Halsman shrugged. Betsy snuggled closer. And they continued in
silence.
Betsy's apartment was on the second floor of a building, the ground
floor of which was occupied by a large gaudy store with a huge painted
sign that said: “CURIOS, JADE, TIMBRES pour COLLECTION”. But, belying
the sign's emphasis, the store's windows were cluttered with
pseudo-silk jackets and fringed pillowcases containing elaborately
embroidered dragons and maps of Indochina; and in the daylight and
early evening hours soft-voiced young men loitered outside offering to
exchange currency with Americans at enticing rates. The sign predated
American participation in the war. Things in the city had changed
radically in the past five years.
They mounted the wooden steps slowly, then paused at the first
landing as Betsy fumbled for her key. The thin, green-painted wooden
door swung open lightly, they entered, and it closed and locked behind
them with an ineffectual-sounding click. While Betsy went into the
bathroom, Halsman walked to the tall, thin shuttered doors that led to
the painted wrought-iron balcony overlooking the street, and thrust
them open. The motion of the moving doors stirred the air briefly, but
soon it settled back into its state of muggy, enveloping weightiness.
Stepping onto the balcony, he leaned his weight against the railing and
looked down into the still street below. Half a block away an American
sailor was weaving all over the street, laughing at the city and
cursing the curbstones as he stumbled over them, dragging a reluctant
but unresisting young Vietnamese girl with him. An hour ago, Halsman
thought, that could have been Betsy. Or any of the countless thousands
of girls who have found their bodies the only realistic means of coping
with life in a nation torn by civil war, foreign occupation, and a
bloated, unstable economy. Saigon, once thought of as the Paris of
Asia, had slowly become a seething, spreading slum. He was sick of it.
“... Christopher!” She said his name with the annoyed emphasis
of one who has tried and failed to attract attention before.
“Hmm?” he said, without turning or looking up.
“Are you deaf?” She paused for a moment, then in a softer,
invitational tone added, “or just not interested?”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, straightening up and turning away from the
street, “I was just thinking.”
“Well, do that on your time—I've been waiting all night for this.”
He stepped up into the room from the balcony, pausing in the doorway
to look at his woman. She was leaning against the opposite wall, her
hands and arms intentionally out of the way, clasped behind her back.
Betsy's hair fell loosely down about her shoulders and back, on the
left side spilling over in front and partially covering her left
breast. She was naked. Her shoulders were narrow and gently rounded,
framing the extraordinary breasts that jutted out from just below her
fragile collarbone and sagged only slightly—the sensual sag that is
the soft mark of the passage from childhood to maturity. Perfect discs
of lilac capped her tits, each one spreading and lightening in color as
it merged with the amber of her flesh, each one holding a stiff little
button in its center, a button soft, but erect and still gradually
stiffening as his eyes roamed over her. They roamed lower. Betsy's
narrow waist flared out sharply at her hips, and between the two
vertical arcs her belly swelled softly, dimpled by the deep impress of
her navel, then disappeared beneath the rich foliage of the triangular
bush rising wispily from under her mons veneris and between her warm,
plump thighs. Her thighs narrowed as they reached her knees, then the
flesh tightened to cover slim, sleek calves and narrow ankles and tiny
feet. Her nakedness exuded the sensuality and desire that welled up
inside her after an evening of cold and businesslike sexual
make-believe. She was hungry for him, a hunger of hollow constant
pangs. And she needed him now.
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