Message from Nam

by Danielle Steel

  “And what am I for being here with you? I’m a correspondent too,” she defended herself, and he smiled. But she was still young, and untouched by the horrors the rest of them took for granted.

  “You’re still new, Pax. It’s not too late for you. I’m telling you … don’t get mixed up with Bill. He’s a great guy, and I like him. But whatever happens, you’ll get hurt. Why put yourself through that?”

  “And France?” she said, wanting to get back at him, but the look on his face told her that she had touched a forbidden subject.

  “She has nothing to do with this,” he’d said, and he’d gone off in a helicopter, with a medevac team for the next three hours. And when he came back, neither of them brought up the subject again, and she didn’t mention it to Bill that night. It was too late for them anyway. As they sat and talked, he held her hand, and they talked about the kind of things people talk about when all is new and love is dawning.

  They had almost finished their chocolate mousse for dessert, when a pretty Vietnamese girl in an ao dai walked into the restaurant, and set down an armful of flowers. Paxton watched her thinking how pretty they were, and at the same moment, Bill turned and saw her. He watched her for a split second and then saw her leave, and then without a moment’s thought, he grabbed Paxton, dragged her off her chair, and pulled her under the table. He pressed his body on top of hers, hard against the banquette, and at that exact moment, there was a tremendous explosion. All the windows at the front of the restaurant blew out, and bodies seemed to be hurled everywhere around them. For a moment after that there was silence, and then screams, and Paxton could see a wall of flame explode to their right, as Bill grabbed her and pulled her along the floor to where they could see light in the darkness. He pulled her to safety in the street as the sirens began, and everywhere around them people seemed to be shouting. There were still screams, and cries of pain, and he started to leave her on the street and hurried back inside to help, but she was right behind him. Her arm was bleeding from where a piece of glass had sliced through her dress, but other than that she was unhurt by the explosion. Her legs were scratched, her body bruised from the force of it, but she went back inside and helped carry a woman out. She was screaming and she couldn’t see. Her face and arms were covered with blood, and all Paxton could do was comfort her as they waited for the ambulance to come. And she saw Bill help another man carry two men out, but both were dead. And then finally, the police and the medics took over. It was an ugly sight and there was blood and broken glass everywhere, and she was shaking violently as they walked back to his car, and he stopped and pulled her into his arms. They were both covered with blood and she started to cry as he kissed her.

  It was a terrible way to fall in love, a terrible place to be, a terrible war that had brought them together.

  “What are we doing here?” he asked, his voice sounding shaken. It was not so much because of what he’d seen, but because if things had happened differently, she might have been killed, and suddenly more than anything, he didn’t want to lose her. “Why aren’t we someplace ordinary like New York or Maryland or Texas?”

  “Because,” she smiled through her tears, “if we were, you probably wouldn’t know I’m alive, and you’d be with your wife.” She laughed and dried her eyes, trying to forget what they’d seen and just been through. “Or something like that.”

  He smiled too. “You have a way with words, Miss Paxton Andrews.”

  “I speak the truth. It’s one of my biggest failings.”

  “And virtues. I don’t think I’d love you as much if you didn’t. One thing this place does to you is makes you develop an absolute hatred for bullshit. That’s what happens when I go back to the States between tours,” he explained as they got into his car. “I can’t listen to the lies anymore, the explanations, the things no one believes and everyone says. In some ways, it’s easier being here,” and then he thought about what had just happened. “At least I used to think so.”

  “That happens a lot here, doesn’t it?” she asked, meaning the bombing, and he nodded. And then she smiled sadly. “Why is it, every time I’m with you, I come out looking like I’ve been dragged through a trench somewhere.”

  “Because you’re crazy to be here.” He kissed her then, hard, and in a way that told her he was glad they were both alive and nothing had happened.

  He took her back to her hotel then, and without saying a word they went upstairs. He had stopped at the bar and picked up a bottle of Scotch, and when she unlocked her room he laid it on the table, and then he turned to look at her, with sad eyes that said he loved her. “Pax, do you want me to go?” He had made arrangements to stay at the Rex, but he wanted to be here with her while he could, but only if it was also what she wanted. “I’ll go if you want me to.”

  She shook her head and smiled and walked slowly toward him. She wasn’t sure what to do. Peter had been dead for four months, and she had thought she would be bonded to him forever. And yet suddenly he seemed part of another lifetime, another world, a place she would never be again, and Bill Quinn was all that mattered.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said softly.

  He leaned down and took her in his arms, and she reached out to him with the passion born of loss and fear and sorrow, and he touched her with the strength of a man who puts his life on the line every morning. They had almost died that night and perhaps they would die the next day, but for now, for this single moment in time, they were alive, and belonged only to each other.

  He lay down on the bed with her and gently stripped her clothes off. The dress had been reduced to shreds of silk by the explosion and there was blood on his uniform, and all they wanted to do was shed the past, and the pain, and the loneliness that had brought them together. He felt the satin of her skin as he lay with her, and he moaned softly.

  “Oh, God, Pax, you’re so beautiful …” He couldn’t stop touching her and holding her and kissing her, and then she reached up and brought him to her, and as he entered her, there were tears in her eyes, not for the past and what they’d lost, but for what they’d found together.

  CHAPTER 16

  Paxton managed another trip to Cu Chi with Ralph three weeks later. By then the Democratic Convention had exploded into an orgy of madness in Chicago, and Harriman was still overseeing the Viet Nam peace talks in Paris. The irony of it all seemed like a bad joke to Paxton when she read it on the teletype at the AP office when she went there to meet Ralph before the continuing Five O’Clock Follies. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore, except what was happening right there, and the life she now shared with Bill. All that mattered was that he was safe, and nothing happened to either of them. It seemed a miracle each time he came to her at the hotel, and spent the night, which he was able to do fairly often.

  Ralph refrained from making comments on it most of the way to Cu Chi base, and then finally just before they arrived, he turned toward her and asked a question.

  “It’s serious with you two, isn’t it?” She nodded, not wanting to say too much in front of the driver. Ralph hadn’t mentioned any names, but gossip circulated quickly from Saigon to all the bases. Who was sleeping with whom and why always seemed to be a popular subject of conversation. And there was a lot of it going around, like VD and a host of tropical diseases.

  “Yes,” she said seriously, “it might be. It’s kind of new, and we haven’t figured it all out yet. There are some things that would have to be worked out, if … if …” If it lasted. Ralph knew what she meant, and he shook his head disapprovingly and looked out the window.

  “You’re both fools. But surely you know that.”

  “Why?” She was still so naive, so hopeful, as he turned back to look at her.

  “Because you’ll get hurt, Pax. Everyone does here. You have to. I don’t have to spell it out to you. You’re a big girl. You know what the options are, and most of them aren’t pretty.” He meant that either Bill would go back to his wife when he got shipped home eventually
, or he could get killed. He could survive of course, he could even leave Debbie. But Ralph didn’t think it very likely.

  “You’ve been here too long. You’re too cynical.”

  “Maybe so,” he said, lighting a cigarette. The worst of it was he had actually come to like Ruby Queens, the local brand. “I’ve seen the movie.”

  “Maybe you didn’t watch the right ending. Maybe you didn’t stay long enough. You don’t know everything.”

  “Look,” he tried again, because he liked her, “you’re smart, smarter than most. You’re doing a terrific job. You write great stuff. You could even win a Pulitzer one day.”

  “Yeah, sure.” She laughed, amused.

  “All right. So not a Pulitzer. But you’re good and you know it. What do you need this headache for? You’re only here for six months. Save it till you go home and meet Prince Charming behind a desk somewhere in some nice safe city like Milwaukee.”

  She turned to him determinedly. “Look, I can’t help what happened. It did. It’s there. I can’t pretend it isn’t. And why should I? This is where we are right now. This is real. The rest is all bullshit.”

  “What if the rest is real, and this is bullshit?”

  “Then I was wrong. Haven’t you ever been wrong, Ralph?” She didn’t want to mention France again, but he had gotten involved with her for the same reasons. Because they were there, and it was hard, and everyone was scared, and all around them people were dying. What better antidote to all that than to fall in love with someone, whether one meant to or not. How could he of all people not understand that? “Look.” She turned to him again as he stubbed out his cigarette. “Just get off my back. I know you mean well. But you don’t understand.”

  “Maybe not,” he said sadly. And when he saw them together later that afternoon, he wondered if she was right and he was wrong. There was undeniably something very strong and tender and beautiful between them. They tried to keep it hidden from everyone, but it was difficult. Their feelings for each other were so strong, so physical in some ways, and at the same time so honest, so pure, so built on mutual admiration and tenderness and love that it was very difficult to hide them.

  Bill’s sergeant, Tony Campobello, saw it too, and he was furious over it, which even she had noticed. He was barely civil to her, and when she was around that afternoon, his tone to his superior officer was icy. And all Bill did was raise an eyebrow in amusement. But when they ran into him at Tan Son Nhut one afternoon, at the PX, Paxton couldn’t resist saying something to him, while Bill was paying.

  “I’m sorry …” she started to say to Tony, but he cut her off.

  “For what?”

  “The way you feel,” she said honestly, since he made it no secret.

  “The way I feel has nothing to do with this,” he said coldly.

  “Then what are you angry about?” She looked him straight in the eye, which was easier than it was with Bill because Tony was almost the same height she was. “Or is it just that you don’t like me?”

  “I don’t give a shit about you.” He was out of line and he knew it, but he didn’t care. He hated her and he wanted her to know it. “It’s him I care about. He’s saved my ass more times than you’ll ever know. He’s saved more men in this godforsaken country than you can count, and you’re out there risking his ass, and you don’t even know it.” She was shocked at what he said and she didn’t understand.

  “How can you say that?” She had done nothing to risk his life, on the contrary, she wanted him to stay alive, even if that meant he went home to Debbie. But she didn’t want him to die. This guy was crazy.

  “Lady, do you know what it takes to stay alive here? You gotta crawl on your belly every day, and think of only one thing, yourself. You think about the next guy too much, you watch your buddy and not yourself, and you’re a dead man. In one second, it’s all over. You know what he thinks about out there now? Not us, not himself, not what he’s doing, not who’s in the tunnel, or is there a guy out there in the bushes just waiting for us … he thinks about you, and he sits around smiling. And you know what that’s going to do to him? It’s going to get his ass blown off by a land mine, or his brains blown out by a sniper. And do you know who’s fault it’ll be, lady? Yours. You think about that next time he reaches out to touch you.” And as he said that, Bill walked over to them with his purchases and he was smiling.

  “Hi, Tony … you know Paxton, don’t you?” He did and he didn’t want to. And something disturbed Bill about the way Paxton looked as the sergeant said, “Yeah, sure,” saluted, and left them. She didn’t say a word to Bill about what he had just said to her, but she was frightened all night as she lay beside Bill and thought of the sergeant’s warning. Were they alright? Was she wrong to love him? Would it destroy them both? Was there no room for love here? It seemed hard to believe, and everyone had someone, even if it was only for a moment. And all the while Ralph was telling her that she had no right to love Bill, he was living with the Eurasian girl in Gia Dinh … he went home to her at night, didn’t he? But why was it that no one wanted her to be with Bill? Especially not the angry young sergeant.

  “You were awfully quiet last night,” Bill said the next day. He had three days off, and he had noticed it, but she still wouldn’t tell him what Tony had said. She just told him she was worried about a story.

  They went to Vung Tau that weekend, for three days R and R, in the lovely coastal town that was still a beautiful resort with exquisite beaches. Paxton thought she had never been happier in her life. They talked about the future sometimes, but as infrequently as they could. There was nothing to talk about now, except the time they shared. And when he went back to the States, he would have to decide what he wanted to do about Debbie. They were both due to go back at almost the same time. She had promised to go back by Christmas, and his DEROS was a month later. He was due back in San Francisco at the end of January, and he and Paxton agreed, he had spent enough time in Viet Nam. Four tours were sufficient. He was going home to figure out the business of living.

  “Do you really think you could stand being an army bride?” he asked her in bed one night in Vung Tau, and the scary thing was that he meant it.

  “I think so.” She smiled. “I could write for Stars and Stripes.”

  “You’re too good for them.” Even though they were informative and everyone read them.

  “Baloney.” She rolled over in bed and he kissed her. They had a wonderful time in Vung Tau, and they went back again in October. And shortly after that, he went to Hong Kong for a week’s R and R with Debbie. It was something he and Paxton had talked about at length, and he was tempted to cancel. But Paxton thought he should go, even if it was hard on her. She felt he owed that to Debbie. This was no time for a confrontation. But when he came back, he was in a bad mood for weeks. Debbie had put a lot of pressure on him about his attitudes, and the war. She had recently gotten involved in an antiwar group, and she told him he was a killer. She also told him she wanted a new car, and she was sick to death of the army.

  Nixon had been elected by then, and Paxton’s news from home was pretty good. Her mother seemed fine, although anxious to see her at Christmas. And Gabby wrote and told her she was having another baby. Their lives seemed to go on, but Paxton could no longer imagine what it would be like to be there with them. After five months in Viet Nam, she felt as though she’d been living on another planet.

  And she said as much to Bill one night when they were out for dinner. “You know, I feel guilty even saying it. But I don’t want to go home for Christmas.” She wanted to stay in Viet Nam with him. It meant more to her than going home, and being with her family in Savannah. She had hated that for years, and now it would be worse. She had grown up too much this year. And it was just too different. Besides, Christmas at home without Queenie would be truly awful. And being in the States would bring back a flood of painful memories of Peter. And although she thought less about it now, she felt that a part of her would always love him. Th
ings were just different now, but even Bill understood that.

  “Why don’t you stay here for Christmas then?” He knew he should have encouraged her to go home, but he was feeling selfish and he didn’t want to. It would be their last peaceful time before he went home himself the following month and tried to figure out what he was going to do about Debbie.

  “Do you really mean it?” Paxton looked at him mischievously.

  “Sure.”

  “Then it’s done.” She leaned over and kissed him and they went back to the hotel and made love for the rest of the evening. And in the morning she sent a telex to the Sun. “Cannot be home December as planned. Big stories breaking here. Home by January 15. Please advise family in Savannah. Paxton Andrews.” She knew it would cause a little stir, but she didn’t really care. She wanted to be with Bill, and maybe this would be their first and last Christmas. If he decided to end their affair, at least they would have had this. She was very philosophical about it. But one had to be in any case, when one lived with constant danger.

  They went to church together on Christmas Eve, and they woke up in each other’s arms the next morning. He’d bought her a sweater at the PX, and a beautiful gold bangle bracelet in Hong Kong, when he was there with Debbie in October. It had a single tiny diamond in it, and he put it on her arm and kissed her. She had bought him a handsome watch at the PX, some books she knew he wanted that she’d ordered from the States, and some funny underwear she’d found on the black market. It was all silly stuff, and the best they could do under the circumstances. But the bracelet he gave her was really special, and inside, delicately engraved, were their initials, and Xmas ’68.