Abruptly, Nguyen turned, and headed back to the jeep. His expression tight, eyes narrowed with scorn.
Petrie swore softly under his breath. “It’s no bloody good. He won’t let us pass. We’re lucky he didn’t shoot us.” After a short pause, he added grimly, “Unless maybe he’s saving the best for last.”
Brian thought of Rachel. He had to get to her. He had to chance it.
Suddenly it was as if his every muscle had fused into one, galvanizing him into action.
He tore his arm from Dan’s grip, and leapt out. Too late, he realized he should have moved more cautiously. There was a spurt of orange flame. A sound like a drop of water hitting a red-hot griddle. Brian felt a hot lick of air graze his cheek.
The warm mud stank of manure. He was on his belly, arms curled protectively over his head, the still-hot mouth of the semi-automatic’s barrel pressed against the side of his neck. I’m going to die. After all this. Shot in the road like a rabbit. Jesus Christ, what a waste.
[271] After an excruciating time of lying still and wondering what it would feel like to die, he realized that might not happen ... at least not immediately. He lowered his arms and raised his head. He was confronted by filthy feet wearing thongs. Slowly, Brian lifted himself onto his knees, holding his arms up, palms out, to show he meant no harm. Now, looking up into the round dusky-skinned face of his captor, he saw that the kid was as scared as he was.
Brian, taking a chance, gestured to show that he wanted to open his jacket. The boy brought up the rifle, pointing it squarely at Brian’s forehead ... then he nodded.
Brian unzipped his windbreaker.
Underneath, he was wearing a priest’s black shirt and clerical collar.
He made the sign of the cross, praying with greater terror than he ever had in the hundreds of times he’d knelt before the altar of Holy Martyrs that this boy was—or at least had been—Catholic, and not Buddhist.
His heart thundered in his ears, and the sweat now was dripping off his nose, his chin. A swarm of gnats buzzed, maddening, stinging him. But he dared not brush them away. He remained perfectly still. He saw a kingfisher swoop down from a tall tree, the sun catching on its wings in a blaze of iridescent colors.
After an eternity, the boy slowly, stiffly, lowered his rifle. He gestured for Brian to stand. Cautiously, reverently even, the boy reached out and touched a forefinger to the Saint Christopher’s medal that dangled over Brian’s collar.
Brian lifted the chain over his head, and handed the medal to the boy, smiling to show he meant it as a gift, a peace offering. The toughness dropped away from the boy’s sallow face, and he smiled.
Maybe it’s going to be okay, Brian thought.
Relief swept over him. His legs buckled when he tried to stand, and he faltered twice before finally he managed to bring himself to his feet.
Brian spoke quickly, without turning around, directing his words to Nguyen. “Tell him I must get through to the hospital. There’s a doctor ... a lady doctor ... we need her for ... for a priest in Da Nang who is very sick. Tell him this priest will die if we don’t take her back with us.”
[272] Nguyen translated in rapid, high-pitched Vietnamese.
Five minutes later, their jeep was climbing the steep mountain road into Tien Sung, with the pajama-clad boy riding shotgun on the running board, looking delighted and proud of his important new role.
Dan turned to Brian, his monkey face creased in an incredulous grin. “Jesus Christ. You’ve one hell of a nerve. That was the best bloody performance since the Last Supper.”
Brian grinned. “At the Last Supper they didn’t serve wedding cake.”
Rachel locked the med cabinet, then turned toward the stairs leading to the second floor, balancing a tray of fresh syringes and four ampules each of morphine and penicillin. She glanced at the Vietnamese guard leaning against the wall at the other end of the corridor, holding a rifle across his chest and watching her carefully. He no longer frightened her. She almost wished he would shoot her, and put an end to her ordeal.
She hadn’t slept in three days. She was on the verge of collapse. If it hadn’t been for Kay, where would she be? Kay, who also looked like death, but who seemed to be drawing strength from some deep reserve. Yet Kay, too, had her limits. Earlier today, Rachel had seen her stumble with fatigue, nearly dropping a load of fresh bandages she was carrying.
If only they could get away ...
I’m like someone who’s starving, whose body starts eating its own flesh, she thought. But it’s my mind, craving sleep, craving an end to all this, that must be consuming itself.
Her thoughts circled once again around the same beaten path.
Brian, oh my love. If only we could have loved one another openly, even for an hour, how much better than this.
She accepted Rose. Reading Brian’s journal she had come to understand his and Rose’s relationship better than if he had tried to explain it. Yes, it was right that he go back to her. They would marry, have the big family Brian wanted, the children she probably could never give him. As it should be. But understanding still hurt. Accepting did not take away the cold emptiness in her heart.
[273] The floor seemed to be moving, shimmering like heat rising off baking asphalt. Her head swam. At the end of the hallway now there were two guards. Engaged in some kind of furious discourse. A third Vietnamese man, unarmed, sauntered over, smiling, speaking in a friendly mariner. She caught the word “cigarettes.” Then all three disappeared through the door that led out onto the courtyard.
The guards had become more relaxed over the past day or two. With the arrival last night of two Russian doctors, they had even allowed Ian MacDougal leave yesterday to accompany a two-year-old Vietnamese boy in need of complicated surgery Ian could perform only at the hospital in Da Nang. But still, where did that leave her? Lately, she’d noticed one of the guards looking at her a certain way that turned her blood cold, and made her think he had worse things in mind than merely killing her.
Now two other men were coming in through the door, walking forward. The light was dim. All she could see was their shadowy outlines. One tall and thin, the other short and wiry.
The tall one stepped forward. A priest. What was a priest doing here?
Then she saw his face. Gaunt, hollowed by sickness, but still the most beautiful face she had ever seen. At first she didn’t believe it. It had to be a dream.
“Brian,” she gasped.
There was a crash. She looked down at the splintered glass at her feet. She had dropped her tray.
Then she began to run toward him.
As in dreams, her legs were heavy, clumsy, as if she were running through deep sand, each step pulling her down. She flung out her arms ... and now she was being lifted like a kite ... wind roaring in her ears ... bearing her forward. ...
Then he was holding her, embracing her. She felt herself being squeezed, so hard she knew it wasn’t a dream. These were Brian’s hands, face, body. He’d come back to her. Brian, who had made her feel worthwhile, important, blessed, who had made her glow with love. And now, a true miracle, he’d come to rescue her.
“Brian, oh Brian.” She clung to him, burying her face in the stiff black folds of his shirt, weeping. She didn’t care why he was dressed in a priest’s collar, only that he’d come for her.
[274] “Rachel,” he murmured into her hair, his voice choked. “Rachel, thank God. Oh thank God.”
He kissed her, filthy hands cupping her face, his cheek rough with stubble, but oh, how wonderful. ...
An explosion of light printed red stars on the insides of her closed eyelids.
She blinked her eyes open, startled to see a little monkey of a man standing a few feet away, brandishing a camera, and grinning as if he’d just been handed a bronze trophy.
“Well done, mate,” he crowed. “That kiss will be seen around the bleeding world!”
Chapter 16
Their jeep lurched over a small ditch where the choked jungle lan
e forked onto the main road. Branches squealed along the hood and sides, then suddenly, miraculously it seemed, there were clouds, sky, space. Now they were bumping over a two-lane asphalt highway, cracked and studded with potholes, but here there were people, a village ... and relative safety. Rachel spotted the tail end of an army transport truck cresting a hill off in the distance. She felt like cheering.
They had made it. All of them—she and Brian, and his funny little Australian. Kay, too, thank God. Somehow, Lord only knew how, they’d all made it.
Rachel felt Brian’s arm tighten about her shoulders as they hit a bone-jolting rut and wings of muddy water spumed out from the jeep’s wheels. Yes, Brian, hold me, she thought, hold on to me, please, or I might fly right out of this dream. ...
It was dusk, and they’d been crawling for an eternity on that barely marked track through the jungle. But now their driver was braking for oxen, dogs and children, and wizened mama-sans bent under enormous bundles they carried on their heads, as they began passing through the suburbs of Da Nang. Bamboo huts and rice paddies giving way to shantytowns of corrugated tin, ditches flooded with foul water, cooking fires lighting up the dusk like fireflies.
Safe, she thought. Safe from snipers, ambushes, land mines. She felt her tension ebb. This place was so dismal, so appallingly filthy, yet she rejoiced in the cacophony of sounds and voices, the bellowing of oxen. She wanted to embrace every person she saw.
Free, she was free. And Brian, dear God, he had come back. [276] For her. He loved her enough to risk getting himself killed for her.
Taking in his profile, his stubbled jaw streaked with mud, the strong jutting bones, she felt such love it hurt her, an ache in her belly spreading up through her chest, clutching at her throat.
“A shower,” Kay, beside her, grunted. “That’s gonna be the first thing. God, I stink worse than a goat. No wonder those VC let me go with you. They probably were praying I’d clear out.”
Dan Petrie turned back toward them over the front seat, his blue eyes peering out from a mask of red dust, and tipped Kay a wink. “Bloody hell they were. If it hadn’t been for Father Brian here, we’d all be checking into the Hanoi Hilton. But I got to hand it to you, lady—” he patted the camera case in his lap, “that shot of you flipping Charlie the bird will go down in history.”
“My yenta temper. Good thing he didn’t know what it meant. The way he was smiling, he probably thought it meant good luck or something.” Kay’s face, round as a Buddha’s, split into a wide grin as she lifted her hand high over her head, middle finger raised. “Well, here’s luck to us all!”
And now Brian was holding Rachel with both arms, and then kissing her, kissing her fiercely. He felt and smelled like the twenty miles of bad road they’d just come over, his face and hands gritty with dried mud, his black priest’s shirt soaked with sweat, but she had never known anything so sweet. She felt his hand tightly cupping the curve of her skull where her neck arched back. He was trembling.
“Marry me,” he murmured, clutching her even tighter.
But had he said that, or had she just imagined it? Hell, it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to say it out loud. She knew what he was feeling, just as he knew what her heart was saying to him.
“When?” she asked.
Brian drew back with a laugh, but his eyes—those incredible slate-colored eyes that had somehow captivated her before he ever had spoken a word to her—were serious.
“Now. As soon as we get to Da Nang. Petrie knows a chaplain, a real chaplain,” he said and laughed. “He says this guy owes him one. Though knowing Petrie, I’d hate to think what for.”
Rachel, her emotions reeling, felt something quiet, calm, deep inside her. Yes, this was right, this was meant to be. A force even stronger than their love for each other had somehow decided this.
[277] “Yes,” she told him. “Yes,” she said again, loud enough for Kay and Petrie to hear, and for the whole world. “Yes, I’ll marry you!” She was crying now, “I’ll marry you in Da Nang ... or New York ... or Disneyland ... anywhere you want me!”
Brian, I feel so different than I ever have, like I’m in another country, your country; I’ve crossed over some magic frontier, and I don’t ever want to go back.
Everything up until now, David ... the abortion ... all those dead and dying soldiers ... the VC ... it had happened in another world, to another Rachel.
Petrie held up two fingers in a victory sign.
Kay didn’t say a word, just grabbed Rachel’s hand and squeezed it hard. Her brown eyes, behind the dusty lenses of her spectacles, shone with tears.
“Looks like you get stuck being my maid of honor,” Rachel told her.
“Just one question,” Kay said. “Do I get to take a shower first?”
Father Rourke was drunk as a skunk, but ambulatory ... just barely.
Rachel, standing with Brian before the chaplain in his rumpled khakis, felt a little faint. His breath reeked of alcohol, and he was swaying on his feet, his hands shaking as he fumbled with the pages of his prayer book. She lifted her eyes, and stared at the road map of broken veins spread across his nose and cheeks. A man probably no more than thirty, who looked more like sixty-five.
She had to engrave every detail in her memory, the ugly along with the beautiful. Someday, an old married couple, curled together in the cozy warmth of their bed, in their own solid house somewhere, they would laugh about Father Rourke and this whole scene, and it would draw them even closer to each another.
She looked around. This tiny mah-jongg den behind the bar where Petrie finally—after visiting a dozen other bars—had tracked down the chaplain, was straight out of a Charlie Chan movie. Beaded curtains, orange paper lanterns, a jangle of music and singsong voices in the background. She etched it all in her mind. She would come back to this place again and again in her memory.
[278] She looked back up at Brian, and he smiled, sharing her amusement. Then she thought of Mason Gold’s wedding, how weird she’d thought it. If Mason could only see this!
Brian, in a tuxedo jacket rented from a rapacious supply sergeant. It was a good four inches too short in the arms. Brian’s knobby wrists stuck out so far he was keeping his hands shoved into his pockets. Kay had pinned a scarlet hibiscus blossom to his lapel a few minutes ago, and Rachel saw now to her horror that it was crawling with ants.
But, oh, his dear face, the way his head cocked a little to one side as he smiled down at her, his dark curls springing loose from the wet comb tracks. She wouldn’t have traded him, no, not for anyone.
“Do you ... Rachel ... ah ... ah ... Rosenthal ... take this man to be your ... ah ... lawful wuh-wedded husband? To ...”
“I do,” she answered, too impatient to hear out the rest of it.
“And do you, Brian ...”
Off to her right, Rachel could hear Kay honk softly into a tissue.
Bless you, dear Kay, she thought. Kay had even found her this white silk tunic split up the sides, with matching trousers—traditional Vietnamese garb. Kay herself was wearing one of red cotton, which clung to her plump curves, making Rachel think of an elf in a union suit.
“... for richer or poorer, in suh-suh-sickness ... or huh-health ... ah ... do you take ... no, I already said that, didn’t I? ... Let’s see, um ... yes, here ... till death do you part?”
Brian looked into her eyes for what seemed a very long time, and she felt the love in them reach out, reach down inside her and catch hold of her heart.
I should stop this ... tell him now ... before it’s too late. But if he knew I couldn’t give him children, would he still want to marry me? Would I be enough ... ?
Yes, she knew she must tell him. This very minute. While he could still change his mind if he wanted to. But the words she felt duty-bound to say would not come; they seemed stuck in her throat. She couldn’t bear to stop Brian from promising to love and cherish her forever ... to be her husband. ...
[279] And then she heard Brian say, “I do.”
Suddenly Rachel was too happy to concentrate on anything but Brian embracing her, kissing her, lifting her so that her toes barely grazed the floor, his body, his mouth, fusing into hers.
Flashbulbs popped, blinding bursts of white, making red pinpricks swarm before her eyes.
Married! She and’ this wonderful, brave, gentle man were married. ...
With the tip of her finger, Rachel traced the scar which crisscrossed Brian’s belly like a crimson thunderbolt.
“Right now, you remind me of Flash Gordon,” she teased, wallowing in contentment as she lay naked beside him on the bed, the sheet tangled about her feet. “I loved those old episodes on television. He was a big hero of mine, back when I was in Spanky pants and Mary Janes.”
“What about now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I prefer mad Irishmen. Brings out the Maureen O’Hara in me.”
“Maureen O’Hara?”
“Didn’t you ever see her in The Quiet Man, that feisty redhead just asking to be put in her place by John Wayne.”
“And just what place was that, I wonder.”
Rachel grinned, feeling naughty. “In bed, where else?”
Right now, this decrepit bed with its sag in the middle felt like the most wonderful place in all the world. And this seedy hotel room, too, with its rickety bamboo chairs and yellowing prints of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.
Now, in the first light of day, it looked even more dingy than last night, when their taxi had rattled through a maze of frighteningly narrow alleyways to this hole-in-the-wall, the Hotel Arc de Triomphe. Rachel noted the bare wood peeking through the chipped spots on a red lacquer cabinet. And the window’s shutters with several slats missing, through which filtered, along with the milky light, a jangle of sounds—water slapping against the sampans in the adjacent Saigon River, the clanking of pots, a babble of singsong voices. She caught the fragrant cooking smells of ginger, steamed [280] rice, kim chee. And underlying them, the faint stink of rotten fish and urine.
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