Message from Nam (17 page)

He had lost weight at Fort Ord in the past two months, and “muscled up,” but now his eyes had a look of pain that tore at Paxton’s heart. His were eyes that said, “I don’t want to do this,” but he felt he had to.

“We can’t go to Canada, Pax,” he said calmly, and lit one cigarette from another. He had hardly ever smoked before, but in boot camp, it had become a constant habit. “What the hell would I do there?”

“You’re a lawyer now. You could take their bar, and start there instead of here.”

“And break my father’s heart. Pax, I’d never be able to come back here.”

“Bullshit. One day they’re going to let everyone come home again. There are too many of them there, they’re going to have to.”

“And if they don’t? Then I can’t come home again. Baby, it just isn’t worth it.” And if he didn’t come home at all? Was that worth it? Disbelief struck her again. This couldn’t be happening to them. He was twenty-six now, an attorney, engaged, and they were sending him to Viet Nam. It was a nightmare.

“Peter, please …” In the dark she reached out to him. And he held her as she cried, and he cried too, but he wouldn’t agree to what she wanted. He wouldn’t run away. He had never wanted to go, didn’t believe in the war. It had been years since he’d burned his draft card. But still, he knew he had to go, and when it came right down to it, he was willing to serve his country. In boot camp, they had gotten them all fired up about “Nam,” and how much he was going to hate “Charlie.” They told them horror stories of children carrying machine guns there, and VC hiding in the brush, and booby traps, and tunnels filled with Viet Cong waiting to kill him. But there were other things they didn’t say, the heartbreak, the agony, the grief of losing a friend, the horror of stepping on a mine, or killing a woman with a baby because you were so scared you couldn’t think straight.

Still, he felt he was prepared, and over and over again he reassured Paxton in his last few days that he was going to be careful and not do anything crazy.

“You swear?” She extracted another promise from him before he went back to his room, and he kissed her.

“I swear,” and then with a slow smile, “I swear I’ll come back to you … in one piece … and ready to get married and have fourteen babies. You’d better be ready for that, Pax. I’ll be an old man by then.” But then she’d be more than ready and she’d have gotten all her independence out of her system.

“We could get married before that, you know.” She was willing to marry him right then, and he knew that. But he didn’t want to get married this way, in a frantic rush, hysterical, afraid. And he didn’t want to take the risk of making her a widow. He was willing to wait, and he knew she’d wait for him. He wasn’t afraid of that, and after all their years together they both felt married. “I love you …” she whispered again, and he kissed her and went back to his own room as the sun came up. It was the last of March 1968, and he was leaving for Viet Nam the next day. And he had a lot to do today. It was Sunday.

Gabby and Matt and the baby came for lunch that day. Marjie was fifteen months old and she had just learned to walk and she was into everything. And Gabby was seven months pregnant. Peter spent a long time talking to her, and after lunch they went for a walk in the garden. They both looked as though they had been crying when they came back. But everyone cried that day. Even Peter’s father.

And that night after Gabby and Matt went home, they all sat and listened to Lyndon Johnson. He promised to reduce the bombing again, and promised peace. And then he stunned everyone by announcing that he wouldn’t run for reelection. At least it was something to talk about. Something other than the fact that Peter was leaving in the morning.

That night he came to Paxton’s room before his parents even went to bed. He didn’t want to wait a moment longer, and he lay all night and held her in his arms as they both cried. He didn’t want to die, didn’t want to kill anyone, and didn’t want to leave the girl he loved, and yet there was no question in his mind that he had to.

Paxton still blamed herself for not marrying him long before and yet it had seemed so sensible to wait until she finished college. But what was sensible now? What made sense? A war half a world away, in a place that no one really cared if we won or lost, a war we couldn’t win and never would, in a country where we couldn’t defend ourselves because we were too afraid of retaliation? Nothing made sense to them, or anyone. And none of it made sense to Paxton.

They stood at the window and watched the sun come up, and then went back to bed and made love for the last time, and when Peter finally left her room, as he walked back to his own, he ran into his father.

“Morning, Dad.” He smiled sadly at him, and tears filled Ed Wilson’s eyes as he nodded. He had held him when he was a baby and now he was a man, and he was desperately afraid he might lose him.

They all had breakfast together that day. They were all perfectly dressed, wide-awake, their faces looked alert and serious, and they ate in total silence. It was Peter who finally spoke first, as he slowly pushed his chair back from the table.

“Well, you guys, I probably won’t have a breakfast like that for a long time.” Certainly not served by a maid in uniform, in a formal dining room, on Limoges, with silver service, and Porthault napkins. Nor with people he loved and who loved him, in clean clothes, and in a room where no one could hurt him. “I’m going to miss you.” The honesty of his words broke the dam, and they all began to cry, Peter, his parents, and Paxton, each promising the other to be brave, that he’d be home soon, and telling him how much they were going to miss him. And Paxton realized more than anyone how lucky they were that they were able to say what they felt to him. Had her brother gone, no one would have been able to say anything about how afraid they were, how sad, or how much they loved him.

And half an hour later, the foursome set out for Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, with Peter in a brand-new uniform and carrying an enormous duffel. He had been told to report there by noon, and he didn’t know exactly what time he’d board the plane, but once he left them, it didn’t really matter.

It was a warm sunny day, and Mr. Wilson’s driver said not a word as he drove them there, but when they arrived, he got out and shook Peter’s hand with admiration.

“Good luck, son. Give ’em hell.” He had fought in World War II and to him the idea of war still had some meaning. When he had gone, he had known who the enemy was, who the good guys were, and why he was fighting. Peter was less sure of it as he nodded.

“Thanks, Tom. Take care.” He repeated the same words to everyone, and for a long moment he held his mother. “Take care, Mom … I love you.…” She wanted to sink to her knees and wail at the thought of seeing her son sent off to war, but she bravely nodded, kissed him again through her tears, and squeezed Ed’s hand until he thought his fingers would break, while Peter said good-bye to Paxton. “I love you too …” he whispered, unable to speak by then. “Take care.…” And then, he turned away from them, and disappeared into the cavernous building. They could go no farther with him, and Ed Wilson thought it was just as well. It was already painful enough saying good-bye to him here, and he thought it might be too much for Marjorie to watch the plane take off, carrying her baby into danger.

He helped them all back into the limousine, the two women crying with their arms around each other.

“I should have married him.…” Paxton sobbed openly, and Marjorie only shook her head in fear and grief.

“You couldn’t know what would happen.” No one could. No one knew anything about the war he was going to, and the price he might pay to be there. “My God, I hope he’s careful,” his mother said softly as they crossed the Bay Bridge back to San Francisco.

Paxton had lunch with them, but they were all too spent to say very much, and that afternoon, she packed her things and went back to the house in Berkeley. She had an exam that afternoon, in her last eco course, but she had already decided not to take it. She couldn’t remember anything anyway, except where Peter was and where he was going. All they knew was that he was flying to Hawaii, and then Guam, and then on to Saigon, and if he could he’d call her. But where he was going after Saigon wasn’t clear yet. And Paxton hoped nowhere. With any luck at all, they’d put him at a desk and leave him there, she had urged him again and again to trade on the fact that he was a lawyer. But he hadn’t been assigned to the legal corps. If he had been, he would have been kept stateside. They didn’t need lawyers in Viet Nam. They needed grunts to fight their war and look for mines, and hunt Charlie down in his caves and tunnels.

Peter’s parents had urged her to call, and to come to dinner, or stay with them, anytime she wanted. But all she did that first day was lie on the bed they had shared and smell his after-shave on the clothes he had left in their closet. He hadn’t had time to pack up anything, even though they were giving up the house in July, and Paxton hadn’t wanted him to. She wanted to be there with his things, and with him. This way she didn’t feel as though she’d lost him.

Gabby called her that afternoon. And they both cried. She said it even made her depressed about the baby.

“I just want him to come home,” she wailed. They had always been so close, especially in the last few years during the time he’d spent with Paxton.

“So do I,” Paxton said mournfully, looking around the silent kitchen.

“Do you know what day this is?” Gabby asked typically, but Paxton didn’t know or care, although she knew she’d never forget it. “It’s April Fools’.”

Paxton almost smiled. “Does this mean they send him back tonight and say they’re sorry?”

“They should … the assholes …” But then Paxton could hear Marjie crying in the background and Gabby had to go, after promising to call her later.

Instead, Peter called when he stopped in Guam. It was midnight, but Paxton wasn’t sleeping. She was lying in bed, thinking of him, and it was like a gift hearing his voice over the crackling line. He only had a few minutes between flights, but he just wanted to tell her he loved her.

“I love you too … take care …”

“I love you!” And then he was gone, and she lay in bed again, awake until the morning.

That day, she skipped classes again. She just needed time, and she had two papers to turn in, but lately, ever since he’d been at Fort Ord, she couldn’t face it. The strain was too much for her, and her midterm grades had shown it. From an A she had slipped to an Incomplete in almost every subject. But later she went to the library to pick up some books they had been holding for her since early March. She figured she had nothing else to do now, and she was beginning to feel vaguely panicked about her papers.

The next morning, Peter’s mother called. She knew Paxton wouldn’t have heard anything from him yet. She already knew about the call from Guam, from Gabby. But she just wanted to see if Paxton was alright. And she was, except that she had that odd feeling again, the same feeling she’d had when her father died, and John Kennedy was shot, the sensation that she was moving underwater. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, and the voices she heard seemed to come from a great distance. It was almost as though she didn’t care, as though nothing that happened mattered anymore. She just wanted to hibernate somewhere until Peter came back, whenever that was. Although he had promised to meet her in Hawaii for R and R, or wherever they’d let him go, he actually wasn’t sure how far he could go, or when he could leave, but one thing was sure, as soon as he could go anywhere, he was going to meet Paxton.

“Take care of yourself,” his mother said, and Paxton promised her, just as Peter had. And after she hung up, for a moment, Paxton thought about calling Queenie in Savannah. But she didn’t want to upset her.

Paxton turned on the news the next night, knowing that by now, Peter was in Saigon. And suddenly it all mattered to her, every report, every word, every image sharply etched, fearing that any one of those soldiers could be Peter. But it wasn’t the news from Viet Nam that jolted her that night, it was what came after that. It was a re-hash of a story that had run for most of the day, but having stayed home all day again, Paxton hadn’t heard it. They were talking about Dr. King, and then showing confused images on a screen of people running … a hotel … someone shouting … and then the words registered. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed in Memphis. Killed. Dead. Shot. She stared at the television, unable to believe it. The world had gone mad. Peter was in Viet Nam, and Martin Luther King had been killed … shot … someone had wanted him dead, and everything he stood for. And in the house in Berkeley, she sank slowly into a chair, and stared at the TV, listening to what they said. But nothing made any sense anymore. And that night, when the riots began, she heard them. They started in cities everywhere, they were an anguished cry of a generation that had tried to live on past the murder of Kennedy five years before. They had passed the torch from hand to hand, and now their hearts and hands were too tired to carry it any further.

Paxton sat in the darkened living room, crying for him, and this time when the telephone rang, she didn’t answer it. Because she knew it couldn’t be Peter. It would only be friends, wanting to grieve with her, to ask her if she knew, to share their disbelief with her, and she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She didn’t want to be part of a world that killed people like him. It made her sick to think of it, and as she watched the news again that night, she found herself crying for his children.

“Why?” She asked the silence in the house. “Why?…” She shook her head again, and dried her tears, unable to understand it. And on Friday morning, the next day, she awoke feeling the terrible weight of depression. Everything seemed to be going wrong, starting with Peter leaving for Saigon on Monday.

It was a depressing weekend, and although she sat in the house day after day, she couldn’t seem to study. She had a terrible nightmare on Sunday night, about birds swooping down on her and trying to attack her face, and she awoke with relief to the sound of the telephone on Monday morning. It was a sound she didn’t recognize at first, as she held the phone to her ear, and then she realized that no one was there, and it was not the telephone, but the doorbell. She couldn’t imagine who it would be, and she quickly put Peter’s robe over her nightgown, and went to peek out one of the kitchen windows. But she couldn’t quite see who was there, and finally she went to the front door, barefoot and still looking sleepy, and her eyes opened wide when she saw that it was Peter’s father.