“Yes, I believe I do,” said Heimish.
There was no reaction in Heimish’s response, not even the least bit of interest. He couldn’t tell if they were friends, couldn’t confirm whether Heimish’s embassy man was the same as Channing’s.
“Let me know if you see her,” said Eastman.
“Sure thing. What else is new? Are you and Meredith . . . ?”
“We’re just friends. Why?”
“I was only wondering how long you two would be traveling together.”
“You old dog.”
“Not in the way you mean.”
“How’s Jenny, is it?”
“Yes, she’s wonderful. Thank you. And your wife?”
“Not so good. In fact, do you remember that time you had me out to your farm?”
“We had a bit much, hadn’t we? As I remember you two were on the outs about something.”
“It was before Penny and I were to be married. She got cold feet and ran off to London. That was why I came out to see you, I was lonely. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about back then and it was foolish of me to try to get her to change. You gave me some sound advice, something I never forgot. And even though my trip to see you didn’t end too well—in fact, it ended about as bad as it could have—I never thanked you for your help back then. So I guess that’s what I’m doing now.”
Heimish rubbed his temple as if he were having trouble remembering those days. Eastman let him have his memory lapse. He was being far too sentimental with Heimish anyway. That’s what a broken marriage did to a person.
“Don’t mention it,” said Heimish. “It was in the past.”
As the night went on and his consumption of champagne increased, he left Meredith and Heimish for a breath of fresh air and had a look around the palace. Outside the banquet hall were rows of rooms, many of them locked, some open for dignitaries to wander through. A wing of the palace had been blocked off, and this seemed to be the residential quarters, no doubt where President Thieu had retreated. He walked back to the banquet hall. The party was getting rowdier and he didn’t feel like reentering it just yet, so he slipped out through a row of French doors that led to a balcony. The hot air outside was like a smack in the face. The feel of Asia, of faint smoke, was rousing.
At the edge of the balcony under the open sky was Channing, smoking.
He went toward her eagerly. When she saw him she asked, “Have you been avoiding me?”
“I thought it was you avoiding me,” he said.
She turned away and looked out at the palace grounds. He approached her slowly, his hands in his pockets.
“Your invitation,” he said. “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you about Cambodia. I’ve been indisposed. I have a friend in town and her visit was unexpected. I’m eager to get her on one of the first flights out of here.”
Channing was distant. She continued to smoke, leaning against the balustrade.
“Are you okay, Channing?” he asked.
“Well, about Cambodia. You can forget it. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Look, I can’t be everywhere at once.”
“I’m not asking anything of you. I only extended an invitation because you showed an interest. Frankly, I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea.”
He looked behind him to see if there was anyone else on the balcony and then he moved in closer to face her. He hadn’t seen her in a dress before, with makeup on. He wanted to offer a compliment, but he sensed it wouldn’t be welcome.
“I like you, Channing. I didn’t give you an answer yet because I’m not sure if I’d be stepping into a dangerous situation because I’m attracted to you, or if I would be doing it because I’m interested in the story.”
“And what have you concluded?”
“I’m not interested in the story.”
She put out her cigarette underfoot, blew the smoke over his shoulder.
“And your friend, the woman you’ve been with all night. Aren’t you involved?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Everything,” she said. “You’re unavailable. Too unavailable to send me a note, yes or no, that’s all I needed. Even while you stand here you’re being dishonest to me. And to her.”
“You want to talk about dishonesty. You didn’t tell me you knew Norman Heimish.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your ex-boyfriend with the embassy and the fancy apartment. Isn’t he renting it to Norman Heimish? I assume you’re all friends having a laugh at me behind my back.” Eastman had been almost certain that the three knew each other, but as the words came out of his mouth, he couldn’t be more uncertain.
“I don’t know Norman Heimish any more than I know who you are at this moment.”
“He seems to know you.”
“What are you insinuating? You want to call me a whore? Call me a whore.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he claimed. Although it was. He was accusing her of sleeping with her own lover (which she had every right to do), and he was vilifying the act because of an association with Norman Heimish (which he couldn’t prove), imagining this all took place at a location he knew not where at a time when he was not present. It all seemed so clear when he was in the banquet room. But his proof was insubstantial because he didn’t know who her lover was. Why would he? What was he doing to this woman?
“You are crazy,” she said. “Everyone is right.”
“Forget it.”
“I confided in you about something very personal.”
“I want you, Channing.”
The confession was so ill timed and landed so off the mark that Channing seemed astounded.
“You’re tied up in something that seems to be very messy,” she said.
“I’m not tied up in a thing. I’m free. I do whatever I want.”
“You’re kidding yourself.” She cringed as she said this and he thought this made her look rather ugly. “And you’re behaving like a jerk.”
“Shut up,” he said.
“Don’t tell me to shut up.”
He grabbed her from behind and kissed her. He pressed her against the balustrade, hard. She struggled to get his lips off her and she managed to push free. He’d smeared her lipstick and this gave her the quality of a victim. Channing looked horrified. Would she scream? She looked down and got a pocket mirror out of her purse.
“You know, I thought we may have had a chance. Had you not done that.” She began fixing the smear.
He reached out and handed her a handkerchief, but Channing recoiled and turned her back to him. The kiss had been a violation. He felt absolutely terrible about it. Of all the bad decisions he’d made in the past few weeks, this one brought him the most shame.
She walked to the other side of the balcony. A man and woman came outside for fresh air. They were no longer alone. He remembered Meredith inside and he didn’t want to leave her much longer with Heimish. So Eastman wiped his mouth clean of Channing’s lipstick with his handkerchief. He folded it, put it back into his pocket, picked his head up, and went back inside, leaving Channing on the balcony.
18.
There was no one in the bureau office at that late hour, even though one of the ashtrays was still steaming with smoke. Eastman sat down at the cleanest desk and spread out his notes—scraps of paper and a notepad. He arranged the notes into some chronology—arrival, paranoia, faces around Saigon, assassination, delays, indisposed, the presidential palace. He had enough for a story, an impression at least. Whether it was newsworthy, that was another matter. He told himself it was newsworthy because he was writing it. That was the story. Himself in Saigon, and his impressions didn’t need to be historically accurate, they just had to be true and somewhat informed. This was a dispatch, a narrative. What he sees, the reader sees.
&nbs
p; Eastman wrote it out by hand in lead pencil. He took intermittent sips of water, got up every now and again to stretch his legs, played with the air conditioner, then sat back down. He set the scenes with himself as the guide, the narrator and protagonist. He stuck to the beginning of his trip, Tan Son Nhut, the scenes at the Continental and the Caravelle, leading up to the assassination of the two guards in the square. Then he wrote about her, running out into the square in the middle of the night without trepidation, while he cowered upstairs behind a potted plant. There was a crowd of armed soldiers who were still jumpy, and Channing took great strides to get there in time, snapping photos as she went. As he wrote about her, she became a character of great integrity, and he began to fall in love with this character. She didn’t need anyone. Got along on her own terms. He began a flashback to earlier in the evening, during drinks at the Jerome and Juliette, when he was telling her about his failing marriage and trying to generate a good amount of pity. She listened, that was the reporter’s greatest gift, to hear everything and retain what was important. Channing reminded him of this. She listened intently, and it was satisfying to be heard. He wasn’t being heard back in New York, not by his wife (before or after the breakup), that’s what was so aggravating about his situation. He allowed his character to have this revelation just as he experienced it in the act of writing it down.
Then back to Channing in the square after the assassinations, doing the job he had forgotten how to do. There were no American deaths, and so it was not news until he placed her in the scene. Then it became an American story that he could see readers caring about.
He got some paper into a word processor and went on to draft it up. He poured out some six thousand words, most of them decent and clear for this time of night. He searched for a title, something appropriate. “Eastman on Saigon.” It didn’t matter, Broadwater would figure out a way to better it.
The sun was coming up and the roosters in the alleys off of Tu Do Street were restless. A man came into the bureau and Eastman recognized him as the guy who sat by the window and filed the stories with New York. Eastman pulled his copy and put it on the man’s desk. He didn’t need to say anything because the man knew what to do and it was too early in the morning to talk anyway.
He collected his notes and went upstairs to bed. In his room, he found Meredith under the sheets, breathing rhythmically.
• • •
He woke up briefly, once the morning was a little brighter, and he saw Meredith getting dressed in front of the window, her image hazy, as if she were a dream. In that space between sleeping and waking he thought he could have imagined her this whole time. Her arrival in Saigon, the two of them together at the presidential party. It almost made more sense than finding her in Vietnam.
“I’m jet-lagged,” she said. “I woke up at four and couldn’t get back to sleep till six. Where were you?”
“I was filing a story.”
“What time did you finish?”
“No idea. You were asleep when I came in.”
“You want me to wake you up?”
“No, let me sleep.”
“I’ll be downstairs for breakfast.”
He closed his eyes and listened to her leave the room, click the door shut.
• • •
She took her table in the courtyard as usual, under the banyan tree. It took some time for her to get up this morning. The party had gone late and she had a bit to drink. All those correspondents in one place, all those famous faces of previous wars. She had to overdo it in order to feel relaxed. And then being accosted out on the balcony by that pigheaded shit Eastman. She felt used, violated. Perhaps she imagined kissing him once, but last night, in public no less, a kiss was unwelcome. To be unable to move him, that was the ultimate violation. He’d used his strength to establish dominance over her. He was out to prove something. That he was free and could do what he wanted. Take what he wanted. It wasn’t about her, and this made her feel used. After the incident she had three or four more drinks, who was keeping count? Then she went back to the Continental and passed out atop the covers.
The waiter brought her coffee and croissants, a plate of fresh fruit. She had no appetite, so instead she drank the coffee and smoked. She was nervous about the day’s journey. In a few hours she was due across town, where a guide would take her all the way into Cambodia and on to Phnom Penh.
No ashtray, so she flicked her ash on the floor.
It was a bad idea to begin with, letting Alan Eastman tag along with her to Cambodia on a story. Why had she invited him? She never extended herself to anyone else. Was it the pity she felt for him? He seemed so lost and clueless and eager to learn from her. Was it his celebrity, the way his presence interrupted a room? Was it to teach him something? He had the ability to disappoint, to ruin a moment, and she had the urge to correct him. Eastman’s stupidity could be so transparent, so infuriating, and yet she couldn’t dismiss him. He infected everyone around him. He had changed her priorities. Did she really want what Eastman had? She wanted to write like him once, in graduate school, this was true. She wanted the visceral quality of his writing. Her work for the Herald was cookie-cutter reporting.
That son of a bitch, taking advantage of her. Now she wanted to beat him, pummel him to the ground. She wanted to write circles around him. He would never write a book on Vietnam that could come close to what she was capable of. He was too slick, too superficial for it. She had been here longer, she understood the culture, the people, the way of life, had done hundreds of interviews. Civilians, soldiers, spies. She had visions in green. She slept and dreamed Vietnam. She would go to Cambodia today, stay for a while, but when she returned to Saigon she would start writing her book.
A hand appeared in her line of sight, a woman’s hand. Red nail polish, wrinkled knuckles, taut veins. The hand reached out and offered her an ashtray.
“You can use it,” the stranger said. Channing recognized her as the woman Eastman had brought to the party last night. She was sitting at a table in the sun, behind Channing.
“Thank you,” Channing said, and took the ashtray. She was wondering if this was Eastman’s wife. She recalled him telling her that his marriage was not doing well. Was that a lie in order to get her into bed? Channing noticed the woman’s long fingers and a gold wedding band. So this could be Mrs. Eastman coming to his rescue. He was like a big child who needed pampering. How pathetic. Perhaps he begged her to come all the way to Saigon for help.
“I’m Meredith,” the woman said. “I saw you at the palace last night. We didn’t get to meet.”
Channing smiled politely and tried to return to her breakfast.
“Are you a reporter?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Fabulous. What’s your name? I must have read your work.”
Channing introduced herself.
They talked about the weather, the heat, and then moved on to meaningless chitchat about the service at the hotel. Meredith mentioned how it was remarkably decent for wartime. Channing attributed this to Asian hospitality, quickly realizing she’d just made an unfounded generalization. They were looking for common ground. When Meredith showed Channing part of a manuscript she had open on her table, they soon got to talking about what constituted good writing.
“I’m much older than you are,” said Meredith, playing with a green pencil. “Yet I find what I’m doing isn’t any clearer than when I was your age. You see, I’m at a turning point in my career. I’m breaking ties with the publishing house I’ve worked for, oh God, for I don’t know how many years. I’m going off on my own. Well, technically I’ll still be working for the same company, but I’ll be starting my own imprint, specializing in new women writers. I’ll be the publisher and will have a good amount of independence over what I want to print. Meredith Lazlo Books. New women’s writing. What do you think?”
“New women writers,” asked Ch
anning. “What does that mean exactly?”
“Of course, there is no real difference between the writing of men and women. Think of it as new writing by leading female thinkers and undiscovered female talent. We’ll have feminists, essayists, academics, poets, novelists, all writing about women’s issues or tackling the female perspective. And if I’m lucky, war reporting, too. Have you ever thought of writing a book?”
“I am writing a book.”
“Then just my luck! Tell me. But only if you care to talk about it. I respect what you do so much and I know how unsettling the process can be.”
Channing was beginning to like Meredith. They were two people who would never speak back home, but finding each other in Saigon provided an immediate familiarity.
“It’s about my time here,” said Channing. “I’ve been cataloging people. Their experiences. Interviewing them, getting them to tell me their stories. The personal stories, not just war stories. I want to know where they came from and maybe how we arrived here together. I have a story of a man’s special pair of boots, or one about how someone lost feeling in their leg. I have an interview with a woman, a socialite, on where she gets her clothes made. A young girl who disappeared from her village and resurfaced in a brothel in Saigon. The commentary about the war will be in each story, but it won’t be the focus of the stories themselves. It will be a chronicle of the people in the war, not of the war and its people.”
“Fascinating. A chronicle of stories telling one story.”
“I want it to be personal. I want it to move you on the human level.”
“I want to read this book,” Meredith said. “I would publish such a book.”
“You’re too kind,” said Channing.
“I have a sense about you. You’re intelligent and you know what you’re doing. We’ll have to exchange information.” Meredith went into her purse, a black leather hip bag, and produced a business card, which she gave to Channing. “Do you live in New York?” Meredith asked.
“I do.” Channing hesitated. “Well, I did. I haven’t been back in over a year.”
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