For the Life of Thi Lin Klein

by Jack Twist

  Chapter 17

  No matter what Julie Shields thought, Killer Kelleher knew how to negotiate the busy streets of the city, albeit with ruthless authority. Nobody spoke. For the fifteen or so minutes it took Killer to get there at his reduced speed, we all concentrated on the route.

  I would have liked to have asked Abbie about her last couple of days, the chance of a private meeting, anything, but Julie Shields’ presence killed any hope of that. I consoled myself by assuming that Abbie was concerned only with the baby.

  I didn’t recognise the street until we pulled up outside the low, flat, concrete building. It had a large front door in a windowless front wall.

  “That’s the place,” said Killer. “Right, Mark?”

  “Yeh, that’s it.”

  “Thank you,” said Julie. “Drive on a bit, please, and turn around further down the street.”

  “Julie,” Abbie asked. “What did the sign above the door say? In English?”

  “Orphanage, I think. Okay, stop here and turn around.”

  Killer complied. Julie took out her note book and began writing. We looked around. It always amazed me how many people there were in the streets of any town at any time. I was considering this and didn’t know Abbie had moved until Julie called out.

  She stood on the road beside us. “I have to see, Julie. I have to ask.”

  “Abbie, please! Get back in the car!”

  “I can’t. Not until I’ve asked. She might be in there. I can’t just leave her there. This might be my only chance.”

  “You do not understand the possible dangers. Remember what happened to … your friend. We’ll look into it and be back for her when we know it’s safe.”

  “But it’s an orphanage. You said so yourself. The baby’s aunt, Lin’s sister brought her here for her safety, and so she would know where she was. What dangers could there be?”

  “Okay, listen. I’ll come with you. Okay? We’ll go in together. Just get back in the vehicle and we’ll drive up closer and I’ll go in with you.”

  Abbie stood there, uncertain, undecided, and then took off, calling back, “I’ll only be a minute!”

  “Jesus,” said Killer.

  “I’ll get her,” I said and got out to give chase. As I did I heard another door close. Julie was coming after me.

  I’m not sure exactly what was in my mind, except that I just wanted to be with Abbie, whatever happened. I gained on her quickly and some thirty metres from the orphanage she turned suddenly into a narrow side-street. Fighting through washing that hung across this street, I tripped over a bicycle as I saw her turn into an even narrower laneway.

  A group of kids in this lane showed me where she was, with their eyes. They had been feeding several rats in a wire cage but turned to look at me, and then back at Abbie. She was standing in the shadows of a small, open, shed doorway.

  She glared at me as I approached. “Where’s Julie?” She put her head outside the doorway and I turned to look with her. She beckoned me inside. “Did she see you turn into this street?”

  We stood there, like kids playing hide-and-seek, and there was no Julie. The real kids stared at us, their rats scurrying in circles, unattended.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She whispered. “Trying to get to the orphanage of course, before Julie can stop me. Or you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “I’m on your side.”

  “Well I didn’t know that. It didn’t look like it. I planned on just getting to the orphanage and see if I could see the baby, if she’s in there. Have a look at the place. See who’s looking after her. Maybe even take her with me if I could. I don’t know. But I wanted Julie to be with me. I didn’t trust her story about coming with me but I thought she’d follow in the car.” She looked outside again. “And then I turned around to see you coming at me like a ... like a great big tackle for the Seahawks. I thought she must have told you to get me and I could see I wouldn’t get there before you caught up with me, so I ducked into that lane, to try and lose you for a minute. Both of you. Pretty dumb, I guess, but I have to take a look inside that orphanage. I just have to. Do you think she’d be back at the vehicle yet?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t going to stop you. I … I don’t really know what I was thinking. I just ... ran.”

  She laughed quietly, looking into the street again. “Well that’s sure as hell what you’re good at. You dragged me all over Muc Thap mountain and now look where you’ve chased me. Into some godforsaken backstreet shed in downtown Saigon.”

  “How’s your knee now?”

  The laughter left her as she looked at me. “Much better, thank you.”

  “And your forehead?”

  “Fine. You did a wonderful job.”

  “Show me.” She looked up and I bowed my head for closer inspection, reached out tentatively. “Mmm. Perfect.”

  She shook her head, with a wry smile. “You are joking? Come on. Julie has a meeting to get back for.”

  Near the main street she touched my arm. “Don’t be too quick. I want to make sure she’s back at the vehicle so I can get to the orphanage.”

  “You’re still going?”

  “Yes. That’s the only reason I insisted on coming out here.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  She nodded and then turned to me. “Would you?”

  “Where is your father?”

  “He’s not well. He couldn’t … be with us, today. Which is another reason why I have to make sure we stay in touch with the baby.”

  We moved into the main street cautiously but it wasn’t long before we were out in the open looking all around us. The Land Rover was gone.

  “What!” said Abbie. “Just what in the hell is going on?” I walked down the street to where it turned a corner but Killer, Julie and the vehicle were nowhere to be seen. “She can’t do this! That meeting is not for half an hour. I know it isn’t. Why did she do this?”

  “Maybe she got angry. We did run away from her.”

  “Yeh, but we weren’t gone that long. She didn’t even …”

  “And you did promise to stay in the vehicle.”

  She looked at me. “I thought you said you were on my side.” I shrugged. “Oh, I know. You’re right. But hell, I only wanted to check on the baby.”

  We started to feel conspicuous with people watching us and made our way to a wider section of the street, nearer the building, where there was more room to stop and think. Abbie frowned as she looked across the street. “It has to be an orphanage. Let’s just watch it for a while. Maybe Julie will come back. She’s just giving me a scare. Can you remember the way back to the embassy?”

  “No. I don’t think so. It’s okay, Abbie. Every Lambretta driver in Saigon knows where the American Embassy is, I’m sure. And Killer’ll probably come back for us once he’s dropped Julie off.”

  “Killer? He doesn’t look like a killer.”

  “No.”

  Alone in a strange Saigon street our mood grew sombre. Vacillation wasn’t normally an Abbie Klein personality trait but she was unsure about the building, what it might contain, and equally worried by the prospect of a missed opportunity. Even when I volunteered to go in, which I did only out of concern for her dilemma, she wavered, sensed my reluctance, and decided it was her problem, not mine, since the baby was her sister. She was hoping the vehicle would turn into view, Julie on board.

  Some kids in the street who had been watching us came gradually closer. “Heh,” said the largest one. “You have dollar?” The younger ones stared at us while the older ones looked around . One had the stump of one arm showing in his shirt sleeve.

  “Oh, come on,” said Abbie.

  I followed her across the road and she went straight up and knocked on the big front door. She looked up at me, almost smiling at the sound of at least one baby crying faintly from inside. When the door opened it was only slightly and a heavily-lined, bro
wn face squinted at us from behind it, a woman about sixty. She was happy enough with Abbie but her smile faded when she looked at me.

  “I’m looking for a baby,” said Abbie. “Baby san.” The woman looked us over again and made her preference for Abbie even more clear. “Baby san,” Abbie told her. “My baby. Was brought here two days ago.”

  “Baby? You?”

  “Yes. Mine.”

  The woman made a small downward motion with her hand to indicate that Abbie should follow her. I stayed close, forcing her to allow me in as well.

  It was like an open barn, the side and back walls reaching only three-quarters of the way up to the wide sheet-iron roof, leaving a large gap at the top. There was a smell, a sense of sickness and dust, as if in some symbiotic, toxic mix, of baby shit and vomit and ubiquitous dirt. The place cried out for clean floors and walls, for windows, ceiling fans, and cots, proper babies’ cots. Roughly thirty infants, mostly young babies, were spread out on mats on the concrete floor. There were two partitioned areas, one in each back corner, and the face of another woman wearing glasses appeared over one of the low walls.

  She approached us with her hands clasped in front, as if she were about to say a prayer. Dressed in a white nursing-sister’s uniform, a large cross hanging around her neck, her demeanour was altogether more friendly than her assistant’s. Her cheery face smiled up at us.

  Some of the children were asleep. Others cried. A few played games with each other while some lay still staring vacantly in front of them. Two or three reached out to the nursing-sister as she passed.

  “We are looking for a baby,” said Abbie. The woman nodded, smiling politely. “The baby was left here two days ago. She has kind of reddish hair.” Abbie took hold of a strand of her hair. “Like this.”

  She nodded again. “Baby you?”

  “Yes. Baby mine. You have one? With hair like this?”

  I was looking around for her, without success. The other woman stood behind us listening. I felt like telling her to attend to the babies who were crying, or take a broom and mop to the place.

  We followed the sister to the back and in one partitioned corner an assortment of bottles and washbasins was stacked on a bench beside a tap positioned over a rusty sink. Three very small babies lay side by side on a mat in the other area and Abbie knew as soon as she saw her. It was our baby alright. As undernourished as ever, with that wisp of auburn hair, and the same willful stare at the world around her.

  “That’s her! Oh, hello baby girl. Hello, honey.”

  Smiling serenely, the nurse picked her up. Abbie reached out. “Thank you.”

  The nurse held on to her. “This baby not you.”

  Abbie tried her hair again. “Look. Same.” The woman looked pleased enough but shook her head“Yes, okay. But mama san dead. I am the baby’s sister.”

  “Yes.” she was nodding.

  “But I am. We are half-sisters.”

  The little woman nodded still as she smiled and looked at the baby who stared vacantly. She looked too thin in the face, the eyes too prominent for a new baby. “The baby’s aunt tell me to wait for papa.”

  The baby started crying. The woman rocked her patiently. Abbie looked distressed.

  “Papa san.” I pointed at myself and even Abbie stared at me. “Let me show you,” I reached out for the baby but the woman recoiled calmly.

  She even smiled at me. “You not papa. You Uc dai loi.” The baby’s urgent squeaks seemed not to perturb her in the least. She turned to Abbie. “I know you are sister. Name, Klein.”

  Abbie nodded. “That’s right. We have the same father. And I can take her to him when … I will look after her and take her to him. And we will make sure her aunt knows where she is, and where she goes. I promise.”

  “Yes. How much money do you have?”

  “How much money?” Abbie reached into her pocket and took out an American twenty dollar note. She turned to me, instructing me with her eyes and a nod. I took out a handful of notes and decided I could spare ten.

  The woman inspected our thirty dollars dispassionately as she rocked the baby. “I must wait for papa. You must bring your papa.” She was adamant, and her smile made her quest for dollars that much more unsettling. The Mother Theresa look didn’t go with ‘show me the money’.

  “Please,” said Abbie. “Can you look after her well? I will bring my father as soon as I can. Do you mind if I bring her some milk in the meantime? Would that be okay?” The woman was nodding. “And here, look. You can have our thirty dollars. For food, for all the babies.”

  “Yes, yes. Good. Merci.” Like magic, my ten dollars disappeared into her dress pocket, forever. “And you must bring your papa.”

  The other woman led us to the door. When we had stepped outside she muttered from behind us, “One hundred dollar.”

  We turned. “What? One hundred dollars? For my baby?” She was nodding, her head bowed. “Are you saying if I pay one hundred dollars, I can have the baby?” She lifted her head as she nodded and her eyes made fleeting contact with Abbie’s. “I ... I don’t have that much with me. But I could get it.”

  The woman was still nodding as she closed the door.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “It’ll cost you a hundred dollars.” It was beginning to get dark. “Come on. Let’s see if they’ve come back for us.”

  But even as we stepped into the street’s growing shadows her spirits had lifted. “One hundred dollars. I’ll pay that myself, if the embassy’s not interested in getting her back for us. And we can come back tomorrow and get her if Julie’s too busy today. And then get word to Lin’s family.”

  I walked out into the street but there was no Land Rover. “Today is just about gone. And what about the other woman? She seemed to be the boss. She might want more.”

  But she was away with her anticipatory excitement. It was obvious you only needed enough money. The baby was as good as back in her arms.

  Her father was ill and, for some reason, not popular with the embassy at the moment, but they would have to look after his child, no matter what they thought of him. Or find a safe and clean place for her. One that was better equipped and not so desperate for money, close by, where they could visit daily. She’s an American citizen, for God’s sake. They should come and get her for nothing.

  “Where is Julie, anyhow? I can’t believe she didn’t come back for us.”

  I looked around anxiously for a Lambretta but the street seemed crowded with everything except the little cabs. “Let’s at least head off in the same direction we came.”

  The afternoon clouds were unusually light and impotent. In the west a dying sun made a defiant final stand above a line of untidy shop fronts where the street turned out of sight. Its shafts picked out the dust in open doorways and on the narrow, cluttered sidewalks, where dogs scratched and kids crawled, women squatted, chatting and working at things, and men stood and smoked.

  “Heh, papa san. Cheer up. We’re getting our baby back.”

  I didn’t cheer up. As we walked I experienced that out-of-place foreigner feeling again. Though these inner-city dwellers appeared more blasé about the presence of westerners, I was a soldier in uniform, this time without a weapon, and for all their apparent indifference, who knew what they were thinking?

  Abbie had no such concerns. That irrepressible optimism bubbled on the surface. “Say. What made you say that, anyway? That you were the papa san?”

  “I don’t know. You’d gone from mama san to sister san. Thought I might as well have my two bob’s worth.”

  “Two what’s worth?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Who’s bob?”

  “No one. Can you see any Lambrettas?”

  “No. Not if you can’t. How tall are you?”

  “Not tall enough to see any Lambrettas, at the moment.” She took hold of my hand and squeezed it. I smiled as best I could. “You know, people have been known to disappear from the streets of this ci
ty without trace.”

  “Julie says it’s safer these days. And I just feel so good that we’re getting our little girl back. You know? My father will be so pleased when he finds out.” I nodded without enthusiasm. “Would you have time to come out with us tomorrow when we come and get her?”

  “I doubt it very much. It’s not up to me. We were lucky Killer was free this afternoon. And it’s not up to you either, is it? The last time I saw your friend, Julie, she didn’t look too pleased with you.”

  She wouldn’t hear my pessimism. Julie would come round. “One hundred lousy dollars for my little sister. It’s nothing. Do you realise how worried I’ve been about her? I thought we might’ve lost her for good.”

  “Just the same. You better not count your chickens, Abbie.”

  She squeezed my hand again as we walked. “I wish you could be with us tomorrow. Without you we may have lost her. Julie has been nice but she doesn’t understand. She’s always busy. Up to her ears in espionage. “ She stopped so that I had to turn round to look at her. “Heh? If you can’t make it tomorrow, when will I see you again?” I shook my head. “Is this it for us, papa san? I’ll never see you again?”

  When I saw a Lambretta I yelled so loudly a hundred people looked in our direction. It was carrying two teenaged girls in traditional costume who looked down shyly as we boarded. Abbie took hold of my arm and we sat close. The daylight was fading rapidly.

  I told the driver “American Embassy” and handed him a one dollar note. “No more passengers. Fini passengers.” Abbie looked at me questioningly as we moved out into the traffic. “Have you seen how crowded these things can get?”

  Off the street I felt more relaxed and took hold of her hand. The two girls watched Abbie furtively but when she caught their eye they looked away quickly.

  “It’s good to see you again,” I said, “although you are a bit of a nuisance.”

  “Oh, don’t remind me. That’s what Julie thinks, I’m sure, though she wouldn’t put it quite as bluntly as that.”

  “Who is Julie? What’s she doing here?”

  “Julie Shields is a career diplomat. This is her second stint in Saigon. I’ve been put in her charge, until my father is well again. As if I need to be. Apart from the locals she is the only woman there on staff at the moment. She’s nice, in a patronising, or is that matronising sort of way. But she would much rather be attending to her more serious business. I am, as you so eloquently put it, a nuisance.”

  “But I also said I’m glad to see you. Tell me what’s been happening. Last time I saw you you left in a big hurry.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about leaving like that without saying goodbye but I really had no say in the matter. They didn’t want to know about you.”

  “And is your father not well after finding out about Lin?”

  The driver stopped to let the two girls out and Abbie pointed across the road at a big hotel. It was a grand old French construction with wide open front doors and a host of tables flowing out onto the pavement.

  “Quick,” she said. “Get out. It’s okay. Come on.” Dodging a thousand bikes we crossed the street and stood outside the Continental Hotel. The patrons were predominantly civilian westerners. “I’ve heard Julie talk about the Continental. Let’s go.”

  “Now? What about Julie?”

  “Well, she took off on us, didn’t she? And this is safe. I mean look at it.”

  Four young men at the table nearest to where we stood were sharing beer from a large jug and they turned to observe us. None of them was wearing any sort of uniform and their hair was too long for soldiers on leave.

  At a table beyond them two young men sat with an Asian girl in traditional dress. There was a large camera on the table and the two men talked earnestly before turning to us. One of them said something to the other and the girl smiled so broadly I almost expected her to wave.

  “Come on,” said Abbie.