The Quiet American (13 page)

“If it had been you, I’d have left you,” I said. “Oh no, you wouldn’t, Thomas.” He added with unbearable complacency, “I know you better than you do yourself.”

Angrily I tried to move away from him and take my own weight, but the pain came roaring back like a train in a tunnel and I leant more heavily against him, before I began to sink into the water. He got both his arms round me and held me up, and then inch by inch he began to edge me to the bank and the roadside. When he got me there he lowered me flat in the shallow mud below the bank of the edge of the field, and when the pain retreated and I opened my eyes and ceased to hold my breath, I could see only the elaborate cypher of the constellations-a foreign cypher which I couldn’t read: they were not the stars of home. His face wheeled over me, blotting them out. “I’m going down the road, Thomas, to find a patrol.”

“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “They’ll shoot you before they know who you are. If the Viets don’t get you.”

“It’s the only chance. You can’t lie in the water for six hours.”

“Then lay me in the road.”

“It’s no good leaving you the sten?” he asked doubtfully.

“Of course it’s not. If you are determined to be a hero, at least go slowly through the rice.” “The patrol would pass before I could signal it.” “You don’t speak French.”

“I shall call out ‘Je suis Frongcais.’ Don’t worry, Thomas. I’ll be very careful.” Before I could reply he was out of a whisper’s range-he was moving as quietly as he knew how, with frequent pauses. I could see him in the light of the burning car, but no shot came; soon he passed beyond the flames and very soon the silence filled the footprints. Oh yes, he was being careful as he had been careful boating down the river into Phat Diem, with the caution of a hero in a boy’s adventure-story, proud of his caution like a Scout’s badge and quite unaware of the absurdity and the improbability of his adventure.

I lay and listened for the shots from the Viet or a Legion patrol) but none came-it would probably take him an hour or even more before he reached a tower, if he ever reached it. I turned my head enough to see what remained of our tower, a heap of mud and bamboo and struts which seemed to sink lower as the flames of the car sank. There was peace when the pain went-a kind of Armistice Day of the nerves: I wanted to sing. I thought how strange it was that men of my profession would make only two news-lines out of all this night-it was just a common-or-garden night and I was the only strange thing about it. Then I heard a low crying begin again from what was left of the tower. One of the guards must still be alive.

I thought, ‘Poor devil, if we hadn’t broken down outside his post, he could have surrendered as they nearly all surrendered, or fled, at the first call from the megaphone. But we were there-two white men, and we had the sten and they didn’t dare to move. When we left it was too late.’ I was responsible for that voice crying in the dark: I had prided myself on detachment, on not belonging to this war, but those wounds had been inflicted by me just as though I had used the sten, as Pyle had wanted to do.

I made an effort to get over the bank into the road. I wanted to join him. It was the only thing I could do, to share his pain. But my own personal pain pushed me back. I couldn’t hear him any more. I lay still and heard nothing but my own pain beating like a monstrous heart and held my breath and prayed to the God I didn’t believe in, “Let me die or faint. Let me die or faint”; and then I suppose I fainted and was aware of nothing until I dreamed that my eyelids had frozen together and someone was inserting a chisel to prise them apart, and I wanted to warn them not to damage the eyeballs beneath but couldn’t speak and the chisel bit through and a torch was shining on my face.

“We made it, Thomas,” Pyle said. I remember that, but I don’t remember what Pyle later described to others: that I waved my hand in the wrong direction and told them there was a man in the tower and they had to see to him. Anyway I couldn’t have made the sentimental assumption that Pyle made. I know myself, and I know the depth of my selfishness. I cannot be at ease (and to be at ease is my chief wish) if someone else is in pain, visibly or audibly or tactually. Sometimes this is mistaken by the innocent for unselfishness, when all I am doing is sacrificing a small good-in this case postponement in attending to my hurt-for the sake of a far greater good) a peace of mind when I need think only of myself.

They came back to tell me the boy was dead, and I was happy-I didn’t even have to suffer much pain after the hypodermic of morphia had bitten my leg.

I came slowly up the stairs to the flat in the rue Catinat, pausing and resting on the first landing. The old women gossiped as they had always done, squatting on the floor outside the urinoir, carrying Fate in the lines of their faces as others on the palm. They were silent as I passed and I wondered what they might have told me, if I had known their language, of what had passed while I had been away in the Legion Hospital back on the road towards Tanyin. Somewhere in tbe tower and the fields I had lost my keys, but I had sent a message to Phuong which she must have received, if she was still there. That ‘if was the measure of my uncertainty. I had had no news of her in the hospital, but she wrote French with difficulty, and I couldn’t read

Vietnamese. I knocked on the door and it opened immediately and everything seemed to be the same. I watched her closely while she asked how I was and touched my splinted leg and gave me her shoulder to lean on, as though one could lean with safety on so young a plant. I said, “I’m glad to be home.”

She told me that she had missed me, which of course was what I wanted to hear: she always told me what I wanted to hear, like a coolie answering questions, unless by accident. Now I awaited the accident.

“How have you amused yourself?” I asked. “Oh, I have seen my sister often. She has found a post with the Americans.”

“She has, has she? Did Pyle help?” “Not Pyle, Joe.” “Who’s Joe?”

“You know him. The Economic Attache.” “Oh, of course, Joe.”

He was a man one always forgot. To this day I cannot describe him, except his fatness and his powdered clean shaven cheeks and his big laugh; all his identity escapes me-except that he was called Joe. There are some men whose names are always shortened.

With Phuong’s help I stretched myself on the bed. “Seen any movies?” I asked.

“There is a very funny one at the Catinat,” and immediately she began to tell me the plot in great detail, while I looked around the room for the white envelope that might be a telegram. So long as I didn’t ask, I could believe that she had forgotten to tell me; and it might be there on the table by the typewriter, or on the wardrobe, perhaps put for safety in the cupboard-drawer where she kept her collection of scarves.

“The postmaster-I think he was the postmaster, but he may have been the mayor-followed them home, and he borrowed a ladder from the baker and he climbed through Corinne’s window, but, you see, she had gone into the next room with Francois, but he did not hear Mme. Bompierre coming and she came in and saw him at the top of the ladder and thought . . .”

“Who was Mme. Bompierre?” I asked, turning my head to see the wash basin, where sometimes she propped reminders among the lotions.

“I told you. She was Corinne’s mother and she was looking for a husband because she was a widow . . .”

She sat on the bed and put her hand inside my shirt. “It was very funny,” she said.

“Kiss me, Phuong.” She had no coquetry. She did at once what I asked and she went on with the story of the film. Just so she would have made love if I had asked her to, straight away, peeling off her trousers without question, and afterwards have taken up the thread of Mme. Bompierre’s story and the postmaster’s predicament. “Has a call come for me?” “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you give it me?”

“It is too soon for you to work. You must lie down and rest.” “This may not be work.”

She gave it me and I saw that it had been opened. It read: “Four hundred words background wanted effect de Lattre’s departure on military and political situation.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is work. How did you know? Why did you open it?”

“I thought it was from. your wife. I hoped that it was good news.” “Who translated it for you?”

“I took it to my sister.”

“If it had been bad news would you have left me; Phliong?”

She rubbed her hand across my chest to reassure me, not realising that it was words this time I required, however untrue. “Would you like a pipe? There is a letter for you. I think perhaps it is from her.” “Did you open that too?”

“I don’t open your letters. Telegrams are public. The clerks read them.”

This envelope was among the scarves. She took it gingerly out and laid it on the bed. I recognised the handwriting. “If this is bad news what will you...?” I knew well that it could be nothing else but bad. A telegram might have meant a sudden act of generosity: a letter could only mean explanation, justification . . . so I broke off my question, for there was no honesty in asking for the kind of promise no one can keep.

“What are you afraid of?” Phuong asked, and I thought, Tm afraid of the loneliness, of the Press Club and the bed-sitting-room, I’m afraid of Pyle.’

“Make me a brandy and soda,” I said. I looked at the beginning of the letter, “Dear Thomas,” and the end, “Affectionately, Helen,” and waited for the brandy. “Jt is from Acr?”

“Yes.” Before I read it I began to wonder whether at the end J should lie or tell the truth to Phuong.

“Dear Thomas,

“I was not surprised to get your letter and to know that you were not alone. You are not a man, are you? To remain alone for very long. You pick up women like your coat picks up dust. Perhaps I would feel more sympathy with your case if I didn’t feel that you would find consolation very easily when you return to London. I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, but what gives me pause and prevents me cabling you a simple No is the thought of the poor girl. We are apt to be more involved than you are.”

I had a drink of brandy. I hadn’t realised how open the sexual wounds remain over the years. I had carelessly-not choosing my words with skill-set hers bleeding again. Who could blame her for seeking my own scars in return? When we are unhappy we hurt. “Is it bad?” Phuong asked. “A bit hard,” I said. “But she has the right . . .” I read on.

“I always believed you loved Anne more than the rest of us until you packed up and went. Now you seem to be planning to leave another woman because I can tell from you letter that you don’t really expect a ‘favourable’ reply. ‘I’ll have done my best’-aren’t you thinking that? What would you do if I cabled ‘Yes’? Would you actually marry her? (I have to write ‘her-you don’t tell me her name.) Perhaps you would. I suppose like the rest of us you are getting old and don’t like living alone. I feel very lonely myself sometimes. I gather Anne has found another companion. But you left her in time.”

She had found the dried scab accurately. I drank again. An issue of blood-the phrase came into my mind. “Let me make you a pipe,” Phuong said. “Anything,” I said, “anything.”

“That is one reason why I ought to say no. (We don’t need to talk about the religious reason, because you’ve never understood or believed in that.) Marriage doesn’t prevent you leaving a woman, does it? It only delays the process, and it would be all the more unfair to the girl in this case if you lived with her as long as you lived with me. You would bring her back to England where she would be lost and a stranger, and when you left her, how terribly abandoned she would feel. I don’t suppose she even uses a knife and fork, does she? I’m being harsh because I’m thinking of her good more than I am of yours. But, Thomas dear, I do think of yours too.”

I felt physically sick. It was a long time since I had received a letter from my wife. I had forced her to write it and I could feel her pain in every line. Her pain struck at my pain: we were back at the old routine of hurting each other. If only it were possible to love without injury-fidelity isn’t enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again-I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower. Phuong lit the opium lamp. “Will she let you marry me?” “I don’t know yet.” “Doesn’t she say?” “If she does, she says it very slowly.” I thought, ‘How much you pride yourself on being degage the reporter, not the leader-writer, and what a mess you make behind the scenes. The other kind of war is more innocent than this. One does less damage with a mortar.’