Just a Few Notes About Vietnam (Part 32)

Leaving Vietnam (Part 2)

"Hey, GI! You looking for Dang?" A young boy on a bicycle. I squint my eyes and look at him.

"Yeh, we were having a little talk."

"You come with me, GI."

I follow him for 20 or so blocks through the dark, narrow streets of the old city. Nha Trang has been one of my favorite cities since I arrived in Vietnam a year earlier. A coastal resort city during the French colonial period, its French architecture has hardly suffered during the years of war and the beaches along that section of the South China Sea are wonderful. But Nha Trang has changed since the Tet Offensive of 1968. It's a spookier place late at night and the young boy and I seem to be the only two people on the street.

The young boy. He seems about 12 years old and I assume Dang has asked him to show me the way to her home. So, I follow him.

When we get to the house, the boy points to a stairway on the outside leading up to the second floor. "You wait for me," I say.

When I knock on the door, Dang opens it. Wearing flannel PJs and looking as if she has just climbed out of the shower, she is obviously surprised to see me. I laugh and say "Surprise!" Her response puzzles me. I would have expected almost any reaction from mild amusement to frigid hostility, what I see is fear.

She looks down the stairs and sees the boy grinning up at her. Her dark eyes fasten on mine and she whispers, "Xin anh di (please go)." "Tai sao? (Why?)," I ask. And she explains how being seen with an American could hurt her reputation so much that she might have to become a prostitute just to survive.

I leave. As I said, I am not looking for leased sex, but I had enjoyed the conversation at the Doc Lap. I hope she got along okay after I left Nha Trang and Vietnam, but have no way of knowing. She probably did become a prostitute; I hope not.

When I get back down the stairs, I tell the boy to take me to a house where it is safe for Americans to sleep and he leads me another 15 or more blocks through the narrow streets of old Touraine.

I knock on the door of a small house and an older woman answers. "All girls in use," she says.

"I don't need a girl, just a place to sleep," I tell her. She nods and I pay the boy a few dollars for his assistance and go into the house. The woman leads me to a narrow cot in the middle of a small room that has ten narrow beds surrounded by scrim-like material, cloth you can see through. All of the beds are occupied and some of them by Americans who are still getting their money's worth from the women they have paid. Not a pretty sight. And the sounds are worse.

I nod to the woman, give her ten dollars and lie down on the cot. Almost immediately, a girl who can not be more than 12 or 13 climbs into the bed with me. "You fuck me, GI? Only ten dollar."

I get up immediately and pull her out of the bed. I give her ten dollars and tell her to go to sleep somewhere. And then, with the sound of working women and men making the beast with two backs, I cry a little bit, fall asleep.

The next morning, when I get on the plane, I think I am leaving Vietnam forever, but I don't believe anyone who was there ever really leaves, not all the way.