TWENTY-THREE

The first thing Shorty did was jump onto a Lambretta to Le Boudin. He paid three times the going rate, and left a tip. The driver remembered him for the rest of the war. Shorty was angry and disgusted at Betty, and was going off to find Baby Marie, who at least was supposed to be that kind of girl, even if Shorty knew she wasn’t, deep down.

Shorty should have been feeling bereft, betrayed. Instead, he felt free. He had been thinking about this, he realised, since the day he came to Vietnam.

Quyn was sitting alone in Le Boudin, ruined by the light. Her arms were thin like chopsticks, thought Shorty. He could snap them between his fingers.

‘Okay, cherry boy,’ said Quyn, finding a smile. ‘You run away but you come back to me.’

Quyn’s fingernails were sharp. She dug them into the muscle below Shorty’s thumb. They left tracks.

‘I’m looking for Baby Marie,’ said Shorty.

‘It her day off,’ said Quyn. ‘She gone to her village.’

Shorty ordered drinks for himself and Quyn. They drained their cups, and he bought two more.

‘I like cherry boys,’ said Quyn.

‘Two more,’ said Shorty, and drank.

‘Slow down,’ said Quyn. ‘No drink too much.’

‘Two more,’ said Shorty, and drank.

I can do anything in this town, he thought.

‘When’s Baby Marie back?’ he asked.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Quyn, ‘maybe next day.’

It was too long to wait.

‘Two more,’ said Shorty, and drank.

‘Come,’ said Quyn, and led Shorty away.

In the long room divided by curtains, sandy children played on the floor – a boy with one eye and a girl with one leg.

Nobody in this country is complete, thought Shorty.

Quyn drew a curtain and took Shorty inside. She helped him off with his shirt, and unbuttoned his pants. She kneeled in front of him and removed his shoes, then stepped out of her own clothes. She was shaved, where Betty had been hairy under his hands.

She washed him in warm water. He was stiff, biting his lips. She could have finished him by gripping the handtowel and running it down him once, twice, maybe three times.

‘May I pat your pussy?’ asked Shorty.

‘What that, cherry boy?’

‘It’s not that I’m a pussy patter,’ said Shorty. ‘I just want to make sure.’

‘One dollar extra,’ said Quyn, ‘for pussy patting.’

She bent over on the bed. ‘Here,’ she said, and opened herself with her fingers. ‘Pat.’

When they were finished, they lay together, her head on his chest. Shorty had thought he could empty himself into her, and all the pain would be gone.

‘You big boy,’ said Quyn. ‘I like you.’

Shorty felt he’d committed a sin.

‘How can I help Nashville?’ he asked her.

Quyn shrugged and stroked him. She climbed on top of him and sat still, until Shorty’s own body forced him to move.

When he rested with Quyn in his arms, Shorty said, ‘Nashville didn’t kill Caution.’ It was a kind of question.

‘Caution wanted to die,’ answered Quyn. ‘He found someone to kill him, that’s all. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself.’

‘I didn’t know you spoke such good English,’ said Shorty, and he stroked her.

‘Men don’t like it,’ said Quyn. ‘They want to think they’re using me. You don’t understand these things. You’re still a cherry boy.’

‘But I thought we . . .’ said Shorty, suddenly in panic.

Quyn laughed. ‘We did, cherry boy,’ and she kissed him. ‘You’re a man.’

Shorty was relieved.

‘But you’re a cherry man,’ said Quyn. ‘Why are you in the army? You should be back home.’

Shorty stroked her hair. ‘I was called up,’ he said. ‘I volunteered for Vietnam.’

Had he really done that?

‘To kill VC?’ asked Quyn.

Shorty shook his head. ‘To halt the progress of aggressive Communism in South-East Asia,’ he said.

Quyn giggled. Shorty liked it when she laughed, even when she was laughing at him.

‘What is Communism, cherry man?’ she asked.

Shorty thought for a moment. ‘China,’ he said.

‘You want to fight China?’ asked Quyn. ‘Go to China.’

He moved his hand to her breast. ‘We’re not at war with China,’ said Shorty.

Quyn held his fingers over her nipple. ‘Are you at war with Vietnam?’ she asked.

He kissed her on the neck. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Quyn turned slowly, until she was pressed against him again. ‘VC don’t care about you, cherry man,’ she said. ‘You should go home.’

Shorty yawned. ‘You know a lot about the VC,’ he said, as she opened herself to him again.

‘Everyone knows a lot about the VC,’ said Quyn. ‘Except you.’

As soon as they had finished making love, Shorty felt nostalgic, as if the last time were many years ago, in a room just like this one.

Quyn lit a menthol cigarette.

‘Do you like being with men?’ Shorty asked her, suddenly.

She sighed, because she knew this question. ‘I come from a village,’ she said, ‘where there were two whores. The other women husk rice. We were the broken grains that fell through the sieve.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Shorty.

‘We must find some other use for our bodies,’ said Quyn.

Tough veins ran down Quyn’s forearms, and netted the backs of her hands. Her brown skin stretched tight over muscles like a cycloman’s. Only her breasts were soft.

‘I was taken by a man when I was only a child,’ said Quyn. ‘If there was no war, I would still be a whore.’

Shorty wished she wouldn’t say that word. ‘You could do something else,’ he said.

She offered him her laugh. ‘What could I be?’ she asked.

‘A nurse,’ said Shorty.

She sealed his lips with her finger. ‘You’re a fool,’ she said.

He liked it that she was thinking about him, and the kind of person he was. ‘I’m a soldier,’ said Shorty, to remind her he was a man.

‘In a fools’ war,’ said Quyn.

Shorty kept forgetting the war, but the war was behind everything. He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the war.

‘Adams thought we couldn’t win,’ said Shorty.

Quyn wished he would stop talking.

‘If you stay ten years,’ she said, ‘and kill five million, you will win. Americans and Australians will be kings of death. You’ll bury all the little brown people.’

‘That’s not why we’re here,’ said Shorty.

Quyn lit a fresh cigarette from the tip of the last. ‘I know,’ said Quyn, ‘you’re here to lose your cherries. Because Australian women have no pussies.’

Shorty reddened, which frustrated him, since he’d hoped he might never blush again. ‘That’s not it,’ he said.

‘So why are you here?’ asked Quyn. ‘You, Shorty. Here, in Le Boudin. You even have an Australian girl in Vietnam, but you came to me.’

He looked at her tongue inside her mouth. ‘She’s not my girlfriend any more,’ said Shorty.

Quyn nodded heavily, her chin almost touching her chest. ‘Because she has no pussy,’ she said.

Shorty wouldn’t talk about Betty like this. No matter what he’d done, he was still a white man.

‘I’ve got to help Nashville,’ said Shorty. ‘But I don’t understand what’s going on. Who’s got Caution’s ears?’

Quyn looked blank, a whore’s façade.

‘And why did they cut off that bloke’s head?’ asked Shorty.

Quyn began to dress.

‘Please . . .’ said Shorty.

‘Yes?’ asked Quyn, fastening her bra.

‘I need to talk to the Mamasan,’ he said.

‘There is no Mamasan,’ said Quyn.

Shorty made a fist, but hid it under the sheet. ‘Then who’s in charge?’ he asked.

‘Monsieur Moreau does as he likes,’ said Quyn.

She slid into her dress. Shorty watched her sex disappear under silk.

‘Everyone knows two things, cherry man,’ she said. ‘The Yanks cut off the ears, the VC cut off heads. Everyone knows this but you.’

‘So who was the other bloke?’ asked Shorty.

‘Why don’t you ask the police?’ said Quyn.

‘Did the police kill him?’ asked Shorty.

Quyn laughed, and went back to work. Shorty returned to the bar too, so he could look at her.

‘You had Quyn for two hours,’ said Moreau. ‘You want to buy her?’

‘Fuck you,’ said Shorty.

‘Je suis desolé. I forgot,’ said Moreau. ‘You’re a man now.’ Moreau gave him a beer. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Why won’t you help Nashville?’ asked Shorty. ‘He’s your friend.’

‘I didn’t see him,’ said Moreau.

‘You never see anything,’ said Shorty.

‘I was fighting this war when you were a schoolboy,’ said Moreau. ‘I was fucking Quyn before your balls dropped. I’ve seen everything.’

Moreau was once a big man, but his muscle was wasting. He seemed to have become more drawn even in the weeks Shorty had known him. His eyes were milky and indifferent.

He’s dying, thought Shorty.

‘Help me meet the Mamasan,’ he said.

Moreau snorted.

Shorty saw Quyn parade in front of a table of Australian sappers.

‘Ah,’ said Moreau, ‘take her for the night. In the morning, go back to Nashville and tell him it may take a little time, but everything will be all right.’

Shorty wrapped his arm around Quyn’s waist like a dance partner, and walked her away from the sappers. Quôc the Deserter hurried to the front door, to help Baby Marie with her baskets of night-market manioc.

Baby Marie saw Shorty and Quyn together, and felt as though another future had been stolen from her.

Nashville was lying on the ground, dreaming of white-skinned women, when Hauser rapped on the bars of the holding cell. His flashlight made a halo for Nashville’s head in the early-morning darkness. Nashville turned his bruised face to Hauser and looked at him with puzzlement, as if he were a girl Nashville couldn’t remember buying.

‘Wake up, you sick motherfucker,’ whispered Hauser. ‘Pack your shit. You’re going.’

Nashville rolled over, using his biceps for a pillow. ‘I ain’t got no shit,’ he said, ‘and I ain’t going nowhere.’

Hauser reached through the bars and prodded Nashville in the ribs with his nightstick. Nashville pushed aside the tip of the baton with his thumb, and struggled to return to the long-legged ghost girls of his dream, but Hauser seem determined to ruin it for him.

‘You’re being moved to Long Binh at six hundred hours,’ he said.

Nashville had known they wouldn’t keep him at the PMO, but hadn’t thought they’d send him to the stockade. If they locked up a military police with the other prisoners, the inmates would kill him.

Hauser tossed Nashville a pack of Marlboro. He caught it in his swollen right hand, lit a cigarette and stuffed the pack into his sock. The effort of smoking helped him to raise himself. He felt stiff and heavy, as if he’d been chained. With the cigarette between his lips, he unbuckled his pants and pissed through the bars.

‘You sick motherfucker,’ said Hauser.

‘Everyone pisses,’ said Nashville.

‘This is from the guys,’ said Hauser, and passed Nashville a roll of banknotes. They were packed tight, like a bullet.

‘I’ll shove it where the flashlight don’t shine,’ said Nashville.

‘I knew Caution in Tennessee,’ said Hauser. ‘He had it coming.’

Nashville was ready for the MPs when they came, two big spec 4s: one black, the other white. The black man had scars on his mouth, as if somebody had tried to unlock his lips with a bottle opener. The white man read out some army bullshit. Nashville smoked and smiled.

The black man was the less nervous of the two.

He’s first, thought Nashville.

‘Don’t think about what you’re thinking about,’ said the black cop.

Nashville rubbed his head, as if that might stop the black cop from reading his mind.

‘If you don’t give us no trouble, we can help you,’ said the white cop. He had the honeyed voice of a womaniser, a bedroom liar.

‘I didn’t need no help until you came,’ said Nashville.

‘No,’ said the black cop, looking around the holding cell. ‘You were doing great.’ He held out the cuffs, like a gift.

I’ll make my stand here, thought Nashville.

‘You don’t want me to draw my weapon,’ said the white cop.

‘You can’t do that,’ said Nashville. ‘I’m unarmed.’

The white cop brushed the handle of his pistol. ‘You killed a man with your bare hands,’ he said.

‘I didn’t kill no one,’ said Nashville.

The white cop chewed gum. He believed it made him look calm. Nashville imagined him as Seamus, an Irish gumshoe. ‘So what’s your plan, cowboy?’ asked Seamus. ‘You want to go out like Custer and take one of us with you?’

Both of you, thought Nashville, and he wondered why they had sent these two men in particular, what it was they were trying to tell him.

‘Caution was an asshole,’ said the black cop.

Oh, that.

‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Nashville.

‘Wouldn’t care if you had,’ said the black cop.

Nashville smiled, because even this was funny in its way. ‘That’s mighty understanding of you,’ he said.

‘But not everyone feels the same,’ said the black cop. ‘You ain’t so popular with the good ol’ boys.’

Fuck them all, thought Nashville. ‘That’s why I ain’t going to Long Binh,’ he said.

The black cop acted like he was made of patience, as if he’d be happy to debate the issue all morning, so long as no one lost his head.

He’s down, thought Nashville.

‘I believe I saw you in the Golden Gloves one time,’ said the black cop. ‘Would that be right?’

He’d read Nashville’s file, that was all.

‘I remember you,’ said Nashville. ‘You lost.’

‘I learned,’ said the black cop.

Nashville was surprised. If he’d seen the black cop before, he didn’t know it.

‘You’ll be in the most danger when you first go in to Long Binh,’ said the black cop. ‘They get you ass naked, then they beat the shit out of you.’

‘If we take you in,’ said Seamus, ‘you’ll be our prisoner. We’ll see you through processing. No one else’ll come near you. Once you’re in the tents, you’re safe.’

Nashville felt suddenly weary. He didn’t have the energy for this. He was going to have to leave the holding cells eventually. If he fought them off, they could always hose him out. He could look after himself in Long Binh, and he knew Shorty wouldn’t leave him there. The boys wouldn’t forget him.

‘I guess I’m mighty lucky,’ said Nashville, ‘to get myself transported by you two social-worker types.’

He held out his wrists, as he’d sworn he never would, and let the black cop cuff him. Once manacled, he tested the length and strength of the chain.