Message from Nam (42 page)

I
n October, there was a nationwide moratorium in the States, with a huge demonstration to end the war. And there was another in November. And on November third, Nixon promised to end the war, and the people who listened to him, and believed him, were hopeful.

And on November sixteenth, the nation was rocked by the revelation of what had taken place at My Lai the year before, and suddenly there was a huge outcry in Viet Nam. In the States, Lieutenant Calley was being held, and in Viet Nam, the generals were questioning everyone about it. The responsible people in the military were outraged. And there had been so much cruelty in the Viet Nam war on all sides, that somehow this example of it seemed to drive everyone mad. There were photographs of babies and children who had been shot. And the AP office, like
Time
and CBS, ABC and NBC, were all being rocked by demands for investigative reporting. It kept everyone busy for quite a while, and was the source of some amazing stories. Ralph and Paxton were so busy, they hardly had time to catch their breath, and it was a fight for Paxton to find enough time to spend with Tony.

Tony pulled some strings and made some trades, and they managed to get to Bangkok over Thanksgiving for R and R. They stayed at the Montien Hotel and spent four of the happiest days Paxton had ever had before they went back to Saigon. She was actually closer to Tony than she had ever been to anyone. They were as much friends as lovers, and seemed to be able to say anything to each other. And on the way back to Viet Nam on the plane, they talked about My Lai and Lieutenant Calley.

“Did you ever meet him?” She was curious about the man, and he was pleased to say he hadn’t.

“No, but I’ve heard stories like that. Unofficially, of course. You get enough scared GIs pissed off at the gooks, and sometimes they get pretty crazy. There are no rules over here, Pax, you know that. And some of the men don’t know what to do with that. Their buddies keep getting killed. They see no way out, their best friend just stepped on a mine, they can’t take it anymore, and all of a sudden they go nuts and take it out on Charlie.” It was pretty much what had happened at My Lai, but it sickened them anyway. The war had been too long, and much too ugly.

She went to the Bob Hope show with Tony at Christmas that year, and it was odd to think that only a year before, she’d gone to Martha Raye’s show with Bill. But here a year wasn’t the same time it was anywhere else. A year in Viet Nam was a lifetime. They spent a quiet evening afterward at her hotel and she had called her family in Savannah that morning. And the next day they went to visit France and Ralph, and they brought gifts for them and An, and the baby. Little Pax seemed to be thriving in France’s care, and it was obvious that Ralph was totally nuts about her. She looked a little bit like Ralph, but like France as well. And he was still trying to convince France to marry him, but so far he hadn’t convinced her.

He tried to talk Paxton into going out on a mission with him on New Year’s Day, to the Mekong Delta, but she hadn’t caught up on her work in days. Tony had to work that day, and she wanted to spend the time writing in her hotel room. And then she and Tony went to China Beach at Da Nang, for two days. When they returned she went to look for Ralph at the AP office, to find out if he’d heard anything about a firebase being overrun near An Loc over New Year’s.

No one seemed to know where he was, and she went back again the next day, and by then they knew. And as Paxton walked in, there was total silence. It didn’t register at first, and she stopped and checked the Teletypes and then she went back to see if Ralph was in his office, but he wasn’t. It was empty, and she could see from the clean coffee cup that he hadn’t come in yet. She tried to decide whether or not to wait, and as she glanced at her watch, she suddenly saw them. The others, watching her. They all knew, and everyone was afraid to tell her. They all knew her well, and knew how close she was to Ralph. And then finally, the assistant bureau chief walked slowly toward her. He beckoned to her without saying a word, and with a puzzled frown she followed him into his office.

“What’s up? Where’s Ralph?” She sounded young and bright, and as always, she was in a hurry. There were some stories she wanted to follow up on that day, and she hoped Ralph would turn up soon, and then he told her. Ralph had been killed on the way back from My Tho, a stupid thing, his jeep had run over a land mine. A “stupid thing” … a stupid thing … wasn’t it always a stupid thing? Was there an intelligent way to die here? By friendly fire or plastic bomb in a restaurant or howitzer or land mine? What was smart about any of it? What difference did it make once it was all over? And as Paxton heard the words, she sat and stared at him, unable to believe what had happened. It couldn’t have been. It couldn’t happen to Ralph. He had been there for years. He was too smart to be killed, too shrewd, too good, too kind, too careful. And he was thirty-nine years old and he had just had his first baby. Didn’t someone know that? Hadn’t someone told the guy who’d planted the mine? Not him … he has a baby … not her … someone loves her back home … didn’t anyone listen to those things? Didn’t anyone give a damn? She couldn’t understand what had gone wrong, as she got up and left his office without a sound, walked back to her hotel, rented a car, and drove straight to Cu Chi by herself, without thinking twice about the danger. All she wanted was to find Tony and tell him. And when he saw her walking across the base, he thought he had seen a vision. She didn’t even have her combat clothes on. She was wearing a pink skirt and blouse and white sandals. And it was only by sheer coincidence that he saw her at all. He was about to leave to take some new recruits out on maneuvers when he saw her. He hopped out of the jeep and told his corporal to cool his heels for a minute, and then he ran across the field and stopped her.

“What are you doing here?” She had scared the hell out of him. For a minute, he thought something was wrong, but then when he saw the way she was dressed, he decided it wasn’t. “Who drove you?”

“I did,” she answered with a desperate air. She seemed to be glancing around him frantically as though looking for something.

“What’s wrong with you, Pax? What’s wrong?” Maybe something had happened. She wouldn’t look at him, and she seemed so agitated and distracted. He had seen guys like that, right after their buddies were killed, half in shock, and about to go completely berserk. And then suddenly he knew, and he grabbed her. He held her fast against him and forced her to look at him. “Baby, what is it?” He was glad she had come to find him, but he couldn’t believe the insanity of her driving out to Cu Chi alone. But she was insane at the moment. And then suddenly she looked at him and started to gulp air. There were great sobs in her throat and they were choking her, and she couldn’t breathe as he held her. “Take it easy … breathe in slow … come on, that’s right …” Another recruit was watching them and Tony didn’t give a damn. All he could think about was Paxton, choking and hyperventilating in his arms. “Tell me what happened …”

“Ralph …” She could only say the one word for the first few minutes and he felt his guts grow taut.

“It’s okay … take it slow … keep breathing …” He lowered her gently to the ground and sat down beside her. “You’re okay … you’re okay, Pax …” He’d been through this before, knew it too well, had seen it too often … and then she told him.

“He hit a land mine coming back from the Delta two days ago. No one told me.” There was a blank look to her face and then suddenly she began to sob and she pummeled his chest in anguish and blind fury. “No … dammit … no! The fuckers got him! After all this time … they got him …” He felt sick listening to her, but to him, it was an old, old story.

“Does France know?”

“I don’t know yet. I didn’t call her.”

Shit. With a GI kid, and now a brand-new baby. And what the hell was she going to do in Saigon with two Amerasian brats? Starve? Her parents couldn’t help her anymore, they had nothing left, and no one else would help her either. This was just what she needed.

Tony pulled Paxton into his arms again and kissed her gently. “Look, I hate to do this, but I gotta go. I got a whole bunch of guys waiting to go on maneuvers. As soon as we come back in, I’ll come back to the hotel. I’ll take you out to see her then. And I want someone to drive you back now.” She nodded, like an obedient child, barely seeing him, and he ran back to find a private who had nothing to do and told him to drive her back to Saigon.

“Be careful!” she shouted after him as she left, and he waved and was gone with the others. And all the way back to Saigon, she sat stiffly with the boy who drove her. She said not a word, didn’t ask his name, or answer any of his questions. She just sat there and stared out the window, thinking about Ralph, and France, and An, and Baby Paxxie.

And when she got back to the hotel, she went to her room, and just lay there. And when the phone rang, she didn’t answer it. When he got there at eight o’clock that night, Tony was hysterical, he thought maybe something had happened to her, because the kid he’d sent with her hadn’t come back yet. The tension was beginning to wear on everyone. They had all been there too long. And when Tony let himself into her room, he found her where she had been all afternoon, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

“Baby, come on.” He lay on the bed next to her and talked to her gently. “Look … he knew the score. He knew what could happen. We all do. We take our chances. He was willing to do that.”

“He was the best reporter I ever knew … the best friend I ever had …” she said, sounding like a kid kicking rocks into the riverbed with the toe of her sneaker. And then she looked up at Tony. “Until you … but he was special.” He was the brother George never had been.

“I know he was. I liked him too. I’ve liked a lot of guys here. Some of them were lucky and went home okay, some weren’t. If he was afraid of this, he’d have gone home a long time ago.” She knew that was true, but it still didn’t solve all the problems. And God, how she would miss him.

“What about France? What’ll happen to her now?”

“That,” he said grimly, “is another story.” Her future was not going to be easy.

He showered and changed and they decided not to call her before they went, because she was so polite she would insist that everything was fine, even if it wasn’t. And they used Tony’s jeep to get there.

And just as had happened the night the baby was born, she didn’t answer the bell for a long time, but he could see the lights on. So finally they rang someone else, who yelled at them out the window, but buzzed them in anyway. And when they went up to her
door;
again there was no answer. They rang for a long time, and inside they could hear music. The radio was on, and the lights, but there was no sound at all, and finally Tony looked worriedly at Paxton.

“I hate to say this, but I get the feeling something’s wrong in there. Maybe she’s just too upset to see anyone.” But the kids were quiet too. “Or maybe I’m wrong and she’s out. Do you want to come back later?” But Paxton shook her head slowly, she had a strange feeling too.

“Can we get in?” she whispered.

“You mean break the door down?” He looked nervous. “We could get arrested for that.”

“Do you think there’s a landlord?”

“Yeah, maybe, and I don’t know about you, but my Vietnamese doesn’t cover ‘excuse me, sir, but could you please let me into this apartment.’ Wait, I’ll try this,” he said, pulling a knife out of his pocket. He played with the lock for a while, and just as he was about to give up, the door suddenly gave, and opened slowly inward. And then they both felt strange. They had wanted to get in, but now that the door was open they weren’t sure they should do it. It seemed like such an intrusion.

He stepped in first, and Paxton was right behind him. Neither of them were sure what they were looking for and they both felt stupid as they looked around at how neat and clean and orderly everything was. Everything was obviously very much in order. And the music was still playing softly. The light in An’s room was on, and Paxton looked in there first, but he wasn’t there, and Tony glanced into the master bedroom, and then he stopped and instinctively put his arm out to stop Paxton.

“Don’t!” he said too quickly, but she moved too fast for him, and then she stood there. But nothing seemed to be wrong. They were only sleeping. France in her
ao dai
, with a gentle smile, and the baby in her arms in a beautiful little dress someone must have made for her, and little An, looking like an angel beside them. His hair was combed and he had his best suit on. But Paxton hadn’t understood yet. She wanted to tell Tony to be quiet so he wouldn’t wake them, but nothing would ever wake them again. He knew it as he approached them, and then gently bent to touch their faces. They had been dead for quite a while by then. France had poisoned herself and the children, as soon as she heard about Ralph. There was a note in Vietnamese, and next to it a letter to Paxton. And as he knelt and looked at them, his eyes filled with tears and he began to sob, as Paxton came and stood beside them. She was crying, too, and she knelt down and touched each of them, as though in silent blessing.

“Oh, God, why …” she whispered to him … “Why?…” And An, and the baby. The baby they had delivered only three and a half months before, and now she was dead … Pax … Peace … France had wanted to be with him, the note said in Vietnamese. She had wanted them all to be together again, and she knew how terrible their life would be in Saigon. “She could have gone to the States … she could have …” Paxton said, but Tony was shaking his head. He knew better. She couldn’t have done anything in Saigon without Ralph’s protection. So she had gone, to be with him, and had taken her babies with her. And all of them so beautiful, and so sweet … so gentle as they lay there.

Paxton and Tony stood there watching them for a long time, and then he went to call the police, and he explained what he believed had happened when they got there, and the note confirmed it. The letter to Paxton said much the same thing, and she thanked her and Tony again for all they’d done for them, and then she said good-bye, and wished her well and a happy life, and then Paxton put the letter down and sobbed in Tony’s arms. She had never seen, or felt, anything so awful. She watched as they took the three of them away. An wrapped in a little white cloth, and the baby bound to her mother. It was more than she could stand, and she was still sobbing as Tony led her away and drove her back to the hotel and ordered them both a brandy.