seven friends sailing the seas from Australia to Lisbon, then to the Cote d’Azur, Sicily, and to an island called Paros in the Aegean. Perhaps I might rent a cottage in Austria, perhaps near a town called Freistadt just across the Czechoslovakian border. Freistadt would be the ideal place. The mountains were formidable, the air was clean, the town had a dry moat around it, the beer was the best in the world, the girls were not communists, and they had blue eyes and blond hair and big bosoms. There would be skiing in the winter and hiking and swimming in the summer. I would sleep alone when I wanted to, not in a barracks and not along a trail junction with nineteen GIs.
The thought of Freistadt, Austria, turned me to thinking about Prague, Czechoslovakia, where I’d spent a summer trying to study. I remembered an evening in July of 1967. I’d been drinking beer with a young Czech student, an economics specialist. Walking back from the hostinec , the fellow pointed out a poster that covered three square feet on a cement wall. The poster depicted three terrified Vietnamese girls. They were running from the bombs of an American B-52 bomber. In the background, a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun was blasting the planes with red fire. A clenched fist in the foreground.
The Czech asked what I thought of it. I told him I was ambivalent. I didn’t know. Perhaps the bombs were falling for good reason.
He smiled. “I have an invitation to extend, a proposition for you. If you find it distasteful, just say so, but as an interested bystander I hope you’ll accept. You see, my roommate is from North Vietnam. He studies economics here at the university. I wonder if you’d like to talk with him tonight.” He chuckled. “Perhaps you two can negotiate a settlement, who knows.”
It was a three-hour conversation. With my Czech friend helping with the translation, we carried on in French, Czech, German, and English. The fellow was cordial, a short and reserved man who told me his name was Li and offered me a seat on his bed. I asked if he thought Americans were evil, and he thought a while before he said no. He asked me the same question and I said no, quickly. I asked if the North Vietnamese were not the aggressors in the war. He laughed and stated that of course the opposite was the case. They were defending Vietnam from American aggression. I asked if the North Vietnamese were not sending troops to the South in order to establish a communist regime in Saigon, and he laughed again, nervously, and informed me that to speak of a divided Vietnam was historically and politically incorrect. I asked Li if he believed that President Johnson was an evil man, another Hitler. Personally, he said, he didn’t believe so. Johnson was misguided and wrong. But he added that most North Vietnamese were not so lenient.
“What else can they think when they see your airplanes killing people? They put the blame on the man who orders the flights.”
We talked about democracy, and totalitarianism, and the fellow argued that the government in Hanoi could be considered a wartime democracy. Stability, he said, was essential. We argued some about that, and my Czech friend joined in, taking my side.
When I left him, Li shook my hand and told me he was a lieutenant in the North Vietnamese Army. He hoped we would not meet again. That was in 1967.
I roused Reno out for the final watch. It was four-thirty and the sky was lighting up and the worst was over. Reno lay on his back. His eyes were barely slit, and there was no way to be sure he was awake. I nudged him again, and he told me to relax and go to sleep. I put the Claymore firing device beside him, brushed his foot a little as I lay down, and closed my eyes. I was nearly asleep when I remembered the wrist-watch. I sat up and handed it out toward him. He was wheezing, sound asleep. I kicked him, and he sat up, lit a cigarette, took the wristwatch, and sat there in a daze, rocking on his haunches and
The thought of Freistadt, Austria, turned me to thinking about Prague, Czechoslovakia, where I’d spent a summer trying to study. I remembered an evening in July of 1967. I’d been drinking beer with a young Czech student, an economics specialist. Walking back from the hostinec , the fellow pointed out a poster that covered three square feet on a cement wall. The poster depicted three terrified Vietnamese girls. They were running from the bombs of an American B-52 bomber. In the background, a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun was blasting the planes with red fire. A clenched fist in the foreground.
The Czech asked what I thought of it. I told him I was ambivalent. I didn’t know. Perhaps the bombs were falling for good reason.
He smiled. “I have an invitation to extend, a proposition for you. If you find it distasteful, just say so, but as an interested bystander I hope you’ll accept. You see, my roommate is from North Vietnam. He studies economics here at the university. I wonder if you’d like to talk with him tonight.” He chuckled. “Perhaps you two can negotiate a settlement, who knows.”
It was a three-hour conversation. With my Czech friend helping with the translation, we carried on in French, Czech, German, and English. The fellow was cordial, a short and reserved man who told me his name was Li and offered me a seat on his bed. I asked if he thought Americans were evil, and he thought a while before he said no. He asked me the same question and I said no, quickly. I asked if the North Vietnamese were not the aggressors in the war. He laughed and stated that of course the opposite was the case. They were defending Vietnam from American aggression. I asked if the North Vietnamese were not sending troops to the South in order to establish a communist regime in Saigon, and he laughed again, nervously, and informed me that to speak of a divided Vietnam was historically and politically incorrect. I asked Li if he believed that President Johnson was an evil man, another Hitler. Personally, he said, he didn’t believe so. Johnson was misguided and wrong. But he added that most North Vietnamese were not so lenient.
“What else can they think when they see your airplanes killing people? They put the blame on the man who orders the flights.”
We talked about democracy, and totalitarianism, and the fellow argued that the government in Hanoi could be considered a wartime democracy. Stability, he said, was essential. We argued some about that, and my Czech friend joined in, taking my side.
When I left him, Li shook my hand and told me he was a lieutenant in the North Vietnamese Army. He hoped we would not meet again. That was in 1967.
I roused Reno out for the final watch. It was four-thirty and the sky was lighting up and the worst was over. Reno lay on his back. His eyes were barely slit, and there was no way to be sure he was awake. I nudged him again, and he told me to relax and go to sleep. I put the Claymore firing device beside him, brushed his foot a little as I lay down, and closed my eyes. I was nearly asleep when I remembered the wrist-watch. I sat up and handed it out toward him. He was wheezing, sound asleep. I kicked him, and he sat up, lit a cigarette, took the wristwatch, and sat there in a daze, rocking on his haunches and
Similar Books
