Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

Five soldiers, including one young boy, took out small hatchets shaped like half-moons and began combing through the surrounding brush. Four of them moved upstream, away from the Americans, but the young boy moved downstream, straight toward them.

Helen held her breath and moved her head in time to see one of the Lurps nearest her pull the pin out of a grenade and then the boy soldier was near them, but he was not looking for a pole. He seemed glad to stop marching, and he looked up at the sky and down the stream and reached in his pocket, pulling out something white that he quickly stuck in his mouth, and as he began to chew, Helen realized it was gum, and the surprise made her smile. An order was barked from one of the soldiers holding the wagon in the stream, and the boy soldier veered directly toward Helen and Linh, seeing the easy lure of their cut branches. He reached for one of the poles holding the camera, bringing his right hand with the hatchet up. When the pole came away in his hand, he found himself looking eye to eye with Linh. The boy soldier’s eyes grew big, and his chest inhaled a yell when his vision caught the movement of Helen’s hand on the cable, and his eyes grew larger.

Helen looked at him and knew that it was probably the end for all of them, but something in his face and gestures made her unafraid. Gently she raised her hand and ran her index finger lightly across her neck, more a statement of the situation they all found themselves in than a threat, and the boy soldier exhaled without a sound, stepped back, his eyes traveling again to Linh, who raised his own hand to cover his face, palm down, slowly dragging his hand down his features, fingertips finally grazing his chin, a mime to erase all that had been seen, and the boy soldier turned quickly at the new barked orders from the men soldiers in the stream, and again he looked at the river, squinting as the sun reflected off of it, motionless for a moment before he moved away, blowing a big, sugary bubble.

Poles were cut and put under the wagon, and it tracked up the muddy bank. The last of the soldiers, including the boy, crossed, and then the clearing was empty, only footprints proving the whole thing had not been a dream.

When they returned to Saigon they did not stop to shower or change but went straight to the magazine’s darkroom and kicked out all the assistants.

Gary got word of the pictures and left his apartment before curfew to spend the night at the office. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? How’d you do it?” He was grabbing at his collar around his neck as if there were a pressure there. With shock, Helen realized that in the last month his hair had turned white.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I forbid you to take chances like that. Or at least, tell me first.”

Helen looked at him coolly. She had long suspected that Gary cared more than he let on, yet it was in the nature of the business that they all wanted to please him, that he created, subtly, the competitive drive and risk-taking that produced the pictures. “We were on our own time.”

“Do it again, you’re fired.”

“And get five better offers the next day.” She was beyond the point where he could make demands, unspoken that she would take the same risks anyway and simply sell to another magazine if need be. The pictures didn’t matter anymore.

“Don’t make me go through losing another photographer,” he said. And with that, she was chastened.

“The pictures all go under a dual byline, okay? No one else in the darkroom till we finish. No one touches the negatives.”

“Let me have a peek, okay? At least the first contacts.”

“We’ll see.” She worried about the quality of the exposures, the dim light and the lack of aperture adjustment.

“You’re my top paid feature person now. Tell Linh I’m putting him on staff full-time.”

Helen nodded her head and gently closed the darkroom door behind her.

Linh began with test clips. As Helen feared, the light had been too dim. Linh left the negatives in the developer longer to increase the contrast and sharpen the edges. His first test got better and better, but at the moment both of them thought the exposure perfect, fog developed over the shadows. “Too long,” he said. “We’ll shorten the next one.”

Helen sat on a stool in the dark, the red light on Linh as he moved back and forth. “What do you think?”

He studied the next test negative, then turned the overhead light on. He handed it to Helen, and the air went out of her when she saw the poor range of tone and the weak edge markings on the film. “It’s not going to work. These are terrible.”

“We can fix it. We’ll leave it in developer longer. Use two baths. I’ll make it work.”

Helen chewed her nail. “How’d you learn to do all this?”

“This is nothing. I used to work in the forest at night with only stars. I rinsed negatives by letting water run over the strips in the stream. Dried them by hanging them along small leaves.”

“Gary is making you staff photographer.”

Linh bowed his head a moment before he reached for the printing trays. “That’s a great honor.”

“Honor, BS. He’s afraid to lose you to a competitor. It means that they can transfer you out of the country if you want.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for taking me out there. To see that. It was a dream. After doing this for me… I’m keeping my word. I’m going home.”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

Linh said nothing.

“Robert will give you a good job.”

“I cannot.”

“Not even for me…” Helen said, more statement than question.

“It is too much to ask.”

Hours later they printed the closeup shot of the boy soldier. Linh burned in highlights, and as he promised, the picture was decent in quality, extraordinary in subject. They handed the print to Gary, who stood at the door like a nurse waiting to carry off a newborn, forgetting Helen and Linh as soon as he collected his prize. They sat in the darkroom, door open, the red safelight a dull star. Both were tired and heavy-eyed but unwilling to leave.

“We make a good team,” she said.

Linh smiled.

“Will they hurt the boy when they see his picture? Will they think he’s a traitor?”

“No,” Linh said. “He’ll think fast like he did with us. He’ll survive.”

“I felt good out there.”

“Go to California. It will be better there for you.”

She was hurt by his constant dismissal. “What about you?”

“Nothing to worry about. With you gone, I will be the best photographer in Vietnam. Maybe I will marry Mai’s sister. She need a husband for her children.” He kept thinking of his debt to Darrow, how Helen’s safety would have mattered to him more than anything else.

Helen’s back stiffened. “I had no idea.”

“It’s a Vietnam tradition. To care for family,” Linh said.

“Darrow wanted you to be happy. Have a good life for him.” Helen scrambled to her feet and turned on the overhead light. “I’m going to grab a couple of hours on the cot.”

“We got good pictures.”

“How can I top this? Go out on top, right?”

Helen moved out of the apartment in Cholon, handing the keys over to Linh, and went back to the Continental, where she had started. The next morning, she made arrangements to fly home. She did not feel more or less grieved than before she went out with Linh in the field, but something had changed. She knew it and suspected that Linh knew it, and they did not speak of it but instead acted as if nothing had shifted between them.

Late at night Helen stayed awake in her hotel room, sleep no longer a thing to be counted on, and she lay in bed, propped up by pillows, staring into darkness until she could see the patterns of the tiles on the wall, the blades of the fan above as they pushed against the heavy air. She stored a bottle of bourbon on her bedside table, and it slackened the thirst and loneliness she felt during those long hours, sure that there would be no knock on the door. Helen slowly trained herself to believe in Darrow’s death. He had been her guide and mentor, as well as her lover, and she did not feel up to the challenge of the war without him.