White Christmas in Saigon

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘I never thought the time would pass,’ she was saying to him, her eyes glowing, her face radiant. ‘In three days we’ll be together again. Have you ever had something happen to you that is so momentous you can hardly believe it’s true?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said grimly, turning the car into Westwood Drive, feeling as if a knife were twisting in his heart. ‘I have, Abbra. I most certainly have.’

  Chapter Five

  For the next forty-eight hours Lewis filled every one of Abbra’s waking thoughts. On the morning that she was to fly out to meet him she could hardly breathe for physical excitement.

  ‘There’s some mail for you, darling,’ her mother said as they sat at breakfast. ‘I’ve left it on the hall table.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom.’ Abbra pushed a plate of barely touched scrambled eggs away from her and rose to her feet, her voice breathless.

  ‘I have to leave now, or I’ll miss the eight-thirty airport bus.’

  ‘They run every fifteen minutes,’ her father said in fond amusement. ‘Why not let me or our driver give you a lift out to the airport? What’s so special about travelling there by bus?’

  ‘Nothing, Daddy.’ She supped her arm around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. ‘It’s just easy, that’s all.’

  ‘And it’s just another little gesture of independence,’ her mother said, the distress behind the pleasantly uttered words unmistakable.

  Abbra refused to respond and to be drawn into another tense conversation with her mother about the way she was leading her life. These conversations had become increasingly frequent. She knew that the real cause was that her mother was unable to accept that Abbra was no longer a child. She hadn’t anticipated the change in her that marriage would bring. The wedding had been too sudden for her mother to be able to truly adjust to it, and not for the first time Abbra wished that Lewis hadn’t been sent overseas immediately after their marriage. If only they’d been able to start their married life together in America. The transition, then, from a daughter to a daughter who was also a wife would have been more clearly marked and one her mother could have coped with.

  ‘Come on, then,’ her father said, picking her suitcase. ‘It’s eight-fifteen now. If you want to catch the eight-thirty bus, we’ll have to move.’

  ‘Bye, Mom.’ Abbra kissed her mother’s cheek, following, her father out into the hall, grabbing the mail from the hall table as she did so and stuffing it into her shoulder bag.

  It would take an hour to get to the airport and to check in. The flight to Honolulu would take approximately another five and a half hours, and the connecting flight between Honolulu on Cahu and Lihue on Kauai, where she was to meet Lewis, would take another twenty or thirty minutes. Seven hours. In seven hours time they would be together again. It still seemed to her too wonderful to be true.

  Her father dropped her off at the bus terminal at the corner of O’Farrell and Taylor streets near Union Square, and kissed her good-bye.

  ‘Give Lewis my best,’ he said, taking her suitcase out of the Cadillac’s boot. ‘And tell him to make sure he comes home all in one piece in six months.’

  ‘I will,’ she promised fervently. The thought that at this very moment Lewis was no longer in danger on Vietnamese soil, but was winging his way across the Pacific in a Boeing 707 was exhilarating. For the next five days no bullets would mow him down; no bombs would blow him up. He would be deliciously safe, safe, safe.

  She stepped on to the already full bus. She was on her way. Every minute that passed was one that was bringing them closer together. His flight from Saigon was due to land in Honolulu three hours before hers, and he was going to fly straight on to Lihue and would be waiting for her when she arrived.

  As she checked her baggage in at the airport she was almost sure that some of the other women travelling on her flight were also army wives. One or two of them seemed to know each other, and she wished she had the nerve to approach them and to ask if they were joining husbands on leave. Too shy to do so, she bought herself a paperback book and glanced down at her wristwatch. Only six hours to go. Lewis’s flight would now be two thirds over. At this very moment he would be thinking about her as she was thinking about him.

  ‘Soon, my love,’ she whispered to herself as her flight was called. ‘Soon!’

  All through the flight the book lay unopened on her lap. Their reunion would be the first they had ever had as husband and wife. She wondered if such reunions were something she would eventually get used to and become blasé about, and smiled at her idiocy. How could she ever become blasé about meeting Lewis? It wasn’t possible. Even if they were married for fifty years, she would still feel the same hungry excitement at the prospect of meeting him again after an absence, whether the absence was one of days, or one of months, as it was now.

  As the plane flew high over the searing blue of the Pacific, she looked frequently down at her wristwatch. Five hours. Four hours. Mentally she was with Lewis as his flight landed at Honolulu and as he transferred to his Kauai flight. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Hawaii would seem like to him after the horrors he had been living with.

  His letters home, though scrupulously regular and reassuringly loving, had told her very little about his actual day-to-day existence. She knew only what she had told Scott. That he was part of a five-man advisory team assigned to an ARVN battalion; that they operated in the Ca Mau peninsula, rarely seeing other South Vietnamese units; and that most of their time was spent in hunting down the Viet Cong regiments that used the Nam Can and U Minh forests as a base.

  One of the things she was most looking forward to was hearing about his experiences. She wanted to know what his life in Vietnam was like, every possible detail. She wanted to share it mentally and be a part of it. His reticence on paper had disappointed her at first but then she had realized that putting emotions down on paper didn’t come as easily to most people as it did to her. Lewis was obviously one of those. When they were together, and when at last they could talk, it would be different. Then there would be no reticence, only a total union of their hearts and minds.

  The pilot’s voice came over the intercom with matter-of-fact prosaicness. ‘In ten minutes we will be landing at Honolulu Airport. I hope that you have had a pleasant flight and that you will fly with us again. Thank you.’

  Excitement spiralled through her. In about an hour, she would be in Lewis’s arms. The 707 dipped to the right, circling in to land, and far beneath her she could see Pearl Harbor and the silver-tawny flanks of Diamond Head and the great golden curve that was Waikiki Beach.

  ‘Have a pleasant stay,’ the stewardess said, smiling at her as she stepped out into brilliant sunshine and balmy heat.

  A Hawaiian band was at the edge of the runway playing traditional music. Hula girls, laden with flowered leis, stepped smilingly forward to greet them, laughingly placing the leis around their necks.

  As Abbra felt the flower petals brush her skin, and as she inhaled their perfume, happiness struck through her so pure and hard that she could barely contain it. Lewis had served over half his tour of duty in Vietnam and he had not been injured. In another six months time she would be meeting him again, and when she did, it would be for a far longer reunion. From then on their married life together would truly start. They would have a home on an army base and she would be what she longed to be – a fully fledged army wife.

  She had a ten-minute walk before reaching the terminal for the interconnecting island flights and the small plane that was to take her to Kauai. For the hundredth time she looked down at her watch. In half an hour’s time she would be with him. He would already be at Lihue waiting for her, she thought as she boarded. As the plane gathered speed and left the ground, she clenched her fingers into the palms of her hands, hardly able to bear the joyous anticipation flooding through her.

  Abbra stepped out into the brilliant sunshine, her eyes feverishly scanning the low, white airport buildings. The only waiting figures were some distance away, an
d none of them was in army uniform. For one terrible, terrifying moment, as she descended the steps, she thought that he wasn’t there. That something had gone horribly wrong; that his flight had been delayed; that perhaps he hadn’t even left Saigon. Or even that his leave had been cancelled. And then she saw him, broad-shouldered and auburn-haired, dressed in white flannels and a light blue cotton shirt and loafers.

  ‘Lewis!’ she cried, oblivious to the crush of passengers round her. ‘Lewis!’

  She was running towards him, her arms wide. A waist-high barrier separated arriving passengers from those who had come to meet them, but she didn’t notice it. She raced towards him, entering his arms.

  ‘Oh, Lewis!’ she gasped joyously. ‘Oh, darling, darling.’

  His mouth came down hard on hers, and the months of separation slid away from her as if they had never existed.

  ‘Oh, God, I missed you!’ he groaned, burying his head in her hair, holding her so close to him that she thought her ribs would crack. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve missed you, Abbra!’

  ‘Oh, but I would,’ she said fiercely, raising her face to his. ‘Because I’ve missed you every single minute of every single day!’

  The grin that only she could conjure from him split his face. ‘Then let’s make up for lost time.’ He relaxed his hold and took her hand in his. ‘And the first thing is for you to come to this side of the damned barrier!’

  With their hands still tightly clasped they walked the length of the barrier, and when she rounded it he folded her against him once again, oblivious to the indulgent glances of the people around them.

  ‘I thought today would never come,’ he said huskily when at last he lifted his head from hers. ‘I knew I loved you when I married you, Abbra. But only now do I know how very, very much.’

  She raised her hand, touching his face gently with the tips of her fingers, all the love she felt for him shining in her eyes. ‘I love you with all my heart,’ she said softly. ‘I couldn’t live if you didn’t love me, Lewis. I wouldn’t know how.’

  He hugged her against him again, his throat so tight he was robbed of speech, and then, sliding his arm around her waist, he led her out to where her luggage was waiting.

  ‘Where are we staying?’ she asked as they stepped out of the airport toward the waiting line of orange taxicabs. ‘In a hotel or an apartment?’

  ‘An apartment.’ Sudden doubt flared through his eyes. ‘That’s okay, isn’t it? If you’d prefer a hotel, I can always cancel the apartment.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘An apartment will be wonderful.’

  It would be a place of their own, even if it was for only a few days. She didn’t want them to spend their time together in the impersonal atmosphere of a hotel. The scent from the flowers around her neck, as Lewis gave the taxi driver the address of their Poipu Beach apartment, was as thick as smoke in the sunlight, the heat beating up from the ground in waves. Their fingers were still intertwined, and she gave his hand a squeeze, hardly able to believe that after all the long months of waiting, he was, at last, beside her.

  ‘Happy, sweetheart?’ he asked as he opened the rear door of the taxi for her.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ She was so happy that it hurt. He slid into the seat beside her, and she looked across at him. He had changed in the six months they had been apart. He had lost a little weight. Her heart twisted in her breast. If he had lost weight, it was not surprising. The surprise was that he had not lost far more.

  ‘Were there many fellow officers with you on your flights?’ she asked, hugging his arm, ‘There were quite a few women on my flight to Honolulu, and I’m sure they were army wives flying out to join their husbands.’

  ‘A couple,’ he said, covering her hand with his. ‘Not many. Taipei and Bangkok are more popular destinations than Hawaii.’

  ‘But why?’ Her brow creased in bewilderment. ‘Hawaii is at least American. I would have thought they would far rather spend their R&R on American soil than in Taipei or Bangkok!’

  ‘Taipei and Bangkok are closer to ’Nam, and I guess most of the men don’t want to be hassled with a long flight.’

  ‘But it’s not closer for their wives!’ she protested.

  He grinned. ‘Not many wives fly out to share R&R. You’re in the minority, Mrs Ellis.’

  ‘But why not? I don’t understand. I couldn’t bear to think of you on leave and so near home and not being with you.’

  There was no way he could explain to her that for most men serving in ’Nam, R&R was an opportunity for a week-long orgy of screwing and drinking, and that the last thing they wanted was a wife. Instead, he said ‘Hawaii isn’t close to home for most wives. From New York, which is where Des Cawthorn’s wife comes from, for instance, Hawaii is as far away as Italy and Switzerland.’

  ‘Who is Des Cawthorn?’ she asked with avid interest, wondering if he was perhaps a member of Lewis’s team.

  ‘A fellow officer who was on my flight,’ he said, shrugging dismissively. He had no desire to talk about Cawthorn, or the way other officers spent their leaves. ‘Do you see that mountain over there?’ he asked, changing the subject as their taxicab hurtled across the southeast corner of the island. ‘That’s Mount Waialeale, and believe it or not, it’s the wettest place on earth.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘In Hawaii?’

  He nodded, the naturally hard line of his mouth softened by a smile. ‘I know because all I had to read while I was waiting for your plane were tourist brochures. It rains an average 500 inches a year; that’s a lot of rain!’

  ‘As long as it doesn’t rain on the beach, I don’t care,’ she said, resting her cheek against his sturdy shoulder, savouring the sight, sound, and cologne-fresh smell of him.

  It was still only mid-afternoon when they reached their apartment, and though the beach shimmered and shone only yards away, neither of them was even remotely tempted by it.

  ‘The beach can wait,’ Lewis said in a voice that expected no contradictions and received none. He deposited the luggage in the cane-furnished living room and turned towards her, his eyes so hot and dark she could barely tell iris from pupil.

  For one sudden spellbinding moment she felt actually shy, and then his arms closed around her and her shyness vanished. In one easy movement he lifted her off her feet, carrying her into the sun-dappled bedroom as if she were a new bride.

  ‘It’s been so long,’ he said hoarsely, lowering her to the bed, his mouth on her hair and her eyelids and the corners of her lips, his fingers gently and purposefully undoing the little pearl buttons on her blouse. ‘I love you, Abbra. Only you. Forever.’

  Her arms were around his neck, her body seeming to melt boneless into his. ‘Ah, Lewis,’ she whispered, shivering in pleasure as his hands found her flesh and touched and explored. ‘I love you… I love you…I love you…’

  He slid her arms out of her blouse and her breasts were pale in the sunlight that spilled across the bed, the nipples silkily rosy. With powerful yet careful hands he lifted her up beneath him, sliding her skirt down, his fingers brushing lightly over the wisp of cream lace that encased the dark spring of her pubic hair.

  ‘Please love me,’ she whispered, breathless and panting, shocked by the shameless depth of her hunger and need.

  ‘Now, Lewis! Oh, please! Quickly!’

  The slow deliberation of his lovemaking was one of things that most aroused and excited her. Even now, when they had been separated for six long months, he did not take her in haste. He shed his clothing, drawing her towards him, revelling in the sight of her nakedness and then, when she thought she couldn’t endure another moment of waiting, he rolled across her, closing his mouth over hers, reaching for her body with his hands.

  The next morning they hired a jeep and set off toward the Hanalei Valley. The roadsides and fields were a mass of colour. Poinsettias bloomed wild in scarlet profusion; Judas trees lifted their clouds of scented flowers the colour of purple daphne; b
ougainvillea ran riot, blossoms of magenta and pink and foaming cream vying for supremacy.

  ‘Oh, it’s wonderful,’ Abbra sighed, leaning close to Lewis as he circled her shoulder with one arm, driving the jeep with single-handed expertise. ‘I never want to leave. Never.’

  At Nawili wili they parked the jeep and swam in a tiny cove to the north of the bay; and at Kapaa they paused again, strolling the streets, admiring the wooden nineteenth-century buildings and the balconies that bellied out over the shop fronts, crammed with terra-cotta pots of narcissus and iris.

  ‘Where to now?’ Lewis asked. ‘Another beach? Lunch somewhere? Or a walk out on one of the headlands?’

  His heart seemed to leap in his chest as he looked down at her. She was wearing a white silk blouse, open at the throat, a red cotton skirt that swirled around her legs just short of her knees, and delicate sandals so insubstantial he wondered how she could possibly walk in them. Her hair was a little longer than it had been on their wedding day. It skimmed her shoulders glossily, pushed away from her face with delicately carved ivory combs.

  ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world?’ he asked, wishing that he hadn’t suggested the beach or a walk, but bed.

  ‘No.’ Her eyes danced with happiness. ‘I don’t think they have, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Then let me rectify the omission.’ He put his hands around her waist, swinging her up into the jeep. ‘You, Abbra Ellis, are without doubt the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world!’