Message from Nam (31 page)

It was a terrible way to fall in love, a terrible place to be, a terrible war that had brought them together.

“What are we doing here?” he asked, his voice sounding shaken. It was not so much because of what he’d seen, but because if things had happened differently, she might have been killed, and suddenly more than anything, he didn’t want to lose her. “Why aren’t we someplace ordinary like New York or Maryland or Texas?”

“Because,” she smiled through her tears, “if we were, you probably wouldn’t know I’m alive, and you’d be with your wife.” She laughed and dried her eyes, trying to forget what they’d seen and just been through. “Or something like that.”

He smiled too. “You have a way with words, Miss Paxton Andrews.”

“I speak the truth. It’s one of my biggest failings.”

“And virtues. I don’t think I’d love you as much if you didn’t. One thing this place does to you is makes you develop an absolute hatred for bullshit. That’s what happens when I go back to the States between tours,” he explained as they got into his car. “I can’t listen to the lies anymore, the explanations, the things no one believes and everyone says. In some ways, it’s easier being here,” and then he thought about what had just happened. “At least I used to think so.”

“That happens a lot here, doesn’t it?” she asked, meaning the bombing, and he nodded. And then she smiled sadly. “Why is it, every time I’m with you, I come out looking like I’ve been dragged through a trench somewhere.”

“Because you’re crazy to be here.” He kissed her then, hard, and in a way that told her he was glad they were both alive and nothing had happened.

He took her back to her hotel then, and without saying a word they went upstairs. He had stopped at the bar and picked up a bottle of Scotch, and when she unlocked her room he laid it on the table, and then he turned to look at her, with sad eyes that said he loved her. “Pax, do you want me to go?” He had made arrangements to stay at the Rex, but he wanted to be here with her while he could, but only if it was also what she wanted. “I’ll go if you want me to.”

She shook her head and smiled and walked slowly toward him. She wasn’t sure what to do. Peter had been dead for four months, and she had thought she would be bonded to him forever. And yet suddenly he seemed part of another lifetime, another world, a place she would never be again, and Bill Quinn was all that mattered.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said softly.

He leaned down and took her in his arms, and she reached out to him with the passion born of loss and fear and sorrow, and he touched her with the strength of a man who puts his life on the line every morning. They had almost died that night and perhaps they would die the next day, but for now, for this single moment in time, they were alive, and belonged only to each other.

He lay down on the bed with her and gently stripped her clothes off. The dress had been reduced to shreds of silk by the explosion and there was blood on his uniform, and all they wanted to do was shed the past, and the pain, and the loneliness that had brought them together. He felt the satin of her skin as he lay with her, and he moaned softly.

“Oh, God, Pax, you’re so beautiful …” He couldn’t stop touching her and holding her and kissing her, and then she reached up and brought him to her, and as he entered her, there were tears in her eyes, not for the past and what they’d lost, but for what they’d found together.

C
HAPTER
16

P
axton managed another trip to Cu Chi with Ralph three weeks later. By then the Democratic Convention had exploded into an orgy of madness in Chicago, and Harriman was still overseeing the Viet Nam peace talks in Paris. The irony of it all seemed like a bad joke to Paxton when she read it on the teletype at the AP office when she went there to meet Ralph before the continuing Five O’Clock Follies. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore, except what was happening right there, and the life she now shared with Bill. All that mattered was that he was safe, and nothing happened to either of them. It seemed a miracle each time he came to her at the hotel, and spent the night, which he was able to do fairly often.

Ralph refrained from making comments on it most of the way to Cu Chi base, and then finally just before they arrived, he turned toward her and asked a question.

“It’s serious with you two, isn’t it?” She nodded, not wanting to say too much in front of the driver. Ralph hadn’t mentioned any names, but gossip circulated quickly from Saigon to all the bases. Who was sleeping with whom and why always seemed to be a popular subject of conversation. And there was a lot of it going around, like VD and a host of tropical diseases.

“Yes,” she said seriously, “it might be. It’s kind of new, and we haven’t figured it all out yet. There are some things that would have to be worked out, if … if …” If it lasted. Ralph knew what she meant, and he shook his head disapprovingly and looked out the window.

“You’re both fools. But surely you know that.”

“Why?” She was still so naive, so hopeful, as he turned back to look at her.

“Because you’ll get hurt, Pax. Everyone does here. You have to. I don’t have to spell it out to you. You’re a big girl. You know what the options are, and most of them aren’t pretty.” He meant that either Bill would go back to his wife when he got shipped home eventually, or he could get killed. He could survive of course, he could even leave Debbie. But Ralph didn’t think it very likely.

“You’ve been here too long. You’re too cynical.”

“Maybe so,” he said, lighting a cigarette. The worst of it was he had actually come to like Ruby Queens, the local brand. “I’ve seen the movie.”

“Maybe you didn’t watch the right ending. Maybe you didn’t stay long enough. You don’t know everything.”

“Look,” he tried again, because he liked her, “you’re smart, smarter than most. You’re doing a terrific job. You write great stuff. You could even win a Pulitzer one day.”

“Yeah, sure.” She laughed, amused.

“All right. So not a Pulitzer. But you’re good and you know it. What do you need this headache for? You’re only here for six months. Save it till you go home and meet Prince Charming behind a desk somewhere in some nice safe city like Milwaukee.”

She turned to him determinedly. “Look, I can’t help what happened. It did. It’s there. I can’t pretend it isn’t. And why should I? This is where we are right now. This is real. The rest is all bullshit.”

“What if the rest is real, and this is bullshit?”

“Then I was wrong. Haven’t you ever been wrong, Ralph?” She didn’t want to mention France again, but he had gotten involved with her for the same reasons. Because they were there, and it was hard, and everyone was scared, and all around them people were dying. What better antidote to all that than to fall in love with someone, whether one meant to or not. How could he of all people not understand that? “Look.” She turned to him again as he stubbed out his cigarette. “Just get off my back. I know you mean well. But you don’t understand.”

“Maybe not,” he said sadly. And when he saw them together later that afternoon, he wondered if she was right and he was wrong. There was undeniably something very strong and tender and beautiful between them. They tried to keep it hidden from everyone, but it was difficult. Their feelings for each other were so strong, so physical in some ways, and at the same time so honest, so pure, so built on mutual admiration and tenderness and love that it was very difficult to hide them.

Bill’s sergeant, Tony Campobello, saw it too, and he was furious over it, which even she had noticed. He was barely civil to her, and when she was around that afternoon, his tone to his superior officer was icy. And all Bill did was raise an eyebrow in amusement. But when they ran into him at Tan Son Nhut one afternoon, at the PX, Paxton couldn’t resist saying something to him, while Bill was paying.

“I’m sorry …” she started to say to Tony, but he cut her off.

“For what?”

“The way you feel,” she said honestly, since he made it no secret.

“The way I feel has nothing to do with this,” he said coldly.

“Then what are you angry about?” She looked him straight in the eye, which was easier than it was with Bill because Tony was almost the same height she was. “Or is it just that you don’t like me?”

“I don’t give a shit about you.” He was out of line and he knew it, but he didn’t care. He hated her and he wanted her to know it. “It’s him I care about. He’s saved my ass more times than you’ll ever know. He’s saved more men in this godforsaken country than you can count, and you’re out there risking his ass, and you don’t even know it.” She was shocked at what he said and she didn’t understand.

“How can you say that?” She had done nothing to risk his life, on the contrary, she wanted him to stay alive, even if that meant he went home to Debbie. But she didn’t want him to die. This guy was crazy.

“Lady, do you know what it takes to stay alive here? You gotta crawl on your belly every day, and think of only one thing, yourself. You think about the next guy too much, you watch your buddy and not yourself, and you’re a dead man. In one second, it’s all over. You know what he thinks about out there now? Not us, not himself, not what he’s doing, not who’s in the tunnel, or is there a guy out there in the bushes just waiting for us … he thinks about you, and he sits around smiling. And you know what that’s going to do to him? It’s going to get his ass blown off by a land mine, or his brains blown out by a sniper. And do you know who’s fault it’ll be, lady? Yours. You think about that next time he reaches out to touch you.” And as he said that, Bill walked over to them with his purchases and he was smiling.

“Hi, Tony … you know Paxton, don’t you?” He did and he didn’t want to. And something disturbed Bill about the way Paxton looked as the sergeant said, “Yeah, sure,” saluted, and left them. She didn’t say a word to Bill about what he had just said to her, but she was frightened all night as she lay beside Bill and thought of the sergeant’s warning. Were they alright? Was she wrong to love him? Would it destroy them both? Was there no room for love here? It seemed hard to believe, and everyone had someone, even if it was only for a moment. And all the while Ralph was telling her that she had no right to love Bill, he was living with the Eurasian girl in Gia Dinh … he went home to her at night, didn’t he? But why was it that no one wanted her to be with Bill? Especially not the angry young sergeant.

“You were awfully quiet last night,” Bill said the next day. He had three days off, and he had noticed it, but she still wouldn’t tell him what Tony had said. She just told him she was worried about a story.

They went to Vung Tau that weekend, for three days R and R, in the lovely coastal town that was still a beautiful resort with exquisite beaches. Paxton thought she had never been happier in her life. They talked about the future sometimes, but as infrequently as they could. There was nothing to talk about now, except the time they shared. And when he went back to the States, he would have to decide what he wanted to do about Debbie. They were both due to go back at almost the same time. She had promised to go back by Christmas, and his DEROS was a month later. He was due back in San Francisco at the end of January, and he and Paxton agreed, he had spent enough time in Viet Nam. Four tours were sufficient. He was going home to figure out the business of living.

“Do you really think you could stand being an army bride?” he asked her in bed one night in Vung Tau, and the scary thing was that he meant it.

“I think so.” She smiled. “I could write for
Stars and Stripes.
”

“You’re too good for them.” Even though they were informative and everyone read them.

“Baloney.” She rolled over in bed and he kissed her. They had a wonderful time in Vung Tau, and they went back again in October. And shortly after that, he went to Hong Kong for a week’s R and R with Debbie. It was something he and Paxton had talked about at length, and he was tempted to cancel. But Paxton thought he should go, even if it was hard on her. She felt he owed that to Debbie. This was no time for a confrontation. But when he came back, he was in a bad mood for weeks. Debbie had put a lot of pressure on him about his attitudes, and the war. She had recently gotten involved in an antiwar group, and she told him he was a killer. She also told him she wanted a new car, and she was sick to death of the army.

Nixon had been elected by then, and Paxton’s news from home was pretty good. Her mother seemed fine, although anxious to see her at Christmas. And Gabby wrote and told her she was having another baby. Their lives seemed to go on, but Paxton could no longer imagine what it would be like to be there with them. After five months in Viet Nam, she felt as though she’d been living on another planet.

And she said as much to Bill one night when they were out for dinner. “You know, I feel guilty even saying it. But I don’t want to go home for Christmas.” She wanted to stay in Viet Nam with him. It meant more to her than going home, and being with her family in Savannah. She had hated that for years, and now it would be worse. She had grown up too much this year. And it was just too different. Besides, Christmas at home without Queenie would be truly awful. And being in the States would bring back a flood of painful memories of Peter. And although she thought less about it now, she felt that a part of her would always love him. Things were just different now, but even Bill understood that.