T. Parker - Little Saigon

One day Lam did not come to my hut. I set off alone through the jungle and came to the road to wait. When Lt. Frye came, he was alone, too. Private Crawley, he said, had another task at the base.

We went to the plantation courtyard and ate our food. Then the rain came and we ran inside. I sang over the rain and Lt. Frye lay on a cot and smoked. Then, for a long time, we talked of our families and our past, our hopes and our fears about the war. For the first time I saw a gentle spirit in the lieutenant that he never showed before. He touched my cheek and I wanted to run, but I knew there was no place to go. He seemed ashamed to have frightened me. We rode back to the turnout point very quietly.

Lam was waiting there when I got home. He was obviously drunk, leaning against my hut like a palm in monsoon. His eyes were fierce and heavy from the drink. He said he loved me. He accused me of terrible things I will not repeat. He grabbed my arms, and I hit him very hard. Finally he let go and stumbled off into the rain.

In the morning there was a bough of holly and some lilies outside my door. Lam had written a note that expressed his deep sorrow and apology for his behavior, and said he wished only to be forgiven. That day in the marketplace he stood while I spun cloth, and I told him I forgave him. He was happy and ashamed still, but he walked away with his head up and I felt good.

Even Lam had his woman problems, thought Frye. He could still taste Cristobel; still smell the faint dark perfume she wore; still feel her cool, hesitant fingers on the backs of his arms.

There’s so much inside her that wants to come out.

Skate over the silences. They’re hard as ice...

It was two months after our first meeting that things began to go wrong for Lt. Frye’s operations. First, he and his men were ambushed by Viet Cong in Hien Phu, which they believed was friendly. Later, when they had fought off the attack, they found several of the villagers dead nearby, and the rest they never found. How had the Viet Cong known they were coming? Then a tunnel entrance that I had told them about — a new one — was found just where it was supposed to be. It was booby-trapped, and one of Bennett’s men lost his eyes. Then a trip wire was found by Lam, who was walking the trail first. There were other incidents.

As we sat in the courtyard of the plantation one day, he told us that information was leaking from his men to the Viet Cong. Lam agreed. For a brief moment I felt Lt. Frye’s suspicion hover in the air around me like a silent bird. Then I saw Lam looking down to the ground, and I knew that he felt it too.

For two weeks nothing happened. Then, on a night patrol near the Michelin Plantation, Lam became lost and the men were ambushed again. Two of them died, and Lam became separated from the platoon. It was an hour later that he found them, still lost, and managed to lead them back to the base. Later, Lt. Frye told me that this was the point he became sure that Lam was the traitor.

It was while we sat in the courtyard one day, and Lt. Frye told me of his suspicions, that I fell in love with him. It had been growing inside me like a seed, but this was the first green sprout reaching above the earth. I said nothing. But I knew then that I would do anything for him and that in some small way I would show him my affections. When I look back on that moment now, I can only remember what a warm, large feeling it was. Love has its own mind, and sometimes the lover cannot read it. I did not question.

I wrote for him the best songs I could. My heart was so full and pure that my music was beautiful. I wrote simple songs in English to please him. A few of them were too strongly worded for Lam to hear, because I knew of his affections for me. These I wrote onto small sheets of paper and passed them to Lt. Frye in secret. I know now that my young girl’s eyes were filled with love for him, although I believed I was being very secret.

The next week our meeting went as usual, but I noticed a coolness between Lam and Lt. Frye. Private Crawley sat behind us, silent as always, with his gun nearby.

At the end of the next meeting we had alone, Lt. Frye told me that he had fallen in love with me. I told him my feelings. He told me he wished me to move onto the base in two weeks. He did not want me exposed to the enemy any longer. He said he could not forgive himself if shells directed by his Intelligence were to land and kill me. He said that my value to him as a spy was now second to my value as a woman.

I was happy. I was terrified, too. I told him I needed to think. One cannot imagine the contradictions of heart when one falls in Love with a man during war — a man of another race and religion, of another place, another world. I knew that if I were to move into his base, I would be leaving my life forever. I had seen the girls taken advantage of by the soldiers. Words of love, drunkenly spoken. Or sometimes less than that. And I knew that a Vietnamese woman who went to an American was scorned as a prostitute by her own people. These women became neither Vietnamese nor American — they were outcasts. But never once did it enter my mind that Lt. Frye would be using me in that way. The woman inside me yearned for him. The girl yearned to run away.

The next day I didn’t go to market. Instead I walked to the pond near my hut and thought for many hours, I sat and tossed sticks into the water. I was afraid of what going to Lt. Frye would mean to me, yet I wanted to go to him. I was afraid to bring the wrath of my own race upon me, yet I knew that if I went to the lieutenant, I would be hated.

Lam must have followed me to the pond. He was quieter and more brooding than usual. He sat a few feet away from me. Finally, he looked at me with his dark eyes and said that he loved me. He wanted to be with me and help me. He said we were of one blood and destiny. He said the war would be over soon, and the Communists would win. He asked me to marry him, so that we each would have something to hold onto when the dark days came.

All this, when I had gone to the pond to think!

I told him that I was thinking about moving to base with Lt. Frye. Lam stood and hurled a branch into the water. He said things about the Americans that were not good. He said to mix blood was evil, and that our race was not to be one with the Americans. He stormed around the pond, then came back to the stone where I was sitting and brought his face close to mine. He said that Bennett Frye would use and discard me like a basket. He said that I must learn to survive without him. He said that if I went to the lieutenant I would be murdered immediately when the Communists overran us. He said to go to Bennett was to choose death.

All I knew at the time was that I did not want Lam.

Our next meeting was heavy with tension. Lam and Lt. Frye showed no love for each other. At the end of it, Lt. Frye told me he had changed his plans. He wanted me to meet him at the base that very night, with my belongings. I would be provided a hootch and safety. He told me too, in secret by the plantation wall, that he believed it was Lam who had betrayed their plans and cost some of his men their lives. He asked me not to say anything to Lam about his desire for me, but it was too late.

When Lam and I walked back through the jungle toward my home, he told me he knew of Lt. Frye’s proposal. He stopped me on the trail, put his hands gently on my arms, and asked me not to go. He pleaded with me to pack my belongings and bring them instead to his hut, which was between my home and the base. He would love me and protect me. We would be what we were — Vietnamese.

I was shaking with sorrow. Lam saw this, so he let me go. He told me that whatever I decided, to please come to his hut that night — either to say good-bye or to say yes to him. He made me promise.