The river was so brown at this turn that it seemed thick, like a turbulent current of gravy. The concrete gutters from the slaughter pens made neat little rows, their troughs ending just inside the water along its banks. They saw an old man slowly bathing, standing thigh-deep a hundred feet downstream from the gutters. He was wearing brown shorts and was rubbing a rag over his body. His chest and stomach were covered with a rash, no doubt from the bacteria in the river that he thought was cleansing him.

“So, the plan. After you hit your target you run down the path to the river,” instructed Manh. “And then you throw the pistol, as hard as you can throw it, toward the other side. They would never dredge this river. How could they? Just throw it hard, and then run back upriver. Upriver, remember. Along the bank. Make a triangle in your mind. A hundred meters upriver, then cut to your right, and you will be at the park where the man kissed the little boy’s penis. I will meet you in the park, and we will walk slowly back to the embassy. If I am not in the park, don’t wait for me. At the slightest suspicion I will go back to the embassy by myself and wait for you there. If that happens, you must remember the landmarks. Do not try to talk with anyone. Do not let anyone clearly see your face. Do you have any questions, Mister Trong?”

“Why did he kiss the little boy’s penis?” wondered Dzung.

“I do not know,” said Manh. And then he shook his head, amazed at Dzung’s serenity.

They made their way back up the dirt path to the concrete pens. The trucks were now lined up six deep, and the killing had begun. Hogs were screeching and howling with an almost human sound as the muscular men tied them down and hacked them up.

Just across the street from the slaughter pens, a very old woman sat on a wooden platform inside an open-air home, smoking a cigarette. Near her, a kitten cuddled up against a sleeping rabbit, and a gray ferret slithered snakelike in and out of the raised boards that made up her floor. The woman was looking toward the pens where the hogs were being killed as if it were a TV soap opera.

Manh took out a booklet and approached her, forcing his hands prayerfully underneath his chin and speaking a few sentences in Thai. She shrugged and then nodded, pointing to a corner of her shack. And then she went back to watching her evening show.

“She says we can eat here if we like,” said Manh, walking into the shack and taking a seat on the floor. “I don’t know what she’s looking at. She seems to have very bad cataracts.”