Part 34 (1/2)
”Do you remember that first night? When I left you at the restaurant? I thought you'd hate me, but you didn't.”
”Didn't we go to some lousy Chinese place... in Cholon? I don't remember.” But, of course, he did remember each thing from that night, and he had hated her, but it didn't hold.
”Remember Darrow saying they were lucky because there was always another war? I thought it was just macho posturing. But now I wish he was here so I could tell him I finally understand.”
They got up and walked back to the boardwalk. The sky overhead black, a pale moon casting a sterile light on the water, on the houses in the hills behind them.
”There are plenty of twenty-year-old guys thinking they're immortal. You and I know better,” Robert said.
”I'll take the a.s.signment.”
”Good girl.”
She nodded and took his hand again, brought it to her lips. ”Sometimes I wish I could just be back there an hour. Just enough so that I could really love all this again.”
That night she opened the window while she changed for bed. After seeing the window while she changed for bed. After seeing Robert, she was confident that the dreams would come that night. She undressed in the dark, listening to the sliding of the ocean as she pulled the white, veil-like nightgown over her head. She put her hair back chastely in an elastic. Only then did she turn on the light, look at the pictures on the walls that were already in her head, then quickly turn the light back off. The dreams had begun to go away, and when they did come, they were less intense, and she found she needed to jog her memory before she fell asleep to meet Darrow again in that vast darkness. But instead of Darrow, the dream of the children came to her. She was kneeling this time, an unknown man beside her, lying p.r.o.ne, and the group of Vietnamese children approached and circled the two of them, pressing in, circling around and around, touching, but again when she tried to speak with them, they turned their backs to her. Even while dreaming, she was trying to remember where the image had come from--it was a more threatening feeling than that day on the beach with Linh in Vung Tau--but she couldn't place it.
The rehabilitation center was down in the Wils.h.i.+re district, and Helen circled down in the Wils.h.i.+re district, and Helen circled the hospital block a few times, finally parking a quarter mile away at a coffee shop. The day was hot, the air crackling dry with Santa Ana winds, the usual smog-stained haze replaced by a sharpness that etched the trees and buildings on the landscape. Helen sat in the restaurant, her appet.i.te lost in the smell of grease, floor wax, and disinfectant. She tried to focus on the a.s.signment, to think of Lan as just another story.
She was late as she muscled her camera bags onto her shoulders in the parking garage and pushed through the pounding sunlight, the sour smell of hot asphalt under her feet. On the children's floor of the hospital, a whole platoon of doctors and therapists waited for her in their long, white, picture-ready coats. The head doctor on the case lectured about surgeries, using charts. His lab coat looked stiff and creased, as if it had just been taken out of a box. Samples of prosthetics had been laid out on a banquet table loosely covered by a long red tablecloth so that the display had the eerie feeling of an awards table, each flesh-colored appendage set apart and spotlighted from above.
”Where's Lan?” she finally asked.
”I thought you should see her progress first,” the doctor said. He sulked at her lack of interest.
”How about I see her first,” Helen said. ”We'll talk after.”
The room grew quiet, the doctor coughed into his hand. ”Well then, let's go see her.”
In a quick decision to brief her on the run, the woman psychologist walked alongside Helen. She was short and made a little skip every third step to keep up. Each
time she spoke, she bit her lower lip as if the coming words might be bitter. They pa.s.sed rooms filled with children. ”Lan's by herself right now,” she whispered. ”She's had an aggression incident again with the other children.” The woman narrowed her eyes so they disappeared in the flesh of her full cheeks. ”That's not acceptable behavior. Biting.”
”It wasn't ideal... her living conditions in Saigon.”
”But we've saved her,” the woman said.
”Actually we're the ones who hurt her.” the ones who hurt her.”
The woman stroked her own cheek with a dimpled hand, as if the unpleasantness of Helen's words might bring on a rash.
At the end of the hall, she stopped and opened a door. At first the room appeared empty, but then Helen saw Lan sitting at a low table in the corner, shaping a ball of clay.
The adults formed a semicircle around the table, but Lan acted as if she heard nothing, did not move her eyes from the clay figure in front of her. Impossible to believe she was the same girl from Saigon--now filled out with rounded arms and cheeks, glossy hair tied in ponytails with pink yarn, wearing a pink Cinderella T-s.h.i.+rt and pants.
”Lan?” Helen said. ”Remember me?”
The girl looked up with a heavy, bored look, as if bracing herself for more unwanted attention. Helen moved closer, bent down to hug her. Her skin smelled sweet and medicinal, like cough syrup. Close-up, it was obvious that her face was bloated, her eyes dry and hard. Helen wondered what medications she was on. Lan's body remained limp in her arms.
Helen sat on a low plastic stool. The table was filled with toys, but Lan had attention for only the small ball of clay in her hands. She had the dull, listless behavior of an animal in the zoo. ”You have a lot of toys,” Helen said.
Lan grabbed her hand. ”You bring me candy?”
Helen laughed, relieved at the shared memory. The doctors standing around them made her feel she needed to offer something up. ”I brought her candy in Saigon.”
Lan shook her head, impatient, with a sharp tilt of the chin. ”Sam bring me candy.
What you bring me now?”
”I came to take pictures again for the magazine.”
Lan yawned. ”I'm hungry.”
The nurse stepped forward eagerly. ”I'll bring you back some lunch, sweetie.”
”I want hamburger,” Lan said to her retreating back as the door swung shut.
Helen looked from Lan to the doctors. ”Should we start taking pictures?”
”What are you giving me?” Lan shouted.
Behind her the doctors moved off, whispering and marking their clipboards.
Under her breath, Lan began to sing a tune, the words getting louder until they could be clearly heard: ” 'There was a little honey from Kontum/Boy did she ever like boom, boom....' ”
”No,” Helen said, bending down and hus.h.i.+ng the girl. ”Not in the hospital. Don't let them hear you.” She felt a flush of parental embarra.s.sment.
Lan shrugged and plucked at her hair, pulling out a few strands that she dropped on the floor.
”What do you want me to bring next time?” Helen said, figuring on bargaining with the child.
”A camera,” she said. ”Sam promised me a camera, and he lied and goes to die instead.” The words froze Helen, and Lan noticed, becoming suddenly attentive. ”He lied to you, too?”
”It was an accident, Lan. He didn't want to die.”
”Mama says no accidents. I lose my leg because I was stupid girl.”
”That's wrong. It wasn't your fault.”
”I pick vegetables because they grow bigger and more easy than walking around to safe place.”
”It was an accident.”
The nurse came back carrying two cafeteria trays of food and put one down in front of each of them. She winked at Helen. ”If you two finish your lunch maybe I can find you a dessert.”
Lan's face turned red, her brow furrowed. ”My mama's right. No accidents. You're stupid.”