Some Vietnamese were removed from their land so that could be defoliated with Agent Orange and made a wilderness in which nothing, not even Viet Cong, could survive. These vast areas were turned into ‘free fire zones’, where anything moving would be a legitimate target for American forces. Because of this, huge numbers of needless refugees were created. And the peasants’ resentment was exploited ruthlessly by the Viet Cong.
If Chuck had been with him on the Saturday he was in Saigon and Trinh was unable to see him, then he might very well never have become drunk, might very well never have gone to her house to wait for her. As it was, he had a whole day to while away, with no prospect of even seeing her in the evening. He began drowning his sorrows at ten in the morning in the Sporting Bar, finding companionship among the Green Berets. By twelve he was in the most doubtful of all areas in Saigon, in Canh Hoi, behind the docks. Here, the only Americans to be found were black and the only ladies were dark-skinned Khmers.
It wasn’t the first time he had been unfaithful to Trinh. He had been seeing her now for three months and he had had to find sexual release somewhere. But it was the first time he had so bitterly resented making love to a nameless whore, when the only woman he wanted to make love to was Trinh.
By five o’clock, back in the relatively respectable area of Tu Do Street, he sat broodingly over a beer in La Pagoda, the only bar that he knew where there were no girls to solicit the clients. If Trinh had not refused to see him, when it had cost him an arm and a leg to wangle the flight down, then the incident with the Khmer girl would never have taken place.
By the time it was five-thirty he had convinced himself that Trinh was entirely to blame, that she wasn’t appreciative of the lengths he had gone to in order to see her so regularly, that she was treating him shabbily, and he didn’t deserve it.
He peered blearily at his Rolex. Five forty-five. Trinh and Mai were visiting her mother’s grave, but wherever it was, surely they would be back by now. Surely there was no reason why she couldn’t see him that evening.
He hauled himself to his feet. She would see him that evening. It was about time she and Mai understood the lengths he had to go to in order to fly south so regularly. Christ. He was paying enough out in bribes to fund the fucking war! And because it was the anniversary of her mother’s death she wouldn’t even see him.
‘This shit,’ he said to himself as he staggered out into the street in search of a taxicab, ‘hash got to shtop.’
He knew where she lived, though Mai had seen to it with gentle firmness that he had never been invited inside ‘Avenue Charnier,’ he said to the impassive-faced taxi driver, enunciating clearly with difficulty. ‘The house with the orange walls.’
It had once been a very elegant house, but it was now beginning to show signs of decay. Not for the first time he wondered about Trinh and Mai’s finances. They had obviously inherited money when their parents had died, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t very much and that only careful husbandry enabled them to continue living in their family home.
Swaying slightly, he paid the taxi driver. If they wanted money, then they could have it. He began to make his way unsteadily towards a white-painted front door flanked by verandahs. But they wouldn’t ask for money. Not in a million years. Hell. They didn’t even know that in Western terms he was rich, rich, rich. He hiccuped and jangled the bell. They would know when he told them about the bribes he was paying in order to fly down so regularly. He could hear the sounds of footsteps approaching the other side, of the door. Light, feminine footsteps. Perhaps then Mai would cease her vigilance. Perhaps, at long last, he and Trinh could have a normal, loving relationship.
She swung the door open and stared at him, a mixture of pleasure and bewilderment and slight apprehension her eyes.
‘Kyle … what are you doing here? Why …’
‘Need to talk to you,’ he said abruptly, reeling past her and into the house.
If she made any attempt to prevent him, he was unaware of it. The house had the same air of faded gentility on the inside as it did on the outside. The teak floors were highly polished, but the French period furnishings, heavy with ormolu and filigree decoration, were shabby and well worn. Through an open door he saw a family ancestral altar with candles flickering before it and he realized, a little sheepishly, that he had disturbed her at prayer.
‘Where’s Mai?’ he asked, looking around. ‘Want to talk to Mai as well.’
He had had enough dates á trois. It was time they all had a good talk, time he made it clear that three months of being chaperoned was all he was going to take. There were going to be some changes made.
‘Mai is still at the family burial ground. I felt ill. I had a headache and a temperature and so I came home early, alone.’
He rocked back on his heels, looking at her in concern. She did look a little unwell. There was a suspicious flush of colour in her golden cheeks, and he pressed the back of his hand against her forehead.
‘Flu,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘You’re probably coming down with flu.’ It was only then, as he looked down at her in tender concern, that her words penetrated his drink-fumed brain. ‘You mean Mai ishn’t here? No one ish here? Jusht you and me?’
‘You’re drunk,’ she said gently, taking hold of his arm and trying to steer him towards the now-closed door.
He resisted, standing his ground. He wanted to talk to her, didn’t he? He wanted to tell her that he’d had enough of chaste kisses and infantile handholds. Christ. He was a chopper jock, a warrior, a war hawk who flew into battle with only Plexiglas, and tinfoil between him and the Apocalypse. His sex began to throb and harden. Three months he’d waited for her – three months on which on any given day he’d stood a crucifying chance of it being his last. He wasn’t going to wait any longer. Only a dickhead would wait any longer.
‘C’me here,’ he said huskily, pulling her towards him. ‘Love you, Trinh. Love you so much I’m dying by inches for you.’
At his touch she had started to tremble slightly, trying to pull away from him. He held her easily, lowering his head to hers, kissing her with pent-up hunger. Her hair slithered voluptuously over the backs of his hands. He could feel her small, high breasts beneath her silken ao dai soft against his chest.
‘Oh, God,’ he muttered hoarsely as unbridled passion roared through his loins. ‘I’ve waited so long, Trinh. It’s been cruel of you to make me wait so long!’
He knew she was struggling against him, and her struggles only inflamed him further. His hands were clumsy on the unfamiliar ao dai, but beneath the long, floating slit skirt he found the band of her silken pantaloons and began to pull them down roughly, his hands hot on the warm, smooth flesh of her buttocks.
‘No, Kyle! Stop! Please stop!’ she was crying frantically, squirming against him in a manner that nearly had him shooting sperm before he had even entered her.
There were no rugs on the floor, no cushions. As he pushed her down beneath him, subduing her with his weight, the shiny teak floor bruised his knees and grazed his elbows. Her fists were drumming vainly on his back, but he had his belt unbuckled, his fly unzipped. She loved him. He knew she loved him. She’d waited for this just as hungrily and as frustrated as he had waited.
‘Love you,’ he said again as he pinned her wrists to the floor above her head with one hand and guided his dick toward the warm, moist mouth of her vagina with the other. He forged deep inside her, feeling as if he were going to die with pleasure. ‘Oh, Christ, Trinh!’ he gasped convulsively. ‘Oh, Christ!’
It was not going to be a long ride home. He was too drunk. But it was going to be the most meaningful ride of his life. He felt her nails scoring his back, heard her give a cry that sounded as if it had been torn from her heart, and then hot gold was shooting through him, his face contorting in a rictus of ecstatic agony as he cried out in primeval urgency, ‘Oh, yes. Trinh! Yes! Yes! Yes!’
It was a long time before he became aware of her tears sliding slowly
against his shoulders. He had collapsed on top of her in drunken and exhausted fulfilment, losing consciousness. It was only as she tried to free herself of his crushing weight that his eyelids flickered open and he raised himself up on his elbows, looking down at her.
Her eyes were wide and dark, full of nameless horror. ‘Trinh?’
He eased his weight away from her, appalled by the sight of her tear-streaked face. ‘Trinh! Don’t cry! There’s no need to cry!’
She sat up slowly, as if in great pain, and then pushed herself across the floor away from him, still in a sitting position, her silken trousers crumpled around her ankles. ‘You have spoiled everything,’ she whispered, her voice breaking in an agony of grief. ‘I will never be able to see you again. Never.’
‘No!’ Dimly he was aware that he had ruined everything, that all the time he had been making love to her she had been fighting him every inch of the way. ‘No, Trinh.’ He was no longer drunk. He had never felt so sober in his life. He zipped up his trousers, buckling his belt, his hand shaking slightly as he did so. Christ, but he had been every kind of a fool. She was the most precious thing in the world to him, and he had treated her as if she were a two-bit whore from Tu Do Street.
He reached out a hand to touch her, but she shrank away from him, and he dropped it to his side knowing that the next few minutes were going to be the most important of his life.
‘I love you, Trinh,’ he said urgently, kneeling on one knee before her, feeling as if he were trying to regain the trust of a small, frightened wild animal. ‘I love you and I want to marry you.’
It was true. He did want to marry her. She needed him as a husband in a way that Serena had never needed him and never would need him. And unless he was her husband, she would never be able to leave Vietnam and enter America with him when his year of duty was over.
Behind them, in the shaded house, the candle flames before her family altar flickered and flamed. He looked towards them, conscious of the solemnity of the vow he was making.
‘I’m going to marry you, Trinh,’ he said, taking hold of her hands and drawing her toward him. ‘It may take a little time for the paperwork to be in order …’
How long would it take him to get a divorce now that he really wanted one? Would he have to start all over again? Would his previous divorce petition be held in his favour or be held against him? He didn’t know, but he did know that he was not going to allow obstacles to stand in his way.
The first thing he would do when he arrived back in camp was write to Serena, explaining to her what Trinh’s position would be if he had to leave ’Nam without being able to marry her. Perhaps, with Serena’s cooperation, he could get a Mexican divorce. He would get his father’s lawyers on it. They would be able to work something out. They would have to. ‘We’re going to be married and you’re going to come to America with me, and it’s going to be all right,’ he said, loving her so much that he felt as if his heart were about to burst.
‘And Mai?’ she asked tremulously. ‘What about Mai? I cannot leave her here on her own.’
He grinned. There was an old joke, marry an Oriental, and you become financially responsible for her entire family. It seemed to be true. ‘And Mai as well,’ he said, wondering what the hell his father was going to say when he arrived home in Boston with not only one Vietnamese girl as a souvenir of war, but two.
He wrote to Serena the morning after he returned to camp. Chuck watched him, sporting a headband of ragged cloth that gave him a piratical air as he studiously cleaned his Smith & Wesson .38. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he said as they sat together on his bunk. ‘You won’t get a divorce before you have to leave ’Nam. Even if you did, the army sure as hell isn’t going to be ecstatic about you marrying a Viet. They’ll make it damn near impossible.’
Kyle ignored him. I’ll always be glad that you flew out to Alabama before I left for ’ Nam, he was writing, resting the notepad on Chuck’s locker. What we’ve had between us is something I wouldn’t have missed for the world, and something I will never forget. But I have to be able to marry Trinh. I have to be able to protect her. If you knew what life was like out here, Serry, you would understand.
Strangely enough, he was sure that she would. Rich, spoiled and headstrong as she was, she was also uncompromisingly fair and if, when the recriminations were over, she could bring herself to be a friend to Trinh, then she would be the best friend that Trinh could ever hope to have.
‘Put away the pen, Anderson, and forget about writing the great American novel,’ his operations officer said sarcastically, striding towards him. ‘We have a hot one. A reconnaissance squad needs picking up from the border.’
Chuck slipped his Smith & Wesson into its holster, grateful for some action. ‘How near the border?’ he asked.
‘A half a mile,’ the operations officer said, grinning. ‘On Charlie’s side.’
Kyle slipped the unfinished letter into the top drawer of Chuck’s locker. ‘You’re not still pairing me with that dumb-shit cherry, are you?’ he asked, referring to the company’s latest new arrival who had been flying with him all week.
‘You’re flying with that dumb-shit cherry until he’s right-seat qualified and as skilled as you in air-assault operations,’ the operations officer said mercilessly, turning on his heel and striding away in the direction of the operations tent.
All through the briefing, as the operations officer gave them frequencies and ship numbers and suspected enemy locations, Kyle’s attention kept drifting back to his letter to Serena. He would finish it the minute he got back to camp. With luck she would receive it before the end of the week.
‘Okay,’ the operations officer said at last, satisfied. ‘That’s it. Let’s go.’
As he walked across to his ship, the cherry in his wake, he checked his gear. Pistol, flak jacket, maps. Helmet. He took hold of the base of his helmet, spreading it slightly and pulling it over his head. He would have to write a letter to his father, too, if he wanted his help in speeding up the lawyers.
He grimaced as he opened the Huey’s door, putting one foot on the skid and hoisting himself into his high-back seat. That letter would be even harder than his letter to Serena. He clicked the lever that anchored his shoulder straps to his wide lap belt, wondering how difficult it would be to take Trinh out of Vietnam and into the States if he wasn’t married to her. Would she be able to enter on a visitor’s visa? And if so, for how long?
He squeezed the radio trigger switch on his cyclic to the first click and said through his phones to his nervous copilot. ‘Okay?’
The new arrival nodded. Kyle gave him a thumbs-up sign and rolled the throttle open to the indent starting position, squeezing the trigger switch on his collective. As the rotor blades began to turn, he wondered if perhaps it would be easiest to fly Trinh to England or to Sweden. She would surely be able to enter Sweden without any difficulty, and stay there, as a visitor, until they could marry.
He checked the gauge and nosed the Huey forward with a gentle push of the cyclic. But to make those kind of arrangements, he would have to level with Trinh and tell her that he was already married, and that he definitely didn’t want to have to do.
Chuck was first pilot in the ship in front of him, and as it climbed up over the trees at the edge of the camp, Kyle followed him, holding his speed down until they, and the accompanying ships, were all in formation.
Despite the trickiness of the area they were flying into, they met with no ground fire. They flew north, over mountainous terrain, to a border area where Cambodia and Vietnam and Laos merged. Even when they located the reconnaissance party, they ran into no difficulties. It was a much smaller party than they had anticipated, and all the men boarded the first couple of ships, leaving Kyle and Chuck unloaded. It was only as they were preparing to take off, angry at being called out unnecessarily, that hell broke loose. The firing was so unexpected, so ferociously intense, that even Kyle lost his cool for a moment, muttering a frantic ‘Holy Chris
t!’ as his flight commander yelled over the radio. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
Kyle didn’t need telling twice. He was being machine-gunned from what seemed to be every direction at once, and he knew as the Huey lifted off the ground that they were taking hits.
‘C’me on, baby! C’me on!’ he said savagely beneath his breath.
The Huey cleared the tree line. Over the radio he could hear shouted reports of other ships being hit. A steady stream of tracers flew towards him. He swore viciously. Some bastard had him in his sights and was concentrating entirely on him. He banked hard to the left, trying to lose the tracer fire, and almost immediately, as more bullets slammed into the tail rotors, he began to oscillate, losing control.
‘Skyhawk three! We’re hit and going down!’ was the last terse, furious message Chuck heard over the radio as the Huey tumbled brokenly from the sky, crashing down into the jungle canopy.
Chapter Nineteen
Gavin stared at Nhu across the candlelit table on the Continental’s terrace. ‘You mean your brother is in the South again?’ he asked, careful to keep his voice low despite his incredulity. ‘Here? In Saigon?’
Her eyes went quickly to the other tables around them. No one was paying them any attention. The young American who had been looking curiously in their direction when they had first arrived, was now deep in conversation with his two Vietnamese companions. She said very quietly, ‘Not in Saigon. But nearby.’
Gavin’s mind raced furiously. According to Gabrielle, her mother’s brother was a full-fledged North Vietnamese Army colonel. If he could meet him, talk to him, then he would learn more about the war in five minutes than he would in a year of attending official American press conferences and ambiguously worded briefings.
White Christmas in Saigon Page 34