Little Saigon

Huong Lam, Lt. Frye and I began to meet once a week in the courtyard by the plantation. Often, Private Crawley would attend. Sometimes Tony, Lam’s liaison officer, would be present. The lieutenant always brought a notebook but rarely wrote anything in it. He always seemed pleased by my information. Sometimes it was specific, such as the names of Viet Cong leaders, the places they could be found, the exact location of new tunnel entrances, which were always being built. Sometimes all I had was a feeling that something was about to happen. More than once I was correct. I would sense from the nervousness of the fighters I entertained that something large was to happen.

At the end of our fourth meeting, while Lam was walking ahead of us to the jeep, Lt. Frye put a piece of paper from his notebook into my hand. When I read it later that night by my candle, it said: “Li — You are beautiful to me.”

I thought of him as I lay on my plank bed that night. I could see his eyes, blue as the feathers of a chai bird.

About this time, Lam began to make advances toward me. On our walks to meet the jeep, he would attempt to take my hand. He would often arrive at my hut before the scheduled time. He looked at me in certain ways. A woman knows. He brought me a bunch of lilies once and they were quite lovely, but I took them under a feeling of obligation. My feelings toward him were good, but not of love.

Soon, we began to bring food to our meetings. I would bring red yams, tender bamboo, and eggplant. Lam would always bring French champagne — two bottles — and he never would say where he got it. I know he spent a lot of money for it on the black market. It gave him pride to provide such a luxury. Lt. Frye brought fresh bread and often a meat of some kind I know was expensive. Then Lam started bringing three bottles. He saw this as a competition with Lt. Frye. We would spread a canvas tarp on the ground if the weather was good, and if it was raining we would go into the cottage.

There was always a time when they would ask me to sing. I wrote songs for these occasions. They were the sentimental love songs that the Viet Cong no longer allowed me to perform. These songs, at the beginning, were written to no man in particular, but I could see they brought great pleasure to both Lam and the lieutenant. That brought me pleasure too. Sometimes I could see a very quiet but deep love pass between these men. They each seemed to be aware of the thin string from which life dangles in war. They were far apart in many ways, but the war, just as it tore so many apart, brought some together. I’ll always remember the way that, after we drank all our champagne one afternoon, Lt. Frye put his silver-wave necklace around Lam’s neck and hugged him. They were alike in one important way. Each man was silent and deep and would never tolerate even a tiny betrayal. They were like oceans. With Lt. Frye and Huong Lam, you were either an enemy or a friend. You either floated on their calm surface, or you sank under terrible waves.

Entertaining the Communists became easier. They responded well to me. The “theaters” were always makeshift and often underground. The caverns were small and poorly lit, and I was limited to three-minute songs so that the ventilation shafts could be opened in silence to give us air. Sometimes the sound of artillery or bombs would drown out the music. One time I remember the famous American, Bob Hope, was performing for the troops above ground, while I sang underground, not a half mile from him. There was great glee in the tunnels at this situation. But life was hard and dirty there, and my audiences could never applaud or sing with me. I resented being given material to sing, but the longer the war went on, the more I was forced to perform songs that would rally the Communists to victory. The good thing about being an entertainer was that I was moved from tunnel to tunnel, from camp to camp, from crater to crater to perform. I was always able to gather new information. I never worried that I would be found out, because by the time the Americans could take action on my intelligence, I was gone and not suspected.

One day Lam did not come to my hut. I set off alone through the jungle and came to the road to wait. When Lt. Frye came, he was alone, too. Private Crawley, he said, had another task at the base.

We went to the plantation courtyard and ate our food. Then the rain came and we ran inside. I sang over the rain and Lt. Frye lay on a cot and smoked. Then, for a long time, we talked of our families and our past, our hopes and our fears about the war. For the first time I saw a gentle spirit in the lieutenant that he never showed before. He touched my cheek and I wanted to run, but I knew there was no place to go. He seemed ashamed to have frightened me. We rode back to the turnout point very quietly.

Lam was waiting there when I got home. He was obviously drunk, leaning against my hut like a palm in monsoon. His eyes were fierce and heavy from the drink. He said he loved me. He accused me of terrible things I will not repeat. He grabbed my arms, and I hit him very hard. Finally he let go and stumbled off into the rain.

In the morning there was a bough of holly and some lilies outside my door. Lam had written a note that expressed his deep sorrow and apology for his behavior, and said he wished only to be forgiven. That day in the marketplace he stood while I spun cloth, and I told him I forgave him. He was happy and ashamed still, but he walked away with his head up and I felt good.

It was two months after our first meeting that things began to go wrong for Lt. Frye’s operations. First, he and his men were ambushed by Viet Cong in Hien Phu, which they believed was friendly. Later, when they had fought off the attack, they found several of the villagers dead nearby, and the rest they never found. How had the Viet Cong known they were coming? Then a tunnel entrance that I had told them about — a new one — was found just where it was supposed to be. It was booby-trapped, and one of Bennett’s men lost his eyes. Then a trip wire was found by Lam, who was walking the trail first. There were other incidents.

As we sat in the courtyard of the plantation one day, he told us that information was leaking from his men to the Viet Cong. Lam agreed. For a brief moment I felt Lt. Frye’s suspicion hover in the air around me like a silent bird. Then I saw Lam looking down to the ground, and I knew that he felt it too.

For two weeks nothing happened. Then, on a night patrol near the Michelin Plantation, Lam became lost and the men were ambushed again. Two of them died, and Lam became separated from the platoon. It was an hour later that he found them, still lost, and managed to lead them back to the base. Later, Lt. Frye told me that this was the point he became sure that Lam was the traitor.

It was while we sat in the courtyard one day, and Lt. Frye told me of his suspicions, that I fell in love with him. It had been growing inside me like a seed, but this was the first green sprout reaching above the earth. I said nothing. But I knew then that I would do anything for him and that in some small way I would show him my affections. When I look back on that moment now, I can only remember what a warm, large feeling it was. Love has its own mind, and sometimes the lover cannot read it. I did not question.

I wrote for him the best songs I could. My heart was so full and pure that my music was beautiful. I wrote simple songs in English to please him. A few of them were too strongly worded for Lam to hear, because I knew of his affections for me. These I wrote onto small sheets of paper and passed them to Lt. Frye in secret. I know now that my young girl’s eyes were filled with love for him, although I believed I was being very secret.

The next week our meeting went as usual, but I noticed a coolness between Lam and Lt. Frye. Private Crawley sat behind us, silent as always, with his gun nearby.

At the end of the next meeting we had alone, Lt. Frye told me that he had fallen in love with me. I told him my feelings. He told me he wished me to move onto the base in two weeks. He did not want me exposed to the enemy any longer. He said he could not forgive himself if shells directed by his Intelligence were to land and kill me. He said that my value to him as a spy was now second to my value as a woman.

I was happy. I was terrified, too. I told him I needed to think. One cannot imagine the contradictions of heart when one falls in Love with a man during war — a man of another race and religion, of another place, another world. I knew that if I were to move into his base, I would be leaving my life forever. I had seen the girls taken advantage of by the soldiers. Words of love, drunkenly spoken. Or sometimes less than that. And I knew that a Vietnamese woman who went to an American was scorned as a prostitute by her own people. These women became neither Vietnamese nor American — they were outcasts. But never once did it enter my mind that Lt. Frye would be using me in that way. The woman inside me yearned for him. The girl yearned to run away.

The next day I didn’t go to market. Instead I walked to the pond near my hut and thought for many hours, I sat and tossed sticks into the water. I was afraid of what going to Lt. Frye would mean to me, yet I wanted to go to him. I was afraid to bring the wrath of my own race upon me, yet I knew that if I went to the lieutenant, I would be hated.

Lam must have followed me to the pond. He was quieter and more brooding than usual. He sat a few feet away from me. Finally, he looked at me with his dark eyes and said that he loved me. He wanted to be with me and help me. He said we were of one blood and destiny. He said the war would be over soon, and the Communists would win. He asked me to marry him, so that we each would have something to hold onto when the dark days came.

All this, when I had gone to the pond to think!

I told him that I was thinking about moving to base with Lt. Frye. Lam stood and hurled a branch into the water. He said things about the Americans that were not good. He said to mix blood was evil, and that our race was not to be one with the Americans. He stormed around the pond, then came back to the stone where I was sitting and brought his face close to mine. He said that Bennett Frye would use and discard me like a basket. He said that I must learn to survive without him. He said that if I went to the lieutenant I would be murdered immediately when the Communists overran us. He said to go to Bennett was to choose death.

All I knew at the time was that I did not want Lam.

Our next meeting was heavy with tension. Lam and Lt. Frye showed no love for each other. At the end of it, Lt. Frye told me he had changed his plans. He wanted me to meet him at the base that very night, with my belongings. I would be provided a hootch and safety. He told me too, in secret by the plantation wall, that he believed it was Lam who had betrayed their plans and cost some of his men their lives. He asked me not to say anything to Lam about his desire for me, but it was too late.

When Lam and I walked back through the jungle toward my home, he told me he knew of Lt. Frye’s proposal. He stopped me on the trail, put his hands gently on my arms, and asked me not to go. He pleaded with me to pack my belongings and bring them instead to his hut, which was between my home and the base. He would love me and protect me. We would be what we were — Vietnamese.

I was shaking with sorrow. Lam saw this, so he let me go. He told me that whatever I decided, to please come to his hut that night — either to say good-bye or to say yes to him. He made me promise.

It was the honorable thing to do, so I agreed.

That night I packed my things. There was not much to carry: a few cooking baskets and pots, my clothes, my guitar. I said good-bye to my home forever and walked out into the night. In my heart, I knew what I would do.

I could see a candle burning in Lam’s hootch. He was inside, sitting alone on his cot. He could see what my decision had been by the look on my face. He did not say any of the things I thought he would. He was very serious. He told me he loved me and wished me success. He hugged me. Then he gave me a pack that he had prepared and slung it over my back. It was small, but heavy and hard.

“This is for you and Lt. Frye to open together,” he said. His face was full of bravery and defeat. “Open it when you are together. And be very careful not to drop it or hit it hard. It has a fragile content. Good-bye, Kieu Li.”

Tearfully, I said good-bye and started out again.

I knew what Lam had done to me.

It was the last time I saw him.

When I got to the base, Lt. Frye was waiting as he said he would be. I was trembling, and I told him what Lam had put on my back. That he wanted us to open it together. That I feared it. Very carefully he removed it and carried it away. Later I learned that his demolitions experts had detonated the bomb, which was strong enough to kill ten men.

I stepped into my new hut and my heart was wailing. I was relieved. I was sad. This was my new life. Lt. Frye looked at me with kindness and I felt better. I was then able to acknowledge to myself how close to being killed I had come, not just that night but during all the nights and months before.

I lay in my new home and wept. Lt. Frye came after midnight. Lam had only made it one kilometer north before he was intercepted by a patrol. When he would not stop, they killed him. I gave myself to the lieutenant on the plank bed. He was the first man I had known, and the only man I have ever known. We were married two months later. Two weeks after that, he stepped on a mine and lost his legs. I knew that if he died, I would, too.

We live in America now. When I look back on those times, they are clear but distant, a dream that I cannot forget, a nightmare that I will always remember. We went to war and found love where most found only death. When the Day of Shame came, I watched on a television in California as Saigon fell. So many things have ended, so many have begun.