Virtual Fire

by Mendy Sobol

  “Look Aunty! Watch me swim!”

  “That ain’t swimming girl—keep your face in the water!”

  “Aunty Martha, let me read to you.”

  “Child, you read so slow I’ll be in God’s kingdom by the time you finish!”

  “I thought I sang really well today in Church, Aunty. What did you think?”

  “You sure don’t sound like the Wilson’s daughter Mary. That girl sings like a little angel!”

  So every time you write to me, it seems like Aunty Martha writes you back. I’m sorry. I wanted to keep looking after you, keep teaching you. But you’re not a Grosse Pointe teenager any more; you’re all grown up. And while I wasn’t paying attention, you were teaching me. Teaching me what it really means to care, care enough to do something while everyone else is looking for the door.

  Now I’ve got to sound critical again. I’m sorry about your friend Ian, but he’s in God’s care and you’re in mine. I wish I could bear your hurt for you, wish I could take away the pain. I can’t, but I’m still bound to tell you this: you can follow Dr. King’s way if you’ve got the courage. But Meg, even though you read Malcolm’s book and wrote an A+ paper on it in my Black Voices class, you don’t know anything about his way.

  There goes Aunty Martha again! But I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that I love you, and I’ve learned a lot in my life you don’t know yet. Like some things we do we can’t take back. Ever.

  So forgive me when I sound like Aunt Martha. You’re more to me than someone I love. You’re my friend. Please, be careful.

  Love,

  Evelyn

  Kim held Evelyn’s letters, tears sliding off her rouged cheeks onto the worn, wrinkled pages. I waited, then gently took the letters from her, dabbing at the moisture with her handkerchief.

  “There you have it, Kim. Everything the world didn’t know about Meg Wells, the Mother of Vietnam. The rest, as they say, is history. The ROTC firebombing, Toby’s Treason, the Vietnam pilgrimage, the Nobel fiasco, Toby’s Treason Part II, the major-league trade, Toby for Melora and a bunch of draft picks. That stuff’s been done to death. Now you know the rest of the story, enough inside information to send readers running to newsstands, publishers and advertisers to the bank. Enough psychodrama to keep amateur psychologists and historians busy for years to come. You know—the op-ed writers who explain the clinic, and even my relationship with Paul, as a natural extension of Mother Meg’s need to save the world because of her guilt over being born a rich girl from Grosse Pointe. The critics who say it was inevitable that when I did fall in love, it would happen only after my future husband was disfigured in a fire.

  “But at least you know it was Evelyn who got me thinking about the importance of finding a real man, a good man, and holding on to him. I was thinking about that when Paul, Toby, and I went to Narragansett Race Track, feeling like millionaires after our big, beautiful horse won, feeling something that made me want to kiss Paul, feeling something more when I did. Evelyn’s words guided me when Paul helped care for Ian, and when Paul cared for me after Ian’s death, comforting me the only way I could be comforted, by joining me, following me, helping me fight the fight until it almost cost him his life. And Evelyn’s wishes came true for me the night Paul and I met—2:00 a.m. January 10, 1970—the moment he first smiled at me, the night we practiced marshaling in the middle of Hope Street. That’s how I discovered the magic that changes the physical, the emotional, the spiritual, from awkward and unsatisfying to ecstatic and insatiable. It amazes me how in all those relationships before Paul, I never understood what was missing. Love. And after all, isn’t that what your readers want, Kim? A love story?”

  “OHMYGOD MEG, THAT IS SO BEAUTIFUL!”

  And again, Kim’s crying. And God help me, I’m crying too, turning away, making sure Kim can’t see.

  “C’mon, Kim, don’t do that. After all, if we leave out all the stuff about Vietnam, the stuff your readers don’t want to hear, the story has a happy ending.”

  “I don’t care about readers. I want to hear your story. The whole story, happy ending or not.”

  “Okay, but if you want the rest of the story there’s only one way to get it.”

  “I’ll do anything! Just tell me!”

  “How long are you supposed to stay here?”

  “One more day.”

  “Then spend it working with me at the clinic.”

  Chapter Forty-Three: Meg

  I might have been happy living the rest of my life with Paul in New Jersey. For the first time I had a real home, a loving family, and a man I loved. But when I saw the pictures from Vietnam, I had to go. It was as simple as that. If you’d asked us, we might have said we’d stay a couple of years, like a Peace Corps hitch. Neither of us was prepared for what we found.

  Even without the nuclear attack, Vietnam would have been a disaster. Decades of war, famine, the North’s “victory,” Agent Orange, disease, malnutrition, political reprisals, imprisonments, murders, and new wars with China and Cambodia. The U.S. and its allies washed their hands of the whole situation. Only the Soviet Union offered aid, but the aid offered was mostly military. A week after we arrived, the government official in charge of our small western relief effort gave a rousing speech.

  “Our Soviet comrades only desire is to help!” Then muttering under his breath, “To help themselves.” The next day he disappeared.

  We spent our first months in Saigon—newly renamed Ho Chi Minh City, though to this day everyone except government officials still calls it Saigon—creating a relief program for Amerasian orphans. These were kids fathered by American soldiers with Vietnamese mothers. No one wanted them, and the communist government wanted its western volunteers out of the way, working on something unimportant without sacrificing their propaganda value. Within six months my group had adoption programs up and running in Israel, France, and Canada. Impressed with my work, Information Ministry officials, the same people who took Jane Fonda on her tour of the Hanoi Hilton prisoner-of-war camp, began exploiting my public relations potential. That’s when they sent me, Paul, and the others to the Delta. What better people to tell the world about the horrific health and environmental effects of the U.S. Agent Orange aerial defoliation campaign than the brave, selfless American volunteers.

  When the Information Ministry realized the Americans were more interested in actually bringing aid and comfort to the people of the Delta than in attacking their own homeland, the government assigned an assistant to spy on us, and forgot we existed. Decades later the Vietnamese government is as surprised as we are that we’re still here.

  The first time I traveled the road from Saigon to the Mekong, the obvious parallels to my family’s Florida trip didn’t strike me. I was too much a foreigner, too focused on differences in appearance and culture, differences between life in postwar Vietnam and life in America to see the obvious similarities. Years later, returning to the clinic from a European fundraising trip, riding in the air-conditioned comfort of a Zlin limousine on smoothly paved U.S. Army-built roads, feeling more like a privileged native than an expatriate American, passing endless rows of scrap metal shacks, that’s when I remembered.

  Their skins were lighter in color than the blacks of Savannah, and the women carried their burdens balanced on bamboo poles instead of in metal buckets, but as in Savannah, the children were skinny and barefoot, the men shirtless, the heat and odor of poverty stifling. I wondered if the poor of Savannah still lived like the poor of Vietnam.

  The Mekong River Delta looks nothing like the way it’s portrayed in American war movies. It is hot, it is humid, but it’s more than a big river running through dense jungle. It’s farmland, important farmland, the Vietnamese agricultural equivalent of the Mississippi Delta.

  Mekong farmers raise rice and peanuts, and like farmers everywhere their greatest ally and greatest enemy is water. From May to November torrential monsoon rains flood the Delta, wiping out crops, eroding soil, erasing whole villages. Unlike th
eir brothers and sisters on the Mississippi, farmers of the Mekong also battle land mines, unexploded aerial bombs, Agent Orange poisoning, and malaria. Many suffer from disabling war injuries. So Oxfam and the other relief agencies help with soil conservation, flood control, and sustainable agriculture, the health of the land. Our clinic treats chronic illnesses, infectious disease, and bodies separated from limbs by explosions, the health of the people.

  Working at the clinic, even for a day, is a life-changing experience. Kim finished her day the same way all visitors do—hot, tired, in tears.

  “I don’t care what the publishers or editors or advertisers or readers think. I don’t care what my father thinks! I’m quitting the magazine! I want to work for you, Meg! Here, now, if you’ll take me.”

  “If you really want to help, go write my story. But write about the clinic, too. I’ve got a file drawer full of press releases no one’s ever bothered to publish. You can copy everything right from there.”

  “But I want to work with you! Learn from you!”

  “Look, Kim, let’s be honest. You don’t belong out here in the jungle. But after you file your story, if you still want to help, we sure could use someone with your connections for fundraising.”

  “I’ll do it! I swear I’ll do it! But I’m coming back. I mean it!”

  “You’ll always be welcome. But before you win that Pulitzer, we’ve got to get Scooter’s face out of his feedbag so we can do the photo shoot. Then it’s time for you to deliver on your part of the bargain.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve forgotten already? My makeover!”

  “Okay, sit still, a little more lip gloss, a touch more eye shadow, a dash more perfume... right... there. And some sparkles. Oh, you don’t know about sparkles! Just close your eyes. That’s it! Okay, you can look in the mirror!”

  Kim held up the little surgical mirror, the one we use when we’re looking for shrapnel inside wounds. Dark red lips. (“Better with your hair and complexion than the pinks I use.”) Cheeks flushed and sparkled to match, eyes dark and mysterious, eyeliner, eye shadow and mascara so subtle you hardly know they’re there. And yet... and yet.... “WOW! Kim, I don’t know what to say” (looking down at my newly lacquered fingernails), “I mean I haven’t worn makeup since… since… I don’t know. But you’re a GENIUS!”

  “All I did was bring out your natural beauty. And honestly, Meg, I think the results show you should be making yourself up more often now that you know how.”

  “Well, ya’ know Kim, out here in the Delta, I mean, well, thank you. Thank you a lot.”

  Kim gave me a big hug, knelt next to her suitcase and began digging. “You’ll need one more thing if I can find it in this mess. Ah, okay, here it is! It’s a little tight on me, so it should be perfect for you. It’s real silk.”

  A short, sheer, scarlet nightgown.

  “Go ahead, take it!”

  “But how will I return it?”

  “It’s a present, silly!”

  And now I’m hugging Kim.

  “Thank you, Kim. I mean really, thank you. It’s hard to explain, but I want to do something special.”

  “You don’t have to explain a thing. I mean I’m a woman, too, aren’t I?”

  “How’d the interview go?” (Paul, sprawled on our futon, looking down at his bedtime reading, a dog-eared, three-year-old copy of Science Digest).

  “Not bad. How was your day avoiding the interviewer?”

  “Oh c’mon, Meg, it’s you they want. And besides, I…” (looking up at me), “I... I… Meg! You look… you look great! I mean, you always look great, but you REALLY look great!”

  “That darling girl from the magazine gave me a little help” (lying down beside him, touching his face with mine), “but I’m still me.”

  “I don’t want anyone else” (kissing me). “But is this some occasion? I mean it’s not our anniversary or something, is it?” (reaching out to douse the oil lamp).

  “No, you big romantic” (kissing him back). “I decided that if all this becomes nothing more than a dream, tonight I’m making sure whenever you dream, you’ll dream about me.”

  “I’ll never forget our life together. Never.”

  “I believe you, Paul. And neither will I.”

  (Paul, looking sad). “I hope this doesn’t put a damper on what you’ve got in mind, but I tried contacting Melora again today, and she wouldn’t talk to me. I don’t think there’s any way she’ll run HYDRA.”

  “Nothing can put a damper on what I’ve got in mind” (holding him close, drawing his arm away from the lamp before he can reach it). “Leave the light on. And leave Melora to me.”

  And kissing again, the time for words passes.

  “Mother, are you all right?”

  Quyen, our spy/assistant’s voice through the thin thatch door. Paul and I stop, holding our breath.

  “Everything’s fine, Quyen,” I say. “We’re fine.”

  “I heard noises....” (A little embarrassed, uncertain what’s going on inside the hut). “I want to make sure the Mother is safe.”

  And we’re giggling, like college students caught in the act by a roommate.

  “The Mother’s fine, Quyen, really,” Paul answers. “And next time we’ll hang a necktie on the doorknob.”

  A moment’s hesitation, then, “What is a ‘necktie?’ ”

  And we’re laughing, laughing louder and longer than we’ve laughed in years.

  Later, long after Kim’s silken nightie fell carelessly to the bamboo floor, when the oil lantern’s glow softened to invisibility, Paul and I lay in each other’s arms, catching our breath, then sleeping.

  And like our first night together in New Jersey, the sun’s rising, huge and red on the horizon, bathing us in warm morning mystery. For Paul, asleep long after he normally wakes, a dreamy, peaceful smile gracing his wounded face, nightmares replaced by one shared dream, a sweet dream, as I promised. For me, my own contented smile. But for me, the day also begins with purpose, with work to do.

  Paul was right about Melora. It won’t be easy. But with the passing years, I understand my true gift. With decades of practice I’ve honed it, refined it, perfected it. Not the gift of saving people, like I wrote Evelyn about so long ago, or the gift of giving God more time to decide. My gift is simpler, less angelic. Call it leadership, persuasiveness, or the courage of my convictions. Call it manipulation. For better or worse, my gift is getting people to do things, whatever things I decide need doing.

  I know my own history. I persuaded Paul and Toby to help care for Ian the day after I met them, talked Paul into joining me, first in agitating, and later, along with the others, in arson. He gave up everything he loved, complicated machines mostly, following me to Vietnam, following my dream instead of his own. I’ve enlisted countless governments, corporations, and charities as clinic sponsors, energized hundreds of volunteers, even turned the official Vietnamese government spy—with a little help from the spy’s mother—into my personal guardian. My gift turned Kim from sorority/society girl into dedicated savior of those who lack everything she’s spent her whole life taking for granted.

  Yes, I understand my gift. And on my next trip to Saigon, at the beginning of the rainy season, I’ll see Melora, get her to do what must be done.

  Chapter Forty-Four: Meg

  When Paul returned from New Jersey, he was quiet, distant, making me realize how quiet and distant he’d been for so long I couldn’t remember when the warm, outgoing Paul had disappeared. He explained Toby’s plan, answering all my questions about our old friend, leaving the details of the exchange up to me.

  Of course it worked. The F.B.I. couldn’t wait to get its hands on Toby, the Most Wanted who had eluded them for so long. With only a year left before Grendel and the other gamers came up for parole, the Justice Department had no problem sweetening the deal with their early release. Dismissing obstruction charges against WFMH’s staff came easy—no one wanted to tangle with their New Jersey
lawyers and the A.C.L.U. Freeing Melora was a political plus, quieting groups that had sprung up demanding her release, groups that had never forgotten Vietnam War hero Captain John Rusk’s impassioned trial testimony on Melora’s behalf, testimony that ended his career. In the press conference explaining the deal, the Attorney General quoted Rusk’s description of Melora as “…a bright but naive young woman acting under the Svengali-like influence of a cynical, notorious terrorist.”

  For the Vietnamese government, granting Melora asylum meant a public relations and intelligence bonanza. Pictures of me greeting her at Ho Chi Minh Airport made the front pages of newspapers and magazines from New Delhi to New York. And after a couple of months’ rest and recuperation, military commanders put Melora to work in their antiquated computer center where, Quyen reported, she updated the operating systems and training, for all practical purposes taking charge of the entire operation.

  So the U.S., Vietnam, Toby, Paul, maybe even Melora, got what they wanted. The funny thing was, for the first time I could remember, I found myself wondering, What do I get out of this?

  Paul wouldn’t tell me much about the other history, but I knew that if Melora recreated HYDRA, sent a message back in time, she’d rescue Vietnam from a nuclear holocaust. She’d also send Toby to his death.

  And me? I’d lose thirty years’ hard work, all the differences I’d made, the international reputation I’d earned. I’d lose Paul. I’d lose Toby again.

  Years ago, when I saw Toby’s picture paired with Melora’s on Time’s cover, I felt… surprised. Not surprised he resurfaced, destroyed the draft, monkey-wrenched the war machine a second time. No, I was surprised that Toby, in my memory a grungy, twenty-year-old, pizza-loving geek, actually had a girlfriend. And surprised I felt jealous.

  Paul never complained, but I knew he wasn’t happy, knew he was meant to spend his life among computers, not in some third-world unelectrified jungle. And while I loved the children of the clinic, I always hoped for children of our own. Yet waking more and more often, trembling, soaking in sweat I couldn’t explain merely by the Delta’s tropical climate, I understood it was too late. That’s why somewhere along the way, with the help of daily hardships and crises, the numbing reality of daily routines, my passion faded.