The Quiet American

by Graham Greene

‘You can rule me out,’ I said. ‘I’m not involved.

The

human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder,...

I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opi...

‘What’s happened to the dog?’ I said. ‘It isn’t here. He may have taken it with him.’ ‘Perhaps it will return and you can analyse the earth on its paws.’ ‘I’m not Lecoq, or even Maigret, and there’s a war on.’

‘“Grieved to report your son died a soldier’s death in cause of Democracy.” The Minister signed it.’ ‘A soldier’s death,’ I said. ‘Mightn’t that prove a bit confusing? I mean to the folks at home. The Economic Aid Mission doesn’t sound like the Army.

‘He had special duties.’

‘Oh yes, we all guessed that.’ ‘He didn’t talk, did he?’ ‘Oh no,’ I said, and Vigot’s phrase came back to me, ‘He was a very quiet American.’

‘Have you any hunch,’ he asked, ‘why they kille...

‘Yes. They killed him because he was too innocent to live.

you gave him money and York Harding’s books on the East and said, “Go ahead. Win the East for Democracy.”

‘Vigot’s waiting,’ and walked away. For the first time he spotted Phuong and when I looked back at him he was watching me with pained perplexity: an eternal brother who didn’t understand.

one place in the north where my friendship with a French naval officer would allow me to slip in, uncensored, uncontrolled. A newspaper scoop?

the world wanted to read about was Korea. A chance of death? Why should I want to die when Phuong slept beside me every night? But I knew the answer to that question. From childhood I had never believed in permanence,

Death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again for ever.

Death was far more certain than God, and with death there would be no longer the daily possibility of love dying.

had known Phat Diem well in the days before the attack—the

day or night the street was packed and noisy.

now when I landed and walked up to the officers’ quarters it was the most dead. Rubble and broken glass and the smell of burnt paint and plaster, the long street empty as far as the sight could reach, it reminded me of a London thoroughfare in the early morning after an all-clear: one expected to see a placard, ‘Unexploded Bomb’.

Nobody noticed the Vietminh agents who had joined the procession too, and that night as the main Communist battalion moved through the passes in the calcaire, into the Tonkin plain,

the advance agents struck in Phat Diem. Now after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat:

the whole population of Phat Diem. Catholics, Buddhists, pagans, they had all packed their most valued possessions—a cooking-stove, a lamp, a mirror, a wardrobe, some mats, a holy picture—and moved into the Cathedral precincts.

already the Cathedral was full:

people crowded through the gates, carrying their babies and household goods. They believed, whatever their religion, that here they would be safe.

I asked them in my bad French whether I could accompany them. An advantage of this war was that a European face proved in itself a passport on the field: a European could not be suspected of being an enemy agent. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am writing about the war,’ I said. ‘American?’ ‘No, English.’

‘Three hundred have been reported in this village here. Perhaps massing for tonight. We don’t know. No one has found them yet.’

The canal was full of bodies: I am reminded now of an Irish stew containing too much meat. The bodies overlapped: one head, seal-grey, and anonymous as a convict with a shaven scalp, stuck up out of the water like a buoy. There was no blood: I suppose it had flowed away a long time ago.

Even though my reason wanted the state of death, I was afraid like a virgin of the act. I would have liked death to come with due warning, so that I could prepare myself. For what? I didn’t know, nor how, except by taking a look around at the little I would be leaving.

Except for the lieutenant they were most of them Germans.

noonday hush fell: even the mortars were quiet and the air was empty of planes. One man doodled with a twig in the dirt of the farmyard. After a while it was as if we had been forgotten by war. I hoped that Phuong had sent my suits to the cleaners. A cold wind ruffled the straw of the yard, and a man went modestly behind a barn to relieve himself.

The lieutenant said, ‘Have you seen enough?’ speaking savagely, almost as though I had been responsible for these deaths. Perhaps to the soldier the civilian is the man who employs him to kill,

The man who had doodled was relieving himself, and the man who had relieved himself was doodling.

‘I really came to see you.’ ‘You came here to see me?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why?’ He looked up from his bootlaces in an agony of embarrassment. ‘I had to tell you—I’ve fallen in love with Phuong.’ I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

‘Couldn’t you have waited till I got back? I shall be in Saigon next week.’ ‘You might have been killed,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t have been honourable.

‘When did it happen?’ ‘I guess it was that night at the Chalet, dancing with her.’ ‘I didn’t think you ever got close enough.’

I feel such a heel, but you do believe me, don’t you, that if you’d been married—why, I wouldn’t ever come between a man and his wife.’

‘Fowler,’ he said, ‘I don’t know your Christian name … ?’ ‘Thomas. Why?’ ‘I can call you Tom, can’t I? I feel in a way this has brought us together.

‘Everything seems different now that you know,’ he said. ‘I shall ask her to marry me, Tom.’ ‘I’d rather you called me Thomas.’

I felt for the first time the premonitory chill of loneliness. It was all fantastic, and yet … He might be a poor lover, but I was the poor man. He had in his hand the infinite riches of respectability.

By the way, my name’s Alden, if you’d care …’ ‘I’d rather stick to Pyle,’

‘I’m glad that’s over, Thomas. I’ve been feeling awfully bad about it.’ It was only too evident that he no longer did.

I wish you’d advise me, Thomas.’ ‘What about?’ ‘Phuong.’ ‘I wouldn’t trust my advice if I were you. I’m biased. I want to keep her.’ ‘Oh, but I know you’re straight, absolutely straight and we both have her interests at heart.’ Suddenly I couldn’t bear his boyishness any more.

‘But I haven’t given her up.’ ‘I’m pretty physical too, Thomas, but I’d give up all hope of that if I could see Phuong happy.’ ‘She is happy.’ ‘She can’t be—not in her situation. She needs children.’

‘Why don’t you just go away, Pyle, without causing trouble?’ ‘It wouldn’t be fair to her, Thomas,’ he said quite seriously. I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.

waking that morning months later with Phuong beside me, I thought, ‘And did you understand her either? Could you have anticipated this situation? Phuong so happily asleep beside me and you dead?’

it proved more difficult to get out of the Phat Diem area than it had been to get

in.

when I reached Hanoi the correspondents had been flown up for briefing on the latest victory and the plane that took them back had no seat left for me. Pyle got away from Phat Diem the morning he arrived: he had fulfilled his mission—to speak to me about Phuong,

Yet he was sincere in his way: it was coincidence that the sacrifices were all paid by others, until that final night under the bridge to Dakow.