“Disperse, you hooligans; disperse!”
“Go home and study; this is none of your business.”
“Go, I tell you; go home!”
But all their threatening was like water off a duck’s back. The group of curious children ran alongside the police all the way to the village office, making a parade without drum and horn. At the office, they ran this way and that when they got shooed away, but when the militia guards were inattentive, they again impudently sneaked back to watch “Miss Ngan of Mr. Quang” being tied up, a scene that had not taken place in Woodcutters’ Hamlet since the land-reform years. They followed when she was led off to the cell in the village storehouse, a five-minute walk away. It was a small house, all closed up like a box with only one heavy wooden door locked by a huge key, with four walls of double brick and no opening or window for ventilation. Long ago that house had held tea for the governing mandarin. In the time of the land reform, the revolutionary government had used it to sequester powerful landowners. Once, more than ten people were detained in that closed space, eighteen square meters. One corner had ashes for a toilet. In the opposite corner was a broken vat holding drinking water for the prisoners. After the land-reform rectification campaign, there had been an order from the district to demolish the building, but the village chairman had second thoughts because it was still of some use. He had people come in to clean it up and paint it white to erase all the bitter memories and neutralize all the remaining stench. Since then the building had been used as a storehouse for the village, to keep tables, chairs, pots and pans, trays and basins, plates and bowls and teacups — all the objects needed for celebrations and receptions for official guests. The village literary group, operating only seasonally, also stored banners and signs there. In another corner, all mixed up, were drums without rim or with holes, two rusted horns, a guitar, two stringless mandolins, and a bunch of moth-eaten flags.
When the police chief turned the lock, a whole bunch of rats jumped out, crawling between his legs, rushing to get outside, and disappearing into the hedge on the side of the road. The air from this holding cell escaped like a breath smelling of rat urine and wetness and blew right in people’s faces.
“You, sister, go in.”
A militiaman led Miss Ngan up to the door and began to untie her. At that moment, everyone saw that her blouse had been torn at the armpit. When she had been arrested, she had resisted and a struggle had broken out between her and those who were trying to do their duty. She had cried quite a bit and looked exhausted and absentminded to the point where she could not even move her arm. The soldier who escorted her had to untie the rope until the very last knot:
“You, sister; go in there! Are you deaf just standing there?”
Miss Ngan still stood silent, as if she did not hear the order of her jailer; her eyes, filled with tears, were blurred with fear and fatigue.
“You heard the arrest warrant, why don’t you comply?” the police chief shouted. After that, seeing that the suspect did not acknowledge his words, he raised his arms and pushed Miss Ngan’s back: “Go inside!”
Pointing at the room scattered with stuff, cheap and moldy, he sharpened his voice: “Go in. Now your home is in there.”
Miss Ngan was pushed in like she was a sack of rice husks The police chief pulled the door, locked it, and said to the air, “Sometime between now and night someone will bring you food.”
After that he turned to his aides and gave an order: “Find someone to bring her a meal. Tomorrow, the government will decide.”
Then, he took a few steps toward the curious children and other onlookers, casting a stern look at each one. They were as silent as a pile of unhusked rice, staring back at the human face of power. A fear long buried suddenly popped into life, turning them confused and reticent. Waiting for the silence to pass, the police chief cleared his voice like an actor preparing to step out on the stage. “Folks: please listen carefully. The duty of each citizen is to work; because work is glorious. Therefore I ask you all to resume your tasks. We should not let productivity go to waste. As for social evils, we, representatives of the government, have the duty to rectify them. First, I, individually and as village police chief, promise in front of you all that these matters will be diligently pursued. We will destroy to their roots all harmful dangers and so defend the life of our community as well as the happiness under each roof. OK; anything to say?”
The man stopped and looked at each one.
“Hurrah!” someone yelled, certainly one who needed to curry favor with the village authorities. But the rest of the crowd remained silent, perhaps because the just delivered official discourse had not yet worked its way through their brains. or because the sight of a woman tied at her elbows reminded them of what had happened to many during the great proletarian land-reform campaign. Past fears returned. The one who had shouted “Hurrah!” seeing no one else echoing his sentiment, quietly slunk to the back. The police chief saw that his heartfelt lecture had fallen flat. Embarrassed, he changed his tone and shouted:
“If no one has anything to add, then disperse!”
With that, he ran off immediately. His subordinates followed. The curious onlookers stood where they were, gazing in silence and apprehension at the huge lock. Some inquisitive children ran over and stared through the crack of the door, hoping to see the prisoner, but the heavy wooden doors were so tightly fitted that there was no opening even for a pin or a toothpick to squeeze through, so they grew disappointed and left.
As the sun reached its zenith for the day, even the most curious had to depart — they were hungry. They hurriedly cooked their meal, hurriedly called for their children, and hurriedly ate so that they could go to Mr. Quang’s house and see what was happening. There the gates were open wide, but no one could go inside, because Mrs. Tu was sitting squarely on the steps to the central room. From there she could see each person as they crossed through the gate. She spoke up cheerfully as if nothing at all was going on in the world:
“Please do enter and enjoy some water, ladies and gentlemen. Today take the opportunity to rest in the shade. This sun fries the cassava fields like coal feeding a furnace. About an hour or so ago, I was weeding cassava and my nephew told me. The two of us ran back like mad to arrive just as Miss Ngan was being taken away. Quy’s wife and kids were standing on the patio. They had been summoned to watch the house. I chased the bunch of them away.”
“How could you dare do that?”
“Why couldn’t I? Quy may be village chairman, but in the family, he must still look up to me. His mother gave him birth sick with seizures and all by myself I took care of him. When he was seven, he had a skin infection for an entire spring. I had to bend over to clean his scabs until my back hurt and my eyes got blurry. It was me again who boiled water with herbs to bathe him and rubbed on ointment to cure him. His mother was useless; she didn’t know what to do. From the very day he got the chairman’s position until now, he’s been snotty and conceited. The public security militia and the village police chief would not dare take a step like this without an order from him. A son who ignores the face of his own father to this extent is not human.”
“I heard it might be an order coming from the provincial authorities.”
“If the province had ordered it, then the provincial police should have taken care of it, not those coolie faces from this village. Of those twelve militiamen who came to this house and tied up Auntie Ngan, six slipped out of their mother’s pelvis to me, who cut their umbilical cords and washed them up. I will go to each of their houses, flap my skirt in their faces, and wait to see what they will dare do to me.”