Marisa Carroll - Winter Soldier

Their cyclo driver was a young man of French and Vietnamese descent who spoke excellent English. He maneuvered them skillfully through the heavy traffic, taking them directly to the abandoned American Embassy, a concrete-and-glass fortress every bit as ugly as it had looked in the news footage on TV. The building had a sad, defeated air about it, Leah thought. Someone had hung laundry in one of the old guard towers. She sat quietly for a moment, Adam equally silent beside her. Then they climbed out of the cyclo and stood by the gates where she had seen videos of refugees trying to climb over, of grim-faced young Marines on the wall pulling others into the compound, of overloaded helicopters taking off from the roof.

She’d brought her camera, and without her asking him Adam took her picture in front of the gates, and then their driver took a picture of both of them together. Her father’s ghosts were close. She could feel their eyes on the back of her neck. “Were you here?” she asked Adam.

He shook his head. “I never got this far.” His expression appeared set, his jaw clenched. Leah didn’t ask any more questions about the past.

They didn’t stop to tour the presidential palace. She didn’t know what she was going to tell her dad when she got back, but she’d think of something. Most likely the truth. I went there with a Marine who was in Saigon at the end. He didn’t want to go inside, so we didn’t. Her dad would understand.

Instead they took B.J.’s advice and went shopping. Their driver took them to a small, bustling marketplace. It was alive, wall-to-wall, with sights and sounds and smells that were raucous and tantalizing, unfamiliar and fascinating. Leah stood for a long minute just looking around. Street vendors peddled their wares on every corner. Food stands crowded storefronts, shoppers jostled one another as they ogled the merchandise. Vietnam was still a Communist country, and poor, but you would never know it by the stacks and boxes and cartons of VCRs, televisions, CD players and microwave ovens piled inside the tiny stores, spilling outside onto the sidewalk, lashed to cyclos and bicycles, and stacked in pushcarts.

She bought a pale blue silk ao dai, the traditional slim dress and loose pants worn by Vietnamese women, for her mother. Exactly like the one her father had brought home thirty years ago, but three sizes larger. Then she bought a mint-green one for herself. She chose greeting cards with beautiful, silk-screen paintings of craggy green mountains and mist-covered valleys that she could frame for Caleb Owens and his wife, Margaret. Also one for Juliet Trent, the pregnant teenager she had befriended. That left only her brothers, and for them she bought carvings of elephants and of smiling old men smoking their pipes and wearing the traditional conical hats called lo nan.

Adam stayed by her side saying little, waiting patiently. He didn’t buy anything, not even for his son, Brian. She knew his name, knew he was nineteen and a sophomore at Harvard. Adam had told her that much the night before. But she knew nothing beyond those few facts, certainly not why his father wasn’t buying him a gift from this exotic and fascinating place.

Like the stray animals Leah had rescued in the past, once or twice she’d become involved with stray men—men with haunted eyes and sad smiles like Adam Sauder. Trying to heal wounded souls was much harder than healing wounded bodies, she’d learned to her sorrow. His hurts and heartaches were none of her business. This time she wasn’t going to get involved. She was going to protect herself for a change. She saw him pick up a watch, turn it over, then put it down again.

“Do you suppose it’s really a Rolex? For only a hundred dollars?” There was a sign in English above the table of watches. There were a lot of signs in English, nothing in Russian. The few Russians who came now didn’t have money to spend. The Americans and Australians did.

“I doubt it, but it’s a very good knockoff.”

“It would be a nice gift for your son.”

He picked the watch up again, unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out a money clip. The shopkeeper appeared in front of them as if by magic. “You like?”

“I’ll take it.” Adam peeled off five twenties and handed the man the money. He didn’t bargain for a better price.

“Engrave for free,” the smiling shopkeeper said. “Remember Saigon always.”

“I don’t need a watch for that.” But Adam handed it to him, anyway.

“What do you say on it?”

“For Brian—” Adam began.

Suddenly there was a small stampede of sandaled feet, and from out of nowhere came a whole gaggle of children of all ages, all sizes, from toddlers to young adolescents, who swirled around them. Street children. There were many of them in Saigon, some orphaned, some not. Left behind in the headlong rush to prosperity, they roamed the streets living hand-to-mouth.

“Nguoi My! Nguoi My!” It meant American. Leah had learned it from her phrase book. “Friends, give us money—dollars.”

She wished there was more she could do to help, but she’d learned the hard way you couldn’t save the world all by yourself. At least, she could do her small part and make today a little better for them. She slipped her hand into her skirt pocket to fish out a couple of dollar bills she had stashed there.

The children became even noisier when they saw the money. They began to jump up and down, laughing and giggling, demanding more. The shopkeeper waved them away. They ignored him, crowding around Adam and Leah and plucking at their clothes. A couple tugged the straps of her backpack. Leah laughed and tugged back. The shopkeeper picked up a broom resting by the door and made sweeping motions toward the children, still scolding in Vietnamese. The boys shouted. The little girls squealed, and one of the smallest started crying.

Leah glanced over at Adam. His face was as white as his shirt. A look of pure horror.

The shopkeeper shooed the children out into the street. Leah held her breath and watched them until they were safely on the other side of the narrow, crowded roadway. She turned back as the ebb and flow of Saigon street life surrounded her again. She was alone. She looked around. Adam was already a hundred feet away and walking fast. Surely he hadn’t turned tail and run because a group of kids had hustled them for a couple of dollars. Then she remembered the look on his face and thought maybe he had. She watched him go, a head taller than everyone else around him.

“Adam, wait! Your watch.” She might as well have saved her breath. The level of street noise made it impossible for him to hear her. She didn’t think he would have stopped if he had. He’d left her alone in the middle of a strange city without a word of explanation. She had every right to be angry with him, but she wasn’t. Being stranded didn’t worry her—she could take care of herself. What bothered her was the memory of that look on his face. She wanted to know what had put it there. She wanted to help take it away—and that bothered her most of all.

CHAPTER THREE

A DELIVERY-TRUCK DRIVER made a U-turn in the middle of the street two blocks from the market, tying up traffic in every direction, when Leah was heading back to the hotel. It took her driver almost an hour to maneuver his cyclo through the snarl. When she finally arrived, the bus to take them to Dalat was waiting, engine idling. She paid the driver and hurried to her room. While packing, she listened for sounds of movement from Adam’s suite, but heard nothing. She couldn’t stop wondering where he was and what he was doing. She couldn’t forget the horror she’d glimpsed on his face—an old horror, familiar and long remembered. It sent a shiver of dread up and down her spine. When she left her room, she knocked on his door. There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected there would be.