Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

At the meeting place of silk and lacquered bowl streets, Helen found the moon-shaped entrance of the alley, still puddled from the rain, retracing her path as if she could return to the time before her failure that day. Reckless, she ran through water the color of ink at the alley’s mouth while men stood at the corner and stared, ran through a cacophony of incense and spice smells she could not yet name. Past stores that sold only twine. What had before seemed strange now became soothing. We are hardwired for the comfort of familiarity, she thought. Again, the airless effect of buildings so packed together, the lights within storefronts dim, darkness and closeness smothering her.

She ran down the narrow, murky throat of the path till she saw the yellow building that listed to one side, darkened like a sweat-stained shirt. Looking up, she saw the glow of the lampshade in the window, and the weight on her chest grew lighter despite her anger. Wanting to forget the day, she pushed open the lacquered door, unable to see the peacocks and tigers painted on it, and felt her way up the black, groaning staircase that smelled of cedar and fish.

As she knocked on the door, the sounds of jazz inside and the high staccato of female laughter, made her feel like a fool-the idea that just the sight of Darrow would heal her childish wounds. She turned to escape before anyone came, but the door swung wide open to Darrow holding a glass of scotch in his hand.

“Helen of a Thousand Ships.” He smiled, a victorious plea sure in his eyes.

She stood, unable to move. He was a stranger to her.

“Who’s there?” a voice called.

“Come in,” Darrow said, taking her arm, pulling her inside. The air thick with the grassy smell of pot.

“Jack, it’s our new… intrepid girl reporter.”

Nothing else to do for it, so she hauled back and punched Darrow in the face as hard as she was able, closing her eyes at the point of contact so that when he bent, she wasn’t sure what she’d managed. His glasses flew off, and blood trickled from one nostril.

“What the hell?”

“You ordered me to leave. I had no choice. And then you come back and tell everyone I didn’t take any pictures.”

“I didn’t.”

“Everyone knows.”

“Everyone knows because everyone’s interested in watching you fail, girlie,” Jack said.

Jack was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, a fat, hand-rolled roach pinched between his fingertips. Next to him, a Vietnamese woman was kneeling on a cushion. She had a wide, acne-scarred face, and she winked at Helen, her bright orange lipstick smudged.

“You ignored me. You didn’t help me at all, show me anything.”

“That’s because I treated you out there like a man. No special treatment. Decide what you want.”

“So that’s cleared up,” Jack said. “Introductions.”

Darrow blinked, a napkin against his nose. “That is…”

“Tick-Tock,” Jack said.

Darrow pursed his lips, and she could tell he was drunk. “Formal introductions, please. That is Miss Tick-Tock.”

Jack patted the woman’s thigh. “Just in time for the party. Here, Helen, have a puff of Cambodia ’s finest.”

“Let me pour you a drink,” Darrow said and led Helen to a chair. “Let’s not corrupt her all in one day.”

“If I was wrong, I’m sorry.”

As she sat down, Jack pointed to her feet. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to wear heels in the paddy?” He burst out laughing.

She looked down and saw her ruined suede shoes. Darrow went to the armoire and got a towel. He sat on the floor, took off her shoes, and rubbed her feet. No one had explained how to deal with the residual fear of physical danger; she felt five years old and in need of someone’s arms around her. His eye was red and beginning to swell. Unable to stop, she reached out and ran her fingertips across his cheek. In the most illogical reasoning, she had chosen him because he wouldn’t nurture her like kind, dependable Robert.

“Well, folks,” Jack said. “I’ll leave the joint with you, but I’m going to have to push off.”

“You don’t have to go,” Helen said.

“Actually, we do. Come along, Tick-Tock.”

No one said anything.

“No, please, don’t try and stop me.” Jack got up. “See you around.”

Alone, Helen kept sitting in the chair, Darrow on the floor. He looked at her steadily, waiting.

“Are you okay?”

“No. Not okay. I froze today. Forgot the damn camera was there.”

Darrow touched his eye and winced. “When I first started… You either get over it or you don’t.”

“I feel humiliated.”

“I’ll give you this-as scared as you were, to night I thought you’d be on the first plane home.”

She shook her head. The idea of sealing off her failure for all time was unthinkable. “I’m not going home.”

“Why? You have a criminal record or something?”

She smiled. “Am I going to make it?” She was surprised at the calm and matter-of-factness in her voice.

“Try again. See what happens.” Darrow stood, took her hand, and led her to the bed. “You aroused a bit of curiosity, you know. It’s better for you if I don’t protect you.”

“No one will give me a chance now.”

“It’s always better to beat low expectations.”

“I don’t love you,” she said. “Couldn’t love someone like you.” She kissed his collarbone, his chest above his heart. After all the elusiveness of the last few days, things slipping out of her grasp, this felt right. His skin cool under her lips. No magic, no heart pounding. Just lust, taken neat. Probably he would break her heart in the long run, but she did not quit. Would not give up this moment to avoid that future one. She did not think it was true that women fell in love all at once, but rather that they fell in love through repetition, just the way someone became brave. She did not love him yet.

Darrow said nothing, only kept pulling her in.

The sickle of moon angled down the narrow alley, lit the precarious room, the ramshackle bed. Darrow traced her profile with his fingertip. He was falling in love in his own way, building a legend that was not quite her. “When I saw you for the first time at dinner, do you know what I thought?”

She turned toward him, her body a smooth spoon of moonlight. “Tell me.”

“I thought, There is a woman who has never been in love. And I wondered, Why? You could have any man at that table. Hell, Robert is ready to marry you and settle down in the bayou.” He had wanted to say something romantic, but he had lost the knack for romance, if he ever possessed it.

On this night she would have preferred the tenderness of lies.

After she had fallen asleep, Darrow rose, put on his glasses, and lit a cigarette. His eye throbbed. Had to hand it to her: She had a good punch. He was a man who always wanted to reach the end of things, stories or people, to understand in order to put them behind him and move on. It had been like that since he was a teenager working in darkrooms in New York, when he heard for the first time the magical names-Pearl Harbor, Mount Suribachi, Tarawa -spoken in the hushed tones one would use in church. Those men who came in with unshaven faces, rumpled clothing, weary eyes. Smelling of leather. Their pictures harsh with white light like a stage: blinding white beaches and billowing, translucent clouds; shadows on palm trees, uprooted coconut logs; shadows on soldiers’ equipment and along the folds of uniforms that gave them the density of monuments. So formative that ever since then he had distrusted oceans and beaches, had felt their menace, always found himself scanning the surf for danger. Many of those men had been past soldiers longing for the heat of battle. He had failed the physical exams-glasses, crooked spine. Photographs were his only entrée to this world of war, a pass to be in the center of the most important story in the world at any specific time.