A SHORT SHORT ONE-ACT RADIO PLAY:

HAVE THEY PLAYED 

WHITE CHRISTMAS YET? 

Uyen Nicole Duong

copyright 1998

NOTE FROM THE BLOG:  

This play was developed based an advertisement used as a short prelude to CIA Analyst Frank Snepp's political memoir, Decent Interval, written about the fall of Saigon, 1975, published by Random House

***

Saigon, The Republic of Vietnam

April 25, 1975
five days before the fall of Saigon

-Room Service?

-Excusez moi, Monsieur...

-I am dictating. Leave the tray on the table.

-Je ne voudrais pas vous deranger, mais... Je vous en prie.  Monsieur... Mr. Christopher Sutherland?

-Oh, you are...not Room Service. Qui etes vous, Mademoiselle?  Vous parlez Anglais? Oui? 

-Yes I speak English. I was just too nervous. I stood hours in the sun before I entered the hotel. For a moment I couldn’t read the room number, two hundred and ten, engraved on the door. I stared at it for a long time outside your room.

-How did you get in here? So Vincent didn’t follow instructions. I told him no visitor.

-The hotel manager? Please do not blame him. It’s chaos out there in the lobby.

-Are you sent by the American Embassy?

-No. I came here on my own will.

-Then, would you mind leaving? I’m busy, and I am in my bathrobe. Let me guess. You want a magical way out of Vietnam.  Sorry, I don’t work magic. You got the wrong guy. 

-I don’t think so. You are Christopher Sutherland. I’ve seen your pictures. Here is one. Taken at a Christmas party. For the past five years, my father has talked about you occasionally, at dinner table.

-Who are you?

-I am Hope’s oldest daughter.

-Oh, I am sorry, Miss...

-Simone. You can call me Simone.

-Oh, yes, Simone. Your father is very proud of you. Everybody at the Cercle SportiffSaigonnais talked about you, the most beautiful girl of Lycee Marie Curie

--Now we’ve met.

--Under different circumstances I would have been much more hospitable. Or even charming. But under the circumstances.. Allow me to put on a shirt. 

-There is no need. May I sit down, Monsieur?  

-Actually no, I am afraid you will have to leave soon.. .OK, OK, sit down, but only for just a minute. Darn it, I have a weakness for the feminine sort of thing. If you are looking for your father, he was here earlier, but he left already.

-I know where he is. My father is at home sleeping in exhaustion.  For days he had been running around town looking for a way out.   From the Defense Attache’s Office to various embassies. He went home defeated. Finally my mother said, sleep, my dear, take a nap.  She got him a hot towel. Made him a lemon soda. I watched them. I saw despair and panic written on their face. So I said, mother, stay with him, let me try, leave everything to me. After all I am the oldest daughter and speak fluent English. 

-Your English is perfect.

-So I put on my best ao dai, made specially for ceremonial occasions, and decided to come here. You see, this dignified ao dai, high collar, black satin with an embroidered golden dragon... 

-It is lovely, but why this visit?

-Because there is nowhere else to go, no other route to take.

--Miss, I can sympathize, but...

--My father is your friend.

--Yes, he is. 

-For years he has consistently supplied you with news, tips, and interpretations. You call him by his pen name Hope. It’s kind of a code name to denote how helpful he has been to you. Until last week, he was still supplying you with news about the Convoy of Tears, who in the National Assembly has connections to the North, the lobbying the Catholics are doing with Vatican, and all this talk about the possibility of a Third Force, neither communist nor pro-American, who can save Saigon from a bloodshed...

--All such news tips were greatly appreciated Your father is a fine man, and I am grateful for his help through the years.

--But you will leave him when the time comes.

--I told him to go home and wait.

--He is waiting, Mr. Sutherland. We are all waiting.

--Perhaps you should go home and wait with him.

--I am bringing you something.

--Oh please, there is nothing I want. 

--I offer you my family heirlooms. You must have heard of my family.

--Not in great detail. But I know Hope’s wife came from the former capital city of Hue. That royal or mandarin background or whatever.  Look, Miss, now is not the time to talk about history.  

-It is exactly the time to talk history, Mr. Sutherland. I’ve brought you history. I came all prepared. Look, here are two ivory plaques, made out of elephant tusks thousands of years old, one belong to nhat pham trieu dinh, hong lo tu khanh, a mandarin of the first rank of the royal court, and the other one belonging to an admiral of the royal fleet. Here is a luscious green jade phoenix, once held by a royal concubine of the Nguyen Dynasty. 

-They are beautiful, Miss.

--Mr. Sutherland, these belong to my extended family. Once a French collector offered my family tons of money for these items, and the answer was no. To give them away means to entrust our lives. Now, these items are yours.

--I am deeply moved but I dare not accept, Mademoiselle. Wait, wait, don’t frown. Let’s see. Perhaps there is another way for you and your family to get out of Vietnam. Come here, by the window, I’ll show you. You see, out there at Saigon harbor, sea merchants are selling spaces on their boats. At ten gold taels or so per head.

--You know we don’t have that kind of money. My father is a writer. He teaches at a starving wage. A local stringer who works for you on the basis of friendship, not an employment contract.

--Perhaps you can sell the ivory plaques, the green jade.

--They mean life and death for us, but no one would pay ten gold taels for them at this time.

--Neither do I. I have no use for them. But don’t give me that sad look.

-How can the city seem so peaceful?  I can see La Rue Catinat with all those fashionable kiosks. The big circle in front of the Opera House, animated, full of traffic -- those mopeds, andcyclos, and those yellow and navy blue Renauld taxis. Everything seems so normal. You see that ancient clock over the Ben Thanh Market?  It has been there since the French time, before I was born. My grandmother said troops came. Troops left. People revolted.  Jailed.  Escaped. Returned. Died. And the clock has been watching. 

--Are you all right, Miss? You are turning pale. You seem lost in a trance.

-The clock has remained intact, as though people can do much havoc to themselves, to the city, but they can’t do anything to time.  Or perhaps the clock is laughing at history, at all our anxiety and panic and all the things one must do in a time like this. You’re part of what’s happening here. You know what the American Congress is going to do. What city will fall next.When the Viet Cong troops are moving in.

-I don’t know as much as you think. But I know this, and I will tell you right now. In any moment, with a signal from Washington, Voice of America will play White Christmas, and all U.S. personnel are to report immediately to the Embassy. And I’m supposed to be here 24 hours a day, around the clock, waiting for the tune of White Christmas over the radio, to cover the end of the war. My nerves are raw. If you would, Mademoiselle, please...

-So I am right. You know the end is near. That means you can make things happen.

- ...leave. Just leave, please. Don’t force me to be rude. Take your heirlooms and go home to your father, and if I have good news, I will come to the house.

-Mr. Sutherland, in the hotel lobby, there are women...

--I know.

--Bar girls, I guess, looking desperate, waiting for their American boyfriends or husbands. Their ticket to the last flight out. 

--Miss, you are shaking and your eyes are all red. Are you all right?  Would you like a sandwich? I’ve ordered Room Service. Aren’t they working around here any more?  Maybe a hot towel would help.

--Out there in the lobby, no one wears an ao dai with a gold dragon and silk trousers overescapin shoes. They are all in bell bottoms and mini-skirts and platform shoes, with their fake eyelashes, foam enhancers inside their bras, and all that heavy makeup and broken English. I don’t belong. Yet I have walked through there. Just like the girls, I am ready to beg and kneel. And the hotel manager, Vincent, he had such a hard time keeping the girls under control.  He tried so hard to keep up that French elegance. He was nice to me, yet his eyes had that same question, why was I looking for a room number like the girls? Finally, he screamed at the girls,putains, putains, and I had lowered my head in shame.

--I am sorry, Miss, you should not have come here...Oh, my goodness, the tape recorder, still running.... Oh no, what are you doing?

--Help me, Mr. Sutherland. Help us.

--Hey, lady, stop. What are you doing? 

--I won’t watch my father sent to a communist jail. I have teenage siblings who need a future elsewhere. My mother is a fragile woman who loves to plant flowers and cries in times of crisis.

--Oh, Mademoiselle, please stop. You are not being yourself.

-Those people from the North who will be coming out of the Cu Chi tunnel, Mr. Sutherland, they don’t like us. French-educated professor. Informer for the Americans. Bourgeois.Annamese aristocrat. We stand for what the people from the North have been trying to destroy. 

--Miss, I am asking you to leave. Or, I think I will leave. 

--They say I am beautiful, Mr. Sutherland.

--You are, but this is ridiculous.

--My family heirlooms are not enough.

--That’s not the point, Mademoiselle. You are indeed lovely.

--I am eighteen years old. Everyone says I am mature beyond my years.  I feel a hundred years old at times.   It came from being the oldest girl in a family like us. They all thought theLycee girls were wild Vietnamese congai’s who spoke French and acted like French movie stars, but not me. I always dream of loving someone and he is beautiful.  But he is not here and you are here and...

--Oh gosh.

--All you need to do is to put us on the plane. 

--It isn’t that simple.

--Tell your boss in America I am your wife. Tell them anything, anything. Take us to America and I’ll be your maid. I’ll sweep your floor. I’ll do anything. 

--Oh what have I done? You are gorgeous.    

--Mr. Sutherland, it is simple. I have figured it all out. I’ll stay here with you. You can do whatever you want with me. And together we will be waiting for the VOA to play... what is it?

--White Christmas. 

--All right, White Christmas. And only then will we leave together.  We’ll pick up my family on the way. And you will see to it that all of us board the plane.

--Miss, I should throw you the bed sheet.

--Either I stay here with you, or I will go into another room. Any room. I’ll find myself another American man and leech myself to him. A GI, perhaps.

--Oh no, please you can’t do that. 

--I am not looking at you, Mr. Sutherland. I am looking down at the floor. It’s gray marble.

-I should be turning away. I should leave this God-damned hotel room.

--I can hear the air-conditioning. I am so cold. The grey marble. I’ll remember it. Cold as it is. 

--Oh, please don’t cry!

-Everything may collapse, but perhaps this gray marble floor will sustain. It will remember me, this day...What is today?

--April 25th, 1975.

--This day in April, and the gray marble floor. When this is all over, perhaps I won’t remember. 

--You make it so difficult for me, Mademoiselle. You are exquisite.  Just exquisite. 

--I am feeling this gray marble floor with my bare feet, and then I am lying down. 

***

--Mr. Sutherland, have they played White Christmas yet?