Ten
The second week of September, Sebastian boarded an international flight bound for Calcutta, India. Seven-thousand-plus miles and twenty-four hours later, he boarded a smaller aircraft for the plains of Bihar, India, where life and death depended on the whim of the annual monsoon and the ability to find a few hundred dollars to battle
He landed in Muzaffarpur and drove four hours to the village of Rajwara with a local doctor and a photographer. From a distance the village looked bucolic and untouched by modern civilization. Men in traditional white dhoti kurta cultivated the fields with wooden carts and water buffalo, but like all underdeveloped parts of the globe that he’d reported on in the past, Sebastian knew this peaceful scene was an illusion.
As he and the other two men walked the dirt lanes of Rajwara, swarms of excited children surrounded them, kicking up dust along the way. A Seattle Mariners baseball cap shaded his face from the sun, and he’d filled the pockets of his cargo pants with extra batteries for his tape recorder. The doctor was well known in the village, and women in bright saris emerged from thatched huts one after the other, speaking rapidly in Hindi. Sebastian didn’t need the doctor to translate to know what was said. The sound of the poor begging for help spoke a universal language.
Over the years, Sebastian had learned to place a professional wall between himself and what took place around him. To report on it without sinking into a black fog of hopeless depression. But scenes like these were still hard to encounter.
He stayed on the Bihar plains for three days interviewing One World Health and Doctors Without Borders relief workers. He visited hospitals. He spoke with a pharmaceutical chemist in the U.S. who’d developed a stronger more effective antibiotic, but like all drug development, money was the key to its success. He visited one last clinic and walked between the crammed rows of beds before he headed back to Calcutta.
He had an early flight out in the morning and was more than ready to relax in the hotel lounge, away from the teeming city, the overwhelming smells, and the constant noisy barrage. India possessed some of the most astounding beauty on earth and some of the most appalling poverty. In some places the two lived side by side, and nowhere was that more in evidence than Calcutta.
There had been a time when he’d scorned the journalist he considered soft-those “old” guys who kicked back in nice comfy hotel bars and ordered hotel food. As a young journalist, he’d felt that the best stories were out there in the streets, in the trenches and on the battlefields, in the flea bag hotels and slums, waiting to be told. He’d been right, but they weren’t the only worthy stories or always the most important. He used to believe he needed to feel bullets whizzing past his head, but he’d learned that high-octane reporting could make a journalist lose perspective. The rush to report could lead to a loss of objectivity. Some of the best reporting came from a thorough and unbiased gaze. Through the years, he’d perfected the sometimes difficult craft of journalistic balance.
At thirty-five, Sebastian had suffered through several cases of dysentery, been robbed, stepped in running streams of raw sewage, and seen enough death to last him a lifetime. He’d been there and done that, and earned every bit of his success. He didn’t have to fight for a byline anymore. After years of running full tilt, balls to the walls, chasing stories and leads, he’d earned some kickback time in an air-conditioned hotel.
He ordered a Cobra beer and tandoori chicken while he checked his e-mail. Halfway through his meal, an old colleague spotted him.
“Sebastian Vaughan.”
Sebastian looked up and a smile spread across his mouth as he recognized the man walking toward him. Ben Landis was shorter than Sebastian, with thick black hair and an open, friendly face. The last time Sebastian had seen him, Ben had been a correspondent with
Ben sat down across from him and signaled for a beer. “I’m writing a piece on the Missionaries of Charity ten years after the death of Mother Teresa.”
Sebastian had done a piece on the Missionaries of Charity in 1997, a few days after the death of the Catholic nun, the last time he’d been in Calcutta. Little had changed, but that was no surprise. Change was slow in India. He raised his beer and took a drink. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Ah, you know how things move around here. Unless you’re in a taxi, everything seems to stand still.”
Sebastian set his bottle on the table and the two of them caught up, swapping war stories and ordering a second beer. They reminisced about what a pain in the ass it had been to climb into hot, sweaty, chemical- protection suits everytime there’d been a chemical threat during the push into Iraq. They laughed about the Marine’s FUBAR, with forest green suits sent to the troops instead of sandstorm beige, though at the time it hadn’t been a laughing matter. They recalled stories of waking every morning in a shallow hole with fine dust covering their faces, and laughed some more about the knockdown, drag-out between a Canadian peace activist, who’d called Rumsfeld a warmonger, and an American wire service reporter, who’d taken exception. The fight had been fairly evenly matched until two women from Reuters joined the fray and broke it up.
“Remember that Italian reporter?” Ben asked through a smile. “The woman with big red lips and…” He held his hands in front of his chest as if he were holding melons. “What was her name?”
“Natala Rossi.” Sebastian raised the bottle to his lips and took a drink.
“Yeah. That was her.”
Natala had been a reporter with
“Those had to be fake,” Ben said as he took a long pull off his beer. “Had to be.”
Sebastian could have cleared things up for him. He’d spent a long night with Natala inside a Jordanian hotel and had firsthand knowledge-so to speak-that her lovely breasts were real. He’d understood very little Italian; she’d spoken very poor English; but conversation hadn’t been the point.
“The rumor was, she took you up to her hotel room.”
“Interesting.” He’d never been the kind of guy to kiss and tell. Not even when the retelling was really good stuff. “Did the rumor mention if I had a good time?” When he thought back on that night, he could hardly recall Natala’s face or her passionate cries. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, a different brunette rose up and got stuck center brain.
“So, the rumor isn’t true?”
“No,” he lied, rather than give a blow by blow-so to speak-description of his night with the Italian reporter. While the memory of Natala had faded, the memories of Clare in a pink thong and the kiss they’d shared seemed to grow more vivid with each passing day. He could recall perfectly the soft curves of her body pressed against him, the soft texture of her lush lips beneath his, and the warmth of her slick mouth. He’d kissed a lot of women in his life, good, bad, and hot as hell. But no woman had ever kissed him like Clare. Like she wanted to use her mouth to suck out his soul. And the confusing thing was, he’d wanted to let her. When she told him to kiss her nice little butt, he knew just the spot he wanted to kiss.
“I hear you got married,” he said in an effort to change the subject and get his thoughts off Clare, her smooth behind, and soft mouth. “Congratulations.”
“I did. My wife’s expecting our first child any day now.”
“And you’re here, waiting around to talk to nuns?”
“I’ve got to make a living.” A waiter set Ben’s third beer on the table and disappeared. “You know how it goes.”
Yeah, he knew. It took a lot of hard work and a good deal of luck to make a living in journalism. Especially for a freelance reporter.
“You haven’t said what you’re doing in Calcutta,” Ben said, and reached for the bottle.
Sebastian filled him in on what he’d been investigating in the Bihar plains and the newest outbreak of black fever. The two men shot the breeze for another hour, then Sebastian called it a night.
On the flight home the following day, he listened to the interviews he’d taped and scribbled down notes. While he wrote an outline, he recalled the abject hopelessness he saw in the faces of the peasants. He knew there was nothing he could do but tell their story and shed some light on the epidemic that had plagued the region. Just as he
