A Southern Girl (56 page)

In six days we will depart for East Asia, and now that I’ve made the decision to go I’m filling with anticipation. Not only does the lure of an exotic part of the world appeal just now, but the human dramas built into this trip assure it will be memorable for all of us. Life changing? That remains to be seen.

In addition to experiencing Korea’s culture, we will be looking for an orphanage with records I’m betting no longer exist. And if they do, what do we expect to learn? And most important: assuming we learn anything, what will we do with the information? Allie has consistently said she has no interest in finding birth parents who abandoned her. But what if her file shows names and an address? What if it documents a compelling reason why her birth mother was forced to give her up? Would her curiosity get the better of her? What would I do in her place? The decision to seek out birth parents is fraught with risk on both sides. In satisfying her curiosity (longing?) is she ripping a scab from a wound eighteen years in the healing?

Each of us has a valid reason for this trip, notwithstanding the St. Simeon. Allie asked to go before the Ball became an issue and if I don’t take her now I will be making this trip in June. Mr. Quan has not been home in fifteen years and, I suspect, would not go now had the door to his past not been opened by our recent conversations. That leaves me. The Korean leg of the trip I can handle and enjoy. Elizabeth talked of taking
Allie, so the only hesitation I feel is one vaguely related to the injustice of her missing what I won’t. I agreed to accompany Mr. Quan to Vietnam because it seems important to him.

But each of us also rolls some dice. Allie stands to be disappointed by either the total lack of information or the revelation she is the offspring of a prostitute, drug addict, or who knows what. It has taken Mr. Quan a decade or longer to work up the courage to return to Vietnam. I think back to him pointing to his chest as the locus of his angst. And Vietnam brings me face to face with Philip’s death and my own circumvention of the war that defined my generation. Maybe I can find a way to pay tribute to Philip while I’m there. Margarite’s lament about him being forgotten hit me in a soft spot, and to bring her any solace would gratify me.

World War II’s legacy of glory made rational discussion of Vietnam almost impossible, particularly between veteran fathers and apprehensive sons. John Huger, Philip’s dad, was an avowed hawk, embracing the war as fervently as he traded stocks. Like so many fathers of that era, he viewed war as a chance for glory. His militance infected his son, a risk taker by nature. I, on the other hand, went quietly and thankfully to law school.

Philip would have made the perfect soldier in 1941, but this was 1968, and behind his gung-ho enthusiasm for combat, any combat, lay serious reservations about America’s role in that war, as I learned in late night discussions with him after his orders came. When his basic training instructors diagramed the Battle of the Bulge or Patton’s sweep into Germany, Philip questioned. “What the hell has this got to do with the price of eggs where we’re going?” “They’re playing on their home field,” was another of Philip’s simple yet murderously incisive analogies, a reference to our high school football experiences. “We’re always tougher at home.”

I saw in these and other common sense observations doubts that he hid from his parents and the other junior officers in his infantry unit. He never spoke publicly of his doubts. The peace freaks who began to blight campuses and infiltrate news programs revolted him. The patriot in him viscerally condemned anarchy, yet he seemed to be teetering on an intellectual edge where the war was concerned, and what came closest to sending him over that edge, to the side of the protesters and draft dodgers and antiwar zealots he despised, patriotism be damned, was his implacable dislike for and distrust of Lyndon Johnson. “I don’t think,” he
told me late one night as the two of us did our absolute best to drain dry a newly purchased case of beer, “that my president is the kind of man that would worry much if I bite the banana over there.” We were together the night Johnson announced his decision to retire rather than face a primary. Philip watched it with macabre satisfaction, almost as if this ignominious abdication was Philip’s revenge for his mortal wound still seven months in the future.

Years ago, one of those change-your-life-in-a-day motivational speakers put to a group of us a time-management challenge. An all-expenses paid trip around the world would be ours, so ran his hypothetical, provided we could wrap up all pending business by that afternoon. “You will,” he predicted, “find a way to get it done.” I am about to put his theory to test.

I call Margarite and though it is early I have not awakened her. “If we hope to learn anything of Allie’s background, we need to go to Korea,” I say. “A long shot, as you know, but even if we come up empty on her history, it will fulfill Elizabeth’s wish and Allie’s wish for a graduation present.” I think I startled her with my next question. “Where, exactly, was Philip killed?”

After several seconds, she wants to know, “Why do you ask?”

“Because we added Vietnam to our itinerary. I want to pay my respects.”

Margarite, never at a loss for words, stays mum. A very long pause ensues. I wait. “Margarite?”

In a subdued voice: “John and I have talked about going. I just don’t think I could bear it. We were told it was about halfway between two villages, one called Cu Chi and the other Duc Lap.”

“Near Saigon?”

“Very close, perhaps thirty miles. Coleman, what will you do?”

“I thought I’d lay a wreath of some kind. Would you like me to take something?”

“Yes. Give me the morning to think of just what.”

“Call me at the office. I can come by and pick it up.”

My next task involves preparing Mother. She is far more worried about me than she needs to be.

“But dear, it’s a communist country. A leopard doesn’t change its spots. I won’t sleep a wink the entire time you’re gone. You cannot trust them for
an instant. Suppose they won’t let you leave? Suppose Mr. Quan is wanted for some war crime and you’re with him.” She is wringing her hands, uncontrollably nervous.

“I don’t suppose Mr. Quan would be willing to go were he wanted for war crimes or anything else. The Vietnamese are wooing us as trading partners now. They have to behave themselves.”

“Communists appear one way and act another. I won’t sleep a wink.”

Sarah’s brand of xenophobia is as common as clover. I believe Allie’s Asian features were so distressing to her because they evoked war memories of slant-eyed, buck-toothed Japanese in the army of the Red peril. While her assessment of those same features has undergone drastic revision (“She’s positively lovely”) the anathema provoked by communists, of any race, religion or country of origin, remains rabid.

“Don’t forget a jacket,” she says.

“Mother, it’s a hundred and ten in the shade over there.”

“Well, take one along anyway. You never know. You can’t put anything past communists.”

On my way to the office I stop by the office of Harry Porter, M.D. Harry is the best wheelchair-bound doctor in the country for my money, and he’s gotten quite a bit of it over the years. He gives me the same shots he will give Allie this afternoon after school. My arm begins to throb before I arrive at the office.

The motivational guy may be on to something. Clients who “must” see me are convinced to re-schedule. Those unable to wait are referred to partners familiar with their files. In a few short days my calendar has been cleared of all but one obligation, one Harris assures me he will handle. After a stop by the travel agency and the bank for travelers checks, I am more or less, when packed, ready to go.

I have not heard from Margarite, who tells me, when I arrive at her house late in the day, that she cannot decide on a fitting memorial to be left at the site. “Just some flowers, I suppose.”

“Let me pick something,” I suggest. “What about the Corona bottle from Mexico. Philip would approve. It will be a little like having a beer with him.”

“Perfect,” she says. “I’ll get it for you. Fix yourself a drink and wait for me in the Haiti room.”

I pour us each an Old Granddad as she returns with the Corona bottle. Handing it to me she says, “This is quite thoughtful of you, Coleman. I assume you have other business in Vietnam?”

“No business, really. I agreed to accompany Mr. Quan on his first return home in many years. He is very apprehensive about going by himself for some reason. He has a brother in Seoul who will help us navigate a city none of us knows the least bit about.”

I sit in a chair by the cedar box, painted jaguars near enough to gnaw my knee. Margarite takes a seat on the sleigh-bed. I’m shifting the Corona bottle from hand to hand as Margarite says, “You mentioned looking into Allie’s background over there. Do you really hope to find something?”

I shrug. “We’re both realistic. All we know for sure is that the orphanage is still there. Mr. Quan’s brother located it for us. Eighteen years is a long time. I doubt anyone there was on the scene when we adopted. It could prove the wildest of wild goose chases. The odds are overwhelmingly against us finding anything over there that could bring Allie legitimately within the exemption.”

She sets her drink down deliberately. “Just as I feared,” she says. “The inquiry into her background is more than an orphan looking for her roots. This is related to the Lafayette exemption, isn’t it?”

“Why not? I’ve been visiting board members.”

“So I’ve been told,” she says, stress in her voice.

“Those visits tell me this vote would come out differently if taken again. Sandy Charles was most sympathetic and almost any excuse would be good enough for her to change sides. Doc Francis all but pledged to support us. That leaves only Charlotte, who is hopeless, and Jeanette.”

At the mention of Charlotte Margarite smiles drolly.

“What I’m saying is this.” I shift the Corona bottle to the other hand. “If the sentiment among the committee has changed as I think it has, then one pretext will be as good as another to reverse the vote. It becomes largely irrelevant what we find, if anything, about Allie’s background. The critical need is another vote, and you can arrange that.”

Margarite stands, her clouding face an unmistakable barometer of doubt. “Coleman, do you want my honest opinion of your efforts with the committee?”

“Of course.”

“You’re wasting your time and a lot of money.”

“I don’t care about either.”

“Then consider your image in the community. I can’t bear the thought of you making a fool of yourself.”

“Why? All they can say is no and they’ve said it once.”

“And they’ll say it again.”

“So,” I say, “you don’t agree with my reading of the group.”

“No,” she says softly, reluctantly. “Not at all.”

“You should know, Margarite, but I’m still going. It seems the only way. If I fail, I fail.”

I watch as she paces behind me, striding the floor aggressively. I have the feeling I have angered her and she is about to explode. Suddenly, she stops in mid-stride. Wheeling, she glares down at me, through me. Her patrician voice is close to a guttural rasp.

“You are forcing me into the dishonorable act of violating my word.”

“No,” I protest. “I wouldn’t want that. I’m doing this on my own. It’s my theory and you don’t have to agree. I just need you to reconvene the Board.”

She circles me, coming back to the seat she left but leaning forward, squinting intensely. “You need more than that. You need to know who your friends are and I’m going to violate my trust to tell you. What has Adelle said about our meeting?”

“Almost nothing.”

“I don’t wonder. It wouldn’t be a pretty account. Would it surprise you to know she did not speak in your behalf?”

“She implied she did, although Jeanette made some reference to her taking no part in the debate.”

“Well, she didn’t. Nor did she vote for you.”

I grip the Corona bottle by the neck. “You said the vote was secret. Everyone on the Board said so too.”

“Yes. I counted the ballots.”

“Did you recognize her handwriting or what?”

“Coleman, it required no detective work. Don’t you understand? The count was six to one and I voted with you. They all voted no.”

The bottle drops from my hand and I am only vaguely conscious of it striking and breaking the glass tabletop. My eyes lower to a point at her
chest and I utter a dismal moan. “Fool, fool, fool,” I repeat until the word is on my tongue but not beyond.

“When I called you on the night of the vote to report the result I tried to think of a way to tell you that Adelle had … how should I put it? Betrayed your trust. I knew from our discussions you were counting on her and she obviously was not truthful with you.”

“Obviously,” I mutter lamely. “And what about Clarkson? He said he went to bat for me.”

“He did, in his own fashion. He said he thought we were all making too much of a single exception and that dozens of them must have been made in the past. Sandy Charles also made quite the speech about what an outstanding girl Allie is and how we needed to be fair in dealing with her. I must tell you, from the tenor of the discussion I was optimistic. Now I wonder if they weren’t all simply going on the record as having said nice things, assuming whatever they said would get back to you through Adelle, or possibly me.

“I was so stunned when I counted the ballots that I had difficulty talking. I think Adelle knew from the look on my face. She had counted on at least one vote from the group to hide hers and when she saw my reaction she must have known. She was waiting for me in the parking lot as the meeting broke up but I walked by her without a word.”

“Six to one,” I murmur, as though by repeating the score I will alter the result.

“I’ve felt horrible for weeks,” she says, “knowing you believed that a vote or two would turn it around. I feel better now for having told you. I’m resigning from the St. Simeon as soon as the Ball is over.”

“Don’t do that, Margarite. It’s not your fault.”

“No, but I am sickened by what this has shown me. I want no part of it in the future.”