An gets the feeling that his division commander does not believe what the Meo is telling him and that he is trying his best to lead him toward another explanation.
In hesitation, Ma Ly mumbles for a while but then speaks in a most decisive way: “I know. What you said makes sense. But I cannot be mistaken, since Chi Van Thanh also recognized me. He even told me not to call him by his old name, that he had been pursued and that he had changed his name and family name.”
Suddenly, whistlings and passionate shouts echo all over the woods:
“Bravo, bravo…”
“Encore; one more dance…”
“Once more! Hurray…Once more, please!”
“Once more! Please do it again.”
An is sure that the Cham Rong dance must have just been performed, the dance of spring, the dance of love, of festivals and of aspirations. He imagines the crowd’s excited faces under the headlights. At the same time, an idea comes into his mind:
“Dear commander, you and I have no enmity or hatred, we don’t have any unhappy memories of each other. You have been like a generous brother to me but right now I have no choice. Please pardon me.”
An points his gun at Ma Ly’s back, aiming at a span and a half below his left shoulder, and pulls the trigger. An explosion. Surely the Meo’s heart must be a mess. Moving his gun half a millimeter to the left, he shoots two bullets into the other, much larger, man. The whole thing happens in a blink. Both bodies fall forward almost at the same time, in the same direction.
An lowers the gun and puts it down at the foot of a familiar tree, where he used to sit by himself in the afternoon. The reflection of the fireflies in the water on the other side of the stream and the uncertain light of the phosphorescent balls under the tree bushes are all he needs to find everything. After hiding the gun, An walks toward the two corpses, which are piled one on top of the other. Both corpses are warm. First he carefully takes the pants of each man so that the blood from their chests does not smear their pants. The he picks up their weapons and flashlights, their cigarette packs and lighters, the nail cutters in their shirt pockets, notebooks and pens, and stacks everything on the grass. Then he takes off their shoes and socks. Figuring that all has been taken care of, he carries the Meo upstream to Roaring Elephant Falls.
Stopping to breathe a bit, he then throws Ma Ly’s body down the falls. He hears the corpse drop into the water and watches as the black body is carried violently downstream. Coming back, An tries to pick up the division commander. He is very heavy. Finally he gets the sturdy body over his shoulder and walks step by slow step to the falls, where he puts the corpse down on the bank. He then pulls from his pants pocket a parachute string and ties one of his legs to a nearby tree. Gathering all his strength, he picks up the corpse and throws it down the cascade. The momentum from his throw makes him fall after it, but the string stops him. An then jumps up and unties the string, then goes back downstream, where he immerses himself in the icy water to get the blood out of his clothes. He then picks up the flashlight and submachine gun, intending to go back to the underground chamber. But as he looks up, suddenly he hears running feet and glimpses a dark silhouette disappearing among the black trees. Though he does not get a clear look, it is for sure a living creature, not some ghost.
“Was someone watching me?” he thinks to himself, immediately going in pursuit of the dark shape.
Whatever made the noise might as well have been a fox or some other animal. It disappeared in a flash, leaving no trace, as if it had blended in the woods. Nonetheless, An tries to follow, pursuing it all the way to the edge of the forest, where finally he stops. Though the prey he was after might be human or a ghost, or even a fox, he lets it escape. To follow any farther would put him in danger of getting caught with the trappings of a murderer, wet from head to toe.
“Well, I will take care of you later,” he resolves, and proceeds back to the underground chamber. Luckily for him, the quarters are totally deserted. Hanging his wet clothes on the drying rack, An stands there a moment looking at the fire in the brazier lit to dry clothes in the damp underground chamber, feeling at once sad and indifferent. He feels like sleeping. But, that being impossible, he puts on fresh clothes and goes back to the clearing, joins his unit, and quietly hides himself behind his troops as the performance continues.
After about ten minutes, he puts a hand on the shoulder of the fellow in front of him:
“Having a good time?”
Taken aback, the fellow turns around and looks at him.
“Where did you go, Chief, to be here only now?”
“Commander Nha told me to go with him and take a nap in the underground chamber. I overslept.”
“You missed half of the evening already, you know.”
“So be it…But at least I had a good rest. Besides, being ten years older than you, I no longer yearn as much as you do for the pretty girls. Isn’t that right?”
The soldier laughs heartily. “To that question I have no answer.”
“Go ahead, enjoy the show, lest you lose out on the fun,” An replies, putting a sudden end to the conversation. He then uses his right hand to squeeze a vital spot on his left shoulder. Only now does he feel his whole body aching after the strenuous and tense episode he has just passed through. His eyelids start to weigh heavily like lead and it begins to seem as if they will no longer obey the will of their owner.
“I can’t sleep now,” An thinks to himself. “I have no right to do so. Having just declared to everybody that I got a good nap with the battalion commander, I cannot have a reason for napping some more.”
But, starting to yawn, he pulls out his pack of cigarettes and lights one of them. As soon as the smoke spreads, five or six heads turn around, greedily looking to share in a smoke. Arms spread toward him:
“Me first, Commander. I had my hand up first.”
“Liar, I was the one to raise my hand first. Sitting where you are in front, how could you smell the smoke before anyone else?”
“I am third. Please do not forget me.”
“How about me? Is not an old soldier entitled to a smoke?”
“I thought you all were fixated on the show,” An replies. “That’s why I dared open my pack of cigarettes…You all certainly have keen noses.”
The cigarette then passes from hand to hand through the ranks with its butt burning bright then dimming then burning again. In the end it disappears even as more hands are raised in expectation. An looks up to the stage but in his ear he can still hear the thud and the gurgling sound of the water when the body of the division commander was thrown in.
“He certainly was a strong man. He must have been an authoritarian father to his children and an exhausting husband in bed. People from maritime provinces consume lots of fish, so they are born potent, needing no bear or tiger paste. His heart was really pumping blood. It spurted out like water from a sprinkler.”
So thinking, An instinctively put his hand on his neck to ascertain whether he was entirely free of the commander’s blood. On the way toward the waterfall, blood from the commander’s corpse kept flowing out, gooey and warm, soaking the base of his neck and then flowing past his chest, his navel, all the way down to his pubic hair, making him feel extremely uncomfortable. It had then split into two streams flowing down the interior of his thighs, feeling a bit sticky like a sauce coming from a stew pot. It made a very strong impression — an unforgettable one. The blood felt like a kind of thick tree sap but it was warm and gave a slightly fishy smell. All of a sudden, An feels his limbs go weak. A hatred rises up and becomes a whisper in his heart: