Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

“Fm the one controlling the process. I have to be.”

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As you say. “I need time before I give him something specific, something he can

confirm.” “All right.” “I need time. Fm not ready to cross.”

Th e neighborhood roosters crowed for the third time. Trung had just the frailest dawn by which to make his way out of Hao’s neighborhood— fruit trees, dirt yards, wood homes, fluorescent lights glowing in the kitchens of the early risers, a sewage ditch winding down among the yards. He envied his friend this simple peace.

When he reached the thoroughfare he paused to light his cigarette butt and watch a couple of baker’s boys on their bikes, gliding by in the silence with the morning’s bread.

He remembered walking arm in arm with Hao at just such an hour in quite another universe: reeling and wild, two lads too drunk on purloined rice brandy to care how Master might punish them. Remembered precisely the size and color of that night’s moon and the unbounded friendliness of the young world, and their voices singing an old song: “Yesterday I followed you down the road … Today I chose a flower for your grave …”

A t lunchtime on January 2, his first full day in-country, Skip Sands waited for his uncle at the Club Nautique beside the Saigon River. Junks and sampans and shanties choked the opposite bank downstream, but not much moved on the brown water. He studied the menu, all appetite gone, and played with his utensils and listened to a loud miscellany of birdcalls, some of them almost sentimentally musical, others angry. Sweat trickled down his spine. His eye fell on a patron at the next table, an Asian man with an incomprehensibly large black growth descending from his scalp and covering the nape of his neck. Across from this man sat a woman with a monkey in her lap. She scowled, the monkey gave her no cheer, the menu made her unhappy.

A single very loud blast—mortar? rocket? sonic boom? —caused a lot of consternation. The monkey lunged to the end of its leash and danced from side to side under the table. Several patrons stood up. The tables went quiet, and waiters gathered at the railing to peer up the river toward downtown. Someone laughed, others talked, the dinnerware clinked again on the porcelain, the moment resumed.

Colonel Sands was just entering the terrace and said, “My boy, settle yourself.”

The colonel had traveled by chopper from Good Luck Mountain, so Sands understood. Red mud speckled his canvas combat boots and his cuffs, but he wore street clothes and looked alarmingly usual, as if all he cared about were the local sights and the golf. Already he had an amber highball in his hand.

Sands took a seat across from him. “Is everything good? You’re stashed at the billet.” “Yes.” “When did you get in?” “Last night.” “Seen anyone from the embassy?” “Not yet.” “What are we having today?” “Colonel, let me start right out by asking you something about San

Marcos.” “Before we eat?” “I need to clear something up.” “Sure.” “Were you passing orders to the major?” “The major?” “Aguinaldo? The major?—the last time we saw each other.” “Right. The Del Monte House. San Carlos.” “San Marcos.” “Right.” “Aguinaldo? The Filipino?” “Yes. The Filipino. No. I wasn’t running any Filipino.”

“What about the German? Was he yours?” “It’s the Political Section in Manila runs everybody. I’m not the Polit

ical Section. I’m just a sick dog they can’t force themselves to shoot.” “All right. Maybe I won’t press it.” “No, no. You’ve started, so don’t quit. What’s the problem?” “Maybe I’m out of line.” “Come at me. We work together. Let’s get it done.” “Fine. Then what about Carignan?” “Who?” “Carignan, sir. The priest on Mindanao.” Now, he sensed, his uncle appreciated how serious he was. “Oh, yes,”

the colonel said. “Father Carignan. The collaborator. Somebody put

him out of his misery.” “Which somebody?” “If I remember right, that operation originated with the Philippine

Army command. That’s how we understood it from the report.”

“I wrote the report. I rode a donkey all the way to the VOA substation near Carmen and sent a coded report to Manila to be forwarded to you, as instructed. And I only mentioned the local army—barely mentioned them.”

“I believe it was a Philippine Army operation. And I further believe it was run by our friend Eddie Aguinaldo. And we had every reason to believe that this Carignan was involved in the transfer of weapons to and among Muslim guerilla groups on Mindanao.”

“The priest was killed by a dart. A sumpit, they call it.” “It’s a native weapon.” “I’ve never seen one except in the hands of that German at the Del

Monte House.”

I see. “You weren’t running the German.” “I’ve said I wasn’t.” “That’s good enough for me.” “I don’t care if it is or it’s not.” “Fuck you, sir.” “I see.” While the colonel considered a reply and ran a finger, a trem

bling finger, around the rim of his highball, Skip wilted. He’d armored his soul for this assault. But he hadn’t expected to strike flesh. “Well,” the

colonel said, “I’m repeating myself, but what’s the problem?” “I just worry,” Sands was able to say. For the moment the colonel said no more. Skip’s fire was out. Why

hadn’t he known he could hurt this giant? So ignorant of these older men: Why don’t I have a father?

The colonel said, “Look. These things happen rarely, but they happen. Somebody’s name gets mentioned by more than one source, somebody gets a notion, somebody issues a report, somebody wants an adventure—you know how that one goes, don’t you?—and pretty soon there we are. That you’ve witnessed this kind of cock-up will turn out to be an invaluable experience, Skip.”

“I’d say I was more than just a witness.”

“My point is you see the power of the beast we’re riding. Take care how you prod it.” His bulldog face seemed to speak of a special sadness. He sipped from his drink. “Are my files secure?”

“Yes, sir, they are.” “How did you like Monterey?” “Unbelievably beautiful.” “Order me a hot dog in Vietnamese.” A waiter was pouring water. Sands spoke with him. “He says it’s

buffet-style, please be his guest.” “Remarkable. But I did understand ‘buffet.’ And you met Hao

Nguyen.” “Hao? Oh, right.” “He picked you up at Tan Son Nhut. Did you speak Vietnamese to

him?” “Yes, sir, I did.” “Are you hungry?” “I might order off the menu.” “Skip.” “Yes, sir.” “Are we going to feel bad about talking frankly to each other? Be

cause I don’t want that. We can’t have it.” “All right. I appreciate that.” “Good.” The colonel took himself to the buffet.

When he rejoined his nephew he carried a bowl of crab in a white sauce; he sat down and forked and swallowed several bites, hardly chewing. He took a slug of his drink. “What about Rick Voss—Voss? Was he at the house last night?”

“Rick Voss? No.”

“You’ll meet him soon enough. Too soon.”

“I met him at Clark before I left. He came looking for me.”

“He did?”

“Mainly to ask about you.”

“And what was the line of inquiry?”

“He wanted to talk about an article you’d submitted to the journal.”

“I don’t give a curse for some of these young pups coming up. Present company excepted.” “I hope so.” He thought he heard his uncle sigh. “I tell you, Skip, the world has

turned and carried me into the dark. I got a letter from your cousin Anne just last week”—Anne the colonel’s daughter—”and she’s taken up the anthem of the college leftists, can you believe it? She writes, ‘I think you should look at the motives of our government in Vietnam.’ She’s dating a beatnik, a mulatto. Her mother was scared to tell me. I had to hear about it from your Uncle Ray. ‘The motives of our government’? Jesus Christ. What better motive can the government have than to defy Communism at every turning?”