Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

We were still panting our release when Nguyen whispered, "You cannot be here. You must go. It's death for both of us."

"I cannot leave you here, Nguyen." I murmured. "I came back for you. They'll learn you worked with the Americans. You'll be executed."

"No, no, you do not understand," Nguyen muttered insistently. "That's not how it is. I have an honored position here."

"Only until they find out. You must come out with me. I have friends . . . and a boat. And there's a ship—"

"I don't want to hear this," Nguyen said, louder, with anger in his voice. "You don't want to tell me this. You don't understand."

I lifted my head from his and, still holding him close, looked down in his face. I had been so stupid.

"You are one of them, aren't you?" I said in a wounded voice. "You are Viet Cong. You were playing me."

"Yes, I am VC. And I was sent to give you misinformation. To have sex with you and make you trust me and listen to me and make as many of the troops guarding Saigon to stay in Cam Ranh Bay as possible. But that's not all."

"What else is there?" I asked dully. My whole world had collapsed. "What else can there be? I have a knife. I could kill you right here. You know that?"

"Yes, I know that," he answered. But I could discern no fear in his voice. I wanted this to make him scared. I wanted to wound him, as his act of betrayal had wounded me. "But I don't think you will," he said

"Why? Why can you be so sure?"

"For the same reason that I came back to tell you to leave right away. I didn't come back to Saigon to go with you. I came back to send you away in time. And for the same reason that I am going to let you leave here and not report that you have been here. Because, my duty aside, I love you and always will—I'm just from another world, our two worlds now no longer touching. Perhaps someday, but not now."

"And I cannot kill you for the same reason," I said at length. I said it for me, though, not for Nguyen. He was a far wiser man than I was. He already knew. And being wiser than me, he knew I would have to leave him now and not look back. Our worlds were too far apart—perhaps not forever, but, as he wisely said, certainly for now.