VIENNA, 1969

 We were back in Moscow after Kyiv and Baku, and were waiting in line for our Aeroflot flight to Vienna. As was usual with me – for that matter, with most Vietnam vets I know – I was so uncomfortable in lines and crowded

places that I waited for the end of the line before boarding.

     Someone else was waiting: a woman in about her fifties seemed to be gingerly keeping herself apart from everyone else, waiting like me for the press of bodies to clear before boarding the plane. I felt a kinship with her, and began to watch her. She had a fresh bandage on her throat. She seemed nervous; maybe that was the reason.

     We landed in Vienna and were ushered into a large lounge seething with travelers heading many directions, with announcements of arriving and departing flights closely following one another in German, French, and English. At any moment, there must have been a couple of hundred people in the room, or passing into or out of it. We were told we’d have to wait in that lounge for our

flight to Prague, because we had no visas to leave the airport and enter the city.

     I noticed the woman with the bandage at her throat who had boarded the flight from Moscow at the same time I had, sitting among other passengers. There were people all around her, but she seemed alone. There were virtually no seats vacant; besides I felt more comfortable moving. I walked around the lounge, stopped to chat with some fellow students, walked around some more. My attention kept coming back to the woman with the bandage. The more I looked at her – trying to be unobtrusive about it – the more I thought that, although she made no movements and spoke to no one, there was something not right with her. She seemed afraid. Finally I thought I needed another opinion, because I couldn’t let it go. I asked my friend Robin Foor to discreetly look at the Russian lady (I thought she was Russian), and tell me if he thought anything was amiss. We walked by where she was sitting, and Robin took a closer look at her. He didn’t think anything seemed wrong with her.

     Still uncomfortable about something I couldn’t name, I asked two young women students from our group to do the same. They did, and their answer was the same as Robin’s: nothing wrong. I continued wandering, trying to tell myself to let it go, it was none of my business. But I couldn’t. Finally a seat next to the mysterious lady became vacant. I went over and sat down. Then I knew.                 

     With no more movement than an occasional turn of her head to look about, this woman emanated fear. Seated next to her, I could feel it as surely as if she had been screaming. I became certain that she was terrified, but I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid that I, a husky 26-year-old male stranger, would further frighten or offend her, just by presuming to speak to her.

     So I sat next to her, feeling her fear continuously, and decided that I must do something, and do it as gently as possible. Finally, trying to seem casual and respectful, I turned and spoke to her in Russian: “Do you live in Moscow? We boarded the plane at the same....”

     Her words came in a cascade. She was Greek. Her son had married a Soviet woman. She spoke Greek and Russian, but could read or write no language. She had had throat surgery three or four days before. She had been trying to understand the polyglot announcements flowing around her in the airport, but couldn’t. She was lost in the multitude.

     I listened to her story at some length, stood, and told her I was going for help. A look of terror occupied her face. I was her only connection with humanity, and I was leaving. No, please....

     I promised her emphatically that I would return, with someone who could help her. I went to a ticket counter, walked up to a young woman working there, and asked her if she spoke Russian, English, Spanish or French, preferably one of the first three.

     “Yes sir, how may I help you?” her English was better than mine. I explained the Greek woman’s situation.

     “Take me to her.” She spoke in German to a colleague, nodded to me, and we threaded our way back through the crowd.

     That young woman was a blizzard of competence and caring. I asked her that we might proceed slowly, so I could get the languages right. She looked a long moment at the Greek woman, and knew the truth of what I had told her. She also understood me, probably better than I understood myself. With gentle, measured directness, she asked: Where is she going? I translated, trying to imitate the young Austrian’s manner. Athens. May I see her ticket? She read the ticket, nodded, smiled reassuringly. What surgery did she have? A tracheotomy to bypass a throat obstruction. What were the doctor’s instructions for post-operative care? Rest. Freedom from stress. Diet? Warm milk, eggs. Nothing else for several days, then gradual resumption of normal diet.

     The young Viennese angel took care of both of us. Mindful that both the Greek woman and I were working with Russian as a second language, and in a stressful situation, she parsed her words in short, clear English phrases, so I could do the same in Russian: Her flight has left. As the terror returned to the Greek woman’s face, the younger woman was ready: But there is another flight to Athens soon. She paused, studying the older woman’s face for acknowledgment, saw that acknowledgement soften her features after the quick surge of fear, continued: Tell her that I personally – she leaned in, communicating with her body and eyes so that the Greek woman could understand them, while making sure that I understood her words – I personally will guarantee that she is on that plane. Ask her for a phone number for her family in Athens. I will call them. I will ask them to meet the new flight. I will give them the flight number, the arrival time, the gate number. Tell her that now, right now, I will escort her to the infirmary downstairs, where she will be assigned a personal nurse. Tell her I will give her doctor’s instructions for care and diet to that nurse. Tell her that nurse will stay with her until she is on the plane. Tell her there is no staff member currently in the airport who speaks either Greek or Russian. But there is a staff member not here now who speaks Russian. Tell her that I will call that person, and she will come immediately here, and stay with her, and answer any questions, and get any help she needs, until she is on the plane. Tell her I will inform the plane’s crew of her situation. Tell her that a member of the crew will attend to her throughout the flight, and will walk with her off the plane in Athens, until she is in the arms of her family. Give her my personal guarantee of all this.

     I translated the young Viennese woman’s lucid phrases; she’d made it easy for me. We could see the fear slide off the older woman like a wet cloak.

     Somewhere in the disorganization of my storage shed, a few yards from my log cabin in Wallowa County, Oregon, is the letter (if the pack rats haven’t eaten it) in Russian from the Greek woman’s son, thanking me for helping his mother.

MAN AND PISTOL

Man and Pistol

     One evening at Chu Lai I got off radio watch and went behind the tents to the little illegal club we'd built for ourselves. Every man there was drunk. Minutes after I'd leaned my elbow on the plank we used for a bar, grabbed the church key that was always handy and popped open a can of beer, Sergeant Williams, who was standing about five feet from me, pulled out his .45 semiautomatic pistol and worked the slide. It slammed home, steel on brass on steel.

     There was a sharp scuffling sound of bootsoles leaving rough lumber, then a collective oof! of the breath being knocked out of everyone but Williams and me as they hit belly-down on the shipping pallets we'd laid as a floor. Williams was so drunk he could barely stand. He waved the pistol, now loaded, cocked, and off safety, from side to side. Since I was standing directly in front of him, it was pointed mostly at me. 

     Several things became jarringly clear to me. The first was that I was looking my own immediate violent death in the face. The second was that it was entirely up to me to resolve the situation, because I was the only sober person there. The third thing was that if I made a mistake about how to relate to Williams...see realization number one. 

     I studied him as though my life depended on understanding him, since it did. He did not seem particularly angry; he did not seem about to shoot. At least, not on purpose or at anyone in particular. He was just a normally harmless guy with a loaded pistol and something to prove. He did seem to have so little physical control of himself that, since his finger was on the trigger and the safety was off, an accidental discharge was highly likely, especially if he were bumped. Or challenged.

     He seemed...well, lonely. He seemed to want attention. Military outfits are like all societies; they have their cliques, their insiders and outsiders. Williams was a Sergeant, but no one respected him very much. He wasn't particularly good at his job, or brave, or funny. He didn't stand out in any way or have any special claim to anyone's loyalty. He didn't have any close friends. I remember one time when he tried to be friendly. He was sitting on the ground outside our tent, drinking with Martin Luther Ealy. Ealy was a laughing, generous man, a 250pound cook from New Orleans who was particularly proud of his black heritage. Sgt. Williams draped his arm around Ealy's powerful shoulders and said, in all sincerity, "Y'know, Ealy, for a nigger, you're a pretty good guy." Ealy convulsed with sobs, having chosen that reaction instead of killing Williams.

     Suddenly Williams seemed at once dangerous and pathetic to me. This guy wants respect, I thought. He pulled his weapon because he couldn't get respect or attention any other way.

     I began to talk to him, with one elbow leaning on the bar in as casual a pose as I could manage, but with my nerves firing as if I had two fingers plugged into a wall socket. The pistol's muzzle was three or four feet from my gut. This was the M1911A1 .45 caliber semiautomatic, with which I’d qualified on the firing range, becoming familiar with its heavy recoil. I’d been told it leaves an exit wound the size of a man’s fist, by at least one man who had inflicted such a wound.

     I asked him how things had been going, how things were back home. He began to talk a little, still waving the pistol, not all over the place, but just back and forth in front of him as he reeled, which meant mostly at me, since I was so close. His concentration, such as he had, was on the cigar stub he was puffing. When he mentioned something, I would ask his opinion about it. I was very respectful. 

     I began to admire his pistol. My first tentative compliments seemed to please him, so I committed in that direction: "A very fine weapon, yessir, a very fine piece. You must take mighty good care of it. Can I see it?" 

     He proudly handed me the pistol, muzzle still towards me. I slowly turned it to point at a spot on the floor where no one was lying, let the hammer down tenderly, slipped the magazine out, and cleared the chamber. There was a sucking sound of air re-entering lungs as Marines began scraping themselves off the pallets. 

(A WISH FOR YOU)

                                                                     [translation]

                                                                     

(A wish for you:)    

que recibas                                                    receive

como das                                                       as you give

que llegues a ser                                            become

como eres                                                      as you are

que tengas mas flores                                    have more flowers

que lágrimas                                                  than tears.

                              ©1969, 2012 Dean Metcalf