War Baby

by Colin Falconer

  ‘I am grown up.’

  ‘No you’re not!’

  ‘I’m going to freelance.’

  ‘At your age that means you’re going to starve.’

  ‘You didn’t starve!’

  ‘Things were a lot different then.’

  ‘Well, where I’m going, everyone starves, so it’s not going to make any difference.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Yugoslavia.’

  He felt as if his heart had stopped. ‘You’re not fucking serious.’

  He had never sworn in front of her before. It was like he’d dropped a glass on the floor. Finally she said: ‘It’s my Vietnam.’

  ‘No!’ he shouted at her, and slammed his fist on the bench top. She didn’t even flinch. He searched desperately for some strategy to talk her out of this. ‘I want you to stop and think about this.’

  ‘I’ve made up my mind.’

  ‘Have you? Maybe you don’t realize this, but war zones cost money.’

  ‘I know. Ryan told me how expensive it is to survive.’

  ‘You told a total stranger about this before you told me?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him I was going myself. I just asked him about it.’

  ‘And what else did Mister Wisenuts tell you?’

  ‘He told me to you needed a camera, like you did. That you had more chance of selling stories as a freelancer if you could provide pictures as well.’

  ‘Did he also tell you that this little difference of opinion they’re having over there is one of the most dangerous wars journalists have ever worked in, that attrition rates among the correspondents are higher than they were even in Vietnam?’

  ‘I’m prepared to take the risk.’

  His heart felt like lead. Yes, he could see that. You gave her a chance at a better life, he thought, but what she wants is what you had. ‘You spend one night dressed up as a bag lady and suddenly you think you’re John Pilger?’

  ‘You did it.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘How?’

  He didn’t know how to answer her. Yes, how? He had stumbled onto the right contacts, he had got lucky, and he had survived. He had lived off that one risk for the rest of his life, just as she intended to do.

  ‘Money.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s how it’s different. Money. In Vietnam the Americans provided the transport. These days you can’t hitch a ride to the front line anymore or rent rooms for ten dollars a month. You’ll find yourself throwing your credit card on Hertz counters and at hotel clerks and every month your bank statement will come in and all you’ll have is forty bucks some agency gave you for a picture of a burning tank. And that will not cover a night at the Sheraton.’

  She stared back at him, unmoved. ‘I’ve given notice on my apartment. I’ve saved a bit of money over the last twelve months and I’ve got the car to sell.’

  ‘You’ve been thinking about this for a while.’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  He couldn’t believe he hadn’t suspected anything.

  ‘The features editor was real nice to me. He gave me a letter saying they’ll consider anything I send them and I have a friend who works at Rolling Stone and he wrangled another letter from them. I’ll fly to Zagreb and get accredited with UNPROFOR. The rest is up to me.’

  Christ, she had it all worked out. ‘It’s a hundred dollars a night at the Intercon in Zagreb. Then you have to hire an interpreter.’

  ‘I’ll have two thousand bucks after the plane ticket. I guess I’ll just have to start earning right off.’

  ‘You mean taking stupid risks as soon as you get off the plane.’

  He went to the window. The storm had passed and a few stars had appeared between the inky black clouds.

  ‘I thought... I hoped you’d be supportive.’

  ‘Supportive? I hate that word. I’m not your uncle, for God’s sake. You can call me that, but fact is, for the last eight years I’ve been your father. I love you like a father. If you go and do this insane thing I will die a thousand times a day.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He couldn’t stop her. She was, after all, one of the great survivors. This was a girl who had once taught herself to catch and eat seagulls to stay alive. She very possibly had more of the resources required to be a good combat photographer and journalist than he had ever had.

  ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’ she asked him finally.

  He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. They faced each other from opposite sides of the room, the distance complete.

  Chapter 69

  Ryan’s room in the UN Plaza Hotel was a model of opulence, furnished in ochre and gold. From the window he looked out at the stainless-steel spire of the Chrysler building and over the East River towards Queens. Perhaps this was how it felt to live in heaven, he thought. A kind of gilt luxury, detached from the mortals below, far above the noise and smog. It was just a theory, of course. With his track record he supposed he’d never get the chance to test it for himself.

  This feeling of detachment had been reinforced since returning to New York. They envied him, he knew, all his old mates; yet they had something he had missed. The grey hair and the lines on their faces had been well earned. They had learned and grown while he had simply repeated the same experiences. Even the edge can start to feel humdrum when you have balanced there all your life.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Mickey’s number. She answered it on the third ring.

  ‘Mickey. It’s Sean.’

  ‘Oh. Hi.’

  ‘Did you enjoy the weekend?’

  ‘Is this a social call? I’m just on my way to work. I’ve got a late shift.’

  ‘I wondered if you were free for lunch tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll be getting in some cot time,’ she said, using an old army phrase.

  ‘What about breakfast?’

  ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea.’

  ‘I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in town. It would be good to catch up again before I go.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘You still there, Mickey?’

  ‘What do you really want?’

  Good question; a difficult one to answer. ‘I’m not trying to move in again or anything.’

  ‘As if you could.’

  ‘But we’re still friends, right?’

  ‘Yes, but not close friends.’

  Jeez, he thought. If I were a stand-up comic they’d be throwing stuff on stage by now. ‘Okay, sorry. I’ll call you before I go. All right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Catch you, Mickey.’ He hung up. Well, the silver-tongued devil had finally deserted him. Perhaps she was right. If she had said yes, would he have tried to make room for her in his life again? Or was he just at a loose end for the night?

  To hell with it. He’d call Cochrane and go to the Oak Room or the Blue Note or Nell’s; and whatever else happened, he promised himself he would not sleep alone in this massive fucking bed tonight.

  Christ. He was lonely.

  * * *

  I wonder if this is how my parents felt, Webb thought, the night I left for Vietnam. Did they feel this same dread and helplessness? Too late to ask them now.

  His gaze moved along the study wall to a framed black and white photograph, a young boy with a crooked school tie, matchstick legs protruding from his school shorts, grinning self-consciously at the camera. Hard to imagine he was once that little, awkward person.

  I suppose that was who I stayed, inside anyway, until I went to Vietnam. It was a monumental risk, but it paid off. Surrey to Saigon was about as far as you could travel in those days without actually stepping off the planet. His mother didn’t even know where it was; she thought it was in South America. Neither of them could understand his ambition. His father had thought he was a practically a press baron when he got him into a Chelsea game for free when he was on photographic ass
ignment.

  When he gave up his job to go to Asia to chase wars, they thought he was mad. He probably was. But sometimes it helped to be a little crazy; Vietnam led to Washington, then to further assignments in Angola and the Middle East and Central America.

  Now the schoolboy in that photograph, only ever an average student, once almost expelled from grammar school for smoking in the boys’ toilets, was a minor celebrity, as much at home on daytime television chat shows as he was on his back porch here in Lincoln Cove.

  It was a life mortgaged on risk. The last thing he wanted was someone he loved to try and emulate him. It was just too fucking dangerous.

  A flurry of rain slapped against the windows. The mournful sound of a foghorn came from the other side of the cove as a fishing boat made its way through the fog.

  He went to the bookshelf and took out a leather-bound photograph album. He opened it at random and stared at a place called Vietnam. It was a country that no longer existed because this Vietnam was permanently at war and was peopled and governed largely by Americans. The main form of transport was the helicopter and the favorite form of dress was camouflage gear or a body bag.

  Such a very long time ago.

  Jenny was downstairs, her luggage on the floor. She was sorting through it yet again to find items she might safely leave behind. Travel light, he had told her, and she had taken him at his word. Everything she’d need for God knows how long - three weeks, perhaps three years - was now crammed in a small backpack and a green canvas ex-US Army-issue holdall.

  She had moved out of her Tribeca apartment and was spending her last night here in Lincoln Cove before the flight to Zagreb in the morning. He said he would drive her to JFK himself.

  He held out the black and white photograph he had taken from the photograph album, him and Ryan arm in arm outside the Continental Hotel in Saigon.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘Take it with you.’

  She gave him an uncertain grin. ‘You had a lot more hair then, uncle. You were practically a hippy. Haven’t you got something more recent?’

  ‘You always asked me about your father,’ he said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Look at the guy on the left.’

  The blood drained from her face. ‘That’s your friend Ryan.’

  He could not meet her eyes. ‘I can’t be sure. I have no proof.’

  She sat down heavily on the sofa. ‘Why would you think this?’

  She stared at the photograph. ‘I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’

  Well, I can’t believe I did, he thought. Perhaps it was watching him flirt with you that day and knowing that you two will almost certainly see each other again in Zagreb. ‘I knew your mother,’ he said. ‘Through Ryan.’

  He had thought of telling her a little about his role in that sad episode, but changed his mind. It would sound as if he were trying to make himself appear heroic. If she was going to hate him, let her.

  He continued, his voice a monotone. ‘It wasn’t his fault. I’m sure he planned to get you and your mother out with him. But there was a rocket attack a couple of nights before Saigon fell. That was when your mother was wounded. Ryan had been hit in the head by shrapnel a few hours before at Newport Bridge. They out him on a medevac out of Saigon. Dave Crosby and I went looking for you, but we couldn’t find you. Anyway ... That’s what happened. He didn’t abandon you.’

  He was giving Ryan a little more credit than he deserved, but what the hell.

  ‘Did he ever come looking for us?’

  ‘We all thought you were dead.’

  She just stared at the photograph, rocking backwards and forwards, her arms crossed across her stomach.

  ‘You really don’t remember him?’ On the weekend Ryan was at the cottage, Webb had thought that seeing him again would jog her memory, but there had been no sign of recognition - from either Jenny or Ryan.

  ‘I remember a man who came to our apartment. But I don’t remember what he looked like. I was just a kid.’

  ‘I think he was in Cambodia a lot of that time. Vietnam had stopped being news by the early seventies.’

  ‘Why did he wait so long to get us out?’

  Webb said nothing.

  Jenny tucked the photograph into the breast pocket of her shirt. She stood up slowly, her eyes unfocused, like a sleepwalker. ‘I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me before. How long have you known? Or did you always know?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Then perhaps it’s best I’m going away,’ she said, and she went into her bedroom and closed the door.

  * * *

  When he got back from the airport the front door was open and there was a woman sitting on the deck.

  He parked the jeep and walked inside. He went to the liquor cabinet, then changed his mind. Instead he went outside onto the deck. The sky was a washed blue and a pale, watery sun was chasing the shadows across the garden.

  ‘Mickey,’ he said.

  ‘I took the day off. I figured you could do with some moral support.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She was sitting in one of the director’s chairs, her legs up on the rail, staring at the harbor. She was wearing a hooded jersey, her hands thrust deep into the pockets. The wind had raised a flush of color to her cheeks. ‘You okay?’ she asked him.

  He sat down beside her. His body felt like lead. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Jenny’s a survivor. One of the best. She’ll be okay.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  She reached out, took his hand. They sat for a while in companionable silence, watching the waves lap against the flat shale rocks.

  ‘I don’t know if this is a good time to say this,’ she said, ‘but ... I’ve been thinking a lot about us lately. I’ve been making a decision. Want to hear it?’

  A seagull landed on the lawn, summoning painful memories. It seemed he had reached a nexus; today had apparently been chosen as the day he must wipe the slate clean and try again, without secrets. He took a deep breath. ‘Before you say anything, there’s something I think you ought to know.’

  ‘Does it affect us?’

  ‘It might. It might affect the way you feel about me.’

  ‘Oh.’ She took her hand away. ‘Then perhaps I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘It also has to do with Jenny, and it has to do with Ryan.’

  She took her feet off the rail and sat up, as if bracing herself for a physical blow. ‘Okay. Then I guess you’d better tell all.’

  McSorley’s Old Alehouse, New York

  It was a Saturday night and McSorley’s was packed to the rafters. It was decorated in the style of a turn-of-the-century alehouse, with timber paneling and antique chairs and tables, sepia photographs and cartoons crowding the walls. Halfway along one wall was a wrought-iron stove with a flue that arched over the drinkers’ heads.

  It was also known as McSurly’s because of the attitude of some of the bar staff.

  Webb, Crosby, Cochrane and Doyle had made their way there in a taxi after leaving the Seventh Regiment Armory. None of them wanted the evening to end.

  And besides, there was still the rest of the story to be told.

  ‘I don’t believe you left it at that,’ Cochrane was saying. ‘I know you. You would have tried something else to stop Jenny leaving.’

  ‘She’d made up her mind.’

  ‘I’ve met her,’ Wendy Doyle said. ‘In Sarajevo. An extraordinary young woman.’

  Crosby was getting boozy, Webb noticed, the kind of drunkenness people fall into when their brains are already addled by a lifetime of abuse. This was more like the Crosby he knew; the debonair adventurer of earlier had disappeared. ‘Ah, Bosnia. Perhaps in twenty years’ time we’ll be having a Sarajevo reunion. Maybe there’ll be a television series and compilation album. Music from the Bosnia era.’

  Webb shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘And so off she went to war,’ Cochrane said. ‘
Your little war baby. What happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t really know much about the first part of the story,’ Webb said. ‘I didn’t go to Bosnia until much later. Perhaps Wendy here can tell it.’

  Doyle smiled. ‘Not really. I didn’t know her then. Besides, I wasn’t in Zagreb long enough. I was trying to get through to Sarajevo. I only spoke to Ryan for a couple of minutes. I just remember seeing this Eurasian girl standing in the foyer of the Intercon looking completely lost. My God, she looked like a kid. I couldn’t imagine how she was ever going to survive.’

  ‘And that was where she met Ryan?’ Crosby asked Webb. ‘Well, that part of it was inevitable, I suppose. And if he hadn’t been there, I’m sure she would have gone looking for him.’

  ‘Well, come on,’ Cochrane said to him. ‘Don’t keep us in suspense. I’ve always wanted to know what happened there.’ Webb shrugged and smiled. ‘I only got the story second hand, of course. But I’ll tell you what I know.’

  Chapter 70

  Zagreb, Croatia, December 1991

  ‘Most wars literally, not merely photographically, go through people’s living rooms.’

  Charles Mohr, war correspondent

  ‘Nothing makes an easier lead sentence

  than a stray mortar round hitting a starving baby

  in a typhus hospital.’

  P. J. O’Rourke, Holidays in Hell

  Jelacic Square had been, before the war, one of the city’s most pleasant squares, closed to traffic and surrounded by stately cream and grey Habsburg buildings. It echoed to the sound of tram bells and the cries of balloon sellers; skateboarders with fluorescent watches weaved their way through the crowds, money changers worked the tourists.

  But now the Ustashas had taken over the square, wearing Ante Pavelic T-shirts, clustering around the granite tiered lampposts to hawk the Croat-language newspapers that enshrined their fascist philosophies while their radios blared ‘Ostaski Becarac’, the nationalists’ street fighting song.

  The statues in the nearby cathedral had been winched down from the walls and transferred to storage in anticipation of air strikes. There were long queues of refugees outside the Caritas office. All the shops in the centre of the city had God Protect Croatia plastered across their windows in stick-on white letters.