A small mound stirred under a grayed cotton sheet and a delicate face peered out. The girl had enormous eyes and perfect almond skin, hair pulled back by a white lace headband, and thin gold hoops that accented her petal-like ears.
“Won’t donations pour in for this face?” He smiled like a proud father.
Helen tried to see the girl in front of her, but no matter how lovely she was, Darrow saw something more than the child in front of him.
“I’m thinking we stay until enough donations are collected so she can make the trip to America with us. Document the prosthetics, rehab, the whole thing.”
Helen sat down on the dirty floor between the filled cots and pulled out a bag of candy. “That could take at least another month or two. Or more.”
“But this can make a difference.”
“So why don’t we pay for her plane ticket?”
Darrow shook his head. “No, no. Don’t you see? We’ll collect enough to send dozens of kids.”
“So you’re going to make her your poster child? Delay her rehabilitation?”
“What’s another month? I want to accomplish something tangible, and here’s my chance.”
The girl rocked herself over to lean against Darrow’s chest, her wiry, twiglike arms supporting all her weight. When she saw the bag of candy, she lunged across his knees and snatched it, scratching Helen’s hand.
“Hey!”
Darrow laughed as Lan tore the cellophane and greedily unwrapped the candies, stuffing them in her mouth. The boy sharing her cot whimpered, holding out an unsteady arm.
“She’s wild as a stray,” Darrow said. He unwrapped a caramel and handed it to the boy.
“Do you think it’s wise… singling out one child?” Helen asked.
He grimaced. “I know the power of pictures.” Darrow held Lan’s chin. “Some Iowa mother is going to fall in love with that face while she’s feeding her family eggs and toast for breakfast. She’s going to send ten, twenty dollars.”
Helen got to her feet. “Let’s take some pictures.”
After several hours, they had finished for the day and packed up. A Vietnamese woman approached with a bamboo basket of food and spoke to Lan. She looked Helen over carefully.
“Is that her mother?” Helen asked.
“No. Linh’s sister-in-law, Thao. I paid for her to care for Lan.”
The words flew out of her mouth before she could think. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little too involved?”
Darrow stiffened. “This is one of the perks of the job. Being in a position to act.”
“So why don’t we all go to the States now?”
She had become like all the others, like his wife. He had worried when she went out alone on missions, but having her underfoot was worse, and now the jealousy. “We need to draw it out a bit for publicity. Then we’ll have a story to work on in California. Maybe we’ll end up helping a lot more kids. You can’t be against that?”
“Of course not.” He had pitted her against an orphaned child. How could she not look bad in the comparison? But if they were staying till every last orphan was tidied away, well…
When Darrow lifted his bags to leave, Lan let out a howl. He sat back down, and she clung to his chest. They rocked together while he hummed a song. But as soon as he tried to move away, she whimpered.
“I come back tomorrow, okay?” Darrow said. Slowly, the girl strained up and gave him a small kiss on the cheek.
Helen bent down to hug the girl, smelling the stale sweat and sour milk. Small sores from the dirt and heat had erupted on her face and neck. The girl looked deep into Helen’s eyes, took a breath, and wailed, bringing the slow-moving nurse over.
“She’s a temperamental one, that girl,” the nurse said.
“She’ll get used to the idea we’re coming back. Let’s go.”
Helen was relieved to be back out in the courtyard, breathing fresh air. The afternoon sun flooded the yard with cleansing light. The smell of grilled meat over the brazier of a street vendor on the sidewalk outside made her light-headed with hunger.
“Let’s eat.”
Over a cold beer and grilled pork, Helen couldn’t help probing the new situation like a toothache. “She’s an orphan?”
Darrow took another bite, then wiped his mouth. “In effect. The family’s too poor to come this far. As far as they’re concerned, she’s just a girl.”
“You’ve probably got plenty of footage already. We could finish in California.”
Darrow turned and signaled for another dish. “I want to show her full… progress. We’ll do other assignments in the meantime.”
“I thought…”
He stopped and looked at her. He understood the fear, and he also understood, as she didn’t, that she would get over it. He reached across the table and took her hand as the Vietnamese at the nearby tables tittered. “Hey, time is on our side now.”
Helen looked across the street to the center’s walls, blinding, its aspect dull and impassive and unyielding.
Thao went home that night tired of the brattish girl she tended, filled with the certainty that the American woman was the reason she could not get Linh’s affections. His duty was to marry her. It was not an unusual thing during the war for such unions of convenience. Linh appeared lost to her, and she could be a good wife, saving his money, caring for him, while he watched over her and her children.
That night, she invited him over for dinner. With the money she earned for Lan, she had bought a new smock and pants, new pillows for the apartment. She had never known such luxury. Thao and Mai had come from simple peasant stock; strong, healthy girls, Mai the beauty, Thao the brains.
She arranged for a neighbor to take the girl for the evening. The baby slept. She wouldn’t wait Linh out any longer, what ever visions he had for himself. He was a man, after all, and she knew how to deal with a man.
When Linh arrived, the apartment was filled with smells of food cooking. It was uncharacteristically quiet.
“Where are the children?” His main reason for visiting was the joy he got playing with them.
“With neighbors. The baby sleeps.”
Linh sat down. When Thao came out, his throat caught at the transformation: her hair oiled, face powdered, a pale pink smock of silk.
“You look beautiful,” he said. What he meant was that she looked like Mai. She smiled and poured him a rice brandy she had bought for the occasion.
“What is all this?”
“Nothing. A thanks for all you have done for us.”
The evening proceeded, Thao a perfect hostess, plying him with alcohol, serving his favorite crab and asparagus soup, heaping his plate with food, asking intelligent and flattering questions about his work. When the dinner was finished, she had him sit on the new cushions she had bought for the Western-style sofa that came with the apartment.
“I’m tired. Drunk,” he said.
“Let me massage your neck,” she said, and turned him away from her, lowered the lights, and began kneading into the muscles of his neck. “Lots of tension.”
Afterward, they sat side by side and sipped tea. In the dimness, Linh looked over, and his heart skipped at the image of Mai. Although he knew better, he couldn’t hold out against Thao, all these months of her
