War Baby by Colin Falconer Page B

own happiness over service to God. That was why she had been punished.
    She could not tell the Englishman but she had once even considered committing chat lam ba - infanticide. It was the traditional remedy for unwed mothers in Vietnam; chop the newborn child into three pieces, wrap the head, torso and legs in cloth and throw them in the river, so that the mistake could be washed away by the tide.
    To have contemplated such evil! How could she ever confess such things to a priest? It was impossible. She could not do it.
     
    * * *
     
    They stood on the cathedral steps in the bright morning sunshine. ‘Did you do it?’ Webb asked her.
    ‘I could not,’ she murmured. ‘There is too much shame.’
    ‘You said nothing?’
    ‘I accuse myself of the sin of envy. And once I think that I want to kill Monsieur Ryan. For that the cure he gives me penance and absolution.’
    ‘And that’s all?’
    ‘Please. You are very kind to me. But do not ask me to do what I cannot do.’ He has the round-eye’s belief in easy answers, she thought. They think that fate can be changed by force of will. Because he had taken her away from the Tu Do he thought he could take away from the shame, also.
    For herself she knew there was nowhere to go on this hot morning but back to the world God had sent her to, where the beggars patrolled the streets like crabs and the homeless children roamed in packs, the place she now belonged.

Chapter 12
     
    It was midday and the heavy gold drapes inside Juliette’s were drawn against the sun. Webb could see over the rooftops of Saigon through a gap in the curtains. The city looked tawdry in the shimmering heat, a panorama of peeling hoardings and red-tiled roofs. He and Crosby sat on bar stools drinking ‘33’ beers and discussing where the sirens of war might lead them after Vietnam. The conversation turned to Cambodia, and then, predictably, to Ryan.
    ‘Have you heard from him recently?’ Webb asked.
    ‘A guy I know from UPI was in Phnom Penh last week, and said he ran into him. Still the same.’
    ‘You know where I can get in touch with him?’
    ‘Does he owe you money?’
    ‘It’s not for me. You remember the nun?’
    Crosby grinned, as if in anticipation of the punch line of a favorite joke. ‘Sure I remember.’
    ‘He left her with a baby.’
    Crosby did not seem quite sure how to react. Another chapter in the legend or did this smack of real scandal? ‘Well, I’ll be dipped in shit,’ he said, finally.
    ‘This wasn’t just some bar girl, Croz.’ When Crosby offered no comment, he added: ‘A lot of people seem to think he’s a lovable rogue. He’s an asshole.’
    ‘He saved your life once, man.’
    ‘Is my life so important to the world that it’s recompense for every outrage he cares to commit?’
    Crosby sucked on his front teeth, thinking about this. ‘There’s a lot of it going around. Kids with no fathers, I mean.’
    ‘Ryan isn’t some dumb nineteen-year-old fresh out of the boonies. And she’s not a whore. This is different.’
    Crosby played with the ends of his moustache. ‘He know about this kid?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘Maybe someone should tell him. One of my guys is flying to Phnom Penh on Friday. If you want to get him a message, I’ll see it gets there.’
     
    * * *
     
    Whenever he was in Saigon he looked forward to going back to the apartment. Phuong for some reason found something pleasing about his presence and would smile at him as soon as he walked through the door. There was a domesticity to the arrangement that quickly became comfortable. Perhaps too comfortable.
    In the evenings, instead of drinking in the Caravelle or the Melody or the Continental with the other correspondents, he took Odile and Phuong to dinner in the Givral perhaps, or the Royale. Odile, however, remained diffident. It was as if she had pulled a curtain across her soul. She spoke little. She was attentive to Phuong, but nothing else in her life seemed to interest