Fop 01

Forward O Peasant By Maclean J Storer http://www.amazon.com/Forward-O-Peasant-Maclean-Storer/dp/0980514908 Chapter 1

Colonel Nguyen Van Hanh, Deputy Minister of Health, Regional President of the Fatherland Front, Hero American Killer, Leader of the Southern Struggle Committee To Eradicate Bird Flu, four-flower two-star, hated the month of January. For him, it did not represent renewal and regeneration, because, like many older Vietnamese, he ignored the Western New Year and waited for the traditional lunar new year at Tet. This always fell early in the year, and, as head of an extended family, he always found it an expensive exercise. Thus the whole of January was spent anxiously seeing how much his wife would manage to waste on unimportant fripperies. Now he had come to hate December as well. Vietnam's opening up meant that the country now aped all sorts of Western customs, including the quite alien Christmas, even down to the deployment of department store Santa-ettes, who pranced around alluringly in cute little red dresses and hats with bells on. In Colonel Hanh's view, it was just another excuse for needless waste. This year, it had been even worse, with the news that his feckless son Cuong had seduced one of the department-store Santa-ettes and made her pregnant. Colonel Hanh thought he'd heard some rhythmic tinkling coming from his son's bedroom one afternoon, but hadn't bothered to check. He would have to keep a closer eye on the boy. That had cost even more money, and had caused his wife to lose face among the neighbours, which in turn had brought her round to the subject of having a facelift, which was the new status symbol among middle-aged women in Saigon. It was the kind of home life that made long days at the office seem pleasurable by comparison, especially since he had acquired a gift case of North Korean cognac. That morning had been typical. He had been trying to eat his breakfast soup in peace, but his wife would not stop haranguing him about subjects of varying irrelevance. She was particularly upset that the neighbours had made an effort to steal one of her shitzu puppies by shinning up the outside of their garden wall and trying to scoop the thing up in a fishing net.

“Next time, just shoot them," Colonel Hanh had grunted, a remark that later, sitting in his office, he began to regret having made, in case his wife took him literally. His wife was no stranger to firearms or spontaneous acts of rage, and despite his rank of deputy minister, it would be embarrassing to find himself blamed, however indirectly, for the shooting of peasants.

Then his office telephone rang. He scowled at it. It was not meant to ring. It was there for him to call other people, not for them to call him. A direct phone call could only mean a crisis. It was his niece Xuan on the line, telling him that Harald Karlsson had gone. “Gone where?" Colonel Hanh croaked. “Gone, as in gone for good. Cleared his flat out and left. We are checking to see if he is still in the country." “What are we going to do?" asked Colonel Hanh, who was not of the world's decisive thinkers. Even thirty-five years earlier, when he had been a reluctant conscript in Hero Battalion 336, it had been generally conceded that he was unfit for command. He was perfectly adequate at smearing shit on sharpened bamboo sticks or finding trees with plentiful bark to eat, but not leadership material. Fortunately, his sister had married a lieutenant who could both drive a tank and do arithmetic, and their daughter, Xuan, had proved to be blessed with similar intelligence. He hoped she would have a solution. Harald Karlsson, fool that he was, worked for some annoying U.N. agency monitoring the appropriate use of aid money in Vietnam, and his monthly signatures on the aid cheques, which came directly to Colonel Hanh, were crucial. “We cannot admit that he has simply left of his own accord," said Xuan. “That would make us look bad. We will need to pretend that he has been killed in a motorbike accident or died of a rare disease." “Fine," said Colonel Hanh, still brooding on the U.N.'s inquisitive arrogance. So what if several thousand doses of polio vaccine wound up on the black market? Did they have the right to interfere? “And then we must ask for a replacement," said Xuan, as though petitioning a storekeeper for a new light bulb. “We don't want any delays." “A delay would be intolerable," said Colonel Hanh. “The next aid cheque is nearly due." “I will take the necessary steps immediately," said Xuan.

Colonel Hanh put down the phone and sighed. His eye fell on a large hardback volume on his desk entitled Achievements and Directions of the Communist Party of Vietnam, a title which even he recognisedas a contradiction in terms.

High office was tiring. The cares of his job were many. The air pollution was making his cough worse. And his back was still hurting. It was early in the day, but what the hell. He eased himself out of his chair with a grunt and headed for the cupboard where he kept the cognac. A glass of Old Pyongyang would go down perfectly.

****

With no hesitation, Xuan got to work. It was not her inclination to waste time querying the motives of Harald Karlsson in disappearing. It was enough that he had gone, and that his disappearance was an insidious threat to national security. Humming The Red Star Sparkles As I Go Off To War, she prepared a fax to send to the London headquarters of the United Nations Mission on Education and Training, asking them to supply a representative, in-country, one, to replace Harald Karlsson. That done, she arranged Karlsson's death by visiting the Saigon branch of the PA-18 Anti-Foreigner police and getting a bogus accident report, followed by a trip to the Cho Ray hospital for a bogus medical report. When she had finished her rounds, she carefully placed the documents in a green folder. It wasn't likely that the replacement UNMET representative would even look at them, but it was best to be careful, for the sake of the Fatherland. But it was odd, the way Karlsson had disappeared. Perhaps it was the result of the stress he had caused himself by beginning to take an interest in his work, instead of just signing the aid cheques and going off to get drunk and commit social evils in girlie bars. She put the green folder in her desk and locked it. Her watch told her it was six o'clock in the evening, which meant it was nine o'clock in the morning in London. It was the perfect time to send off a fax and get a quick reply. Even more so, it was important they made sure they chose the right person for the job.

***** “UNMET has given us three names," said Xuan early the next morning, distributing photocopies around the table in Colonel Hanh's office. “A Russian, an American and an Englishman."

“Forget the Russian," snapped Colonel Hanh, looking porcine at the end of the table. “He'll want a cut." “A cut of what?" asked a young, sharp-featured man, whose name was Dzung. Nominally Colonel Hanh's executive assistant, he disdained the old man as a buffoon and was always ready to upset him whenever possible. “And I don't like the English," went on Colonel Hanh. “The American will do. After what his country did to us, he will not have the gall to interfere." “It's a woman," said Dzung. “Her name is Tina Nguyen." “What?" said Colonel Hanh, glaring at him. “Are you trying to be funny?" The last thing they needed was an American of Vietnamese background. They were the worst. Her parents would have been parasitic bourgeois landlords who had slunk out of the country instead of welcoming the Revolution, and were no doubt even now holed up in their lair in America plotting revenge against the Fatherland. There was no telling what damage the woman could do if she was put in charge of disbursing aid funds. “She is unacceptable," said Colonel Hanh. Xuan was disappointed. She would have preferred a woman -- any woman -- to the shambling, cretinous inebriate that the man would inevitably turn out to be, if he was like other Western men in Saigon. “It must be the Englishman, then," said Dzung. “What are his details?" “He is an economist, thirty-one years old, and has worked for UNMET for three years," Xuan translated from her photocopy. “He has just completed a U.N. report on the need to give extra development funds to impoverished countries." “Good, good," said Colonel Hanh heartily. “He sounds intelligent," said Dzung, unable to keep a note of concern out of his voice. “We can hardly give that as a reason for rejecting him," said Xuan, fixing Dzung with a stare. “UNMET might think we had something to hide." Dzung looked down at his photocopy, and Xuan decided to try again. “I'd rather we chose the American woman," she said. “She will have been less susceptible to the insidious nature of hostile Western influences." “Out of the question," said Colonel Hanh. “By leaving the country, her family has demonstrated counter-revolutionary tendencies." It was very trying that they had to replace Harald Karlsson at all. He had possessed all the qualities that make an excellent U.N. representative in Vietnam --- he was not

intelligent, he drank himself into a stupor every day, rarely if ever looked at official papers and was happy to be told what to do. His fetish for sleeping with as many young Vietnamese women as possible on a commercial basis was a notable social evil, but something they could overlook, given his other sterling qualities. It was truly a pity that he had had an attack of conscience, or whatever it was that had caused him to start nosing about, and subsequently to leave without saying goodbye. “Yes, it will have to be the Englishman," said Colonel Hanh, scowling. Xuan took out a Vinabiro ballpoint pen and carefully circled the name: “Phillip Jonathan Snow, PhD, Economics, London."