Snap Shot

by A. J. Quinnell

  He shook his head trying to clear it, then pounded his forehead with the palm of his hand. A taxi pulled up in front of him, the gap-toothed driver grinning and reaching behind to open the rear door. Duff tumbled in and lay half across the seat as the taxi pulled out into the traffic.

  ‘Where you go?’

  With an effort he pulled himself upright and slurred ‘Continental’

  The driver glanced back at him and his grin widened as he took in his passenger’s state. ‘You wanna girl, Joe? Sexy - very young.’

  With a further effort Duff got control of himself. ‘No. Continental Hotel.’ The driver shrugged and concentrated on the traffic.

  But after five minutes Duff had changed his mind. He had never cheated on Ruth, but in his state of mind he rationalised that he had been a failure at everything else -so why riot as a husband? Besides, it might take his mind off what had happened - and he had never been with an Asian woman.

  So the taxi driver took him into Cholon, the Chinese sector of the city, and deposited him at the door of the famous Tai Cheong guest house. It was not how Duff had imagined it. He was shown by an old crone up some rickety, wooden stairs and into a huge, barnlike room. Heavy four-poster beds lined each wall leaving a narrow aisle between. Each bed was draped in a white, wraith-like mosquito net. Some of these shivered gently, either from internal movement or the action of two ceiling fans which stirred the air. In his nostrils Duff could almost feel as well as smell a heavy, sweet aroma.

  He had begun to have definite second thoughts, but the old crone took his arm and led him to one of the beds and pulled aside the netting and urged him to climb in. He noted that the sheet and pillow were white and clean - and it was less of an effort than walking back downstairs. As he slumped onto the bed the old woman deftly slipped off his shoes, let the netting fall back into place and padded away.

  He lay for several minutes on his back and then, at a slight sound nearby, rolled his head and looked to his left. Through the two layers of white he could dimly make out what appeared to be a single amorphous mass moving to a slow rhythm.

  He raised his head slightly and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom he realised it was two forms in the next bed joined in the act of love. He could make out no features, just the shadowy shapes rocking in unison, enveloped in a white mist. That vision in his eyes and the heavy, sweet aroma in his nostrils evoked the most erotic sensation he had ever known. He did not feel like an intruder or a voyeur. He had a sense of being part of it, adding to it. He could have watched for all eternity but he heard a rustle behind him and rolled over and was looking into two dark, almond pools. He focused and the pools clarified as eyes in an oval face.

  She climbed up onto the bed and the netting rustled back behind her. Duff pushed himself up onto an elbow. He could see better now. She was kneeling on the sheet, wearing a white Ao Dai, high at the neck, tight over her breasts and waist, then flaring out and split wide to reveal the black silk trousers beneath.

  First she undressed him, languorously, somehow with coyness. She giggled shyly as she struggled to pull his underpants down over his erection.

  She dropped his clothes somewhere under the bed and then, with unconscious grace, knelt at the foot of the bed and undressed herself. She was slim and almost as white as the netting around them. But her flesh was white shaded and rounded by the low light, and highlighted by the black hair and eyes, high pointed nipples and the dark shadow between her thighs. He felt an urgent impatience but forced himself to lie still. She reached forward and began to massage his feet. Her slender fingers had surprising strength and the pressure she applied was finely balanced between pleasure and pain. From his feet she moved to his calves and then his thighs. She ignored his erection, moving higher to his stomach and then his chest. She was straddling him now, her face above his, her hair falling to the pillow beside him. Finally she worked her fingers into the muscles of his shoulder, fingers that eased away tension. Then she was finished, her face very close, a slight smile on her lips. He could only feel one part of his body, the part she had ignored. It was as though she had isolated it, centred his entire nervous system to the tingling length of his erection.

  She lowered her breasts onto his chest and placed her lips against his in a chaste, closed-mouth kiss. Her right hand brushed down past his waist and guided and positioned and rubbed his erection against the moist silkiness at the entrance to her vagina. The sensation became excruciating and with an involuntary jerk he lunged upwards and into her - and in the same instant her lips opened and her tongue slid into his mouth.

  Thereafter he hardly moved and in his pleasure-filled mind it seemed to him that she hardly moved either, and yet it felt as though his penis was encased in a tightly packed jar of volatile silk worms.

  Perhaps the sensation was too much. A dozen times he felt himself nearing a climax, but each time, only seconds away, it would recede. At first, panting to prolong his pleasure, she deliberately slowed the tempo as she felt him reaching the top, but as time passed she moved faster, urging him on. It was not to be. It began to filter through that he was not going to make it. Being young and with limited experience this had brought anxiety and his erection began to lose its steel. She had felt it and shaken her head and smiled down at him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘You very strong. Relax, you coming soon.’

  Then she pulled off from him and slid lower, rubbing her breasts down his chest and belly and onto his thighs. He raised his head and saw her take his now flaccid penis into her small mouth. It was a new sensation - more localised, even sharper, and his erection returned and filled her mouth. Again he climbed rapidly towards a climax but again failed to conquer the peak. It was not for want of trying, his or hers. She reached up her hands and fingered his nipples. His body ached, quivering for the final relief, but it was not to be and she finally realised it and slid up beside him, tucking her head into the crook of his arm, listening to his pounding heart.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe later, maybe next time.’ Her words did not soothe him. Again he was a failure, and his testicles ached.

  She raised herself onto her elbow and anxiously studied his troubled face. Then she patted him on the shoulder, lifted the mosquito netting and slipped out of the bed.

  He guessed that he would not see her again, but ten minutes later she appeared carrying a red lacquered tray, which she placed on the bed, before climbing in beside him. On it was a small oil lamp, a long pipe and a curious shallow bowl, a pair of tweezers, a box of matches and a square of silver paper. On the paper was a tiny brown lump which glistened wetly in the dim light. Duff realised that he was looking at a ball of opium and the means of smoking it. His upbringing should have provoked a shocked response, but by this time his feelings were numb. He watched in silence as the girl lit the lamp, picked up the ball in the tweezers and held it over the flame, turning it deftly with slim fingers. After a few minutes she leaned forward and wafted it under her nostrils, then she nodded, smiled at Duff, and dropped it into the bowl of the pipe. As she offered him the pipe, held on her flat palms, he felt a moment of panic, but then with a mental shrug, he accepted it.

  At first he was clumsy, trying to smoke it as he would tobacco. But she showed him how to draw the smoke in carefully and slowly and hold it in his lungs for as long as possible.

  It was his first encounter with any form of drugs. He had never even smoked marijuana. He waited for the effects with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. After a few minutes he felt a surge of relief. There had been no sudden warping of his mind or senses. Nothing except an acrid dryness in his throat. He was mildly disappointed. After all, if he was going to be truly wicked he may as well get some taste from the forbidden fruit.

  She sat cross-legged on the bed watching him, her naked body still glistening with the perspiration of her recent effort. He decided that she was incredibly beautiful. Not just physically or externally, but with an inner glow. She was like an oil pa
inting - a portrait that at first glance appears merely colourful and well formed, but on closer examination reveals a depth of colours, fading and blending without delineation, giving the face perspective and character. It was happening now. He could see the ivory hue of her skin as though lights were moving under it. Her hair deepened from being merely black to the sheerest ebony. She was sitting away from him but he could feel her skin: the nubs of her nipples, the satin of her inner thigh, the curve and shape of her neck.

  Dimly he realised that the opium had after all invaded his senses; heightened and softened them. He laughed but heard no sound, saw her smile and move towards him, felt her press him back onto the pillow. All his anxieties floated away with the smoke that wreathed up and lay in a mist above him.

  The morning had brought reality, and a turning point in his life.

  It was late when he awoke. Fingers were gently squeezing the lobe of his left ear. He grunted and came slowly into consciousness, feeling immediately the dull ache spreading from the back of his head. Memory followed and he turned and saw the girl bending over him. She was dressed, again in an Ao Dai, and her hair was piled high on her head. The mosquito netting had been lifted onto the wooden frame above, as had all the others. All the mystery had now left the room. It looked like the sleeping quarters of an army barracks.

  He pushed himself into a sitting position. He and the girl were the only ones in the vast room. She picked up a bowl from a table beside the bed and handed it to him together with a tiny glass phial. The bowl contained hot tea, the phial was filled with what looked like hundreds of minute brown seeds.

  ‘Swallow them,’ she said. ‘Good for your head.’

  He pulled out the cork with his teeth, tipped back his head and poured the contents into his mouth, then washed them down with a gulp of tea. They had a bitter, musky taste.

  ‘Good Chinese medicine;’ She said it approvingly as though talking to a small boy.

  ‘You are Chinese?’ he asked.

  ‘Half Chinese, half Vietnamese.’

  She turned back to the table and passed him his clothes. They had been washed and ironed. He drained the bowl of tea, swung his legs off the bed and began to dress. She knelt and pulled his socks onto his feet. Now he really did feel like a boy. It was a curious, helpless feeling, and compounded by the variety of emotions he felt about the night before: guilt, excitement and finally trepidation.

  The incident in the bar had probably finished both of his embryonic careers. The ‘Equine’ station head would certainly get to hear of it. An agent losing control was no sort of an agent at all, and his efforts so far as a combat photographer had been abysmal. On top of that he had cheated on his wife and smoked opium - it had been an inglorious night.

  Now the girl was easing on his shoes and as he looked down at her lustrous black hair another contrary thought tumbled out. So what! So he had blown his two jobs and maybe his marriage - but it had been a hell of a night and a hell of an experience for a small-town Yankee boy.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked as she straightened up.

  ‘Wei Fong, and you?’

  ‘Duff.’

  ‘Duff?’ She repeated it with uncertainty and he forced a smile,

  ‘Yes. Useless Duff.’ He glanced at his watch and swore to himself. To her he said: ‘I’d better get back to Armageddon.’

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly and he reached out his hands and cupped her face and kissed her lips.

  ‘Thanks, Wei Fong. You just might be the last pleasant thing to happen to me in a hell of a long while.’

  Her smile was winsome. ‘I see you again?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe? If you do I’ll bring my camera. I can’t capture a war, but I may get the opposite on film.’

  She led him downstairs and he paid the old crone and found the same gap-toothed taxi driver waiting outside. Saigon taxi drivers were a breed who, if allowed, would have chained themselves to a good customer. On the ride back to the hotel, total depression finally set in. He watched the teeming crowds: the ever-present soldiers and over-uniformed policemen; the women, some in brightly coloured Western dress, others in the flowing Ao Dai; and here and there the contrast of a patch of saffron as a Buddhist monk passed along. The Chinese medicine had worked and his headache was receding, but it could have no effect on the ache in his heart.

  He was a failure and his ambitions were dreams. He wouldn’t wait though. As the taxi pulled into Tu Do Street and up to the hotel he resolved to contact the ‘Equine’ station head immediately. He would also telex his resignation to the magazine. Then he would take the first flight out to Hong Kong and confront Ruth with the whole sad stupid story.

  He paid the driver and hurried up the steps to the lobby, so intent on his own thoughts that he failed to see the man coming down, and almost crashed into him.

  ‘Duff! Where the hell have you been?’

  It was Greg Harris, a big, easy-going Australian who reported the war for the Melbourne Star. He was just a little older than Duff and relatively new to Vietnam, and so they had a kind of bond between them. Duff looked at him blankly and noted the barely suppressed excitement on his face. The Australian grabbed his arm.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you all over,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘The first Cav. They’re having another go at Ah Shau. They went in at dawn. There was a news blackout. The word only got through an hour ago. The others are long gone. I was down at the Delta-just got back. Come on man. Grab your gear, they’ll be shuttling out the wounded any time now. We’ll get a ride back in.’

  Duff could still not comprehend and in his impatience Greg literally shook him and screamed.

  ‘Get moving man. It’s the biggest Op. for years.’

  The penny clanged. It was a chance - a last chance. Greg was now shouting at Duff’s taxi driver to wait. He turned back to Duff.

  ‘You coming? What’s with you?’

  Duff grinned. ‘I’m coming-thirty seconds!’

  He raced to reception, ignored the startled clerk, reached past him and grabbed his key. The lift was, notoriously slow so he pounded up the two flights of stairs to his room. The door was open, a maid cleaning the floor. She looked on with amusement as he darted about the room. She had seen it all before. First he kicked off his shoes, then frantically pulled on dark green jungle boots. A flak jacket followed and he scooped up a helmet and his equipment bag on the run. Her high-pitched shout stopped him at the door. She was by the bedside table holding up the plastic press tag without which he would not even get near to a chopper. He dashed over, kissed her on both cheeks, grabbed the tag and was gone, followed by her delighted laughter.

  They got a ride in a Medivac Huey with three other correspondents who had missed the first wave. There had been little conversation.

  As they lifted off one of the pilots had said tersely: ‘It’s carnage in there. We have to go in, but it sure beats hell out of me why you guys bother.’

  They went in low and fast, the chopper tilting forward over the dense foliage. First they flew through smoke. Then came a sudden metallic clatter like nails being rattled in a giant tin can inside an echo chamber.

  ‘Fuckers!’ the pilot spat out. ‘Small arms. They’re damn close to the landing zone.’ He scrutinized the instruments while his passengers glanced at each other and tried not to look as frightened as they felt.

  One of the correspondents took off his helmet, raised his backside and pushed it under him. Duff was about to do the same when the pilot called over his shoulder ‘Ready to go!’ and the chopper banked to the left over a clearing. Smoking canisters delineated the landing zone. There were four choppers on the ground: two Hueys with rotors whirling, a third lying on its side and smoking, and a burnt out Cobra. A group of men linked in pairs by stretchers was running out to the waiting Hueys.

  Duff eased the strap of the Nikon round his neck and fingered the lens. But for the noise of the engine he was s
ure the others would have heard the pounding of his heart.

  Then they were down, and leaping out and running for the trees.

  For the next few minutes he felt as though he was watching a speeded-up film. From the edge of the landing zone he turned and started photographing. First the burnt out Cobra, then the swarm of medics loading the stretchers. It was all happening too fast, so he flicked on the drive motor and the Nikon hummed and clicked as it sliced images from the movement. His companions had moved further through the trees towards the thump and crackle of gunfire. He would get the Hueys lifting off and then follow. The Nikon’s motor stopped, having driven the film through. Quickly he rewound it, flipped open the back of the camera, clicked out the exposed film and unzipped the side pouch of his bag for a new one. He did it fast and expertly - he had practised for many hours. Then his fingers froze and so did his heart - the pouch was empty.

  Slowly he rocked back onto his buttocks. The open camera hung loose from his neck as he clasped his arms round his knees and buried his head. He laughed - a painful, hysterical sound. It was the last humiliation.

  Only yesterday he had decided to change from using 400 ASA to 800 ASA film. He had heard someone remark that Munger used it. So he had gone out and bought a dozen boxes. Last night, after the impromptu party, he was going to unpack them and make sure each individual container was loose and ready for unloading. It was at least an hour’s job and he had cleaned out his pouch ready to take them. Then had come the mirror, the girl and the opium.

  That night found him lying flat on his back on the bed in his room. He had lain there for hours, staring up at the ceiling and the slowly turning fan. Back at the landing zone he had considered three options: try to borrow film from another photographer; go back on the next chopper; kill himself.

  He had ended up going back on the next chopper. He was not about to ask anyone to lend him film. They would do it for sure, and then grin and remind him to take off the lens cover. As for killing himself, he doubted that he had the courage.