The Sympathizer

Right. There was nothing I could do for the tax collector. He spent a week in the interrogation center being beaten black and blue, as well as red and yellow. By the end, our men were convinced that he was not a VC operative. The proof was incontrovertible, arriving in the form of a sizable bribe the man’s wife brought to the crapulent major. I guess I was mistaken, he said cheerfully, handing me an envelope with my share. It was equivalent to a year’s salary, which, to put it into perspective, was actually not enough to live on for a year. Refusing the money would have aroused suspicion, so I took it. I was tempted to use it for charitable activity, namely the support of beautiful young women hampered by poverty, but I remembered what my father said, rather than what he did, as well as Ho Chi Minh’s adages. Both Jesus and Uncle Ho were clear that money was corrupting, from the moneylenders desecrating the temple to the capitalists exploiting the colony, not to mention Judas and his thirty pieces of silver. So I paid for the major’s sin by donating the money to the revolution, handing it to Man at the basilica. See what we’re fighting against? he said. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, droned the dowagers. This is why we’ll win, Man said. Our enemies are corrupt. We are not. The point of writing this is that the crapulent major was as sinful as Claude estimated. Perhaps he had even done worse than simply extort money, although if he did it did not make him above average in corruption. It just made him average.

The next evening we were parked down the street from the gas station by seven thirty, wearing the UCLA sweatshirts and caps. If anyone noticed us, they would see, hopefully, UCLA students. My car had the stolen license plates affixed to it, my legitimate ones in the glove compartment. Every little bit of distraction helped, but most important of all were the distractions we did not control but which I had anticipated. With my window rolled down, we could hear distant explosions from the city’s fireworks show, as well as the pop-pop of occasional small arms fire as an individual celebrated independence. Smaller fireworks exploded closer, illegally detonated somewhere in this neighborhood as people lit cherry bombs, launched the occasional streaker into the low sky, or burned through ammo belts of Chinese firecrackers. Bon was tense as we waited for the major, his jaw clenched tight and shoulders hunched, refusing to let me turn on the radio. Bad memories? I said. Yeah. For a while he said nothing more, both of us watching the gas station. Two cars pulled in and gassed up, then left. This one time outside Sa Dec, the point man stepped on a Bouncing Betty. A little pop when it bounces. Then a big bang. I was two guys behind him, didn’t get a scratch. But it blew his balls off. Worst part of all, the poor son of a bitch lived.

I mumbled regretfully and shook my head, but otherwise had nothing more to offer, castration being something that was unspeakable. We watched two more cars gas up. There was only one favor I could perform for the crapulent major. I don’t want him to feel anything, I said.

He’s not even going to see it coming.

At eight, the crapulent major left the station. I waited until he turned the corner, then started the car. We drove to his apartment using a different route so he would not see us passing him. The fourth parking slot was open, and I parked the car there. I checked my watch. Three minutes, eight more until the major came. Bon took out the gun from the glove compartment and popped the cylinder open one more time to inspect the bullets. Then he clicked the cylinder into place and laid the gun on the red velour pillow in his lap. I looked at the gun and the pillow and said, What if some of the stuffing gets blown onto him? And pieces of the cover? The police will see it and wonder what it is.

He shrugged. So no pillow. That means there’ll be noise.

Somewhere down the street, someone set off another string of Chinese firecrackers, the same kind I had enjoyed so much as a little boy during New Year’s. My mother would light up the long red string, and I would plug my ears and screech along with my mother in the patch of garden next to our hut while the serpent leaped this way and that, consuming itself from tail to head, or perhaps it was head to tail, ecstatically ablaze.

It’s just one shot, I said after the firecrackers ceased. No one’s coming out to see what happened, not with all this noise.

He looked at his watch. All right, then.

He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and kicked off his sneakers. I opened my door, got out, closed it softly, and took my position at the other end of the carport, next to the path leading from the sidewalk to the apartment’s mailboxes. The path continued past the mailboxes to the two ground-floor apartments, the entrance to the first one ten feet down. Poking my head around the corner, I could see the lights of the apartment through the curtains of the living room window, pulled shut. A tall wooden fence lined the other side of the path, and above it rose the wall of an identical apartment complex. Half of its windows were bathroom windows, and the other half were bedroom windows. Anyone at the windows on the second floor could see the path leading to the apartment but would not be able to see into the carport.

Bon walked on socked feet to his position, in between the two cars nearest to the path, where he knelt down and kept his head below the windows. I looked at my watch: 8:07. I held a plastic bag with a yellow happy face and the words THANK YOU! on it. Inside were the firecrackers and the oranges. Are you sure you want to do this, son? my mother said. It’s too late, Mama. I can’t figure a way out.

I was halfway finished with a cigarette when the major appeared at the carport for the last time. Hey. His face broke into a puzzled smile. He carried his lunch box in his hand. What are you doing here? I forced myself to smile in return. Lifting the plastic bag, I said, I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop this off.

What is it? He was halfway to me.