Robert Butler - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain - Stories

“Major Trung,” she said, and her voice was as soft as a summer wind moving through banyan leaves, and he knew it had been her voice rustling in his head all through his journey to this place.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said.

“And I’m glad you are here,” she said. “This was our appointed time.” And she smiled at him. Her lovely, wide mouth widened farther as the smile grew and the smile did not stop when it reached the edge of her mouth but pushed the mouth farther, quickly now, and the major’s hands clenched as the smile opened and the great tongue came out, red and soft, and it grew and filled his sight and licked forward and touched him, a lover’s tongue, wet and insistent and clinging, and the major’s feet left the ground, the tongue lifted him up and he was yanked forward and he had time for one glance at Miss Linh’s eyes gleaming in the light, enormous eyes, as big as twin moons, and then there was darkness all around him and the pain crushed along the back of him, from his head to his feet, though he died quite quickly, long before he was chewed into pulp and swallowed.

Now, if you’ve been listening to me and even took note of my claim that I know this story to be true, you may be surprised at this turn of events. You thought perhaps that I myself was the major, and things would have turned out differently. But that is a foolish, romantic notion. I have no hesitation in telling you that. The major died horribly in the jaws of this enticing woman. And if you care about what I’m saying and you do not despise me for calling you foolish, even if I have no guile anymore and I call you this seriously, without charm, then you are a very rare American indeed, and I will tell you how I know this story to be true.

When Saigon was falling to the communists in April of 1975, I was working for your embassy and I kept waiting for my boss, an American foreign service officer, to come and get me out. He had left the week before and he told me to wait. But things happened — do not blame him — and it was getting very late — the communists were already in the outskirts of the city — and I knew I had to go from my apartment on Nguy n Hu Street to the American embassy because the last helicopters would soon be taking off.

So I went out and got in my car, an American car from the embassy. It was only a few blocks, but I thought that my having the embassy car would help validate my claim with the Marines at the front gate, for I knew there were many of my countrymen trying to leave at the last minute. I went only a couple of blocks, had barely gotten beyond the Continental Palace Hotel, when I sensed the craziness in the streets. People were running everywhere now, frantic, carrying whatever possessions they could on their backs and running, many of them in the direction of the embassy. So I turned into Gia Long and up at the far corner there was a great commotion. I slowed down, and even as I did, I saw her.

It was Miss Linh. I know it was her. The man who told me Major Trung’s story — his brother — actually showed me Miss Linh’s photograph, the one that had sat on the mother’s shrine. I knew her round face, the thin nose, and of course that wide mouth that I watched now with special attention. She stepped into the street before me and held up her hand. I stopped the car and I got out quickly and walked away at a right angle to her, peeking over my shoulder to see what she would do. She did nothing. She watched me walking away and she smiled. But just a faint smile.

I cut through some yards and made it into the next street and I headed for the embassy on foot, fighting my way through very heavy crowds now. When I came to the next comer, I could see back down to the intersection Miss Linh had prevented me from entering. Two vehicles were already on fire there and I could see people in the crowd waving clubs. Miss Linh had saved me. But you can understand how this gave me no peace of mind.

A helicopter pounded overhead and I had no time to think of ghosts. The evacuation would soon be over, I knew, and I ran hard until I was in the street of the embassy, and there my heart sank. The embassy gates were besieged by a vast throng of my people and I could tell the gates were barred and no one was going in. There were figures trying to go up the wall and I heard automatic rifle fire and these figures leaped back down. I turned my eyes to the roof of the embassy and a chopper was sitting there with its rotors still moving as a single-file stream of people was climbing into its belly. I could tell even from this distance that almost all of the people going into the helicopter were Americans.

And then the voice came softly into my ear, whispering my name. I spun around and it was Miss Linh, her round face hovering before me like a bloated summer moon. I reared back and gasped and she smiled and I didn’t want that mouth to widen any further. My voice spoke and I heard it as if from a great distance. “Is this our appointed time?” I asked.

Miss Linh nodded yes, the smile steady on her lips, and she took a step toward me and I squeezed my eyes shut, I could not bear to see her monstrous tongue. But I felt nothing for a moment and then another moment, and I opened my eyes and I did not see her. I turned around and Miss Linh was standing near me in the street, and as I looked at her, she raised her hand to an approaching car. The car was large and black, a limousine with American flags on the fenders licking at the rush of air. But Miss Linh held her ground and the car stopped and then she stepped to the back door and opened it. Inside was a very important American, the boss of my boss. He recognized me and he said to get in. I looked at Miss Linh. She smiled at me, a lovely wide smile that ended in a nod toward the gaping door. So I stepped into the car and I was taken away to America.

Are you confused again, my round-eyed friend? Look at me, look where I am, listen to how I speak compulsively to strangers, even strangers from this alien land, listen to the kind of treatment I expect even now, even from you who have pretended to listen to me this long with interest. How do I know the major’s story is true? Because as I sat in the darkness of the limousine and it drove away, I looked out the window and saw Miss Linh’s tongue slip from her mouth and lick her lips, as if she had just eaten me up. And indeed she has.

I wonder how long he watched me sleeping. I still wonder that. He sat and he did not wake me to ask about his carry-out order. Did he watch my eyes move as I dreamed? When I finally knew he was there and I turned to look at him, I could not make out his whole face at once. His head was turned a little to the side. His beard was neatly trimmed, but the jaw it covered was long and its curve was like a sampan sail and it held my eyes the way a sail always did when I saw one on the sea. Then I raised my eyes and looked at his nose. I am Vietnamese, you know, and we have a different sense of these proportions. Our noses are small and his was long and it also curved, gently, a reminder of his jaw, which I looked at again. His beard was dark gray, like he’d crawled out of a charcoal kiln. I make these comparisons to things from my country and Village, but it is only to clearly say what this face was like. It is not that he reminded me of home. That was the farthest thing from my mind when I first saw Mr. Cohen. And I must have stared at him in those first moments with a strange look because when his face turned full to me and I could finally lift my gaze to his eyes, his eyebrows made a little jump like he was asking me, What is it? What’s wrong?