White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Gabrielle’s return to Saigon was the most traumatic experience of her life. Everything had changed. She remembered the city as being languorous and exotically sophisticated.

  Apart from a few disturbingly young flower sellers, none of the sights and sounds of her childhood remained. There was nothing remotely languorous or sophisticated about the city she had returned to. It had become as tawdry and as corrupt and dishevelled as an old whore. Instead of white-suited Malacca-cane-holding Frenchmen, the streets were thronged with GIs, some drunk, some stoned on drugs, nearly all of them rowdy and out for a good time.

  Bicycles and pedal-cabs still thronged the streets, but they had to vie for road space with thousands of souped-up scooters and Honda 50s. Trucks and taxicabs and jeeps hurtled incessantly down the main thoroughfare. When Gabrielle had been a child it had been called rue Catinat; now it was known as Tu Do Street and all down its length, where there had once been elegant shops and boutiques and sidewalk cafés, there were girlie bars and clubs and brothels. She wasn’t shocked. It wasn’t in her nature. And she didn’t regret the passing of the days when French colonialists dominated the city, and native-born Saigonese catered deferentially for their comforts.

  Nhu had said in her letters that the American Army had simply replaced the French as an occupying force, and that the Saigonese were still second-class citizens whose primary function was to provide labour. Gabrielle could see why she thought so, but even though the main service industry was prostitution, she thought the status quo between Americans and Saigonese more equal and healthier than the unhappy Status quo that had existed between the colonial French and Saigonese.

  There were some things in Saigon that hadn’t changed though. The stinging brilliance of the light was still the same, as was the heavy humidity and the rank aroma that rose from the Saigon River. And the Saigonese were still the same. Slim and dark and fragile-boned, they were as sassily streetwise and as quick-witted and as quick to laughter as she had remembered them to be. The years fell away and she was stunned by the realization that the Vietnamese side of her nature was far more dominant than the French. She felt as if she had never left the city, as if it were truly her home.

  For Serena, adjusting to Saigon took much longer. Although it was November and there were often days when the city was awash beneath autumn rain, she found the underlying heat and humidity unrelenting and oppressive.

  The first thing they had done after landing at Tan Son Nhut airport had been to drive to Gabrielle’s aunt’s house. The reunion between Nhu and Gabrielle had been joyfully tearful, and Serena had happily kept a low profile as the two of them caught up on family news, talking themselves hoarse. Nhu had invited them to stay with her, but Gabrielle had reluctantly declined.

  ‘No, Aunt Nhu. We would excite the wrong kind of attention. We will stay at the Continental Palace or the Caravelle, where we will be less noticeable.’

  ‘The Continental Palace,’ Serena said firmly when they had said their good-byes to Nhu. ‘Somerset Maugham is said to have stayed there, Graham Greene definitely stayed there, and if it was good enough for him, it must surely be good enough for us.’

  Gabrielle hadn’t argued. She did not care which hotel they used as a base, and as Serena was used to the comfort of hotels such as the Jefferson in Washington, and the George V in Paris, to expose her to anything less than the Continental in Saigon would have been an act of gross cruelty.

  The standard of comfort and cuisine at the Continental came as a monumental shock to Serena. The meat served at dinner was almost always buffalo meat, and always served with rice.

  ‘The country is at war,’ Gabrielle had said to her, amused. ‘There is very little food, and anything other than buffalo meat and rice would be too expensive for the hotel to serve.’

  For a long moment Serena’s beautifully sculpted face had been void of all expression. Gabrielle wondered if she was reconsidering the venture and planning to return to the luxury of her jet-set lifestyle in London, but she grinned suddenly, pushing a long fall of pale blond hair away from her face, saying, resolutely, ‘I’ll adapt. It’s a family virtue.’

  She had been true to her word. By the end of the first week she had accepted the ubiquitous military presence, the armed guards in front of nearly every public building, the lethal coils of barbed wire that barricaded certain streets. She had even learned not to flinch at the sound of distant gunfire. But what she could not accept, and could not ignore, was the sight of the children, some only four or five years old, wandering the streets in misery, begging for piastres.

  ‘Don’t they have any homes to go to?’ she had asked Gabrielle as they crossed the central square in front of the old French Opera House.

  Gabrielle hated the sight as much as Serena, but because of her streak of Eastern fatalism, she was better able to cope with it. ‘No,’ she said, her eyes darkening. ‘They are war orphans. There are hundreds of them in the city. Probably thousands.’

  Serena was more than deeply shocked. She was horrified. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for the reality of such abject deprivation. ‘But why aren’t they cared for?’ she demanded incredulously. ‘Why aren’t they in orphanages?’

  Gabrielle ignored the lascivious leer of a passing GI. ‘I imagine that the majority of them are, but I suspect that the local orphanages leave an awful lot to be desired.’

  ‘Jesus! Do you mean that the orphanages are so badly run that these kids prefer to take their chances on the streets?’ Serena asked, stunned.

  ‘Alors. I do not know, Serena,’ she said, her cat-green eyes still dark with anguish as she thought of the plight of the street children. ‘I do not even know who runs the orphanages in the city. I am simply making what I think is called in English, “an educated guess”.’

  They were on their way to meet Nhu, and an acquaintance of hers, a Vietnamese journalist who had been born in the South and had always lived in the South, but whose father had chosen to go north in 1954. He worked for a German news magazine, and was ostensibly loyal to the Saigon government. But he had also been a friend of Dinh’s, and Nhu suspected that his true loyalties lay with the Communist North. He was certainly a man that it was necessary Gabrielle should meet, and it was important that he should be convinced, at the outset, of Gabrielle’s utter trustworthiness.

  Gabrielle, thinking about the meeting, lapsed into thoughtful silence. Serena dug her hands deep into the pockets of her stone-coloured Burberry, her forehead puckering in a frown. No one could ever have accused her of having a social conscience. All her life she had lived a cosseted and privileged existence, and it had never occurred to her to feel a sense of responsibility to those who were less fortunate than herself. She was wilful, headstrong, and selfish, and happy to be so. Charity work and good causes were a bore she had always avoided, and she had had no intention of changing the habit of a lifetime merely because she was now living in a war zone.

  Her frown deepened. She still had no intention of turning into a ministering angel, rounding up the children on the streets and establishing some sort of care for them. That kind of thing wasn’t her scene at all. Yet she had to do something. The question was, what?

  Her frown cleared as she came to a decision. She would check but the orphanages in the city and see if Gabrielle’s assumptions about them were correct. Even though Gabrielle had insisted that she accompany her to see the journalist, Serena knew that she would be a handicap. She was English, married to an American POW, not half Vietnamese and related to Dinh. Her very presence at the meeting would be enough to insure that no information of any value would be divulged.

  She stopped suddenly, saying, ‘My going with you really isn’t a good idea, Gabrielle. And I have something to do of my own. I’ll meet you later this afternoon, back at the Continental.’

  ‘Are you sure, chérie?’ Gabrielle was wearing tight black cotton trousers and high-heeled mules. Because of the threat of rain, a short black leathe
r jacket was slung around her shoulders, her spicy red curls brushing incandescently against the upturned collar.

  Serena grinned. It was no wonder that they couldn’t walk a yard down the street without being lewdly accosted. Gabrielle, quite innocently, looked every inch a pert and naughty high-class hooker. ‘I’m positive,’ she said, suddenly itching to be off on her personal investigation. ‘I hope this guy you are meeting proves to be the genuine article.’

  ‘Moi aussi,’ Gabrielle said with heartfelt sincerity. ‘Au’voir, chérie.’

  As Gabrielle walked away from her, her provocatively tight-fitting trousers leaving very little to the imagination, Serena turned her attention to the task of flagging down a taxi or a pedal-cab.

  ‘My God! Will you look at that!’ a drunken GI called out to his buddies as his eyes focused upon her. ‘Am I dreaming? Am I in heaven? Has Sweden suddenly entered the war and sent some women out here as a bridgehead?’

  ‘Never mind a bridgehead, does she give head?’ another riposted, swaying meaningfully across the pavement towards Serena, his buddies hooting with mirth at his wit and crowding in behind him.

  ‘Hey, lady, is it true what they say about Swedish girls? Do they do it for free?’

  Serena turned her head a mere fraction of an inch in his direction and looked at him with icy contempt, ‘You’d be lucky if your wife would do it with you for free,’ she said witheringly in her cut-glass English accent.

  The GI flushed scarlet, and his buddies almost fell on the floor, laughing. Serena ignored them, turning back to her task of attracting the attention of a taxi driver. Drunken, opportunistic GIs were a constant nuisance, and both she and Gabrielle had become expert in dealing with their unwelcome attentions.

  A Renault 4 taxicab swerved to a halt, and she opened the rear door, stepping inside and saying, ‘An orphanage, please.’

  The Vietnamese driver looked at her through the mirror, his eyes startled.

  ‘An orphanage,’ she repeated impatiently. ‘A place where they take care of parentless children. It doesn’t matter which one. Any will do.’

  The driver lifted his thin shoulders expressively, ‘Khóng xáu,’ he said agreeably. ‘Okay. No sweat.’

  They swerved away from the pavement and the still-whistling and appreciative GIs, and into the hurly-burly of Saigon’s horrendous traffic system. A jeep blasted past them, the driver’s hand firmly and permanently on the horn as he forged a way for an official Ford sedan. The taxi driver swore, swerved, regained his road space, and struggled to maintain it against a fleet of army trucks and a convoy of tanks. As they approached Cholon, the Chinese quarter, they ground to a halt as southbound vehicles plowed determinedly down both sides of a two-way street. Serena raised her eyes to heaven and fought for patience. It all seemed so senseless, and the white-helmeted Saigon police, known universally as ‘white mice’, seemed absolutely indifferent to the chaos around them.

  After an interminable length of time, and amid much verbal abuse, the traffic jam unravelled itself. Minutes later the taxi careered to a halt outside an unpromising-looking stone-grey building.

  ‘Orphanage,’ the taxi driver said briefly. ‘You pay me in dollars, please.’

  Serena obliged, wondering why South Vietnam bothered with a currency of its own when the only acceptable form of payment for anything was American dollars.

  She stepped out of the Renault and looked up at the building in front of her. For the first time she wondered how she was going to gain permission to wander around it at will. She didn’t have a child to deliver there, and she didn’t have a child to pick up, and she certainly didn’t know the name of any child who was a resident. If she said she was a reporter, and if the orphanage was not well run, the staff would be immediately on their guard.

  A cigarette seller approached her and she shook her head at him, pondering her problem. She could always say that she wished to make a donation. Donations, surely, were always acceptable. And if the orphanage proved Gabrielle wrong, and was admirably well run, then she would most certainly give a donation.

  Her plan of action determined, she rang the bell. A young Vietnamese girl opened the door to her looking at her apprehensively.

  ‘Cháo bá,’ Serena said brightly, having culled from Gabrielle a minimum vocabulary so that she could at least say please and thank you in Vietnamese, and wish people good day and good-bye. ‘May I see your administrator, please?’

  The girl’s apprehension deepened into unhappy bewilderment.

  ‘Can I see the person in charge?’ Serena repeated, and then, as the girl didn’t seem to understand English, she tried French. ‘Je peux parler á la directrice?’

  The girl’s face registered understanding, but she still made no attempt to open the door wide and to invite Serena inside.

  In the shadowed hallway behind the girl Serena saw an elderly nun approaching briskly. She set a smile on her face, stepped purposefully past the unwelcoming acolyte at the door, and said genially, ‘Good morning, Sister. It was very kind of you to say that I could visit this morning. I shan’t take up very much of your time, I know how terribly busy and overworked you all are …’

  The nun was stern-faced, and beneath her starched white wimple her eyes were implacable. ‘We are expecting no visitors this morning, Madame,’ she said frostily. ‘There has been an error…’

  Serena knew that if she hesitated now, all would be lost. She strode past the nun, ignoring her cries of protest, saying brightly and breezily, ‘I am so pleased that you are happy to accept my donation to the orphanage, Sister. The British ambassador assured me that such an amount would be most welcome and put to extremely good use.’

  The nun was hard at her heels, panting with the effort of trying to keep pace with her. At the mention of a donation and the British ambassador, she checked slightly. ‘The message to say that you would be visiting obviously went astray,’ she said breathlessly. ‘If you would be so kind as to tell me your name …’

  ‘Lady Serena Blyth-Templeton,’ Serena said, reverting to her maiden name for maximum effect, ‘and now, if I could see the children, please …’

  She could smell them long before she saw them. The whole building was heavy with an aroma of urine and faeces and other substances that she could not place. She had never been in an orphanage before, never even been in a nursery, and she had not the slightest idea what to expect. As she strode into the nearest room and looked around her, the sight that met her eyes was worse than anything she could possibly have imagined.

  There was row after row of white-painted metal cots, and the occupants, some of them old enough to be attending primary school, lay docilely two and three to a bed. Nearly all of them had disfiguring skin complaints, nearly all were lying on wet bedding. Serena gagged and fought down an overwhelming tide of fury. The nun now leading the way for her obviously saw nothing reprehensible in the conditions in which the children were being kept, and to give vent to her outrage would only result in her tour being precipitately terminated.

  As she slowly walked the length of the room she saw that one dark head after another was thick with lice eggs. The children stared at her dully, with no sign of animation, and she knew that what she had initially taken to be docility was apathy. God alone knew when they had last been allowed to play. Or even when they had last been spoken to. Just as they were leaving the room, one of them began to cry. A Vietnamese nurse hurried forwards, giving the child a sharp smack. As Serena sucked in her breath sharply, the elderly nun at her side said quickly, ‘That child is always crying. He cries out of naughtiness.’

  ‘My God! How can he be naughty? He’s caged in his crib like a small animal!’

  The nun’s face tightened. ‘I think that is all I can show you of our highly esteemed orphanage. In the next room the babies are being fed. A visitor would be disturbing to them.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sister. I’ve seen enough,’ Serena said grimly. ‘Can you give me a list of the other orphanages in the city, pl
ease?’

  ‘And your donation?’

  ‘A list please, Sister.’

  The nun didn’t move and Serena said, a hint of menace in her voice, ‘The ambassador specifically asked me to ask for a list from you. The British Embassy’s list is not as up-to-date as he would like.’

  ‘I have no written list.’

  ‘Then if you would tell me the names of the other orphanages, I will make a note of them.’

  ‘And the donation?’

  ‘The names please, Sister.’

  The nun’s nostrils flared and then she said curtly, ‘Phu My, Go Vap, Dém Hé, Cam Hoái, St Paul’s, Ngo Thuy.’

  As she continued with her list, Serena wrote the names rapidly in her pocket diary.

  ‘And now the donation, if you please,’ the nun finished impatiently.

  Serena looked around her. No matter how large a donation she gave, she could not imagine it being spent constructively, or changing the conditions for the better.

  ‘An appropriate donation will be sent when I have seen the conditions in the other orphanages,’ she said, slipping her diary into her raincoat pocket. She had every intention of giving money. A lot of money. But hopefully it would be to an orphanage that would make good use of it.

  Ignoring the nun’s exclamations of indignation, she strode out of the evil-smelling building and into Cholon’s crowded streets. It was 1967. Vietnam was on the conscience of the world. Where was all the money being collected by European and American charities going to? How could orphanages like the one she had just visited possibly be tolerated?

  She flagged down a pedicab, and beginning with the first name that the nun had so reluctantly given her, she began a day-long tour of Saigon’s orphanages.

  It was a day that changed her life. Not all of the orphanages were as bad as the first one. Many of them were making desperate attempts to care adequately for children in almost impossible conditions. At Phu My, older children helped look after younger children. At the orphanage run by the Sisters of St Paul de Chartres, though there was, overcrowding and the orphanage was desperately understaffed, at least it was obvious that the sisters cared for the children, and were deeply committed to their welfare. However, not every orphanage was run by the Sisters of St Paul.