch me from the shelter of colored umbrellas. Finally I discover
Pacific Consultants, Third Floor,
lettered on a small glass door. Another sign in English says:
Ancient Massage Parlor, Second Floor.

I reach the third floor in an empty lift that rocks and groans. When I get out, the automatic door booms shut in a deserted foyer with grimy white walls. Opposite me, double glass doors frame what looks like a reception area: an empty, corridor-like room with leather armchairs and potted palms, softly lit. As I prepare to knock, a man in a canary yellow shirt and white trousers appears there.

Halting to peer at me through the glass, he sways a little, and I remember Harvey’s remark about Mills’s drinking. He opens one of the doors, and stares at me with a look of bemused suspicion. His small, somewhat slanting blue eyes are empty and glazed, like ceramic chips.

“Ray Barton? Right. You’re impressively punctual,” he says.

His voice is quick and abrupt, hinting at a stammer that isn’t there, and the slurring caused by drink is just perceptible. He raises a hand to gesture me inside; once I’m through, he swings the glass door shut with some force. The crash makes me jump, and I turn to stare at him. He’s grinning at the door, rocking on his feet. “Always forget that it’s not a
swinging
door,” he says. Then he puts out his hand, gripping mine with athletic vigor.

A counter here divides the reception area from a large main office that’s almost in darkness; I can make out a tall set of shelves containing files. Beyond, there may be other rooms, or there may be nothing; it’s not possible to see. A big lamp with a green, drum-shaped shade stands on the counter, spreading muted light. Mills waves me to one of the leather armchairs, and throws himself down in another. He and I face each other across a small round coffee table, on which stands a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and two whiskey glasses. Without asking me whether I want a drink, Mills leans forward and fills both glasses halfway. There’s no water. My heart sinks; I wonder whether any coherent discussion with him is going to be possible.

I imagine he’s changed a good deal—at least in appearance —from the youthful diplomat Mike met in Singapore. He has high-combed, reddish hair that’s still thick, but streaked with gray. The eyebrows are lighter than the hair: sandy, and getting bushy with middle age. His square face and pugnacious jaw are an undamaged boxer‘s, and his complexion is ruddy in a way that suggests sunburn and outdoor living; but the broken capillaries in his nose give him away. He raises his whiskey to me, and drinks off half of it at a gulp. Then he sits back and looks at me in silence, one hand spread on the arm of the chair, the other holding his glass. The yellow of his shirt is jarringly vivid. Waiting for him to speak, I hope that he’s not going to prove to be one of those drunks who’ll make me run a gauntlet of rudeness. At first, it seems that he may.

“You won’t be able to see Aubrey Hardwick,” he says. “Did you realize that?”

“That’s a pity. I thought he might be in Bangkok at some stage soon,” I say.

He shakes his head. “No. Aubrey and I have dissolved our partnership,” he says. “No Aubrey.” He waves his hand at the half-dark office over the counter, as though to prove that Hardwick isn’t hiding there. “No more consultancy, either. I’m winding it up.”

I adopt my dry legal tone. “I’m sorry to hear that. But perhaps you can help me, even if Mr. Hardwick can’t.”

“Help you find Mike Langford? Nobody can do that,” he says. “I’ll talk to you about him, though.”

He throws down the rest of his drink; then he stares at me in silence. His stare is insistent, and in some way odd, and I sense that this isn’t simply caused by the tipsiness. He has something specific to tell me: something that’s important to him. I have an instinct for such things, developed over the years in dealing with clients.

“What I’m hoping,” I say, “is that you can give me an informed opinion about why Langford went into Cambodia. I understand that Mike once did some work for you and Aubrey Hardwick. I thought it might have had something to do with that.”

His eyes now become watchful: almost sober. I notice that his mouth is at odds with his boxer’s face: it’s that of an obsessive; thin and downturned. He doesn’t reply to my implied question; instead, he says: “Harvey Drummond tells me you’ve got a lot of Mike’s papers and diaries.”

“Yes,” I say. “He left them to me in his will. I’m his executor, as I told you.”

He nods and picks up the bottle, this time filling his glass to the brim. Mine’s still a quarter full, but he tops it up to the brim as well, ignoring my protesting hand. Then, having taken a sip, he looks across at me, thin lips drawn in over his teeth, mouth a little open, head cocked.

“There’s no point in trying to fool a lawyer,” he says. “Even a lawyer from Tasmania.” He smiles. “No offense, Ray. Yes, Mike used to pass on a few impressions to us. I’d guess you’ll have seen some of his reports among those papers of his. Always very organized, Mike was. Copies of everything.”

He’s beginning to irritate me, and I decided to be blunt. “So he did do some work for ASIS,” I say.

There’s usually a lag of some seconds while Mills stares and digests what’s said to him; it’s the same this time.

“You’d better get something clear,” he says. He looks past me, at the glass doors. “I’m out of the service now. An ex-spook. Right? There is such a thing, Ray, and you’re looking at one. And I’m no longer associated with Hardwick in any way. If you want to pursue Aubrey about this, and you end by giving him trouble, that’s fine by me. I don’t give a stuff. Clear?” He looks at me belligerently, daring me to fail to understand, in the way that difficult drinkers do. “All I’ve been trying to do these last two years is to run a good PR business,” he says. “But that wasn’t enough for Aubrey. You understand what I’m saying, Ray?”

“I think so.”

“No you don’t. But you will, because I’ve decided to tell you. Why not you? Mike’s boyhood mate: an honest man from home, and a lawyer. You want to lift the lid off this? Fine. I’ll set you on your way, and you can take it from there. But if you quote me as a source, I’ll deny it.” He gestures towards the darkened office. “No witnesses, right? Are you reading me?”

I nod, and he stares at me in silence, breathing audibly through his nose.

“The bloody war’s over,” he says at last, and his voice has grown more slurred. “We lost, but Aubrey won’t give up. He won’t retire; he can’t let go. That’s why I ended the partnership. He broke promises to me regarding this firm. Promises that were very important. One of them being that it would never be used as a cover.

He’s holding his glass with both hands, his small, oblique eyes glinting with a resentment that’s incurable and profound; and I begin to see that his drunkenness is such that it’s doubtful that he remembers from moment to moment who it is he’s talking to. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

“Okay. In the old days, Mike was of help to us,” he says. “I was his case officer for a while, when he came to Saigon in the sixties: but mostly he dealt with Aubrey. He was never heavily involved; never took pay. He just gave us background from time to time: things he came across in the course of his job. He was an independent source, at a time when we were sick of being dependent on the Yanks for information. We wanted to give Canberra our own picture, and he helped us do that. Langford not only knew the latest military situation in the various regions, he also knew a lot of people. An ARVN general might have a Viet Cong brother; a Cambodian politician might have a mistress working for the other side. Mike picked up things like that. And in the early years of the war in Cambodia, he gave us a more detailed picture than anyone else could have done. What sort of backup the North Vietnamese had in the villages; where their petroleum dumps were; where their rafts were bringing munitions downriver. Stuff you only get on the ground, and that only a roving cameraman could have picked up so easily. Very sexy information. Even Washington was impressed. Their aerial photography didn’t give them that kind of thing. And to be able to feed the Americans was a very big deal for us.” He smiles with faint fondness, like a man remembering lost love.