Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

Names, finally, were the only thing the Vietnamese had left. For a whole period of history, Vietnam existed only on the tip of someone’s tongue, forbidden to be said out loud.

Geography became power.

Names given to pieces of land or sea or mountain told who was in control. The Vietnamese were irritated by the Americans’ sense of place. Especially irksome was the name South China Sea, locating their Eastern Sea in relation to their traditional enemy, China. Another irritant, the Far East -far east in relation to what? They had had this problem before.

The French referred to the Highlands as the Hauts Plateaux, a sensible descriptive name for the plateau stretching from the southern border of North Vietnam to within a hundred miles of Saigon, from a thin strip of cultivable land on the east to the fierce mountains of the Annamese Cordillera. Annamese another slap in the face-a French colonial fantasy meant to obliterate the original Vietnam. They called their mountains the Truong Son. Why, they asked, should Vietnamese use foreign words to rename their own land?

Helen had her own geographies. She knew the land by its colors-the Mekong always greens and golds and blues, the light soft, opaque from the water on the earth and in the air. Soldiers inevitably covered with dirt, the dirt of the delta heavily mixed with clay along the waterways so that it dried whitish on the faces and bodies of both the living and the dead. The Central Highlands were a land of chiaroscuro, sharp shadows, subtle gradations so that green could range from black to the most delicate shade of moss. Forests of browns and blacks, hardwood torn up by B-52s, moonscape tracts of gray, uprooted trunks and roots creating surreal sculpture. The soil a deep, rich laterite red that rouged uniforms and faces of the soldiers and faded over time to the rusted color of dried blood.

Her geographies, too, were full of dangerous curves and valleys; she had to remain constantly in flight, never alighting in one place too long, never putting weight on the crust of the earth that might give way. A line from Tacitus was continually in her mind: In his sorrow he found one source of relief in war.

They made their way up on ammunition drops and convoys until they reached field headquarters in a dusty, barren valley in the foothills. The press tent was in chaos, and in the command tent radio reports came in that helicopter after helicopter was being shot down. No evacuations in the last twenty-four hours. Calculations had ammunition on top of the hill running out by morning.

Infantry companies would go on foot through the jungle and fight their way to the pinned-down men. The surrounding hills echoed with NVA regiments, a nonstop barrage of weaponry.

Food was served to the departing soldiers but because of conflicting departure orders, they got a mix of breakfast and lunch. The men piled the food up on their plates, carrots against scrambled eggs, prime rib coupled with pineapple cake and grits. All fuel, it seemed like a good idea to fill the belly, another armor to survive. The food flown in that morning cheered up the young, scared faces; they took it as a demonstration of their value. Helen grew queasy at the sight of the bounty, knowing the perversity of military thinking, that the best food was reserved for the doomed. Literal last meals, but even with that knowledge, Helen chewed her food, not tasting, but sure that days or even hours from then, the idea of not eating would torment her. She chose to be full only in order to have the issue of hunger not interfere.

When Helen made her request to accompany one of the relief companies, the PIO flatly denied her. “This is critical stuff. Way too dangerous to allow a woman.”

“I’ve covered these companies before-”

“Don’t bother. I can’t spare a man to escort you.”

“I’ve been covering combat for two years-”

He made a long, sour face. “Regulations.”

“Not for me. I covered this area in-”

“Regulations, understand?”

“-in ’sixty-six, before you even knew where Vietnam was.”

“We don’t need a dead woman.”

From behind her, she heard a loud voice and felt a heavy hand clap down on her shoulder. “Helen Adams.”

She turned and came face-to-face with Captain Olsen. Unchanged from two and a half years before, as if that dreary day in the Mekong were only yesterday.

“You must have made a deal with the devil,” she said. “You look younger than when I last saw you.”

“Just a little malaria and desk work.”

“I went out with your replacement, Horner.”

“That was a cursed mission. A damned shame.”

Helen didn’t mention Samuels, but he didn’t need mentioning. She could see the responsibility for it in Captain Olsen’s eyes. No Dorian Gray after all.

“This man here”-Helen pointed at the PIO-“is denying me clearance. My company is already moving out.”

“Lowen, you giving this girl a hard time?”

“He said I’d be demoralizing dead.”

“A real lady’s man, huh? This is the girl who made me a hero. The eight-hundred-pound gorilla of picture takers. Let her have what she wants.”

The PIO made a face. “Go. Get a.45.”

“I won’t carry a weapon,” Helen said.

The PIO paused, his face scrunched up. “If she’s your friend, I’d brief her.”

Captain Olsen took Helen’s arm and moved off toward the mess. Helen motioned Linh over. “I want to cover this,” she said.

Olsen nodded and shook Linh’s hand. “Lowen’s an ass, but he’s right on this one. Things are bad up there. Take the gun.”

Helen shook her head.

“Serious. No one is going to help you up there.”

“I’ll carry it,” Linh said.

When they came back, the PIO was smoking a cigarette.

“Smoking’s bad for you,” Helen said.

“If we’re carrying weapons,” Linh said, “I want an M16 and the.45.”

The PIO turned red. “Shit, I don’t believe this.” He glared at Olsen, who ignored him. “You ever shot one of these?”

Linh didn’t hesitate. “Many times.”

Hours later, climbing from dense jungle to hardwood forest then back to jungle, they reached the base of the mountain at dusk. They squatted in place along the path, Helen resting her back against a tree. Usually, they’d set camp for the night, but time was essential; in the morning there might not be anyone left. Artillery barrages and air strikes on the surrounding hills deafened them; ground shook as they climbed over fallen trees blocking the narrow, steep dirt path.

As they approached the crest where the company was pinned down, parachute flares illuminated the landscape in an eerie light. As far as the eye could see, trees splintered and burned, a whole forest of devastation. Heavy smoke forming a fog. The flare died into a deeper, more eerie darkness.

As the company marched the final distance of several hundred yards in the dark they passed fallen logs, singly, then in clusters, then in mounds, discovering to their horror in the illumination of another flare the shapes were not logs but bodies. Stripped of uniforms, boots, weapons, resembling splayed and disfigured trees.

In the middle of the night, the relief company stumbled the last few feet to reach the Americans occupying a small circle of abandoned enemy bunkers. Out of a force of more than a hundred, only a dozen men remained. They had been without food for a day, strung out along the shallow forward observation bunkers.

After they briefed the new troops, the men devoured rations, then fell asleep on the bunker floor. One of the men, grimy faced, still held a spoon as he slept. Helen attached a flash and took his picture. Another picture of the sign made from the top of an ammo crate at the bunker entrance: WELCOME TO HELL.