He drove to the Botanical Gardens on South Drive and parked in a quiet corner. Not until he had done so, and the Chevrolet’s engine was switched off, did he speak.
‘Who came to tell you?’ he asked gently, turning to face her. ‘What did they say?’
Her news had already marked his face. The lines around his mouth had deepened, and his eyes, usually so full of laughter, were dark.
‘Two officers, one was a chaplain.’ Her voice was unsteady but her tears were drying on her cheeks. She had been crying since she had called him, and now she could cry no more. She was exhausted both emotionally and physically, drained with shock. ‘They said that Lewis and his companions had been ambushed on a canal after they had been searching a village for North Vietnamese forces. One of Lewis’s fellow officers managed to escape and he saw Lewis being taken prisoner.’
‘North Vietnamese? Not Viet Cong?’
‘No. They definitely said that he had been captured by North Vietnamese.’ She pushed the dark fall of her hair away from her face, asking, ‘Do you think that means they will take him north, to Hanoi?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I think the North Vietnamese who captured him probably came from Cambodia. It’s much closer.’
‘Would your father know?’ Her voice was beginning to break again. ‘I can’t bear not knowing where he is. What if the North Vietnamese weren’t taking Lewis prisoner? What if they simply took him away and shot him?’ Her voice cracked.
He clenched his hands in order to physically prevent himself from reaching out and taking hold of her. He wanted to rock her against his chest. To soothe and comfort her. To lie to her if necessary. Instead, he said, his knuckles white, ‘If the army thought that was likely, they would have told you that Lewis was missing in action, not that he had been taken prisoner. They’ve probably had other incidents exactly like this one. Maybe it’s the policy of the NVA to take prisoners. Did they say anything else to you?’
‘Yes.’ His words were helping her put aside her worst fear – that Lewis had simply been led away and shot. She was beginning to feel a little better, a little stronger. ‘They said that since Lewis had been captured in the South, it might be some time before there is official confirmation that he has been taken prisoner.’
‘Which has to mean that this has happened before and that confirmation is usually forthcoming,’ he said, trying to reassure her further.
She nodded, and then said with great hesitation, ‘There’s something else, Scott. Something that no one knows.’
He looked down at her, puzzled, wondering if the strain was already beginning to prove to be too much for her.
Her face was ivory pale, her eyes tortured with anxiety. ‘Lewis isn’t as fit as everyone thinks he is.’ She had promised Lewis she would never tell anyone about his petit mal attacks. But it was a promise she could no longer keep. She had to be able to tell Scott. If she did not do so, he would never understand how terrible were her fears for Lewis’s physical and mental health.
‘Lewis is as strong as a horse,’ Scott said gently. ‘He’s always been proud of his physical fitness.’
She shook her head, tears glittering on her eyelashes. ‘No,’ she said, praying that Lewis would forgive her. ‘He suffers from petit mal. A mild form of epilepsy.’
If she had said that Lewis suffered from St Vitus’ dance, he couldn’t have looked more sceptical.
‘Epilepsy? That’s crazy, Abbra! Lewis is an army officer! He’s never had a fit of any kind, ever, in his entire life!’
‘Not the kind of fit that you are referring to. No, he hasn’t, and I pray that he never will.’ Her voice was choked with tears. ‘But he suffered a head injury shortly before we were married, and ever since he has suffered from moments of disorientation.’
‘Maybe, but it couldn’t be called epilepsy,’ Scott persisted.
‘Lewis went to a private neurologist in Los Angeles. The form of petit mal he suffers from is so mild that in the majority of people it would not be worth mentioning. But Lewis is in the army. He couldn’t risk having the words on his medical record. And so the army doesn’t know. No one knows.’
Scott’s face was nearly as white as her own. ‘Are you telling me that this thing could develop? That imprisonment could make it worse? Could he develop the types of fits where people thrash on the floor?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m so afraid for him, Scott, so terribly afraid.’ Her voice broke completely. After a few minutes, when she had regained control of herself, she said, ‘My father says that as a prisoner of war Lewis will be able to write to me and receive letters from me. If that happens, then I will be able to bear it. I just need to know that he’s still alive, Scott, that he will be coming back to me. Eventually.’
They had gone for a short walk through the rock garden and then he had driven her back home, promising to call her the following evening to see if there was any further news, and saying that he would drive up to see her again at the weekend.
‘Tom telephoned,’ her father said as she re-entered the house. ‘I think he has taken the news quite badly, but is trying not to show it.’
‘I’ll phone him back.’ Abbra desperately wanted to talk to him. As a military man, her father-in-law would be able to tell her what was likely to happen next, what steps would be taken for Lewis’s release and when she might be able to expect word from him.
‘– we don’t have much information about Americans who are being held prisoner in the South,’ he told her, destroying her hope that he would know the location and name of the prison camp that Lewis might be sent to.
‘But what about the Red Cross?’ she asked. ‘Surely if they arrange for letters and parcels to be delivered to prisoners, they must have details of where prisoners are held.’
There was a small, uncomfortable pause on the other end of the line, and then her father-in-law said gently, ‘You mustn’t raise your hopes that there will be contact with Lewis through the Red Cross, Abbra. It’s true that there is some contact with Americans being held in Hoa Lo, but—’
‘Where is Hoa Lo?’ she interrupted. She prayed it was in the South. If it was in the South, she could still hope.
‘It’s an old French colonial prison in the centre of Hanoi.’
She closed her eyes, leaning against the wall, a feeling of dread rising. He didn’t know any more than the officers who had visited her with news of Lewis’s capture.
‘I’m very sorry, my dear,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but I’m afraid there is nothing we can do but wait.’
The official telegram notifying her of Lewis’s capture came the next day. She read it over and over, searching for any clues that she might have missed as to his whereabouts or his physical condition. There were no clues to be found.
The brief description of Lewis’s capture was identical with the account she had already been given. The telegram then went on to say:
In view of the above information your husband will be carried in a captured status pending receipt and review of a full report of the circumstances. You may be certain that you be informed of any information received regarding your husband or any action taken regarding his status. Your great anxiety in this situation is understood and I wish to assure you of every possible assistance together with heartfelt sympathy at this time of heartache and uncertainty.
The last line read:
Inasmuch as your husband is presently being carried on a captured status it is suggested for his safety that you reveal only his name, rank, file number, and date of birth to inquiries from sources outside your immediate family.
She stared at the curt, brief words. Why? Why was she being instructed to be careful about who she spoke to and what she said? What possible difference could it make to Lewis’s safety? The words puzzled her.
She put the telegram away in her bureau drawer, wondering when the army would be in touch with her again, when she would be told what was being done to effect Lewis’s release.
Tha
t weekend Scott drove up to San Francisco and they drove together out to Lake Tahoe, walking for miles through the forest north of the lake. The mountain air was crisp and clean and she found the mindless exertion of placing one foot ceaselessly in front of the other hypnotically soothing. For the most part they walked in silence. She had no new information for him, and his own thoughts were too dark and too troubled to be shared.
Ever since she had called him with the news, he had been agonizingly reliving his first dreadful instinctive reaction. He had wished he could have Abbra to himself. Maybe for good.
He had murdered the feeling at its birth, overcome with horror and self-loathing so crushing in intensity that he had been scarcely able to breathe. Even if it meant never seeing Abbra again, he didn’t want his brother dead and he didn’t want him to be imprisoned in a filthy, godforsaken Vietnamese prison. He could not forgive himself that his reaction, however fleeting, had been so obscene.
Almost as difficult was the knowledge that just when Abbra needed him most, self-preservation demanded that he see very little of her.
‘Did I tell you about the trip I’m taking to Mexico next week?’ he asked, not looking across at her as he spoke, but riveting his eyes on a distant peak of the High Sierras.
She gave a small shocked gasp, swinging her head towards him. ‘No … I … will you be away long?’
‘Until the season starts,’ he lied, self-hatred making his voice curt.
She stumbled slightly and he dug his clenched hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans, his fists clenched. He couldn’t reach out for her now. If he reached out for her now, he would be lost.
‘I’m sorry, Abbra,’ he said, his eyes still fixed firmly ahead of him. ‘I know it couldn’t have come at a worse time …’
‘No.’ Her face was set and pale, her jawline firm. ‘Perhaps it’s better that you are going away, Scott.’
He was so certain that at last she had realized the true nature of his feelings, he halted in his long, loping stride, his eyes meeting hers. There was no new agony in her expression, no terrible understanding, only fierce determination.
‘I must get used to being on my own,’ she said quietly. ‘And the longer you are with me, giving me companionship and comfort, the harder it will be for me eventually.’
They had stopped walking, and as they stood in the shade of the redwoods, looking across the guttering lake towards the High Sierras, it seemed to Scott that everything unspoken between them was being silently acknowledged. He had been wrong to assume that she didn’t know how he felt about her. She did. Probably had known for a long time.
He replied thickly, knowing that they would meet only seldom in the future, and that their easy, happy-go-lucky camaraderie was over. ‘I love you, Abbra.’
She was standing a yard or so away from him, her dark hair blowing softly around her face, lie white silk shirt she wore tucked loosely into the waistband of her jeans.
‘I know,’ she said huskily, not trusting herself to say anything more.
She didn’t turn to face him. She couldn’t. She was too terrified of what might happen.
He was silent for a long time and then he said, his voice taut and strained, ‘I think it’s time I took you home, don’t you?’
She nodded, turning away from the lake and the mountains, walking with him, ravage-faced, back towards the Chevrolet.
The loneliness that followed was crushing. She knew no other army wives, no other women who could identify with what she was suffering. She waited daily, expecting a communication from the army, some information about what was being done to effect his release, or even get in touch with him, but nothing came. At the end of the month, feeling as isolated as if she were alone on another planet, she called the telephone number on the card that she had been given.
The voice on the other end of the line was sympathetic and understanding and regretted that Abbra had not realized she had been assigned a personal casualty assistance officer who would keep her abreast of whatever development affected her or her prisoner husband.
It was the first time she had heard the expression ‘prisoner husband’ and she hated it. ‘My husband’s name is Lewis,’ she said stiltedly. ‘Lewis Ellis.’
She was transferred to her personal casualty officer, who said he was sorry that he had not previously been in touch with her, and who also referred to Lewis as her ‘prisoner husband’. There was no news regarding Lewis. It was too soon, he said.
Her novel became her life support system. She withdrew into a world of imagination, writing from early morning to late at night, deriving a certain wry amusement from anticipating Patti’s amazement when she received, so quickly, a novel she was not expecting for several months.
She didn’t tell Patti that Lewis had been taken prisoner. She didn’t want to have to endure more well-meant sympathy that would inevitably fail to comfort. The only person who could have given her comfort was Scott, and after his terrible admission to her at Lake Tahoe, she knew that she could never turn to him for comfort again.
Sometimes, at night in troubled sleep, Lewis and Scott seemed to merge into one person, and when she woke, the sense of loss and loneliness that she felt for both of them was indistinguishable. As the weeks passed, she found that she could fight her loneliness for Lewis a little by writing an ongoing letter to him in the form of a daily diary. The simple act of writing down his name, telling him of the way she was spending her day, what she was doing, what she was thinking, how she was missing him, seemed to bring him a little closer to her.
Where Scott was concerned there was no such comfort. She couldn’t think about Scott. She dared not think about Scott. The football season had begun again, and according to the media, he was playing brilliantly.
He did not write to her, and he did not telephone her, nor did she expect him to. His three words in the depths of the Tahoe forest had made it impossible for him to do so. She knew that he was thinking of her, and that he shared her suffering as she waited for news of Lewis.
She started paying attention to the news.
At the beginning of October it was reported that US planes had attacked the city of Phu Ly, thirty-five miles south of Hanoi, and that all homes and buildings there had been destroyed.
Abbra wondered what the military objective had been at Phu Ly. The brief news reports gave no indication. That afternoon she went out and bought herself a large map of Vietnam and a copy of Bernard Fall’s Street Without Joy. Scott had once told her that if she wanted to understand what had led up to the US presence in Vietnam, and the rights and wrongs of US involvement, then Fall’s was the book she should read. Over the last few weeks she had become acutely aware of how little she knew about the place her husband had been sent. She was also becoming angry and disillusioned at the army’s seeming complacency over Lewis’s capture.
The casualty officer who had been assigned to her continued to be sympathetic, but he never had any new information. He seemed more concerned in reminding her that if interviewed by the press, she was to give no information over and above Lewis’s name, rank, serial number, and date of birth, than he was about the complete silence about Lewis’s whereabouts. In January she finished her novel. She had put everything she had into it, adding all the pain and uncertainty of her past few weeks, but whether it was what Patti was expecting, she had no way of knowing. She was too close to what she had written to be able to judge it herself. She knew only that finishing it had given her a sense of achievement so great, it had been almost orgasmic. She telephoned Patti’s office, intending to tell her that the novel was finished and that she was putting it in the mail, only to be told by Patti’s secretary that Patti was on vacation and wouldn’t be back until the end of the month.
She sent it off anyway, almost relieved that it would be at least another three weeks before Patti could read it, and before she would be coming back to her with an opinion.
A week later, in his State of the Union address, President Johnson announced s
ombrely: ‘Although America faces more cost, more loss, and more agony in Southeast Asia, we will stand firm in Vietnam.’
Abbra was filled with an overwhelming sense of despair. The war would continue. But for how long? How long would it be before prisoners were exchanged? Before there were true negotiations?
On 2 February, just as she was beginning to wonder if Patti had returned yet from vacation, her telephone rang. She lifted the receiver, not imagining for a moment that it would be Patti, and Patti’s husky voice said ebulliently, ‘Congratulations! I came back from Argentina yesterday morning and spent all last evening reading A Woman Alone. It’s even better than I had hoped it would be, and I’m sure that both the British and American publishers are going to love it. They took quite a gamble with you, and it’s a gamble that will, in my opinion, pay off handsomely.’
Abbra was flooded with relief. She still had to wait to hear from the publishers, but if Patti was pleased about the book, then it meant she had succeeded in what she had set out to do. She had written a full-length novel with commercial possibilities. And if she had written one, then she could write another, and another. She was so ecstatic that she had nearly finished dialling Scott’s number before she realized what it was she was doing.
She replaced the telephone receiver with a shaking hand. It had seemed so natural. He had given her so much encouragement; he had given her confidence. He had believed in her. Without him she doubted if she would ever have had the temerity to write more than the first page. And now she couldn’t pick up the telephone and tell him that Patti thought the book was wonderful. They couldn’t meet in the Polo Lounge to celebrate the news, laughing and talking as they had laughed and talked so often in the past. He couldn’t read the manuscript.
‘I wish you hadn’t said it, Scott,’ she said to the empty room, feeling as if her heart were breaking with longing. ‘Oh, how I wish that you had never said it!’
Four weeks later, at the beginning of March, Patti telephoned her to say that the American publisher had already responded to her about A Woman Alone and that he was delighted with it.
White Christmas in Saigon Page 38