Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

Darrow felt his way into the dark room. “You awake?”

“Yes.”

He flipped on the red-shaded lamp. “I was hoping you were here.” He sat on the bed. “I drove straight in from Bien Hoa, screw the curfew.”

In his arms, she let herself be still a minute, feel protected for the barest fraction of time. He smelled of sweat, dirt, and the fecund reek from being in the field. It repulsed and made her hold him tighter. His body strong, but he was no different from Samuels, the vulnerability of flesh.

“Your wife’s in town. At your hotel room.”

He let go of her. “Not now.”

“Wasn’t my choice.”

“How do you know?”

“As in, have I seen her? No.”

Darrow pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “She threatened something about coming.”

Helen moved away and pulled the sheet up around herself. “You didn’t mention me… no.” He had let it come to this, having her here. Helen’s feelings were suddenly clear. “I had my own little religious experience out there this last time. Maybe you didn’t tell her about us for a reason. I need something of my own. Not you. It never was. You and I were just a diversion.”

“Where’s this coming from?” He was angry at how quickly she was willing to throw them away.

“That’s rich-you’re being jealous.”

Darrow stood and shoved a chair hard across the room. It made a heavy thud as it fell on its side. “A war is on, you notice? What the fuck do my marriage and your hurt feelings mean?”

“ ‘The cool thing for us, baby, is that when this war’s done, there’s always another one. The war doesn’t ever have to end for us.’ What would you do without the war as an excuse?”

“Ask me to leave her.”

“Very romantic, but impractical.”

Darrow kicked the door, and it bounced back into the wall. She flinched. The knob left a fist-size indentation in the wallpaper. “I’m ending this marriage now, regardless of if you’re here when I get back.” Her back was to him, and he stood in the door frame, catching his breath. “Be here when I get back.”

A military jeep roared past Darrow in the street. Three ARVN soldiers sat in the front, two squeezed in the passenger seat. They had just finished a good dinner, with ample quantities of beer, and insisted on driving him to his hotel so that less liberal-minded soldiers didn’t hassle him for being out past curfew. Apparent that if he didn’t oblige, they, in fact, would be the ones to hassle him. He got in and offered cigarettes all around. Satisfied, the soldiers forgot about him and gossiped among themselves. Darrow sat back in silence and smoked.

Helen was right, of course. He didn’t reveal himself, or rather the limited facts of biography never seemed important, always giving an arbitrary, confining version of the truth. He smiled in the darkness, realizing this was a liar’s rationale. His wife’s father owned the major newspaper that he had first worked for; he knew that fact led to surmises about his integrity. What it meant in reality was that he worked much harder to prove himself, that he had doggedly achieved on his own merits despite that.

But the withholding had started even earlier. He had never even told his wife about his name change. At the time, he had felt it gave him a foolish and vaguely embarrassing vanity, an adolescent stunt. Now too much time had passed for the truth; they had been married six years, even though he hadn’t spent more than a few weeks at a time with either her or the boy.

No, not telling his wife had involved something deeper that he wanted to hide. She fell in love with Sam Darrow, the famous war photographer, but he was still the insecure young man determined to create this mythic persona. When he told her the first time that he was leaving for the Middle East, she sobbed. Wanted him to move to features, take pictures of politicians and movie stars. Not understanding that the creation now demanded its due, demanded to be played out.

He sat her down on the chintz-covered sofa in the living room. The marriage a terrible mistake, he offered an immediate divorce-an annulment for her sake. But she insisted on waiting till after the baby. Which was the way she announced her pregnancy to him. Much to his father-in-law’s displeasure, he jumped when the offer to work for Life came, no longer beholden to the paper. He had been gone since; if it made her happy to stay married, he had seen no reason to inflict more suffering on the girl than he already had.

As the jeep swung through the empty streets, the night air blew cool and damp; he was still grimy from patrol but in no hurry to reach his destination. No other place he’d rather be than Saigon, no other life he would choose.

He hardly knew the woman waiting in the hotel room for him. He supposed she was a nice, loving girl and that her marriage to him had been a terrible disappointment. He blamed himself for weakness. There was another reason for his marriage that he hadn’t admitted to Helen, which had to do with his fear of not coming back; a kind of insurance policy at the time to leave someone behind, waiting for him. But this woman’s love had not weighted him down to either safety or caution.

The jeep stopped in front of the hotel, and Darrow climbed out. He tossed the rest of the pack of cigarettes to the driver and received a happy nod as the jeep sped away.

He felt a hazy discomfort, as slight as a sore muscle, afraid that changing the status quo, no matter how unsatisfactory, would jinx his luck. Helen’s love was difficult, took away his lightness, his fearlessness.

Sunlight, broken up and scattering itself as the leaves of the flamboyant tree moved in the wind outside the window. Helen hadn’t slept, reconciling herself to the future of things, and now at late morning, she still lay in bed, heavy, half awake.

She heard the key in the door, and then Darrow stood in the bedroom. Studying his face under half-closed eyes, she imagined she had summoned him with her dreams. The thought surprised her that she would never love anyone as much. His expression defiant as he pulled the wedding band off his finger and threw it across the floor. They both heard the hollow roll of it as it circled down into silence.

Months passed. Robert’s assignment was up; he was being promoted and sent to Los Angeles as bureau chief. When he invited Helen for a last lunch, they sat at the patio tables of the Cercle Sportif as shy as young lovers with unfinished business. Helen pretended to sun herself, tilting her face and closing her eyes. Although she always enjoyed his company, she wanted to know nothing about his relationship with Annick, which had been going on for the last few months. Annick had indicated that the relationship was less than satisfactory. Out at the pool, the daughters of wealthy South Vietnamese families sunned in French bikinis and ordered drinks from waiters who had been there since the colonial era.

Robert’s white shirt and khaki pants were freshly pressed, his face shaven and smooth. And yet there were circles under his eyes and a cowlick that wouldn’t settle over his forehead. Something vaguely dissipated about him, as if the tropics had finally had their way. He had aged a decade in the year and a half Helen had known him.

“If ever there was a revolution,” Robert said, “it should start here, don’t you think? Hopefully that waiter over there is a VC operative, a nephew of Uncle Ho.”

“How can you leave all this?” She was teasing but also curious. Reporters were beginning to consider Vietnam a must-have on their résumés.

“I’ve had more than enough of this place. Two years is a lifetime in Saigon.” He looked at her and smirked. “When’re you taking off?”