Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

The South Vietnamese government immediately protested to the American embassy, saying that the incident had been faked. Captain Tong denied Helen’s version, calling her a spy, although he couldn’t explain why Americans would be discrediting their own allies, but the pictures and the testimony of Captain Olsen were ample verification. The company’s mission was aborted because of the publicity alerting the VC of their movements. Olsen cabled her congratulations and said the company celebrated with brandy and cigars back in the safety of the base camp. There was even a movement under way to have an LZ named in her honor. Not Scanlon’s.

That night she turned down Robert’s invitation for dinner with the boys and spent the evening walking alone through the streets of Saigon. The adrenaline high of events now turning into a low of confusion. She had proved to herself what she hadn’t known before: that under the right circumstances she could be brave. An unknown gift, strange and random, like the ability to play an instrument or be good at a sport. But the memory of the old man poisoned her. His balding head; the sagging, dark eyes; the thin, sinewy legs splayed out. She felt guilt that, outside of his village, she was the only one to mourn his death; an arrogant thought, perhaps, but he had already slipped into the realm of statistic. Maybe now was the time to leave, to night, without a single good-bye.

She could see the potential for the war to undo her. There was hardly any way the incident could have turned out better, ways without number for it to have turned worse.

The street barbers closed up shop along the sidewalks, taking down the mirrors and shelves hung on the outside of building walls. Food smells made her stomach growl; she had not eaten since breakfast. Ducking down awkwardly at a soup stall, she pointed at what she wanted. The old man smiled and soon a large crowd stood watching her, giggling at the sight of a Westerner, a woman no less, squatting on the street and eating with chopsticks and ladle-style spoon. The official health brochures warned against eating the street food, but Helen was tired of obeying rules, tired of being frightened. This night she was immune. She slurped her soup the same way the Vietnamese man next to her was doing.

Finished with her soup, she rose to the claps of a few Vietnamese around her, impressed that she had eaten the whole bowl. She bowed and made her way back to the hotel.

In the lead article about Captain Tong, Scanlon being killed by a land mine while on patrol had been mentioned only in passing; his death was not newsworthy enough in the war. But, of course, his death was the only thing that day that mattered. The old villager’s death was another tragedy of unnewsworthy proportion. She consoled herself with the thought that the pictures were graphic enough to shake people up, stop them being complacent about what was happening, and if that meant the war would end sooner, those two deaths weren’t in vain. As she hoped, with less and less confidence each day, that Michael’s had not been in vain. Too much waste to bear.

MacCrae’s words never left her thoughts. They want you to be part of their movie, don’t ever forget it. Their prescience haunted her, and if there was anyone she needed to talk to that night, it was him. Appropriate that he was now a ghost. Whatever victory she felt was cut neatly by the idea that her photos would be used for purposes she had not intended. She pictured MacCrae’s face across the table that night. An even more grim possibility. Would discrediting the SVA allow them to bring in more American soldiers?

The only tangible effect of her photos was the number of requests that came to cover Helen herself. Photo teams from the States wanted to go out and photograph her photographing the war. If she let that happen, she may as well go home because she’d be a spectacle. The journalist’s cardinal sin of becoming the center of the story. It embarrassed her, and she had Arnie turn them all down. And then an offer came from Life that she couldn’t turn down-staff photographer.

When Arnie finally got clearance to offer her a full-time position with the wire service, she blushed. “ Gary already made a big offer.”

“Yeah, I figured. Good for you. Hell, this is small potatoes here.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Arnie said. “You should find a nice soldier to marry.” Over the years, he had learned that each journalist had his own specific reasons for why he went into the battlefield. He guessed hers worked as well as anyone else’s.

She requested that her first assignment be to cover the Central Highlands and I Corps area, especially her brother’s Special Forces unit. Gary promptly ignored her, and she learned the price of being bought.

That night as she brushed her teeth, getting ready for bed, she heard a light rapping on the door. Her heart lifted, all the emotions of the week rushing out, hoping it was Darrow. She opened the door in her slip, but it was Linh standing there.

“I didn’t wake you?” he said, startled at the sight of her undressed.

“No, no. Is everything all right?” Helen asked, looking behind him.

“I’m going to work for you now.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Sam asks me to give you this.” Linh handed her an envelope.

“Come in. Sit down.” She motioned him to a chair and tore open the envelope.

Helen of a Thousand Ships,

Congratulations! Even though you bumped me from a cover and almost got yourself killed in the bargain. Since you’re determined to play the boys’ game, at least accept a life preserver-Linh. He will be invaluable to you.

Love,

Darrow

Linh stood by the window staring out. When she spoke to him, he kept his face turned away, and she guessed her slip embarrassed him. She put on a robe. Still he was pensive.

“How do you feel about this?” she asked.

“It’s important to Sam that I work with you. I’m hoping you are strong. I am thinking this is going to be a very long war.”

Defectors

A week after the dinner where Linh was first introduced to Helen, he went to Darrow’s hotel room and was surprised to see a picture of her on top of a stack of prints on the table. Darrow never joined his reporter friends with their Vietnamese bar girls at the various clubs. Linh knew about a few native women, including the one in Cambodia, but Darrow never openly had a girlfriend.

Perhaps Darrow preferred Western women, but there, too, Linh had observed a fair number try to capture his attention with no success. Was he struggling to stay faithful to his wife back in America? He never talked of her in the way a man talks of the woman he loves. But then Linh himself had never spoken of Mai until she was gone.

Which made the picture of the beautiful photographer all the more startling-a single bloom sprung up on a parched riverbed floor.

Linh examined more closely, saw she was wearing a flak jacket and camouflage pants, that the palms behind her were water palm fronds. Darrow had not mentioned going out on a mission with her, and Linh felt a pang of betrayal at the omission. He had become possessive over Darrow’s company, as well as his confidences.

“Oh, you remember the freelancer from the States?” Darrow said, turning away, obviously irritated at Linh’s attention and the necessity of explaining himself.

“A very striking freelancer.”

“You’re right. I’ve got to straighten myself out. Breaking my own rules.”

“Everyone gets lonely. Even the great Sam Darrow.”

“Don’t make me feel worse.”

Linh shrugged and finally forced himself to look away from the picture. He hated the fact that he had forced this admission; he was becoming a prude. Darrow had rescued him at his lowest point, and he was determined to repay the kindness.