He realized that he had left so that, someday, he could return. He must now return to that very place where cruelty had spilled forth; where the souls of his loved ones were waiting for him. Back then, just to stay alive, he had left any way he could. Now, similarly, to get revenge, he must return in any way he could. Return, return, return!
So decided, it still took five more years before he could find a way. It happened when scores of the first North Vietnamese soldiers began to pass through the Truong Son Mountains in preparation for the fierce war to liberate Saigon and, after that, to expand Vietnam’s border all the way to Siem Reap in Cambodia. It was the year of the cat, the springtime of that year. The previous fall, enemy planes had started hunting down frontline soldiers in the forests of the Truong Son Mountains. Bombs started falling in areas marked on maps as unknown or as having North Vietnamese soldiers working away, hidden under camouflage. Because America was a great munitions warehouse, the Saigon army could drop bombs generously, like the Bac Lieu gentlemen throwing money into gambling under the ancien regime. Thanks to that development, he encountered a group of soldiers killed by bombs and thus rejoined the North Vietnamese army with a stolen military identity card: First Lieutenant Hoang An of the infantry, ethnic Tay, from the city of Dong Mo in Lang Son.
He was placed in a new unit made up entirely of survivors from battalions, companies, and platoons that had taken so many casualties that they had been stricken from the order of battle. Hiding under the name of someone already dead, he understood that his life now had only one purpose. That day, he swore before heaven:
“Nong Van Thanh has died for eternity.
“So has Chi Van Thanh.
“Only one name, Hoang An, is left on this earth.”
FINAL SUPPLICATIONS
1
Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk…
Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk…
The steel panel hanging from the tree oscillates wildly. A large, awkward, and mean-looking fellow, most likely recently selected from the rock pile or the sawmill, swings a huge hammer against the panel to announce breakfast. This rudimentary instrument appears to be effective, as its long-lasting sound resonates all over the hospital compound, almost as loud as a fire truck’s claxon.
When the sound stops, the cart comes from the end of the hall bringing that morning’s food to the patients. From the rooms, people who care for the patients start bringing containers or bowls and plates out to receive breakfast portions for their loved ones. Vu observes them quietly: a society withering away; a battlefield for life and death; a place where fear and pain and hope converge; where time effaces and smudges; where life for the living is but repetitious habit.
“This kind of life is not just the nameless people in row upon row of suffocating houses. Even the extremely intelligent, or at least those who could be a model for clear thinking, integrity, and self-respect, have many times accepted this life of routine, no different than unsophisticated country women who elbow their way to the food carts.
“Thus, they don’t have to keep their eyes glued on the ladle that stirs the pot of meat porridge, or to count the rice rolls that the attendant doles out to see if there is a full set of eight pieces and not seven only. Thus, they are not unhappy for not having a winter blanket or some money to give to their sons on the day they enlist. But, to be exactly truthful, they live only through movements already determined by machines or, more accurately, as puppets moving to a script written for them.”
The morning when he had received word that Miss Xuan had been killed, Vu had met with those he considered “role models of conscience.” As it was before office hours, it was to their private homes that he had rushed. First, he met with Prime Minister Do. He did not have to wait even one minute because the prime minister was already up, dressed, and sitting in his office. In front of him was a cup of coffee and his copy of the old fifteenth-century court history of Vietnam — a book that was on the table every time he paid the prime minister a visit. That perennial book was open and the host was reading it attentively, his face bent close to the page. When Vu entered, the prime minister hurriedly got up, not to shake his hand but to shut the doors. When he turned around, his face was covered with tears:
“Brother…” Vu said; the prime minister quickly waved his hand to signal silence. Then he closed his eyes and from them streams of tears rolled down without stopping. Losing control himself, Vu also wept. The prime minister was leaning against the door; Vu stood in the middle of the room. The two men faced each other without a word and wept together as other men would drink tea or sip wine. They wept clandestinely, suppressing any louder sobbing for fear that the guards in the hall outside would hear. They wept, controlled and in silence. Then Vu understood what pain and humiliation were. Those overflowing tears were in regret both for the life of a beautiful and unfortunate woman, and to release the turmoil in their hearts. A powerless man is ten times worse than a weak woman. They had been born to be men, beings meant to embody strength and power. A man who cannot act knows only how to drown bitterness and rage with tears, no differently than a child of five. Realizing this fact first, Vu looked up and wiped his face. The prime minister continued to weep, his long and thin fingers covering his square face. Vu focused on those fingers because people usually called them “spear” fingers. They shook from the root to the tip, similar to wild grass shaking in a strong wind:
“Was it because of his scholarly disposition that he was squeezed and turned into a kind of brainy doll encapsulated within this power machine?”
Vu kept thinking about this possibility while waiting for the prime minister to regain control of his emotions. Do had been crying for a long time, even before Vu had stepped into the room. The history book was open to collect the stream of falling tears. Two pages were swollen in spots.
“He weeps not only for Miss Xuan. He weeps for himself, too. That’s for sure!”
Vu walked over, putting his hand on the prime minister’s shoulders as if to say good-bye.
“We won’t find any help coming from the brainy doll, not a drop besides his flowing tears. The magnificent building before us is just a little row house bereft of all hopes. But we cannot give up. Where there is water, you scoop.”
On reaching the street he told the driver, “Let’s go to the house of Comrade Deputy General Secretary. As of now he is not yet in his office.”
“Yes. Offices will open in ninety minutes.”
The driver turned back to Hoang Dieu Street, famous because it held the former residences of the palace majordomos. Two rows of trees stood firm like marble in the cold dew. Vu told the driver to stop and let him out so that he might find a stall to get breakfast. Then he leisurely walked to Deputy General Secretary Thuan’s house. This house had been the substantial villa of a French official, but the Party’s Central Committee had renovated it to provide better security. They had replaced fences with masonry walls, adding a second gate and a watchtower, so that people looking in had the impression of a seminary or ammunition warehouse. Vu stopped before a huge barrier gate, painted in stripes of white and red like a gate at the train station. A large lock, bigger than a hand, dangled at the main entrance. It was not yet time to open the main gate, but the guard had seen him. Hurriedly he had come over and opened the secondary gate for Vu to enter. Then the guard climbed back up the watchtower to observe him. Vu felt that gaze sticking to his back. Instinct told him that from now on, everywhere he went, he would be watched closely by naked eyes as well as through officially issued binoculars.