The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

The Spy Who Loved Us 249
people. The birds are nervous, as birds often are, and their agitation
reminds me of this tropical island’s inescapable history.
Back in Saigon, I visit An, who is retreating from the midday
heat with air-conditioning and oxygen. Wearing his usual
white short-sleeved shirt and gray slacks flapping around his
bare ankles, he opens the gate and leads me through the garden
into the downstairs room that holds his fish tanks and
books and the hard seat located near the telephone, where he
sits like a reporter at his post taking incoming calls.
“I have never been to Con Dao,” he tells me. “But I used
to get reports on conditions there. I knew it was bad. Just like
today, we know how hard life is for prisoners at Abu Ghraib.”
He tells me about one of his near misses from being sent to
Poulo Condore. Using information from his colleagues in South
Vietnamese intelligence, he had written an article in 1965 predicting
the overthrow of Vietnam’s then-prime minister, Phan
Huy Quat. “He was head of the government, but I knew the real
power lay in the hands of Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao
Ky. My sources were too good, which is why the police called
me in. I soon learned that I couldn’t practice journalism the way
I had been taught in the United States. After that, I would
type up my stories and then I would tear them up.”
An reaches for his bronchial inhaler. He is gasping for
breath in the late afternoon heat.
“My lung capacity is at thirty-five percent of normal,” he
says. “I had a collapsed lung the last time I went to the hospital
in 2003. I’m supposed to go again later this week.”
Returning to our conversation about Poulo Condore, An
says, “I survived by luck and because of my protecting goddess.
I believe in astrology. I was born under auspicious circumstances.”
He gets up and walks to his bookshelf, pulling
down a copy of Le Zodiaque published by Editions du Seuil. He
shows me how he was born under the sign of the Virgin, who
has protected him all his life.