An earnest kiss seals a bond between two lives. In a tender sense, lips become a gentle bridge to connect the shores of two lonely souls. A comely setting seals the link more perfectly.

Ulises used his Saigon Song lyrics to remember the softest kiss a woman would ever cast on him. As memories once again unfolded, and events skydived from past moments into his withering mind, he well remembered how that kiss went straight in the most vulnerable spot of his love anatomy.

It must have been early June, when his new courier situation at Rumba Hill suddenly allowed freer movement. He frequently made incursions into different locales in the war zone. Visits to the deep Viet countryside, military stations, and the surrounding towns, too often, too dangerously.

Bad kissing opens vulnerabilities between lovers. A warm, heartfelt kiss binds two souls into affinity by creating a memory that does not want to ever go away. Brings a strong imprint to the soul, somewhat like an old polychrome tattoo on a sailor’s arm. In remembering it all, Ulises’s heart fled momentarily from the dread of Bao Cat and sought refuge in the old wooden Japanese bridge over the RiverThu Bon. Rekindlings suddenly placed him back in the ancient, playful old Hoi An river port town. Faifo, the old Portuguese mariners called it.

His mind reeled around the Chinese shophouses and antique colonial buildings of the bygone French suzerainty. The chartreuse Vietnamese tube houses. Moments at Hoi An bonded him and lovebird Kikei Santos like no other spot in Vietnam. They felt as if they were at another place, in another time. Far from any war zone in the world.

Duquel saw it in his mind like a dreamscape. He was told by Boi that Hoi An was a quaint leftover from Portuguese colonization in Central Vietnam and that the tiny merchants’ society did not care much about revolution. Lusitanian mariners settled there to do business with the world long before the French presence in Indochina. In the 15th century, they left behind a scenario that five centuries later would harbor a special groove in Duquel ‘s mind. A romantic interlude forever tattooed in Duquel’s unsuspecting heart like an inked memory in the arms of the ancient seafarers that moored in the Thuy river’s waterfront.

Both a tragic and romantic loop of fate brought Duquel and Lieutenant Santos that day to the little port town. Cardenas had received a brief from one of his local fisherman informants about the execution of a young Marine amphibious tank driver from the Riverine Combat Base at Hoi An. The Leatherneck became infatuated with a local shop girl. She was sixteen years old, still teeming with childhood innocence. The captain told Ulises that her parents forbade the relationship with the US soldier. He got drunk one afternoon, went and abducted the girl from her house on the outskirts of town while her parents were at the gift store. They eloped to Cầu Lao Cham island on a small Chinese junk he rented to hide out until the scandal blew off.

They had wedding plans.  But the junk master turned out to be a Viet Cong spotter. Two days later, the enamored soldier’s body was found floating by the Bai Lang fishery piers. He had been pistol-shot in the head. The informant’s tale talked of how a local Viet Cong cadre cell took matters into its hands and executed the rapt kidnapper. The Hoi An girl was sent to a Laotian border training camp for indoctrination. Cardenas would have had no interest in the matter were it not that on the body of the Marine, the US military Criminal Investigations Division found the inked markings of the Quyet Thang secret society. In a fatigue pocket was a propaganda leaflet denouncing rape of Vietnamese girls by US soldiers..

This prompted Cardenas to dispatch forensics mortician Santos to the crime scene for a field intel detail. Ulises Duquel drove her and acted as a bodyguard. At the Marine base morgue she examined the body, took notes, photographs and carefully stashed away the Viet Cong propaganda leaflet. Cardenas hoped that Quyet Thang had at some time touched the document and that ESP sensing would render some clues. Their mission accomplished, Ulises took a waterfront road for the ride back to Da Nang.

Ulises remembered. As the tragic lovers of the case, the two were also idyllically infatuated, but at no moment yet made any attempt to show intimate affection. It all changed at the River Thu bridge. Before exiting Hoi An, they decided on a brief stroll by the wharf to watch the River cargo operations. Kieki soon spotted the bright red crossway.

“Stop here a short while, I must visit the bridge,” she said. Ulises felt her vibing with excitement, but took the request as order. He parked and waited for her to walk over to the bridge entrance to take some photos. Instead, she beckoned to him to accompany her. He stashed away the documents safely under the Jeep seat and walked to her. Immediately he felt the sudden closeness the old bridge offered, as if it were some lover’s haunt from a distant Venice canal.  

He reminisced how that scenery and atmosphere at Hoi An gave Lieutenant Santos the trappings of a Romeo and Juliet medieval play. She made believe there would be a balcony somewhere to express a hidden sentiment. He, in turn, felt tense and watchful. He feared another guerrilla kidnapping.

Ulises could not remember their conversation. They had been too silent. When they found themselves in the middle of the old Japanese bridge railings, love jumped out of the water to baptize them. they stood watching the mullet and carp fish squirreling in the murky streams The waters seem to whisper secrets of seafarers and times long past. Swallows skipped, weaved, and bounced off the old stones by the riverbank. There were soft rustles of paper lanterns swaying in the breeze. The bright noon sun beat brightly on the rooftop’s lacquered red paint, reflecting hues of sapphire and ruby gems in the waters below. In a surprise move, Kikei Santos chose the spot for a first kiss.

“I am told Hoi An means peaceful meeting place,” Ulises said as Kikei slowly leaned her full body below his arm resting on the railing. He pulled her to him, and their faces were closer than ever. Around them, the din of everyday existence moved by. Vietnamese fishermen paddled their small boats. Street merchants pushed their wares. Mopeds roared, and car klaxons blasted away by the shore roads.  Above, the usual clatter of war could be heard. Helicopters and fighter planes flew in and out of the nearby Marble Mountain Base airfield a few kilometers away further north. Distant air-to-ground attacks echoed back.

Oblivious, the newly found lovers intertwined their hands tightly with romantic tension. Taking advantage of the moment, as the bridge suddenly emptied of passersby. They embraced, and Kikei kissed him passionately. He immediately reciprocated, and Ulises felt the air around become timeless as if the world had paused to honor their love encounter. The river and town enfolded them with a sense of welcome.

As he reminisced, Ulises Duquel relived the strange vibrations Hoi An always had on him. He recalled his first ever visit on errands for Captain Cardenas. The officer contracted a local tailor to adjust his jungle suits. Being of small stature, Cardenas had problems with regular Army supply sizes. Following a road map, upon arrival at Hoi An on that trip, he felt a spell of ancient nostalgia. He stopped the Jeep, dismounted, and walked towards a river wharf.

His mind reeled with tales of Portuguese merchant ships. He thought of sailors romping about in crazy drunkenness. He imagined a moonlit summer festival with dancing girls in traditional attire. The old Portuguese name for the old town came to Ulises’s mind suddenly. It felt like the rhythmic clapping of the water against the bridge’s wood pillars. Little did he imagine a few months later, Hoi An would be his forever love spot.

That day Kikei and Ulises leaned on each other closer and closer, their kisses becoming tender and slower. Gentler as their love bond intensified. He felt the wind carry their affection through town and to its people, touching the lives of all who heard their love song. The Thu Bon River forever flowing, forever cherished, carrying sentimental melody out to the world  

“This old bridge brought us happiness. Hopefully, also good fortune to our lives. We must now do everything to safeguard this encounter,” said Ulises after the past kiss. “It can be a mission more difficult than surviving a jungle battle.”

 Kikei smiled sweetly and nodded.  Her usual silent, enigmatic Mona Lisa smile that revealed so little of the sentiments behind the softly opened lips.

NEXT CHAPTER: SQUABBLES

♠