The Lotus Eaters: A Novel by Tatjana Soli

start this war, and you didn't end it. Nothing that happened in between is your fault, either."
    Helen's face was expressionless, tears running down it, without emotion.
    "You don't believe me." He wiped her face dry, but already her attention was slipping away. "None of it had anything to do with us. We're just bystanders to history."
    The sky darkened. Linh's head rolled to one side as he fell into a deep, drugged sleep. People near Helen worried about the Marines being able to keep back the crowd outside. The Vietnamese going out were classified as dependents of the Americans, although for the last decade the Americans had depended on them to survive in this harsh country. Traitors by association. The number of people per flight was minuscule compared to those waiting, like taking water out of a bucket an eyedropperful at a time.
    The noise from the helicopters was deafening, but in between Helen could hear the distant rumblings from Gia Dinh and Tan Son Nhut, a constant percussion that matched the throbbing in her head. The noise much closer than this morning; lifetimes seemed to have passed in the intervening hours. Linh trembled in his sleep.
    An embassy employee walked by, and Helen stopped the man. "How much longer? This man needs medical attention."
    "Could be all night." He looked at her sternly, tapping his pencil on his note pad for emphasis. "Americans are being boarded now. Especially women. Go inside. He'll be taken care of later."
    In the convoluted language of the embassy, trouble. She woke Linh, tugging him onto his feet, harnessing the straps of the film cases around her neck. They joined the end of a long line going up the stairs to the roof. She flagged one of the Marines guarding the entrance. "I need to get this man on a helicopter."
    "Everyone takes their turn."
    She rubbed her forehead. "No. He's been shot. He's going to die without medical attention."
    "There are a lot of people anxious to get on the plane, ma'am. I don't have any special orders concerning him."
    A rumpled-up man with a clipboard came up. He was in his twenties, with a beaten-up face that looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
    "I'm Helen Adams. Life staff photographer. This is Nguyen Pran Linh, who works for Life and the Times . He's wounded and needs immediate evacuation." Helen figured under the current circumstances no one would find out about her lies, the fact her magazine had pulled her credentials. Weren't they trying to kick her out of the country, after all?
    He scribbled something on his clipboard. "Absolutely." He scratched his head and turned to the Marine. "Medical evac. Get someone to escort them to the front of the line. And get someone else to explain why to everyone they're bumping in front of. Tell 'em he's a defector or something."
    "You're the first person today who's actually done what he said," Helen said.
    "I'm a big fan of yours, Ms. Adams."
    "I didn't know I had any."
    "You covered my older brother. He was a Marine in 'sixty-eight. Turner. Stationed in I Corps."
    "Did he--"
    "Back home running a garage in Reno. Three kids. The picture you took of him and his buddies on the wall. He talked about meeting you. I've been following your work since."
    "Thank you for this. Good luck," she said.
    "We're going to need a whole lot more than luck."
    One Marine carried the film cases and another half-carried Linh up the jammed staircase. They went through a thick metal door and more stairs, waited, then climbed up a flimsy metal ladder staircase and were on the roof. The air filled with the smells of exhaust and things burning, a spooky camp-fire. To the north and west, Helen saw the reddish glow of hundreds of fires and the few streaks of friendly red tracers going out against the flood of blue enemy tracers coming in. The odds visibly against them. The throbbing of her head had become a constant buzz, but she didn't want to take anything, wanted her mind to keep clear.
    The helicopter jerked down onto the roof, landing