Gift of the Golden Mountain (80 page)

After the funeral, Karin and her Paul came back to the Big Island with us for a few days. Abigail welcomed him like a lost son, they have so many family connections. He is a quiet man, there is no small talk in him. I believe he is responsible for the new calm I sense in Karin. He may not have much to say, but his eyes follow her with such unabashed love that I take heart.

     She is carrying his child. Annie suspected, but said nothing. (I was relieved to learn that Annie is capable of knowing when to say nothing.) Karin talks happily about the baby, and Paul smiles when she does.

     "She's already married," Annie jibed when I brought it up. "Who needs two husbands? Or even one for that matter?" I
shot her what was meant to be a black look and she burst out laughing. Still and all, Kit has told me that divorce proceedings are underway. She and Philip tried every which way to make a large settlement in Karin's favor, but Karin would have none of it. She begged Kit to understand why she could not take any settlement, and Kit did understand.

     Four well-known island artists are opening a cooperative gallery in Honolulu and they have asked Karin to manage it for them. She likes the idea, she says, her hand placed protectively over her belly. She is not showing yet, but you can tell that she can hardly wait.

     Kit wants to know what I think of Paul Hollowell. I will tell her the truth, that he loves Karin as she is, and I think he is the constant she has always sought.

     Annie, of course, tells me what she thinks—even when I'd rather not know. Annie thinks he turns Karin on in a way other men never have, that's what Annie thinks. I didn't ask her how she knows, but I suppose she'll tell me that too, one day.

I cannot escape from Sam; he has invaded my thoughts since May told me what happened in Saigon. I search my memory for clues, thinking back to the early days in Berkeley, when May and Karin and Sam were a trio. Sam. I think I have never known a soul so ill at ease with itself. I had prayed that his passion for photography might prove his salvation.

     It did not. Sam is lost. Consumed by a savage resentment, a fatal belief in himself as victim.

     Is that it? Is that the answer? That we become what we most passionately believe ourselves to be?

     And my thoughts are filled, too, with my dear friend Israel, who died on a soft day when the trade winds rustled, ever so gently, the palm fronds of the trees off the lanai.

     "Just look at those clouds scudding by," he had said to Annie and me. "Just look at that chariot up there, ready for to carry me home." He had managed a little coughing laugh to show how indomitable the will, and then he closed his eyes forever.

     I am going home, to my cottage in San Francisco, to wait, as Abigail puts it, for the next song to begin.

May 1975

THE WORLD WATCHED, with fascination and with horror, as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon in the last days of April, 1975. Television took us inside the American embassy and out onto the streets so that we could see, could feel the frenzy, the panic, the fear of those last hours. Cameras panned in on lines of people, running in the engine backwash to climb into planes.

     Images of violence had been relayed on the nightly television for all the long years of this war. But this was chaos; what was seen on the television screen that night was apocalypse.

     As time was running out, Le Tien An had sent the message, "Help us." Hayes was in Beirut, and could get only as far as Bangkok. But May was in Japan attending an earthquake symposium, and she was able to talk her way onto one of the last flights into Tan Son Nhut.

     "Duck and run like hell," the
Time
correspondent told her as they reached the tarmac. She clutched her flight bag to her chest
and ran. It was a long distance, they were in the open . . . the wind blew smoke into her eyes, her lungs burned from the effort but she did not stop. A thunderous explosion seemed to burst all around them. "Don't stop," someone yelled, "Fuel dump . . . go!"

     She slumped against the terminal building. The muscles in her legs began to twitch painfully. "Oh God," she whispered to herself. "How am I going to do this?"

     "Hey lady, what the hell you doing? Move your ass out of here," a G.I. yelled at her, just as another loud, booming explosion sounded in the distance. "Come on," a man with cameras hanging around his neck shouted, grabbing her by the arm, and pulling her through an opening in the barbed wire fence.

     She had learned the hard facts from some of the newsmen who had been on the flight: 16 North Vietnamese divisions now surrounded the city; that was 140,000 men. Saigon's defenders numbered 60,000—if they didn't break and run as they had in Da Nang, two weeks before. Then it would be sheer horror, American marines faced with the prospect of shooting South Vietnamese to protect Americans. Inside the terminal it was a madhouse, noise and heat and long lines of people talking, shouting.

     "Screw customs," the photographer said, diving into what seemed a solid line of bodies. She clutched at his jacket and followed, her elbows close to her body to move through the choking mass, not looking at the faces, pushing back the hands that seemed to clutch at her.

     Outside, she leaned against a pole and said, "This is hellish." The photographer told her, sardonically, "The best is yet to come."

     A rolling crash sounded from a distance. She didn't know if it was an explosion or thunder, thick black clouds were boiling in the sky, lit by flashes of lightning. The first thunderstorm of the monsoon season was brewing. Barbed wire and piles of old tires and dusty trucks and buses were everywhere. The fast-rising storm winds blew dirt and rattled the corrugated metal that lined the passageway out to the street.

     All routine was gone from the city and in the midst of the rising storm you could feel the fear. One of the old gray buses she remembered rolled up, packed so tightly that people came tumbling out in a burst, and hit the ground running—as if they expected a plane to be waiting.

     She climbed on, flung herself into a seat next to the window so she could breathe through the open grates. As they rolled down the long drive, she squinted to keep the dirt from flying into her eyes. Her face burned tight. A few large splats of rain splintered and sprayed, and she turned her face to them. She wanted it to rain, wanted the heavens to open and cleanse this burning place, wanted water to wash down the fires, to calm the terror, the panic.

     Stay calm, she told herself. You have a job to do. For Hayes, for Hao. For An.

     The bus paused long enough for her to jump out about a block from the hotel. She ran as if she were fleeing from something other than the hard, driving rain that had begun to fall. By the time she reached the hotel, her shirt was clinging wet to her body, her hair dripped with rain. An American wearing an olive-drab undershirt and smoking a long, brown cigarette stood behind the desk, trying to work a walkie-talkie.

     "Is there a room?" May asked.

     He glanced up for a minute, then waved the cigarette in the direction of the stairs. "Help self," he said, "they're all open." As she was walking toward the stairs, he called after her, "Did you just come in from Tan Son Nhut? Is it still open?"

     "It was half an hour ago," she said.

     The man walked around the counter and stood, studying her. "Why did you come?"

     "I need to get some people out. Vietnamese. Any suggestions?"

     "Sure. I'd suggest you get them over to the embassy as fast as you can. The shit's really hitting the fan now—they'll be shuttling the rest of us out by helicopter. I'd say you'd better hurry."

     May went up to her room, placed a call to the embassy, and
asked for the political officer, who knew Hayes.

     After a long wait, she got through to him and he repeated what the American at the desk had said, adding that they should use the back gate, the one on Hong Thap Tu.

     Now to get Le Tien An and the child.

     "I need a car," she said to the American at the desk. He opened a drawer, pulled out some keys, and said, "Here, take the black Citroen parked out back. Its owner left yesterday."

     "I can't do this," she told herself as she put the key in the ignition. "I don't know where I'm going, I don't know how to get there, this is crazy, it is never going to work." She backed the car, slowly, down the alleyway. The monsoon shower had ended, the air was somewhat cleaner, and steam was rising.

     Aside from a few trucks and some bicycles, the streets were almost clear. To May's amazement, she remembered the way to Le Tien An's house almost perfectly, taking only one wrong turn which, miraculously, led to the street she was looking for. She felt a sudden surge of elation. They would be packed and waiting, she would drive the Citroen to the embassy, it was going to happen after all. She rang the bell and stood, looking at the trees, wondering if the bats were inside or if they, too, had fled. She rang again, making the bell sound as loud as she could, and after a few long moments heard the familiar scraping of the lock. An old man looked out at her, his face filled with confusion. "Not here, all gone," he repeated.

     May screamed at him. "Let me in, An told me to come. Open this door." She would not be turned away, not again. She pushed the door hard and almost sent the old servant sprawling. A young girl stood behind him, in the shadows of the garden.

     "Where have they gone?" May demanded in French.

     They shook their heads. No French, she thought, so she said the names, slowly. Le Tien An? Le Minh Hao?

     The woman looked at May as if she were trying to remember something, and then her face changed. She ran into the house,
motioning for May to follow. Inside, she pointed to the telephone and to a number written on a pad.

     May dialed, listened for the series of small whirring and clicking noises that told her the automatic telephone system was still working, and bit her lip until the phone started to ring.

     It rang four times, five.
Be there
, she whispered, drumming her fingertips on the top of the desk. Six times, seven. They weren't going to answer, she had lost again.

     "Hello?" It was a woman's voice, not An's.

     Then An was on the line, blurting out all that had happened . . . her father had been taken by two men with guns, she had fled with her mother and the child to a friend's home, they had been afraid to answer the telephone and afraid not to answer. She didn't know what to do, everything was coming apart, she couldn't find out where they had taken her father, the police didn't know, nobody knew.

     May spoke with as much calm as she could muster. "You must take your mother and your son and leave with me. There is no more time."

     "My father," she said, "my mother will not go without my father."

     "You must convince her. An, you and Hao could be in danger— we're not certain you will be able to protect him, and once the North Vietnamese take over, we won't be able to help you."

     May could feel the terrible pressure of the choice An had to make. Her own stomach tightened.

     "There is so little time left, An. I am sorry, I am so very sorry but you must come, for your son's sake. For Andy's sake." She heard a short, sharp cry on the other end of the line, and a burst of static which told her they would be cut off. "Quick," May shouted, "Meet me at the American Embassy at the back gate, on Hong Thap Tu. If you come quickly, I can get you in."

     It was deep twilight now, the streets were wet and shiny and now and then bursts of light made them glisten with color. Streets
that were once alive with people and bicycles and food stalls were now deserted, except for an occasional furtive figure, hurrying. The noise of the day had subsided, though it almost seemed that she was hearing white sound, the calm before the storm. She drove as fast as she could, now and then having to swerve to miss a vehicle that had been abandoned, or that had run out of gas or had simply quit. An and Hao would be there, somehow she would get them in the back gate, they would leave tonight. That is how it would have to be, she could not imagine any other ending to this day.

     She was driving down a tree-lined boulevard when a large burst of light seemed to hover from above and then there was a roaring noise. She looked up to see a helicopter descending, its beams lighting the street with a garish white light.
It has to happen now
, she told herself, as she turned the corner and saw the mob that had gathered at the back gate of the American Embassy.

     She watched, transfixed, as the crowd, packed tight, surged forward. How could she possibly work her way up to the gate? And if she got up there now, and inside, how could she find An and Hao when they arrived?

     Above her, a helicopter hovered and swung sideways, moving slowly forward, and came to roost on the embassy roof. They were going to have to fight their way through the gates, and then they were going to have to make it to the top of the stairs and onto one of those helicopters. How many more would there be, she wondered.
Help me
, she said, as if Hayes could hear her.