“Where were you?”
“In the Atwat Mountains.”
Quyen had prepared himself in advance, but his heart sank with a thud all the same. In a quaking voice he pressed Minh. “What did you do there?”
“I underwent training for one month.”
“What about after that?”
“I was on a mission in the Mekong Delta.”
“Don’t lie to me!”
Quyen pulled the trigger. With a dull sound, like someone pounding a desk, the bullet struck a few feet from Minh. Cement dust from underneath the wallpaper fell down onto the white bedspread.
Calmly Minh looked his brother in the face and quietly said, “Put that gun away. I’m different than I used to be. I’m tired.”
Then Minh sprawled on the bed. Waving the gun, Quyen growled, “Sit up!”
Just then there was a knock and Mi’s wavering voice was heard.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes. We’re talking,” Quyen said in a low voice.
“Minh, what are you doing?”
“I just caught a lizard,” Minh said in a loud voice. Mi could be heard shuffling away from the door. Quyen waited until his sister was well out of earshot and then resumed his interrogation in a soft voice.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know that much? Since you’re from the central region, you must have been sent to the Dong Hoi training camp. The Mekong Delta belongs to the Saigon region. And your training was shortened from six months to two, so you’ve just come down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from the highlands. I know the infiltration routes on the front inside out.”
“It used to be like that. Until the American reinforcements arrived. Since the Tet Offensive the training period has been cut down to one month. The NLF is now seriously short of forces. After only one month of weapons training I was assigned to Saigon. Only two weeks ago I was on the outskirts of Saigon. Nearly all of my team was killed.”
Quyen put the gun down. “Did you escape from the NLF?”
“I wanted to survive.”
Minh rolled over on the bed and faced the wall. He lacked the nerve to face his brother’s gaze. He felt his scheme was succeeding, and the fact that he had so deceived his brother made it loathsome to look into his eyes. But this was one of his first important missions.
“From now on I’ll do as you say. I’ll turn myself in. I’ll tell them everything I know. About our temporary training camp and a few team members in Hue. . and I can give them the route to Saigon.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
“I saw an entire company massacred in an ambush. I was in the rear guard and barely managed to crawl out of range. I hid in the swamp among the reeds until the sun was high the next day. With the help of some farmers, I got a change of clothes and hitched a ride on a freight truck up Route 1. I was in Saigon for three days staying at a hospital run by a doctor I met at the university in Hue. Then, I couldn’t go back into the jungle, so I made my way back up along the coast, and here I am.”
Minh made up his mind. He got up and buried his face on his brother’s knees, screaming, “Help me, Brother! I don’t want to die! I never thought it would be so terrifying!”
Unable to stifle a terrible urge rising in his throat, Quyen grabbed Minh by the neck and shook him.
“Don’t worry. Nobody outside the family knows. You’ve just had an education. You learned about the immense gap between the ideal and reality in Vietnam. It was for the best, after all. You’re a grown man now, at last.”
“Brother, I can’t go back to Hue. If I return to school, I’ll be in danger because of the team members there.”
Quyen had his brother sit down on the bed and, in order to look him in the eyes, knelt down as he spoke. “Don’t go back to school. Enlist instead. It would solve everything.”
Minh nodded. Quyen took out a cigarette and offered one to Minh, who put it into his mouth. His brother lit it.
“If you do as I say, then there’s nothing I won’t do for you. First, get enlisted. I’m confident I can get you a disability discharge within a year. If not for that stinking record of yours, in a month I could have had you issued a certificate of service and honorable discharge. I was going to wait until after you were safely graduated. I have a plan of my own. The family Ran trust me. You were the family member I had in mind to send abroad first. Are you interested in studying overseas? Yes, you’ll become a doctor.”
“I was thinking about joining the air force.”
“Why? Isn’t the navy better? At sea is the safest place in Vietnam. You could be assigned to a detachment on one of those Red Cross hospital ships. As you fill up time serving as a medic on board a big white ship, the organization will gradually forget about you.”
“It’s all right. Those who know me are staying on the far side of the jungle. All the members of my cell are dead, and I’m safe as long as I stay away from Hue. The reason I want to join the air force is that that way I can look after Mother. You’re no longer at home, and if I’m away too, Mother will be crying all the time. I talked it over with Lei. I should stay here and take care of the family. Then you can concentrate on your own work and will feel relieved, won’t you?”
Quyen was touched but concealed his feelings behind a puff of smoke. Minh continued:
“If you’re assigned to Da Nang air base, since it’s under the American command, they say you can get away with duty on paper only, right?”
Quyen was well aware of the various options. One could make personnel records showing enlistment in the air force followed by an immediate dispatch to the air base, and then pay a certain sum each month to the officer in charge of the detachment to avoid having to show up for ordinary duty. All that was necessary was to appear in uniform once in a while whenever headquarters ordered a rare assembly of the entire detachment for inspection. Better yet, there was very little chance of roll call checks for the units assigned as augmentation to the American forces. There were too many variables and movements in those groups, what with deaths in action, recuperation leaves, special dispatches, redeployments, not to mention a fair number of AWOLs. The situation was so hectic it was hard even to match up the individuals assigned with their rated specialties. And it would be cheaper to have Minh’s name registered for a whole year. But most of all it would be a good way to win his mind.
“All right. Join the air force. I’ll take the proper steps. And I’ll have a military ID made for you. You just stay put next to Mother and before you know it you’ll be discharged as a medic.”
“Thank you.”
Minh thought of bringing up the subject of getting a job, but he decided not to. Too many requests all at once would be likely to arouse suspicion in the meticulous Quyen. Minh changed the subject.
“Brother, I was told about your marriage. I heard from Lei. It seems to have hurt Mother’s feelings, and Lei’s, too.”
“What do you think?”
“Think of what?”
“Of she and I living together?”
“Well, if she’s what Mother and Lei say she is, then I agree with them. You, my big brother, being married to a foreign bar hostess?”
“Shut up, Mimi’s not that kind of woman. She was working as an office clerk in the PX. And I. . I’m sorry to say, our relation is not like a typical Vietnamese marriage. We’re living together now, but we may part, you never know. She’s planning to go abroad, too, to Singapore or Bangkok, with our family. That’s why we got married on paper. That’s all.”
“But. . if she doesn’t love you and you’re only a means for her to get out of Vietnam, then. .”
Quyen did not feel like arguing about his private life with his brother. He glanced at his watch. Minh spoke again: “I wonder whether you’d let me. .”