Viet Nguyen - The Sympathizer

If the Orient has one inexhaustible resource, said the General, it is people.

That is right, and I will tell you something else, General. It saddens me to come to this conclusion, but I have seen the evidence for myself, not only in books and archives, but in the battlefields of Burma. It must be said. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient. And as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it — Dr. Hedd paused — life is not important. Perhaps it is insensitive to say, but the Oriental does not put the same high price on life as the Westerner.

I wrote to my Parisian aunt that a moment of silence fell on the table as we absorbed this idea and as the waiters returned with our cocktails. The Congressman stirred his drink and said, What do you think, General? The General sipped from his cognac and soda, smiled, and said, Of course Dr. Hedd is right, Congressman. The truth is so often uncomfortable. What do you think, Captain?

All the men turned their attention to me, my brimming martini glass halfway to my lips. I reluctantly eased it down. After three of these libations and two glasses of red wine, I felt full of insight, the air of truth having expanded my mind and needing to be let out. Well, I said, I beg to differ from Dr. Hedd. Life actually is valuable to the Oriental. The General frowned and I paused. No one else’s expression changed, but I could feel the static electricity of tension accumulating. So you’re saying that Dr. Hedd is wrong, said the Congressman, as affable as Dr. Mengele must have been in the right company. Oh, no, I hastened to say. I was sweating, my undershirt damp. But you see, gentlemen, while life is only valuable to us — I paused again, and my audience inclined toward me by a millimeter or two — life is invaluable to the Westerner.

The attention of the men turned to Dr. Hedd, who raised his cocktail to me and said, I could not have phrased it better myself, young man. With that, the conversation finally exhausted itself, leaving us to nuzzle our cocktails with the affection one reserved for puppies. I made eye contact with the General and he nodded approvingly. Now, our hosts satisfied with our parley, I could ask a question of my own. Perhaps this is naive, I said, but we thought we were coming to a country club.

Our hosts roared with laughter as if I had told a most excellent joke. Even Dr. Hedd seemed to be in on it, chuckling over his Manhattan. The General and I grinned, waiting for the explanation. The Congressman glanced at the headwaiter, who nodded, and said, Gentlemen, now’s a good a time as any to introduce you to the country club. Don’t forget your cocktails. Led by the headwaiter, we filed out of the dining room with cocktails in hand. Down the hallway was another door. Opening it, the headwaiter said, The gentlemen are here. Inside was the room I had been expecting, with wood-paneled walls on which was mounted the head of a buck, its rack of antlers sporting sufficient points for all of us to hang our jackets on. The air was smoky and the lighting was dim, the better to flatter the comely young women in slinky dresses arranged on the leather sofas.

Gentlemen, said the Congressman, welcome to the country club.

I don’t get it, the General whispered.

I’ll tell you later, sir, I muttered. I finished my cocktail and handed the glass to the headwaiter as the Congressman beckoned to a pair of young ladies. General, Captain, let me introduce you. Our companions stood up. Elevated by high heels, they were taller than the General and myself by two or three inches. Mine was an enormous inflated blonde whose enameled white teeth were not quite as hard and shiny as her Nordic blue eyes. In one hand was a coupe of fizzy champagne, and in the other a long-stemmed cigarette holder with a half-smoked cigarette. She was a professional who had seen the likes of me a thousand times, which I could hardly complain about, given that I had seen the likes of her a fair number of times myself. Although I cranked my cheeks and lips into the facsimile of a smile, I could not muster inside myself the usual enthusiasm as the Congressman introduced us. Perhaps it was the way she casually flicked the head of ash from her cigarette onto the carpet, but instead of being magnetized by her iron beauty I was distracted by a striation below her jaw, the hemline between the unadorned skin of her neck and the white foundation coating her face. What’s your name again? she said, laughing for no good reason. I leaned forward to tell her and nearly fell into the well of her cleavage, my sudden vertigo induced by the chloroform of her thick perfume.

I like your accent, I said, pulling back. You must be from somewhere in the South.

Georgia, honey, she said, laughing again. You speak real good English for an Oriental.

I laughed, she laughed, and when I looked to the General and his redheaded companion, they, too, were laughing. Everyone in the room was laughing, and when the waiters arrived with more champagne, it was clear we were all going to have a most excellent time, including Dr. Hedd. After handing a glass to his buxom companion and another to me, he said, I hope you do not mind, young man, if I use your memorable turn of phrase in my next book. Our female companions looked at me without interest, waiting for my reply. Nothing could make me happier, I said, even though I was, for reasons unspeakable in this company, quite unhappy.

The General delivered a surprise to me as we parked outside his unlit residence later that evening, a little past midnight. I’ve been thinking about your request to return to our homeland, he said from the backseat, eyes visible in my rearview mirror. I need you here, but I respect your courage. Unlike Bon and the others, however, you’ve never been battlefield tested. He described the grizzled captain and the affectless lieutenant as war heroes, men whom he would trust with his life in combat. But you’ll need to prove you can do what they can. You’ll need to do what must be done. Can you do that? Of course, sir. I hesitated, then asked the obvious question: But what is to be done? You know what needs to be done, said the General. I sat with my hands still on the steering wheel at ten o’clock and two o’clock, hoping I was wrong. I just want to make sure I do the right thing, sir, I said, looking at him in the rearview mirror. What exactly needs to be done?

The General rustled in the back, rummaging through his pockets. I brought out my lighter. Thanks, Captain. For a brief moment the flame lit the palimpsest of his face. Then the chiaroscuro died and his face was no longer legible. I never told you the story of how I came to spend two years in a communist prison camp, did I? Well, no need for graphic details. Suffice it to say the enemy had surrounded our men at Dien Bien Phu. Not just Frenchmen and Moroccans and Algerians and Germans, but ours, too, thousands of them. I volunteered to jump into Dien Bien Phu, though I knew I would also be doomed. But I could not let my fellow soldiers die while I did nothing. When Dien Bien Phu fell, I was captured along with everybody else. Even though I lost two years of my life in prison, I never regretted jumping. I became the man I am today by jumping and by surviving that camp. But no one asked me to volunteer. No one told me what needed to be done. No one discussed the consequences. All these things were understood. Do you understand, Captain?

Yes, sir, I said.

Very good, then. If what needs to be done is done, then you can return to our homeland. You are a very intelligent young man, Captain. I trust you with all the details. No need to consult me. I’ll arrange your ticket. You will get it when I receive news of what has been done. The General paused, door halfway open. Country club, huh? He chuckled. I’ll have to remember that. I watched him walk up the pathway to his darkened house, where Madame was likely reading in bed, staying awake for his return, as she had waited so often in the villa. She knew a general’s duties extended past midnight, but was she aware what some of these duties included? That we, too, had country clubs? Sometimes, after delivering him to the villa, I stood in my socked feet in the hallway and listened for any signs of distress from their room. I never heard any, but she was too smart not to know.