The Prince of Bagram Prison (20 page)

From his post in Xuan Loc, Harry had seen the end coming with a kind of absolute clarity he had never before imagined himself capable of. But then, by the autumn of 1974, only a fool, or the handful of lunatics in the ambassador's office, would have bargained otherwise. Even before December, when Congress took the final step of voting to cut off all military aid to South Vietnam, it was painfully obvious to Harry and his colleagues that the winter approaching would be their last in Vietnam.

Within the international community, those last few months there was an adrenaline- and alcohol-fueled frenzy that Harry would later come to recognize as typical of such times. It was an attitude possible only for those lucky few who knew they would be getting safely out and so could enjoy the thrills of war from a distance, knowing they would not have to cope with the aftermath. But for the Vietnamese, the end of the American presence in their country meant something else entirely.

He and An did not talk about what was happening. The Vietnamese were stoics to a degree that Harry had not yet encountered and never would again. But her fear was obvious. She was the only surviving child in her family, and her elderly parents relied on her for everything. Though An had taken her job not out of loyalty but out of necessity, they both knew that her motives would make no difference once the North Vietnamese arrived. Whether she would be allowed to live was not entirely clear; certainly the outcome would not be a happy one for her or for her parents.

In early March, several days after the People's Army launched its virtually unchallenged invasion of the Central Highlands, Harry went down to the kitchen to find An unmoving at the sink, staring out the window at the rain-drenched garden, her arms sunk to the elbows in cold dishwater.

“I can get you out, you know,” he'd told her then. It was a reckless thing to say, for he did not in fact know whether such a thing would be possible. There had been talk of getting everyone out, of course, but a reasonable person could see that there was only so much room, only so many who could be accommodated. But Harry had not been able to stop himself. “Your parents as well,” he continued rashly. “You'll all be taken care of.”

But she did not move. It was almost as if she didn't believe him, and so Harry added, without thinking, “I promise.”

She glanced up at him, not gratefully, but with a ferocious resignation, as if she already knew that he would betray her and could not stand the insult of his assurance.

And then, as if somehow able to sense the awkwardness of his predicament and the immediacy with which he needed rescuing, the phone rang, enabling Harry to turn away from her.

Even the staunchest optimists at the embassy were concerned by the situation in the North, and Harry's phone had been ringing regularly since the invasion as various reports made their way to Saigon and out into the wider world. So Harry was surprised when, instead of one of the Saigon regulars calling with an update, it was Susan on the other end of the line.

He could tell immediately that something was wrong. She had planned to come up over the weekend but was no doubt thinking better of it.

“Probably best if you stay put for now,” he offered hastily, trying to put her at ease. And then, when she didn't reply, “Maybe I can come down next week.” Come down for good, more likely, he thought.

“We're getting married, Harry.”

It took Harry a moment to hear what she had said, and even then he did not quite understand. “I'm sorry?”

“I wanted you to hear it from me.” Her tone was magnanimous, with just a hint of pity, as if she were sparing him something. “Dick's wife has agreed to a divorce.”

Harry said nothing.

“Don't be upset,” Susan continued. “We all knew this was coming.”

Her goddamned honesty, he thought. But she was right. She had told him herself that this was the way things would end, but he had not wanted to believe her.

“Dick says it's a matter of weeks before we all have to go. It would have been over between us in any case. You could see that much.”

But he hadn't. Somehow he'd imagined a future for the two of them—Susan at his side, the remote possibility of children, all of it occurring in a place other than this one. It was an unfinished idea, but one that existed nonetheless, and the thought of surrendering it hurt him deeply.

“I'm sure we'll see each other before it's all over,” Susan said then, as if it were the end of summer camp she was talking about and not the collapse of a nation.

“Yes,” Harry replied. “I'm sure we will.”

And, like that, it was over.

T
RYING TO IGNORE
the unforgiving pain in his back and knees, Harry lowered himself to the floor and reached under his bed, feeling for the safe he'd stowed there when he first moved in. There had been a time not long ago when such an action wouldn't have warranted so much as a second thought. But, now that he was already down, Harry realized too late that this time had passed, and that there was a very real possibility he might not be able to get back up again.

Here was the real misery of aging, he thought, the truth no one ever told you: when infirmity came, it did so with surprising speed. It was worse for men, he supposed. Women faced the disintegration of their bodies early on, beginning with the consequences of childbirth, while men were unmercifully allowed to continue believing in the fiction of their youthfulness.

Harry's right hand recognized the shape of the safe, pushed much farther under the box spring than he would have liked. What had he been thinking, he wondered, as he forced his belly onto the floor and twisted his torso, extending both arms beneath the bed. At the time, he knew that an arm's length wasn't far enough, but it was the best he'd been able to do. There were only so many places in a retirement condominium that a person could hide something.

Awkwardly, Harry pulled the safe toward him and out from under the bed frame. Then he rolled over onto his back and lay for a moment staring up at the ceiling before finally summoning the will to get up.

The safe itself was nondescript, a standard gray fireproof box Harry had bought for thirty dollars at the office-supply store in Kailua. It was a receptacle that even most burglars would have passed by—a place to keep birth certificates and living wills, items of limited value to anyone except the one or two persons to whom they were invaluable. Such was the case with most of the contents of Harry's safe.

The box, covered with a thick layer of dust, had obviously not been disturbed, but Harry could feel his heart leaping all the same as he dialed the combination and cracked the hinges. For most of his adult life Harry had had a contingency plan, an escape hatch through which he could disappear if things ever got too hairy. When he moved to the island he'd told himself he was through with such things, that to run at this point in his life would be the worst kind of capitulation. But he had not been able to let go of the idea entirely. Now he was grateful he hadn't.

Inside the safe were documents of various kinds: passports and driver's licenses, a handful of credit cards to match. And, at the bottom, a stack of hundred-dollar bills. A hundred in all. Ten thousand dollars for a rainy day.

Harry took out the money and fingered it, then set it aside and picked up one of the passports, a dark-blue booklet embossed with the elaborate Canadian seal.
No one bothers a Canadian,
Harry's old friend Eduardo Morais had remarked when Harry commissioned the document from him. That had been nearly five years ago. Now Morais, like so many of the others Harry had once called friends, no longer existed except in Harry's memory.

Harry opened the passport's front flap and looked down at his own face staring back at him, his old man's teeth and chin, the flesh gone soft from age and drink. It was a wonder Char would have him, a wonder any woman would.

As if on cue, Harry heard the sound of Char's key in the front lock. Hastily, he closed the passport and stuffed it and the money into the small overnight bag he'd packed for himself. Then he pushed the safe back under the bed.

“Hello, lover!” he heard Char call out, then two loud thumps as she kicked her clogs off.

Harry stepped out of the bedroom to meet her. “How was your class?”

She had come from a pottery class she was taking at the Kamuela community center, and her clothes were splattered and stained.

She stopped halfway across the living room. “What's wrong?”

“I'm going to have to go away for a while.”

She looked at him for a moment, then came forward and put her arms around him. Harry could smell the studio on her, the pleasant odors of dried clay and kiln fire.

“There are things you should know,” he began, “things I want you to understand.”

She shook her head, then reached up and touched her finger to his lips. “You're a good person, Harry Comfort.”

It was in no way a benediction. Her refusal to hear his confession made that clear. But there was a permission of sorts in what she said, an acknowledgment of the fact that he was capable, at least, of redemption. That they all were.

She rested her head on his chest and Harry was grateful, relieved not to have to look her in the eye.

After so much time spent living within the plodding works of military bureaucracy, Kat had assumed that whatever handover of Jamal was planned would take months to happen. At those not infrequent times when her guilt got the best of her, she took comfort in the myriad frustrations she'd dealt with since arriving in Afghanistan: the supply of tampons she'd requested dozens of times while at Kandahar that had never, to her knowledge, arrived; the space heaters they had so desperately needed for the booths that first winter which had sat in a warehouse in K-2 for six weeks, waiting for some supply sergeant's signature before they could make their way south.

Surely, she told herself, a living, breathing human being, with all the attendant complications, would require as much time and bureaucratic energy as a box of feminine-hygiene products or a piece of hardware. Surely something would happen in the meantime to change the boy's fate, some contingency for which they had not planned. They were in a war, after all, and there was no saying what might occur.

So when Kurtz appeared at her desk less than two weeks after their first encounter with the news that Jamal would be leaving the following morning, Kat was unnerved. Since Jamal's arrival, the boy had become Kat's major responsibility, and the two of them had developed a relationship. It was one of jailer to prisoner, to be sure, about this Kat had no illusions, but it was a relationship nonetheless, and Kat was not prepared for it to end.

She was still working at the in-processing facility and in the booths as needed, but the bulk of her downtime was spent with Jamal, preparing him as best she could for what lay ahead, working to cement whatever trust they had already established. He had not asked her any specific questions about his leaving, and Kat, not wanting to contemplate the subject, had been more than happy to remain silent.

“Have you told Jamal yet?” she asked, glancing up from the report she was working on.

Kurtz shook his head. “I thought you could tell him over dinner tonight. Give you a chance to say your goodbyes.”

“He'll want to know where he's going.”

“They need him in Madrid,” Kurtz told her.
They,
as if he himself had no part in the matter. “I can arrange for something special to be brought over from the mess. Any requests?”

Kat thought for a minute, then shook her head. Asking for something felt too much like planning a condemned man's last meal.

But when she finally got to Jamal's cell later that evening, she was instantly sorry she had left the decision up to Kurtz. He'd brought them two trays of Salisbury steak. It was by far the least palatable of all the choices the mess offered, with accompanying powdered mashed potatoes, gray canned green beans, and Jell-O salad.

Trying to show enthusiasm for the dinners, Kat sat down at the wooden crate she'd salvaged for Jamal to use as a table.

“Private Boyd is bringing his PlayStation to the lounge tonight,” Jamal announced excitedly. “I can go?”

Kat nodded. “Yes, but after we eat.” Jamal had become a mascot of sorts around the facility, especially among some of the younger MPs, like Boyd, who saw Jamal as a kind of pliable younger sibling. Kurtz had encouraged the relationship, and the tactic seemed to have worked; Jamal was now completely enamored of the soldiers, and his English was improving daily.

Jamal picked up his knife and fork and contemplated his tray before digging into the pile of mashed potatoes. He and Kat had discussed American food at length, especially potatoes, for which Jamal had developed a deep appreciation.

“I have some news for you, Jamal,” Kat said, leaving her own meal untouched, figuring she could make herself some instant soup in the lounge.

“You are sending me to America?” Jamal asked.

“Not yet,” Kat told him. “You'll be going to Spain first, to Madrid.”

Jamal set his fork down. This was not good news. “You said I would go to America.”