The Lotus Eaters_ A Novel Part 25

Samuels blew air out through his lips in a slow hiss, the fight knocked out of him.

"No, I don't think you did." Horner looked tired but kindly, like a father urging his son to finish a necessary task. "Go back across."

The other men s.h.i.+fted, but Horner held up his hand. "Just Samuels."

No movement except for the scanning of Horner's binoculars over the paddy.

"No," Samuels said.

Horner sighed and put down the gla.s.ses. He brushed a dried weed off his s.h.i.+rt.

"That's an order."

In a burst of energy, Samuels was on his feet, his revolver unholstered. "You go."

Horner's skin went red; he seemed more offended than frightened. "You're looking at a court-martial, mister, unless you put that thing down," he said, his voice almost a whisper. When Samuels didn't move, he leaned forward. " Now Now, I said."

"It's not even loaded, you stupid f.u.c.k." Before Horner could get close, Samuels turned the gun at his own head, grimaced, and fired. Everyone crouched for a minute, unable to comprehend what had happened.

As they laid him out, Horner got on the radio, ordering an immediate medevac. out, Horner got on the radio, ordering an immediate medevac.

Helen knelt down next to the corpsman.

Samuels's helmet was still on, and as the medic pulled off the compress wrapped under his nose to his neck, a wave of black pa.s.sed over Helen's eyes. The forehead, the eyes, the nose, all of it was the old Samuels, but the lower jaw was missing. Blood poured in luxuriant gushes down his chest. The entire crescent of his upper teeth was laid bare; she quickly turned away. The corpsman grabbed a large body compress and pressed it up into the hole beneath the nose.

"Hold this down tight, okay?"

Helen nodded and held, breath gone, pressure behind her eyes as if she were going to pa.s.s out.

"Don't press on the neck," the corpsman yelled as he punctured the skin, creating a trache hole. "You'll block his breathing pa.s.sage."

Helen followed orders instinctually. She looked into Samuels's eyes, and his look said he couldn't believe in the reality of what had happened, either. She leaned down to his ear. "Don't you give up on me."

A few minutes later his body went into convulsions, the torso bouncing as if an electric current pulsed through him, legs stretched out and trembling, arms reaching, throwing Helen and the corpsman off.

"I need help to hold him down!"

One of the solders came, knelt on the other side of Samuels, and pinned his arms.

The medic couldn't give morphine because it was a head wound. After a minute, Samuels's body relaxed, the tension loosened. His eyes, which had been wild and fierce with pain, now flattened out. When she looked into his eyes, his gaze was cool and impersonal, a great distance and solitude in them.

The medic wrapped an elastic bandage around the compress and over the helmet.

"No need taking it off and having things spill out."

Helen moved off, hands covered in blood. She didn't want to dig out her bandanna from her camera bag, smearing blood on her equipment. Too afraid of snipers to get water from the paddy, she settled for wiping her hands on her pants. Horner sat on a rock alone, face crumpled and worn, years of training all unraveled in minutes.

When she returned to Samuels, she concentrated on his tanned arms, still perfect, the dragon tattoo still wrapped around the muscled left forearm. She took his hand and held it to her.

When they placed him in the helicopter, Helen got on also. "I don't want him to be alone."

The corpsman squeezed her shoulder. "He's not going to make it, okay? Nothing you can do either way to change that."

At the field hospital, stretcher bearers ran Samuels into the tent. An hour pa.s.sed.

The noise of the planes and jeeps, the rus.h.i.+ng of the medical staff, unreal after the silence of the forest.

Finally a nurse came out to have a cigarette and offered one to her. "Honey, you need to clean up."

Helen wiped her hands against her pants and felt the dry crustiness of them.

"Over there," the nurse said. "The supply building. Hot water and soap, a cot to lie down in. You need it."

"Samuels?" Helen said, barely able to mumble the words, her mouth dry, tongue thick.

"Oh, sorry, honey. Didn't make it to the operating table. Somebody should have told you."

Helen nodded her head. Before, there had been this small, s.h.i.+ny thing inside her that kept her immune from what was happening, and now she knew it had only been her ignorance, and she felt herself falling into a deep, dark place.

"Come on," the woman said. "Let's get you cleaned up and fed."

After the nurse went back on duty, Helen returned to the supply building. Inside, back on duty, Helen returned to the supply building. Inside, it was hot, close, and dim, the only light from a row of exposed lightbulbs at the front of the building and the cracks of light through the rough, uneven seams of the metal walls.

Racks of metal shelving stood eight feet tall, piled with supplies as tight as the stacks in a library. The air smelled of cardboard and plastic. As promised, a small cot was made up in one of the rows.

Helen put her equipment underneath the cot, then stretched out. She rolled onto her side, dragging her muddy boots across the blanket, too tired to take them off. Her arms and legs and chest trembled so that she had to clench her teeth as if against cold, and yet her skin was bathed in sweat. Beyond tears. She longed for something, anything, even physical pain, to provide a diversion.

"Adams."

She did not know how much time had pa.s.sed, but she woke to the sound of a helicopter coming in. The flights had been constant, the radioed battle that Horner's unit was joining, the wounded piling in. She prayed that Horner had delayed the unit but knew he wouldn't. Just as he wouldn't take blame for breaking Samuels. Although now he would die in shame, Samuels had simply chosen the method of his suicide. Horner's way would have earned him a metal for bravery. It sickened her. She heard a soldier calling her name again. This was her ride to rejoin the company.

She rolled off the cot and crawled on her hands and knees farther into the rows till she reached the farthest, darkest corner. She sat on the floor balled up, with her back against a box, her knees drawn into her chest, her forehead resting on them.

"Adams! Where the h.e.l.l is she?"

The door opened, and her name echoed against the thin metallic walls. Helen breathed in, held her breath until she could feel her pulse throbbing. The door slammed shut.

"Where did the girl photographer go?"

Helen rolled down on her side, the ground cool and smelling of moisture like a damp bas.e.m.e.nt. She tucked her fist under her chin. When she closed her eyes, she saw Samuels as he had been next to her under the plastic part.i.tion, and then she fell asleep.

Hours later, she left the supply building and searched out the air controller.

"We couldn't find you for the supply run."

"I've got enough film, and I need to send it out. When's the next flight to Danang?" She held her breath, the lie so obvious.

He looked at his clipboard, bored. "Cargo flight at sunset."

"I'll be in the mess tent."

She sat on a bench and stared at the table. She stood at the LZ half an hour before the plane was ready to take off. She had already boarded when a soldier ran up with her camera bags that she had left behind, forgotten, in the supply building.

When Helen returned to Saigon, she was relieved to find Darrow and Linh on Saigon, she was relieved to find Darrow and Linh on an a.s.signment in Cam Ranh Bay. In the apartment, she continued her hiding, camped under the mint green bedspread, trying to forget what had happened, including her own humiliating part in it. A pain throbbed behind her eyes--she could not put Samuels out of her mind, his death like a disease inside her. The more she thought about it, the less she understood what had happened or whom to blame.

The film in the bags was an accusation; if she could not figure out Samuels's intention, she couldn't in good conscience broadcast the photos, so instead of mourning the loss of her friend, she had to act as judge on his actions. Obviously Horner had been in the wrong, had demoralized his men, but Samuels was a veteran of two tours. He should have been able to deal with Horner easily. Had he just been showing off, a terrible, stupid accident? Or had Samuels snapped? Had the waste and stupidity up to that moment finally done him in?

There were worse alternatives to consider. Had the lines begun to blur so much that Samuels simply didn't care whether there was a bullet in the chamber or not?

In exasperation, Gary came to pick up the film himself, and she reluctantly let it to pick up the film himself, and she reluctantly let it go because to make an issue of it would be to convict Samuels. An a.s.sistant would develop the rolls. Gary took one look at Helen and called a doctor. He promised to return after the film was processed.

When the doctor examined her, he shook his head. "Exhaustion. Post-stress."

"You're my doctor, right? Call it vitamin deficiency." doctor, right? Call it vitamin deficiency."

The sheets were dirty; she hadn't changed them in weeks, too busy for normal life.

Gingerly Gary sat on the edge of the bed. "What happened, honey bunny?" He didn't want to be responsible for his star girl photographer going down and that becoming the story.

Helen shook her head. How could she not betray Samuels and still let the photos go out? "I don't think the film's any good."

"They're great shots. You just need to rest, okay?"

She leaned over, her eyes slipping away from him. "I don't know what happened.

Out there." She knew what had happened inside, Samuels's frustration. But hadn't he really meant it as a dare, a bit of drama, a boyish prank?

The room was hot, and Gary's forehead beaded with sweat. "Why do you stay here? I pay you a lot better than living here."

"It's the real Vietnam."

"Who the h.e.l.l cares? Didn't you notice? The real 'Nam is a s.h.i.+t hole." Gary kicked at a pillow on the floor. Bad enough to witness all the military casualties, but now his reporters were falling apart. Every day he lived with the guilt, sending them out, knowing the dangers, the scars it would leave either way. Pretending, pretending, his cowboy talk that none of it was so bad, that they'd be okay if they took precautions. And here was his girl getting all messed up.

"Why's the place good enough to die for, then?"

"That's real philosophical and deep and all, but I got my own problems. Look, sweetie, I don't know when's a good time to tell you, so here it is. The new a.s.sistant was rushed and used too much heat drying the negatives. The emulsion melted."

The shock that the whole thing had been destroyed stunned her. "All of them?"

Despite her doubt about releasing them, now the news knocked the wind out of her. It was clear now that she would never have sat on the photos. Samuels betrayed again, now by being forgotten.

"Of course not. About half. But listen, the ones left were good enough for another cover. And your fee doubled, too, so not so bad, huh?"

He was a sly one; she suspected he had tricked her into realizing how valuable they were.

"My fee just tripled. And I want my byline on each picture." She rolled back onto the bed, appalled with this small, hard ambition inside her. "What about the one with Samuels standing at the edge of the paddy?"

"Tripled, didn't I say that? I'll have to check on the name, greedy girl. Your soldier's the cover boy." He was relieved by her voracity. That bit of ruthlessness would serve her well and meant that all this bed rest was just theatrics.

"No, you didn't say."

"Of course," Gary said, running his hand up and down the bedspread, "knowing the outcome of the battle... well, he's immortalized."

She closed her eyes, weighing the decision. "Even if he shot himself?"

Gary paused, relieved now that he had found out the cause of her behavior. "I didn't even hear that."

"Are you that cynical?" cynical?"

He glanced at her, a small, wan smile, then got up and moved away. "Man, it's boiling in here. What I am am is a guy with a constant deadline. Samuelson--" is a guy with a constant deadline. Samuelson--"

"Samuels."

"Whatever. Was a brave soldier--I have testimonials. You You don't know what don't know what happened for sure. Things go on out there that can't be judged by the standards of ordinary life, little girl."

Even if Gary knew exactly what had happened, it would make no difference.

"Give this a thought. Fly to Was.h.i.+ngton and present a print of this Samuels to his parents, or girlfriend, wife, what ever he's got. That would be great coverage."

She shook her head. "I'm through."

"That's why you had your fee tripled? What you need is rest." He paced the room, sweating and wiping his forehead with a paper napkin. "How about me sending some meals over from Grival's."

"You can't buy me," she said into her blanket, but they both knew he had won.

"It's on the expense account, okay? And you'll get your byline."

"I don't care."

He studied her for a moment. "Even if the guy did flip out for a second--which I'm officially denying--what about all the times he's a hero and no one is handy with a camera? He's a brave SOB in my book just for being out there in Vietnam, another name for h.e.l.l." He picked up his pack to leave.

"At the field hospital--"

"I'll tell you something I shouldn't. I rescued Darrow out there in Angkor. Don't ever let him know. Hiding in the rocks. Flipped out, man. Scared of his shadow. I'm not sure what would have happened if Linh hadn't shown up." An exaggeration, of course, but one for a good cause.

Helen had never heard this version of their time at Angkor; all she knew was Darrow's obsession with going back there.

"Be one of my best photographers. The job won't betray you. I love Darrow, but he's headed in a bad direction again--the thing with Tanner was dumb. I'm relying on you and Linh to pull him through."

But Gary was wrong. Already the job had betrayed her. Or she had betrayed it, had fulfilled MacCrae's prophecy, and become part of their movie. Young boys like Michael would see that picture of Samuels and follow in the footsteps of a man who rolled the dice with his life.

When Gary left, Helen got out of bed, dressed, and took up life again. At dinner got out of bed, dressed, and took up life again. At dinner with Annick, she sipped at a martini, so icy it went down like water. The smoothness of the tablecloth, the ice in their water gla.s.ses, the laughter at the tables around them, soothed her. A man across the room nodded, and she smiled back. The waiter brought them a complimentary round of drinks.

"You're strange to night," Annick said, and lit a cigarette.

Helen noticed the smudge of lipstick on Annick's gla.s.s as she moved it away from her lips, the pristine cleanness of the china (nothing in the field could be made that clean), the rustle of a woman's dress as she pa.s.sed by.

"I was a coward."