The Quiet American Page #3

My friends.

So pleased to have met you.

I hope we meet again soon.

- Perhaps you could arrange.

- When I get back from the north.

You are going north?

Yes.

Then you must come

and have dinner

with me and my sister

when Mr Fowler is gone.

- To cheer her up.

- Thank you. I'd like that very much.

- What a nice woman.

- Absolute saint.

She used to work in office.

Import-export.

- Really?

- She knows shorthand.

- Does she?

- Maybe you need someone.

Maybe we could work something out.

Please forgive me for dancing

with Miss Phuong so many times.

- I like watching her dance.

- She's a very good dancer.

She should be.

She used to do it for a living.

- What do you mean?

- She was a taxi dancer.

A hostess. Here at the Arc en Ciel.

I thought you said

she came from a good family.

She did, but the father died

so the sisters had to earn a living.

- Well, that's too bad.

- What?

Isn't that just a step up

from the girls across the street?

Good God, no. It took me six months

to get her to go on a date.

- Grenade.

- A grenade.

- Are you married?

- Yes, I am.

But not to her.

There's something I haven't told you.

I got a telegram from the paper,

asking me to go back to London.

So will you go?

I've cabled them,

asking them to let me stay, but...

If they stop paying me,

I'm not sure how we'll live.

I come with you to London.

I'd marry you if I could.

- You know that.

- Yes.

That's what I always tell my sister.

You think your wife will give divorce?

I doubt it.

'When did everything change?

'Maybe there isn't one moment.

'The cable from London

calling me home?

'Or watching them dancing together?

'Or what followed between us,

she and I,

'through the long night?

'I was never brave.

'But there I was, heading north,

'the fear of losing Phuong

more terrifying

'than the fear of any bullet.'

The communists attacked four days ago.

We pushed them back only yesterday.

We think there is 300 in this village.

- But you will not see them.

-It's getting worse, isn't it?

How long can you keep going?

A few months, maybe.

My men are counting bullets.

Silence!

Quick! Hide!

Quickly, hurry!

No, no! Don't shoot!

Pyle?

What the hell are you doing here?

They wouldn't let my truck

out of Phnom Penh

so I figured I'd see

what was going on for myself.

You're lucky to get here alive.

It wasn't that hard after I hired a boat.

It wasn't expensive.

- In the end I just bought it.

- You are mad.

- I'm mad?

- Yes.

Have you ever seen anyone

with trachoma?

- Yes, I suppose I have.

- It's not that easy to remain uninvolved.

Here, this way.

"'Not that easy

to remain uninvolved."

'I had hidden for so long

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