White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  The bride wore a simple, hastily bought cream satin dress. It was demurely mid-calf length with short cap sleeves and a satin jacket to match. She wore cream stiletto-heel satin pumps and carried a small bouquet of mixed roses – Gloire de Dijon and pale, flushed Ophelias and tiny, pink-budded Michelle Meillands. There were no guests; her parents served as witnesses and after the ceremony the small wedding party repaired to La Closérie des Lilas in the boulevard Montparnasse for a celebratory champagne lunch.

  When they were leaving the restaurant, disaster struck. Gavin, happily intoxicated, turned round to speak to his father-in-law, who was walking a yard or so behind him, lost his footing, and fell awkwardly down the short flight of steps leading to the street.

  Gabrielle’s first reaction was to burst into laughter, and then she saw his face whiten and tense against the pain, and the ugly angle of his leg as it lay buckled beneath him.

  ‘Gavin! What have you done? Are you all right?’ She ran down the steps, kneeling at his side. ‘Merde alors!’ she muttered, pressing her gloved hand to her mouth, seeing only too clearly what he had done and knowing that his leg was either fractured or broken. She turned to her father, who was hurrying down the steps toward them. ‘An ambulance, Papa! Quickly!’

  Turning her head back to Gavin, she saw that the whiteness of his face and the tight, clenched lines of his mouth were occasioned as much by fury as by pain.

  ‘Of all the stupid, fucking idiotic things to have done!’ he said as she slid her arms comfortingly around him. ‘There’ll be no Vietnam now! Not with a stupid, fucking broken leg!’

  Despite the anguish she felt for his disappointment, she had to repress a smile. It was so unlike Gavin to swear, and his Australian accent, usually so faint that it was mistaken for American or Canadian, was now comically pronounced. ‘There will be, chéri.’ There was such fierce confidence in her voice that despite his pain and disappointment he gave a shadow of a grin.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, wondering who the agency would send in his place. How long would his leg take to heal? And would the agency still consider him as a war correspondent when it was?

  ‘Do you think you can brush some of this confetti out of my hair before the ambulance arrives?’ he gasped as the maítre d’hótel and a couple of waiters ran out of the restaurant towards them, uttering cries of concern. ‘There’ll be so many bad jokes if people realize it’s my wedding day.’

  She lovingly did as he asked, knowing that as she was still wearing her cream satin wedding dress, everyone would know that it was his wedding day even if she removed every speck of confetti from his hair.

  ‘Je m’excuse,’ she whispered to him as the ambulance screeched to a halt and her father and the maítre d’hótel shooed away the curious group of onlookers. ‘I am so sorry, mon amour.’

  He clenched his hands and his jaw against the pain as the ambulance driver lifted him on to a stretcher. ‘Phone the office,’ he said to her tightly. ‘Speak to Marsden. Tell him what an ass I’ve been.’

  She carried out his instructions and listened first to an expletive even more colourful than Gavin’s had been, and then to a hasty apology. ‘How long is he going to be laid up?’ Marsden had asked her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. ‘Perhaps five to six weeks. It might be much longer.’

  It was two months.

  Gavin devoted most of the time to learning Vietnamese, insisting that when his mother-in-law visited him in the hospital, she speak to him only in her native tongue. In the few days prior to their wedding neither he nor Gabrielle had seen any point in looking for a place of their own, and there seemed no reason to do so now, not until Gavin was discharged from the hospital and knew what the future held for him.

  In November, a US airborne division crushed three North Vietnamese regiments in the Ia Drang Valley. Though the engagement cost the Communists nearly two thousand men, and was regarded as a victory by General Westmoreland, more than three hundred Americans died, the majority of them in a single ambush.

  ‘Does this mean that the Americans have gained the upper hand, that the end may be in sight?’ Vanh asked bewilderedly, Gavin, still hospitalized, and with his leg in a cast held in traction, shook his head.

  ‘No. No matter how much Westmoreland insists that it was a victory, American parents won’t consider it one, not with an entire company of American boys virtually decimated.’ His voice was cynical. ‘The ratio of a couple of thousand to three hundred might seem to be in America’s favour, but American parents aren’t going to equate their boys’ lives to those of the enemy. The end isn’t in sight yet, Vanh.’

  He wasn’t the only one who thought so. Later that month, Robert McNamara, President Johnson’s Defense Secretary, a man who had previously been firmly optimistic about America’s role in Vietnam, visited Saigon and was visibly shaken by what he found. The North Vietnamese had begun to infiltrate the south, there was no sign of them halting, or of General Westmoreland being able to curb them. ‘The war is going to be a long one,’ McNamara bleakly told the reporters covering his visit. ‘There is no guarantee of US military success,’ and, even more bleakly, he admitted that US troops killed in action were expected to be in excess of a thousand a month.

  In December, Marsden promised Gavin that he could expect to be sent to Saigon in June or July, when the reporter who had gone in his place returned.

  Cheered by this news, Gavin applied himself to his study of Vietnamese with fresh enthusiasm. He was discharged from the hospital at the beginning of December, returning on crutches to the Mercador apartment, and whenever his father-in-law was absent, he and Vanh and Gabrielle spoke nothing but Vietnamese. His accent was nearly as execrable as his French one, but Vanh assured him that this did not matter. He could now make himself understood in her native language and he could read and write it with passable fluency.

  ‘Which is more than the majority of reporters stationed there can do,’ Gabrielle said with satisfaction.

  Her stomach had begun to round now, and she was no longer sitting for any artists. She was still singing, though, and Gavin would walk with her to whichever club she was appearing in. He still couldn’t walk without a cane, and his persistently heavy limp worried him far more than he dared admit. If he was not one hundred per cent fit by the summer, he knew that the agency would not send him to Vietnam.

  At Christmas there had been a faint flicker of hope that the war might end in a negotiated peace. President Johnson had announced a halt to the bombing of the North, a halt that began on Christmas morning. Although the war on the ground continued with as much ferocity as ever, the bombing freeze lasted thirty-seven days. President Johnson sent emissaries to more than forty countries, trying to assure them he was willing to come to terms with the Communists.

  The Communists remained unconvinced. A Radio Hanoi broadcast denounced the bombing halt as ‘a trick’ and said no political settlement was possible until the Johnson administration halted the air raids ‘unconditionally and for good’. They did not. On 31 January the bombing raids over the North resumed, and hope for a negotiated peace died. In response, anti-war demonstrations in America and Europe increased in both number and participants.

  ‘Have you been given a firm departure date for Saigon?’ Gabrielle asked Gavin one evening as he walked her through the cobbled streets towards the club where she was to sing. His editor had said June or July and it was now the end of March.

  He shook his head, his shock of dark gold hair tumbling low over his brow. ‘No.’ His arm tightened around her shoulders. He knew what she was thinking. The baby had become more active, disturbing not only her sleep but, as he held her close in his arms at night, his as well. The birth no longer seemed an abstract event. The baby was already a little person who was somehow manifesting his own personality. It was due the second or third week of June, and Gavin desperately wanted to be there when it was born.

  In April he was told officially that he was to fly out to Vietnam on 1
June. Relief and dismay hit him in equal amounts. Relief that though he still had a pronounced limp, he had not been replaced, and dismay that he would not be with Gaby for the baby’s birth.

  He knew he would not see his son or daughter for a year, or perhaps even eighteen months.

  ‘Never mind, chéri,’ Gabrielle said, gallantly hiding her own fierce disappointment. ‘We will still be here when you return. And babies are not very interesting creatures. All they do is sleep and eat.’

  Her careless dismissal did not deceive him in the slightest. He hugged her tight, determining to speak to Marsden to request that his departure be delayed by at least a month. Gabrielle, sensing his thoughts, pulled away from him, looking up at him with an unusually serious light in her eyes. ‘Non, chéri,’ she said firmly, ‘you must not do what you are thinking of. They might very well change their minds and send someone else. You have been given the opportunity, and you must take it. C’est compris?’

  ‘Oui,’ he had said, knowing that his French always amused her. ‘Je comprends.’ He had pulled her gently against him, kissing her hairline, her temples, the corners of her eyes. ‘Je t’adore, ma chérie,’ he had said huskily, lowering his mouth to hers. ‘Je t’adore.’

  By May the situation in Southeast Asia was worse than it had ever been. The continual heavy bombing raids over the North had failed to quell the resistance of the North or to bring the North Vietnamese to the conference table.

  US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara reported that despite the efforts of American troops patrolling the border areas, North Vietnamese were infiltrating the South at a rate of four thousand five hundred men a month, three times the 1965 level. Because of the savage fighting taking place in the border areas, Vietnam’s neighbours, Laos and Cambodia, were finding themselves increasingly in the firing line. Even more ominously, China’s border territory was being threatened. The war was escalating.

  ‘It does not help that America has no real understanding of Vietnam or the Vietnamese,’ Gabrielle had said bitterly. ‘Look at this report in today’s Le Monde. We are not Vietnamese, we are gooks. That is not just American terminology for the North Vietnamese. It is the way they speak of the South Vietnamese as well. How can there be success when the Americans speak with so little respect of the people they are fighting with and for?’

  The most recent letter from Nhu was equally disconcerting. ‘The present government no longer has the support that America would like to believe it has,’ Nhu had written to Gabrielle. ‘Premier Ky may seem to be popular, but his popularity does not run deep. The Buddhists hate him and are doing everything possible to remove him from power.’

  She was right. French newspapers were full of reports of fighting in Da Nang and Hue between troops loyal to Ky and other South Vietnamese troops loyal to the Buddhists.

  ‘It is crazy,’ Gabrielle had said disbelievingly. ‘Not only is the South fighting a war with the North, it’s beginning to fight a war against itself as well!’

  As Gavin packed his capacious nylon bag, there were reports of Buddhist parades, hunger strikes, and other demonstrations taking place in the city, demonstrations that degenerated into riots as government troops ruthlessly dispersed them with tear gas and bayonets.

  Gabrielle wrapped her arms around her now-enormous stomach, despising herself for her sudden cow-hearted desire to plead with Gavin not to go. ‘If he is brave enough to go, then I must be brave enough to allow him to go,’ she scolded herself. She decided not to read any more newspapers or listen to the radio news broadcasts until Gavin boarded his plane.

  The day before his flight he drove her down to Fontainebleau for a last, sentimental lunch at the Hótel Fontainebleau.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Gaby,’ he said, his grey eyes dark with anxiety as their dessert plates were cleared away and the coffee cups were placed on the table.

  She nodded and then winced, sucking in her breath sharply. It wasn’t the first time that she had seemed to be in discomfort, and he said in deepening concern, ‘What is it, sweetheart? Heartburn again?’

  ‘No, I do not think so, chéri.’

  He took her hand across the table and squeezed it tight. ‘I wish to God I could stay with you and be here when the baby comes.’

  Gabrielle winced again, and when the spasm of pain had passed, she gave him a small, satisfied smile. ‘I think that you are about to have your wish, mon amour.’

  He stared at her, a comprehension dawning, his eyes widening in disbelief and horror. ‘But you can’t … It isn’t due for another two or three weeks … We’re over an hour’s drive from Paris.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, silly,’ she said, rising to her feet with difficulty. ‘Babies don’t come so quickly. Not first babies anyway. We have plenty of time.’

  He pushed his chair away from the table, grabbing his jacket. ‘Let’s go now! Quickly! Can you walk to the car?’ He ran his hand distractedly through his hair. Christ! His flight? left in seventeen hours. What if the baby hadn’t been born by then? He couldn’t leave her in the middle of childbirth. It wasn’t humanly possible.

  The waiter was hurrying toward them and Gavin grabbed a handful of notes from his pocket. ‘We have to leave,’ he said, thrusting the notes into the waiter’s hand, uncounted. ‘My wife has been taken ill … The baby is coming.’

  Gabrielle was grasping the back of the dining chair, her knuckles white.

  ‘Ready, sweetheart?’ he asked, sliding his arm around her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said as he began to lead her from the room, and then, almost immediately, she stopped, leaning her weight against him. ‘No.’ She sucked in a deep breath, her hands splayed across the hard, swollen magnificence of her stomach. Her eyes met his, bright with laughter and nervous anticipation. ‘I was wrong when I said that first babies don’t come quickly, chéri. This baby is. It is coming very quickly.’ A spasm of pain crossed her face, so intense that he did not need to ask if she was sure.

  ‘Oh God!’ he said, looking round wildly for the waiter. ‘Oh hell!’

  The waiter’s eyes were nearly as alarmed as his own. ‘A chair, monsieur!’ he said, thrusting one of the dining chairs toward Gavin, presumably for Gabrielle’s use. ‘I will get the proprietor!’

  ‘Get a doctor, for Christ’s sake!’ Gavin shouted as the laughter left Gabrielle’s eyes and she gasped in pain, her face ashen.

  The waiter fled and Gabrielle panted. ‘My waters have broken. I’m all wet. Can you help me up the stairs? To our usual room?’

  He nodded, praying that the room was unoccupied; that a doctor could be found in time; that the baby would be healthy; that Gabrielle would be safe.

  They were nearly at the top of the stairs by the time the proprietor came running up to them. He took one look at the size of Gabrielle’s stomach and at her face, and squeezed past them, running ahead and flinging open the door of the room they had so often reserved in the past.

  ‘A doctor has been called! Is there anything I can do? Hot water? Extra blankets?’

  Gavin looked at him helplessly. He knew that hot water and blankets were customarily called for whenever a birth was imminent but he hadn’t the faintest idea why, or what they were used for, and there was already a wash basin and water in the room and plenty of blankets on the carefully made bed. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know,’ he said as Gabrielle seized the doorjamb and leaned heavily against it, sucking in short, sharp breaths.

  ‘Lean your weight on me, Gaby,’ he said urgently. ‘Let me help you to the bed.’

  She did as he said, and to his amazement gave a little giggle. ‘Oh, chérie! I should have known that I would not have a boring, routine labour!’ She broke off, sitting on the edge of the bed, once again panting deeply. When the pain had passed, he lifted her legs on to the bed and she said with impish amusement, ‘Do your realize that this is the bed where we first made love, chérie? It is possibly even the bed where the baby was conceived. It feels very right that it should be born here.’ She broke off again,
closing her eyes and clenching her fists.

  ‘Tell me what to do, Gaby,’ he said urgently, wondering where the hell the proprietor had fled to; where the doctor was; where anybody was.

  ‘Oh!’ She gave a low, deep cry, twisting her head sharply to one side. When she could speak again she gasped, ‘Take my panties off for me, chéri. Put towels on the bed. The baby is coming. I can feel it!’

  He stared down at her, panic racing through him. ‘It can’t! The doctor isn’t here …’

  She gave a deep, anguished grunt of pain. The sound was primeval and unmistakable: a sound he had never heard before. ‘Oh God,’ he whispered, knowing that his child was about to be born. The panic faded. Suddenly he felt calm and perfectly in control. Babies that came as speedily as this one was weren’t babies who would experience any difficulties at birth. It was going to be all right. It was going to be more than all right. It was going to be wonderful.

  ‘Breathe deeply, Gaby,’ he instructed as he pulled her panties down and removed her stockings and garter belt. ‘Breathe deeply. The baby is coming! I can see it!’

  Her legs were wide, her knees drawn high. There was a sheen of sweat on her face, a look of total, intense concentration.

  ‘Don’t push anymore!’ Gavin commanded as he saw the crown of the baby’s head pulsing inside her vagina. ‘Don’t push! Pant!’

  He didn’t know where his knowledge came from. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he knew that he was right.

  ‘Try to relax, Gaby!’ he urged, squatting down at the end of the bed. Nothing mattered in the whole world but what was taking place between her legs, the awe-inspiring, unbelievable miracle of that pulsing head covered with gleaming dark-gold hair.

  Gabrielle gave another deep, primitive groan of pain. She felt as if she were being torn apart, as if the baby were splitting her wide open, wrenching her impossibly wide, ‘No!’ she cried, and then, as the head crowned, she screamed.

  Gavin didn’t hear her. He had no sense for anything except the child he was easing into the world. The baby’s head was in his hands now, warm and damp. There was a pause. Nothing happened. Gabrielle was silent, panting for breath.