The Quiet American Read online

  I turned at the High Commissioner’s house, where the Foreign Legion stood on guard in their white képis and their scarlet epaulettes, crossed by the Cathedral and came back by the dreary wall of the Vietnamese Sureté that seemed to smell of urine and injustice. And yet that too was a part of home, like the dark passages on upper floors one avoided in childhood. The new dirty magazines were out on the bookstalls near the quay—Tabu and Illusion, and the sailors were drinking beer on the pavement, an easy mark for a home-made bomb. I thought of Phuong, who would be haggling over the price of fish in the third street down on the left before going for her elevenses to the milk-bar (I always knew where she was in those days), and Pyle ran easily and naturally out of my mind. I didn’t even mention him to Phuong, when we sat down to lunch together in our room over the rue Catinat and she wore her best flowered silk robe because it was two years to a day since we had met in the Grand Monde in Cholon.

  II

  Neither of us mentioned him when we woke on the morning after his death. Phuong had risen before I was properly awake and had our tea ready. One is not jealous of the dead, and it seemed easy to me that morning to take up our old life together.

  ‘Will you stay tonight?’ I asked Phuong over the croissants as casually as I could.

  ‘I will have to fetch my box.’

  ‘The police may be there,’ I said. ‘I had better come with you.’ It was the nearest we came that day to speaking of Pyle.

  Pyle had a flat in a new villa near the rue Duranton, off one of those main streets which the French continually subdivided in honour of their generals—so that the rue de Gaulle became after the third intersection the rue Leclerc, and that again sooner or later would probably turn abruptly into the rue de Lattre. Somebody important must have been arriving from Europe by air, for there was a policeman facing the pavement every twenty yards along the route to the High Commissioner’s Residence.

  On the gravel drive to Pyle’s apartment were several motorcycles and a Vietnamese policeman examined my press-card. He wouldn’t allow Phuong into the house, so I went in search of a French officer. In Pyle’s bathroom Vigot was washing his hands with Pyle’s soap and drying them on Pyle’s towel. His tropical suit had a stain of oil on the sleeve—Pyle’s oil, I supposed.

  ‘Any news?’ I asked.

  ‘We found his car in the garage. It’s empty of petrol. He must have gone off last night in a trishaw—or in somebody else’s car. Perhaps the petrol was drained away.’

  ‘He might even have walked,’ I said. ‘You know what Americans are.’

  ‘Your car was burnt, wasn’t it?’ he went thoughtfully on. ‘You haven’t a new one yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s not an important point.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you any views?’ he asked.

  ‘Too many,’ I said.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well, he might have been murdered by the Vietminh. They have murdered plenty of people in Saigon. His body was found in the river by the bridge to Dakow—Vietminh territory when your police withdraw at night. Or he might have been killed by the Vietnamese Sureté—it’s been known. Perhaps they didn’t like his friends. Perhaps he was killed by Caodaists because he knew General Thé.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘They say so. Perhaps he was killed by General Thé because he knew the Caodaists. Perhaps he was killed by the Hoa-Haos for making passes at the General’s concubines. Perhaps he was just killed by someone who wanted his money.’

  ‘Or a simple case of jealousy,’ Vigot said.

  ‘Or perhaps by the French Sureté,’ I continued, ‘because they didn’t like his contacts. Are you really looking for the people who killed him?’

  ‘No,’ Vigot said. ‘I’m just making a report, that’s all. So long as it’s an act of war—well, there are thousands killed every year.’

  ‘You can rule me out,’ I said. ‘I’m not involved. Not involved,’ I repeated. It had been an article of my creed. The human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder, I would not be involved. My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opinion is a kind of action.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come for Phuong’s belongings. Your police wouldn’t let her in.’

  ‘Well, let us go and find them.’

  ‘It’s nice of you, Vigot.’

  Pyle had two rooms, a kitchen and bathroom. We went to the bedroom. I knew where Phuong would keep her box—under the bed. We pulled it out together; it contained her picture books. I took her few spare clothes out of the wardrobe, her two good robes and her spare trousers. One had a sense that they had been hanging there for a few hours only and didn’t belong, they were in passage like a butterfly in a room. In a drawer I found her small triangular culottes and her collection of scarves. There was really very little to put in the box, less than a week-end visitor’s at home.

  In the sitting-room there was a photograph of herself and Pyle. They had been photographed in the botanical gardens beside a large stone dragon. She held Pyle’s dog on a leash—a black chow with a black tongue. A too black dog. I put the photograph in her box. ‘What’s happened to the dog?’ I said.

  ‘It isn’t here. He may have taken it with him.’

  ‘Perhaps it will return and you can analyse the earth on its paws.’

  ‘I’m not Lecoq, or even Maigret, and there’s a war on.’

  I went across to the bookcase and examined the two rows of books—Pyle’s library. The Advance of Red China, The Challenge to Democracy, The Rôle of the West—these, I suppose, were the complete works of York Harding. There were a lot of Congressional Reports, a Vietnamese phrase book, a history of the War in the Philippines, a Modern Library Shakespeare. On what did he relax? I found his light reading on another shelf: a portable Thomas Wolfe and a mysterious anthology called The Triumph of Life and a selection of American poetry. There was also a book of chess problems. It didn’t seem much for the end of the working day, but, after all, he had had Phuong. Tucked away behind the anthology there was a paper-backed book called The Physiology of Marriage. Perhaps he was studying sex, as he had studied the East, on paper. And the keyword was marriage. Pyle believed in being involved.

  His desk was quite bare. ‘You’ve made a clean sweep,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ Vigot said, ‘I had to take charge of these on behalf of the American Legation. You know how quickly rumour spreads. There might have been looting. I had all his papers sealed up.’ He said it seriously without even smiling.

  ‘Anything damaging?’

  ‘We can’t afford to find anything damaging against an ally,’ Vigot said.

  ‘Would you mind if I took one of these books—as a keepsake?’

  ‘I’ll look the other way.’

  I chose York Harding’s The Rôle of the West and packed it in the box with Phuong’s clothes.

  ‘As a friend,’ Vigot said, ‘is there nothing you could tell me in confidence? My report’s all tied up. He was murdered by the Communists. Perhaps the beginning of a campaign against American aid. But between you and me—listen, it’s dry talking, what about a vermouth cassis round the corner?’

  ‘Too early.’

  ‘He didn’t confide anything to you the last time he saw you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Yesterday morning. After the big bang.’

  He paused to let my reply sink in—to my mind, not to his: he interrogated fairly. ‘You were out when he called on you last night?’

  ‘Last night? I must have been. I didn’t think . . .’

  ‘You may be wanting an exit visa. You know we could delay it indefinitely.’

  ‘Do you really believe,’ I said, ‘that I want to go home?’

  Vigot looked through the window at the bright cloudless day. He said sadly, ‘Most people do.’
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  ‘I like it here. At home there are—problems.’

  ‘Merde,’ Vigot said, ‘here’s the American Economic Attaché.’ He repeated with sarcasm, ‘Economic Attaché.’

  ‘I’d better be off. He’ll want to seal me up too.’

  Vigot said wearily, ‘I wish you luck. He’ll have a terrible lot to say to me.’

  The Economic Attaché was standing by his Packard when I came out, trying to explain something to his driver. He was a stout middle-aged man with an exaggerated bottom and a face that looked as if it never needed a razor. He called out, ‘Fowler. Could you explain to this darned driver . . . ?’

  I explained.

  He said, ‘But that’s just what I told him, but he always pretends not to understand French.’

  ‘It may be a matter of accent.’

  ‘I was three years in Paris. My accent’s good enough for one of these darned Vietnamese.’

  ‘The voice of Democracy,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I expect it’s a book by York Harding.’

  ‘I don’t get you.’ He took a suspicious look at the box I carried. ‘What’ve you got there?’ he said.

  ‘Two pairs of white silk trousers, two silk robes, some girl’s underpants—three pairs, I think. All home products. No American aid.’

  ‘Have you been up there?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You heard the news?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ he said, ‘terrible.’

  ‘I expect the Minister’s very disturbed.’

  ‘I should say. He’s with the High Commissioner now, and he’s asked for an interview with the President.’ He put his hand on my arm and walked me away from the cars. ‘You knew young Pyle well, didn’t you? I can’t get over a thing like that happening to him. I knew his father. Professor Harold C. Pyle—you’ll have heard of him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s the world authority on underwater erosion. Didn’t you see his picture on the cover of Time the other month?’

  ‘Oh, I think I remember. A crumbling cliff in the background and gold-rimmed glasses in the foreground.’

  ‘That’s him. I had to draft the cable home. It was terrible. I loved that boy like he was my son.’

  ‘That makes you closely related to his father.’

  He turned his wet brown eyes on me. He said, ‘What’s getting you? That’s not the way to talk when a fine young fellow . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Death takes people in different ways.’ Perhaps he had really loved Pyle. ‘What did you say in your cable?’ I asked.

  He replied seriously and literally, ‘“Grieved to report your son died a soldier’s death in cause of Democracy.” The Minister signed it.’

  ‘A soldier’s death,’ I said. ‘Mightn’t that prove a bit confusing? I mean to the folks at home. The Economic Aid Mission doesn’t sound like the Army. Do you get Purple Hearts?’

  He said in a low voice, tense with ambiguity, ‘He had special duties.’

  ‘Oh yes, we all guessed that.’

  ‘He didn’t talk, did he?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, and Vigot’s phrase came back to me, ‘He was a very quiet American.’

  ‘Have you any hunch,’ he asked, ‘why they killed him? and who?’

  Suddenly I was angry; I was tired of the whole pack of them with their private stores of Coca-Cola and their portable hospitals and their too wide cars and their not quite latest guns. I said, ‘Yes. They killed him because he was too innocent to live. He was young and ignorant and silly and he got involved. He had no more of a notion than any of you what the whole affair’s about, and you gave him money and York Harding’s books on the East and said, “Go ahead. Win the East for Democracy.” He never saw anything he hadn’t heard in a lecture-hall, and his writers and his lecturers made a fool of him. When he saw a dead body he couldn’t even see the wounds. A Red menace, a soldier of democracy.’

  ‘I thought you were his friend,’ he said in a tone of reproach.

  ‘I was his friend. I’d have liked to see him reading the Sunday supplements at home and following the baseball. I’d have liked to see him safe with a standardized American girl who subscribed to the Book Club.’

  He cleared his throat with embarrassment. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I’d forgotten that unfortunate business. I was quite on your side, Fowler. He behaved very badly. I don’t mind telling you I had a long talk with him about the girl. You see, I had the advantage of knowing Professor and Mrs Pyle.’

  I said, ‘Vigot’s waiting,’ and walked away. For the first time he spotted Phuong and when I looked back at him he was watching me with pained perplexity: an eternal brother who didn’t understand.

  3

  I

  The first time Pyle met Phuong was again at the Continental, perhaps two months after his arrival. It was the early evening, in the momentary cool which came when the sun had just gone down, and the candles were lit on the stalls in the side streets. The dice rattled on the tables where the French were playing Quatre Cent Vingt-et-un and the girls in the white silk trousers bicycled home down the rue Catinat. Phuong was drinking a glass of orange juice and I was having a beer and we sat in silence, content to be together. Then Pyle came tentatively across, and I introduced them. He had a way of staring hard at a girl as though he hadn’t seen one before and then blushing. ‘I was wondering whether you and your lady,’ Pyle said, ‘would step across and join my table. One of our attachés . . .’

  It was the Economic Attaché. He beamed down at us from the terrace above, a great warm welcoming smile, full of confidence, like the man who keeps his friends because he uses the right deodorants. I had heard him called Joe a number of times, but I had never learnt his surname. He made a noisy show of pulling out chairs and calling for the waiter, though all that activity could possibly produce at the Continental was a choice of beer, brandy-and-soda or vermouth cassis. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Fowler,’ he said. ‘We are waiting for the boys back from Hanoi. There seems to have been quite a battle. Weren’t you with them?’

  ‘I’m tired of flying four hours for a Press Conference,’ I said.

  He looked at me with disapproval. He said, ‘These guys are real keen. Why, I expect they could earn twice as much in business or on the radio without any risk.’

  ‘They might have to work,’ I said.

  ‘They seem to sniff the battle like war-horses,’ he went on exultantly, paying no attention to words he didn’t like. ‘Bill Granger—you can’t keep him out of a scrap.’

  ‘I expect you’re right. I saw him in one the other evening at the bar of the Sporting.’

  ‘You know very well I didn’t mean that.’

  Two trishaw drivers came pedalling furiously down the rue Catinat and drew up in a photo-finish outside the Continental. In the first was Granger. The other contained a small, grey, silent heap which Granger now began to pull out on to the pavement. ‘Oh, come on, Mick,’ he said, ‘come on.’ Then he began to argue with his driver about the fare. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take it or leave it,’ and flung five times the correct amount into the street for the man to stoop for.

  The Economic Attaché said nervously, ‘I guess these boys deserve a little relaxation.’

  Granger flung his burden on to a chair. Then he noticed Phuong. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you old so-and-so, Joe. Where did you find her? Didn’t know you had a whistle in you. Sorry, got to find the can. Look after Mick.’

  ‘Rough soldierly manners,’ I said.

  Pyle said earnestly, blushing again, ‘I wouldn’t have invited you two over if I’d thought . . .’

  The grey heap stirred in the chair and the head fell on the table as though it wasn’t attached. It sighed, a long whistling sigh of infinite tedium, and lay still.

  ‘Do you know him?’ I asked Pyle.

  ‘No. Isn’t he one of the Press?’

  ‘I heard Bill call him Mic
k,’ the Economic Attaché said.

  ‘Isn’t there a new U.P. correspondent?’

  ‘It’s not him. I know him. What about your Economic Mission? You can’t know all your people—there are hundreds of them.’

  ‘I don’t think he belongs,’ the Economic Attaché said. ‘I can’t recollect him.’

  ‘We might find his identity card,’ Pyle suggested.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t wake him. One drunk’s enough. Anyway Granger will know.’

  But he didn’t. He came gloomily back from the lavatory. ‘Who’s the dame?’ he asked morosely.

  ‘Miss Phuong is a friend of Fowler’s,’ Pyle said stiffly. ‘We want to know who . . .’

  ‘Where’d he find her? You got to be careful in this town.’ He added gloomily, ‘Thank God for penicillin.’

  ‘Bill,’ the Economic Attaché said, ‘we want to know who Mick is.’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘But you brought him here.’

  “The Frogs can’t take Scotch. He passed out.’

  ‘Is he French? I thought you called him Mick.’

  ‘Had to call him something,’ Granger said. He leant over to Phuong and said, ‘Here. You. Have another glass of orange? Got a date tonight?’

  I said, ‘She’s got a date every night.’

  The Economic Attaché said hurriedly, ‘How’s the war, Bill?’

  ‘Great victory north-west of Hanoi. French recaptured two villages they never told us they’d lost. Heavy Vietminh casualties. Haven’t been able to count their own yet but will let us know in a week or two.’

  The Economic Attaché said, ‘There’s a rumour that the Vietminh have broken into Phat Diem, burned the Cathedral, chased out the Bishop.’

  ‘They wouldn’t tell us about that in Hanoi. That’s not a victory.’

  ‘One of our medical teams couldn’t get beyond Nam Dinh,’ Pyle said.

  ‘You didn’t get down as far as that, Bill?’ the Economic Attaché asked.