The Sympathizer

Before I could respond, Clark Gable took to the stage and announced a surprise visitor, a congressman who served in our country as a Green Beret from ’62 to ’64 and who was the representative for this district we found ourselves in. The Congressman had achieved a significant degree of renown in Southern California as an up-and-coming young politician, his martial credentials serving him well in Orange County. Here, his nicknames of Napalm Ned or Knock-’em-Dead Ned or Nuke-’em-All Ned, used depending on one’s mood and the geopolitical crisis, were affectionate rather than derogatory. He was so anti-red in his politics he might as well have been green, one reason he was one of the few politicians in Southern California to greet the refugees with open arms. The majority of Americans regarded us with ambivalence if not outright distaste, we being living reminders of their stinging defeat. We threatened the sanctity and symmetry of a white and black America whose yin and yang racial politics left no room for any other color, particularly that of pathetic little yellow-skinned people pickpocketing the American purse. We were strange aliens rumored to have a predilection for Fido Americanus, the domestic canine on whom was lavished more per capita than the annual income of a starving Bangladeshi family. (The true horror of this situation was actually beyond the ken of the average American. While some of us indeed had been known to sup on the brethren of Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, we did not do so in the Neanderthalesque way imagined by the average American, with a club, a roast, and some salt, but with a gourmand’s depth of ingenuity and creativity, our chefs able to cook canids seven different virility-enhancing ways, from extracting the marrow to grilling and boiling, as well as sausage making, stewing, and a few varieties of frying and steaming—yum!) The Congressman, however, had written editorials defending us and welcoming the émigrés to his Orange County district.

Good God, look at you, he said, with microphone in hand, Clark Gable by his side, flanked by angel and temptress. He was in his forties, a crossbreed between lawyer and politician, exhibiting the former’s aggressiveness and the latter’s smoothness, typified by his head. Shiny, polished, and pointed as the tip of a fountain pen, words flowed from it as easily as the finest India ink. This head was the difference in height between him and the shorter Clark Gable, and in every dimension was the Congressman so much more expansive that two Vietnamese men of average height and size could have squeezed themselves into the confines of his body. Look at yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, look at yourselves the way I wish my fellow Americans would look at you, which is as fellow Americans. I am truly thankful for the chance to be here tonight and to share in the joy of this occasion, this marriage of two lovely young Vietnamese people in a Chinese restaurant on California soil under an American moon and in a Christian universe. Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, for two years I lived among your people in the Highlands and fought with your soldiers and shared your fears and faced your enemy, and I thought then and I think now how I could do nothing finer with my life than sacrifice it in the cause of your hopes, dreams, and aspirations for a better life. While I believed as surely as you that those hopes, dreams, and aspirations would be fulfilled in your homeland, we have been dealt another hand by history and the mysterious and unquestionable grace of God. I am here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that this is a hand of temporary bad luck, for your soldiers fought well and bravely, and would have prevailed if only Congress had remained as steadfast in their support of you as the president promised. This was a promise shared by many, many Americans. But not all. You know who I mean. The Democrats. The media. The antiwar movement. The hippies. The college students. The radicals. America was weakened by its own internal divisions, by the defeatists and communists and traitors infesting our universities, our newsrooms, and our Congress. You, sad to say, merely remind them of their cowardice and their treachery. I am here to tell you that what you remind me of is America’s great promise! The promise of the immigrant! The promise of the American Dream! The promise that the people of this country used to hold dear and will one day soon hold dear again, that America is a land of freedom and independence, a land of patriots who have always stood up for the little man no matter where he is in the world, a land of heroes who will never relent in the cause of helping our friends and smiting our enemies, a land that welcomes people like you, who have sacrificed so much in our common cause of democracy and liberty! One day, my friends, America will stand tall again, and it will be because of people like you. And one day, my friends, the land you have lost will be yours again! Because nothing can stop the inevitable movement of freedom and the will of the people! Now, affirm with me in your beautiful language what we all believe—

The entire audience had been cheering and applauding wildly throughout the speech, and if he had rolled out a communist in a cage, the spectators would have gladly called for him to rip out the red’s beating heart with his massive fists. There was no way he could possibly get them even more excited, but he did. Raising his arms to form a V, presumably for Victory, or for Vietnam, or for Vote for me, or for something even more subliminally suggestive, he shouted into the microphone, in the most perfect Vietnamese, Vietnam Muon Nam! Vietnam Muon Nam! Vietnam Muon Nam! Everyone sitting leaped to his or her feet, and everyone standing stood a little taller, and everyone roared after the Congressman the refrain of Vietnam Forever! Then Clark Gable made a motion to the band, and it swung into the rhythms of our national anthem, which the angel and the temptress and Clark Gable and the Congressman all sang with zeal, as did everyone in the audience, myself included, except for the stoic Chinese waiters, who could finally take a rest.