The Sympathizer

Near dawn the grizzled captain halted our trek, at a spot the Lao farmer said was isolated and rarely visited by the inhabitants of this borderland. Our resting place was on the peak of a hill, and under the indifferent cajeputs we spread our ponchos and covered ourselves with hooded capes of netting into which we had woven palm fronds. I lay down with my head on my rucksack, which, besides my rations, contained Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction, tucked away in my rucksack’s false bottom in case I ever needed it again. Two or three of us stayed awake for shifts of three hours, and it was my misfortune to be assigned to one of the middle shifts. It seemed that I had barely managed to fall asleep with the brim of my hat on my face when the hefty machine gunner shook my shoulder and exhaled his horrendous bacterial breath all over my face, informing me that it was my turn for sentry duty. The sun was high in the sky and my throat was parched. I could see the Mekong in the far distance through my binoculars, a brown belt dividing the earth’s green torso. I could see question marks and exclamation points of woodsmoke issuing from farmhouses and brick factories. I could see bare-shinned farmers wading after their water buffalos, fetlock deep in the muddy water of rice paddies. I could see countryside roads and paths trafficked by vehicles that, from a distance, moved with the tortured slowness of arthritic turtles. I could see the crumbling sandstone ruins of an ancient temple, erected long ago by some fallen race, overseen by the crowned head of some forgotten tyrant, blank eyes blinded by the waste of his empire. I could see the entire lay of the land, naked body exposed in sunlight and resembling not at all the mysterious creature of night, and suddenly a tremendous longing seized me with such force that the land itself lost focus and trembled, and I realized with equal parts amazement and dread that for all the essentials we had brought with us, none of us had brought a drop of liquor.

The second night did not proceed much as the first. It was not clear to me whether I walked that night or whether I simply hung on to a beast bucking and heaving under me. A tide of bile rose and fell in my throat, my ears swelled from my head, and I shivered as if it were wintertime. When I looked up I caught a glimpse of the stars through the branches, swirling snowflakes trapped within the glass of a snow globe. Sonny and the crapulent major laughed faintly as they watched me from outside that snow globe and shook it with their giant hands. The only solid thing anchoring me to the material world was the rifle in my hands, for my feet could not feel the ground. I gripped the AK-47 as I had Lana’s arms the night after I had left Sonny’s place. She had not looked surprised on opening the door, for she had always known I was coming back. I had not told the General what Lana and I had done but I should have. There was one thing he could never do and I had done it, for having just killed a man nothing was forbidden from me, not even what belonged to or issued from him. Even the scent of the forest was her scent, and when I shrugged off my rucksack and sat down between Bon and the affectless lieutenant in the midst of a bamboo grove, the dampness of the earth reminded me of her. Above us innumerable fireflies lit the branches, and I had the sense that the snouts and eyes of the forest were fixed upon us. Some animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors. As a species, we have never encountered a cave, a door, or an entrance of any kind that we did not want to enter. We are never satisfied with only one way in. We will always try every possibility, even the blackest and most forbidding passages, or so I was reminded in my night with Lana. I got to pee, said the affectless lieutenant, standing up again. He disappeared into the gloom of the forest, while above him the fireflies turned off and on in unison. You know why I like you? she had asked in the aftermath. You’re everything my mother would hate. I was not offended. I had been force-fed so much hate that a little more hardly mattered to my fattened liver. If my enemies ever cut out my liver and ate it, as the Cambodians were rumored to do, they would smack their lips in delight, for nothing was more delicious than the foie gras of hatred, once one had acquired the taste for it. I heard the crack of a branch in the direction taken by the lieutenant. Are you okay? Bon said. I nodded, concentrating on the fireflies, their collective signal outlining the shapes of the bamboo trees in a wilderness Christmas. The underbrush rustled and the dim shape of the lieutenant emerged from the bamboo.

Hey, he said. I—