Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

“I can’t watch this,” Helen said. Since she arrived a few weeks ago she had made an effort to avoid the ugliness in the city and now it was unavoidable, blocking her path.

“Okay, we can make a run for it. The restaurant is only a street away.” The rain lightened to a heavy drizzle, and Helen stood in the road looking at the mess of wet feathers and blood, shivering, waiting as Robert paid the fare. A dog watched from an alley and made a sudden run past Helen, swooping down and grabbing a duck. Helen saw the white underside of its belly in his mouth as the dog sped past with his prize, an old man in pursuit with a broom. Splashing up water and mud, the dog paid with one wallop to his rear end before he disappeared around the corner with his prize. The man who caused the cart to overturn agreed to buy all the birds, and the final detail of the price was being negotiated. The uninjured ducks in the cages quacked madly as the owner made a grab for them, dashed their heads on the ground, and used the hatchet, tossing the bodies into a box.

Helen ran over and motioned with her hand not to kill them. She pulled dollars out of her purse and handed them to the old man, who grinned at her and bobbed his head.

Robert came up to her. “What’re you doing?”

“I want him to set them free.”

“What do you think the odds are for a freed duck in Vietnam?” The ridiculousness of the situation made him feel protective of her. Maybe he could love such a woman. She would never last here long.

“He understood me. He’ll take them to the country or something.”

Suddenly the rain started full force again. Robert grabbed her hand, and they ran, laughing.

“One of those ducks will probably be on your plate by the time we order,” he said.

They arrived at the restaurant and were forced to stand in the doorway by a grim-faced maître d’ who demanded towels be brought from the kitchen for them to dry off. He stood in front of them, arms folded across his chest, tapping his foot as they waited. Helen looked down and saw he wore women’s shiny black patent-leather shoes.

Robert took Helen’s elbow and led her to a large table of reporters at the far end of the room. When the men at the table saw Helen, conversation stopped. Helen’s wet hair fell in stringy strands; her dress had turned the dark blue of midnight. Some of the faces looked stony, others outright hostile. A few were bemused. The lack of welcome was palpable.

“You look like a goddess risen from the sea,” Gary said.

“Did you swim here from the States?”

“Everyone, this is Helen Adams. She’s a freelancer just arrived a week ago,” Robert said.

“So now the girls are coming. Can’t be much of a war after all.” “Quick work, Robert. What do you do? Wait for all the pretty ones to deplane at Tan Son Nhut?”

“Funny.” Robert made introductions around the table. “And that’s Nguyen Pran Linh down there. He’s the poor bastard who has to help that scruffy-looking guy at the end, the famous Sam Darrow. More commonly known as Mr. Vietnam. Either the bravest man here or the most nearsighted.”

The table broke up in laughter and catcalls. The awkwardness lingered.

“Don’t you usually bring nurses, Robert?”

Darrow rose from the end of the table, unfolding his long legs from under the low-set table. His skin was tanned, his graying brown hair curling long around his ears. His hands smoothed out the rumpled shirt he wore. The furrow between his eyes, though, was not dislike. He just couldn’t stand the sight of another shiny, young, innocent face landing in the war, especially a female one, and he was irritated with Robert for bringing her. Still, she looked pitiful and wet, already tumbled by the war, and he wasn’t going to let the boys go after her. He gave a short bow, his assessing, hawklike eyes behind his glasses making her self-conscious.

“Excuse the poor welcome,” Darrow said. He looked down at the table and picked at his napkin, then continued. “Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships.”

“Watch out, Robert. Incoming.”

Gary laughed too loud and turned away. “Where are my lobster dumplings? Get the waiter.”

“I propose a toast to the newcomer,” Darrow said. “Welcome to our splendid little war.”

“Getting less splendid and little by the day,” Robert said. He sensed his mistake in bringing her there.

Darrow raised his hand to push his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, and Helen noticed a long burled scar running from his wrist up to his elbow, the raised tissue lighter than the rest of his arm. He lifted his glass and spoke in a mock oratory:

“And catching sight of Helen moving along the ramparts,

They murmured one to another, gentle, winged words:

‘Who on earth could blame them?’ ”

“My God,” Ed, a straw-haired man with a large nose, said. “Do you have crib notes in your egg rolls or what?”

“Now he’s showing off. Making us all look like illiterates.”

“Fellows,” Darrow said, “most of you are illiterates.”

Everyone laughed, the tension broke, and Helen sat down. Darrow had okayed her presence. Gary passed a shot of scotch to her to join the toast. She picked up the glass and emptied it in one gulp. The table erupted in cheers.

“You flatter me,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong Helen.” She knew he had taken pity on her, but she wouldn’t accept it.

The white-coated waiter brought a platter of dumplings, filling her plate.

The effect of her arrival over, the conversation resumed its jagged course. “So I’m out in Tay Ninh,” Jack, an Irishman from Boston said. “And I have my interpreter ask the village elder how he thinks the new leader is doing. He says Diem is very good.” Grunts and half-hearted chuckles around the table.

“Oh man, looks like we’re winning the hearts and minds, huh?” Ed said.

“So I tell him Diem was a bad man and was overthrown two years ago,” Jack continued. “He asks very cautiously who the new leader is.”

“You should have said Uncle Ho.”

“Only name anyone recognizes anymore.”

“So I said to him Ky was in power,” Jack said.

“What does he say?”

“ ‘Ky very good.’ ”

Guffaws and groans. “So much for the domino theory. The people don’t care which way it goes. No one cares except the Americans.”

“The French would make a deal with Ho himself as long as they could keep their plantations and their cocktail hour. Just go off and be collective somewhere else, s’il vous plait.”

Helen stopped eating. She wanted simply to observe and hold her tongue, but she couldn’t. “I don’t agree.”

“What’s that, sweetheart?” Ed said, eyes narrowing.

“That the people don’t care. They cared in Korea. Everyone wants to be free.”

“What do you think, Linh? Our mysterious conduit to the north.”

Linh looked up from his plate. “I think this rice is very good.” The table burst out in laughter and when it died down, he continued as if he had not noticed the interruption. “Many people in this country haven’t had such good rice in years.”

“Our Marxist Confucian mascot. ‘Let them eat rice,’ ” Jack said.

“I’m sorry, but what do you know about Korea?” Darrow asked. “You’re just a baby now. You could have been prom queen last year in high school.”

Maybe, after all, she would not escape the night unscathed. “My father died there. Nineteen fifty Chosin. My brother was in Special Forces. He died in the Plain of Reeds last year.”

Darrow refused to offer sympathy. “Half of this table is probably here out of curiosity,” Darrow said. “The other half out of ambition. Of course it’s not the excitement that draws us. We’re in the business of war. The cool thing for us is that when this one’s done, there’s always another one-Middle East, Africa, Cambodia, Laos, Suez, Congo, Lebanon, Algeria. The war doesn’t ever have to end for us.”