The Ugly American (3 page)

The moment that he hit the floor Colvin scrambled again to his feet. He darted down the row of barrels and came around them without any attempt at deception. Either Deong would drop the gun or he would be able to stalk Colvin in the narrow warehouse, so there was no point in hiding. Deong was staring at his hand, his face contorted as the reaction to the blow registered. Deong's hand opened convulsively, the .38 revolver hung for a moment on his trigger finger, and then it crashed to the floor.

Colvin lunged toward Deong, his right arm hanging helpless at his side, and crashed into him with his left shoulder. The shock of the contact erased the effect of the earlier blow, and instantly Deong was struggling furiously beneath Colvin. Colvin had to keep Deong away from the gun without using his arms. He wrapped his legs around Deong's middle and tightened them in a powerful scissors grip. For a moment there was almost a dead silence in the emptiness of the warehouse. Colvin heard the breath being forced from Deong's lungs. Deong, however, had seen Colvin's damaged right arm, and he hammered it twice with his fist. The pain came roaring up out of Colvin's arm in a white-hot bolt, and Colvin's legs relaxed. Deong took several sharp breaths. Then Colvin twisted his legs so that Deong could not reach his injured arm, and the pain, like some sort of mist that had gathered inside his head and obscured his view, slowly lifted.

Colvin saw, with a sense of dull surprise, that the line of Sarkhanese women had moved up to the door of the warehouse and were peering curiously in at Deong and Colvin. In the front of the line was a deeply wrinkled, sharp-eyed woman of perhaps seventy years. Like all the rest she was staring in confusion, but it was also apparent that she was a leader.

"I shot him because he was about to put
cocol
in the milk," Deong shouted shrilly. "Help me get away from him, and we'll turn him over to the police."

For a moment Colvin's numb mind did not comprehend fully what Deong had said. Then the levers of memory shifted and he felt an enormous outrage.
Cocol
was a native drug derived from coca beans; it was supposed to be a powerful aphrodisiac. There were numberless folk stories in Haidho about virtuous girls who had lost their maidenhood through
cocol,
and other tales about its use as the fatal technique by which virgins were persuaded to become prostitutes. The Sarkhanese believed in its swift and complete action, and consequently feared it greatly.

"He's lying!" Colvin screamed. He was dizzy now, and underneath his rage he felt something like humor welling up. It was as if he were in the midst of a dreadful comedy. "This man was trying to persuade me to put ipecac in the milk."

For several seconds the men remained locked in the same position, both of them studying the face of the old woman. Then Deong gasped out the same accusation. Colvin tried to shout his denial; but with a sense of utter futility he realized that his voice was so weak that the women were not hearing him correctly. He also saw that the women had been deeply shocked by the mere mention of
cocol.
Colvin had only five more minutes of consciousness, and they were minutes of a wild and violent nightmare. The tiny, delicate women of Haidho, the women whom Colvin had regarded as friends, fell upon him like a group of outraged hawks. Small hands tore at his legs and sent tiny stabs of pain through his body. Fingers scratched through the material of his shirt and drew bright red lines across his chest. Hands, suddenly violent with anger, slapped his face and added to his confusion.

"I am a friend," Colvin said, in a voice so weak and small that he was the only person who heard it. With an awful clarity he was aware of the inadequacy of his words and of the helplessness of his body.

The blows of the women fell upon him with increasing viciousness and violence. One of the women was standing directly on his shattered forearm and had turned it into a huge single throb of pain. The white mist of pain and shock was not only behind his eyes and inside his head, but was rising slowly like a vapor through the warehouse. Colvin dimly perceived the disorganized mass of women screaming and shouting above him. At some point he stopped feeling the pain, even the pain that came from having his head gripped by both ears and banged savagely against the concrete floor. The noise was shrill and harsh and indescribable.

The fingernails, the tiny scratching angry nails, came at him from all sides. Each little wound by itself was bearable, but so multiplied they set his body afire. He felt as if he were being scratched to death by strange chicken-like claws. But even in the midst of the pain, he felt something worse—the loss of the vision he had had of himself and the people of Sarkhan, and their friendship.

At last relief came. His eyesight faded, his hearing grew dim, and a dull release slipped over him. He felt his tongue start to bulge from his mouth. Blood flowed from his nose and ears, and Deong escaped from the grip of his legs. Colvin embraced the unconsciousness which seemed to be nothing more than a thickening of the mist of pain and terror.

Two hours later Colvin's unconscious body was deposited on the steps of the American Embassy in Haidho. He was entirely naked and his body was covered with hundreds of tiny scratches which had hardened into ridges of dry purple blood. He was breathing, but just barely. Attached to his left breast, by a large pin which had been driven twice through the flesh, was a note in English. The message said, "Here is an American rapist. You can have him back. The same thing will happen to other Americans who attempt to seduce our daughters."

Prince Ngong was in Ambassador Sears' office. He had been through these interviews before.

"A few more cartoons like this and I'm going to have to report to Washington that your people are not very sympathetic to American representatives," Ambassador Sears was saying. "It doesn't mean anything to me personally, but cartoons like this are damned disrespectful, and hurt relations between our countries."

Prince Ngong was one of Sarkhan's most distinguished poets and drama critics; but like all Sarkhanese intellectuals, he was expected to serve his country where his talents were needed most. Right now, he was needed as a protocol officer.

"Mr. Ambassador, I will not try to deceive you," Prince Ngong said. "I think that the
Eastern Star
has, perhaps, become somewhat critical of our foreign policy. In particular it is reluctant to have us grant air bases in this country in exchange for foreign aid. But as the representative of a democratic country, you can surely understand our reluctance to interfere with a free press."

They talked for a few more minutes, during which time Prince Ngong told Ambassador Sears that he understood the ambassador's irritation, and admired his forthrightness. When he left, Prince Ngong estimated the situation correctly—Ambassador Sears was offended.

That afternoon the special advisory committee of the Sarkhanese Cabinet met in executive session. Prince Ngong spoke first.

"Gentlemen, I think we've never deceived ourselves about our relations with the United States and the Soviet Union," he said. "We don't want to be in the camp of either of these nations. What we desire is Sarkhan's independence and development. This means that we'll take aid and assistance from anyone who will help us, but not at any price. And not at the price of the loss of our independence."

"So the Communists accuse us of being 'lackeys of the colonialists' and the Americans say we are 'neutralists,' " the Prime Minister put in.

"We'd like to be helped but without any strings; but this, apparently, is almost impossible," Prince Ngong went on. "As a result we do what any small nation surrounded by powerful nations must do: we bargain. I think we're agreed that there are only two types of men with whom one can bargain with profit: with the wise man who can see one's problem clearly and is without vanity or pride; or with the stupid man. The Americans, for reasons which are not clear to me, have chosen to send us stupid men as ambassadors."

"Tell them of your conversation with Ambassador Sears this morning," the Prime Minister said.

"Lucky Louis is not in a happy frame of mind," Prince Ngong said without smiling. "Do not underestimate this man. He is more stupid than most, but he is quite capable when it comes to protecting himself. He was deeply offended by the cartoon this morning in the
Eastern Star.
There was no way to joke him out of it. I think that the twenty-million- dollar loan we're trying to negotiate with the United States will be in serious jeopardy if Ambassador Sears' feathers aren't smoothed."

No one in the room said anything. The Prime Minister made a signal and full cups of hot tea were served. Still no one spoke.

"Gentlemen?" the Prime Minister asked. Everyone sensed what had to be done, but it would have been impolite for the Prime Minister to have asked directly for action.

"I suppose that we could ask the publisher of the
Eastern Star
to run a flattering cartoon and editorial on Ambassador Sears," U Nang said reluctantly. Nang's brother-in-law was the publisher of the
Eastern Star.

"I should think that would be a very excellent solution of the problem," the Prime Minister said. Then, to save U Nang's feelings, he went quickly on to the next order of business.

Late that afternoon Ambassador Sears went to the hospital to see John Colvin. He was in an excellent mood. The publisher of the
Eastern Star
had called only a half-hour ago and read to him over the phone the substance of a flattering editorial that paper was going to run on him the next day. Ambassador Sears had thanked the publisher, and had promptly instructed his secretary to send him a case of whiskey.

Sears paused as he came into Colvin's hospital room. Colvin's eyes were open; his face was covered with a multitude of tiny scratches. The Ambassador walked over, and leaned forward in a confidential manner.

"Well, son, you must have picked yourself a real hellcat," he said cheerfully. "You look as though you tangled with a buzzsaw."

Colvin closed his eyes.

"Do you know what happened to me yesterday?" he asked.

"Why, sure, my press attaché tells me you tangled with the wrong girl. Now, son, remember I warned you about freewheeling here in the hills. This kind of stuff puts America in a bad light. I'm going to arrange for you to go back to the States as soon as you can be moved."

Colvin did not open his eyes again. The ambassador waited a few minutes, then turned to go. When he was halfway across the room Colvin spoke with such intensity that it stopped the ambassador short. "Sears," he said. "I won't go."

Lucky, Lucky Lou #2

Louis Krupitzyn was born in Ivanovo, Russia, in 1917, the son of a farmer. One day when he was still a boy he saw both of his parents shot. It happened almost casually. Louis stood in the window of the sod hut and listened to his parents argue with a lieutenant in charge of a group of soldiers. His father shook his head and turned away. The lieutenant took his short ugly revolver from a leather holster and shot Louis' father in the back of the skull. Wheeling, he then shot the mother.

It happened too quickly for Louis to feel anger or loss. All he felt was fear. He recognized what perfect safety would be: holding the short ugly pistol, or a substitute for it.

He was sent to the Orphans' Educational Center at Murmansk, where his peasant body grew tall on the coarse food. Louis found he had a good mind. By the time he was sixteen he had also found a foster parent: the state. He learned that his parents had been killed because they were guilty of "willful obstructionism of state agricultural policy." They were "kulaks," a group whom Louis had already come to hate.

In 1934 his essay "The Dynamics of Soviet Dialectics" won the Lenin Prize for Komsomol Literary Achievement. Everyone knew that young Louis Krupitzyn was a comer. Some of his colleagues began to call him "Lucky," but not to his face.

In 1935 his diplomatic career began: he was assigned to the Soviet Trade Commission in New York as chauffeur. All diplomatic servants—chauffeurs, valets, charwomen, and scullerymen—were chosen from the Foreign Service Apprentice Corps. They worked half-time as servants, and spent the rest of their time at assigned studies. This way the Russians avoided having aliens in their embassies or commissions, and at the same time were able to train their young foreign service officers.

While he was stationed in New York, chauffeur Krupitzyn studied the organization of American unions. At night he took Professor Alexander Willard's course in "The Psychology of the American Elite" at Columbia University.

In 1937 he went to Prague, again as chauffeur. In 1938 the Foreign Office sent him to Pekin as the clerk for a cultural commission.

In 1939 he was recalled to Moscow and spent the next two years in the Foreign Institute Academy. At night he worked as a decoding officer.

There is no record of what Krupitzyn did between 1941 and 1945, although it is definitely known that he was not in military service.

In 1945, now 28 years old, he was assigned as observer on the staff of Mao Tse-tung. Mao sent him with a battalion to Yunnan to see "how the military arm is used as a political and economic instrument." Except for three home furloughs of six months each, Krupitzyn was in China for three years. On his last home furlough he married Nada Kolosoff, a fellow foreign service careerist.