Prayers to Broken Stones (29 page)

Later that evening five men sat around a table on the fifth-floor terrace of the Saigon Oberoi Sheraton. The air was warm and humid. Occasional gusts of laughter and splashing sounds came up from the pool on the fourth-floor terrace. It was well past nine, but the tropical twilight lingered.

“You were on the village mission-tour this morning, weren’t you?” asked Justin Jeffries of the young Oriental next to him.

“Yes, I was. Most interesting.” The man sat in a relaxed manner, but something about his bearing, the precisely creased safari suit, the intensity of his gaze, suggested a military background.

“You’re Nipponese, aren’t you?” asked Justin. At the man’s smile and nod, Justin went on. “Thought so. Here with the military mission?”

“No, merely on leave. ‘R and R’ I believe your people used to call it.”

“Christ,” said the overweight American who sat next to Justin’s father-in-law. “You’ve been up north in the PRC fighting Chen’s warlords, haven’t you?”

“Just so,” said the Nipponese and extended his hand to Justin. “Lieutenant Keigo Naguchi.”

“Justin Jeffries, Kansas City.” Justin’s huge hand enclosed the lieutenant’s and pumped twice. “This here is my father-in-law, Ralph Disantis.”

“A pleasure,” said the lieutenant with a quick nod.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Disantis.

“I believe I saw you with your grandchildren at the village today,” said Naguchi. “A boy and a girl?”

Disantis nodded and sipped his beer. Justin gestured to the heavy-set man next to his father-in-law. “And this is Mr.… ah … Sears, right?’

“Sayers,” said the man. “Roger Sayers. Nice to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant. So how’s is going up there? Your guys finally getting those little bastards out of the hillcaves?”

“Most satisfactory,” said Lieutenant Naguchi. “The situation should be stabilized before the next rainy season.”

“Japanese brains and Vietnamese blood, huh?” laughed Sayers. He turned to the fifth man at the table, a silent Vietnamese in a white shirt and dark glasses, and added quickly, “No offense meant. Everybody knows that your basic Viet peasant makes the best foot soldier in the world. Showed us that forty years ago, eh, Mr.… ah …?”

“Minh,” said the little man and shook hands around the table. “Nguyen van Minh.” Minh’s hair was black, his face unlined, but his eyes and hands revealed that he was at least in his sixties, closer to Disantis’s age than that of the others.

“I saw you on the plane from Denver,” said Justin. “Visiting family here?”

“No.” said Minh. “I have been an American citizen since 1976. This is my first trip back to Vietnam. I have no family here now.” He turned toward Naguchi. “Lieutenant, I am surprised that you chose to spend your leave on an American’s Veterans’ Tour.”

Naguchi shrugged and sipped at his gin and tonic. “I find it a sharp contrast to modern methods. Up north I am more technician than warrior. Also, of course, learning more about the first of the helicopter wars is valuable to anyone who is interested in military history. You were a veteran of that war, Mr. Disantis?”

Justin’s father-in-law nodded and took a long swallow of beer.

“I
just missed it,” said Sayers with real regret in his voice. “Too young for Vietnam. Too goddamn old for the Banana Wars.”

Justin grunted. “You didn’t miss much there.”

“Ah, you were involved in that period?” asked Naguchi.

“Sure,” said Justin. “Everybody who came of age in the discount decade got in on the Banana Wars. The tour today could have been Tegucicalpa or Estanzuelas, just substitute in coffee plantations for the rice paddies.”

“I want to hear about that,” said Sayers and waved a waiter over to the table. “Another round for everyone,” he said. From somewhere near the pool a steel drum band started up, unsuccessfully trying to mix American pop tunes, a Caribbean beat, and local musicians. The sound seemed sluggish in the wet, thick air. Tropical night had fallen and even the stars appeared dimmed by the thickness of atmosphere. Naguchi looked up at a band of brighter stars moving toward the zenith and then glanced down at his comlog.

“Checking azimuth for your spottersat, right?” asked Justin. “It’s a hard habit to break. I still do it.”

Disantis rose. “Sorry I can’t stay for the next round, gentlemen. Going to sleep off some of this jet lag.” He moved into the air-conditioned brightness of the hotel.

Before going to his own room, Disantis looked in on Heather and the children. His daughter was in bed already, but Sammee and Elizabeth were busy feeding data from their father’s Nikon through the terminal and onto the wallscreen. Disantis leaned against the door molding and watched.

“This is the LZ,” Sammee said excitedly.

“What’s an LZ?” asked Elizabeth.

“Landing Zone,
” snapped Sammee. “Don’t you remember
anything!
”

The wall showed image after image of dust, rotors, the predatory shadows of Hueys coming in above Justin’s camera position, the thin line of passengers in combat garb, men and women instinctively bent low despite obvious clearance from the rotors, tourists clutching at their helmets with one hand and hugging cameras, purses, and plastic M-16s to their chests with the other, groups moving quickly away from the raised landing platform along rice paddy dikes.

“There’s Grandpa!” cried Elizabeth. Disantis saw himself,
aging, overweight, puffing heavily as he heaved himself down from the helicopter, disdaining the guide’s outstretched hand. Sammee tapped at the terminal keys. The picture zoomed and enlarged until only Disantis’s grainy face filled the screen. Sammee shifted through colors and widened his grandfather’s face until it became a purple balloon ready to pop.

“Stop it,
” whined Elizabeth.

“Crybaby,” said Sammee, but some sixth sense made him glance over his shoulder to where Disantis stood. Sammee made no acknowledgment of his grandfather’s presence but advanced the picture through a montage of new images.

Disantis blinked and watched the jerky newsreel proceed. The abandoned village of rough huts. The lines of tourist-troops along each side of the narrow road. Close-ups of huts being searched. Heather emerging from a low doorway, blinking in the sunlight, awkwardly lifting her toy M-16 and waving at the camera.

“This is the good part,” breathed Sammee.

They had been returning to the LZ when figures along a distant dike had opened fire. At first the tourists milled around in confusion, but at the guides’ urging they finally, laughingly, had taken cover on the grassy side of the dike. Justin remained standing to take pictures. Disantis watched as those images built themselves on the wallscreen at a rate just slower than normal video. Data columns flashed by to the right. He saw himself drop to one knee on the dike and hold Elizabeth’s hand. He remembered noting that the grass was artificial.

The tourists returned fire. Their M-16s flashed and recoiled, but no bullets were expended. The din was tremendous. On the screen a two-year-old near Justin had begun to cry.

Eventually the guides helped a young tourist couple use a field radio to call in an airstrike. The jets were there in less than a minute—three A-4D Skyhawks with antiquated U.S. naval markings bright and clear on the white wings. They screamed in under five hundred feet high. Justin’s camera shook as the explosions sent long shadows across the dikes and made the tourists cringe and hug the
earth from their vantage point six hundred meters away. Justin had managed to steady the camera even as the napalm continued to blossom upward.

“Watch,” said Sammee. He froze the frame and then zoomed in. The image expanded. Tiny human forms, black silhouettes, became visible against the orange explosions. Sammee enlarged the image even further. Disantis could make out the silhouette of an outflung arm, a shirttail gusting, a conical peasant’s hat flying off.

“How’d they do that, Grandpa?” asked Sammee without turning around.

Disantis shrugged. “Holos, maybe.”

“Naw, not holos,” said Sammee. He did not try to hide his condescension. “Too bright out there. Besides, you can see the pieces fly. Betcha they were animates.”

Elizabeth rolled over from where she was sprawled. Her pajamas carried a picture of Wonder Duck on the front. “What’d Mr. Sayers mean on the way back, Grandpa?”

“When?”

“In the helicopter when he said, ‘Well, I guess we really showed Charlie today.’ ” Elizabeth took a breath. “Who’s Charlie, Grandpa?”

“Stupid,” said Sammee. “Charlie was the VC. The bad guys.”

“How come you called him Charlie, Grandpa?” persisted Elizabeth. The frozen explosion on the wallscreen cast an orange glow on her features.

“I don’t remember,” said Disantis. He paused with his hand on the door. “You two had better get to bed before your father comes up. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”

Later, alone in his room, sitting in silence broken only by the hum of the air-conditioner, Disantis realized that he could
not
remember why the Vietcong had been called Charlie. He wondered if he had ever known. He turned out the light and opened the sliding doors to the balcony. The humid air settled on him like a blanket as he stepped out. Three floors below, Justin, Sayers, and the others still sat drinking. Their laughter floated up to Disantis and mixed
with the rumble of thunder from a storm on the distant and darkened horizon.

On their way to a picnic the next day, Mr. Sayers tripped a claymore mine.

The guide had put them on a simulated patrol down a narrow jungle trail. Sayers was in the lead, paying little attention to the trail, talking to Reverend Dewitt, an airwaves minister from Dothan, Alabama. Justin and Heather were walking with the Newtons, a young couple from Hartford. Disantis was further back in line, walking between Sammee and Elizabeth to keep them from quarreling.

Sayers stepped into a thin tripwire stretched across the trail, a section of dirt erupted a meter in front of him, and the claymore jumped three meters into the air before exploding in a white puff.

“Shit,” said Sayers. “Excuse me, Reverend.” The Vietnamese guide came forward with an apologetic smile and put a red KIA armband on Sayers. The Reverend Dewitt and Tom Newton each received a yellow WIA armband.

“Does this mean I don’t get to go to the picnic?” asked Sayers.

The guide smiled and directed the others on how to prepare a medevac LZ in a nearby clearing. Lieutenant Naguchi and Minh cleared underbrush with machetes while Heather and Sue Newton helped spread marker panels of iridescent orange plastic. Sammee was allowed to pop the tab on a green smoke marker.

The dust-off bird came in with a blast of downdraft that flattened the tall grass and blew Disantis’s white tennis hat off. Sayers, Dewitt, and Newton sat propped on their elbows and waved as their stretchers were loaded. The patrol resumed when the dust-off ’copter was just a distant throbbing in the sky.

Justin took point. He moved carefully, frequently holding his hand up to halt the line behind him. There were two more tripwires and a stretch of trail salted with antipersonnel mines. The guide showed them all how to probe
ahead with bayonets. For the last half-kilometer, they stayed in the grass on either side of the trail.

The picnic ground was on a hill overlooking the sea. Under a thatched pavilion sat three tables covered with sandwich makings, salads, assorted fruits, and coolers of beer. Sayers, Newton, and Dewitt were already there, helping two guides cook hamburgers and hot dogs over charcoal fires. “What kept you?” called Sayers with a deep laugh.

After a long lunch, several of the tourists went down to the beach to swim or sunbathe or take a nap. Sammee found a network of tunnels in the jungle near the picnic pavilion and several of the children gathered around as the guide showed them how to drop in CS gas and fragmentation and concussion grenades before actually searching the tunnels. Then the children and a few of the younger adults wiggled in on their bellies to explore the complex. Disantis could hear their excited shouts as he sat alone at one of the picnic tables, drinking his beer and looking out to sea. He could also hear the conversation of his daughter and Sue Newton as they sat on beach towels a few meters away.

“We wanted to bring my daddy but he just refused to come,” said the Newton woman. “So Tommy says, ‘Well, shoot, so long as the government’s paying part of it, let’s go ourselves.’ So we did.”

“We thought it’d be good for my father,” said Heather. “I wasn’t even born then, but when he got back from the war, way back in the Seventies, he didn’t even come home to Mother. He went and lived in the woods in Oregon or Washington or somewhere for a couple of years.”

“Really!” said Sue Newton. “My daddy never did anything crazy like that.”

“Oh, he got better after a while,” said Heather. “He’s been fine the last ten years or so. But his therapy program said that it’d be good for him to come on the Vet’s Tour, and Justin was able to get time off ’cause the dealership is doing so good.”

The talk turned to children. Shortly after that it began to rain heavily and three Hueys and a lumbering Chinook picked them up to return them to the Sheraton. The dozen
or so people in Disantis’s group sang “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” during the short flight back.

There was nothing scheduled for the afternoon and after the storm passed several people decided to go shopping at one of the large malls between the hotel complex and the Park. Disantis caught an electric bus into downtown Saigon where he walked the streets until nightfall.

The change of names to Ho Chi Minh City had never really taken and the metropolis had officially been renamed Saigon in the early Nineties. The city bore little resemblance to the excited jumble of pedestrians, motorbikes, strip joints, bars, restaurants, and cheap hotels Disantis remembered from forty years earlier. The foreign money had all gone into the tourist enclaves near the Park and the city itself reflected the gray era of the New Socialist Reality more than it did the feverish pulse of old Saigon. Efficient, faceless structures and steel and glass high-rises sat on either side of busy boulevards. Occasionally Disantis would see a decaying sidestreet which reminded him of the cluttered stylishness of Tu-Do Street in the late Sixties.