Conspiracy

67

It was starting to get dark by the time Dean and Qui reached Pleiku, a city in the Central Highlands roughly three-fourths of the way to Tam Ky. The streets were unlit, but Qui had no trouble navigating, driving down a small side street and stopping in front of a two-story stone building whose facade was covered with moss. Dean felt a surge of adrenaline as he got out of the car; they’d been driving so long that he was glad to have his feet on the pavement again. He took his bag and walked into the house behind Qui, muscles tensing, ready for action.

An older man in dark blue denim pants and shirt greeted them inside a small foyer. The man knew Qui, though he had not been expecting her. When Qui told him in Viet na -

m ese that they needed two rooms for the night, he led them inside to a small room that was used as both a living room and office.

“You’re going to have to pay, Charlie,” Rockman reminded him. “That’s the custom. It’s cash up front.” Dean bristled at Rockman’s interference but said nothing.

The fee for both rooms came to ten dollars.

“His wife will make us something to eat,” Qui told Dean as they walked toward their rooms. “There’s a terrace in the back. It will be pleasant there.”

“I’ll see you there,” Dean told her.

During the war, an American base known as Camp Hol-loway had been located just outside Pleiku, on the site of an old French air base. He li cop ter transports and gunships, light observation and ground-support airplanes used the base. It had been attacked by Vietcong many times. The nearby city had suffered greatly; much of Pleiku had been burned during the North’s final offensive after the Americans left.

“He’s offering to take you to the old base tomorrow,” Qui told Dean, translating the old man’s offer of a tour. The hotel proprietor clearly thought Dean was a visiting veteran who had fought here and wanted to see what had become of the place.

“No, thanks,” Dean said. “I’d like to get to Quang Nam as quickly as possible.”

Even before Qui translated, the old man’s disappointment was clear. He told her that Dean was not a man with much curiosity or interest in the world. Qui softened his assessment when she translated it for him.

“You’re not very nostalgic,” she told Dean.

“I guess I’m not.”

“Did you serve near here?”

Dean shook his head.

“Of course not,” said Qui, remembering what he had told her earlier. “You were a Marine. You would have been near Da Nang or Khe Sahn, or up in Quang Nam. Where we’re going.”

Marines had served in other places throughout the country, but Dean didn’t correct her. She was, after all, right on the crucial point.

“Is that why you’re going back?” she asked.

“It’s a coincidence.”

“Really?” she asked, but she let it drop.

The old man began talking about how much better things were when he was young. It wasn’t clear from what he said exactly what was better or why — except that he was younger.

Dean listened to him describing the countryside and the villages. There was no running water and no electricity. The villagers sold fresh fruit to people in the city, and got prices good enough to live on.

“We had a great festival for Vu Lan Bôn,” said the old man. “From many, many miles, people would gather to honor their ancestors.”

“What kind of holiday is that?” Dean asked.

“It’s Buddhist. Bôn. The fifteenth day of the seventh month. For ancestors who have gone to the Holy Land,” said Qui.

“The hungry ghosts,” added the old man’s wife. “If you do not feed your dead, they wander the world, hungry.” It was the living who wandered if the dead were not peacefully at rest, Dean thought to himself, but he said nothing.