The woman who waved down our jeep was standing on the roadside shading her eyes from the searchlight. She wore a shabby workman’s overall fastened with a thin belt around her waist and crude rubber sandals. A small paper bag lay beside her in the grass. When I stopped she walked up to the jeep and wiping the loose hair from her forehead she said hesitantly, “Excuse me, officer, are you going to Hanoi?” She spoke educated French but her voice sounded weary.
“Yes, we are.”
I nodded, eyeing her with mixed feelings.
“May I come with you? I am very tired.”
I looked at Riedl and he said in German, “She isn’t Veronica Lake but let her come. I will check her bag.”
“Do you carry any weapon?” I asked her, feeling a little awkward the moment I spoke.
“Me?” she exclaimed with wide open eyes. Then she shook her head and replied with a smile, “Oh, no, monsieur. I am not fighting the French Army.”
Her last words caught my attention for native Indochinese would have said “Legion,” not French Army. I helped her aboard.
“Thank you,” she said, “may I put my bag in the rear?” Riedl took her bag and glanced into it. “I hope you don’t mind, but we have certain regulations.”
The girl did not mind.
“Thank you very much,” she repeated. I gave the word to move on.
For some time there was silence between us. She was probably a middle-class refugee, I thought, remembering her cultured French. We were accustomed to natives trying to thumb a ride and had our orders not to pick up anyone. There were too many pitfalls; not only the wartime Japanese but the Viet Minh, too, had its kamikaze squads. We had just heard of a young terrorist who had been given a ride on an ammo truck—gross negligence on the part of the guard. The passenger had been a quiet little boy who told a sad story about his family having been tortured and executed by the Communists in Cambodia, and about his long way across the jungle^ He had said that he wanted to join the army and avenge the death of his family. The troops had been impressed; they had given him food, money, and friendly advice.
When they reached the middle of a vital bridge, the passenger had suddenly pulled a pair of grenades, and, before the terrified troopers could do anything, he had dropped them into a narrow gap between the ammunition crates. Shrieking “Death to the French colonialists,” he had dived into the river. An instant later the truck exploded, destroying the bridge and a company of infantry moving alongside on the narrow gangway.
“Have you come far?” I asked the girl finally, to break the silence.
She did not turn but answered tiredly, “Yes, I have come a long way.”
No, she was not a country girl, I concluded. She could have been anywhere between twenty-five and thirty, and she was slender, almost fragile, despite the odd-looking overalls she wore. She looked childishly underdeveloped and was not very talkative.
“Where are you going?” Riedl inquired after a while.
“To Hanoi,” she replied, “if you will take me that far.”
“Have you been in Hanoi before?”
“Once—a long time ago,” she said with a persistent melancholy in her voice.
My cigarette was burning away and I reached for the ashtray. “Please don’t put it out,” she exclaimed, reaching for it.
“I am sorry,” I said somewhat puzzled, offering her my cigarette case and lighter. “I should have asked you if you wanted a cigarette.”
She accepted a cigarette. When she lighted it, I caught a glimpse of her hands. They were very small and slender but rough with broken fingernails and some scars of old cuts and bruises. They seemed to be the hands of a manual worker yet she was in no shape to do heavy labor. There was something strange about her. Her cultured way of talking contrasted with her appearance.
She inhaled the smoke deeply, then leaned back, resting her head on the back of the seat. “My name is Hans and my friend is Helmut.”
I got over the formalities.
“My name is Lin,” she said. “You are not Frenchmen, are you?”
“No, Lin—we are Germans,” I conceded, surprised.
“I have noticed that from your accent.”
“Indeed?”
“Uhm…”
“But you are not a native here either!”
“I am Chinese,” she stated.
“Sure, Lin. And if you are Chinese then we are Papuans.”
Riedl turned on his flashlight and calmly began to examine the girl’s face. Lin certainly possessed some Chinese features, especially her dark almond eyes but her face lacked the strong cheekbones, the roundness so common among Chinese women. Despite the poor light I could see that her face was heart-shaped and her skin almost white.
“My father was British,” she admitted finally. “I was born in Hong Kong.”
“Hong Kong is not China but England,” I remarked. “But still I cannot see how you happen to be on the road between Lang Son and Hanoi.”
“Is it so important?” she asked.
“Quite important. For your information, you happened to be walking along a restricted area where the sentries shoot at anything that moves after sundown.”
“I must have been lucky,” said she.
“Rather!” She sighed. “My story is a long one.”
“We have a long way to go.”
She shifted her eyes toward me. “Are you the people the Chinese militia calls “Yang-Kou-Ce”—the White-Faced Devils?”
“Maybe, Lin.”
I shrugged. “We are not very popular with the Chinese militia.”
“I know that,” she stated firmly.
“How do you know that, Lin?”
“I am coming from China.”
“Without a visa, I presume.”
“I’ve been in a prison camp of the militia.”
She added tiredly, “For over a year.”
“How come?” Riedl cut in.
“They did not ask me whether I wanted to go. I was a prisoner of war, I suppose.”
“Did you fight them or something?”
“Me?” She turned sharply. “How old do you think I am?” I cast a glance at her, pushed the horn twice to signal halt, then pulled up to the roadside and switched on the small map light. Behind us the armored car ground to a halt. Leaning from the turret, Karl yelled, “Anything wrong, Hans?”
“Everything’s under control, Karl!” I shouted back. “Just a short break.”
“This is a helluva place to have your break,” he growled, sweeping an arm about the dark hills which loomed on either side of the road.
“We are overheating,” Riedl advised him.
“No wonder with such a cutie riding along,” Karl remarked in German. The men in the troop carrier laughed.
I turned the flexible lamp toward the girl. She kept looking at me without a tremor in her eyes. Only her brows arched slightly, as if questioning me on their own. Her lips, slightly apart, revealed small, pearl-like teeth. I surveyed Lin’s face almost minutely but found myself as confused as ever regarding her age. I saw wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, which seemed alien there, parasitic. Her face was frail, her eyes dark and bright. The meager rations in the Chinese camp had had their effects. In some ways she appeared only a child, then older again a moment later. Her dark hair hung loosely about her shoulders in waveless strands; she looked uncared-for indeed. Yet I had the feeling that once she must have been very pretty. The bow of her mouth was perfect. She had a prim little mouth, the sort which could relax in a bewitching smile or a kissable quirk. Properly dressed and cared for, she should have been attractive.
My eyes relaxed on her lips and I saw them curving down in a wry smile. Then she sighed and turned away. “I know it is hard to believe but I will be eighteen in September,” she announced quietly. My kindest estimate would have been that she was twenty-five.