The Rough Humor of Soldiers

MY LAST NIGHT in My Tho. The battalion officers were giving me a farewell party. We began the evening at a bar in town, then moved on to Major Chau’s house for dinner. Madame Chau was nowhere in evidence, nor were any of their children. When we’d all assembled and settled ourselves in a circle on the floor Major Chau rang a bell and a young woman entered the room. She was made up heavily, even ceremonially, her face whitened, her cheeks rouged, her lips painted red. Her perfume was thick and sweet. Major Chau introduced the young woman as his niece, Miss Be. She bowed, then took a tray filled with brandy glasses from the sideboard and moved around the circle of men, bending before each of us with downcast eyes. Captain Kale took his glass and thanked her and she moved on to me without a word, but in passing looked back at him and gave him what might have been a smile; it was gone too soon to say. The face she presented to me was impeccably bland.

Then she came around with a large bottle of Martell and filled our glasses. Again she looked at Captain Kale, and again, unmistakably this time, smiled.

“What’s your secret?” I asked him.

“Knock it off,” he said.

Captain Kale had a wife to whom he intended to be true.

Miss Be returned the bottle to the sideboard and took the empty place to Major Chau’s right. This was the first time in my experience that a woman had joined a circle of officers rather than serving and leaving. Captain Kale was watching her with a rude, unconscious fixity. No one took any notice. The room was blue with smoke, loud with boasts and insults. Pots banged in the kitchen.

We emptied our glasses and Miss Be went around again with the Martell. She gave more to Captain Kale than to anyone else. When she resumed her place beside Major Chau she turned and whispered in his ear.

Major Chau leaned forward. “My niece says the American captain is very handsome.”

Captain Kale shifted, shifted again. The lotus position was torture to those pumped-up haunches. There were wet patches on the back of his shirt, widening rings under his arms. His pink face shone. “Please convey my compliments to Miss Be on her extremely nice looks,” he said, and nodded at her. “Miss Be is very beautiful.”

The other officers whistled and slapped their knees when Major Chau translated this. Miss Be spoke into his ear again.

“My niece says the American captain looks like the great Fred Astaire.”

Miss Be said something else to Major Chau.

“My niece asks, Has the great Astaire found his Ginger Rogers here in My Tho?”

“No,” Captain Kale said in Vietnamese.

Major Chau got up and went over to the stereo Sergeant Benet and I had bought him at the PX. He put on Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry” and motioned for Captain Kale to rise. “My niece would be honored to dance with the great Astaire,” he said.

“I’m not that great,” he said, but he stood and walked over to Miss Be. He held out his hand. She took it and rose lightly and without hesitation moved into his arms. They danced in the center of our circle, swaying to the music, hardly moving their feet at all. At first she looked up at him, then slowly let her head fall forward against his chest. Her eyes were closed. I could see the play of her fingers on the back of his neck.

Then Captain Kale closed his eyes too, and his face became gentle and calm. He was transfigured. The Vietnamese officers were watching him with peculiar concentration. Major Chau rolled his shoulders to the music, mouthing words as he stacked more 45s on the turntable:

They tell me

Mistakes

Are part of bein’ young

But that don’t right

The wrong that’s been done …

After the song ended, Captain Kale and Miss Be went on swaying together to their own music, then roused themselves and stepped groggily apart, her hand still in his. The officers called out encouragement. I joined in, though I was nearly deranged with envy and incomprehension. A record fell, the needle hissed, Connie Francis began to sing.

Evening shadows make me blue

When each weary day is through

“You need more room,” Major Chau said. “In here is too many peoples. Come.” He beckoned to Captain Kale and gestured toward the doorway leading to the back of the house. “Come!” Captain Kale looked at him, looked at Miss Be. They were still holding hands. She gave him that ghostly smile, then led him out of the circle and through the doorway behind Major Chau. The major returned, took his place, and rang the bell again. A pair of old women carried in trays from the kitchen.

While we filled our plates Major Chau raised his glass and began reciting a toast to me. He praised my implacable enmity toward the communist insurgents, my skill as a leader of men, my reckless courage under fire. He said that my presence here had dealt the Vietcong a blow they’d never recover from. Through all this Major Chau maintained an air of utmost gravity, and so did the other officers. When he was done the adjutant proposed a toast even more elevated. They were all stuffing themselves now, except the adjutant and, of course, me. That was part of the prank. As long as I was being toasted I had to sit there and listen with an expression of humility and gratitude. Lieutenant Nam spoke next. Then another officer stepped in.

I was hungry. Somewhere in the back of the house Captain Kale was slow-dancing with Miss Be. The toasts went on.

I’d expected something like this, but I didn’t know what a nuisance it would be to sit through. Behind the understanding that all this was a joke, we had another understanding that it was not a joke at all, that in my time here I had succeeded only in staying alive. Their satiric praise created by implication a picture of me that was also a picture of what I feared I had become, a man in hiding.

At last they stopped and let me eat. Spring rolls, clear soup, fish and rice, noodles stirred up with shoots and greens and cubes of tender meat. “Where’s This Place Called Lonely Street?” was on the record player. I’d just about finished my first helping when I heard a yell from the back of the house. The officers sat up, searched one another out with swift glances. Silence. Then another yell—a roar, really—and the sound of Captain Kale coming our way. He stomped into the room and stood there, staring at me, his face bleached white. His mouth was smeared with lipstick. He held his hands clenched in front of him like a runner frozen in midstride. I looked at him, he looked at me. Then Lieutenant Nam made a sobbing sound and buried his face in his hands and fell sideways onto the floor. He kicked his foot out like a ham playing a dying man and knocked over a bowl of rice. Major Chau let off a series of shrill hoots—whoo whoo whoo—and then they all doubled over. They were wailing and shrieking and pounding the floor. Captain Kale gave no sign that he heard them.

“Did you know she was a guy?” he said.

I was too surprised to speak. I shook my head.

He gave me his full attention. Then he said, “I’d kill you if you did.”

I understood that he meant it. Another close call.

Captain Kale looked at the others as if they’d just materialized in the room. He walked around them and out the door. After I heard the jeep start up and drive away I couldn’t keep from treating myself to a few laughs while I ate my dinner. The officers kept trying to pull themselves together, but every time they looked at me they blew a gasket. At first I played along like a sport, thinking they’d lose interest, but they’d entered a state where anything I did—spearing my food, lifting my fork, chewing—set them off again. Finally Lieutenant Nam managed to sit up and catch his breath. He watched me fill my plate yet again with noodles and diced meat. “Bon appetit,” he said.

“This is good,” I said. “What is it?”

He pitched over onto his back and let out a howl. He lay there, drumming his feet and panting soundlessly. I looked down at my plate. “Oh no,” I said. “You didn’t do that.”

But of course that was exactly what they’d done. What else could I expect? What else could he expect, with a name like Dog Stew? That pooch was up against some very strong karma, far beyond the power of my stopgap, sentimental intercessions. In moments of clarity I’d known he would come to this. He knew it himself in his doggy way, and the knowledge had given him a morose, dull, hopeless cast of mind. He bore his life like a weight, yet trembled to lose it. I’d been fretting about his prospects. Now my worries were over. So were his. At least there was some largesse in this conclusion, some reciprocity. I had fed him, now he fed me, and fed me, I have to say, right tastily.

There was only one way left to do him justice. I bent to my plate and polished him off.

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