Hills like green Iquanas (Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, 1971)

The hills near Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, a peninsula in the south, were lush and full of moist, elevated green foliage, and had their own share of lizards, including giant (six to seven feet) iguanas: green and three-eyed reptiles. In the more plateau below these high picturesque hills in the South China Sea, in 1971 there was a lot of white sand and there were almost no trees for shade for American military support groups during the 10,000-day Vietnam War. At the top of the hill above the 611th artillery company was the cool shadow of the building, called the Captured People Club, which belonged to the Air Force. A Vietnamese girl with him (Lee Evens) sat in a bar; Lee drinks fifteen cents of beer and a girl sipping a glass of Japanese rice wine. It was a very hot evening, and the song played with the words "... silver wings ..."

“Maybe we still need a drink?” The girl asked.
She leaned back in her chair, smiled at Corporal Lee Evens, putting her hands on the table to the bartender, pouring the drink into a short, thick, thin glass.

“It's very hot,” said Lee with a complaint.

“Put some ice in my wine,” the girls asked the bartender.

“Two dice, isn't it?” Asked the bartender, as if he lacked ice that evening.

"Yes, two will."

The girl drank a small portion of wine, sucked ice cubes from the top of the glass, as if to cool her tongue. She looked out of the side window, into the distant hills, they were just in the twilight, like in the shadows, but she knew how green and wet they were.

“They look like the backs of green iguanas,” said the man, hearing her mysterious date for the night.

“I only saw the little ones, not the huge ones, didn’t they?” The girl asked.

"I suppose I mean, yes, I saw once seven feet once, my back had a double spine, with spines on his face, and he was powerful aggressive, the other I saw once, three eyes" .

Then the man drank beer, ordered the third round.

“I heard that there are two kinds, it seems you have seen them both!” Replied the girl.

“I suppose I have,” Lee said quietly, moving the glass back and forth across the bar.

The man noticed a sign above the small room and a bead curtain covering the entrance: “What this sign says is in Vietnamese,” he asked her.

“For private use only,” she said.

“What exactly does this mean,” he asked her.

Did you know that a man and a woman want to drink alone and not at all who look at them, but they have to spend at least $ 10 to use it. ”

"Should we try?" He asked.

The girl looked at the curtain, then Lee, nobody noticed there: “No, I don’t think we need more, we just get to know each other, right?”

“I think so,” he replied in a tired voice.

“Do you want more ice?” The bartender asked the girl.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so,” she replied, adding: “Although it is refreshing with ice.”

“Well,” said the bartender, “I will ask later when the ice has completely melted.”

“It cools my tongue,” the girl said and put the glass back on the bar.

"Oh, stop talking so stupid," Lee said.

“Well, then what should we talk about?” The girl asked.

“You're trying to entertain me, if yes, stop him and let him have fun instead, ok?” Lee said.

"Well, I will try, I just comment on the green hills and reptiles that live in them, in the absence of nothing else to say, I suppose it is not so witty, but then what else can a girl say, except for ice cubes and green hills ? She said slowly and calmly, as if on the verge of boredom.

“I want to try a new kind of beer,” said Lee, “put tomato juice in it, I heard that if you did, you could drink all night and never get drunk.”

“Is that all we're going to do is drink and get drunk?” The girl asked.

“Maybe,” said Lee, “why not?”

The girl looked at him strangely; the bartender looked at the bar and at Lee with a bizarre look.

“They are really green hills this year,” she said. “They really are not like Iguanas. I mean that the dark green color seems to be the same color of lizards here, their skin like leaves on trees, tall grass and tall trees, you know, we have one of the largest ecosystems (flora and fauna) here in Vietnam - in the world? "

“Would you like another drink?” Lee asked.

"I guess why not." Said the girl; for a moment she was proud of what she said, or tried to say, on her behalf in her country (similarly, she lowered her head for a moment, as if to calm some feelings, she knew that war was detrimental to what was once abundant The ecosystem that provided not only chemicals for drugs, the best humanity in the whole world, but also the everyday war that caused the greatest damage to their future lifestyle, now it was the destruction of many animal species, insects and plants such as etnam and his people would feel it later, especially if the South joined with the North, and the population has been steadily increasing, it is, of course, thought it was thirty years ahead of its time).

A cold breeze from the ceiling fan blew over their heads, and Lee wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

“The beer here is pleasant and cold, and not like in the club listed club, it is warm, like the temperature of a person’s body,” Li commented.

“How nice,” said the girl.

"No, really," said Lee, "beer is terrible, when it is warm, I mean."

The girl looked up as if she was trying to present the rest of the evening with this soldier, whom she had just met today, in her village, and she agreed to spend the day and evening when he paid the bill, but this is all he did when paying bill for a drink.

“Do you mind, Mr. Bartender, if I open the door for a while, let the fan in the fresh air not do the trick?” Said Corporal Lee with an oblique tone.

The bartender did not say a word, and Lee took it as no.

“I'll make you a cold beer, Sergeant Henry,” the girl said to the bartender, as if she knew him, “just let the air go for a few minutes, then we will close the door again, so that the mosquitoes and flies remain?” "

“Go on,” the bartender said as he brushed off the counter.

“What do we do when we leave the bar?”

"Then we will find out what you want to do, I suppose."

“What worries you, I want to say that I want to make you happy, if I can,” the girl explained.

The girl looked into a separate room with a curtain; reached out to touch it.

“Do you think that if we hold hands and then go into this room, we will both be happy?” Asked the corporal.

“Oh, yes,” she said with confidence, “you don’t need to be afraid of me, many people go there, and they all go outside,” she began to laugh.

“And I guess you were in the past?” Asked Li, snotty.

“Well,” said the girl, “if you don't care what happens to me, I shouldn't go there.”

“If you really want this,” Lee replied with a lighter tone than in the previous dialogue.

“No, that's fine, it looks like you really don't want it,” said the girl.

“I care about you,” Lee said.

“I know,” the girl said, but you're so upset, I mean, if I talk about hills and green iguanas, you think it's funny, but you have nothing to say to me, I'm just trying to talk. "

“I understand when I'm bored,” said Lee.

"Do you want to make love?" - asked the girl.

“If I do this, you want some kind of agreement, I mean payment, something financial with me, right?” Asked Lee.

“It's completely simple, yes!” The girl said right now and almost cold. "Then we can do it."

“What do you mean, do it?” Asked Lee.

"I don't care where we do it, or whatever I need, I need money, and I would like my friend, my old man, to go to the States, and he paid me one third of his check to be sustainable but I care about you, and I took care of him. She said without emotion, her face was empty, like the evening sky.

“I’m not sure if I want to do this with you, if you feel that way, I mean, this is a lot of money you are talking about, and what if your boyfriend comes back?”

“He will be back in three months, and then our business will end, but I don’t want you to do it with you if you feel that way.”

The girl got up and walked along the length of the bar, looked out the window to the hills, the dark shady green hills filled with water dragons, iguanas, tall trees and foliage that reached the edge of the hill, to the white sands of Camranh Bay.

“We could have fun for three months,” the girl added to her now monologue, “I mean, it can start this evening if you want to.”

“No, I don't think we can, I don't want to spend all that money, and there is someone I have to pay to take care of me. The time has come, I do not desperately need sex and a woman. In fact, you want to leave, and I feel that I no longer need to pretend, and I do not like lizards or care for the hills, we killed a seven-foot lizard a few weeks ago — they have big fat eyes, an ugly lizard or for our parting, its ways. You are not very good for me to be honest. "

“Well,” said the girl, “but you must understand that you, soldiers, come and go, leave us with the child and never look back, I’m no worse than the others, of course, no worse than your soldiers. "

She sat down at the corporal, and they both picked up their drinks, drank it, and he ordered another round, looked at her, and she at him.

“I really want to buy you drinks for your time and I’m sure this will be our last date, but I think I love you better as a friend than I am as a lover.”

“It means a lot to me that we can get along,” the girl said, “and you will be well spoken, I am sure that I will see you?” The girl asked.

“I don’t care about everything you did,” Lee said, then came back to this song ... silver wings: “Hush!” He said, listening carefully to the words.

He raised his hat and her hand, went out to the bar, still listening to the song, looking at the dark sky, not fearing that he could make the wrong impression: “How do you feel?” He asked the girl.

“I feel great,” she said, “nothing happens to you, it's a beautiful night, with a good friend, what else can you ask for!”

And they walked along the sandy white beach, down to the village he had raised, throwing her $ 3.00 to give the Cowboys, a gang of children in the village who would stop her before she gets to her hut, where she and her mother lived, she paid the gang not to beat or rape her, they knew she was American, they always knew which girls went out with the American soldiers, and the Americans had dollars, and dollars - $ 3.00 was the price of security.

Written 3:00, 12-31-2008 (Lima, Peru)