Naked in Saigon (13 page)

“Why did you buy the bar?”

“The
Nevada
? I guess I’d had enough of my old life, I wanted to be a regular guy.”

“So you run a girlie bar in a war zone? You call that being regular?”

“It’s all relative. I got sick of some of the things I saw, some of the things I had to do. Here I was just selling drinks. I didn’t employ the girls, I just provided a venue. If you knew some of the things I’ve done in the past, you’d see how it was a step up.”

“What was the last straw?”

“I was in the Congo in 1965, and I got caught up in a fire fight, got some grenade pieces in my knee. I figured I’d pushed my luck as far as it would go.”

“Was that the only reason?”

“I also had an attack of conscience.”

She finished her drink, gave him a look he remembered only too well. It was, well, intense. He knew this was the time to leave, to plead an engagement elsewhere.

Right now.

“Want another drink?” he said.

“Sure. Why not?”

He talked about things that had been off limits before; his childhood in a tenement in the old city in Havana; watching his mother die by inches while his father drank away every penny they had on cheap rum; the promise he had made to himself that he would never be poor again, no matter what he had to do.

“You kept your promise,” she said.

“But you reach a point in your life,” he said, “when you get sick of running away from things. You want to run towards something.”

She watched him over the rim of her glass. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, I’ve caught a glimpse of it a few times but every time I put my hand out, it’s gone. It’s like trying to catch smoke.”

She traced the condensation on the bar with a long finger. “You know I thought of leaving him so many times.”

“Why don’t you?”

“In New York? Because we had a nice life and what else was there that was better? I figured my trouble was that I always wanted what I couldn’t get. You said that to me once.”

“Yeah, I always like to give advice. I’m not that good at taking it.”

“Then I met you again and I knew I could get what I wanted. If I left him.”

Reyes shook his head. ‘I don’t know that we should be talking about this right now.”

“What will you do if he doesn’t come back?”

“He’s missing, but he’s not dead. I’ll think about that if it happens.”

“I still love you, Reyes.”

Oh damn, there it was said. He looked away. He wanted her too, but not this way; she was the one shining thing in his life and if she ever ended up being his, it would have to be the right way.

“I’ve never known a man like you,” she said. “You steal cars but you won’t steal wives. You say you only care about yourself but you paid all of Inocencia’s hospital bills for years. You don’t believe in a damned thing but you have some private set of rules stricter than a Baptist preacher.”

“That’s no reason to leave your husband for me.”

“I wouldn’t leave him because of that. I’d leave him because you’re the only man who ever made me feel alive.”

“You decide to leave him, that’s up to you. But if he comes back, I figure you should think really hard about what you just said.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never made any woman happy longer than the morning after, and I don’t know if I could do it now, no matter how bad I want to with you. Perhaps we missed our moment, princess. Sometimes you get one shot at these things and you have to take your chances while they’re there. Maybe we missed ours.”

“I’ve just been so lonely,” she said. “He’s a good man, but if I hear him explain one more political philosophy I’ll throw myself off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

He walked her back to her hotel. It was that time of the day when the city's energy was ebbing away, wilted from the heat and dust and pollution of the day, just before the night turned the streets into a twitching mass of people and cars and neon. The frenetic sexual hum of the night.

In the square near the market refugees were settling down in doorways and on pavements while American soldiers were heading along the Tu Do, looking for drugs and girls. A black soldier sat outside one of them, shivering and crying, his friends were trying to get him back on his feet. Others made deals in dark alleyways.

He felt the agony of the world spinning around them. They were just two people who had once loved each other, he thought. Their problems don’t mean anything in the tide of things. Yet there was a part of him that figured this meant a whole lot.

When they reached the hotel they stopped and stared at each other. He knew what was coming and didn’t think he had the strength to say no. He could not see her face in the gathering dark.

“Do you want to come up?” she whispered.

“I’ll call you at the hotel when I have news,” he said and walked away.

Chapter 20

It was early afternoon and the streets were crowded with schoolchildren in white and blue uniforms, making their way home through the crowds outside the market. Two fresh-faced ARVN soldiers sat on the green vinyl sandbags of their machine gun post, hand in hand, as was the custom with Vietnamese men.

The taxi driver stopped down a narrow lane and Reyes jumped out, a heavy cardboard box under each arm. He pushed open an old wooden gate and went inside. There was a tiny courtyard garden choked with bougainvillea and an ancient mahogany door. He knocked with his fist.

An ancient Vietnamese nun peered around the door and when she saw who it was, her face split into a toothless grin. She stood aside and motioned him to come in. She led him into a dark sitting room and hurried away down a corridor.

Two lizards watched him, pale and suspicious, from high on the wall. There was an overpowering smell of must.

He looked out of the window at the children playing in the courtyard. The city was full of kids without parents and these were the lucky ones, they had a bed and food on the table, sparse as it might be. He wondered how children still remembered to laugh even after everything they had seen.

He thought about what it would be like to have his own children. He supposed it was too late for that now, if he’d wanted to be a family man he should have thought about it years ago. The life he had led did not lend itself to Doctor Seuss and regular mealtimes.

He was studying a dusty oil painting of the Madonna when Mother Superior walked in. She was an ancient Vietnamese with the kindest eyes he had ever seen. She wore a habit of white and pale blue with a long wooden crucifix swinging on a beaded chain around her neck.

Her teeth were dyed reddish brown from chewing betel nut. He supposed even a mother superior was allowed one vice.

Her eyes went to the boxes on the floor and she smiled. “This way,” she said.

He followed her down the cloister to her office. It was sparsely furnished, just a desk, a dusty photograph of the Pope and two hard wood chairs: one for herself and one for visitors.

He put the box on the desk and she took a letter opener from the desk drawer and cut through the tape. She sorted through the medical supplies inside, examining each item with the critical gaze of a medical professional. When she finished she nodded with approval. Then she looked in the other box and smiled. “Toys,” she said.

“For the children,” he said. “I have an aunt in Poughkeepsie sends them to me.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You are kind.”

“It’s nothing, I have people steal this stuff for me from the PX stores all the time.”

“I do not wish to hear this.”

“The Army won’t miss them, really.”

“All the same, we are very grateful. Will you sit down? I can offer you tea.”

He was surprised. All the years he had been coming here she had never invited him to drink tea with her before. She clapped her hands and one of the novices brought in a steaming pot of tea and two cups. She poured the fragrant green tea and left the room.

“I hear you are leaving us,” Mother Superior said.

“Who told you that?”

“I may live in a convent but I can still read the newspapers, m’sieur Garcia. The... teahouse...you owned in the Tu Do? I believe it has been consumed by the war.”

He smiled at her euphemism. “Yes, the teahouse was totally destroyed, I’m afraid. My ...hostesses...had to find employment elsewhere.”

“I am sure that was not difficult for them. But I was very sorry to hear of so much needless loss of life. I am relieved to hear that you were unharmed.”

“Thank you.”

“So will you leave Saigon now?”

“Perhaps.”

She sipped her tea, a crafty look in her eyes. “Should you decide to leave, I thought perhaps I might be able to arrange a favour for you before you go.”

“A favour?”

“Yes. I am concerned for your soul, Mister Garcia.”

He laughed, and then hurriedly gathered himself. “My soul?”

“I would like to arrange for a priest to hear your confession.”

“I don’t think that’s really necessary.”

The old nun shook her head. “On the contrary, I would think it very necessary. It would take but a moment.” He felt as if he were being lectured by his old school teacher for missing classes. “You are a good man and you have been very kind to us here for many years. You have lived a dissolute life, but I believe your soul might yet be saved.”

“Saved?” That would be beyond my expectations, beyond most people’s really.”

“Mister Garcia, what is to become of you?” She leaned her elbows on the desk and sighed. It was the same question his teacher in Havana had asked of him when she had caught him smoking with a girl in the schoolyard when he was ten years old.

“The Devil looks after his own, Mother.”

She wagged a finger at him. “You should not say such things. You invoke him and he will appear. You, Mister Garcia, need all the good grace you can get.”

He finished his tea and refused more. “I’d better be going,” he said. “By the way, that other property I dropped off to you a couple of weeks ago. You still have it?”

“Of course,” she said and pointed to a shelf in the corner of the room. It lay there, in full view, next to a wooden Statue of the Virgin Mary.

“You’re sure that’s the best place for it?” he said, trying to hide his shock.

“There are few other places I have to put it.”

“I asked you to hide it.”

“We have nothing to hide here.”

“Some place a little less obvious then?”

“Obvious to whom?”

He threw a last nervous glance at it as he went out. But he supposed she was right, who would think of looking in a convent?

She called after him: “Don’t forget, if you want a priest I can find one for you!”

He smiled and pretended he had not heard her. He could imagine his confession now; forgive me father for I have had a kindly old nun hide eight kilos of pure heroin for me in her study.

She might think his soul could be saved. Reyes had his doubts.