I could see water … sometimes in the distance, sometimes right alongside us. I had decided I wouldn’t ask the old man where we were going or how long it would take to get there. I figured he wouldn’t answer anyway and if he did, it would be one of those answers that didn’t make any sense.
He was like he’d been that first night in Saigon. Looking at everything as we drove, his ass on barbecue coals — big-time intense.
More iPod music. We passed rice paddies, and little villages, (the huts at last), and fields of crops that I didn’t recognize. And, of course, we went through jungle — although most of that was just on the edges, so it didn’t look like much more than a big forest. Which, come to think of it, is what jungle is, right?
We were on something called the AH 1 — the old man did tell me that much. A main highway in Vietnam. We were on that road for about five hours — two stops — one for a pee break, the other for coffee that had the colour of a urine sample and a taste that didn’t convince me it wasn’t.
I was bored, and I was getting stiff from the back seat of the Land Rover. We were in a sort of mountain range, so the view was pretty good for a while. The ocean, if that’s what it was, was below us now and still on our right. Endless dense, bushy looking forest to our left. As I shifted my body for the fiftieth time, I could see we were approaching a big place. Civilization. The old man turned around and looked at me for the first time since we’d left Ho Chi Minh City.
“Da Nang. Big air base during the war.”
That was it. He turned back and faced the front again. Yeah, thanks for the in-depth guided tour. I pretty well know everything there is to know now.
We came down out of the mountain range and onto flatter ground. Just before we got to the edge of the city, we left the AH 1 and headed west toward some hills, more mountains and jungle terrain off in the distance. This was a shorter leg of the trip, less than an hour until we turned right into what looked like a gravel driveway except that it went for quite a ways. When we stopped, I wasn’t sure why. Then I noticed what looked like a camp tucked into some trees.
A couple of tents, pretty big ones. A Vietnamese woman standing by a big campfire between the tents. There was a big pot over the fire, and she was looking into it. Didn’t look up at us at all.
You ever see the play Macbeth, you know, Shakespeare? They did it at our school last year — I ran the lights for it. The woman by the fire looked like one of the witches from Macbeth. Just needed two more witches and you could have had that …
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
It’s not like she was ugly or nasty looking; it’s just that standing there all bent over and stirring whatever was in the big pot that was sitting over the fire, well, that’s what she reminded me of. Mr. Vinh turned off the Land Rover. He and the old man climbed out.
I pulled my earphones, put the iPod into my backpack, and followed them out into the outdoors … and what felt like a sauna. I got my T-shirt and pulled it on over my head. Modesty — there was a lady present.
Mr. Vinh walked over and looked into the pot. Grunted. I didn’t know if the grunt meant, mmm, delicious or what is that slop? I could smell whatever it was she was cooking, and I would have said somewhere in between.
The old man said something to Mr. Vinh, who shook his head and said something back. The old man spoke again, I think he said the same thing that he’d said before, but this time he threw in a bunch of gestures and pointing, somewhere into the brush behind the camp. Mr Vinh responded with some arm waving and pointing of his own. His pointing was at the pot. My guess was that the old man wanted to get going, and Mr. Vinh wanted to sample whatever was on the menu first.
The lady stirred some more, but still hadn’t looked up at any of us. She said something, and that set Mr. Vinh off again with yelling and more waving.
The old man shook his head and walked over to me. Pissed off. “Might as well sit down. He wants to eat before we go on.”
I was with Mr. Vinh on this one — especially if what we were going to eat was edible — meaning not noodles.
“Sit down where?” I looked around. There was a shortage of lawn chairs, picnic tables and blankets.
“On the goddamn ground.”
Okay, that clinched it, the old man was not a happy dude.
I found a spot where there were maybe three blades of grass and a couple of weeds and sat. Mr. Vinh brought me a wooden bowl and chopsticks.
Noodles. Just kill me now.
“What a nice surprise,” I told him.
The old man helped himself to a bowl of the noodles, threw me a canteen of water from his duffel bag and one of our sandwiches. He sat next to me.
“Don’t take all day eating that.”
“You know something, you’re starting to be a pain in the ass to be around.”
He set his bowl down, and I figured I was about to find out just how tough this sixty-some-year-old guy was. I waited to get hit.
He shrugged. “You know something — you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m way over the top here. Sorry. Enjoy the noodles, I know they’re your favourite.” He grinned at me.
“That Mr. Vinh’s wife?”
He nodded, slurped noodles. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
We ate. The noodles weren’t bad. There was other stuff mixed in with them, vegetables of some kind — no bugs. The sandwiches were tomato. Kind of plain.
“You fight around here? Some battle?”
He nodded. “Among other places. This was the last one.”
“Last one for you? Or of the whole war?”
“Last one for me. Tal was in more shit after this.”
I’d almost forgotten about Tal.
The old man was working the contents of his bowl pretty hard and not looking at me. I was starting to figure out his signals. He didn’t want to talk anymore. I finished the noodles, got up, and took my bowl and chopsticks to the lady, who was still busy with the pot on the fire.
“Thanks, Mrs. Vinh. Excellent noodles.”
She didn’t say anything, but she did look up. First time she’d done that. Grunted. That seemed to be an important part of the Vinhs’ vocabulary. I grunted back at her, hoping I was being polite.
She went back to work. Mr. Vinh was sitting close to the fire, eating. I wondered when Mrs. Vinh ate.
The old man came over to where I was. He looked at Mr. Vinh. “Ready to go?”
Mr. Vinh stood up. Threw the last of his noodles on the ground. Didn’t look happy — although I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell when either of the Vinhs were happy.
“You might want to use the facilities before we go.” The old man pointed at the edge of the jungle out behind the tents. “And use this — generously.” He passed me a can of mosquito spray.
“I’m fine on the bathroom thing, but I will have a shot of that.”
I sprayed my arms, the backs of my hands, and a little around my neck, basically exposed skin. The old man grabbed the can out of my hands and started spraying me like it was bathroom spray and I was a bad smell.
“Okay, take it easy.” I backed away. “That stuff’s toxic.”
“So are the mosquitoes.”
“What now?” I asked as he sprayed himself.
“A little hike.” The old man heaved one of the duffel bags up over his shoulder. Mr. Vinh did the same thing with the other one. I noticed he had the machete-looking thing in one hand. I hoped it was