The CIA has remarkable talents with hypnosis and drugs. He fell silent. I continued: When the newspapers cover this, you realize it’s not only your revolutionary comrades who will condemn you. The road back to your family will be closed forever, too. They might accept a reformed revolutionary, or even a victorious one, but they will never accept a homosexual no matter what happens to our country. You’ll be a man who sacrificed everything for nothing. You will not even be a memory to your comrades or your family. At least if you talk to me this confession won’t be published. Your reputation will stay intact until the day the war is over. I stood up. Think about it. He said nothing and did nothing except stare at his confession. I paused at the door. Still think I’m a bastard?
No, he said tonelessly. You’re just an asshole.
Why had I done that? In my white room, I had nothing but time on my hands to ponder this event I had whitewashed from my mind, the event to which I am confessing now. The Watchman had infuriated me, pushing me into irrational action with his pseudoscientific judgment. But he would not have been able to do so if I had simply executed my role as the mole. Instead, I confess I took pleasure in doing what I was supposed to do and not supposed to do, interrogate him until he broke, as Claude had requested. He replayed the scene for me later in the surveillance room, where I watched myself watching the Watchman as he stared at his confession, knowing he was out of time, a character in a movie, as it were, that Claude had produced and I had directed. The Watchman could not represent himself; I had represented him.
Brilliant work, Claude said. You really fucked this guy.
I was a good student. I knew what my teacher wanted and, more than that, I enjoyed his praise at the expense of the bad student. For wasn’t that what the Watchman was? He had learned what the Americans taught, but he had rejected those teachings outright. I was more sympathetic to the thinking of Americans, and I confess that I could not help but see myself in their place as I broke the Watchman. He threatened them, and thus, to some extent, me. But the satisfaction I had at his expense did not last long. In the end, he would show everyone what it was that a bad student could accomplish. He would outsmart me by proving that it was possible to sabotage the means of production that you did not own, to destroy the representation that owned you. His final move happened one morning a week after I had shown him his confession, when I got a call at the officers’ quarters from the guard in the surveillance room. By the time I reached the National Interrogation Center, Claude was also there. The Watchman was curled up on his white bed, facing the white wall, clad in his white shorts and T-shirt. When we rolled him over, his face was purple and his eyes bulged. Deep in his open mouth, at the back of his throat, a white lump. I just went to the bathroom, the guard blubbered. He was eating breakfast. What was he going to do in two minutes? What the Watchman had done was choke himself to death. He had been on good behavior for the past week, and we had rewarded him with what he wanted for breakfast. I like hard-boiled eggs, he said. So he had peeled and eaten the first two before swallowing the third one whole, shell and all. Hey, good lookin’ . . .
Turn off that goddamn music, Claude said to the guard.
Time had stopped for the Watchman. What I did not realize until I woke up in my own white room was that time had stopped for me, too. I could see that other white room with utter clarity from my own, my eye peering through a camera in the corner, watching Claude and myself standing over the Watchman. It’s not your fault, said Claude. Even I didn’t think about this. He patted my shoulder reassuringly but I said nothing, the smell of sulfur driving everything out of my mind except for the thought that I was not a bastard, I was not a bastard, I was not, I was not, I was not, unless, somehow, I was.
CHAPTER 12
By the time I emerged from the hospital, my services were no longer needed, and I was not invited back to the set for the mopping-up operation that took place after the shooting was completed. Instead, I found that an airplane ticket had been reserved for my instant departure from the Philippines, and I spent the entire trip brooding over the problem of representation. Not to own the means of production can lead to premature death, but not to own the means of representation is also a kind of death. For if we are represented by others, might they not, one day, hose our deaths off memory’s laminated floor? Still smarting from my wounds even now, I cannot help but wonder, writing this confession, whether I own my own representation or whether you, my confessor, do.
The sight of Bon waiting for me at the Los Angeles airport made me feel a little better. He looked exactly the same, and when I opened our apartment door I was relieved to see that while it had not improved, neither had it worsened. The Frigidaire remained our decrepit diorama’s main attraction, thoughtfully stocked by Bon with enough beer to cure me of my jet lag, though not enough to cure me of the unexpected sadness massaged into my pores. I was still awake when he went to sleep, leaving me with the latest letter from my Parisian aunt. Before I retired, I dutifully composed my report to her. The Hamlet was complete, I wrote. But, more important, the Movement had established a revenue source.
A restaurant? I had said when Bon broke the news over our first round of beer.
That’s what I said. Madame’s actually a good cook.
Hers was the last decent Vietnamese food I had eaten, reason enough for me to call the General the next day and congratulate him on Madame’s new enterprise. As expected, he urged me to come for a welcome back meal at the restaurant, which I found on Chinatown’s Broadway, bracketed by a tea shop and an herbalist. Once we had surrounded the Chinese in Cholon, the General said from behind his cash register. Now we’re surrounded by them. He sighed, his hands resting on the keys of the register, ready to bash out a harsh tune on that makeshift piano. Remember when I came here with nothing? Of course I remember, I said, even though the General had not actually come here with nothing. Madame had sewn a considerable number of gold ounces into the lining of her clothes and her children’s, and the General had strapped a money belt full of dollars around his waist. But amnesia was as American as apple pie, and it was much preferred by Americans over both humble pie and the fraught foods of foreign intruders. Like us, Americans were suspicious of unfamiliar food, which they identified with the strangers who brought them. We instinctively knew that in order for Americans to find refugees like us acceptable, they first had to find our food digestible (not to mention affordable and pronounceable). Because it was no easy thing to overcome this digestive skepticism or make a profit from it, a dimension of courage existed in General and Madame’s enterprise, as I told him.
Courageous? I find it degrading. Did you ever foresee the day when I would own a restaurant? The General gestured at the small confines of what had previously been a chop suey house, brown measles of grease still speckling the walls. No, sir, I said. Well, neither did I. It could at least have been a nice restaurant, instead of this. He spoke with such pathetic resignation I felt a renewed sympathy for him. Nothing had been done to renovate the restaurant, the linoleum floor battered, the yellow paint dull, the overhead lighting flat and harsh. The waiters were, he pointed out, veterans. That one’s Special Forces, and that one’s Airborne. In trucker caps and ill-fitting dress shirts that must have been rummaged from a thrift store, or bestowed on them by a strapping sponsor, the waiters did not look like killers. They looked like the anonymous men with bad haircuts who delivered Chinese takeout, the men who waited nervously in hospital emergency rooms without insurance, who fled the scenes of car accidents because they did not have licenses or registration. They wobbled as much as the table that the General led me to, its base uneven. Madame herself brought me a bowl of the pho special and joined us, both watching me eat one of the best examples I had ever indulged in of our national soup. It’s still delicious, I said after the first sip and bite. Madame remained unmoved, as glum as her husband. You should be proud of such . . . such soup.
We should be proud of selling sou
p? Madame said. Or owning a hole-in-the-wall? That’s what one of our customers called this place. We don’t even own it, said the General. We lease it. Their moroseness was matched by their appearance. Madame’s hair was pinned back in a librarian’s stale bun, when before it had almost always been worn in a glamorous bouffant or beehive that recalled the go-go days of the early sixties. She, like the General, wore off-the-rack clothing consisting of a mannish polo shirt, shapeless khakis, and the American footwear of choice, sneakers. They wore, in short, what almost every other middle-aged American couple I had encountered at the supermarket, the post office, or the gas station wore. The sartorial impression was to make them, like many American adults, look like overgrown children, the effect enhanced when these adults were spotted, as they often were, sucking on extra-large sodas. These petit bourgeois restaurateurs were not the aristocratic patriots I had lived with for five years and for whom I felt not only some fear but also a degree of affection. Their sadness was my sadness, too, so I turned the conversation toward a topic I knew might lift their spirits.
So, I said, what’s this about the restaurant funding the revolution?
A wonderful idea, isn’t it? said the General, brightening. Seeing Madame’s eyes turn to the ceiling, I suspected that it was, in fact, her idea. Hole-in-the-wall or not, this is the first such restaurant in this city, he said. Perhaps even in this country. As you can see, our countrymen are starving for a taste of home. Although it was only eleven thirty in the morning, every table and booth was occupied by people eating soup with chopsticks in one hand and spoon in the other. The restaurant was redolent with the fragrance of home and resonant with its sounds, the chatter of our native tongue competing with heartfelt slurping. This is a nonprofit enterprise, so to speak, said the General. All profits go to the Movement.
When I asked who knew about this, Madame said, Everyone and no one. It’s a secret, but an open secret. People come here and their soup is spiced with the idea they’re helping the revolution. As for the revolution, the General said, everything is almost in place, even the uniforms. Madame is in charge of those, as well as the women’s auxiliary and the making of flags. What a spectacle she can create! You missed the Tet celebration she organized in Orange County. You should have seen it! I have photos to show you. How the people cried and cheered when they saw our men in camouflage and uniform, carrying our flag. We’ve assembled the first companies of volunteers, all veterans. They train every weekend. From this group, we’re going to cull the best for the next step. He leaned over the table to whisper the rest. We’re sending a reconnaissance team to Thailand. They’ll link up with our forward field base and reconnoiter a path overland to Vietnam. Claude says the time is nearly right.
I poured myself a cup of tea. Is Bon a part of this team?
Of course. I hate to lose such a good worker, but he’s the best we have for this kind of work. What do you think?
I was thinking that the only route overland from Thailand involved trekking through Laos or Cambodia, avoiding established roads and choosing the treacherous terrain of disease-ridden jungles, forests, and mountains where the only inhabitants would be brooding monkeys, man-eating tigers, and hostile, frightened locals unlikely to give aid. These badlands were the perfect setting for a movie, and a horrible one for a mission that was almost certainly do or die. I would not have to tell Bon this. My crazy friend had volunteered not despite the fact that his chances of returning were slim, but because of them. I looked at my hand, at the red scar engraved there. I was suddenly aware of the outline of my body, of the sensation of the chair underneath my thighs, of the fragility of the force holding together my body and my life. It would not take much to destroy that force, which most of us took for granted until the moment when we could not. What I think, I said, not allowing myself to deliberate any further, is that if Bon is going I should go, too.
The General clapped his hands together in delight and turned to Madame. What did I tell you? I knew he would volunteer. Captain, I never had any doubt. But you know as well as I that you’ll do better staying here and working with me on the planning and logistics, not to mention the fund-raising and the diplomacy. I’ve told the Congressman the community is gathering funds to send an aid team to help the refugees in Thailand. That is, in a sense, what we’re doing, but we’ll need to continue persuading our supporters of that cause.
Or at least give them a reason to pretend to believe that is our cause, I said.
The General nodded with satisfaction. Exactly right! I know you’re disappointed, but it’s for the best. You’ll be more useful here than there, and Bon can take care of himself. Now look, it’s nearly noon. I think it’s the right time for a beer, don’t you?
Visible over Madame’s shoulder was a clock, hanging on the wall between a flag and a poster. The poster was for a new brand of beer, featuring three bikini-clad young women sprouting breasts the size and shape of children’s balloons; the flag was of the defeated Republic of Vietnam, three bold red horizontal stripes on a vivid field of yellow. This was the flag, as the General had noted more than once to me, of the free Vietnamese people. I had seen the flag countless times before, and posters like that one often, but I had never seen this type of clock, carved from hardwood into the shape of our homeland. For this clock that was a country, and this country that was a clock, the minute and hour hands pivoted in the south, the numbers of the dial a halo around Saigon. Some craftsman in exile had understood that this was exactly the timepiece his refugee countrymen desired. We were displaced persons, but it was time more than space that defined us. While the distance to return to our lost country was far but finite, the number of years it would take to close that distance was potentially infinite. Thus, for displaced people, the first question was always about time: When can I return?
Speaking of punctuality, I said to Madame, your clock is set to the wrong time.
No, she said, rising to fetch the beer. It’s set to Saigon time.
Of course it was. How could I not have seen it? Saigon time was fourteen hours off, although if one judged time by this clock, it was we who were fourteen hours off. Refugee, exile, immigrant—whatever species of displaced human we were, we did not simply live in two cultures, as celebrants of the great American melting pot imagined. Displaced people also lived in two time zones, the here and the there, the present and the past, being as we were reluctant time travelers. But while science fiction imagined time travelers as moving forward or backward in time, this timepiece demonstrated a different chronology. The open secret of the clock, naked for all to see, was that we were only going in circles.
After lunch, I debriefed the General and Madame on my Philippine adventures, which simultaneously lightened their gloominess and heightened their sense of resentment. Resentment was an antidote to gloominess, as it was for sadness, melancholy, despair, etc. One way to forget a certain kind of pain was to feel another kind of pain, as when the doctor examining you for mandatory military service (an exam that you never fail, unless you are afflicted by wealth) slaps you on one butt cheek while injecting you in the other cheek. The one thing I did not tell the General and Madame—besides myself nearly meeting the fate of one of those roasted ducks hung from its anus in the neighboring Chinese eatery’s window—was that I had been paid compensation for my near butchering. The morning after the extras had come bearing gifts, I had received two other visitors, Violet and a tall, thin white man in a powder-blue suit, his paisley tie as fat as Elvis Presley and his shirt the rich yellow color of urine after a meal of asparagus. How do you feel? she asked. All white, I whispered, although I could speak perfectly fine. She looked at me suspiciously and said, We’re all concerned about you. He wanted you to know he would have come himself but President Marcos is visiting the set today.
He who did not need to be named was, of course, the Auteur. I merely nodded, sagely and sadly, and said, I understand, though the mere mention of him infuriated me. This is the
best hospital in Manila, the man in the suit said, flashing a searchlight of a smile onto my face. We all want the best possible care for you. How are you feeling? To tell you the truth, I said, proceeding to lie, I feel terrible. What a shame, he said. Let me introduce myself. He produced a pristine white business card with edges so sharp I feared a paper cut. I am a representative for the film studio. We want you to know we are paying all the bills for your hospital care.
What happened?
You don’t remember? Violet asked.
An explosion. A lot of explosions.
It was an accident. I have the report here, said the representative, lifting a liver-colored briefcase high enough for me to see its gleaming gold buckles. Such efficiency! I skimmed the report. Its details were not as significant as what its existence proved, that fast work of this type, as in our homeland, was only possible by an application of grease to the palms.
Am I lucky to be alive?
Extremely lucky, he said. You have your life, your well-being, and a check in my briefcase for the sum of five thousand dollars. According to the medical reports I’ve seen, you suffered smoke inhalation, some scrapes and bruises, a few mild burns, a bump on your head, and a concussion. Nothing broken, nothing ruptured, nothing permanent. But the studio wants to ensure that all your needs are met. The representative opened the briefcase and produced a stapled document of white papers and a long slip of green paper, the check. Of course, you will have to sign a receipt, as well as this document releasing the studio from any future obligations.
Was five thousand dollars the worth of my miserable life? Admittedly it was a considerable amount, more than I had ever seen at any one time. That was what they were counting on, but even in my dazed state, I knew better than to settle for the first offer. Thank you for this generous pledge, I said. It is decent of the studio to worry on my behalf, to be so concerned with me. But as you may know, or maybe you do not, I am my extended family’s principal support. Five thousand dollars is wonderful if I thought only of myself, but an Asian—here I paused and allowed a faraway look to come into my eyes, the better to give them time to imagine the vast genealogical banyan tree extending above me, overshadowing me with the oppressive weight of generations come to root on the top of my head—an Asian cannot think just about himself.