Betrayals (17 page)

F
rom the first moment Jared saw Mai bundled up in her exhausted mother’s arms, he knew this tiny, wriggling infant had the capacity to change his life. Already he had postponed getting out of collapsing South Vietnam because of her. She should have been born two weeks ago, when there was still at least some hope that Hanoi could be persuaded to halt its southward march.

But no baby came, and village after village fell to the communists, until, at last, shortly after six o’clock in the steamy Saigon dusk of April 28, 1975, a slippery, dark-haired girl was born to the sounds of her mother’s cries of pain and joy and the shelling of the giant Tan Son Nhut Air Base just four miles from the heart of the city.

The war had finally come to Saigon.

The French nun who’d served as Tam’s midwife took Jared aside several hours after the rough labor had ended. Tam and the baby were asleep in his bedroom, and the shelling had died down. But the nun—Sister Joan—looked concerned. “The baby’s healthy, but Tam is very weak,” she explained in English. “Her pregnancy was long and diffi
cult, and I’m afraid so was the labor. She’ll be all right, I think, but you must wait as long as possible before you take her to America.”

Jared was surprised. “How do you know—”

“You must get her out,” Sister Joan said, with unusual intensity for one who’d seen as much fear, sickness and death as she had in the past month. Refugees were streaming into the city by the tens of thousands. Now there was nowhere left to run, except out of the land of their ancestors. The young nun gripped Jared’s arm. “The baby will get her out of Saigon. She’s what the Vietnamese call
bui doi.
It means the dust of life.”

It was the first time Jared had heard the expression, and he understood it at once. In a communist Vietnam, the children of American fathers, be they white, black or brown, wouldn’t fare well.

Releasing him, Sister Joan continued. “There are rumors those in charge of the evacuation are letting Vietnamese women with Amerasian children pass through the system with very little question. She wouldn’t even need a
laissez-passer.
”

Jared had heard those same rumors. Thinking the baby would be born any second, he had let the prospect that a half-American baby would ease Tam’s way out of Saigon delay their exit, despite the directive that nonessential American personnel get the hell out of the country. He couldn’t think of anyone more nonessential than an American architect and a college sophomore. Nevertheless, neither he nor R.J.—as beautiful and combative as ever—would leave without Tam. And the baby was Tam’s ticket out.

Still, if Tam had been able to travel safely, he and R.J. might have gotten her out sooner—somehow. Tam had no
special status to get her evacuated from the country, but they’d have tried to find a way.

The problem was, the Republic of Vietnam was falling fast. The American ambassador, Graham Martin, didn’t have the time or the resources to evacuate all the Vietnamese who’d likely face reprisals under a communist government. And the Americans still in the country were his first priority. It was a tightrope act: if the general population got the idea the Americans were cutting and running—which they were—there could be panic…. Vietnamese fighting Americans and each other for scarce space on planes and helicopters out…tramplings, drownings, shootings, crushed babies…Vietnamese soldiers killing and maiming the people they were sworn to protect to save their own skins. In a word, panic.

It had all happened just a month ago in Danang.

Jared promised the nun he would do everything he could to help Tam. They signed papers for the baby, and she went out into the humid, sweet-smelling night, unafraid of the curfew or the prospect of more shelling.

The apartment suddenly seemed too quiet and isolated, and Jared wished R.J. would hurry up. She was canvassing the building for food and whatever else of use she could find. Most of the other residents were American, and except for a writer-diplomat couple on the top floor, had already left the country, giving ever-resourceful Rebecca Blackburn permission to raid their cupboards. She’d produced snowy-white towels for Tam’s labor, and even a tattered Raggedy Ann for the baby.

Jared tiptoed into the bedroom, but Tam was awake. Her eyelids were swollen and heavy, her skin pallid, but her haunting beauty was still there, beneath the ravages of recent childbirth, fear, exhaustion. In her gaunt face, her magnifi
cent eyes seemed huge and so sad, even as they filled with love and tenderness at the sight of her sleeping child.

“R.J.’s out scrounging,” Jared said. “How do you feel?”

She managed to smile. “Tired and sore.”

He didn’t doubt that. Witnessing his first childbirth had given him a new perspective on the strength and endurance of women. R.J.’s only comment was she couldn’t believe her mother had gone through this torture six times. But of course, Mai made all the difference. Jared couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked Tam.

“Just water.”

He had a pitcher ready and filled two glasses. Tam winced as she sat up, but didn’t complain. She sipped the water gratefully.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

He knew what she meant. “Bad. ‘Big’ Minh was sworn in as the new president while you were in labor. A few diehards think he can still negotiate a settlement with Hanoi, but I doubt it. In cowboys’ parlance, they’ve got us surrounded. About all Minh can do is hand over the keys to the city and forestall a bloodbath.” At Tam’s increased paleness, Jared regretted his blunt words. “Maybe ‘liberation’ won’t be that bad. Most of the dying so far’s been the result of panic, not communist atrocities.”

Of course, the memory of communist atrocities during the Tet Offensive in 1968—the killing of three thousand civilians in Hue—had helped spark the hysteria that swept Danang. But Jared didn’t need to tell Tam that; this was her country. Like so many others, her family had been decimated: killed, tortured, exiled and scattered by the decades of strife. Since her popular father’s death in the 1963 scandal that brought down Thomas Blackburn, a familiar
figure to many South Vietnamese, Tam had tried to live a quiet life. She had a small income from the life insurance policy Thomas had insisted Quang Tai take out on himself before returning home in 1959, and after school, used her language skills to land a string of jobs with various French, Australian and American firms. She hadn’t done anything to ensure her the special friendship or enmity of either the Americans or the North Vietnamese.

Tam looked away from Jared, touching her tiny daughter on her smooth, red cheek. “I’d have written a different ending for my country,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.” Jared didn’t know what else to say. “Tam, we’ll get you and the baby out—”

She turned to him and smiled. “I’m not worried, Jared. Quentin will take care of me.”

“Giap and his gang will be hanging posters of Ho Chi Minh all over Saigon before you finally realize Quentin’s not coming back and he’s not getting you out of this country. I’m sorry to be hard on you at a time like this, but you’ve got to face reality.” He broke off, sweating and exhausted himself. “Quentin would have to go up against his mother to have a Vietnamese woman in his life, and he’s not going to do that.”

“Everything will work out,” Tam said with maddening confidence, but she sank back down on the mattress, and Jared could see she was too tired to argue. It’d all be moot soon enough. With the baby born, they’d get out of the country as fast as possible.

And from what he could gather of the situation, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon.

Right now he took Sister Joan’s advice and let Tam rest. She’d need her strength for the long trip to the U.S. After almost eleven months in Vietnam, he was anxious to get
home himself. He’d rent an apartment in Boston, get a job there, talk R.J. into moving off-campus and living with him. She drove him nuts half the time and there was still a lot of the world he wanted to see, but there’d be time for that—when R.J. was out of school and signed up with the state department or whoever. Maybe they’d send her someplace interesting. He didn’t care. The future would take care of itself. First things first: she had two years of Boston University and umpteen of graduate school left.

No, he amended silently, the first thing was for them all to get safely out of Saigon. Now.

He was glad when Rebecca burst into the hot, close apartment, still reeking with the disinfectant Sister Joan had used to clean up after delivery. Rebecca’s hair was pulled back in a braid and perspiration shone on her face, but six weeks in Vietnam still had left her with more energy than most. Just two days in Saigon had made her understand why the people there dressed as they did. She herself had opted for linen shorts, a camp shirt, long bare legs and canvas shoes.

She dumped her paper bag of goodies on the table in Jared’s combination living room-kitchen. “I’ve got a couple of dried-up croissants, some orange juice, some of that
chao tom
stuff and look—a jar of instant coffee.”

Jared laughed. “You were born for this life, R.J.”

“Blackburns have always been good at making do. It’s making money that trips them up. How’s Tam?”

“Fine,” Tam said, wobbling in the doorway.

Jared turned to her, concerned. “Should you be up?”

“If we’re to leave in the morning, I’d better get steady on my feet,” she said. “I don’t want to be more of a burden than I already am.”

Rebecca looked shocked and sorrowful. “Tam, you’re
not a burden—don’t think like that.” Then she grinned, obviously trying to maintain her own courage. “Come on, our midnight snack is served.”

Rebecca had arrived in Saigon in mid-March as Ban Me Thuot, in what the Americans called the Central Highlands, was falling to the first North Vietnamese offensive since 1972, effectively splitting South Vietnam in half. Vietnam had been exorcised from world headlines since the American military withdrawal two years earlier, and the fall of a grubby village didn’t draw much attention. Popular opinion held that Nguyen Van Thieu, the incompetent, intransigent president of the Republic of Vietnam, would launch his own counteroffensive and recapture the village. He’d broken the terms of the cease-fire often enough himself.

He didn’t get much of a chance to go after Ban Me Thuot. Pleiku and Kontum fell next, and then the march was on to Hue and Danang.

For the first time in decades Jenny O’Keefe Blackburn and her father-in-law agreed on something: Rebecca had no business even being in Saigon in the first place. She had borrowed money from Sofi’s father for her trip. Sofi had told him her brilliant, non-dope-smoking, impoverished roommate had to have her wisdom teeth out, but her health insurance wouldn’t cover having them done in the hospital. He’d come up with the money. Rebecca had already set up an account to pay him back from money she earned typing papers and doing freelance graphic design, on top of her job and classes.

By the time she reached Jared’s tiny apartment on Tu Do Street, she was run ragged. She had meant to stay two weeks at the most, but she got caught up in the death throes of the country, of being a part of history in the
making. She couldn’t just run back to the safety of Boston. She’d felt compelled to help and had plunged in, volunteering to work with orphans and refugees, to do whatever she could.

And she wouldn’t leave Jared or Tam. Absolutely, categorically refused to go home without them.

Rebecca didn’t miss a beat when she discovered a beautiful, pregnant Vietnamese woman camped out in her lover’s apartment. So what? She trusted Jared. She barely remembered Tam from her visit to the Riviera in 1959, but Tam remembered Rebecca. And they shared the loss of a father on the same tragic day in 1963. The tragedy gave them a bond that transcended the years they’d spent apart and the wildly different worlds from which they came.

While they resumed their friendship, the communists continued their “liberation” of their brethren to the south.

When panic struck Danang, Thomas Blackburn did something he hadn’t done since 1963: he called in a favor. An old friend, a die-hard state department type, looked up Rebecca and warned her and Jared to get out—now.

“If Thomas Blackburn’s worried,” he said, “it’s time to worry.”

Rebecca made several calls to her mother to reassure her, promising that as soon as Tam had her baby, they’d all leave.

“Leave now,” her mother had said. “I lost a husband to Vietnam. I won’t lose you, too. You’re not supposed to be there. You don’t belong there.”

Rebecca felt guilty for worrying her mother, but she couldn’t have lived with herself if she abandoned her pregnant Vietnamese friend.

At four o’clock in the morning Jared, Tam and Rebecca were jolted awake by the sounds of mortar, rockets and artillery fire out at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Tam came un
steadily out of the bedroom to join Rebecca and Jared, who’d been dozing on the couch. Jared helped her to a chair, and Rebecca made coffee.

“I’ll go in with the baby,” she said.

Tam smiled weakly and thanked her. “You’ve both been so good to me.”

“You’d do the same for us if our positions were reversed.”

“I’ll repay you. I promise—”

“There’s nothing to repay.”

Tiny Mai was all wrapped up in a cotton receiving blanket and snoozing in the middle of Jared’s bed. Rebecca lay down beside her and just watched her sleep. Tam had told her little about her life before Jared had taken her in late last summer, but Rebecca wouldn’t have been surprised if circumstances had forced her into a “sugar daddy” arrangement with a rich American or European or even limited prostitution. It was like Jared, Rebecca thought, to help out a lonely woman in need—a
friend.
Whatever he knew about Tam’s situation he’d kept to himself, something Rebecca, despite her curiosity, could respect.

The baby squirmed. Rebecca loosened the blanket and peeked at her tiny red feet. “What a cutie you are,” she murmured, touching the baby’s mass of straight black hair, still matted down from childbirth.

The shelling seemed loud enough to shake the entire building, and Rebecca wondered if the North Vietnamese bombed Tan Son Nhut, what did that do to a fixed-wing evacuation? Airplanes needed runways to get off.