For All Their Lives (29 page)

“This is the Year of the Monkey, and most believe it to be a harbinger of bad luck. The Lunar New Year for us is a time of family reunions,” Lily said with a break in her voice, “with all manner of festivities, as well as feasting and fireworks. Probably nothing half as grand as those we had for the Fourth of July, but wonderful nonetheless. Every family will place a matching pair of watermelons on their family altar for good luck and to honor their ancestors. I, of course, will not do this, for I have no altar, so I will remember other times. Do not be sad for me. I have accepted my new way of life now.

“Each year as the New Year begins, thousands of people pour into Saigon. They come on bicycles, by bus, by scooter and sampan. Thousands more come on foot from the various countrysides. This year . . . this year, there will be thousands of others, hidden among the travelers. Most of these others will be Viet Cong. I understand the plan. It will be easy for the enemy to come into Saigon. They will strike on the morning of Tet. It's less than forty-eight hours away, Casey. You must go to the American embassy. They'll know what to do. We can't use the Bamboo Pipeline, it takes too long. They'll believe us, won't they?”

“I hope so,” Casey said fretfully.

“You must be the one to tell them. They will not believe me. Your people say they believe us, but they don't. They will think this is a trick of some sort. That is why I cannot go with you, Casey. I will stay here with my son.”

“You're absolutely right, Lily, no one would believe you, and they won't believe me either, because I will have to tell them where I got the information,” Casey said wearily.

“You must try.”

Of course Lily was right, she had to try. She bent over to put her shoes on. A wave of dizziness swept through her. She took deep breaths before raising her head slowly. The moment passed.

“How do I get to Thong Nhut Street, where the embassy is?”

Casey wrote down Lily's directions.

“I'll find it. If I don't make it back before midnight, I'll find a place to sleep until morning. I won't risk the curfew. Now, wish me luck.”

Instead, Lily hugged her, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“I will,” Casey whispered back, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Why are we whispering?” She giggled.

“Go. This is no time for jokes,” Lily ordered. Casey nodded as she slipped through the door.

While Casey was walking through the streets of Saigon, Lily paced the confines of her tiny apartment. She paced for forty minutes before she went to the apartment next door to ask her young neighbor if she would watch the baby until she returned. “I will be gone no more than thirty minutes.” The young woman agreed.

Lily ran down the three flights of steps and out into the night; her destination—her parents' home. She was breathless when she arrived. She leaned against the stout, solid iron gate and caught her breath before she rang the bell. Within moments tiny lights beamed upward from the narrow walkway. She recognized her mother's mincing footsteps. She wished now she'd taken the time to change out of her madras shorts and shirt and into more traditional clothing. “I look too American,” she muttered under her breath.

Lily bowed low. “Mother, I must tell you something. Please listen to me,” she pleaded.

“You should not have come here, daughter, for you have brought dishonor to our family. You must not come here again. Go now before your father comes to the gate and sees you.”

Lily heard the sob in her mother's voice, could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes from the yellow glow of the walk lights. She wanted to cry herself, could feel her shoulders start to shake.

“One moment, Mother.” Quickly, breathlessly, Lily recounted what she'd heard earlier at the hospital. “You must leave the city as soon as possible. Thank you for talking to me, Mother. I love you very much. I will always love you. Take this,” she said, slipping a snapshot Casey had taken of little Eric earlier in the week. “It is all I have to give, Mother, for the New Year.”

Lily felt her mother's fingers touch her own through the grillwork of the iron fence, then she withdrew them abruptly. The walkway lights went out.

“Go quickly, Lily, your father is coming down the walk. I will tell him a colleague stopped by, and I will pass on your information. You will always be in my heart, daughter.” Lily didn't hear the soft whispered words. She was already melting into the dark shadows.

Her parents wouldn't leave, she'd known that when she rang the bell. They were doctors, dedicated to saving lives. If an offensive did occur, they would be needed. Had she come just to see her mother, to see her face and to pass on the small snapshot? Of course she had. Her mother still loved her in the same way Lily would always love her own child. She cried all the way back to her shabby apartment.

 

C
ASEY WAS EXHAUSTED
when she reached the Armed Forces Training Center. At the last second she'd changed her mind about going to the American embassy. Something perverse in her insisted she try instead to locate Sue Collins, the woman she had met when she first arrived in-country. She was so tired, she couldn't explain her reasoning to herself, but the gods of Fortune smiled on her. When she entered the building, Collins was on her way out.

“I'll be damned.” Collins grinned. “What brings you to Saigon? Don't tell me. Tet. I think everyone and his brother is here for the festivities. Listen, I have to thank you for that great Fourth of July party at Da Nang. I got to see Rick for twenty whole minutes. Your turn.” She laughed.

“Can we go somewhere to talk? This is . . . crucial.”

“It's something serious, isn't it? Has something happened to Rick?” There was desperation in her voice.

“I'm sorry if I . . . no, it has nothing to do with Rick. It's something else.”

Outside in the darkness, Casey repeated Lily's story. “I believe her, but Lily says the authorities, the national police, won't pay any attention. I thought you would know who to go to. I'm willing to go with you. At first I was going to go to the embassy, and I'll still go if you think it will do any good.”

“Let's go back inside,” Sue replied. “There are phones we can use to call the embassy. I know some of the guys there. Hell, we'll call everybody we can think of. From experience, I think the first thing to do is send word out on the Bamboo Pipeline. It will be better and faster than any communications center.”

“Whatever it takes,” Casey muttered, wiping the sweat from her forehead. It was wonderful to sit down, to feel the coolness of the building. The tall glass of Tang that Sue handed her was the most welcome thing in the world.

The calls took over an hour. When she finally hung up the phone, Sue looked at Casey. “An economic-commercial officer at the embassy is coming over. He has a pass so he can move about after curfew. I told him to stop at the hospital to check on Lily's patient. He said he would do it, but he could have been humoring me. Thong Nhut Boulevard is within spitting distance of us. It shouldn't take him long.”

They passed a few nervous minutes talking about less important things. About snow, the new rage in fashion, the miniskirt, Easter bonnets, and white-shingled houses with picket fences. They spoke of home and family, but they kept their eyes glued to the plate-glass doors.

Sue was nervously pleating the hem of her corded skirt. “I heard this morning when I came on duty that guerrillas in the Central Highlands overran Tuy Phuoc. That town was considered the showcase of ‘Revolutionary Development,' the program that was supposed to rid the countryside of Viet Cong. I also heard that Westy has shifted thousands of troops north to beef up defenses. Right after he did that, the U.S. announced the cancellation of a thirty-six-hour unilateral truce, at the same time the VC proclaimed their seven-day cease fire for the Lunar New Year. Something is going on, there's no doubt about it.” She started to nibble on a nail, her eyes far away.

Casey knew Sue must be worrying about Rick. It was weird, she thought, how both of them were more concerned with their loves than with themselves.

“I was just thinking,” Casey said, ruminating aloud. “I don't know where I'm supposed to be. I was discharged from the hospital but wasn't well enough to go back to Pleiku. I have another ten days and a medical checkup to go through before I can return to the hospital. I left word at the hospital I was staying at Lily's. Major Hagen came down to see me, but I don't think I'm listed anywhere. I should be listed,” she added fretfully.

“Are you certain you aren't?” Sue said, her face full of concern.

“I'm positive. Major Hagen said the paperwork alone would take a month. Even though I was discharged from the hospital, that's my last known address, for want of a better word. Mac, of course, knows where I am, and he has the address. Major Hagen, bless her heart, can't find her way out of a paper bag. She has difficulty with names over here. I know by the time she got to the airport she'd forgotten Lily's address. I'm just talking, don't mind me,” Casey said tiredly.

“No, no, Casey, this is important. If something happens here in the city, if Lily is right, and they open fire, anything can happen. There has to be a record of you, and the hospital isn't going to be good enough. The army doesn't like it when things get flubbed up. In the morning I'll see what I can do. Write down the name of your unit and everything I need to know. Uh-oh, here he comes,” Sue said, sotto voce.

Geoffrey Hollister looked like a pompous, overstuffed walrus. He was overweight by a good forty pounds, and his flabby fat jiggled as he walked. He was wearing walking shorts with beige knee socks that sagged around his ankles. His light green shirt was soaked with perspiration, as was his bald head. His brown eyes looked mean and angry, his cheeks puffing out with the exertion it took to walk across the anteroom to where both young women were sitting. Be charitable, Casey warned herself. It's the end of a very long day and the man is probably exhausted. He introduced himself before he sat down on the hard, plastic chair, his thighs hanging over the side. He acknowledged Sue's introduction with a curt nod.

“I hope this is important, Captain,” he said, addressing Sue. “I don't like to be out on these streets after curfew. And if what you are about to tell me is army business, I'm going to be very angry,” he said irritably. Everyone knew you didn't disturb army brass after midnight. It was okay to disturb embassy personnel though.

Sue told him everything Lily said. Both girls watched the man's fat face for his reaction. When he laughed, Casey felt an adrenaline surge.

“Is this the same Lily Gia who hung around with Eric Savorone before he headed back to the States? Eric was a friend of mine. Did it ever occur to either one of you that this might be a—”

“Don't say it,” Casey said hotly. “Don't even think it. Lily Gia is not a liar, Mr. Hollister. We've given you the information, and if you choose to do nothing about it, then it becomes your problem, not ours.”

“Exactly who are you?” Hollister snapped.

“I'm the mistress of someone you salute and take orders from,” Casey lied. “Do I need to mention names? Of course you can see why this matter must be handled sensitively and discreetly. We thought you were the man to do it . . . But, of course, I'll leave that up to you, Mr. Hollister. By the way, is Hollister spelled with one L or two?”

“Two,” Hollister said, flustered. She was pretty enough to be a general's mistress, but a little too scrawny for his taste. In a crazy kind of way, it did make sense. The high, muckety-muck brass had to have everything handled discreetly and sensitively. Then he remembered the patient's hands and feet—the patient in Room 312 who was awake and angry when he'd pulled down the covers to stare at his feet. He remembered the way his heart pounded in his chest at the hatred in the man's eyes. “All right,” he said, struggling to his feet. “I'll put the word out.”

“What should we do, Mr. Hollister?” Casey asked.

“Do? Whatever you want. Go home. Drink tea. This will be squelched quickly if it proves to be true. The VC wouldn't be crazy enough to actually attack Saigon. But that doesn't mean they aren't thinking about it,” he added hastily. “Good night, ladies.”

 

G
EOFFREY
H
OLLISTER WAS
wrong. Twelve hours later the attack began.

“Do we stay or go to the embassy?” Casey asked Lily. “We might be safer if we just stay here. We have to think of the baby.”

The decision was taken out of their hands when a marine rapped sharply on the door and then identified himself. Her eyes round with fear, Casey opened the door a crack. “You're to come with me, miss. Mr. Hollister's orders.

“Get the baby, Lily,” Casey ordered. “Where are you taking us?” she demanded of the marine.

“To the embassy. Mr. Hollister didn't say anything about a baby. He said to pick up the blonde.”

“An oversight, I'm sure,” Casey snapped.

“I already have one passenger, Captain Collins,” the marine said uneasily when he saw Lily.

“So what's the problem, Corporal?”

“Room, miss. I have a jeep.”

“I'll sit on Captain Collins's lap. The problem is solved. How bad is it out there?”

“It's not good.”

The M-16 slung over the marine's shoulder reassured Casey as they made their way down the steps. The baby whimpered in Lily's arms. Casey saw another M-16 propped up on the front seat of the jeep. The .45 caliber pistol in the marine's belt gleamed in the darkness.