The Lotus Eaters: A Novel (28 page)

"The rivers in the delta change direction, get bigger or dry up. Land is created and then taken away. Everything always in a state of change," Ho Tung said.

"You look tired, Linh," Darrow said, grinning. Indeed, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his thinness had turned sharp. "Was she at least pretty?"

Linh smiled. He had observed them since his return, how Helen's eyes lingered on Darrow's face, questioning.

"Maybe you need to go back to the war to rest?" Darrow said.

"Maybe we go rest together," Linh said, and Helen burst out in laughter, the first since Linh had arrived.

When they tied the boats along the steep bank and climbed up, the heat was so intense Helen thought the rivers should be boiling. They drank water and ate cold rice for lunch, then the villagers stretched out under the trees to sleep.

"When will you return to America?" Ho Tung asked.

"Soon," Helen answered.

"Can you go to St. Louis, maybe? Check on my granddaughter?"

"It's a very big country," Helen said, and seeing the disappointment, added, "Give us her address."

Ho Tung smiled, relieved, his mission accomplished. The chief motioned for Darrow, Helen, and Linh to follow him to explore the interior. "There is a temple in the center of the island."

"Come on, then," Darrow said, grabbing Helen's hand.

They pushed aside the thick barrier of brush and edged along an overgrown path. Every inch of land filled with huge purple orchids. Abundant, dense, violent growth.

Linh lagged behind the others, but when he saw the flowers he stopped. "I'll wait back at the boats."

"No, come on," Darrow said. "It won't take long."

"I'd rather--"

"Come."

Flowers hung aggressively from trees and crowded on the ground and along rocks, thick and choking in a wild scramble for light in the semigloom of the overhead palm and rubber trees.

"This is an enchanted garden," Helen said, moving forward into the sea of flowers, her bad mood turned to delight.

She picked a small bloom and brought it to her nose, but there was only a faint scent of decay. She tucked the flower behind her ear anyway.

As she turned, Darrow snapped her picture. "There's my girl."

"No fair."

"Look over here again."

"No."

"Come on." Darrow took a step forward through the dense foliage.

"No!" Helen laughed and ran, crashing down the path through the flowers, trampling vines and leaves and petals.

"Come back," Darrow shouted, laughing, running after her.

Drenched, she ran as if in a downpour, sides heaving. Hearing the crash of footfalls behind her, she ran faster, careless, when suddenly a shadow passed in front of her face. She looked up into a huge banyan tree from which hundreds of orchids clung, choking the tree in a blaze of purple. One particular orchid hanging from a long branch seemed especially large and perfect. She took another step to reach for it, tripped over a tree root hidden in the underbrush, and fell down into the plants.

"You okay?"

Darrow stooped down next to her as she laughed and rolled onto her back. He bent over and brushed the dirt off her knees as Linh and the chief came up.

"Helen is hurt?"

Darrow shook his head. "Not yet."

She sat up, searching the ground for what poked into her back and picked up small white sticks. She brought them closer, her smile fading as she realized they were bones, and showed them to Darrow.

"Human?"

"This is a burial island," Ho Tung said, pleased.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Helen asked.

"They bury monks here. The first monk, a hermit, lived here by himself. When the villagers came to check on him after the monsoon, they find only his bones and a purple orchid growing out of the rib cage. The flowers are said to be a manifestation of his enlightenment. How do you say? They are 'right luck'?"

Helen dropped the bones on the ground.

Ho Tung waved his arms, motioning to Helen as he talked. "Keep. Brings right luck."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on," Darrow said. "You don't believe this hocus-pocus?"

Linh shook his head. "Right luck. Some women come here to pray because they want children. Or they have only daughters. Others come for forgetting."

"Forgetting?" Helen asked.

"Their sorrows. If they grieve so much they cannot bear the land of the living."

She stared at Linh, and he met her eyes. "I'll wait at the boats," he said.

"Me, too," Helen said. The mood broken, the small island now seemed gloomy and claustrophobic.

"No temple?" Darrow shook his head. "You two are no fun."

Helen swept the bones under a bush with her boot. She stood and dusted herself off. Ho Tung knelt with his hands together in
mudra
and chanted under his breath.

As if he had been waiting behind a tree for just this moment, an orange-clad monk stepped out into the middle of the path and bowed to them. Linh came back and talked at length with him.

"This is the hermit monk of the island," Linh translated. "He invites us to tea."

They sat in the small temple that was no more than branches strung loosely together overhead. The monk stirred twigs and placed his iron teapot over them, looking at the foreigners sideways, giggling.

"He says he has never seen white faces before. He asks why you are here."

Darrow shrugged. "The war. Tell him we're photographers."

"Who would want such pictures?"

Darrow chuckled.

"He asked, 'Which war?' "

A pause. "Between the North and South."

"He says there is always war, but why are the Westerners fighting Vietnamese war?"

"To give freedom."

The monk shook his head, rubbed his hands over his stubbled scalp. He talked rapidly to Linh, gesturing, then laughing. "That makes no sense. Why die for Vietnamese?"

"Tell him... it's complicated. Tell him it's geopolitics, the movement of Communism, the domino theory of the fall of Southeast Asia...."

The monk stood up and yawned, moved off to a tree, and relieved himself against it. Linh laughed. "He says your words mean as little as his piss does to this tree."

Darrow blinked and then laughed, and the monk laughed louder, till he was red in the face, and came back to sit down.

"We're making bigger and bigger mistakes because we can't admit we made the first one. We can't lose a war to a small Asian country."

The monk giggled and covered his mouth. "But you'll have to fight till every last Vietnam man is gone."

Darrow looked at the ground and nodded. "The first wise man I've met." The monk shook his head and poured tea.

"He is only a simple monk. He is afraid for the Westerners, that you will lose your own way by interfering with Vietnam's destiny."

The monk got up, bowed to them, and walked away.

"He hasn't talked so much in a year. He's tired."

After the tea, they walked back in silence. As Helen climbed into the first boat, she got off balance. Darrow was looking away down the river, frowning, but Linh reached out his hand to steady her.

The peace of night
was broken by the sounds of jeeps driving into the village. Headlights glared as American soldiers and local Vietnamese militia jumped out swinging machine guns, cordoning off the hamlet, and beginning a house-to-house search.

Darrow threw on a T-shirt and pants, and ran outside. "What's going on?"

"You're here. Where's Adams? All Americans are ordered to the AID compound immediately."

"Give us a minute to dress. What's going on?"

"An American has been attacked and killed in the area."

"Who?"

"One of the AID guys, Jerry Nichols."

As they packed, Ngan appeared. She crouched in the corner of the hut, crying. Helen bent down to pat her back, reassuring her as Linh came in.

"I'll stay. Interrogations start, they need an interpreter," Linh said.

"Meet us in the morning."

They were escorted to a jeep as the village men were herded into the center of the hamlet at gunpoint. Their women clattered loud and angrily like birds disturbed in their roost. Harsh, unfamiliar sounds awakened the children, who began wailing. A helicopter hovered over the road, floodlights bathing the tops of trees in an eerie dust of light, the noise deafening.

"I don't think we should leave Linh," Helen said.

"He'll be okay," Darrow said.

When they reached the USAID compound, the courtyard glowed in the ghostly sulfer light. In the center, resting in a pool of rust-colored blood, were the trussed bodies of Nichols and his young mistress. Their arms and legs had been bound with wire; bodies mutilated either before or after being executed with one bullet, neatly in the back of each head.

Darrow slammed his good hand down on the hood of the jeep when he saw them, then cradled it in his bad one. The officers came over, concerned at the outburst, but he shook his head. Helen moved off. The violence after such a peaceful time jolted her. She felt as raw as she had after the last convoy mission; time had done nothing to buffer that. The sight of the girl an apparition. No places of safety in this country, just temporary escapes. Khue, who had lost one thing after another--home, parents, village--now lost her life. Not even so small a thing as her tooth could be mended. After a few minutes, Darrow went about the rote gestures of putting film in camera and took pictures of the bodies. Who would want such pictures?

Inside the villa, the black-and-white tile floor was muddied from the boots of the soldiers. Sanders sat on a sofa, being questioned. "Everyone liked him."

"Hardly," Helen blurted out. The officer looked up, and Sanders blushed.

Helen and Darrow were led to two rooms, but didn't bother with the pretense, entering only one. They lay down on the French carved wooden bed, fully dressed, unable to sleep. For the first time in more than a month, they didn't touch, each lost in thought. Their time in the village not simply over, but undone. All of it, including why they had unquestioningly accepted it, a delusion.

Finally Helen turned to him. "What do you think?"

"As in who?"

"You said the region was safe."

"I said it was overseen by the Hoa Hao. Whatever happens, it's under their sanction. They must have allowed it."

In the morning, Helen took no plea sure from the hot running water in the sink but longed for the cool green of the river. Linh did not show up. She remembered the women gossiping about Khue. Whose side were they on? The captain in charge of the investigation drove them back to the village for statements before they were flown out.

As they approached the village, the rice paddies were empty, as they had been during the festival. The hamlet appeared smaller and meaner from inside the jeep. Helen could hardly remember her joy at having been out in the paddies; it seemed so indulgent. Now her actions simply seemed childish. Even their hut, while they packed up their equipment, seemed alien. In the center square, men, women, and children had been herded together, and squatted in the dirt in the full, hot sun.

As Helen walked by, she recognized individuals and nodded to them, but no look of recognition or greeting was returned. Faces stared out, sullen and closed. Even Ho Tung turned his back on them. The villagers feared showing friendship with the Americans in front of the Vietnamese military or spies for the VC. They knew better than to expect help from either side.

Then Helen saw Ngan, her face bruised, her clothes bloodied. Helen cried out her name and moved toward her, but the girl shuddered and slunk back into the crowd.

The American colonel sat at a table set up under the shade of the trees. His face was dark red from sunburn, cheeks and forehead pocked with small heat blisters. He kept pulling out a small tube of ointment and dabbing at them. When he saw Darrow and Helen, he put the tube in his pocket. "Damn things itch, driving me crazy. So... how long have you two been staying here?"

"Over a month," Darrow said.

"And it didn't come to your attention that you were in a VC hotbed?"

"Jerry Nichols... invited me to stay here. So it hadn't come to his attention, either."

"There were no VC here," Helen said.

"That was a classic VC-style execution."

"How do you know it came from here?" Darrow asked.

"That was easy. The snatch he had living with him in the compound--strictly against the rules--she was an undercover VC operative from here."

"Where did you get that piece of shit information?" Darrow said.

"Interrogation of one of the villagers." He ruffled through some papers. "Actually, the girl who worked for you."

"Ngan?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Who got that out of her? The South Vietnamese?"

"They're in charge of interrogations. Your man was present."

"That's ridiculous."

The colonel cupped his chin in his hand and winced. "What I find ridiculous is that two reporters didn't notice anything suspicious all this time."

Darrow walked off.

"Khue, your operative, was a child. Nichols should have been arrested."

"Actually, we have a report on you. From yesterday. Your hostility toward the victim."

"Don't even try to go there," Helen said, getting up.

Linh caught up with them as they walked to the jeep. He looked pale, unsure that his papers would be powerful enough against this craziness. As they passed the villagers, Ngan broke through the guards and ran to them, clinging to Linh's waist.

"What did they do to you?" Helen said.

Vietnamese guards ran at them with guns pointed.

Ngan talked quickly, eyes wide in fear, spittle on her lips. Linh took her hands and spoke in her ear as he led her back.

When they were in the jeep on the way to the helicopter, Helen turned to him. "What did she say?"

"She wanted us to take her. She says she is not VC. They hit her till she said it to stop the beating. I could do nothing."

"Who did the executions?"

"Nichols was not liked. Villagers say Khue with baby, and he refused to marry her. He only tell her later about American wife. He threw her out with no more money. To save face, they are killed. Making it look like VC takes shame away."