In May, when an estimated 100,000 demonstrators gathered in Washington to oppose the bombing of Communist base camps in Cambodia, Abbra and Scott were in Paris, visiting Gabrielle.
Feelings at the Washington demonstration were higher and more intense than ever before. Four days earlier, at an antiwar demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio, in an act that stunned America, the National Guard opened fire on the students. Four of them, two of them girls, were killed. Eleven others were injured. With the television scenes from Kent State still searing their minds, Abbra and Scott were in an unusually sombre frame of mind when they met Gabrielle at the nightclub where she sang.
‘It is terrible, mes amis,’ Gabrielle said as they sat at a small table in an alcove, toying with the sole Normandie that all three of them had ordered. ‘At the beginning of the year I thought that perhaps there would be a negotiated peace before the year was out. Now …’ She gave a despairing shrug of her shoulders. ‘Now I am not so sure. There are times when I think that it will never end. That mon petit fils is going to be a man before Gavin sees him again.’
Her voice had broken slightly at the mention of Gavin. Abbra felt pain shoot through her, so intense she could hardly breathe. She could only imagine what Gabrielle must be suffering. What she herself would have been suffering if there had been no confirmation of Lewis’s death and if she had still been living every day, waiting for news.
‘What is happening at the peace talks?’ Scott asked quietly after they had sat in silence for several minutes.
‘Merde alors!’ Gabrielle said graphically, raising her eyes to heaven. ‘The peace talks! They are beyond belief, mon ami. You know, do you not, that it took seven months for them merely to reach agreement on the seating arrangements? Neither the Saigon delegate nor the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam delegates would sit opposite each other. Nothing productive is being discussed. All that is happening is that both sides spend hours each day verbally maligning each other.’
‘And have you managed to speak with Xuan Thuy yet?’ Abbra asked, ignoring the large Neapolitan ice that had followed the sole Normandie.
Gabrielle’s cat-green eyes glinted beneath the long sweep of her eyelashes. ‘No, not yet. But I have not given up hope. It is in the nature of a Vietnamese to be able to sit out eternity if necessary. And I am half Vietnamese. I can be just as stubborn as the embassy, just as determined. And in the end I will have my answer.’ She pushed her Neapolitan ice away from her, untouched. ‘That is what the Americans do not understand about the Vietnamese,’ she said with stark frankness. ‘They do not understand that we see time differently. And that is why they will lose the war. Americans will not endure a war that continues for ten, fifteen, twenty years. The Vietnamese will do so, have done so, when you consider how long it is since they first began to fight the French.’
Scott nodded in agreement. An immediate rapport had sprung up between himself and Gabrielle, just as it had sprung up between the two women. When Abbra had first introduced them, Gabrielle had looked up at Scott’s magnificent physique and six-foot-four-inch stature and with a naughty twinkle in her eyes had said with a husky, unchained laugh, ‘Félicitations, Abbra. Il est magnifique!’
Scott, in his turn, thought the petite Gabrielle an absolute delight. He admired the way she was bringing up her son by herself, the way she had turned her back on easy fame with the rock band she had once sung with in order to sing in a style true to herself, and he admired her steadfast efforts to discover news of her husband and the fierce love that was in her voice whenever she spoke of him, even though it was now four years since he had disappeared.
He knew of her affair with Radford, though Gabrielle took care that neither he nor Abbra ever met Radford. Gavin was the love of her life, and when she was with them, she wanted to talk only of him. Her tortured guilt at not being strong enough to live without physical love in Gavin’s absence was often apparent, and both Scott and Abbra deeply sympathized with the terrible limbo in which she was living, and the means she had taken in order to endure it.
‘I have visited the North Vietnamese Embassy every morning for the last eight months,’ she continued as the untouched ices were removed from the table and Scott ordered a round of martinis. ‘And every morning the routine is the same. I ring the doorbell and a Frenchwoman of about forty-five, very efficient-looking in a black skirt and a white blouse, opens the door. I ask if I may speak with Xuan Thuy. I am refused. I ask if I may speak with anyone who can give me information about my husband, and I am told that there is no one there who can give me any information. And the door is closed in my face.’
‘Do you think things are ever going to change?’ Abbra asked as the musical trio who had been playing dance music came to the end of their number. ‘Do you think you ever will gain entrance?’
Gabrielle’s eyes were bright with determination, ‘Oh, yes,’ she said dauntlessly. ‘Yesterday I saw one of the Vietnamese officials in the street and he was unable to escape me. For the first time I was able to impress upon someone in authority just who I am. Who my uncle was. He repeated only the familiar “Madame, I am sorry. We have no information about your husband” routine, but I could see that his attitude towards me had changed.’ The pianist began to play the lead-in to Gabrielle’s first song, and she rose from the table, saying with a wide, gamin-like smile and unquenchable optimism, ‘There will be news soon, chérie, I am sure of it.’
Sanh wasn’t the only Vietnamese child arriving in the country that day. A woman named Lucy Roberts had escorted seven children from Saigon, six of them babies. How she had managed, single-handedly, to feed and change and care for them on the long flight, Abbra couldn’t even begin to imagine. But her attention wasn’t focused on the babies. It was focused on the bright-eyed little boy who, his withered legs encased in braces, was propelling himself forwards with difficulty in Lucy’s wake.
‘This is Sanh,’ Lucy said with a tired smile as they all met in the middle of the airport waiting room. ‘How I would have managed without his help on the plane I do not know.’
‘Hello, Sanh,’ Scott said, slipping his arm lightly around Sanh’s shoulders. ‘Welcome to America.’
Abbra’s heart was beating so hard that she thought even Lucy and Sanh must be able to hear it. ‘Hello, Sanh,’ she said, stepping towards him and holding out her hand to him. ‘Welcome to your new home.’
His hand slipped into hers, and as he looked up at her and grinned, saying in heavily accented English, ‘I am very glad to be here, Maman-Abbra,’ she knew that all her panic-stricken fears were groundless.
‘Who told you my name?’ she asked, love for him flooding through her, knowing that it was going to be all right, knowing that from now on they were going to be a family.
‘Có Serena,’ he said, his hand remaining trustingly in hers.
Abbra smiled, grateful for Serena’s thoughtful foresightedness. Although Sanh’s first language was Vietnamese, his second was French, not English. It was only natural that he should, at first, refer to her as Maman. And Maman-Abbra was an ideal appellation for the first few days, when they were getting to know each other and when anything else would be touched with artificiality. Soon, she knew, the Abbra would be dropped. And soon, also, Maman would change quite naturally to Mom.
In April President Nixon announced that 100,000 American troops were to leave South Vietnam by the end of the year. Abbra listened to the television newscast with relief. Perhaps this time it really was the beginning of the end. She wondered if Scott had heard the news over the car radio. He and Sanh had gone to watch a basketball game and were then going on to Musso & Frank’s Grill Hollywood Boulevard. It was the only chophouse Scott knew where they served adequately burned onions with grilled liver, and he and Sanh often ate there after attending a basketball or a baseball game.
When the news programme came to an end, she turned the television off, impatient for Scott and Sanh to return home. It was Sanh’s tenth birthday the next da
y, and though Sanh did not know it, they were going to take him to a kennel that evening in order that he could choose a puppy for his birthday present.
As she turned away from the television set she saw a car enter the drive. A sleek, black, official-looking car. She stood very still, ice seeping down her spine, transported back in time to the occasions when she had been first brought the news that Lewis was missing in action, and men the news that he was dead.
What on earth was the reason for today’s visit? Had they found Lewis’s body? Were they coming to tell her that Lewis’s body was being returned home?
The doorbell rang and with a heavy heart she forced herself to move, to walk across the room and into the hallway. She had been so happy a minute before, waiting for Scott and Sanh to return home, looking forward to Sanh’s delight when they told him that he could choose a puppy for his very own. Now, if her visitors were bringing her the news that she suspected they were bringing, Sanh’s birthday would be permanently marred. Instead of being a day of joyous thanksgiving, it would be a day on which she would always remember the news that came immediately prior to it.
The doorbell rang again and she put her hand on the catch. Perhaps it wasn’t what she feared. Perhaps her visitors were calling about some innocuous bureaucratic matter that would be explained and over in a mere few seconds.
She opened the door wide, and the instant she saw their faces she knew that the matter they had come about was anything but innocuous.
‘Mrs Ellis? May we speak with you, please?’
She nodded, her throat dry, leading the way into the living room.
‘Is your husband at home? I’m afraid that this is a matter that concerns you both.’
She shook her head. They weren’t the same men who had called on her on either of the two previous occasions, but they were so similar in manner and looks as to be virtually indistinguishable.
‘No. Please tell me whatever it is you have to say to me.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mrs Ellis, not without your husband here with you.’
The officer who had so far done all the speaking looked ashen-faced. She wondered if his previous assignment had been to tell some poor woman that she was now a widow.
She was suddenly filled with a passionate desire to be rid of both him and the chaplain who was standing sombrely silent at his side before Scott and Sanh returned home.
‘I’ve received two such visits previously,’ she said with cool composure. ‘On both occasions I was informed that information couldn’t be given to me unless someone was with me, and on both occasions, eventually, the information was given while I was unaccompanied. That is the way I prefer to hear difficult news, Major. By myself.’
The major was beginning to look physically ill and the chaplain cleared his throat, saying placatingly, ‘I am afraid this time, because of the nature of the circumstances, we really must insist that your husband be present. Where is he at the moment, Mrs Ellis? Will he be long?’
‘He’s away for the weekend,’ she lied, shocking herself at the lengths she was prepared to go in order to insure that they leave before Scott and Sanh returned home.
‘Then I think we will have to call again on Monday,’ the chaplain responded unhappily.
‘No!’ Her voice was so adamant that both men blinked. ‘I’ve received, alone, the worst news that any woman can receive. Nothing you can tell me today can be any more shocking than the news that has been broken to me in the past. Whatever it is, I insist upon hearing it.’
She wasn’t speaking to the chaplain, she was speaking to the major. His eyes held hers and then he said at last, slowly, ‘Okay, Mrs Ellis. I guess there’s never going to be an easy way of doing this. Will you sit down, please?’
She didn’t want to sit, but it seemed pointless to prolong the proceedings by making trivial protests.
She sat. She wondered where Lewis’s body had been found. How it had been found. The possibilities sickened her. But at least now he could have a proper burial.
‘Mrs Ellis.’ The major had seated himself in a chair opposite her, and he was leaning towards her, his eyes very grave, his hands clasped tightly and held between his knees. ‘Mrs Ellis. I want you to listen to me very carefully. A month ago, as part of the negotiations that have been taking place in Paris, the North Vietnamese agreed to release three prisoners of war. No names of the men to be released were given until three days ago.’ He paused, and she waited patiently for him to tell her of the dead who were also, obviously, to be returned as well.
‘Mrs Ellis, when we received the names of the three men who are to be released to us, your husband’s name was the first of the three.’
She continued to stare at him, waiting for him to continue, to explain.
He didn’t do so. She said at last, with a little helpless gesture of her hands, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. My husband’ – she corrected herself – ‘my first husband is dead. He has been dead for four and a half years now. There was a witness to his death. Has his body been found? Are the North Vietnamese releasing it along with two prisoners of war? Is that what you are trying to tell me?’
The major shook his head. ‘No, Mrs Ellis. What I am trying to tell you is that your husband, Captain Lewis Ellis, is alive. On receiving his name, we checked immediately with the North Vietnamese authorities. There is no doubt whatsoever. Your husband was held for three years in a jungle camp in the Ca Mau peninsula and moved north eighteen months ago. He is to be released, with two other prisoners, in a week’s time.’
‘Lewis is alive?’ the words were a stunned whisper. For a brief second of time her whole being was filled with such intense joy that she thought her heart would burst. And then, through the window, she saw Scott’s car enter the drive. Lewis was alive, and her marriage to Scott was bigamous. Or illegal. Or invalid. He wasn’t really her husband. He had never been her husband.
The car came to a halt and he opened the driver’s door, stepping out on to the gravel. His shaggy mop of wheat-gold hair gleamed in the late afternoon sunshine. He strode round to the passenger seat door, opening it, helping Sanh to step out of the car. They were both laughing. Through the open window she could hear their laughter and she knew that she would never, ever, forget it.
‘Tonight, Papa? Are we going for the puppy tonight?’ Sanh was saying eagerly.
He had been with them for four months now, and already she could not imagine life without him. If her marriage to Scott was now invalid, what about Sanh’s adoption? Was that invalid too? How could she live without him? How could she possibly live without Scott?
‘Oh, God,’ she whispered as the front door opened and they came noisily and laughingly into the house. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus! What is going to happen to us? What are we going to do?’
Chapter Thirty-three
Serena rose to her feet. It was impossible to keep on talking to Trinh from behind a desk. Their conversation was no longer official. It was highly personal and couldn’t be conducted as if she were a person in authority and Trinh a supplicant. At this moment in time they were equals. Two women in love with the same man.
She looked out the window before beginning to speak. Were they both in love with the same man? Was she still in love with the daredevil, roustabout Irish-American that she had married in such reckless haste three years earlier? Amazingly, it was a question she had never thought to ask herself. She had simply assumed that she was. Certainly his being returned to America safe and well was one of her goals. It was concern for Kyle that had brought her to Saigon. Because of her superstitious fear that unfaithfulness on her part would affect his eventual fate, she had lived as chastely as a nun for what had begun to feel like a lifetime. So surely she was still in love with him?
Outside in a small courtyard a dozen babies lay on blankets, kicking their legs and gurgling contentedly. She stared at them unseeingly, wondering if the exquisite-looking Vietnamese girl was also in love with him. Certainly she must have been at one time.
She most obviously wasn’t a prostitute or a bar girl. What had Kyle told her? That he would get a divorce and marry her? And what did the girl know of Kyle’s whereabouts? Did she believe that he was dead? Did she think that he had simply abandoned her? Or did she know that he was in Hoa Lo, and if so, who had told her?
She turned slowly away from the window. ‘What I have to say is very difficult,’ she began, and to her horror her voice sounded tight and brittle. She paused, trying to control it, to sound reasonable and calm. When she spoke again her voice was only slightly unsteady. ‘I know Kyle Anderson, the father of your little girl.’
She kept her eyes resolutely away from the child. There would be time enough to look at Kyle’s child. For the moment she couldn’t cope with the emotions that the child was arousing in her.
Trinh’s whole expression and demeanour changed. ‘You do?’ She stepped towards Serena eagerly, her eyes bright with fierce love and desperate anxiety. ‘You are a friend of his? A relative? Do you have news of him?’
Serena’s throat hurt. She had her answer to one of her questions. The girl was still in love with him. At that moment she hated Kyle. She hated him for his irresponsibility. She had never, in a million years, expected that he would be faithful to her while he was in Vietnam. That would have been out of character. But why couldn’t he have contented himself with the willing bar girls of Tu Do Street? Why, instead, had he seduced a nice, respectable girl and probably ruined her whole life?
She said simply, knowing no other way of phrasing the words so that they sounded even remotely acceptable, ‘I’m his wife.’
Trinh merely stared at her. For a second Serena wondered if she had overestimated the girl’s seemingly excellent English.
‘Do you understand me?’ she said gently, wondering why she was feeling so much compassion for a girl who should, instead, be arousing in her feelings of outrage and jealous fury. ‘I am Kyle’s wife. That is why I came to Saigon. To perhaps gain news of him, to be able to feel a little closer to him.’
White Christmas in Saigon Page 59