Saigon: A Novel Part 33

He glanced at the ma.n.u.script she had given him for a moment or two, then dropped it onto a red-lacquered coffee table with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, Emerald. I'll look at it later. I can't concentrate right now. That letter's the first word I've had from my older son in seven years - I guess it's making it hard for me to turn my mind to anything else."

She unwound herself from him and, taking his hand, motioned for him to sit down beside her on the divan. "Has it upset you badly? Do you want to talk about it?"

Joseph sat staring indecisively at the letter.

"You've never talked about Gary or your other Son," she prompted gently. "Are they very like you?"

"I've never talked about Gary because he's twenty-five - your age." Josephs voice was heavy with resignation, and he spoke without looking at her.

"But that doesn't matter," she whispered. "Your age makes no difference to the way I feel. Please tell me about Gary if it's important to you."

"I guess I find it difficult to talk about my sons because I realize I'm mostly responsible for the bad blood that exists between us," said Joseph, speaking very quietly. "Even while they were growing up I didn't spend as much time with them as I should have, because I was always on the move traveling all over Asia, They went to school hack home here, and my mind always seemed to be more on my job than on my family. Then I left my wife and disappeared from their lives completely when Gary and Mark were in their teens - when they were just beginning to think about what they were going to do with their futures, It took me a year or two to realize just how badly I'd neglected them. Then one day I got a letter from my wife in which she mentioned Gary had made tip his mind to go to West Point and Mark was beginning to think about a career as an air force pilot - and I got a rush of blood to the head."

"Why?"

Joseph rubbed a hand agitatedly across his face. "Because that was the last thing I wanted for my sons. My own father tried to persuade me to take up a military career when I was their age, and I had to fight tooth and claw to go my own way. My wife got married again quickly after I left her to a full colonel in the Pentagon and I suddenly realized that his influence or maybe even that of my own father had replaced mine."

"And what did you do?"

"I wrote to Gary and Mark asking to see them both urgently. Mark turned me down flat. Both of them took my leaving their mother pretty badly, but Mark was totally uncompromising. Gary at least agreed to talk, and I flew down to Was.h.i.+ngton one weekend to see him."

"And did that do anything to help heal the breach?"

Joseph shook his head emphatically. "On the contrary -. we were at daggers drawn. In the end, during a visit to our family museum, Gary let rip with a few home truths that still hurt whenever I think about them."

"And is the letter that arrived today very hurtful too?"

Joseph sighed again. "Not exactly. I took the plunge and wrote to him first a couple of months ago after the Buddhists in South Vietnam began to complicate things. He was sent out there earlier this year, and I couldn't stop thinking how d.a.m.ned confusing it must he for him. I just offered a few insights that I hoped might help him feel less at sea - and if I'm going to be really honest I suppose I hoped it might be a lever to help me get on better terms with him too. I thought for a while he wasn't going to answer at all "But he has, so things are better between you now?"

"Maybe a little - hut his reservations are still fairly p.r.o.nounced."

"I'll fix us a drink, Joseph - you need to relax." She squeezed his hand, slipped off her sandals and ran barefoot into the kitchen. He listened for a moment to the rattle of the c.o.c.ktail mixer, then his glance fell on the headline about the paG.o.da raids and he picked up the newspaper once more. When Emerald returned with two martinis, lie sipped his distractedly while reading accounts of the stunned reaction in Was.h.i.+ngton, and gave no sign that he'd noticed when she unfastened the top two b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt and began stroking his chest.

"Sitting here worrying in Cornell won't change anything on the other side of the world, Joseph," she whispered, brus.h.i.+ng the lobe of his ear with her parted lips. "Please forget it all for a little while. I've been looking forward so much all day to seeing you - let's go to bed now."

Reluctantly he put the newspaper down and finished his drink. She helped him off with his jacket, then he let her lead him by the hand into the bedroom. When they had undressed, he stretched out on his back on the quilted teak bed and lay staring at the ceiling while she continued to caress his bare chest. Slowly her movements gained urgency and she began to stroke his thighs with the tips of her fingers.

"You've got the body of a much younger man, Joseph," she murmured, nuzzling closer to him. "I can't think why you should have worried that Gary was my age." Taking his hand she drew it between her thighs and her breathing quickened. 'Ching Ping Mei would tell us now we shouldn't worry about the sinister flight of the crows, isn't that right? When the Pillar of the Heavenly Dragon is ready to enter the Jade Pavilion, doesn't the wise monk say that we should think of nothing else?" She gasped and s.h.i.+fted her body onto his, and when he finally tightened his arms around her, she closed her eyes and responded avidly to his movements. But before he was fully aroused his pa.s.sion subsided abruptly and she opened her eyes to find him gazing at her with a remote faraway expression in his eyes.

"Emerald, I can't - I'm sorry." He made his apology abruptly and rolled away from her, pulling the sheet over the lower part of his body.

"Joseph, what's the matter?" Her voice was suddenly tearful and indignant. "When you look at me like that I sometimes think you're looking through me. It's as if I weren't there - as if you weren't really seeing me at all."

She continued- to gaze uncomprehendingly at his naked shoulders, but Joseph neither turned back to face her nor offered any answer.

11.

It had been one of those stifling Was.h.i.+ngton summer days with the temperature hovering around the hundred mark and low gray clouds as dank as wet rags oppressing the city; lying restlessly awake on the teak bed beside the sleeping Emerald, Joseph found he could still remember the clammy feel of his s.h.i.+rt sticking to his back, although seven years had pa.s.sed. He recalled too with a surprising clarity that even the pinnacle of the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument had been shrouded by cloud when the taxi that brought him from the airport drew up outside the Sherman Field Museum of Natural History in the Mall. He had agreed to go there at Gary's suggestion so as to avoid both the home in Maryland where Gary and Mark lived with Tempe and her new husband, and the complications that would inevitably intrude in the presence of the senator and Joseph's mother at the family mansion in Georgetown.

The museum had been closed temporarily for redecoration at the time, and Gary had greeted him politely inside the front entrance; their feet, he remembered, had echoed hollowly in the empty, sheet-draped galleries, and Gary's face had begun to betray something of the embarra.s.sment he obviously felt at having to talk alone with him after so many years of non-communication. Over coffee in the public cafeteria which had been kept open for the decorators, they had exchanged small talk, then Gary had offered to show him around the refurbished displays. It was as they strolled together into the memorial wing dedicated to his brother Chuck, Joseph realized later, that any slender chance that their meeting might turn out well had been fatally undermined by an unthinking remark he had made.

"1 haven't been through here, Gary, for about fifteen years," he had said conversationally - then immediately regretted his words.

"Why not?"

He hesitated, realizing the true explanation was unlikely to help his cause. "1 disagreed strongly with my father about the wisdom of setting up some of the exhibits here...."

"You mean the animals shot by Uncle Chuck?"

Gary's tone was distant, disinterested, and Joseph wondered then whether it might be wiser not to try to explain further. They were pa.s.sing the gla.s.s-fronted tableau of the big game animals killed in Cochin-China over thirty years before, and he had been startled to find that due to the meticulous care with which they'd been preserved, the baleful banteng and buffalo looked as lifelike and glossy-coated as they had When they were roaming the plains beside the La Nga River. The newly painted frames and surrounds also gave the tableau a shocking freshness, and he had felt a renewed sense of horror as he stared at the murderous horns of the ma.s.sive, hump-necked seladang that had gored Chuck to death. Glancing up he had found Gary watching him intently.

"Why did you think it was wrong to show these exhibits?" he had asked quietly, as though suddenly sensing his father's embarra.s.sment.

"1 wasn't fond of shooting at that age, Gary. I thought this tableau would always be seen as a memorial to the misplaced pride of the Sherman family. We're all likely enough to fall prey to the worst sides of our natures, G.o.d knows. Too often we get carried away by the idea of wanting to win at all costs - worrying about our G.o.dd.a.m.ned virility being doubted drives us to all kinds of excesses. This tableau is just a painful reminder of all those things as far as I'm concerned."

Gary listened in silence, a puzzled frown crinkling his brow. "And you said all that to my grandfather - to his face?"

"Maybe I didn't say it all to his face, no. You're probably aware that I've never been that close to him."

Gary had turned his head away then, and an awkward silence had expanded between them; something, however, kept them rooted to the spot before the tableau and he realized suddenly what Gary must have been thinking. There was no way of preventing him from seeing the parallel between their feud and his own quarrel with the senator, and in desperation he had decided to try to make a virtue of it. "We both know why I asked to talk to you, Gary," he had said quietly. "When I heard you'd decided to go to West Point I couldn't help remembering that your grandfather tried to push me into a military career at your age. I resisted because I was d.a.m.ned sure it wouldn't be right for me - and I guess because I haven't been around for a couple of years I've got to worrying you might have been influenced unduly by the senator - or your stepfather. Have you really thought it over carefully, Gary? I think you're worthy of something better - the military's not what I want for you in peacetime."

He had been unable to keep an imploring note out of his voice, and he watched with a growing sense of hopelessness as an expression of distaste spread across Gary's normally cheerful, boyish features.

"Unlike you, Dad, I don't hide my feelings, so let me ask you one thing - what right do you think you've got to come here interfering? You went off, remember, for your own selfish reasons, leaving Morn and us to make our way as best we could. You were too busy then with your oriental concubines to bother with me or Mark - so why the sudden interest now?"

"How much did your mother tell you about that?"

"Not much at all - but enough to make Mark and me not think very highly of you for what you did to her. She said you never really had your feet on the ground - and she was right. I'd like to have had a father whose eyes didn't get a kind of glazed look whenever I talked to him. Somehow you always managed to make Mark and me feel we weren't really worth wasting your precious time on!"

"Haven't you ever considered that I might have changed - that I might have regretted doing what I did?"

Gary had laughed then, and the sound of his laughter had echoed hollowly through the deserted gallery. "That's incredible, really incredible! You haven't changed at all - you're still so selfish you can't see that what's important is what I want to do with my life - not what you want me to do."

"You're making this all the harder for me, talking that way. Maybe some day you'll live to wish you'd done something differently."

"If you've decided now you made the wrong choice, that's just too bad," replied Gary coldly. "But don't expect any sympathy from us. Mark was right - you're not worth the trouble it takes to talk to you."

He had turned on his heel then and walked out of the museum, leaving Joseph standing alone before the tableau and glancing down at the wickedly curved horns of the seladang, he had shuddered; the ferocious, gla.s.sy-eyed animal made the empty museum feel like a haunted tomb, and he had wandered out into the stifling heat of the Mall again, feeling depressed and sick at heart.

The memory of that desolate moment, brought vividly to mind again by Gary's letter, produced such a feeling of agitation in Joseph that he found it impossible to lie still any longer, and rising from the teak bed with care so as not to disturb the girl, he put on a silk kimono-style dressing gown and slippers and tiptoed out of the bedroom. One end of the long, overfurnished sitting room served as a study, and collecting Gary's letter from the table where he had dropped it earlier, he went to his lacquered Chinese desk and sat down. When he switched on the desk light a small clock beneath it showed three AM., and he rubbed his eyes wearily and ran a hand through his tousled hair before taking the letter from the envelope. After reading it through quickly once more, he picked up a sheaf of paper and a pen and started to write.

"My dear Gary," he began, I can't tell you how delighted I was to get your letter today. I've been feeling worse and worse about being estranged from you and Mark as the years have pa.s.sed, and more than anything else in the world I guess I'd like to get back to some kind of understanding with you both. I've had a lot of time for regret and remorse to do their job, but as you say, I guess letters aren't the right place to unburden ourselves on that score. Let me just say that my thoughts are constantly with you even more so since your letter arrived here simultaneously with a copy of the New York Times announcing the storming of the Buddhist paG.o.das. I was so shocked by that and so moved by some of the things you said about your growing attach- merit to Vietnam that I've not been able to sleep or think of anything else since. I've just got up now in the middle of the night in fact to write you.

His hand flew across the page, and because he kept his head bent intently over his task he didn't notice the naked figure of Emerald appear silently in the bedroom doorway behind him. She stood watching him sleepily for a moment, then began wandering through the deep shadows of the room, stopping now and then to caress a piece of jade or porcelain or run her fingers over the finely worked silken embroidery of a mandarin's sleeve.

I guess I'm at a bit of a loss to know what to say to you now, but. let's begin with something impersonal - the answer to your query about why we decided "to go to hat," as you put it, for the Ngo family. The story's a sad and sorry one - and I know because I was closely involved for a time. Several things, you see, happened all at once about the time I left your mother. Maybe I'll say more one day, but as a result I decided rather hastily to give up my career as a newspaperman that same year and returned home to bury myself away as far as possible from Asia in the quieter realms of the academic world. But it was harder to shake off that part of my life than I thought and I couldn't settle at first at Cornell. When Michigan State invited me to partic.i.p.ate in a government-financed program in 1956 to create a modern government structure for Diem I went back to Saigon very much in the spirit of trying to contribute something. But it was not long before disenchantment set in.

Joseph stopped writing and sat back in his chair, lost in thought. Some of his deep personal disillusionment, he knew, had been directly attributable to the fact he had been unable to find any trace of his daughter Tuyet in those six months he had spent in Saigon. From Gary's remarks at the museum he was almost certain Tempe had never told his sons of her existence, but he had always been aware that his desire to find her again had contributed to his decision to return to Vietnam. To his dismay when he arrived there he discovered Tuyet had disappeared overnight without trace in 1954; she had gone "underground" after informing Tam and his family she was marrying a member of the Viet Minh and to all intents and purposes she had ceased to exist. After that discovery Joseph had found that the painful memories the city held for him had weighed on him increasingly; above all else he had never been able to pa.s.s the Continental Palace without a feeling of horror when he reached the spot on the sidewalk where Lan and her father had died so bloodily before his eyes, and gradually the desire to leave and never return had grown in him.

A rustling sound interrupted his train of thought, and he swung around to find Emerald in the act of removing a sea-green court gown front one of the life-sized porcelain statues. Knowing she had attracted his attention, she smiled wanly and wrapped it slowly about herself, hugging the silken material to her naked body with both arms.

"Sometimes I can't help thinking, Joseph, that I'm just another object in your oriental collection." She spoke plaintively, without any note of accusation in her voice, but her lips trembled as though she might be on the brink of tears. In the s.h.i.+mmering mandarin's robe, her face seemed more cla.s.sically Asian, the slant of her cheeks more p.r.o.nounced, and Joseph stared at her transfixed for a moment; then he gathered himself again.

"Please go back to bed," he said quietly. "I've got to finish what I'm writing."

"I can't sleep without you."

"Please go and try." Joseph turned back to his desk, and after watching him for a minute or two she wandered away sulkily into the shadows once more.

"I found that the Michigan State Group wasn't all it seemed to be," Joseph wrote, his pen gather speed once again.

There were about fifty professors, some doing legitimate work on the const.i.tution and the civil service, but a big part of it was a cover for intelligence operatives who were channeling guns, ammunition, grenades, and tear gas to the secret police outfit they were training for Ngo Dinh Nhu in the likeness of the FBI. They were also building up a paramilitary police force, arid political repression seemed to become the focus of the group's efforts. Soon this overshadowed all the attempts we were making to install democratic inst.i.tutions, so I resigned after six months. I'd never been enthusiastic about Diem. He's not the sinister character that his brother Nhu is - he's never been interested for example in getting rich himself, but he's always turned a blind eye to corruption to keep himself in power. He's a strangely remote, inflexible man, with fixed ideas of Confucian loyalty to family which have always stopped him dispensing with the a.s.sistance of his corrupt brothers and his sister-in-law who've poisoned his relations with the people. Perhaps the best construction to put on President Diem is that he's a victim to a large extent of his ruthless, power-hungry family - but that's maybe being too kind.

Closer to home for you, the arrogance of some of your ARVN officers doesn't surprise me. Southerners in Vietnam, you see, have traditionally enjoyed an easy life in the fertile delta region and as a result they're a different breed to the tougher Vietnamese from the harsher lands in the center and the north. The southerners were also colonized more thoroughly and they collaborated more closely with the French, so they developed an intense desire to emulate their colonial masters. The officer corps in South Vietnam for instance practices a more rigorous form of cla.s.s distinction than any other similar country in Southeast Asia - but at the same time they feel a kind of schizophrenic compulsion to show their contempt for their foreign lords - once the French, now the Americans - who brought them wealth, privilege, and the very idea of superiority. I don't know whether this will help you get on any better with your next ARVN lieutenant when the bullets are flying across the paddies, but it's offered in the hope that it might.

Joseph stopped writing, picked up Gary's letter and scanned it again until he came to the pa.s.sage describing the death of the ARVN lieutenant. He reread it slowly with a pained expression on his face, then sat and stared blankly at the wall in front of him. After a minute or two he picked up his pen, but it hovered indecisively over the page for a long time before he finally began writing again.

Your account of the death of the Vietnamese officer was very moving, and thinking back on similar experiences in my own life, I can guess how you must feel. Coupled with that I want to say how well I understand and sympathize with what comes through your letter between the lines as a growing fascination with Vietnam and its people. I'm choosing my words very carefully now and know how Sensitive you would be to my "interfering" again. (I've learned my lesson on that by the way; it goes without saying that I admire your courage in choosing the career you wanted and I'm d.a.m.ned impressed by the way you're getting ahead.) But I find I can't close this letter without a cautionary word not to let your heart run away with your head. I did, you see, and now I'm going to break another rule - one we've only just made - about unburdening myself and maybe I should add that my hand's shaking a little as I write this.

What led me to break up the family I now so dearly miss, you see, was an affaire de coeur in Vietnam when I was roughly the age you are now. I fell in love with the daughter of a mandarin. Her name was Lan - which means "orchid" -and in a rash moment I asked her to marry me. She accepted -- then changed her mind later because of her father. I managed after a struggle to put her out of my mind and later met and married your mother - but when 1 found myself in Saigon at the end of the Pacific War I met her again.

Joseph paused and wiped the sleeve of his kimono across his brow; he found the palms of his hands were damp too and he pressed them against his sides for a moment.

I never thought I'd be able to say this to you, Gary, and maybe I still couldn't face to face, but I discovered then to my amazement that I had a daughter I'd never met - your half sister. Her name is Tuyet; she was eight then but she'd been brought up secretly by another Vietnamese family in harrowing circ.u.mstances. From then on somehow I could never entirely push from my mind the feeling that I'd failed that little girl very badly indeed. Maybe that accounts for what you once called that "glazed look" in my eyes - my preoccupation if you like. I hasten to add I don't expect to make you feel less wronged by telling you this - but when [decided to part from your mother I hoped to marry Lan and offer your half sister a home too. In the event Lan died and Tuyet refused the offer I made and I've never seen her since. I tried to find her when I was in Saigon the last time but I had no luck.

All this is very painful to confess to you, Gary, and of course I dolt with no pride. My reason is to try to show you how very badly I need to set the record straight between you and me. I hope I'll get the chance sometime to get on terms with Mark too. You may have felt that the love of a father like me was never worth very much but it exists nevertheless - stronger now perhaps than ever before. So I hope you'll accept this baring of my heart in the spirit it's given. The effort of writing this I should say has left me feeling wrung out and I think I need a good stiff drink now - although it's four AM. So until I hear from you again, make sure you take d.a.m.ned good care of yourself.

Joseph thought for a moment before signing off, then added simply: "With love-Dad."

Pus.h.i.+ng the paper away from him, he pressed his knuckles hard against his eyes, then stood up and headed for the kitchen. As he did so the girl emerged from the shadows again at the side of his desk. For a second or two she stood staring at bins with a hurt expression in her eyes, holding a framed photograph clasped against the front of the embroidered court gown; then she stepped deliberately in front of him, barring his way. "I used to think when I first started coming here, Joseph, that I was happier in this room than I'd ever been in my whole life. But now I know I was wrong to feel like that." She turned the photograph around suddenly and held it towards him. "Is this who you think about when that strange look comes into your eyes?"

He stared at the photograph of Tuyet for a moment in silence.

"If it isn't, why keep a framed picture face-down in a drawer?"

"This is my daughter," he said, taking the picture from her. "I last saw her nine years ago and I find it too painful to see her likeness every day now." He walked slowly across the room to replace the photograph in the drawer, and when he turned around he found the girt standing with her head bowed. Suddenly her shoulders began to shake arid her hands flew to cover her face; but he watched her, pale-faced and impa.s.sive, from where he stood, leaning against the closed drawer, and he didn't move until she had dressed and left the house. When the sound of her car finally died away he returned to his desk, and in the deep stillness of the night he glanced through the letter he had written to Gary; but suddenly the shaming emotionalism of the final paragraph was too painful to read, and he closed his eyes tight. He remained standing like this for a long time, then he opened his eyes again, picked tip all the pages, tore them through and let them fall piece by piece into the wastepaper basket.

12.

"I must know what the American government's att.i.tude would be if there was a change of government in Vietnam in the very near future," said the tall, burly Vietnamese major general, addressing Guy Sherman slowly and deliberately in French. "My fellow generals and I are more aware than anybody just how rapidly the situation is deteriorating. The Strategic Hamlet program is collapsing in the delta, the government no longer has the support of the people, and unless action's taken soon, the war will be lost to the Viet Cong."

Despite the seriousness of his words General Duong Van Minh's face broke into his famous cavernous grin; all of his teeth except one in front had been ripped out by a j.a.panese torturer during the Second World War and he had never made any attempt to disguise the fact; his rawboned figure and his height he was close to six feet tall - also made him an unusually imposing figure for a Vietnamese and had earned him the nickname "Big Minh." He was a graduate of both the French Ecole Militare and the Fort Leavenworth General Staff School in the United States, arid Guy Sherman knew that this big, affable man also responded jovially to his Vietnamese nickname "Beo," which meant "fat boy."

As he looked at him, Guy wondered whether in view of his appearance the general might he grinning at the irony of their secret meeting taking place in a deserted dentist's office in the heart of Saigon. They had entered surrept.i.tiously by separate doors, and Guy had found Big Minh already seated in the dentist's chair. "You understand, don't you, general, that I'm here simply to listen to what you have to say and pa.s.s it on," said the American guardedly. "But before I say anything at all I'd need to know a lot more about your plans. Which other generals, for instance, support you? And how exactly do you plan to 'change' the government of President Diem?"

For several seconds the Vietnamese sat gazing speculatively at the CIA man, who remained standing; then he smiled wryly again. "We have three possible plans, Monsieur Sherman. First, we can a.s.sa.s.sinate his brothers Ngo Dinh Nhu and Ngo Dinh Canh simultaneously, leaving Diem alone in power. That's the easiest to accomplish. Second, we could throw a ring of steel around Saigon with various units under our command and move in that way. Or, third, we could bring about a direct confrontation in Saigon between our forces and units loyal to the government. Under this plan we would divide the city up into pockets and clean them out one by one." Big Minh shrugged his bull-like shoulders. "Nhu could count on perhaps five thousand troops remaining loyal to him and his brother - no more." Still smiling, he studied Guy Sherman's face intently as though trying to gauge his reaction.

"If you're waiting for me to state a preference for one of those plans," said Guy Sherman quietly, "we shall both be here a very long time."

Big Minh waved a dismissive hand. "My chief concern is to get an a.s.surance from you that the United States government will not try to thwart our plans. That will he sufficient. We do not expect or need specific active involvement from your side."

"But you still haven't told me who's with you."

"Major General Tran Van Don, the chairman of the Joint General Staff, Brigadier General Than Thien Khiem, the executive officer of the Joint General Staff, Major General Kim . ... need I continue?"

Guy Sherman pulled a notebook from his pocket and jotted down the names with slow deliberation before looking up at the general again. "May I ask why you speak again now of a great urgency? Why do you need to know Was.h.i.+ngton's reaction so quickly? At the end of August we expected a definite move from you - but for five weeks nothing has happened."

Again Big Minh shrugged his ample body in the depths of the dentist's chair. "There were difficulties. J, for one, was under close surveillance - some junior officers were arrested suddenly. But in these few weeks things have changed. Not only regimental commanders but even battalion and company commanders are now so angry with the regime that they are all working on coup plans of their own. Such rash plots by inexperienced officers could of course be a danger to our own plans - that's why we must act fast now."

"And if your plot's successful and both Nhu and Diem are overthrown, what then?" asked the American carefully.

"I've got no political ambitions for myself," replied Minh in a matter-of-fact tone. "Nor have any of the other staff officers. Immediately after the coup there'll be a two-tiered government structure. I will head a Military Committee as interim president. We'll oversee a cabinet composed mainly of civilians. My only purpose is to win the war - but to do this, a continuation of American military and economic aid at the present level is essential." His eyes glittered and he sat up in the chair, gripping its arms tightly with both hands. "At the present rate of one and a half million dollars a day, that is, Monsieur Sherman. Now do you understand the importance of my question to you?"

The CIA officer studied the face of the Vietnamese intently; laughter lines were etched deep into the round cheeks of the forty-seven-year-old general, but a certain coldness in his gaze gave him an air that was at once cherubic and ruthless. Big Minh, he knew, had made his reputation by crus.h.i.+ng the private armies of the Binh Xuyen and the Hoa Han sect for President Diem soon after he took office; he was known to be brave to the point of foolhardiness, a genuinely inspirational officer, and face to face with him alone for the first time, Guy Sherman could feel how that curious mixture of geniality and harshness might bind the men under him to his command. He understood too, suddenly why President Diem, ever conscious of the threat from his subordinates, had ten months earlier appointed Minh as "Military Adviser to the President," a meaningless desk job in the palace that had effectively separated the charismatic general from a power base of loyal regiments.

"Since I didn't know what you would say before I came here today you'll appreciate I'm not authorized to give specific answers about noninterference in your plans by the United States government," said Guy Sherman at last, choosing his words with meticulous care. "I'll report everything you've said to my superiors, of course. And you can rest a.s.sured this will go right back to the White House"

"Will it also go right back to that office filled with stuffed animal heads on the second floor of Gia Long Palace too?" Minh spoke in a deceptively mild voice, but his manner had suddenly changed and his eyes had become narrow slits of suspicion in his round face. "It's well enough known that your CIA chief of station is a close confidant of Ngo Dinh Nhu and his 'first lady.'" Minh paused significantly. "And other agents have been seen to visit his office frequently too. My fellow generals and myself have even wondered sometimes whether Nhu and Madame Nhu might be on the CIA payroll."

"Our present station chief, as you must know, has just been relieved of his post," said Guy Sherman shortly. "He left Saigon today."

"But that doesn't fully answer my question."

"You're reputed to have an exceptional grasp of politics for a soldier, General Minh. Amba.s.sador Nolting, who was a close confidant of President Diem, has recently been recalled - President Kennedy replaced him with Henry Cabot Lodge the day after the paG.o.da raids, remember? You surely have noticed that Amba.s.sador Lodge has deliberately kept his distance from President Diem since his arrival. The CIA station chief you refer to who knew Ngo Dinh Nhu well was removed at Mr. Lodge' specific request - those facts point clearly in a certain direction, don't they?"

"You're still avoiding answering my question, Monsieur Sherman."

"Sometimes," said the American, his face expressionless, "you just have to trust the United States."

Minh leaned backwards suddenly in the dentists' chair and stared at the ceiling, his big hands flexing from time to time on its leather arms. 'If we decide to take that risk, we shall obviously have to meet again," he said without looking at the CIA man. "I quite understand, Monsieur Sherman, that for now you are unable to comment on behalf of your government on what I've said - hut what is your private opinion?"

"I'm not paid to have private opinions, general," said Guy flatly. "Yes, yes," said the general, grinning broadly again. "I'm well aware of that - but nevertheless, if you were, what would your view he?"