The Lotus Eaters_ A Novel Part 31

"Gary is making you staff photographer."

Linh bowed his head a moment before he reached for the printing trays. "That's a great honor."

"Honor, BS. He's afraid to lose you to a compet.i.tor. It means that they can transfer you out of the country if you want."

"Yes."

"Thank you for taking me out there. To see that. It was a dream. After doing this for me... I'm keeping my word. I'm going home."

"Yes."

"Come with me."

Linh said nothing.

"Robert will give you a good job."

"I.

cannot."

"Not even for me..." Helen said, more statement than question.

"It is too much to ask."

Hours later they printed the closeup shot of the boy soldier. Linh burned in highlights, and as he promised, the picture was decent in quality, extraordinary in subject.

They handed the print to Gary, who stood at the door like a nurse waiting to carry off a newborn, forgetting Helen and Linh as soon as he collected his prize. They sat in the darkroom, door open, the red safelight a dull star. Both were tired and heavy-eyed but unwilling to leave.

"We make a good team," she said.

Linh smiled.

"Will they hurt the boy when they see his picture? Will they think he's a traitor?"

"No," Linh said. "He'll think fast like he did with us. He'll survive."

"I felt good out there."

"Go to California. It will be better there for you."

She was hurt by his constant dismissal. "What about you?"

"Nothing to worry about. With you gone, I will be the best photographer in Vietnam. Maybe I will marry Mai's sister. She need a husband for her children." He kept thinking of his debt to Darrow, how Helen's safety would have mattered to him more than anything else.

Helen's back stiffened. "I had no idea."

"It's a Vietnam tradition. To care for family," Linh said.

"Darrow wanted you to be happy. Have a good life for him." Helen scrambled to her feet and turned on the overhead light. "I'm going to grab a couple of hours on the cot."

"We got good pictures."

"How can I top this? Go out on top, right?"

Helen moved out of the apartment in Cholon, handing the keys over to Linh, and the apartment in Cholon, handing the keys over to Linh, and went back to the Continental, where she had started. The next morning, she made arrangements to fly home. She did not feel more or less grieved than before she went out with Linh in the field, but something had changed. She knew it and suspected that Linh knew it, and they did not speak of it but instead acted as if nothing had shifted between them.

Late at night Helen stayed awake in her hotel room, sleep no longer a thing to be counted on, and she lay in bed, propped up by pillows, staring into darkness until she could see the patterns of the tiles on the wall, the blades of the fan above as they pushed against the heavy air. She stored a bottle of bourbon on her bedside table, and it slackened the thirst and loneliness she felt during those long hours, sure that there would be no knock on the door. Helen slowly trained herself to believe in Darrow's death. He had been her guide and mentor, as well as her lover, and she did not feel up to the challenge of the war without him.

Was it the same for others? Like children, did they all wait for the reappearance of a loved one, death simply a word, the lack of a knock on a door? She knew better, had seen the two bags on top of the steep ravine, had watched them sway on poles on the shoulders of the living.

And yet. The sight of the pale NVA soldiers had changed everything for her. Just when she thought there was nothing more but repeating herself, a whole other world, formerly invisible, appeared. No American had yet photographed the other side. As thrilling as exploring an unknown continent on a map. No one could understand except Darrow and MacCrae, who were gone. Only Linh, who now was determined to send her home. Frequently she dreamed of the boy soldier who had held their fate in his hands, who saved them and himself for another day, and how the Lurps sat, tensed, how one wet his index finger and marked it in the air, one down one down, like a sports score.

Helen woke groggy in the morning, her room too hot, mouth sour with alcohol.

Her room boy served her Vietnamese coffee, thick and sweet with condensed milk, out of a silver pot, laid down fresh rolls on a china plate with three small pots of jam-marmalade, strawberry, and guava--both knowing she used only marmalade. She slathered the bread with b.u.t.ter but used the orange sparingly so that the boy could take the two unused pots home with him each day. Why, just as she was leaving, did she finally feel at home?

When Helen expressed the desire to see the crooked apartment one last time, desire to see the crooked apartment one last time, Linh told her Thao had already moved in, that the whole building shook from the running of children up and down the stairs.

"Good," Helen said. "Something to break the bad luck."

After the remains from the crash site had been identified, Gary brought out Darrow's will stating he wished to be cremated in Vietnam, but his wife made an official complaint to the magazine, and they gave in to her wishes, shipping the body back to New York for burial.

Helen, ready to fly out, felt all the original grief renew itself. She was nothing to Darrow. She begged Gary to read Darrow's letter over the phone to the wife, but the woman remained unswayed, convinced that he had not been in his right mind the last year. In the end, the body went to the States, and the staff had a Buddhist funeral with an empty casket, done frequently as the numbers of dead grew and recovery of bodies became more problematic.

The procession began at the apartment in Cholon. Helen looked up at the window, hoping to see the sister-in-law and her children crowding the sill, but it remained empty.

Was it possible that Linh had kept her away so memory would not change her mind about leaving? The Vietnamese in the procession wore traditional white scarves of mourning on their heads. Monks chanted and burned joss. They wound their way to downtown, stopped in the plaza next to the Marine Statue, beneath the office's windows.

Helen was dry-eyed. Her head ached. At the plaza, Gary leaned against a tree, facing away from them, and all she could see was the curl of his shoulders, his newly white hair. But she wasn't able to comfort him. Weren't they all children, pretending tragedy when it was clear the danger they placed themselves in? Shouldn't they just d.a.m.n well accept it? When they pa.s.sed the Continental, the head bartender carried out a gla.s.s of Darrow's favorite scotch on a silver tray.

At Mac Dinh Chi cemetery, Linh scattered a trail of uncooked rice and paper money. Clouds gathered and wind blew as a mat was unrolled at the gravesite. A plate of cracked crab flown in from Vung Tau, a bowl of rice, and the gla.s.s of scotch were laid out. Tangible things that Helen understood, compared to the generic funerals of flowers and coffins and organ music she had attended back home. A bundle of incense was lit and then it was over.

The clouds darkened, the longed-for rain fell, and people scattered for any available shelter.

Helen looked for Annick in the procession, but she had warned that she would not come. Too many funerals Too many funerals, she said. If she went to them all that's all she'd do. But Helen was leaving that night and wanted to say good-bye, so she walked, covering herself with the umbrella, moving through the flooding streets, skirting small moving streams of dirty water floating with trash. The rain kept falling, gray and hard, pounding the earth, and a gust of wind blew off the river, lifting the ribs of her umbrella inside out until she was gathering the rain rather than sheltering from it, and she let the umbrella fall on the road, knowing it would be picked up, repaired, and used within minutes. Each item reincarnated countless times. One thing she had learned in Vietnam--that reincarnation was not only in the hereafter but also in the now. She continued on, rain pelting her, and reached the milliner's and stood under the awning, wiping water off her face. In the display window was a wedding dress she hoped had been created for some jilted bride and not her.

Inside, the Vietnamese seamstresses sat on their accustomed rush seats, sewing away faster and with more concentration than usual. From outside, over the sound of rain, Helen had thought she heard talking and laughter, but inside, the store was as silent as a tomb. She stood at the counter, but Annick did not come out from the back where she usually hid out, smoked cigarettes, and drank wine. The seamstresses took no notice of Helen's presence, so she tapped the bell on the counter.

At the sound, the older one stood. She wore the same black dress Helen had seen her in the first time and each subsequent time she came to the store, so that Helen was convinced that the madames owned seven identical black dresses, one for each day in order for the worn ones to be washed and starched and made ready. Her head pounding, Helen felt feverish as she stood, dripping water onto the floor. The elder madame mumbled to herself as she made her stiff, slow way to the counter, all the while looking down to study her suddenly idle fingers.

"Bonjour, madame," Helen said, and the seamstress returned the greeting in her Helen said, and the seamstress returned the greeting in her singsong French, more as a refrain than greeting, still without making eye contact.

"Ou est Madame Annick?" Helen asked. Helen asked.

The seamstress sighed. "Madame est parti." "Madame est parti."

" Ou Ou?" Where?

The seamstress looked up, and her gaze startled Helen, the eyes the pale gray of cataract. "Elle est parti." "Elle est parti." The woman bent sideways under the counter, pulled out a small The woman bent sideways under the counter, pulled out a small flat box tied in satin ribbon. Helen opened it and saw a card from Annick on top of a gold scarf. No good-byes. Bon voyage, ma chere No good-byes. Bon voyage, ma chere.

"Merci. Au revoir," the seamstress replied, and with a small curtsey she returned the seamstress replied, and with a small curtsey she returned to her chair in obvious relief to again pick up her embroidery.

At the hotel that evening, Linh apologized for not being able to take her to the evening, Linh apologized for not being able to take her to the airport. He made no attempt to give an excuse. He could not trust himself not to betray her departure. Beg her not to leave. They stood awkwardly at the hotel entrance.

"I'll miss you," she said.

As Linh walked away, a soldier was arguing with the doorman, and Helen was distracted by his loud voice. When she looked back to the spot where Linh had stood, it was empty. But as the cab pulled up to take her bags, he reappeared.

"Everything's fixed. I can come see you off."

They rode in silence. Again he offered no explanation for his change in plans, and Helen, hurt that he had not wanted to see her off, now wondered why he had changed his mind.

As the plane rose steeply on takeoff, the pa.s.sengers remained quiet, but as it swung out over the South China Sea applause broke out. Helen was the only one not smiling. Below on the dark sea, squid boats floated like carnivals, bright with light.

After Helen left Saigon, Linh sat alone in the crooked apartment. No sister-inlaw, no children. When he had turned down Thao's proposal of marriage, she had promptly set her sights on a mechanic and was now living on the other side of town with him and the children. Linh still sent them money.

Linh had stood helpless at the gate of the plane; he had broken his own discipline and confused her by his actions. In his weakness he asked Helen for something to remember her by, but it was too late. All she had was a gold scarf around her neck that was brand-new and not hers yet, but she took it off and handed it to him. Now he held it to his nose, but there was no scent of her on it. Slowly he twisted it and wrapped it tight around one wrist, when someone knocked at the door. He did not want to answer, did not want to endure Mr. Bao at this moment, but to continue to avoid him would be worse. He opened the door.

Mr. Bao walked through the room, now needing a wooden cane, taking in each object although only the bare furniture remained. "Now it seems I must come to you. It's been months since we've talked."

"There are no developments. Other than my being a staff photographer."

"That is very good. Keep your ears and eyes open."

"That's my job."

Mr. Bao looked at him sharply, his small eyes behind the gla.s.ses magnified.

"Don't forget whose side you are on. Sentiment is turning to our side. Men like you are credited with helping that. Don't make us doubt you."

"Why pretend? It's not as if this has been voluntary on my part. How is the heroin trade? Prosperous?" It amazed Linh how naive the North still was about the Americans, not realizing Westerners' quest for news was more powerful than anything he could have ever led them to.

Mr. Bao picked up a figurine of a Buddha, a trinket from the markets, left behind.

"So your little adventuress is gone?"

"Yes."

"Too bad. Why didn't you convince her to stay?"

"I have no control." The truth was, and he felt shame in his pride over it, that he could have persuaded her to stay. But his loyalty to Darrow outweighed his love and his anger. The Americans did not yet realize that they would lose the war. There was a kind of hopeless certainty in Linh that no harm would come to him in this war, that he was one of the charmed, although he did not particularly care about that survival. He was angry that he had not been with Darrow, thwarted his death.

"It doesn't matter. Better to not deal with a woman anyway. What if she falls in love with you?" Bao chuckled and eyed the scarf. "What's that?"

"She left it behind." He saw Bao's eyebrows rise, and quickly added, "She asked me to deliver it to a friend to send on to her."

Mr. Bao reached out and touched the fabric. "Then you shouldn't wrinkle it so.

Too bad. It is good quality--my wife would have liked it."

FOURTEEN.

Back to the World Helen refused to attend the memorial service for Darrow in New York City. She the memorial service for Darrow in New York City. She considered it a hijacking of his wishes and would not be party to it. She would not be party either to her moniker of other woman. Gary and the others thought her callous not to go, to represent his colleagues in Vietnam. No. They expected her to be a good sport, to let the past stay in the past, but it was not within her to do it.

She flew from Tokyo to San Francisco, and felt a childish excitement as she looked down through the clouds, the idea of home suddenly real after such a long absence. Home would fix things. On the plane to Los Angeles, the last leg, she sat with soldiers still in uniform who had processed out of Travis and were going home. Could it be as easy as walking off a plane to leave the war behind?

Her mother, Charlotte, met her at the gate with a bouquet of flowers wrapped in cellophane. She saw her own face in her mother's, softer and more fragile now. How she had missed that smell of Joy perfume. She pushed away the guilt she felt, her mother resigned to the whole selfish tribe she had raised. As they hugged, Helen watched the returning soldiers heckled by a small group of antiwar protesters. A stringy brunette wearing tattered jeans and a suede halter top stood in front of the soldiers, blocking their way. Her long brown hair was tangled, a feather dangling from a braided strand of it.

With barely a glance, one of the soldiers shot his arm out to shove her aside.

The girl's eyes widened until the whites were visible, and she yelled, "Who do you think you are touching me?" But the soldiers ignored her and moved off.

"Let's leave," Helen said.

"You're so thin," her mother said. "I hardly recognized you."

Helen put her arm around her mother's thickened waist as they walked by the brunette. She slowed and stared at the girl, who returned a flat, dreamy gaze. A look with no contradiction, not the smallest doubt. "Think peace," the girl offered, then turned to drink from a soda can.

Helen stopped, transfixed. Her mother tugged at her arm.

The girl looked back now, flushed. "What?"

"That's real brave... what you're doing here."

"I want to leave," Charlotte said.

"Gee, thanks," the brunette said with a nervous giggle and turned to the two men she was with.

"You're really making a statement... standing in an air-conditioned airport."

"Look," the girl started. "My boyfriend was drafted. Were you there?" "Yes."

The girl's eyes widened. "That's so cool. Did you see them bayonet babies?"

Helen shook with a rage she didn't know was inside of her. Charlotte dragged her down the walkway.

"What was the point of it?" the girl yelled, gaining confidence at their retreat.

Helen stopped, unable to think. No one had ever asked her the question before.

When they reached the house, Helen first went around to the back and stood house, Helen first went around to the back and stood staring at the view she had grown up with--ocean waves breaking on the rocks down below. Then she walked from room to room, marveling how big and clean everything looked. Nothing had changed since she'd left except for herself. It was hard to imagine what had burned in her to leave this place and go halfway around the world. She wanted to return to what she had been before she left, but better, smarter, more content.