“What’s she complaining about?”
His sister’s eyes were bloodshot. She set the tray down on the table and grabbed his wrist as she spoke. “Something terrible has happened, Quyen. Your little brother’s disappeared.”
“Minh? When?”
“I don’t know. Mother’s been worrying about him. She wrote to his school and to Uncle in Hue a while back. She asked me not to tell you, but Uncle’s reply came this morning.”
“Let me see the letter.”
His sister rummaged through a drawer and produced the letter. Pham Quyen read it: “Dear Sister-in-law, upon receiving your letter, I checked Minh’s attendance with the university office. I found he hasn’t been attending school for the last two months. This means that when he came to stay here with us, he already had stopped going to classes. Last month he said he was headed home for a visit. Since there was no word from him, I assumed he would stay home and take a semester off. I do not, however, worry about him. He is a prudent young man. He will not act lightly. Since he’s a student with a draft deferment, if anything had happened to him, the family would have been notified. Don’t be too worried, and let us wait quietly and patiently, following the example of many other families these days. I’ll find time to visit you as soon as the road conditions improve.”
Quyen put the letter back into the envelope. Without saying a word to his sister, he sat down at the table.
“Would you like some green tea?” she asked.
He nodded and said, “When’s Lei coming?”
“Soon. Her morning classes should be over by now.”
Pham Quyen fell into thought. His sister took the bowl of medicine into her mother’s room and shortly afterwards returned.
“Did you tell mother I was here?”
“She was about to fall asleep, so I didn’t tell her.”
“Good.”
He went back to thinking. What he had been fearing had at last happened. As he grew older, Minh had become more and more argumentative with him, but lately he talked less and less. In the past, when Minh shouted at him with a foul look on his face Quyen could at least get a vague idea of what he was thinking, but ever since Minh stopped talking it was impossible to guess what was on his mind, what he was planning.
When Minh had defied him, calling him a running dog of the imperialists, Quyen slapped him hard across the face. But at their last meeting, during the monsoon holidays, Minh had said not a word to him until late one night when Quyen had come home drunk. Minh had grabbed him by the shoulders, whispering: “Brother, I don’t want to be a doctor. I’ll never be able to cure what ails you, my brother, my poor sick brother, Quyen.” Even in his drunken stupor, he had found Minh’s voice so calm and affectionate that it seemed to melt right into his spine. Quyen had pretended to pass out and let Minh help him into bed. The next morning when he got up to go to work, Pham Minh already was gone.
“Drink your tea.”
Quyen drank his tea. Yes, his little brother had gone into the jungle. He would not be able to come back. The Liberation Front did everything they could to conceal their military strength. If he died in action, the family would not even be notified. If Minh had not joined the government forces, his family might at most receive the official NLF document sealed with a yellow star that some other families received.
Pham Quyen buried his face in his hands: If only I had known… I could have stopped him, even if I had to shoot him in the arm or the foot. If Minh had only waited a little longer, I could have sent him to Europe. For ten thousand dollars, I can easily get anybody’s son to France by way of Cambodia. The going rate to get someone out to another Southeast Asian country was only three or four thousand. Minh could have lived with his wife in a cheery, one-story house annexed to a private clinic, watering the flowerpots in his living room. I could take a drive over to visit him.
Just then something exploded. He imagined shattered windows and bloody corpses lying everywhere. Quyen jerked his head up. Yes, Minh had disappeared, throwing a plastic bomb at all those hopes and dreams. They never should have sent him to his uncle’s in Hue. Uncle was a feeble old man, but he might have influenced the boy with his extreme ideologies. He had probably started reading classics like Proudhon and Bakunin. And then he would have graduated to Lenin and Mao. And on to those innumerable pamphlets, beginning with the theses of Ho Chi Minh and from there to the strategic doctrines and political speeches of Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong. .
If it is absolutely impossible for you to produce anything useful, or if you refuse to be a producer, then live in isolation as a hermit or invalid. If we have abundance enough to supply your daily necessities, then we will gladly give them to you. For you are a human being and have the right to live. But if you leave the masses, wishing to live in conditions of privilege, it is only natural that you should suffer the consequences in your daily relationships with other citizens. You will be regarded as a ghost of the bourgeoisie, unless your friends discover some remarkable gift in you, and by carrying out all necessary labor on your behalf, kindly free you from your moral obligations.
Pham Quyen remembered those lines well. At the sound of a bicycle bell outside, he raised his head with a jolt. Lei could be seen through the open door. With her hat hanging behind her head, she walked her bicycle into the front yard and left it propped against the wall. When she came inside, she started at the unexpected sight of Quyen.
“Come here and sit down.”
Lei politely sat down across the table from her brother, wiping her face with her handkerchief.
“You have to answer everything I ask you. Leave nothing out.”
His elder sister, Mi, came over to Lei with a concerned look on her face and asked if the young girl was hungry.
“Just get out of the way!” Quyen unleashed his anger, and Mi, intimidated, rushed into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong, Big Brother?” Lei asked in a pleading tone, her voice already clouding up to rain tears. But Pham Quyen showed no mercy.
“You must know. Where has Minh gone?”
“He is in Hue,” Lei said, her face blue with fear.
“Don’t play the innocent with me. I know. When was he last here?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, really.” Lei began to cry.
Behind him, his elder sister timidly said, “Please, not so loud, you’ll wake up Mother.”
Quyen swung around and pointed his finger at her, saying, “Mi, you’re just as guilty. All of you are in this.”
“Why. . I can’t believe you’d speak to me that way.”
His sister dropped her head and retreated back to the kitchen. Quyen pounded on the table.
“I’m the head of this family. I would do anything for you. It’s my responsibility to keep you safe and happy. Go outside and see. Everywhere people are dying, starving, barely staying alive. I play the role of father and struggle to protect you from falling into such misery. And this is the thanks I get? My little brother defies me, my little sister lies to me, and all of you are turning away from me.”
Lei glared at her big brother and said, “Brother Minh has joined the National Liberation Front.”
Dumbfounded, Quyen looked at Lei, not believing his ears.
“What, what did you say?!”
“NLF. Can you hear me now? Satisfied?”
Quyen had nothing more to say. Lei pushed her chair back, got up and went into the kitchen to see her sister Mi. The two were probably sobbing in each other’s arms, he thought. Quyen leaned back in his chair, feeling completely drained. He stood up, opened the kitchen door and without looking at his sisters, said, “I’ll speak to Mother, but you both watch what you say outside the house. Especially you, Lei! Be careful what you say to your friends at school!”