Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

All around her voices were raised to the highest pitch-pleading, Vietnamese words falling on deaf ears, begging in pidgin English for rescue. People bargaining, trying to bribe at this too-late hour with jewelry and gold watches and dirty piastres pushed through the bars of the gate, valuables flung inside in this country where wealth was so scarce.

A man close to Helen held out a baby. “Not me. Take my baby. Save my son.” He would pay one million piastres, two million, and as he met silence on the other side of the gate, he cried and said five million, five million piastres, money that he had either amassed over decades or stolen in minutes. He opened a sack and shoved bundles of the bills through the gate to obligate his son’s protectors, unaware that to these Americans his money was worthless, less than Monopoly money, that these soldiers were scared of this dark-faced mob, unable to grant safety even to one baby, that all they wanted was to protect the people already inside and escape from this sad joke of a war themselves.

Helen’s arm jerked down as Linh collapsed behind her, his legs buckled, and she screamed in Vietnamese, forgetting, languages blurring, then realizing her mistake, screaming in English, “Let us in. I’m American press.”

The Marine’s head turned at the sound of her words. “Jesus, what’s happened to you?”

“Let us in.”

“Open the gate,” he said, motioning to the guards behind him.

As the gate opened, more Marines came to provide backup, aiming automatic rifles into the crowd.

The guard put a hand against Linh’s chest. “He can’t come.”

“He works for the American newswires. He’s got papers.”

“Too late for papers,” he said. “Half the people out here have papers.”

“Damn you,” Helen screamed. “This man was just wounded saving my life.”

“Can’t do it.”

“He’s my husband.”

“I suppose you have a marriage certificate?”

“He stays, I stay. And if I get killed by the NVA, the story of the embassy refusing us will be in every damned paper. Including your name.”

The guard’s face was covered in sweat, already too young and tired and irritable for his years. “Shit, it doesn’t hardly matter anymore. Get in.” He came out a few more steps, grabbed Linh, then Helen, and flung them inside like dolls. The man with the baby tried to grab Helen’s arm, but the Marine punched him back into the net of the crowd. As they passed through the gates, five or six Vietnamese used the chaos to rush in. They scattered into the crowd, invisible like birds in a forest, before the guards could catch them. Guns fired, and Helen hoped they had been fired into the air. No more blood on her hands this day. With a great metallic clang, the gate shut again.

The lost opportunity frenzied the crowd outside. Heads poked over while Marines stood atop the walls, rifle-butting bodies off.

Inside was crowded but calmer. Americans stood by the compound buildings while Vietnamese squatted on every available inch of grass.

They were searched and patted down. “Ma’am, you’ll have to turn that in.”

Helen looked at the guard bewildered until she realized they had found the forgotten gun in her smock. Not only that, but she had managed somehow to keep both film cases. The guard led her over to the compound swimming pool, where she tossed it in to join the fifty or sixty guns already lying along the bottom.

“I need a medic,” Helen said.

The guard nodded and went off. Helen grabbed Linh’s shoulders and supported his weight as he lowered himself and stretched out on the ground. The front of his shirt was soaked in blood. Several minutes later an American in white shirtsleeves came over with a black kit. “You hurt, miss?”

“Not me. Linh was wounded a couple of days ago. He’s bleeding.”

The man helped unbutton Linh’s shirt and unwrapped the bandages. “I can clean him up, but he needs attention from doctors on ship.”

“How long before we go?” Helen said.

“They’ll call you.”

Helen nodded.

“How about I look at that bump on your head? Looks like you might need some stitches yourself. Don’t want a scar.”

Hours passed. Helen and Linh sat on the grass, propped against the film cases. Papers were being burned inside the compound buildings, the endless secrets of the war, smoke and ash drifting in the air, settling on the people, the ground, on top of the water in the pool like a gray snowfall. After the adrenaline wore off, Helen was bone-weary. She nibbled on a few uppers, then brought warm sodas and stale sandwiches from the makeshift food service operating out of the abandoned embassy restaurant.

“We made it,” she said. “Happy, happy.”

“Still in Saigon. We just managed to crawl into a new cage.” Linh held his side, his face drowsy with dull pain.

Helen leaned in close to him. “I pushed it too far, but it all worked out. No damage done.”

“No damage.”

“When I took the picture of that woman, I was angry that the shot might get ruined. And then I thought, What have I become?”

Linh shifted and grimaced at the pain. “Just be with me.”

“I want to.”

“You didn’t start this war, and you didn’t end it. Nothing that happened in between is your fault, either.”

Helen’s face was expressionless, tears running down it, without emotion.

“You don’t believe me.” He wiped her face dry, but already her attention was slipping away. “None of it had anything to do with us. We’re just bystanders to history.”

The sky darkened. Linh’s head rolled to one side as he fell into a deep, drugged sleep. People near Helen worried about the Marines being able to keep back the crowd outside. The Vietnamese going out were classified as dependents of the Americans, although for the last decade the Americans had depended on them to survive in this harsh country. Traitors by association. The number of people per flight was minuscule compared to those waiting, like taking water out of a bucket an eyedropperful at a time.

The noise from the helicopters was deafening, but in between Helen could hear the distant rumblings from Gia Dinh and Tan Son Nhut, a constant percussion that matched the throbbing in her head. The noise much closer than this morning; lifetimes seemed to have passed in the intervening hours. Linh trembled in his sleep.

An embassy employee walked by, and Helen stopped the man. “How much longer? This man needs medical attention.”

“Could be all night.” He looked at her sternly, tapping his pencil on his note pad for emphasis. “Americans are being boarded now. Especially women. Go inside. He’ll be taken care of later.”

In the convoluted language of the embassy, trouble. She woke Linh, tugging him onto his feet, harnessing the straps of the film cases around her neck. They joined the end of a long line going up the stairs to the roof. She flagged one of the Marines guarding the entrance. “I need to get this man on a helicopter.”

“Everyone takes their turn.”

She rubbed her forehead. “No. He’s been shot. He’s going to die without medical attention.”

“There are a lot of people anxious to get on the plane, ma’am. I don’t have any special orders concerning him.”

A rumpled-up man with a clipboard came up. He was in his twenties, with a beaten-up face that looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“I’m Helen Adams. Life staff photographer. This is Nguyen Pran Linh, who works for Life and the Times. He’s wounded and needs immediate evacuation.” Helen figured under the current circumstances no one would find out about her lies, the fact her magazine had pulled her credentials. Weren’t they trying to kick her out of the country, after all?