Part 18 (1/2)
”I'm sure that is true.”
”That is how I've learned most excellent English.”
Helen pictured the granddaughter living alone in the great foreign city, working long hours in some invisible job, yet back in her village she was a celebrity. After Ho Tung left, Ngan carried in their bags.
”I'm supposed to take it easy at least a month. Not much use for a one-armed photographer. I'm hoping a couple of weeks will do it. So I thought we'd have a little incountry R&R.” He wished it were that simple. Since the accident, night sweats, insomnia, shaking, everything back with a vengeance. He couldn't say aloud that he hoped to be saved by her.
”And you just a.s.sumed I'd drop everything?”
Darrow picked up her hand and kissed it. He hadn't counted on her being standoffish, p.r.i.c.kly, and he almost wished for the company of his native women, their docile willingness. After saying good-bye to the chief, Helen went back under the shade of the roof, sat down, but it was hardly any cooler than standing in the road.
”How about it, Linh? You could use a rest, too,” Darrow said.
”I need to do some errands,” Linh said.
”Stay and relax. They've got a place for you up the road.” He wanted to say, Stay Stay and keep me company.
”I'll be back at the end of the month.” The smallest intuition that Darrow longed for the days at Angkor also. Instead, he had saddled both of them with this woman. He remembered how Mai used to exasperate him, and yet now he would give almost anything to have that irritation back. Was it like that for Darrow?
”What in the world are you going to find to do around here, in the middle of...
nowhere?” Darrow asked.
Linh spoke in Vietnamese to Ngan, and they both laughed.
”What's funny?” Helen said.
”That we are in the middle of nowhere. Everyone knows this is the center of the universe.”
”Don't go all Buddha on me,” Darrow said.
During lunch the two men talked about people they knew, upcoming operations that might be interesting to go on, although they agreed it all could change in a month's time.
”I'll keep an eye out for things,” Linh said.
It struck Helen how differently Linh acted now, at ease and forthcoming to Darrow where he had been so strained with her.
Darrow sighed and pushed his plate aside. ”I hear you two got a little trouble outside Pleiku?”
”Yes,” Linh said. ”They sent in a suicide convoy. We waited till next morning and then we went in.”
Darrow turned to Helen. ”Bad?”
Helen continued to eat. She burned with humiliation.
”It's okay.”
When Linh was ready to leave, he stuck out his hand to her, but she moved around it and hugged him. A silent peace offering. ”Come back soon. Let's have a little fun together, the three of us, okay?”
He nodded but was already walking off down the dirt path. He loved them each separately, but he was ashamed he did not want to see them together.
”Where does he disappear to, do you think?” Helen asked.
”Maybe he has a beautiful little bar girl that he keeps. Or he's a Viet Cong spy.”
She laughed. ”What? Linh?”
”You've got to start seeing underneath things. Finding the real story.”
”You sound like MacCrae now.”
”Once when we were in Cu Chi, my camera got... smashed, and he constructed spare parts out of nothing. I worried about the film, and he said he would process it in a bunker if I wanted. Since it was dark, we did it by starlight. He traveled with two porcelain plates--one for the developer, one for the fixer. Tied a small stone at the end of the strip and dipped it into the stream to wash it. Only the NVA are taught that.”
Helen laughed. ”You're joking. Not Linh. That's impossible.”
At dusk, Helen and Darrow sat inside the doorway of the hut. Ngan served them Darrow sat inside the doorway of the hut. Ngan served them dinner--bowls of sticky rice and fried paddy crab and shrimp--and then bowed away. The USAID workers had sent over a cooler of beer, and Helen pressed an icy bottle against her neck.
There was an element of performance when Darrow was around others, but alone, he seemed tired, distracted. Although she was happy to be there, she had not had time to wind down from the mission. She traced the scar on his good arm; the warmth of his skin made her realize how happy she was to be with him again.
”At least I'll know the cause of this new scar.”
”It's a sign that something worse didn't happen. It's a sign that I survived.”
”Linh stopped me going on that convoy.”
”What're you talking about?”
”In Pleiku. I wanted to show off how b.a.l.l.sy I was. I thought he was a coward for not going.”
”It's experience. But he's a guardian angel.” ”So who guards him?”
Darkness fell; the jungle suddenly quieted. The only sounds the faint pulse of flame in their kerosene lamp, the lapping of water against moored boats along the river's bank. Small bats fluttered over the trees and river in loose rolls like drunks.
”I love... this country,” Darrow said. ”My dream is to photograph the North and South in peace.”
”Why did you ask me to come down here? I mean, we could have met in Saigon.”
”This is the third time I've been in a helicopter that went down. One time we ran out of gas and crashed into a hillside. One time we were rocketed. My mind was always clear before, ready; this time all I thought of was you.”
”That's a good thing, right?” Helen took a long sip of beer. All his words were the right ones, but she wondered if they had just come too late for her to hear them. ”What exactly did you think about me?”
”You've made me selfish,” he said. ”You've made me greedy for life again.”
In the middle of the night, a rustling on the roof woke Helen. She grabbed a the night, a rustling on the roof woke Helen. She grabbed a flashlight and poked it through the opening of the mosquito netting and onto the ceiling.
In the corner, a greenish gold gecko turned to pose in the light, in his mouth the wiggling body of a scorpion.
Stealthy as a thief, Helen rolled off the straw mat and stood in the doorway, watching the night.