A voice broke in on the radio.
“…the American Embassy has closed its gates, and the Ambassador… Ambassador Bunker has refused evacuation…”
He’d have been there, my son. Firing into the enemy, not wanting to fire, I knew that, but there’d be a wall of Marines between the VC and the panicked crowd and the diplomats they had sworn to protect….
I had people to protect too. I put my foot hard on the gas, peeled round a slowpoke station wagon with three kids and their mom in it, and roared up Fifth Avenue.
“…We interrupt this program… there is a rumor that Ambassador Bunker has been shot…. We repeat, this is a rumor, no one has seen his body…”
Sweet suffering Christ! Damn that red light, no one was around, so it wouldn’t matter if I crashed it. Didn’t want to smear myself all over the landscape before I got home; Margaret would never forgive me if I got myself killed coming home to her now, of all times.
God damn siren! I thought of giving the cop a run for his money, but you don’t do that in Youngstown. Not ever, and especially not if you’re a lawyer.
The man who got out of the car recognized me. “Hey, Counselor, what you think you’re doing? You were going seventy and you crashed that light…” He sniffed at my breath, then pulled out his pad. “You know better than that. Now I wish I could let you off with a warning…”
A fist was squeezing my throat. Finally, it let up long enough for me to breathe. “It’s my boy…” I said. Then I laid my head down on the steering wheel.
A hand came in over my shoulder and took the keys. “I’m driving you home. The way you’re driving, you could get yourself… Come on, Counselor.”
I made him let me off up the street. No telling what Margaret would have thought if she’d seen a cop car roll up to the door. The Marine car was in the drive. The men got out of the car and followed me. I made it up the front walk, feeling like I was walking off a three-day binge. Toni Carlson opened the door. She was crying, but Margaret wasn’t. Sure enough, the living room and kitchen were full of women with their covered dishes.
“I called Steffie’s school,” Margaret said before I could even get to her. She had Barry’s service photo out like they do in the newspapers. His face grinned under his hat. God, he was a good-looking boy. “Her plane gets in this afternoon.”
“I’m going to pick her up,” said a voice from behind me.
“Sir,” began one of the Marines. A fine young man. I had… I have… a son like him.
He shook my hand and bravely said the things they’re supposed to say. “Sir, the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense have asked me to inform you that your son…” The boy’s voice faltered, and he went on in his own words.
Missing. Presumed dead. My son was… is… a hero. But presumed dead. After Ambassador Bunker died (that wasn’t supposed to get out yet, but he supposed I had a right to know), the surviving Marines were supposed to withdraw. But Barry gave his seat to a local woman and a child.
“Probably knew them from the orphanage,” I muttered.
“No doubt, sir,” said the Marine. It wasn’t his business to comment. He’d be glad to get out, even if he had more families’ hearts to break that day. Lord, I wished I could.
At least he didn’t have a damn flag. As long as you don’t get the flag, you can still hope.
HER SCHOOL SENT Steffie home, the way these schools do when there’s been a death in the family. Pinkos they may be, but I’ve got to admit each of her professors and the college president wrote us nice letters. Take as much time as you need before coming back to class, they told Steff. Better than she got from some of her friends. Once or twice, when she thought I wasn’t looking, I saw her throw out letters. And I heard her shouting on the phone at someone, then hang up with a bang. All she ever said was, “You never know who’s really your friend.”
I thought she’d do better to stick out the term, but she decided to take the semester off. Seeing how Margaret brightened at that news, I didn’t insist she go back. And when my wife threw a major fit and screamed, “I can’t bear to lose both the men in our family!” at the dinner table and practically ordered me to get an EKG, I kept the appointment with our doctor that she’d made.
Oddly enough, now that the worst had happened, I slept like a baby right through the next time the phone rang at 3:00 A.M.
Steffie came into our room. She spoke to Margaret. “It’s from Frankfurt. West Germany.”
Why would she be getting a call from West Germany of all places?
Margaret got up and threw on a robe. “It’s in, then?”
My daughter nodded. I stared at both women. Beyond family resemblance, their faces wore the same expression: guilt, fear, and a weird kind of anticipation under the sorrow that had put circles under their eyes.
Like the damn fool husbands on TV, I waited for my womenfolk to explain what was going on. It didn’t much matter. After all, when your country’s lost a war and a son, what else can happen?
“We have to talk,” Margaret said in that tone of voice. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
So at three in the morning, we sat down to a family conference. Margaret poured coffee. To my surprise, she looked imploringly at Steffie.
“The call from Frankfurt came through on my line,” she said.
That stupid Princess phone!
“That’s where they evacuate the refugees and process them.”
My hand closed on the spoon till it hurt. How did that rate a transatlantic phone call?
Stephanie took a deep, deep breath and drew herself up. For a moment, I thought I could see her brother, making up his mind at the Embassy to give up his place to a woman and a child.
Our eyes met. She’d been thinking of Barry too.
“You know that woman and kid Barry pushed onto the helicopter in his place?”
“The ones he knew from the orphanage?”
“Where’d you get that idea?” Margaret broke in.
“Mom, he did meet Nguyen at the orphanage.”
“Now wait a damn minute, both of you. Maybe it’s too early, but no one’s making sense!”
Margaret set down her coffee cup. “Joe, please listen.”
“Dad, about a year ago, Barry wrote me. He’d met a girl who worked at the French Embassy. She’s from Saigon and her name is Nguyen.”
I held up a hand. I wanted to be stupid. I wanted to be Ward Cleaver and have this episode end. Margaret would switch off the TV set, the show would be over, we could all go back to bed, and none of this, none of the whole past miserable year would have happened.
So my boy had sacrificed himself for a friend….
“She’s his wife, Daddy. And the child…”
When you’re on the front lines and you get hit bad, it doesn’t hurt at first. You go into shock.
“You knew about this?” I asked Margaret. She looked down, ashamed.
“And didn’t tell me?” Both women looked down.
“My son married—how do we know it’s true?—he says he married this goddamn gook! Her people killed him, and you have the nerve to say…”
“If you say that word, I’ll never speak to you again!” Stephanie was on her feet, her big flannel nightgown billowing in flowers and hearts about her. “Nguyen’s not a bar girl. Barry said she’s a lady. She worked at the French Embassy. She speaks French and Vietnamese… some English.”