War Baby
NVA pith helmet. His field gear - his pack, his cameras, a flak jacket - were on the floor beside the bed.
    Odile looked around.
    ‘It’s not very big,’ Webb said, ‘but it’s clean. And it won’t cost you anything.’
    Odile sat Phuong on the parquetry floor and perched uncertainly on the edge of the bed.
    ‘I won’t be here very often,’ Webb said. ‘It’s just a base for me. A lot of the time you’d have the place to yourself.’ He went to the wash basin. There was a wash cloth draining over the faucet. He wet it, and handed it to her. ‘Here, wash your face.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Take off the lipstick. You don’t have to be a whore anymore.’ He saw her flinch and realized how callous that had sounded.
    But she did as he asked. Her shame was painful to watch. He crouched down and smiled at Phuong, who stared back at him, fascinated with this new and strange face.
    ‘Why do you want to do this?’ Odile said.
    ‘I should just walk away and pretend it isn’t my problem?’
    ‘But it isn’t.’
    He could see what she was thinking. This had to be some elaborate trap. Nothing was ever free; she could guess what the rent would be. But she had perhaps already calculated that this might be better than having the whole US Army as her landlord.
     
    * * *
     
    They sat on the balcony. Phuong played inside, on the floor. The city sweltered, not a breath of air.
    A skyline of plane trees and flat roofs was silhouetted against the bright lights and neon of the Tu Do; in the distance he could hear the rumble of artillery. An old Chinese practiced tai qi on a neighbouring rooftop.
    ‘Ryan is gone maybe two weeks when I think I am pregnant,’ Odile said, her voice a monotone. ‘For a while he write to me, send me money. But then the letters stop, and there is no more money. Perhaps Ryan is killed, I do not know. So I write to my grandmother in Dalat, ask her for help, but she does not write back. I can never go back there with my baby. It will be too much shame. So I stay here. After Phuong is born the money from Ryan is gone. So I go to the Tu Do.’
    ‘Did you ever write to Ryan, ask him for help?’
    She nodded. ‘Yes, but when he does not write back, I think he must be dead.’
    ‘Does he know about the baby?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘If he’d known, he would have helped you.’
    ‘Why, Monsieur Webb? He does not love me.’
    Phuong started to cry. Odile picked her up and sat down on the edge of the bed to offer her breast. After a while she fell asleep in her arms.
    ‘I’m going outside to have a cigarette,’ he said.
    He shut the door behind him and went down the stairs to the street. He walked around for almost an hour, trying to sort it through in his mind. When he got back Odile was in the bed, Phuong asleep beside her. He went to his field pack in the corner, and unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor.
    ‘What are you doing?’ she asked him.
    ‘I’ve slept in worst places the last couple of years. At least it’s dry and there’re no snakes.’
    ‘You do not want to sleep with me?’
    ‘If I do you’ll still feel like a prostitute. Won’t you? Just with fewer customers.’
    ‘ Ça na fait rien du tout .’
    ‘That’s the point. I want it to matter to you again. I didn’t offer to help you for that.’ He took off his boots. ‘Stay here with me for as long as you want. We’ll work something out. I’ll write to Ryan.’
    Whether Ryan would feel moved to do something about the situation, he didn’t know.
    He came over to the bed, picked up the miniskirt off the floor and crumpled it in his fist. Then he went to the balcony and threw it into the street.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘You won’t need it anymore.’
    She stared at him as if he were crazy, which perhaps he was. He had lived in a war zone for two years now, and he’d learned that life was too short not to do whatever you felt like doing.
    ‘You do not have to do this. I am not a nun. I never was.’
    ‘I can help you.

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