“The train is arriving at Vinh. Please check your luggage.”
An opened his eyes wide. The train moved forward then stopped completely, and they got off, passing along the station platform in a fog. It was only four a.m. Horse carriages were lined up in a row outside the station. Their drivers sat around drinking tea or wine in the row of stalls along the street. To get government transportation you had to line up for at least ten hours until you could purchase a ticket.
An took Nong Tai for a stroll then focused on a driver with a daredevil air and a handlebar mustache.
“Hello to you. We have a special assignment up on the border. Do you think you can help the two of us?”
“Who are you?”
“We are public security and a military officer. Here is an identification certificate for the two of us.”
“Public security and a military officer enjoy priority for government transportation. Every three days there is a car going to the border crossing. You comrades rent a room and inform the local police to make arrangements. There will be a departure the day after tomorrow in the morning.”
“Our assignment is an emergency. We cannot wait.”
“But you comrades cannot hire our horse carriages. Going up the mountain road is very expensive. Here, we usually take passengers going only to towns around Vinh.”
“We can pay no matter how expensive. The agency will reimburse us.”
The horse carriage driver looked at them with suspicion: “A carriage usually takes eight passengers.”
An interrupted him: “We will buy eight tickets plus the cost of luggage for eight. We hope you accept.”
“OK…let me see.”
“And we will pay additionally for the feeding of the horses on bad roads. If you need to change the horses along the road, we are ready to cover that, too. As long as we can make good time to complete our assignment.”
“OK!”
The driver stood up with an unexpected swiftness. He pulled out some change to pay the woman for his tea then took the two men to his horse carriage.
An gave him two-thirds of the fare, adding, “The balance I will pay when we see the border post appearing before our eyes.”
“Comrade, you are a very generous person. Therefore heaven has led you to meet up with me. To say it straight, my horse is number one among all the horses that run in this town,” he explained with great pride. “No horse would dare go against mine up the road to the border, because I am the only one who feeds his horses corn mixed with honey. The others feed their horses only hay all year ’round.”
After carefully putting the money in his shirt pocket, the driver climbed onto his seat and turned the carriage completely around to go west.
As he listened to the galloping of the horseshoes on the road, An stuck his neck out to look around.
“Vinh is not much larger than the town of That Khe. But the style of the houses here is a bit different. Why are we seeing all these red-painted barrels like that one?”
“You comrades are here for the first time, right?” asked the driver.
“Yes. Exactly correct,” An said.
The driver pointed his whip to the rows of rolling mountains at the horizon ahead and said, “The Lao wind blows from the west. It is so fierce that wherever it blows, everything dries and easily burns up. The government distributes those red-painted barrels for families to store water. Lazy ones who let the barrels get low will be reported and will be warned or disciplined.”
“The city fire department is paid with government salaries to do this work. Why force all the people?”
“The fire department here is three times larger than in other cities. But even if there were twenty times more firemen, they could not put out the fires brought by the Lao wind. The Lao wind is also called a fire wind; it starts the fires, no need for people’s negligence in addition.”
“Really! That is scary,” An replied, thinking to himself: “Lao wind! How dangerous; and we are going toward that cavernous oven. No disasters are more dangerous than those created by people. There is nothing in nature more cruel than people going after one another.”
Then he turned to tell Nong Tai, “Did you hear what the driver said? From today on we are going to operate in this hot Lao wind. Now we sleep to get some strength.”
“The road shakes us like dice, how can we sleep?”
“Then just close your eyes.”
The driver turned and added: “It’s true; any minute you close your eyes is good for that minute. In a little while, when the sun rises, your eyes will be blinded as if needles were piercing them. Visitors from the north all complain about the hot sun of Nghe An.”
“The birthplace of the president with the surname Chi!”
“That’s totally correct,” said the carriage driver, who then started singing: “‘A poor land gives birth to heroes…’”
“You sing really well,” An praised him, with this thought in his mind: “Yes, indeed he is a hero. But he is also the greatest coward on this earth, a husband who cannot protect a wife; a father unable to protect his children.”
Outside the city, houses became sparse. Looking back, Vinh was now only an undifferentiated mass under a couple of tall chimneys spewing dirty black smoke.
An asked the driver, “Can we get to the border before nighttime?”
“It depends: on the running legs of the horses; on whether it shines or rains. This time of year the weather is unpredictable; it may be sunny with bright blue skies, then suddenly, thundering, stormy rain comes. The meteorologists never predict accurately storms in the central region. But if we are lucky and the horses do not act up along the way, we will be at the border post when the sun is still high at one pole over the top of the mountains.”
“About four p.m. then; is that what you want to say?”
“I do not look at time much. This profession binds us to the road day and night. But I remember when the carriage has reached there, the sun is higher than the mountain on the west by about one pole.”
“The sooner the better. After the border, we still have to walk a long way.”
An looked at the rows of dry hills ahead, which they must cross before reaching the border: they were empty and spacious; one could cast one’s eyes all the way to the foot of the sky. Not a wood, not a mountain, but never-ending naked hills with low-growing thorny plants no taller than an arm is long and other kinds of ferns. If you were being chased here, your death was guaranteed.
An wondered if the That Khe border office had received an order to look for them yet. He can easily imagine what is going on back in Hanoi. First his own division, then that of Nong Tai, would report the disappearance of two from the “minorities.” According to regulations, it would then take twenty-four hours for a search order to be issued, but, in this case, Minister Quoc Tuy would probably make a move sooner. On all the boats going up to Lang Son and Lao Cai, soldiers would be put on the lookout to catch the two “defectors.” They would probably charge them with some crime to justify the order to “hunt down the criminals.” If not a crime of robbing and killing, then it would be spying for foreigners. And that one would be the most convenient crime with which to arouse the hatred and spite of the people:
“They have become dangerous spies plotting to overthrow the government and taking money from foreigners. There is no other explanation.”
An recalled all the times he had stood under the flag to swear loyally to fight for the nation, to destroy every enemy who threatened the socialist principle of the people. Now he has become that very enemy — he and Nong Tai sitting there, looking at the scenery. Life is a terrible fraud indeed that so many million people had become a powerless mass — each and every one of them hooked by the nose like a herd of buffalo.