Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

Three weeks ago, in Manila, Sands had seen Eddie playing Henry Higgins in a production of My Fair Lady, and he couldn’t erase from his mind the picture of his friend the major overly rouged and powdered and strutting the boards in a smoking jacket; pausing; turning to a beautiful Filipino actress and saying, “Liza, where the devil are my slippers?” The audience of Filipino businessmen and their families had been swept to its feet, roaring. Sands too had been impressed.

“What is that thing you’re practicing with?” Sands asked the German. “You mean the sumpit. Yes.” “A blowgun?” “Yes. From the Moro tribe.” “Sumpit is a Tagalog word?” “I think it’s very generally used,” Eddie said. “It’s a word used everywhere in these islands,” the German agreed.

“And what’s it made of?” “The construction, you mean?” “Yes.” “Magnesium.” “Magnesium. For goodness’ sake.” “Quite sturdy. Quite weightless.” “Who forged it for you?” He’d asked just to make conversation, but was shocked to see a look

pass between Eddie and the assassin. “Some private people in Manila,” the German said, and Sands let the topic die. Following the meal they all three took espresso coffee in tiny cups.

Before coming to this remote village, Sands had never tasted it. “What’s going on today, Eddie?” “I don’t know what you mean.” “Is it some sort of—I don’t know—some sort of sad anniversary? Like

the day of some great leader’s death? Why does everybody seem so mo

rose?” “You mean tense.” “Yeah. Tensely morose.” “I believe they’ve been spooked, Skip. There’s a vampire about. A

kind of vampire called aswang.” The German said, “Vampire? You mean Dracula?” “The aswang can turn into any person, assume any shape. You see in

stantly the trouble—it means anybody can be a vampire. When a rumor like this starts, it floods a village like cold poison. One night last week— last Wednesday, around eight o’clock—I saw a throng outside the market, beating an old woman and crying, ‘Aswang! Aswang!’ “

“Beating her? An old woman?” Skip said. “Beating her with what?”

“With anything that came to hand. I couldn’t quite see. It was dark. It seemed to me she escaped around the corner. But later a storekeeper told me she changed into a parrot and flew away. The parrot bit a little baby, and the baby died in two hours. The priest cannot do anything. Even a priest is helpless.”

“These people are like demented children,” the German said.

After they’d eaten and their companion had continued in the staff car down the mountain toward the railway line for Manila, Skip said, “Do you know that guy?”

“No,” Eddie said. “Do you really think he’s German?”

“I think he’s foreign. And strange.”

“He met with the colonel, and now he’s leaving.”

“The colonel—when?”

“It’s significant that he hasn’t introduced himself.”

“Have you asked him his name?”

“No. What does he call himself?”

“I haven’t asked.”

“He never talked of paying. I’ll pay.” Eddie conferred with a plump Filipina whom Skip believed to be Mrs. Pavese, and came back saying, “Let me get fruit for tomorrow’s breakfast.” Sands said, “I understand the mango and banana are good this time of year. All the tropical fruit.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Yes, it is.” They entered the market with its low patchwork tarpaulin roof and its atmosphere of rank butchery and vegetable putrefaction. Unbelievably deformed and crippled beggars scrambled after them, dragging themselves along the hard earthen floor. Little children approached too, but the beggars, on wheeled carts, or on leg stumps socked with coconut shells, or scar-faced and blind and toothless, lashed out at the children with canes or the butt ends of severed limbs and hissed and cursed. Aguinaldo drew his sidearm and pointed it at the roiling little pack and they reared backward in one body and gave up. He dickered briskly with an old lady selling papayas, and they got back into the street.

Eddie took Sands in his Mercedes back to the Del Monte House. Nothing had, as yet, transpired between them. Sands held back from asking if their meeting had a point. Eddie went inside with him, but not before he’d opened the car’s trunk and taken out a heavy oblong package of brown paper tied with string. “I have something for you. A going-away gift.” At his urging they sat again in the backseat—upholstered in leather and covered with a white bedsheet going gray.

Eddie held the package on his knees and unwrapped an M1 carbine of the paratrooper’s type, with a folding metal stock. Its barrel’s wooden foregrip had been refinished and etched with an intricate design. He handed over the weapon to Skip.

Sands turned it in his hands. Eddie moved a penlight over the engraving. “This is remarkable, Eddie. It’s fantastic work. I’m so grateful.”

“The sling is leather.” “Yes. I can see that.” “It’s quite good.” “I’m honored and grateful.” Sands meant it sincerely. “A couple of boys at the National Bureau of Investigation had a go at

it. They’re wonderful gunsmiths.” “Remarkable. But you call it a going-away gift. Who’s going away?” “Then you’ve received no order as of yet?” “No. Nothing. What is it?” “Nothing.” The major smiled his affected Henry Higgins smile. “But

perhaps you’ll get an assignment.” “Don’t put me in the bush, Eddie, don’t put me in the rain! Don’t put me in a dripping tent!” “Have I said anything? I’m as ignorant as you are. Have you spoken

about it with the colonel?” “I haven’t seen him for weeks. He’s in Washington.” “He’s here.” “You mean in Manila?” “Here, in San Marcos. In fact, I’m sure he’s in the house.” “In the house? For God’s sake. No. It’s a gag.” “I understand he’s your family.” “It’s a gag, right?” “Not unless he’s the one making such a gag. I spoke to him by tele

phone this morning. He said he was calling from this house.” “Huh. Huh.” Sands felt stupid to be making only syllables, but he was

past words. “You know him quite well?” “As well as —huh. I don’t know. He trained me.” “That means you don’t know him. It means he knows you.” “Right, right.” “Is it true the colonel is actually your relative? He’s your uncle or

something?” “Is that the rumor?” “Perhaps I’m prying.” “Yes, he’s my uncle. My father’s brother.” “Fascinating.” “Sorry, Eddie. I don’t like to admit it.”

“But he’s a great man.”

“It’s not that. I don’t like to trade on his name.”

“You should be proud of your family, Skip. Always be proud of your family.”

Sands went inside to make sure it was a mistake, but it was completely true. The colonel, his uncle, sat in the parlor having cocktails with Anders Pitchfork.

“I see you’re dressed for the evening,” the colonel said, referring to Skip’s barong, standing and offering his hand, which was strong and slightly wet and chilled from holding his drink. The colonel himself wore one of his Hawaiian-patterned shirts. He was both barrel-chested and potbellied, also bowlegged, also sunburned. He didn’t stand much taller than the Filipino major but seemed mountainous. He wore a silver flattop haircut on a head like an anvil. He was at the moment drunk and held upright by the power of his own history: football for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, missions for the Flying Tigers in Burma, antiguerrilla operations here in this jungle with Edward Lansdale, and, more lately, in South Vietnam. In Burma in ‘41 he’d spent months as a POW, and escaped. And he’d fought the Malay Tigers, and the Pathet Lao; he’d faced enemies on many Asian fronts. Skip loved him, but he was unhappy to see him.