Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

“So, your husband is out risking his life on the battlefield while you’re in here enjoying a game of poker?”

“That’s right.”

“The reason Madame is playing poker is that it’s hard for her to think of ways to spend the money Major Pham brings home,” Cao said with a cynical air.

“Making money in the jungle?” said Frank. “Is our government now paying a bounty for every VC head?”

“The jungle in the Central Highlands is one enormous cinnamon plantation, and General Liam and Major Pham are harvesting.”

At this remark from Cao, Frank shook his head. “My, my, you must have been excluded from that enterprise.”

“Unfortunately, yes, I was. After all, the jungle is under military jurisdiction, they tell me.”

“Pham Quyen is a patriot,” Hae Jong said. “He’s trying to establish an autonomous enterprise for the phoenix hamlets project by using domestic resources that would otherwise be wasted. Colonel, aren’t you involved in that project, too?”

“Yes, but only in the establishment of the militias.”

“How are the cigarettes and liquor these days? I guess you still have Coca-Cola coming in from Laos?”

At these biting comments from Hae Jong, Colonel Cao was reduced to mumbling and Beck jumped in. “Hey now, the mood is getting a little too grim, enough of that. What do you say we take a break from the cards and have a few drinks instead?”

“Do they make Coca-Cola in Laos?” Mike asked.

“I saw it in the market. Don’t they pack refined heroin into Coco-Cola cans and ship them down across the border? I thought Colonel Cao was in charge of that.”

Cao responded to Hae Jong’s icy query without animosity. “Madame, forgive me for making jokes at Major Pham’s expense. He and I are very close friends, like brothers. The Coca-Cola can problem is something we’re trying to get under control, but as it is, the scale is just too big.”

“If you please, my own feeling is that a dream flower after a bath is much better than alcohol. I was only wondering if I could ask you as a favor to get one of those cans for me.”

“Now, now, that’s enough, already.” Beck refilled everyone’s glass and held up his own. “A toast. To peace.”

Madame Lin came into the room with a waiter in tow. “Ah, it’s already begun. Let me join you.”

The waiter placed a Chinese-style salad garnished with caviar on the table, then left. When he was gone, Lin asked, “Who won?”

“Needless to say, Frank, the old pro, wiped the table clean,” said her husband.

Madame Lin sat down next to Frank, locking her arm around his. “Then you are the hero of the hour. How about a little rendezvous tonight?”

Frank kissed Madame Lin on the cheek to reward her frivolity.

“You and Lin, at last you seem to have recognized that I’ve had my mind set on her for ages. Let’s fly to Australia and live there together.”

“No thanks. But a maiden has just arrived who you can sweep off of her feet and carry away to your sheep ranch.”

“Sounds like an old stripper, a refugee from one of the show troupes, has dropped in. I don’t care much for the white girls.”

“On the contrary, she’s a precious ebony pearl. A dark nineteen-year-old from Ceylon.”

“Shall I have a look at her?” Mike said, and then Cao intervened.

“What if we decide it by a hand of poker?”

“I’m not interested in competing with the colonel over a woman,” Frank said sullenly.

“I’ll buy her,” Mike murmured.

“Mike, you’re drunk,” Hae Jong said.

“Madame Mimi is jealous,” remarked Frank, looking over at the two of them.

Madame Lin pressed the bell and a waiter instantly appeared. “Tell Losa to come in here.”

A few minutes later, a Sri Lankan dancer entered the room. Instead of the red dress that was the house uniform for hostesses, she was wearing a long dress embroidered in yellow and red over a white silk shift. Her black hair, long and lustrous, was hanging down loose over one shoulder. Her skin was dark, but closer to an ash brown color than to black. She was a striking beauty. Frank gazed at her as if oblivious to the world. Madame Lin got up from her place beside Frank and gestured for the girl to sit down. Holding her hands together in the Buddhist way, the dancer bowed ceremoniously and introduced herself.

“Unbelievable!” Mike sighed.

“Unfair, isn’t it?” Colonel Cao murmured.

“The colonel made a good suggestion earlier, I mean, why not play a hand of poker to decide,” Mike stammered.

“This is rude. Gentlemen, let’s be sensible,” Madame Lin said.

“Listen,” Mike went on, “I have an important announcement to make.”

“Captain, civilians have nothing to do with an ordinance from headquarters,” Frank said with a sneer. “Unlike those ancient Greeks, I don’t make war over a woman.”

“If you heard what I have to say, you’d probably get right up and walk out that door.”

“He’s drunk,” Madame Lin said with a frown, and grabbing him under his arms, she pulled him up from his chair. “This won’t do at all. You should go inside to lie down and rest.”

“Wait, don’t do this to me. Don’t throw me out!”

Madame Lin propped him up by the arm and signaled with her eyes to Hae Jong. “Help me, will you? And you, Mike, don’t be such a baby.”

As Madame Lin and Hae Jong led him out, everyone left in the glass room burst into laughter. Even outside on the terrace, Mike kept on mumbling to himself, “The end is coming next week. You’ll all be ruined, I mean it. Even if you beg me on your hands and knees, I won’t do you no favors, I’m telling you.”

“Shut up,” Madame Lin said.

The two women led him through the tunnel and into a luxurious suite in the house. They dumped him down on a sofa, and Hae Jong brought him a bottle of soda from the refrigerator.

“Drink this.”

“Get a good night’s rest here. Mimi will look after you.”

“No, I have to get back before dawn. No overnight pass, so can’t stay here.”

Madame Lin threw Hae Jong a look, and then asked him, “What’s happened?”

“Something big is on the way. We’re changing the military currency,” Mike mumbled.

Madame Lin’s faced showed no surprise. “We’ve got to get his shoes off first,” she said to Hae Jong.

As Hae Jong knelt down and took off his boots, Madame Lin wiped Mike’s forehead with a damp towel. “Did you say you’re changing the currency?” she asked.

As if shocked to hear it from somebody else’s mouth, Mike suddenly lifted his head and whispered, “That’s top secret.”

Mike downed the soda in one gulp and then started coughing.

“When?” Hae Jong asked.

“We’re asking you when,” Madame Lin impatiently repeated.

“The announcement’ll be next week,” Mike replied. “We’re still preparing it.”

“All over the country?”

“Everywhere there’s an American military base.”

Madame Lin looked up and then clicked her tongue. “That will get complicated.”

Around a quarter past nine, a van rolled down Doc Lap Boulevard toward the Grand Hotel. There were two men inside, both wearing grey coveralls of the kind worn by Philco technicians. A small refrigerator crate was in the back. As Doc Lap passes in front of the Grand Hotel there is a left turn onto a quiet driveway, sheltered by trees, that loops behind the hotel, while the busy street veers off the other way. Beyond the curved driveway was the shore, and between it and the beach stood a guardhouse. A patrol boat and a small launch were tethered nearby and the searchlight at the rear of the hotel was brightly lit. On the right side of the hotel, past the spot where Doc Lap turns off to the right, was a green lawn lined with palm trees, leading down toward Da Nang Bay.