The Lotus Eaters: A Novel by Tatjana Soli Read Free Book Online

and crouched, taking pictures of the outstretched woman. Staring up at the lens, eyes dark and empty, hiding a secret. One of the women moved a hand in front of her. Without thought, Helen batted it out of the way. Risking her own and Linh's life, she'd earned this one and took the shot. Her due. The women enclosed their friend. After a moment, a wail.
    Now Linh struggled to get up on his feet; no protest when Helen lifted the two black cases and their tote. They ran.
    After a block, they slowed down to a walk, and after another few blocks they both stopped to catch their breath. They hobbled. A small spot of blood spread on his shirt.
    "I need water," he gasped. They searched the surrounding storefronts in growing desperation, and in that panic, that low point, she heard the beating of helicopter wings, as beautiful as a piece of music, and she craned her neck to see over the buildings. The sound was still far off. She smashed the glass door of a restaurant, went to the bar, picked up a glass from a neat row of them turned upside down, and filled it with water from a clay cistern on the counter.
    The spot of blood had doubled in size. She pulled out a clean T-shirt from her bag. "Hold this against it." When he finished the glass, he quickly turned away and retched. She picked up the film cases again but left the tote behind, unable to bear the weight on her shoulders and neck any longer.
    They walked, this time more slowly, so slowly that any of the old people along the streets could have kept up.
    Her head throbbed from the rifle butt, and she fingered a crust of dried blood in her hairline. Should she discard the two black cases to keep moving on? But it was as if she were abandoning each person captured on a frame of film. She remembered one shot in particular, a baby that had been trampled by the crowds of refugees on the outskirts of town. The guards had set up barriers right next to the body without touching it. He lay on his side like a small animal curled up in leaves in a forest. Myriad stories like this. This human being already gone, except as a dark spot on a lighter background of negative. If the print were published, the child would achieve some kind of immortality, however flimsy. Each of those kinds of pictures diminished the taker.
    Helen hefted the straps higher on each shoulder, skin rubbed raw, and kept walking.
    Linh held an arm across his stomach and picked up a walking stick lying in the street.
    "Put your hand on my shoulder," she said.
    They walked down the center of main thoroughfares now, incapable of taking the more roundabout route of small streets and alleys. Luckily, hardly a vehicle was on the road anymore. If soldiers or coi boi s came upon them now, they would be unable to run away. The traffic thinned even more as they approached the residential section where the American embassy was located. Here the streets appeared deserted, and she felt cheered that the hardest part of the ordeal was nearly over.
    Linh collapsed against the trunk of a large tamarind tree. The neighborhood was old here; the branches arched over the streets in an umbrella of shade. Many of the trees on other streets had been chopped down to make room for tanks. A pair of helicopters came in, and Helen saw them clearly now down to the runners, heard the throbbing of one as it hovered over the embassy grounds, waiting for the first to land.
    "We're close now," she said and squeezed his hand.
    He leaned against the tree, holding on to it to stay upright, his face as wet as if he had just doused it with water. The blood spot on his shirt was as large as an outstretched hand. He gave her a stiff nod.
    "We can't stop again," Helen said. "Next stop is inside."
    This was as bad as her worst patrols, each step an act of will, the urge to lie down overwhelming.
    A block away from the embassy, a new noise joined the cacophony of helicopters and distant artillery. A silky, rustling sound, constant yet changing like the rolling of the