Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

Robert drank down his glass in one gulp. “Not if you want to be where the action is. Not if you consider the work a calling.” His sudden earnestness made all three fall silent. Although it was obvious Darrow didn’t think much of him, Robert respected and disliked the man in equal mea sure.

Darrow shrugged. “Say no.”

“Oh, baby, that’s where you and I differ. I’m twenty-nine months, five days too long in this hellhole.” The one thing Robert knew for sure was Darrow’s stringing Helen along was shameful.

“We’re leaving soon.” Darrow looked down at his feet.

Robert raised his eyebrows and looked from him to Helen. She seemed equally surprised. “That’s great. Really. I’m two hundred bucks poorer, but what the hell.”

“You bet on us?” Helen said. “Against us?”

“I’m a reporter. I took the odds.”

Helen wandered the dining room and found Annick at a table of Americans from the embassy. A large, beefy-faced guy with curly black hair protested as Helen pulled her away to the bar to have a drink alone.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Annick looked back at the man, who never took his eyes off her. “Two champagnes.”

“How long have you been seeing this one?”

“This one is the one.”

“You said that last time. Isn’t it bad form to bring him to Robert’s party?” Annick wore a long, beaded red gown that sparkled as she moved. Now she pushed away from the bar and began to sway to the music. “Look around. All the good men are either leaving or dying. What difference can it possibly make?”

“What if you end up alone?”

“I was married and ended up alone. Everyone leaves. Robert, Sam, and you. It makes me too sad.”

“Then find someone.”

Annick turned a tough, appraising look on her; the businesswoman face at the shop was the real her. “You count on the future too much. Tonight, just dance.”

“Go get your beau.” Helen laughed, pointing to the man at the table, his lips pressed together in a frown.

“He hates to dance. And he’s jealous. If I dance with another man, it will be a bad night.”

“Then let’s you and me,” Helen said, pulling her toward the dance floor.

“You’re fou. Crazy.”

“Now you’ve convinced me.”

Out on the dance floor, the two women danced to cheers from the surrounding tables. Helen led, and they both stumbled, doubled over laughing so they could hardly stand. Slowly they worked out the rhythm for a box step.

Helen floated to the music, her mind on the silly spectacle of herself and Annick, a huge surge of relief not to worry and want. She was glad she hadn’t drunk much champagne, that this was pure joy she felt. As Annick spun in a circle away from her, sparkling, Helen thought she was perhaps right, this was the only possible escape from the war.

The first sign something was wrong: the band coming to a ragged stop, stranding the dancers on the floor. Angry yells. Helen recognized Darrow’s voice. As she made her way through the crowd, she saw Tanner first but could not make out his words. Darrow stood quietly across from him while Robert stepped between the men, trying to lead Tanner away. Instead, he jerked out of Robert’s grip, lurching forward and again saying something she couldn’t hear.

Darrow made a single forward motion, right fist connecting with Tanner’s face, knocking him onto his back. Cartoonish. Uncertain laughs came from the crowd, and Helen saw a smear of blood under Tanner’s nose as he shook his head. He sat relaxed on the floor, dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief someone handed him. When he spoke, his voice was low and reasonable, as if he were discussing politics over brandy.

“Screw you, Darrow… just as dead with or without my pictures.”

“My problem is you.”

Tanner stood up unsteadily. Men approached to restrain him, but he shook them off. “I’m done here.” He wiped his bloodied mouth and looked at his hand. “Quang Ngai. I’m supposed to interfere with a bunch of wackedout Marines? They were VC in the tunnels. What if they killed one of our guys?”

Darrow leaned against the wall, rubbing his hand. “Gunning down women and children.”

“We’re not the morality police out there. Especially you, huh? As long as you have the wife and kiddie back home, the piece of ass over here, it’s all okay, huh?”

Darrow lunged. It took Robert and three other men to drag him outside. Although Darrow and Helen had been together openly for more than a year now, the spoken words unleashed something. She felt looks from some of the men, stares from wives and girlfriends.

“Forget Tanner,” Robert said. “He’s a shit. You’ve given him wet dreams even taking him seriously.”

“I’m sorry,” Darrow said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“Come back in. It’s still early,” Robert said.

“Not for me.”

Helen searched for Annick to say good-bye. At the end of the bar she spotted quivering red sparkles. When she got closer, Annick was crying.

“What’s wrong?” Helen said.

Annick shrugged. “It’s all coming apart.” “What is?” “Everything. The war is ending.” “Where’s… your guy?”

Annick tossed her head, annoyed. “He’s nothing.”

“I thought he was the one.”

“Only the war is the one.”

Darrow and Helen drove back home in silence. Helen hung up her borrowed dress, turned on the red-shaded lamp. They went to bed, lay side by side, not touching or talking, then rolled away from each other in sleep.

In the middle of the night, Helen awakened to the rumble of thunder, the sound of rain on the roof. From long habit, she hurriedly got up to put bowls under the regular leaks in the ceiling. Back in bed, she listened to the drops of water plink first against metal, then against water. Darrow rose and stood at the window, smoking.

“I guess you don’t care we might drown in a puddle in our sleep,” she said.

“Damned thing is he’s right.”

She stared at the water stain on the ceiling. “Who?”

“That SOB Tanner.”

“About?”

“What pisses me off is seeing myself in him.”

Helen sat up, knees folded beneath her chin. “You’re nothing like him.”

Darrow came to the bed and sat down. “I’ve been here too long. I hear something going down in Can Tho or Pleiku, I have to be the first one there.”

“That’s your job.”

“I’ve been leading you along, too.” He took hold of her arm, stroking the skin at her wrist. “I don’t mean to.”

“Don’t leave because of me,” she said.

Darrow shook his head. “Let’s take our trip to Cambodia. I want to see the apsaras again. I had dreams there…”

Lying in his arms, she realized Darrow spoke with other people’s words. Words she wanted to hear but that were not necessarily the same as the truth. He created himself like a collage, bits and pieces that she would never come to the bottom of.

“I’m ready to leave with you,” he said.

She had dreamed the words so long that she barely made sense of them, but she tried to convince herself that the long siege was over. He loved her after all, and now they could go home.

When he left early that morning, she was still sleeping.

It was this way in Vietnam during the war-sometimes Darrow felt all powerful, felt he could ride fate like a flying carpet, like a helicopter, will it to do his bidding. Other times fate reminded him that he was only a toy, blown this way and that, swept away or destroyed on a whim.

The difficult decision made, Darrow felt lighter than he had in years. Helen equaled life to him, and he would let all this go and follow her, follow life out of this place. As scheduled, he joined the crew of a gunship, spent the morning flying in Tay Ninh province along the Cambodian border, photographing a cross-border black-market operation. It was a good morning, a good helicopter. He felt in his element. The pilot flew contour, almost touching the tops of trees, what they called “map of the earth” flying. Hostile forces could hear the plane but didn’t have time to draw a bead on it in the dense canopy jungle.