For the Life of Thi Lin Klein

by Jack Twist

  Chapter 29

  We were encouraged immediately by the availability of Lambrettas. Three or four of them were lined up outside the restaurant and, keeping ourselves out of the front door lights, we beckoned one over.

  The Continental Hotel seemed even more crowded than last time, with the usual variety of westerners, mostly non-military. We couldn’t see our reporter and Abbie wanted to approach him if we could find him, before looking for hotel management and asking for a room. I wasn’t as overawed by the place this time but she had concerns about who might recognise her and felt that for the price of a short interview the man might offer us some discreet advice, at least, on the business of renting rooms in Saigon.

  Standing at the doorway, we surveyed the wide lounge area. Abbie frowned. “Of course journalists aren’t known for their discretion, but I’m guessing he’ll be more interested in information on my father than in my private life.”

  But as we looked around we realised he wasn’t there.

  “Well we don’t have much time,” I said. “Let’s ask a waiter.”

  She took my hand. “Can we sit down for a minute? Please? He may come in.”

  There was barely a vacant table in the place and we were attracted to one, firstly because of the two empty chairs beside it, but also because we recognised the young man and the girl who occupied the other two. Last time we were here we had seen this couple at a table outside with another young man. I remembered how they had smiled at us as we’d entered.

  Without either of us really saying anything, we headed for their table. Apart from our recognition of them and the fact that they looked around our age, something else drew us to them; a greenness, a vague vulnerability that we understood. And I was hoping that he might even be Australian. The girl was a local, in traditional dress, unusual for women in hotels, even the Continental.

  “Excuse us.” They both looked up and smiled. “We were wondering if you might be able to help us. We’re looking for a reporter from the LA Times. Name of Adams.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “No. I’m rather new in-country. The few Americans I know are New Yorkers.” He was not American, but unmistakably English. Our disappointment showed and he apologised again.

  “It’s okay. Thanks.”

  “Can I help? I’m not a journalist but I am in the game. I’m a photographer.”

  “No. It’s okay. Nothing really.” Something about the way they smiled up at us invited my confidence. “We wanted to know about ... getting a room. What it’s like here, you know. That’s all.”

  “Here? At the Continental?”

  “Yes. Well, we don’t know anywhere else.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone who stays here.” I was looking around for a waiterwhen he said. “Are you new in town?” He looked at both of us in turn. The girl was smiling at us. Abbie said no and I said yes, simultaneously.

  “Well,” I said, “we’ve been here for a little while. Abbie’s been here longer than I have.”

  “Oh.”

  I was about to excuse us when Abbie said, “It’s kind of a special occasion, you see. I’m going home tomorrow, back to the States, and there are always so many soldiers everywhere.” He looked at my uniform but Abbie went on. “We don’t know anywhere else except here. We guess it’s okay, but thought we should check with someone. And this reporter, we know. Well he might be able to ... help us.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see.” He looked at the girl who was smiling still. She seemed to find great amusement in the conversation. “Well, look, you’re welcome to join us for a while. We can’t help you much, I’m afraid, but perhaps your friend might turn up in the meantime.”

  “It wouldn’t be an imposition?” said Abbie.

  “Not at all.” She thanked him and we sat. “I’m Piers Langford. This is my friend andassistant, Senlee.” He reached across and shook both our hands as we introduced ourselves. The girl smiled hugely as she nodded to us individually. “Now, should we order some drinks?”

  “Well, actually we have a time problem too. My leave runs out at eleven o’clock.”

  “Oh. That doesn’t help your cause, does it?”

  “No.”

  “New Zealand Army?’

  “Australian.”

  “Oh. the accent’s very similar, isn’t it? I shared a flat once with a New Zealander. In Ealing, it was. Sixty-five.” I decided he must have been older than he looked. He turned to Abbie. “And you’re American?.”

  “Yes. I’m at the Embassy.”

  He was nodding. “Fascinating.” He patted a large leather bag beside him. “You must let me get your photograph before you go.”

  “Which paper are you with?” Abbie asked.

  “Well, strictly speaking, none. I’m freelance. But I am closely aligned with a reporter from The Guardian.” I looked around at some new arrivals and he followed my glance. “I’m really sorry I can’t help you.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing really,” said Abbie. “It’s just, I’m going home, as I said. And we had some things ... things to talk about, you know ... and ...”

  Senlee, who had not stopped smiling since we arrived, said, “You want to make love.” We didn’t answer and she said, “We are lovers too.”

  He took her hand. “Isn’t she lovely.”

  We nodded.

  “Piers,” she said. “They could go to your room.”

  “Well, yes, except that it’s not my room, is it. That’s all. Although David won’t be back tonight. And, actually, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

  “Oh, we couldn’t do that,” said Abbie.

  “Well, we didn’t plan on going back there for quite a while yet. No one else will be there so it’d be quite alright.”

  “You’re sure it’d be okay?” I said.

  “Oh we couldn’t,” said Abbie. “I mean, especially if it’s not even your room.”

  “No. It’s quite alright, I promise you. And you could bring me back the key. After.”

  “After your ...ah ... honeymoon,” said Senlee and they both laughed again.

  He held up a finger. “There is one small fee. I will want that photograph when you get back.”

  “When you look beautiful. After your honeymoon.”

  He wanted to show us the way but we refused when he explained how close it was. He gave us a key and went over the directions again. We thanked them both and promised to be back by ten-thirty. We heard them laughing behind us as we left.

  Outside, a breeze made it cooler than usual. It didn’t feel like rain. “I thought Asian women were supposed to be reserved,” said Abbie as we made our way past the tables on the narrow sidewalk. “Maybe it’s a legacy from the French.” She took hold of my arm as we turned off the main road into a side street. “This country is full of kooks. But they were nice kooks.”

  The room smelt sweetly of incense and marijuana. I found a switch and the light revealed a larger room than I’d expected, with shower, vanity basin, mirror and continental toilet, all in a curtained corner. There was one bed beside the door and a mattress on the floor, in a corner beside an open balcony. The French doors were open so that the room was separated from the night outside only by a beaded curtain.

  I parted the beads to look out over the balcony which was barely big enough for two people together. Abbie came up beside me, looking nervous. We were only one floor up but the building opposite looked dark and empty.

  In daylight I’m sure that street of ramshackle structures would have looked like any another benign piece of big city squalor, or through more romantic eyes, a quaint corner of old Asia. But for us, at that moment, it served only to heighten our sense of alienation. Women were talking somewhere, a man coughed, and a baby cried. We were in a strange room, the temporary rented property of some man we had never seen, the friend of an English photographer we had known for maybe ten minutes. Still, despite my nervousness, I didn’t want to leave. We were together, alone at last. .

  Nor, it seemed, did Abb
ie.

  “Turn off the light,” she said. I put my arm around her then but she was looking around warily. “Pull the bed over, across the door. We don’t want any unwanted visitors. And maybe we should take the sheet off. It doesn’t seem right.” I dragged the bed over and pushed it up against the door. Without the one sheet it revealed a mattress, clean enough but old, with stuffing hanging out at inconvenient places. I turned it over quickly, wondering at her next concern.

  But she stood silhouetted before the curtain, her smile soft, eyes inviting.

  Old Asia outside, quaint or squalid, was our friend then, as was the English photographer, his friend Senlee, his colleague the journalist we’d never met, and his room, his bed, despite errant mattress stuffing. And the cooling breeze, the gently rustling curtain beads, that filtered the soft light from the city outside, so that it flickered across Abbie’s naked body where she lay on the bed. The whole weird world, inside this room and out there, was on our side, a part of our being here together.

  “What happened there?” She asked as I climbed onto the bed

  “It’s just a bruise.”

  “Poor papa san. I’ll kiss it better.”

  At first I had felt more overwhelmed by the situation than I wanted to show, but as her lips moved from my chest to my neck and then to my mouth, I lay down beside her, held the body I had dreamt of holding for days now. She moved on top of me as I ran my hands down her back, probed between her legs, felt the flick of her tongue grow more urgent. I rolled her off me as I kissed her neck, lifted myself above her and moved down to where the faint freckles faded into the whiteness of her small breasts, nipples raised. She lifted her stomach to meet me until she was arching her back and pressing herself at my mouth, her soft cry all the more wanton for her attempts to restrain it. And then dodgy mattress, the room and the world outside, baleful or benign, were all excluded. For a little while there none of it mattered.

  When I lay down beside her she turned to me, kissed my face and settled in beside me. We lay still for some minutes before she said, “you know … you know the time you saw me, down at the office at Vung Tau. Do you remember? You were there with some men in an old truck.”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “I thought you were an officer. You seemed to be in charge.”

  “I was supposed to be.”

  “Did you know that I saw you? I only came out of the office so that you would see me. I thought you looked impressive. I wanted you to see me.”

  “I saw you.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought you were very ... impressive.’

  She smiled and we watched the swaying rhythm of the curtain. “Tell me what you think of me, really.” I was about to speak but she went on. “Do you think I’m crazy? With the baby and everything? Trying to get her home?”

  “No.”

  “Some people do, you know. Just for coming to this country in the first place.”

  “They don’t love you, like I do.”

  “Don’t say things like that. You don’t know me. Well,” she smiled, “biblical sense now excluded. But really. We’ve only known each other for … little more than a week.”

  “Yeh. But I feel like we’ve packed enough into that week to last a lifetime.”

  “It’ll be with us for a lifetime. I’m sure of that. And baby came on the day we met, so for her it’s been a lifetime. Her lifetime, so far.” She sighed. “See. The baby again. Are you sure I’m not just a bit crazy?”

  “Maybe, when all’s said and done, you’re the only one who’s sane. What’s crazy about wanting to save a baby? Especially when she’s your half-sister.”

  She turned to look at me. “Exactly. Thank you. So, you love me?” I nodded. She smiled and as she watched my eyes her look became more intent. “Enough to come to me, at home, in the States?”

  She was watching me closely. Had I been as honest as she was I would have pondered the significance of such a question. And in a clear and open light the doubt in my nod would have been more obvious, but then I looked her in the eye and said yes.

  The breeze now carried rain. It blew in through the curtain, splattered lightly on the floor near the balcony doorway. “I’ll close that door.”

  “No. No, it’ll get too hot. And … listen,” she was watching me still, “don’t say things you don’t mean.” I said nothing. “You could come and visit at least, couldn’t you? And if you wanted to stay there’d be some problems, I guess, but nothing major.”

  The curtain shook more urgently as the wind blew and the rain fell against it.

  “It’d be like old times. You and me and baby san. Well, I mean, while my father recuperates. You know. It was the baby who brought us together, indirectly. That’s another thing I’m looking forward to telling her one day. But, listen. What are you saying, really?” She looked at me, her head rested on a hand. “Tell me. I’m doing all the talking here, as usual. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying … I’ll come to you.”

  “And?”

  “And ... Whatever.”

  “Whatever? Whatever what? I mean, how long would you want to stay? Would you want to live with me?”

  “I lived in a tree with you.”

  “Answer the question,” she said, quietly and gently.

  I turned my head away, to ponder the significance of the question.

  “I’m not even out of the army yet, Abbie. My life’s not my own. But I’d love to see you after all this, if you want to see me. After all we’ve been through for a start, and the way I feel about you.” I stopped to think. Her eyes were on me. “And what happens from there is hard to say. I’ve got a life in Australia, or did have. I’d have to sort a few things out there first. You know?” I looked at her. “But there’s nothing I’d love more than to see you, away from all this. Somewhere nice and comfortable. No more borrowed rooms, tree houses. It’d be wonderful.” She was still watching me. “But then ... I mean, I’d love to see you again, and see what happens from there, but hell, I’m not an American citizen for a start.”

  The wind and the rain had grown stronger. The curtain swirled and the rain came further into the room. She turned her head away and I looked around the strange, darkened room, wondering if, in that one little speech I’d spoilt everything, turned her off me, maybe forever. I had reminded her that I was pretty much a stranger, not really papa san. And I had probably sounded like I was getting ready to run again.

  While I tried to think of something else to say, something clever that might somehow save me, I felt her hand on my cheek. I turned to her smiling face and put my arm around her. She lifted herself onto her elbows and moved closer, but as I put my other arm around her it was suddenly pouring outside, so hard we turned to watch. A wall of water pounded the tiny balcony, the wind blowing so hard that some of the rain reached the bed and we felt a few drops on our nakedness.

  Abbie turned, lay down beside me again watching the deluge. She held my hand with both of hers, gripping it tight. Her head was rested against my shoulder and as she stared at the swirling curtain I felt her tremble.

  “You okay?”

  “I can never get used to this rain. It’s so heavy it keeps me awake at night. I had this awful dream one night that the baby was out in one of these storms.” I turned to watch the rain again. “It was a nightmare. I don’t know where we were because she was alone, just lying there, unprotected, crying and being pounded by heavy rain. And it didn’t stop. It just kept on pouring down.”

  The rain had eased when Abbie looked at her watch. “Oh my God.” We had ten minutes to get back to the restaurant.

  Our friends at the Continental were more than sympathetic but could do nothing but wish us luck. We didn’t have time for the photograph. “We understand,” said the girl. “We are lovers too.”

  It took us a few minutes to get a Lambretta and the one we did was so crowded the driver wouldn’t take us. I gave him five dollars and asked if we c
ould stand on the back runner. He took the money and charged off so that we had to jump on as he went past.

  We reached the restaurant at 11.05 and yelled at the driver to stop down the street and it was just as well. The jeep was parked in front and Julie was standing at the entrance. We cut down a lane to get to the alfresco section and scrambled over the bamboo fence.

  “Hi.”

  Julie turned. “Where have you been? You were not at your table.”

  “We moved outside.”

  “It was hot inside,” I added.

  She glared at me. “I think you should be considering what to tell your military police, should you need to.”

  “We’ve been talking,” said Abbie, “and I guess we lost track of time. Thanks again for letting me do this, Julie, but I’m okay. It’s all okay.” Julie nodded, without sympathy, and indicated the vehicle. “Mark needs a ride too. Please.”

  “Where to?”

  “Near the airport. I can show you,” I said. “If it’s okay.”

  “Abbie Klein. Sometimes I think I do more for you than I do for Henry Kissinger.”

  Abbie took my hand. I almost wished she hadn’t. Chuck didn’t turn to look at us but I could feel the hate rising from him. She said goodbye as I climbed out and mouthed the word ‘tomorrow’ to me as Chuck sped away.

  I headed straight for the nearest bar. If I could find them I wanted to arrive back at the barracks with some of the marching squad, expecting Sergeant killjoy to be there to check us in, especially his favourite malingerer.

  It was difficult to make out much at all in the bar. The proprietors had covered the lights with red plastic so that the whole interior took on a thick, smoky pink, the clientele like forms from another world, swaying silhouettes, in the heat and haze and loud music, careless of any real communication. Every soldier was drunk or stoned. A fat mama san sat blank-faced beside the bar watching her girls at work.

  “Uc dai loi!” I tried to make myself heard above the din, predominantly In a Gadda da Vida, a popular song in such bars. The speaker box was right behind the mama san. When she turned to me her eyes were absolutely without expression.

  “Uc dai loi!”

  With a nod of her head she indicated a corner of the big room.

  They were identifiable first by their civilian clothing, secondly by the size of the group. Americans were more inclined to be on their own with a girl, to pair off and spend their time and their money with that girl for the night. If you saw one Aussie you almost always saw a group. They went with the girls of course but before too long found their way back to their mates.

  “Mate,” said the engineers storeman. “Where ya been?”

  “Talkin’ to an American.”

  “ ‘Merican?”

  “Yeh.”

  “Yanks’re all drug aggics. Where were ya?”

  “Over there. Didn’t you see me?”

  “Mate, I’m flat out seein’ me hand in front of me face.”

  I bought the last round of drinks, anxious to be one of them. “How’s the practice been?”

  He nodded. “We’re ready. We’re ready. Where were you today?”

  “Doctor.”

  He nodded again although I don’t think he understood. His eyes looked ready to drop from their sockets. But they came to life when the music changed and soon every soldier in the place was singing, even me.

  We gotta get out a’ this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.

  We gotta get out a’ this place. Girl there’s a better life for me and you.