White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  Lewis was no longer listening to her. He was looking across the room at Abbra.

  ‘… and so Patti said to me, if you get a chance, do track her down, because she’s become a positive recluse …’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Lewis said curtly.

  He weaved his way through the crowded room, and as he approached her, Abbra smiled at him. For the first time he was aware of how pale and strained she had become, how very much she had changed.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he said briefly, taking hold of her by the arm.

  ‘But why? I thought you wanted to find out what the general feeling was about what’s happening in Vietnam …’

  ‘I think I’ve been very foolish,’ he said, steering her through the throng and towards the door, ‘and I need to talk to you.’

  He drove her home through the darkened streets in silence. Once in the luxurious warmth of their flat, he poured her a sherry and handed it to her, lighting himself a cigar.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘Have you accepted a position somewhere else? Someplace you think I’m not going to like?’

  She had seated herself in a chair near a small rosewood desk. He remained standing, looking at her. Despite the shadows beneath her eyes and her ivory paleness, she was very beautiful. Just as she had always been. Her dress was a narrow sheaf of black wool crepe, exquisitely and expensively cut.

  He said without prevaricating, ‘The woman I was talking to said that she had met you in California. You were with Scott.’

  Abbra’s fingers tightened around the stem of her sherry glass. ‘Yes, we met at Patti’s.’

  His eyes held hers, their gold-flecked depths sombre. ‘She said that you were glowing, that she had never seen a woman so much in love.’

  She held his gaze and said nothing. There was nothing for her to say. The time for pretence between them was long past.

  ‘Were you in love with Scott? Have I been a fool to have believed all this time that you had married him simply because you saw in him an extension of myself?’

  She rose to her feet and set the sherry glass down on the desk. ‘I was very much in love with Scott,’ she said steadily. ‘I told you so at Yosemite. You chose not to ask me about it.’

  ‘Christ!’ he said softly, crushing the barely touched cigar out in an ashtray. ‘And all this time you’ve remained in love with Scott?’

  They looked at each other across the lamplit room. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly, knowing that she could lie no more, that she would never lie again. Ever.

  They remained standing, yards apart, staring at each other. At last he said incredulously, ‘I can’t believe that I’ve been such a fool. Because of my ego I’ve nearly destroyed you. And the crazy thing is, it’s all been unnecessary. I did need you those first few weeks. But afterwards, when we were in London, I realized that we barely knew each other. My interests were not yours, and your interests could never be mine. We were strangers, tied together out of deep affection and a mutual sense of duty.’

  The relief she felt was so dizzying, she thought she was going to faint. ‘You mean that … that you realized you were no longer in love with me?’

  ‘I’m in love with Tam,’ he said, his eyes tortured. ‘After the way you had stood by me, I didn’t see how I could possibly tell you. Or how I could possibly go back to Vietnam for her.’

  ‘But you can now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Suddenly the terrible tension between them broke. They stepped towards each other simultaneously.

  ‘Go back for her now, quickly!’ she said, hugging him tight. ‘Serena says that there isn’t much time.’

  ‘And you? What will you do?’ he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  She was laughing and crying at the same time, ‘I’m going to fly back to California on the first available flight. This time tomorrow, if they will have me back, I will be with Scott and Sanh!’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  All through 1974, in Saigon, the unease increased. There were repeated clashes near the demilitarized zone between government soldiers and Communist troops. The truce agreed to in Paris was a truce in name only. Although no American combat troops were now on Vietnamese soil, the killing continued.

  Mike and Serena, terrified of what would happen to the children in their care if and when Saigon fell and they were no longer able to look after them, worked eighteen hours a day, ceaselessly battling with bureaucratic red tape as they endeavoured to finalize adoptions in America and Europe, and to obtain the necessary exit visas.

  Gabrielle’s bouncy vitality and infectious sense of fun had made her a favourite among the children. They were fascinated by her flaming red hair and by her ability to speak their language fluently. To both her and Serena’s bemusement, although they had made no effort to encourage a special friendship between them, Kylie and, le petit Gavin had naturally gravitated towards each other. Perhaps it was because they both looked a little different from the majority of the other children. There was a hint of Vietnamese in le petit Gavin, yet his hair was a cross between Gabrielle’s fiery tones and his father’s blondness, and freckles still sprinkled the bridge of his nose. Kylie was quite obviously Amerasian, but her vivid blue eyes and creamy skin and black hair made her look more Irish than Vietnamese.

  It was a friendship that neither Gabrielle nor Serena discouraged. Now that Kyle was dead, Serena’s complex emotions about Kylie were no longer so traumatic. She found herself able to spend time with her, and to make friends with her, as she had long wanted to. Her relationship with Trinh, too, had improved. They were not bosom friends, nor ever would be, but she had had the photograph of Kyle reproduced and had given it to Trinh, together with a photograph of his flower-bedecked grave which Kyle’s mother had forwarded to her some weeks after the funeral. In return, when Trinh brought Kylie to the orphanage she would often bring a small bunch of flowers with her, or some homemade chao tom, little sticks of shrimp paste, and give them to Serena.

  ‘Have you spoken to Trinh about her and Kylie leaving Saigon?’ Mike asked Serena shortly after they had received the news that North Vietnamese forces had captured Phuoc Binh, a city that was a mere eighty miles north of Saigon.

  Serena was cleaning the wound of a child who had been hit by flying glass when a bomb had exploded in a café in Cholon.

  She glanced up briefly from her task. ‘No, but there won’t be any problem about it, will there? Kylie is obviously Amerasian, and I understood that the Vietnamese wives and children of American servicemen would be given priority if it came to an evacuation.’

  ‘Trinh wasn’t a wife,’ Mike pointed out, beginning to stitch the wound in the child’s arm.

  ‘We can testify that she was his common-law wife.’

  ‘True. But I still think you should talk it over with her. She may not even want to be evacuated. Vietnamese love their country deeply. You need to point out to her that anyone who obviously consorted with Americans is not going to be too kindly treated under a Communist regime. And that Kylie is so obviously of mixed blood that she’s never going to be wholly accepted into whatever society evolves in Vietnam once it is reunited.’

  Trinh had shaken her head stubbornly when Serena had broached the subject. ‘No. Where would I go? Where would I live?’

  ‘You would go to America, Trinh. You would be looked after, I would see to that. You speak English fluently, so that isn’t a problem.’

  ‘But Vietnam is my country. Saigon is my home.’

  ‘The Communists have captured the capital of Phuoc Long province. America has done nothing to intervene, except to make a statement denouncing the action, nor will it. After Phuoc Long other provinces will fall into Communist hands. Within months, possibly weeks, the North Vietnamese Army is going to be poised to strike at Saigon.’

  Trinh’s eyes were frightened, but she again shook her head. ‘No, I cannot believe it. There have been bomb attacks in Saigon, and the fighting at the Presidential Palace and at the American Embass
y in 1968. But North Vietnamese troops marching down Tu Do Street? No. America would never let it happen. It is impossible.’

  ‘It is possible,’ Serena said grimly. ‘For Kylie’s sake the two of you will have to leave, and you will need the necessary papers. I can’t get them for you without your cooperation, Trinh.’

  ‘Later,’ Trinh said unhappily. ‘I cannot think about it now. It is too big a decision. Later I will give you my answer.’

  There was nothing more that Serena could do. Phuoc Binh had fallen to the Communists in January. By March they had attacked Ban Me Thuot, the capital of Dar Lac province, the city falling to them within a day. President Thieu panicked. In a vain attempt to secure the provinces immediately around Saigon, he ordered his troops to retreat south. With that one order, half of South Vietnam was ceded to the Communists. Hundreds of thousands of refugees began to flee south, vying for space on the roads with the retreating troops.

  On the twenty-first, the North Vietnamese began to assault Hue, the old imperial capital. For three days heavy artillery fire bombarded the city’s outskirts and then the South Vietnamese area commander gave the order to abandon the city, fleeing with his troops by sea to Da Nang and leaving Hue’s inhabitants to their fate.

  Mike strode into Cáy Thóng’s crowded nursery and said briefly to Serena, ‘There’s an American here, asking for you. Apparently you know his wife.’

  Serena finished inserting an IV tube into a baby’s arm, strapping it firmly so that it couldn’t be dislodged.

  ‘He must have got me confused with someone else.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t. His name is Lewis Ellis. He intends to go down into the Delta to Van Binh, to find a girl who used to work for him in ’66. He wants to know if we can give him any help.’

  ‘Lewis?’ Her voice was incredulous. ‘Abbra’s Lewis?’

  ‘The very same,’ Mike said with an exhausted grin. ‘Though I have a feeling, judging by his desperation to find this girl, that he’s Abbra’s Lewis no longer.’

  Stunned, Serena hurried to where Lewis was waiting. Her first impression was that he was older than she had imagined, and then she remembered the time he had spent as a prisoner in a jungle camp. He had a face she immediately liked. Strong and uncompromising, but with a warmth in the eyes that belied the straight firmness of his mouth.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, stretching her hand out towards him, ‘I’m Serena Anderson.’

  His handshake was like everything else about him, strong and firm. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’ His voice was deep and rich and she understood why Abbra, at eighteen, had fallen so much in love with him. ‘Abbra has told me a lot about you.’

  It was no time for small talk. She said without prevaricating, ‘Mike tells me you want to go down into the Delta?’

  ‘I’m going. Tomorrow. Since you and Mike know the situation here as well as anybody, I thought I’d ask your advice about the best way of doing it.’

  ‘The best way of doing it is not to do it,’ Mike said dryly. ‘There are God knows how many North Vietnamese battalions converging on Saigon. Your chances of reaching Van Binh are so slim as to be extinct.’

  ‘Nevertheless I’m going,’ Lewis said without the least hint of doubt in his voice. ‘I need to find a girl down there, Nguyen Van Tam. Once I’ve found her I’m bringing her back to Saigon and then taking her to the States with me.’

  ‘It’s been nine years,’ Serena said gently, inwardly rejoicing that Abbra must now be reunited with Scott. ‘Whatever understanding you had with Tam, you can’t possibly imagine that she will be still waiting for you?’

  Lewis’s eyes were very dark. ‘No, I can’t. But I can at least see her again, and give her the opportunity to leave with me if she wishes to do so.’

  ‘There’s a small orphanage near Van Binh run by a small group of Catholic nuns,’ Mike said. ‘The children there are in desperate need of being brought into Saigon. There’s still a chance that places can be found for them on the adoption programme.’

  ‘You mean that you will come with me?’ Lewis asked abruptly.

  Mike nodded, knowing very well that Lewis’s chances of making and surviving the trip alone were slim. He knew all about Lewis’s long imprisonment in the U Minh, and as far as he was concerned, the guy had suffered enough. If the girl he was looking for was so important to him, then he was only too happy to help him in his search for her.

  Within hours of their leaving the city, Gabrielle ran into the orphanage, her face radiant.

  ‘At last, chérie! I have news! Real news! A journalist in Saigon who works for a Western newspaper but who is, in reality, a Communist undercover agent, has contacted Nhu. He has told her that the Communists intend to take Saigon within the next few weeks and that when they do so, Gavin will be brought south with the conquering forces!’

  ‘Oh, Gaby,’ Serena hugged her tight. ‘But how can you know that the man is genuine? That he is speaking the truth? Why should the army be bringing Gavin south with them?’

  ‘Out of respect for Dinh. Because that is what Dinh intended. That, as a journalist sympathetic to the North, Gavin would be an ideal person to chronicle the historic taking of the South.’

  ‘He might have been an ideal person nine years ago, but they surely can’t believe that he is sympathetic to them now? Not after they have kept him in the North so long against his will?’

  Gabrielle gave a helpless shrug of her shoulders, her eyes still shining, ‘It may not seem to make much sense, Serena. But Vietnamese minds are not Western minds. We do not know what Gavin has said to them, or what he has agreed to. What is important is that Nhu’s contact says his information is utterly reliable. When the North Vietnamese Army takes Saigon, Gavin will be with them!’

  On Easter Sunday the coastal town of Da Nang fell. The chaos there was even worse than the chaos that had taken place in Hue. The city was choked with refugees who had fled from towns already captured, and hundreds of thousands, terrified of Communist reprisals, tried to escape by sea. Soldiers fought civilians in the effort to commandeer boats. Children were separated from parents and crushed and drowned in the stampede.

  On that day, in Da Nang, the South Vietnamese Army reached its nadir. Leaderless and uncontrolled, they stripped themselves of their uniforms and subjected the local population to a reign of terror that could not have been exceeded by the Communists themselves.

  ‘You cannot wait any longer, chérie,’ Gabrielle said glumly to Serena when news of the surrender of Da Nang reached them. ‘The adoption papers and exit visas of all the remaining children must be processed immediately, no matter what the bureaucratic difficulties. And you must speak to Trinh again. Arrangements must be put in hand for her and Kylie to fly to America.’

  ‘What about le petit Gavin?’ Serena asked. Ever since the news that Gavin would be entering Saigon with the North Vietnamese Army, it had been patently obvious that no matter what happened, Gabrielle would not be leaving the city.

  ‘I want you to take him with you when you and Mike leave.’

  Serena nodded. Neither she nor Mike wanted to leave, but their respective embassies had left them in no doubt that when the time came for a full-scale evacuation of all non-Vietnamese personnel, they would have to be among those airlifted out of the city.

  That evening she spoke to Trinh again, this time with desperate urgency. ‘You must realize by now that nothing is going to stop the Communist advance, Trinh. Do you want Kylie to grow up under a Communist regime? Do you want her to risk victimization because she is so obviously half American?’

  Trinh had wrung her hands, her black-sloe eyes anguished. ‘No, of course I do not. But I have family in Saigon. My sister …’

  ‘I will make arrangements for your sister too,’ Serena said, wondering how the hell she was going to be able to keep her promise. ‘Pack a bag and keep it ready, and leave everything else to me.’

  After leaving Trinh she went straight to the American Embassy. The official she spoke to the
re looked at her first appreciatively, and then, when she told him what she wanted from him, pityingly.

  ‘Lady,’ he said wearily, ‘have you any idea how many Vietnamese want to get the hell out of this city? There are one hundred and forty thousand names on our “endangered” list, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.’

  ‘This woman was the common-law wife of Kyle Anderson, a helicopter pilot with the first Cav who died under torture in Hoa Lo,’ Serena said icily. ‘She has a child by him. Kyle died in his country’s service. The least America can do is to ensure that the woman he loved, and his child, are flown to safety.’

  The official looked at her with interest. ‘How come you know so much about it?’

  ‘Because she may have been his common-law wife, but I was married to him,’ she said coolly. ‘He wrote asking me for a divorce before he was killed. There is no doubt at all that it was a serious relationship and that Trinh and her daughter are as deserving to be evacuated as any other Vietnamese dependents of Americans.’

  ‘Phew!’ the official said, regarding her with deepening interest. ‘I’ve heard quite a few stories across this desk, but this is the first time I’ve had a wife in here, pleading for a plane seat for her husband’s mistress. It takes some believing, but as I do believe you, bring the necessary documents in and I’ll make sure that she and her daughter are put on the list of evacuees.’

  ‘And another family member,’ Serena said ruthlessly. ‘Trinh’s sister.’ With a wide, dazzling smile, she blew him a kiss of thanks and disappeared out of the room before he had a chance to refuse her.

  It was when she returned from the embassy to the orphanage that she heard what was for her the worst news of the entire war.

  Shortly after 3 p.m. a US military C-5A had departed from Tan Son Nhut crammed to capacity with orphan children bound for new homes in the States. The flight had been organized by Rosemary Taylor, a young Australian adoption-agency director both Serena and Mike had great respect for.

  There were 243 children loaded on to the plane, with escorts to care for them on the long flight. Within minutes of takeoff the rear cargo doors blew out and the plane began to lose height. It skidded over the Saigon River, and then crashed into rice fields, breaking in half, the tail section erupting into flames, the nose section continuing to plow over the ground for another quarter of a mile or so.