he had not been in his right mind the last year. In the end, the body went to the States, and the staff had a Buddhist funeral with an empty casket, done frequently as the numbers of dead grew and recovery of bodies became more problematic.
The procession began at the apartment in Cholon. Helen looked up at the window, hoping to see the sister-in-law and her children crowding the sill, but it remained empty. Was it possible that Linh had kept her away so memory would not change her mind about leaving? The Vietnamese in the procession wore traditional white scarves of mourning on their heads. Monks chanted and burned joss. They wound their way to downtown, stopped in the plaza next to the Marine Statue, beneath the office’s windows.
Helen was dry-eyed. Her head ached. At the plaza, Gary leaned against a tree, facing away from them, and all she could see was the curl of his shoulders, his newly white hair. But she wasn’t able to comfort him. Weren’t they all children, pretending tragedy when it was clear the danger they placed themselves in? Shouldn’t they just damn well accept it? When they passed the Continental, the head bartender carried out a glass of Darrow’s favorite scotch on a silver tray.
At Mac Dinh Chi cemetery, Linh scattered a trail of uncooked rice and paper money. Clouds gathered and wind blew as a mat was unrolled at the gravesite. A plate of cracked crab flown in from Vung Tau, a bowl of rice, and the glass of scotch were laid out. Tangible things that Helen understood, compared to the generic funerals of flowers and coffins and organ music she had attended back home. A bundle of incense was lit and then it was over.
The clouds darkened, the longed-for rain fell, and people scattered for any available shelter.
Helen looked for Annick in the procession, but she had warned that she would not come. Too many funerals, she said. If she went to them all that’s all she’d do. But Helen was leaving that night and wanted to say good-bye, so she walked, covering herself with the umbrella, moving through the flooding streets, skirting small moving streams of dirty water floating with trash. The rain kept falling, gray and hard, pounding the earth, and a gust of wind blew off the river, lifting the ribs of her umbrella inside out until she was gathering the rain rather than sheltering from it, and she let the umbrella fall on the road, knowing it would be picked up, repaired, and used within minutes. Each item reincarnated countless times. One thing she had learned in Vietnam-that reincarnation was not only in the hereafter but also in the now. She continued on, rain pelting her, and reached the milliner’s and stood under the awning, wiping water off her face. In the display window was a wedding dress she hoped had been created for some jilted bride and not her.
Inside, the Vietnamese seamstresses sat on their accustomed rush seats, sewing away faster and with more concentration than usual. From outside, over the sound of rain, Helen had thought she heard talking and laughter, but inside, the store was as silent as a tomb. She stood at the counter, but Annick did not come out from the back where she usually hid out, smoked cigarettes, and drank wine. The seamstresses took no notice of Helen’s presence, so she tapped the bell on the counter.
At the sound, the older one stood. She wore the same black dress Helen had seen her in the first time and each subsequent time she came to the store, so that Helen was convinced that the madames owned seven identical black dresses, one for each day in order for the worn ones to be washed and starched and made ready. Her head pounding, Helen felt feverish as she stood, dripping water onto the floor. The elder madame mumbled to herself as she made her stiff, slow way to the counter, all the while looking down to study her suddenly idle fingers.
“Bonjour, madame,” Helen said, and the seamstress returned the greeting in her singsong French, more as a refrain than greeting, still without making eye contact.
“Ou est Madame Annick?” Helen asked.
The seamstress sighed. “Madame est parti.”
“Ou?” Where?
The seamstress looked up, and her gaze startled Helen, the eyes the pale gray of cataract. “Elle est parti.” The woman bent sideways under the counter, pulled out a small flat box tied in satin ribbon. Helen opened it and saw a card from Annick on top of a gold scarf. No good-byes. Bon voyage, ma chere.
“Merci. Au revoir,” the seamstress replied, and with a small curtsey she returned to her chair in obvious relief to again pick up her embroidery.
At the hotel that evening, Linh apologized for not being able to take her to the airport. He made no attempt to give an excuse. He could not trust himself not to betray her departure. Beg her not to leave. They stood awkwardly at the hotel entrance.
“I’ll miss you,” she said.
As Linh walked away, a soldier was arguing with the doorman, and Helen was distracted by his loud voice. When she looked back to the spot where Linh had stood, it was empty. But as the cab pulled up to take her bags, he reappeared.
“Everything’s fixed. I can come see you off.”
They rode in silence. Again he offered no explanation for his change in plans, and Helen, hurt that he had not wanted to see her off, now wondered why he had changed his mind.
As the plane rose steeply on takeoff, the passengers remained quiet, but as it swung out over the South China Sea applause broke out. Helen was the only one not smiling. Below on the dark sea, squid boats floated like carnivals, bright with light.
After Helen left Saigon, Linh sat alone in the crooked apartment. No sister-in-law, no children. When he had turned down Thao’s proposal of marriage, she had promptly set her sights on a mechanic and was now living on the other side of town with him and the children. Linh still sent them money.
Linh had stood helpless at the gate of the plane; he had broken his own discipline and confused her by his actions. In his weakness he asked Helen for something to remember her by, but it was too late. All she had was a gold scarf around her neck that was brand-new and not hers yet, but she took it off and handed it to him. Now he held it to his nose, but there was no scent of her on it. Slowly he twisted it and wrapped it tight around one wrist, when someone knocked at the door. He did not want to answer, did not want to endure Mr. Bao at this moment, but to continue to avoid him would be worse. He opened the door.
Mr. Bao walked through the room, now needing a wooden cane, taking in each object although only the bare furniture remained. “Now it seems I must come to you. It’s been months since we’ve talked.”
“There are no developments. Other than my being a staff photographer.”
“That is very good. Keep your ears and eyes open.”
“That’s my job.”
Mr. Bao looked at him sharply, his small eyes behind the glasses magnified. “Don’t forget whose side you are on. Sentiment is turning to our side. Men like you are credited with helping that. Don’t make us doubt you.”
“Why pretend? It’s not as if this has been voluntary on my part. How is the heroin trade? Prosperous?” It amazed Linh how naive the North still was about the Americans, not realizing Westerners’ quest for news was more powerful than anything he could have ever led them to.
Mr. Bao picked up a figurine of a Buddha, a trinket from the markets, left behind. “So your little adventuress is gone?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad. Why didn’t you convince her to stay?”
“I have no control.” The truth was, and he felt shame in his pride over it, that he could have persuaded her to stay. But his loyalty to Darrow outweighed his love and his anger. The Americans did not yet realize that they would lose the war. There was a kind of hopeless certainty in Linh that no harm would come to him in this war, that he was one of the charmed, although he did not particularly care about that survival. He was angry that he had not been with Darrow, thwarted his death.
“It doesn’t matter. Better to not deal with a woman anyway. What if she falls in love with you?” Bao chuckled and eyed the scarf. “What’s that?”
“She left it behind.” He saw Bao’s eyebrows rise, and quickly added, “She asked me to deliver it to a friend to send on to her.”
Mr. Bao reached out and touched the fabric. “Then you shouldn’t wrinkle it so. Too bad. It is good quality-my wife would have liked it.”
