Sand in the Wind

by Robert Roth

  Nash walked with Kramer to the reception room, arranged for an examination, and left immediately. The doctor took a quick look at Kramer’s neck and told him that they’d take X-rays and he’d probably be out of the hospital by the next day. Kramer was assigned a ward and left to himself to find it. While looking, he passed by the operating room, a large bunker with curtains at the entrance. The curtains were only half drawn, and he could see a number of doctors crowded around one of the tables. A set of blood-soaked jungle fatigues lay beneath it in a pile. One of the doctors held a saw.

  Kramer reached the officers’ ward and found it to be a Quonset hut with two rows of beds. A noisy air-conditioner protruded awkwardly from one of the walls. He hesitated in front of it. A corpsman walked up to Kramer and assigned him a bed in the center of the hut. Across the aisle, a young officer stared blankly at the ceiling. He lay beneath a blanket stretched flat against the mattress where his legs should have been. An older man sat on the bed next to Kramer’s. A large cast enclosed his entire upper torso, except for one arm he was using to deal a game of solitaire. The bed on the other side of Kramer’s was empty. Even after Kramer had put on a pair of pajamas and lay down, the man in the cast hadn’t looked up from his cards. Kramer had lain there a few minutes when a patient walking with a cane made his way to the next bed. Before sitting down on it, he nodded to Kramer and asked in a friendly, rasping voice, “What they got you stuck here for?”

  Pointing to the bandage on his neck, Kramer answered, “Just a nick.” Then catching a glimpse of the amputee across the aisle, he quickly added, “Probably be out of here tomorrow.”

  “Wish I could say the same. My name’s Donaldson.”

  “Kramer.”

  Donaldson took a quick glance around the hut before removing a flask of liquor from under his mattress. “Want a taste?” Kramer shook his head. Shielding the bottle with his body, Donaldson took a long swig. He noticed Kramer staring at him as he placed the bottle back under his mattress, and said almost apologetically, “This place’ll drive you nuts.” Kramer nodded. “Hey, why don’t we get some liberty tonight — see if we can find some good liquor and bad women?”

  Kramer immediately had visions of noisy, rundown bars filled with sweaty Marines and prostitutes. “I’d just as soon take advantage of this mattress and get some sleep.”

  A few minutes later a corpsman came over and told Kramer he was due in the X-ray room. On his way there, he passed some soldiers wearing jungle fatigues. It had been less than an hour since he had taken his off; but when he looked at these soldiers and then at the pajamas he was wearing, he felt weak and almost impotent compared to them. This feeling stayed with him even after the X-rays were taken. Instead of going back to his ward, Kramer walked to the rear of the hospital complex in hopes of being alone for a few minutes. The back of the hospital was protected by a wall of sandbags. While leaning on it, he could see the helicopter landing pad a few yards away, and beyond it endless miles of rice paddies.

  Kramer wanted a cigarette. Knowing he’d left his pack in the ward, he searched the pocket of his robe anyway. He felt a tightness in his stomach and realized that he hadn’t eaten anything all day. A wry smile came to his lips as thoughts about what had happened under the canopy again resurfaced. He remembered saying “It’s up to you,” never dreaming Childs would go through with it. He saw the scene as he had seen it then, hearing the different remarks, watching each additional man hold out his hand for a piece of flesh, himself looking on at them as if they were voting. 'Nine to two,’ he thought now as he had thought then. Kramer relived the scene with the same grotesque excitement, not realizing that he had again left himself out of the count, or also that even while it was happening, he had never thought of himself as a part of it, as anything more than a detached observer — except for one small act. He had fed Harmon some of the flesh without telling him what it was. Since then, there were times when this had slightly bothered him; but thoughts such as, ‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,’ had always served to diminish any sense of guilt. Now Harmon would never know. ‘Why shouldn’t I have done it once before I die?’ he thought, again outside himself and a separate entity from that “I” who had eaten the flesh, who had been in a position to prevent any of it from happening.

  An almost gloating look on his face, Kramer heard the faint drone of a helicopter. The sound grew louder, and his eyes finally spotted an insignificant dot cast upon the iron gray sky. The glare was intense, but he squinted his eyes rather than turn his stare from this now expanding dot. As the sound grew louder, he was able to make out the silhouette of the helicopter. Kramer ignored the wind from its blades as the chopper descended upon the pad — forcing himself to watch. Only now did he see the group of men in white coats waiting anxiously for it to land. They ran aboard, emerging a few seconds later with a stretcher. Their white coats flapped furiously as they rushed towards the operating room. One of them held a bottle of plasma high over the stretcher, while another banged viciously on the soldier’s chest. Although they passed within twenty yards of Kramer, he watched with a detached curiosity, and to him they seemed miles in the distance.

  Long after they were gone, he continued to stare out at the LZ. His mind replaying the scene, he moved his gaze across the now empty landing pad in the same manner as when the stretcher was being carried to the operating room. Kramer heard the faint sound of another helicopter, but made no effort to seek it out. Instead, he headed back to his ward, telling himself that he wanted a cigarette. When he got there, he walked over to Donaldson. “Some liberty might be a pretty good idea after all.”

  It was the fifth bar they’d been to, but neither Kramer nor Donaldson would have been sure, each bar being a replica of the others. From the start Kramer had had the feeling that he would end the night with a prostitute, so he’d been forcing himself to drink in hopes of getting drunk as soon as possible. The only effect of the liquor had been a warm glow in his stomach. But still, he began to anticipate picking up a prostitute. The ones he had seen didn’t have the fucked-out eyes of American prostitutes, and so many other American women. They’d had a playful yet shy quality about them that became more and more attractive each time he saw it.

  Donaldson, while making no effort to get drunk, had been outdrinking Kramer at every bar. His voice had become increasingly louder, and he was now talking about the inepitude of the Arvins within his area, all the while waving his cane for emphasis. Kramer continually tried to quiet him while taking quick glances around the room. He always expected to find people staring at them, but no one seemed to be paying much attention. Just as he was about to give up, Donaldson’s mood changed to one of quiet sullenness.

  People started leaving, and the bar girls began collecting glasses and cleaning up. One he hadn’t noticed before came from somewhere in the back of the room and stood behind the end of the bar. She made no effort to help the other girls, and said nothing to them. Instead, she merely stood motionless except for occasional turns of her head as she stared across the room. Most of the other bar girls Kramer had seen that night had walked around with overly seductive smiles on their faces, going out of their way to be friendly. Their delicate, almost shy, mannerisms had given their behavior a childlike innocence, behavior that would have seemed cheap and forward in American women.

  Kramer realized he was staring at the one standing motionless behind the bar. Without turning his head away he tried to figure out why she had attracted his attention. Her shiny black hair was no different from that of any other girl he had seen that night. Her features seemed attractive, but the room was too dark and she too far away for him to really tell. There was something intriguing about her. The longer he looked, the more beautiful she seemed. But he realized it wasn’t a question of beauty. If anything, it was her bearing, especially the way she held her head. Her face had a seriousness about it that somehow resulted in a calm beauty rather than sullenness. He told himself it was merely the absence of that childlike quality h
e had become so accustomed to in oriental women, at the same time knowing there was something more.

  For no obvious reason, she walked in Kramer’s direction and stood directly across the bar from him and a few feet away. He now saw that she was far more beautiful than he’d imagined. What had been interest became something close to awe. She seemed cold, yet at the same time so indifferent as to be incapable of coldness. As Kramer stared at her, he felt the need, ridiculous as it seemed to him, to change the expression on her face, to elicit some form of recognition from her — to make her feel. Confused thoughts ran through his mind and he became uneasy as he tried to combine them into a single clear idea or impression that would explain his reaction. One inadequate thought kept returning to him, a thought so seemingly deficient that he consciously tried to reject it — ‘To be able to see her face when she comes.’

  Kramer felt a tap on his arm. Donaldson had been unusually quiet, and he hesitated to look towards him. When he finally did turn his head, he was met by a sly, knowing grin. Donaldson pointed towards the woman behind the bar. Liquor reeking from his mouth, he leaned towards Kramer and said, “You’d like to fuck her, eh?”

  Disgusted, Kramer glanced across the bar to see if she’d heard. Her face gave no indication that she had, and Kramer’s eyes returned to Donaldson. He was met by the same knowing grin and the slow nodding of Donaldson’s head. Kramer tried to think of something to say that would keep him from making another remark. He couldn’t, and merely stared back at him in an irritated manner, admitting to himself that however crude the remark, it had also been accurate. Instead of pacifying him, this made Kramer more resentful. Sensing Kramer’s attitude, Donaldson was offended by the self-righteousness of it. Kramer noticed a sudden belligerency on his face. To avoid a scene he quickly offered to buy him another drink. Donaldson grudgingly accepted.

  Kramer glanced at the woman again. Instead of trying to get her attention, he looked around for one of the other bar girls. They were all busy, so his eyes returned to her. She seemed to be looking directly over his head, her eyes still focused in the distance. He pointed to his empty glass anyway. She immediately caught his gesture. Barely moving her head, she shifted her eyes to a girl who had just stepped behind the bar, then back in Kramer’s direction. The girl walked towards him.

  Donaldson hadn’t caught this. “I’ll get her,” he said to Kramer. “Hey Mamasan, how—”

  Kramer grabbed his arm and pointed to the bar girl walking towards them. Donaldson gave him an irritated look as Kramer said, “Scotch and soda,” then pointing to Donaldson, “bourbon and water.”

  Sensing Kramer’s uneasiness about the woman behind the bar, Donaldson decided to make him more uneasy by getting her attention. “Hey, Mamasan,” he called out, then added, “lai dai,” the Vietnamese words for, “come here.”

  The woman behind the bar ignored and seemed not even to notice him. Kramer put his hand on Donaldson’s shoulder and it was quickly shrugged off. Now more determined to get her attention, Donaldson became even louder. Embarrassed as he was, Kramer felt more ridiculous for caring. The woman, oblivious to Donaldson, retained a cool poise as she continued to stare directly over their heads, refusing to leave or turn away.

  Suddenly, Donaldson stretched his cane over the bar and in an awkward gesture grabbed the woman’s arm within its crook. Kramer started to reach for the cane, but caught himself when he saw Donaldson stop pulling on it. The woman stood motionless, her eyes focused upon Donaldson. The crook of his cane still around her arm, he was leaning awkwardly over the bar, seemingly frozen by the silent superiority of her stare. Kramer watched with amazement as Donaldson tried to save face by giving a slight tug on the cane before withdrawing it and turning his head away.

  He quickly downed his drink, then said to Kramer, “Let’s get out of here. I’m tired of these slant-eyed bitches.” Kramer ignored him and continued to stare at the woman. Seeing this, Donaldson said, “High class whore,” then asked gruffly, “Are you coming?”

  Still smiling, Kramer finally turned and said, “I’ll stick around a while.’

  “What for?” Donaldson demanded. When he saw no answer coming, he pulled a few bills out of his pocket. “Here, this is for the drinks. See you, pal."

  Kramer’s eyes shifted back and forth between the woman and his drink as he thought about what had happened. She stood with the same distant, superior stare on her face, seeming not to notice him. ‘Big, tough Marine,’ he thought, remembering how Donaldson had been humiliated by a stare. ‘Quite a bitch.’

  Kramer remained at the bar for another half hour hoping something would happen to enable him to speak to her. He felt ridiculous at not being able to merely start a conversation, telling himself, ‘What have I got to lose?’ and berating himself for acting ‘like some high school kid.’ He tried to figure out why he was afraid, as he had never been before, knowing that one of the reasons was the sense that she was somehow superior to himself as well as Donaldson, and also knowing that this couldn’t be the only reason.

  The bar girls started asking people to finish their drinks. He’d have to do something fast or forget about it. Kramer made up his mind to say something, and for the next few minutes he mulled over different lines. None of them seemed right. While he hesitated, she walked away. Furious with himself, and at the same time furious about ‘giving a damn,’ Kramer knew that it was too late. He decided he should have merely apologized for Donaldson’s behavior — it seemed so obvious now. He sat regretting his failure to do so, wondering what she would have been like, until only one other Marine besides himself remained in the bar.

  A bar girl eyed Kramer impatiently. He finished his drink and walked towards the door. Disgusted with himself, he almost bumped into one of the girls on his way out. As he stepped back to let her pass, he was stunned to see that it was her. She stopped, seemingly staring right through him. A jaunty expression came across his face as he started to apologize about Donaldson. Before he could speak, she turned away and he blurted out, “I —” To his surprise, she turned back towards him. “Listen, I’m —”

  She looked right through him.

  “— I’m sorry about what happened.”

  Kramer stood amazed at the feebleness of his own words until she answered, “I do not speak English.”

  Her words were cold, yet there was a sad quality about them that caught him off guard. Knowing he’d have to say something immediately or she’d walk away, he blurted out, “Sounds all right to me.”

  “I do not speak English.”

  Wanting one more chance, ready to say anything he could think of:

  “Parlez-vous français?” She gave an almost imperceptible nod. Trying to remember his high school French, Kramer clumsily apologized for Donaldson’s behavior.

  She seemed anxious to get away from him and said in French, “He’s an American.” Realizing her slight had cut Kramer, she assumed the wrong reason. Her cold stare softened a little, and she said in French, “It’s all right.”

  Encouraged by the change in her look, Kramer was again at a loss for words. He finally asked, “Where did you learn to speak French?”

  “In school,” she answered. Kramer told her that that was also where he had learned. With no coldness in her tone, she replied in perfect French that he hadn’t learned very well. Amused and a little embarrassed, Kramer agreed with her. She said she had to clean up and started to walk away. He began to apologize again.

  She politely cut him short, repeating, “It’s all right,” then turned and walked towards the rear of the bar — now looking no different than any of a hundred Vietnamese women Kramer had seen that night. But she had been different. By the time he reached the hospital, he wasn’t even sure exactly what she had looked like. Her features blurred and changed within his memory. This shouldn’t have mattered. He’d never see her again anyway. But it did matter.

  The next morning Kramer awoke with the same thoughts that had kept him awake the night before. After breakfas
t, his thinking became more practical and he tried to figure out a way to stay in Da Nang one more night. He was almost resigned to the impossibility of this when the doctor told him there was still a piece of shrapnel in his neck. They’d remove it that afternoon, and he’d have to stay one more night.

  As much as he had hoped for it, Kramer found this “bad” news hard to believe. He spent the rest of the day thinking about how to make the most of his luck — how to get her attention again, and what to say afterwards. He felt childish, yet he enjoyed the feeling, as if he were trying to recapture a time or experience that had somehow evaded him. He even spent an hour in what was referred to as the hospital library, fruitlessly searching for a French dictionary. He did so just as much as a means to kill time as in hopes of finding one.

  After what seemed like his longest day in Vietnam, Kramer left the hospital. It wasn’t until he neared the bar where she worked that he began debating to himself whether to go through with his plans. He felt as if he’d been acting like a fool, and berated himself for the fantasizing and scheming he’d been doing all day. As he approached the door of the bar, he became increasingly hesitant. Only the rationalization that nothing would come of it and that by trying and failing he would at least get her off his mind enabled him to finally enter and take a seat at the bar.

  She was nowhere to be seen. Instead of being disappointed he became relaxed, knowing that he’d at least made an effort and there would be no chance to second-guess himself. The fact that she wasn’t there seemed only logical, his good luck in being held over in Da Nang now counterbalanced by his inability to take advantage of it.

  Kramer felt no desire to leave, as if his presence affirmed something he’d always believed and found necessary to continually prove to himself. A faceless girl brought him a drink, and then another. He drank slowly, savoring the flavor of the Scotch as he was rarely able to do. Within the glass he could see the reflections of his thoughts — the walk down the dusty road to the landing pad at Ninth Motors, the wait beneath a glaring sun for a helicopter, the sight of Hill 65 beneath him, and the walk across the hill to rejoin his platoon.