Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

They waded through greenish gray paddy water the temperature of blood. Two hours later they climbed up to a dirt road and stopped for a break; the temperature was already ninety. When Helen took off her boots, her feet were bluish and shriveled, with a circle of black leeches feeding on her ankles. She pulled iodine Syrettes out of her pack and opened them, dousing the leeches till they dropped off. The point man, Samuels, came over and started burning them off her with the end of his cigarette. Olsen had given her an army pamphlet outlining VC explosive devices to be on the lookout for.

Helen buried her face in the booklet so she wouldn’t have to watch the leeches spasm and smoke as they burned. “This says to bypass booby-trapped areas,” she said.

Samuels paused and took a drag of his cigarette before he started on the leeches again. “Then we should be patrolling Wyoming because this shit hole is honeycombed with the stuff.”

He had the wide-open face of the Midwest, empty and innocent, but his eyes reminded her of the men stationed at firebases too long. His tanned arms were knotted with muscles, a green dragon tattoo wrapping around the left forearm under his flak jacket. He had been in-country for eight months.

“Come up front for some real fun,” he said.

Helen nodded but felt relieved that if she tried, Olsen would pull her back.

They started again down the wide dirt road.

Helen had been briefed on the various kinds of mines and booby traps to be aware of, but now, thinking where to put each footstep while watching the terrain around them frayed her nerves. She should be doing five things at once; like learning to drive, it needed to all become automatic. Whatever Olsen said, she couldn’t match her stride to the guy in front who was six feet tall. Constant guesswork whether a certain flat rock looked too inviting, if a patch of dirt seemed artificially mounded.

At eight in the morning, the day was so hot that her fatigues were soaked. Sweat poured into her eyes, forcing her to tie a bandanna around her forehead to keep her vision clear. A soldier behind her, Private First Class Tossi, handed her a roll of salt tablets that she chewed one after another. One more supply she’d need to start carrying in her pack.

“If you run out of salt tabs, suck on a pebble,” he said.

They approached a hamlet half an hour later, walking single file through a narrow break in the bamboo hedgerow that hid the village. The thatched dwellings were small, filthy, and sagging. The villagers looked at them with dead eyes and turned away, going about their business as if the troops were invisible. After they had passed, Helen saw a farmer turn an impassive face from the troops and slap his son so hard the child bawled.

The Vietnamese in the countryside seemed more foreign than in the cities. Smaller and darker and more hostile, making the Americans moving through their village feel like awkward and hated giants.

Tossi stood near Helen. “They give me the heebie-jeebies, the creepies, the way they are.”

After the hamlet was searched and secured, they sat in the shade of a grove of areca palms and pulled up pails of well water. Children peeked around the corners of huts and giggled as Helen took pictures of them. The men took off their helmets and poured whole buckets of water over themselves. Helen dipped her bandanna in the pail and wiped her face. Her vision swam. She opened a can of peaches, ate the whole thing in a few bites, and drank down the syrup. She bargained another can off Samuels in return for her ration of cigarettes.

As they prepared to leave, a young Vietnamese woman walked up to Helen and handed her a woven palm conical hat. She had a narrow oval face, almond skin; the soldiers growled out a few wolf whistles as she knelt down. Helen bowed and gave her the two candy bars she was saving as a bargaining chip for more peaches.

“Ohhh, baby, let me liberate you now!”

“Shut up,” Helen said. The men ignored Helen like a sister, but this woman was fair game. The hat, finely woven, had a pale flower painted along the brim. The girl bowed lower. “You’re scaring her.”

The woman rose quickly and made off. Helen put the hat on and was amazed by how light and cool it felt.

Nothing suspicious, they left the hamlet half an hour later, at ten o’clock, and continued on the dirt path that went along the river. The soldiers grumbled and finally Captain Olsen came up to her.

“I can’t order you, but the men want you to take that thing off.”

“It’s just a hat.”

The way he looked at her left no doubt that it was a kindly worded order. With regret, she made a production in front of Olsen of laying it on the side of the road. When she looked back, the line of soldiers had detoured, each man taking his turn to step on it with clumsy, muddied boots. It was the first time she felt something pull back inside of her-a distrust of her own soldiers.

Samuels offered her his bush hat. “Part of our pacification program. Don’t get on the wrong side of our hearts and minds.”

She took the cap meekly. Later, she picked a yellow daisy at the side of the road and tucked it behind her ear. “Am I going to be accused of being a peacenik now?”

Another hour, and they came to a small stream. The peasants crossed in narrow pole boats or walked across on monkey bridges made of single bamboo poles. The American soldiers were too big, loaded down too heavily, to try them. But Tossi, showing off, rushed halfway across one bridge before falling into waist-deep water. Everyone laughed and made catcalls. Even villagers stopped and hooted. The clowning was a relief, as if they were out on a nature hike.

One of the privates shuffled down a bank into a solid clump of reeds to wade across the stream. Next thing, the concussion from an explosion knocked everyone flat: earth and shards of metal rained down. A pressure-detonated case mine sheared off his left leg and buttock; he lay screaming in the river, a sudden flush of red all around him as the water leaked his blood away.

It was as unexpected and horrific as a traffic accident, and Helen sat frozen in place, stunned. But then, as a reflex, she lifted the camera and started shooting as two soldiers jumped in and dragged the private out of the water and onto dry ground. A Vietnamese man, close by the explosion, stood with an icicle-shaped piece of shrapnel coming out of his cheek.

The medic shot the private up with morphine and tried to stanch the blood with a large compress. The wounded man moaned and cried out. When he saw Helen, he yelled to the medic, “I don’t want a woman to see me this way.” Stricken, she moved out of his sight, her courage failing her. Nothing left to do but wait for the medevac, the medic left to patch up the Vietnamese man.

The private’s screams spooked them all; they stole looks at him, praying for the dustoff to come faster. When the morphine took effect, Helen braced herself and went over. “I’ll leave if you want me to.” His hand reached out to her, and she held it.

“Would you take my picture?” he said.

“I did. The next one will be when I visit you in the hospital.”

“Now. Send this one to my mother.”

“You don’t want your mother to see this.”

“Do it.”

Helen held her camera, wiping at her eyes so she could focus. He looked straight in the lens-cheeks and chest pitted with black shrapnel. One leg was straight out and ended in a boot, next to it there was a phantom space where the other leg should have been. A blanket was bundled around his groin.

“Don’t be so scared,” he said. “You look so frightened you’d think it was your leg. You’ll make it.” He seemed satisfied and looked away. Ten minutes later he died.

“I didn’t find out his name.”