“About fifty thousand.”
“I only need half of it. Keep the other half for food.”
His wife went into the bedroom. He looked at her svelte back and thought: “You will not have the chance to go to the market, or cook Lang Son sour soup, my beloved wife. Our life together has been cut short like a stalk of rice at the harvest. Oh heaven, the day Little One was presented to the king was the very day disaster came to roost in our family. And changing our surname from Nong to Chi was about as stupid as you can get.”
Dong returned with a stack of paper bills in one hand. In the other she held a small case the size of a chicken’s gizzard. Putting the pile of money on the table, she opened the case and pulled out a string of rings, of the large size without stones or carvings, the kind long-distance merchants carry as cash.
“You must put the gold in your underwear. I sewed a pocket inside the waistband.”
“I understand.”
“Put the bills into many different pockets in your clothes. If you lose some from one, you will still have more in the others.”
“I understand.”
“And you must take along the vial of ointment for colds and the medication for stomachaches. There is also a flashlight, a lighter, a knife for the woods, and snakebite antidote. Is it complete?”
“All are in the duffel bag.”
“Let me see your duffel bag.”
“Nothing is missing,” An answered while thinking to himself, “The one most important thing missing is you, and our Little One; because I cannot take you along on this journey of misery. But we will see each other in the other world, another land, the meeting place of all living things. We will meet again. But all my beloved ones, before we meet again, I must do this to make things right.”
For the last time, he bent down to embrace the two women with a hard squeeze, to smell the intimate scent of their shiny and straight hair, rubbing his face against their smooth faces. Then he stood up.
“Don’t go to the door. Don’t follow me. Kiss the kids for me.”
“You…!” Both cried out.
He lowered his voice: “Don’t cry. Look as if nothing has happened. We have no other way.”
He went down the stairs, not turning back even once.
In the hallway, An called Nong Tai over and said, “Do you have money in your pocket? Can you lend me ten thousand? I planned to buy some stuff and ask someone to bring it back home, but I did not take enough money.”
Nong Tai looked at him. “When will you pay me back?”
“Next week. Oh, I forgot…Payday is in two weeks, at which time I will repay you right away, not a day later.”
“In my pocket I have only enough to buy a couple of sesame balls. I left my money in the barracks.”
“It is almost time for changing the guard. Will you see if the comrades will let you leave one hour early?”
“OK, let me ask.”
The corridor was long enough that their conversation would not have been heard by the two other guards. He knew that the ruse would succeed because usually highland people do not know how to lie. Three minutes later Nong Tai returned.
“Let’s go; the two comrades agreed I can leave early. We will go to where I left my bike so we can cycle back to the camp.”
“Agreed.”
They left together. When Nong Tai had his bike, the two quietly rode through three streets; they were convinced that nobody had followed them. “Let’s stop at the sidewalk,” An said.
Nong Tai understood him immediately and got down from his bike. The two went up on the sidewalk and stood under the shade of a tree.
An asked, “Do the other two guys know that sooner or later they will die?”
“Nobody says anything but all three of us quietly understand it will be so. We have the afternoon shift. The thing always happens in the afternoon, therefore only the three of us witness it. The other group has the shift from midnight until noon the next day; they know nothing.”
“So why didn’t you three plan an escape?”
“Where to escape now? Every morning they call roll before going to exercise; in the afternoon they do it before bedtime. However, if they want to escape they will not talk to me because I am a Tay. And I, I cannot plan with them at all. Because they are Vietnamese. Minister Quoc Tuy is Vietnamese like them and Miss Xuan is a Tay like me.”
“Do you think they suspect that I have asked you to escape?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they think we are people of the mountains: trustworthy and stupid; that we would not dare to do so.”
“Good. Because we are stupid, we will escape death. And they are from the lowlands and smart; therefore, they hold in their hands certain death. Now there is not much time. We have to get to the train station; hopefully we will not miss the train, thanks to the public security pass that you have.”
“But… what about my clothes and money in the barracks?”
“Are you crazy? It’s better to live naked than die draped in a military uniform in a coffin. Let’s go.”
They biked straight to the Hang Co station. There, the two bought tickets for Vinh to the south. As An predicted, Nong Tai’s public security pass helped. It gave them priority to buy tickets under the justification of being sent on “special duty.” As soon as they boarded the train, its engine whistled and it pulled out of the station. An put down his duffel behind his back then sat down, his eyes gazing out the window.
“Farewell to you, city of my enemies; a city I had dreamed of for so many months when I was still at the northern front; a city I thought was a paradise but which has now turned into a hell. This is the very place that will be the dark tomb in which my loved ones will be buried forever. Farewell, you gigantic and atrocious monster.”
So he thought as he set eyes on Hanoi for the last time.
“Brother Thanh,” said Nong Tai, “Brother Thanh, I am thinking…”
“About what?”
“Why are we going south? By advancing deeply into the flat plains of the central provinces, we will be like foxes caught in the open fields, like fish thrown up on the hills. Why don’t we turn back to That Khe? There we know all the main roads and shortcuts. We know the streams and forests. Anywhere we hide, we can dig up roots or trap animals to keep ourselves alive.”
“Stupid: That Khe is the first place they will look. We cannot hide forever in the woods. Moreover, even if we escape the encircling net and cross over the border, we will fall into the hands of Chinese soldiers. They will immediately turn us back over to the Vietnamese government.”
“But in the central provinces, a strange place?”
“Only in a strange place can we hope to escape. It is much shorter from Vinh to the border with Laos than from our homes to the northern border with China.”
“How do you know that?”
“I must know to save myself. I must learn all the necessary details before I start the journey.”
“But on the other side of the border is the land of the Lao. Do you know them or not?”
“The Lao and the Chinese are like the deer and the tiger. We cannot compare one with the other.”
Their whispers were buried in the loud grinding of the steel wheels on the rails. Then An said, “Go to sleep.”
“I am not sleepy yet. And it’s hard to sleep with an empty stomach.”
“Right. Nobody can sleep when they’re hungry. Go to the cafeteria to buy some bread. After we eat, we will drink lots of water. It’s easier to sleep with a full stomach. We must sleep to have strength for tomorrow.”
Nong Tai got up and went to the cafeteria at the end of the train to buy two big loaves of bread sprinkled with salt and pepper and two containers of water. The two ate quietly then fell asleep sitting up. The train shook their heads as if they were bouncing rubber balls. They slept very soundly until the loudspeakers announced: