The Lotus Eaters: A Novel

by Tatjana Soli

  "Life ended after that."

  The puppy whimpered to be let out nights; Helen up like a shot, carrying the dog outside on the lawn, standing sleepy, barefoot on the wet grass, staring up at the stars. She walked him up and down along empty sidewalks, enjoyed the upside-down quality of the world at night, the only state that matched what she was feeling inside.

  After two weeks, Helen called Tom. He sounded surprised. "I thought we didn't connect," he said.

  "We didn't."

  A pause.

  "What're you up to?"

  "Knocking away on that chip on my shoulder you talked about."

  He laughed.

  "Come for dinner about seven, we'll eat with my mom." A chaperoned dinner to take the pressure off her.

  "Why not?"

  During dinner Helen played hostess, passing salad and dinner rolls, smiling at his jokes. Tom pleased her mother beyond words; she glowed, hopeful that this was a first step for her daughter. Helen snuck scraps under the table to Duke.

  When Tom asked Helen about her photographs in Vietnam, she spoke of the beauty of the countryside. "It's too bad you never saw it in person, Mom. It's so beautiful. Maybe we'll go after the war is over."

  Charlotte frowned. "Why would I ever set foot in such a place? A place where they killed my son?"

  Helen rose and took her plate to the sink. After dinner, Charlotte suggested Tom and Helen take a walk along the beach. Driving down the coast highway, Helen insisted on stopping first at the liquor store for a bottle of scotch. She drank out of the bottle and turned Tom's radio on loud. At the top of a hill, with the town spread out below, she moved her leg over the gearbox and around the shaft. Tom ran his hand along her knee as she jammed her foot down on the accelerator, bracing herself against the back of the seat so he couldn't dislodge her, and the car raced down the curving road. Tom held the wheel and slammed on the brakes. "Are you crazy?"

  "Just having fun."

  "Some fun. Getting us killed."

  "Didn't it feel good, just a little? Kept you dying from boredom?"

  They parked along the beach and walked in the sand barefoot, passing the bottle back and forth between them.

  "You're a little wild, huh?" he said.

  "That's me."

  "How long did you say you'd been back?"

  "I didn't." She stopped and dug her feet into the cold and gritty sand. Waves in the moonlight sharp and hard as the blades of knives. "Six weeks, four days."

  Far up the beach, teenagers crowded around a large bonfire that threw light up on the cliffs, but where Tom and Helen stood it was dark and deserted.

  "So what are you doing with your days?" he asked. He took a long pull from the bottle and let his fingers brush along hers when he handed it back.

  "Baking for Gwen." She laughed. "Cakes and cookies, buns and rolls."

  "No, long-term. When are you going to start doing photography again?"

  "I'm done with that."

  "I told all my friends about you, all your covers. They'd seen your stuff and were impressed as hell. That's why I came when you called, even though you were a jerk that day."

  "Wow." His bluntness made her like him better.

  "So why aren't you working at a newspaper? Or covering another war? Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

  "I just went as a lark. It turned into something else. What do you do if you have a hazardous talent, like riding over waterfalls in a barrel? A talent dangerous to your health?" After the question came out of her mouth, she felt embarrassed.

  He stopped and took a sip. "I don't know. If I was that good at something, I know it'd be hard to stop. Baking... shit."

  Helen moved back into the cave of shadows at the base of the hillside, tumbled onto her back in the sand. Was that the simple answer, that Darrow couldn't leave his work because he was good at it? That she loved the work more than this life that felt like a living death? No matter how she tried, the gears of her old life kept slipping; she could gain no traction. Her mind was always far away, whirring. She had not known how alive she was in Vietnam. How despite the fear and the anger, she had been awake in the deepest way, in a way that ordinary life could not compete with. She motioned Tom down and pulled him on top of her.

  "All those guys over there made you a little crazy, huh? We can go to my place. I have a bed."

  "Baking's not so bad. You have flour, butter, sugar. The smell of baking bread." She shook her head, squirmed from under him, reached for the bottle nested in the sand, and took a long drink.

  He grabbed the bottle away. "That's enough. I don't want you passing out on me." He kissed her on the lips, the neck, fumbled with the buttons of her blouse.

  She closed her eyes, but that made her head spin faster, so she opened them again. "There was this place on Tu Do that made the most wonderful croissants." Despite the pulsing of the waves, the times in high school and college, despite the smoky taste of the scotch on her tongue, this wasn't even a moment's forgetfulness.

  "Come on..."

  "No." She couldn't remember why she thought this would work, why she sought him out. He had unbuttoned her blouse. For a brief moment the pulse of warmth began, a deep pull, but instead of distracting, the arousal opened a deep grief inside her.

  Helen jerked open his belt buckle, but the scotch suddenly created a wave of nausea welling up in her, and she pushed at his chest to get him off, unable to bear another minute, which he at first mistook for passion, pressing down harder, her slaps growing more frantic, powerful, convulsed, until he moved off, and she rolled away, crouched on all fours, and heaved.

  He sat on the sand next to her. "Jesus Christ," he said. "Nice."

  She sat with her knees up, her head on her arms, sucking down gulps of air.

  He stood and took off his shirt, then his T-shirt. He walked to the waves, then came back. "Here," he said, kneeling down, handing her his wet T-shirt to wipe her face. He sighed. "I don't know what just happened."

  "I shouldn't have called."

  "Yeah, maybe."

  "I wanted to be the kind of girl you think of when you go off to war."

  "You're the one who goes to war, remember?"

  "We better go home."

  "I like you. But you're not that kind of girl."

  The next day she took the box of Darrow's belongings and boarded a flight for New York.

  She did not think about what she would find, did not know what she was looking for. Not until later did she realize that the addition of facts would simply dilute her own store of memories without bringing him closer, that as she became the biographer of his life, Darrow himself would move further and further from her grasp. Although she knew him deeply, now she could discover only the surface of his life.

  She drove out of the city, onto long, winding roads shaded by the dying yellow and red of fall. Although it was only late September, already there was a chill in the air, and the low sun cast a somber light on the lawns and houses. Circling streets aimlessly, unable to place Darrow in this suburban environment, she came upon his street name and turned. She planned to drive by the house a few times, to reconnoiter the area, but when she saw a long, rising lawn that led to a white Cape Cod, she stopped. How to reconcile this house with the crooked apartment in Cholon? Could the same man belong to both places?

  Helen parked on the side of the road and watched as a coiffed brunette in a floral dress unloaded groceries from a car trunk. Her own jeans and army T-shirt with a khaki shirt on top suddenly seemed shabby. This place, this woman, were impossible to put together with the Darrow she knew. Was the excuse of war a way to go live another, a second life? Were there closets filled with his clothes inside? If she brought them to her nose, would she smell him? She got out of the car and struggled to lift the box, balancing it on her hip as she closed the car door.

  The driveway dipped before it rose to the house. A small puddle filled with fallen leaves had formed from an earlier rain. Helen walked around it, stepping on the wet lawn, a
lmost slipping in a hidden dip. The driveway was long, the woman too far away for Helen to see her face. Once she saw her close-up, she would know if Darrow had loved her.

  As she walked up the gravel path, a small boy ran around the corner of the house with an Airedale chasing him. The boy laughed and shouted to his mother, the dog jumping and nipping him in mid air, and Helen stopped. His curly hair the exact brown shade of Darrow's. Her legs went weak. Suddenly she did not want what she had come for. Nothing could be added; nothing would change her facts. The woman called out to the boy a name Helen couldn't quite make out. Her blood pounded in her ears like waves, and she realized Darrow had never told her the boy's name, had kept him unreal.

  The child pointed his arm down the driveway toward Helen. The woman reached out for him, but he ducked away and began to run full speed down the driveway with her in chase. When they came within speaking distance, the woman stopped, and her face became hard, a cool stare. "Can I help you?"

  "I'm Helen Adams. From Life. I have your... I have Sam's things."

  "You're late. You were supposed to be here hours ago." The woman shielded herself as if a wind had come up. "I'm Lilly Darrow. Come," she said, and walked back up to the house.

  The interior was neat and dark, low ceilings and unlit Tiffany lamps, unused chintz-covered furniture. Gloomy, wood-carved antiques and marble-topped, sarcophagal tables, everything in perfect taste, fallow. It did not seem that a man had ever lived there, and certainly not Darrow. As they sat in the dim living room, Helen noticed Lilly's face had a professional symmetry to it--a broad, pale forehead, tight smile. A face more to be admired than loved.

  "Would you like tea?" she asked, and Helen, not listening, was at a loss until Lilly pointed to a china service. "I love having someone to entertain."

  "It's too much..."

  "Not after you flew across the country."

  Lilly lifted the tea tray and pushed at the swinging kitchen door. "Come on, if you want. It's more comfortable in here."

  The light through the windows was murky, the sun hidden by tall pines that cast bluish, prone shadows on the back lawn. Copper pots hung from the kitchen walls. Stacks of dishes leaned in the glass-paned cabinets. She was right: Compared to the other room, this did feel more comfortable. Helen liked Lilly better for noticing the difference and admitting it. Her back was toward Helen while she filled the kettle. The fabric of her dress was expensive with a dull, heavy shimmer to the thread.

  When the boy wandered in, Helen was unable to take her eyes from him. His brown hair was messed, a cowlick in front, the promise of his father's heavy-lidded eyes and long, slender fingers.

  "Go to your room, Sam. This friend of your father's, who came all the way to see us. To bring you some of Daddy's cameras."

  He looked at Helen with new interest. "Show them to me?"

  Lilly interrupted before Helen could answer. "Not now. We'll look later, okay? Now scoot."

  "That's okay, I don't mind." She wanted the boy to stay, wanted the buffer of him.

  "He never came here, you know," Lilly said, taking out pastries from a box, and the evident effort that she had gone through belied her casualness. "We married in the city and lived in a small apartment before he left. My parents... live down the street. He told me family was important to him. So I made this home for him."

  "It's lovely."

  "So he would have a home to come back to." Lilly shook her head. "Someone to survive for."

  Helen said nothing. A feeling of claustrophobia, of wanting to escape, overcame her, and her hands fidgeted in her lap. As much as she hurt, she was lucky compared to this.

  Lilly set down a series of forks and spoons at Helen's place, put out individual pastries, berries and cream, small sandwiches, and sat down to pour. Up close, Lilly's two front teeth, perfect otherwise, overlapped slightly. Helen hesitated, embarrassed that she did not know which fork to pick up.

  "I was engaged to a law student from my hometown. But Sam... was so passionate about changing the world." She picked up the fork farthest from the plate. "How could I not fall for him? I wanted to wait before we had children. Spend time alone." She smiled and leaned forward, as if in confession. "I even thought of becoming a photographer. Going with him. But he insisted it was no place for a woman. He wanted a family."

  Helen used the small fork to tear apart her apple tart.

  Lilly reached over and held Helen's arm for emphasis. "I'm not naive. I understand things. He hated the war, and the two of you took solace in each other."

  Helen cleared her throat. "I brought everything I thought your son--"

  "You're the first one of them he talked of marrying, though."

  Them. So this was her purpose. Revenge posthumously. Helen put the tiny fork down and picked up the sandwich with her fingers. "He loved what he did."

  "Oh, yes." Lilly stood and moved to the now dark window. She ran her hands over her hair and looked out into the dusk. A natural, unselfconscious gesture, it spoke of many afternoons spent alone. Helen could see only the pale forehead and curved line of her chin in the glow of the lamp. She imagined her as the young woman that Darrow had married. "He was ambitious, wasn't he? That's what I have to convince Sammy of. That he was a great man doing important work. That his death was a hero's death."

  "Yes." It took everything for Helen to remain seated in the room, not to run. A terrible mistake coming here; this woman twisting everything around until it was impossible to determine what was what.

  "Every year he told me he was quitting. Each woman was the last. Finally I figured out that he was going to stay till he got killed."

  "We were about to leave."

  "I got divorce papers out of the blue. He wasn't thinking straight."

  "He asked you in Saigon."

  "He never asked such a thing. We argued when he was coming home. What kind of father doesn't see his son?"

  "I came for the boy's sake. You didn't even know him. Everything that was most important about Sam, you didn't know."

  "I'd say neither of us was his first love." Lilly leaned back and spread her arms out, encompassing the room. "But at least I have this. His home. I'm his grieving widow. At least I have Sammy."

  "Yes."

  Lilly moved closer till Helen could smell her perfume, could see her eyes narrowed on her, and understood for the first time how angry she was, and how hard she was working at controlling that anger. "Women like you I can't figure out. Was that little part of him really enough for you?"

  Dizzy, Helen shook her head. "We had the war."

  "I loved him, you know. I loved him when he was himself. He lost himself over there, in that horrible little country, but that didn't make me stop loving him."

  The kitchen had turned shadowy and cold. Helen shivered in her thin cotton shirt, she was always cold now, but Lilly had sweat across her pale, high forehead; she glowed with a mineral kind of heat. Finally Helen saw--this place had nothing to do with Darrow, except for the boy. It was their life, and the war inside it, that was real, and she had simply not understood.

  "I hated you in Saigon," Lilly said. She seemed weary from the long afternoon. "But I don't anymore. You've lost more than I could ever take away."

  A month passed. Helen had returned to working in the bakery. Something had been solved in her mind regarding Darrow, and she lived with the past more easily. When Robert drove down from Los Angeles, and they walked arm in arm along the boardwalk in the cool, damp evening air, life almost seemed normal. The street along the beach was lined with slow-moving cars, teenagers cruising. Robert looked ten years younger than he had in Saigon.

  "Peace has been kind to you," Helen said.

  "Can you believe we made it? Seems too good to be true," he said. "Every morning I wake up, and I feel so grateful for the smallest things."

  She didn't tell him about opening Linh's letter. How the glow over the ocean was purple, the room dark, and as she opened the envelope, the pool of light from the reading lamp shone on
the sheaf of gold rice stalks as they fell out onto her lap.

  How instantly she was transported, and what relief she felt.

  The paper on which Linh wrote had the faint outline of a lotus blossom in pale yellow, and his writing in black ink on top of the image reminded her of the streets of Saigon, the constant juxtaposition of beauty with necessity.

  "It seems so far away." She eyed the crawling line of cars. When the one nearest them backfired, she flinched.

  "Remember the first night I took you to dinner? And you tried to free the ducks of Vietnam?"

  "How could I have been so stupid?"

  "I thought you were charming. And that you'd never last."

  "I went to see Darrow's ex-wife."

  "Why?" He frowned, tired of her constant exhuming of the past.

  "My whole experience was clouded over there. We were in a dream. It was so vivid, I thought it wasn't real. But it was. Truer than anything here."

  "Peace is kind to everyone, Helen. Except you."

  She led Robert out to the sand, and they sat against a large rock, watching as the waves dissolved from view in the near dusk. The kelp had drifted in, and a strong brine smell blew down from the north part of the cove. "Nothing compared to nuoc mam, huh?" The fermented fish sauce smell was a staple of any local Saigon restaurant one entered. She grabbed Robert's hand, intertwined her fingers with his. "It feels good to be with you. You know, someone who gets it. Don't you miss it just a little?"

  Robert sighed. "Saigon? Happy to have gone through it and survived."

  Helen rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't mean the war. Of course not."

  "Come to work in L.A. The story Darrow and you did on Lan was a big success. They want a follow-up on her here in California."

  "Local?"

  "I'm not sending you back to Vietnam, if that's what you're asking." He had never been one of them, had not understood MacCrae, or even Darrow, for that matter. The war had never captured his imagination. "What happened in Saigon... what didn't happen... things were crazy. But I thought maybe we could try seeing each other under normal circumstances."

  Helen gave a small laugh. "Is that what this is? Normal circumstances?"