The Lotus Eaters_ A Novel Part 21

"We need to catch the last bus. Tomorrow night we will be eating a steaming bowl of bun cha bun cha."

Thao let out a small laugh of relief and placed her hand on his thigh. He picked up her hand and held it clasped between his own two, then dropped it.

"I can try to get a singing job when I fill out again."

"Don't worry, Sister. I'll make sure you are safe. For Mai's sake."

Thao positioned herself in the doorway, in the most flattering light. "You get lonely for her?"

"War distracts me."

"Plenty of babies are born in the war. Haven't you noticed?"

Linh stood outside holding the small girl in his arms. He tried to still the shaking of his hands. Thao had never been like this before, and he knew that desperation made her throw herself at him in this way. Still, it sickened him. He looked off into the thicket of palms and wished he were back in the hamlet in An Giang.

Darrow had begun to radio Linh after three weeks, but Linh answered that he radio Linh after three weeks, but Linh answered that he had business in Saigon and needed an additional week. After his arrival, the festival over, Darrow readied his plans to leave while Helen's mood turned darker and darker.

As a farewell, the village chief, Ho Tung, suggested a sightseeing trip. "You must see this, the heart of the province. Strangers do not know this." Two flat-bottomed pole boats appeared. Helen, Darrow, Linh, Ho Tung, and a couple of villagers to guide the boats made up the party. Helen sat in the forward position, her face turned away in brooding contemplation of the surroundings.

At first they went along various branches of the Mekong and Ba.s.sac. The rivers changed from green to red to brown, filled with the heavy alluvial silt brought down from the mountains. The boats angled next to seemingly impenetrable walls of water palm, and then one of the boatmen would edge the nose of the canoe into a crevice, push aside some vines, and suddenly they were traveling a thin ribbon of ca.n.a.l no wider than the canoe itself. The chief explained that only the locals could navigate here, the tides so unpredictable that four feet of water might drop down to mud within hours, stranding a boat.

The palms on each side brushed against the pa.s.sengers, knocking Helen's hat off.

The air was close and thick, filled with insects.

"Flies bothering you, love?" Darrow called good-naturedly, knowing her furor, feeling more comfortable in the knowledge that she was, after all, just like other women.

They pa.s.sed lone thatched huts that fronted the water, doorways filled with chickens scratching in the dirt, naked babies, and old people pulling on pipes. The peasants here lived by harvesting fruit and flowers from deep inside the jungle and got around by boat. Travel on foot was impossible.

Everywhere they stopped, children and women rushed up to stare at the white faces.

Helen finished handing out the full bag of candy they brought long before they reached their destination, an island in the middle of a wide part of the Mekong made by two tributaries joining and depositing silt.

"The rivers in the delta change direction, get bigger or dry up. Land is created and then taken away. Everything always in a state of change," Ho Tung said.

"You look tired, Linh," Darrow said, grinning. Indeed, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his thinness had turned sharp. "Was she at least pretty?"

Linh smiled. He had observed them since his return, how Helen's eyes lingered on Darrow's face, questioning.

"Maybe you need to go back to the war to rest?" Darrow said.

"Maybe we go rest together," Linh said, and Helen burst out in laughter, the first since Linh had arrived.

When they tied the boats along the steep bank and climbed up, the heat was so intense Helen thought the rivers should be boiling. They drank water and ate cold rice for lunch, then the villagers stretched out under the trees to sleep.

"When will you return to America?" Ho Tung asked.

"Soon," Helen answered.

"Can you go to St. Louis, maybe? Check on my granddaughter?"

"It's a very big country," Helen said, and seeing the disappointment, added, "Give us her address."

Ho Tung smiled, relieved, his mission accomplished. The chief motioned for Darrow, Helen, and Linh to follow him to explore the interior. "There is a temple in the center of the island."

"Come on, then," Darrow said, grabbing Helen's hand.

They pushed aside the thick barrier of brush and edged along an overgrown path.

Every inch of land filled with huge purple orchids. Abundant, dense, violent growth.

Linh lagged behind the others, but when he saw the flowers he stopped. "I'll wait back at the boats."

"No, come on," Darrow said. "It won't take long."

"I'd rather--"

"Come."

Flowers hung aggressively from trees and crowded on the ground and along rocks, thick and choking in a wild scramble for light in the semigloom of the overhead palm and rubber trees.

"This is an enchanted garden," Helen said, moving forward into the sea of flowers, her bad mood turned to delight.

She picked a small bloom and brought it to her nose, but there was only a faint scent of decay. She tucked the flower behind her ear anyway.

As she turned, Darrow snapped her picture. "There's my girl."

"No fair."

"Look over here again."

"No."

"Come on." Darrow took a step forward through the dense foliage.

"No!" Helen laughed and ran, crashing down the path through the flowers, trampling vines and leaves and petals.

"Come back," Darrow shouted, laughing, running after her.

Drenched, she ran as if in a downpour, sides heaving. Hearing the crash of footfalls behind her, she ran faster, careless, when suddenly a shadow pa.s.sed in front of her face. She looked up into a huge banyan tree from which hundreds of orchids clung, choking the tree in a blaze of purple. One particular orchid hanging from a long branch seemed especially large and perfect. She took another step to reach for it, tripped over a tree root hidden in the underbrush, and fell down into the plants.

"You okay?"

Darrow stooped down next to her as she laughed and rolled onto her back. He bent over and brushed the dirt off her knees as Linh and the chief came up.

"Helen is hurt?"

Darrow shook his head. "Not yet."

She sat up, searching the ground for what poked into her back and picked up small white sticks. She brought them closer, her smile fading as she realized they were bones, and showed them to Darrow.

"Human?"

"This is a burial island," Ho Tung said, pleased.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Helen asked.

"They bury monks here. The first monk, a hermit, lived here by himself. When the villagers came to check on him after the monsoon, they find only his bones and a purple orchid growing out of the rib cage. The flowers are said to be a manifestation of his enlightenment. How do you say? They are 'right luck'?"

Helen dropped the bones on the ground.

Ho Tung waved his arms, motioning to Helen as he talked. "Keep. Brings right luck."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on," Darrow said. "You don't believe this hocus-pocus?"

Linh shook his head. "Right luck. Some women come here to pray because they want children. Or they have only daughters. Others come for forgetting."

"Forgetting?" Helen asked.

"Their sorrows. If they grieve so much they cannot bear the land of the living."

She stared at Linh, and he met her eyes. "I'll wait at the boats," he said.

"Me, too," Helen said. The mood broken, the small island now seemed gloomy and claustrophobic.

"No temple?" Darrow shook his head. "You two are no fun."

Helen swept the bones under a bush with her boot. She stood and dusted herself off. Ho Tung knelt with his hands together in mudra mudra and chanted under his breath. and chanted under his breath.

As if he had been waiting behind a tree for just this moment, an orange-clad monk stepped out into the middle of the path and bowed to them. Linh came back and talked at length with him.

"This is the hermit monk of the island," Linh translated. "He invites us to tea."

They sat in the small temple that was no more than branches strung loosely together overhead. The monk stirred twigs and placed his iron teapot over them, looking at the foreigners sideways, giggling.

"He says he has never seen white faces before. He asks why you are here."

Darrow shrugged. "The war. Tell him we're photographers."

"Who would want such pictures?"

Darrow chuckled.

"He asked, 'Which war?' "

A pause. "Between the North and South."

"He says there is always war, but why are the Westerners fighting Vietnamese war?"

"To give freedom."

The monk shook his head, rubbed his hands over his stubbled scalp. He talked rapidly to Linh, gesturing, then laughing. "That makes no sense. Why die for Vietnamese?"

"Tell him... it's complicated. Tell him it's geopolitics, the movement of Communism, the domino theory of the fall of Southeast Asia...."

The monk stood up and yawned, moved off to a tree, and relieved himself against it. Linh laughed. "He says your words mean as little as his p.i.s.s does to this tree."

Darrow blinked and then laughed, and the monk laughed louder, till he was red in the face, and came back to sit down.

"We're making bigger and bigger mistakes because we can't admit we made the first one. We can't lose a war to a small Asian country."

The monk giggled and covered his mouth. "But you'll have to fight till every last Vietnam man is gone."

Darrow looked at the ground and nodded. "The first wise man I've met." The monk shook his head and poured tea.

"He is only a simple monk. He is afraid for the Westerners, that you will lose your own way by interfering with Vietnam's destiny."

The monk got up, bowed to them, and walked away.

"He hasn't talked so much in a year. He's tired."

After the tea, they walked back in silence. As Helen climbed into the first boat, she got off balance. Darrow was looking away down the river, frowning, but Linh reached out his hand to steady her.

The peace of night was broken by the sounds of jeeps driving into the village. was broken by the sounds of jeeps driving into the village.

Headlights glared as American soldiers and local Vietnamese militia jumped out swinging machine guns, cordoning off the hamlet, and beginning a house-to-house search.

Darrow threw on a T-shirt and pants, and ran outside. "What's going on?"

"You're here. Where's Adams? All Americans are ordered to the AID compound immediately."

"Give us a minute to dress. What's going on?"

"An American has been attacked and killed in the area."

"Who?"

"One of the AID guys, Jerry Nichols."

As they packed, Ngan appeared. She crouched in the corner of the hut, crying.

Helen bent down to pat her back, rea.s.suring her as Linh came in.

"I'll stay. Interrogations start, they need an interpreter," Linh said.

"Meet us in the morning."