Robert Butler - From Where You Dream - The Process of Writing Fiction

"Hey, Yank! You sure you want to stay around? We've got some bloody hot stag films coming up." The warrant officer they called Wally laughed and began moving wicker chairs at the back of the club.

I hesitated a moment at the half seriousness of his jibe and thought of the tiny, sweet-smelling, whining girls lingering in the dark of our company street at Long Binh.

"Think I'll chance it," I said.

The snap of canvas in the twilight and I looked out the big tent at the blowing trees. I'd trade the Aussies some of our real sex for a few of their trees.

"You don't get anything like these at your camp."

"No."

I heard the crunching of the gravel floor as he struggled with the chairs. One more look at the trees going purple outside.

"Want some help?"

"You just relax yourself. I can handle these."

I got up. "I insist."

I went back to him and helped put the chairs in line facing the raised platform at the far end of the club.

"You going to be the projectionist?"

"Yes indeed. It won't be anything fancy, mind you. But the machine's good and we use a nice fresh bedsheet for the screen. Appropriate."

As we laughed, Thanh came in. I had seen him around the camp. One of the very few Vietnamese on the post. He smiled the eager, head-bobbing smile used for foreigners who don't speak Vietnamese and he sat down in a chair near the platform.

"That's Thanh."

"I've seen him around," I said.

"He's a chieu hoi. He was the leader of a VC sapper platoon." The Australian paused for effect. I looked at the slim young man quietly smoking a cigarette. There is always a silent moment of shared respect when two allied fighting men talk about sappers. They are the combat engineers who penetrate perimeters and are the toughest, gutsiest VC of all. "If all their blokes were like Thanh, the VC would have kicked our asses into the sea years ago. He's a bushman scout for us now. That little bastard has led us to base camp after base camp. He sat down and wrote out biographies on dozens of VC infrastructure people all over Phuc Tuy province. Incredible mind, that bloke."

Thanh continued smoking, seemingly unaware of our talk. He looked very small, sitting motionless in the large wicker chair.

"Why did he join the VC?"

"In '67 his wife and child were standing in the door of his house. A government soldier gunned them down. Killed them. It took Thanh four days to find the soldier. Then he went to the hills."

I left the Australian and walked forward to where Thanh was sitting. He looked up as I approached and he smiled and nodded again.

"How are you?" he asked slowly in articulated English.

"T oi manh gioi. Con ong thi sao," I said. It was the standard Vietnamese reply.

Thanh laughed loud and long and thrust his hand to me. "You speak Vietnamese very well," he said in his own language.

I sat beside him as I shook his hand. "Don't put me on a paper airplane," I said, using the Vietnamese saying that amiably rejects flattery. Thanh laughed loud again.

"Very good. Very good. You are an American, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm just working with the Australians for a couple of weeks. We exchange people sometimes."

"How long have you been in Vietnam?"

"About three months," I replied.

"And you speak so well? That is amazing."

"I studied for a year in America before I came to Vietnam."

"I see. But you still speak very excellent Vietnamese. It is not the same just to study it. You are very good."

"Thank you. I am happy to have the opportunity to talk to the Vietnamese people." I began to feel that inevitable awkwardness that always comes at the start of conversations, as I sound for many minutes like a daily dialog from our language textbook.

Thanh took a long puff on his cigarette, savoring it, and blowing the smoke through his nose. After a moment of contemplating the cigarette in his hand, he looked at me and smiled easily again. "What do you think of Vietnam?"

"I like Vietnam very much," I said. I glanced past Thanh and out at the darkening sky. "The evenings are very cool."

"Yes, they are. Very fresh." I looked back at Thanh. He smiled and nodded, waiting for me to say more. I looked at his hands. I had heard so many whistles of respect for sappers from even the most grizzled "gook-killer" sergeants that I had an almost childish awe of these small brown hands. The left lay in repose on the arm of the chair. The right continually rolled the cigarette, meticulously keeping the lit end free of flaking ash.

"The fresh nights are fine to be with someone," Thanh said.

I looked up at him. The humor of the statement startled me as I saw in my mind the night roaming VC platoons. I could not tell if Thanh intended the joke.

"But is that your only feeling for Vietnam in three months?" he continued.

"No. Of course not."

"I am interested in your feelings."

It seemed a good chance to crawl out of my textbook. "Before I came to Vietnam I had expected half the people to be so miserable from the war that they would hate any foreigner and the other half of the people to be Communist sympathizers and therefore want to kill me."

Thanh laughed.

"But since I have been here I have talked to many Vietnamese people. And it is amazing. Without exception, every man and woman has been as friendly and open as anyone I have ever met."

"Of course."

"In spite of all the years of misery, the Vietnamese people have an innate sense of cheerfulness that is truly extraordinary."

"Vietnamese know how to enjoy life." Now Thanh looked out of the tent. His cigarette was gone and both his hands rested lightly on the arms of the chair. He turned back to me and smiled a more solemn smile. "The Vietnamese have had hundreds of years of war. Many countries have come here to war — China, Cambodia, Japan, France."

"The U.S.," I said.

"Many countries. So the Vietnamese people know what war is. But it makes no difference. If a people know how to enjoy life and they are used to war, it makes no difference. Their life goes on. The war is part of it. But they enjoy living. They are still happy in their days."

Among the high branches a few stars were beginning to appear. Thanh was watching the night now too.

"Why did you join?"

Thanh turned to me. The easy smile was gone. But his solemnity was simply thoughtful, still friendly. After a moment he said, "The government was robbing the people. It was corrupt and wasteful and repressive. At the time, the Communists seemed to offer an alternative." He paused, watching my face closely. I nodded my head and waited for him to say more.

Then I said, "Was that all?"

"No. Of course not." We looked at each other silently for a moment more. Then he said, "They murdered my wife and child." Another pause. "We had only two years together."

Other people were coming in. They were laughing at the back of the club, calling out orders for beer, pulling chairs around.

"And why did you leave the VC?"

"'The purity of the revolution must be preserved. The corruptions of the body are part of the decadence of our enemies.' One of the men in another platoon was caught making love to one of the nurses and was shot." Thanh thought a moment and then added, "Of course, that was logical to them."

People were sitting just behind us now. Talking loudly and sitting on my other side now too. Thanh paused and I leaned closer.

"The Communists love no one. They love nothing," he said.

The OC made a little speech about keeping the noise down but how it was difficult to applaud with one hand anyway and everyone laughed and the lights went out and the films began. There were nine twenty-minute Danish films. Three hours of close-ups. Working bodies. And hands. Avid hands.

Thanh sat unmoving through all nine films. He watched and the three-hour string of male jokes at the screen must have been nothing but a blur of foreign words. He watched earnestly, his hands quiet.