There was some murmuring, but no smiles. It occurred to me that with Dien Bien Phu so close, there might be some residual animosity toward the French. Ong die here… grand-père. I said, “Nous sommes Canadiens.”
I thought I saw the crowd relax a bit, or maybe that’s what I wanted to see.
Susan, too, said, “Bonjour.” She then said something about us coming from Dien Bien Phu, and was it okay if we made une photographie of Le Monument?
No one seemed to object, so Susan stood back and made une photographie of the names of the dead.
Finally, someone came forward, a middle-aged gent in black wool pants and an orange sweater. He said something to me in French, but I totally didn’t get it, and I didn’t think he cared if the pen of my aunt was on the desk of my uncle.
Susan said something to him in halting French, and he replied.
The guy’s French was a little better than Susan’s, so she mixed in some halting Vietnamese, which had the effect of startling the crowd and bringing everyone closer.
It couldn’t be long before a few soldiers showed up and asked for our passports and discovered we weren’t actually Canadians.
I was starting to feel less like James Bond and more like Indiana Jones in a movie titled Village of Doom.
Susan was giving this guy the line of crap about l’histoire de la guerre américaine, which he seemed to be half buying.
Finally, she said something to him in more fluent Vietnamese, and I could hear the name Tran Van Vinh.
Asking for someone by name in a small town in Vietnam, or Kansas, or anywhere sort of stops the show.
There was a long silence, then the man looked at both of us, and I held my breath until finally he nodded and said, “Oui. Il suvivre.”
I knew I had not come this far to visit a grave, and here I was in the village of Ban Hin, and the answer to the question of whether or not Tran Van Vinh was alive was, “Yes, he’s alive.”
Susan glanced at me, nodded and smiled. She turned back to the guy and continued in broken Vietnamese, with a little French thrown in, and he replied to her in slow Vietnamese, with lots of French. We were actually getting away with this.
Finally, he spoke the magic word, “Allons.”
And off we went, following him through the crowd, which parted for us.
We passed through the covered market, and the man stopped at a community bulletin board covered with clear plastic. He pointed to two faded black and white photographs of Americans in flight suits with their hands in the air, surrounded by pajama-clad peasants carrying old bolt action rifles. There was some room left for another picture of me and Susan in a similar pose.
The man said, “Les pilotes Americains.” I glanced at Susan, and we made eye contact.
We continued on a narrow tree-shaded path between small houses toward the towering mountain at the end of the village where a group of low hillocks lay at the base of the mountain, which I recognized as burial mounds. Beyond the burial mounds were small wooden houses.
We followed the guy up a winding path toward a house built of hand-hewn pine and thatched with bamboo leaves.
We got to the door of the house, and the guy motioned us to wait. He entered through an open door.
A few seconds later, he came out and motioned us inside. As we entered, he said something to us in French about chez Tran.
We found ourselves in this one-room house whose floor was packed red clay. Glass windows let in some gray light, and I smelled charcoal burning somewhere in the damp air.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see hammocks folded along the walls with blankets in them, and on the floor were a number of woven bamboo baskets and chests. A low table without chairs sat in the center of the floor on a black rug.
In the far corner was a clay cooking stove, which glowed red from the firebox with burning charcoal. To the right of the clay stove was a simple altar against the wall, and on the altar were burning joss sticks and framed photographs. Hanging on the wall to the right of the altar was a big poster of Ho Chi Minh. Beside that hung a Vietnamese flag and some framed certificates or awards.
I looked around again to confirm that no one was home.
We stood there a moment, then Susan said, “He says this is the house of Tran Van Vinh, and we should wait here.”
I don’t like being boxed in by walls, but it was too late to worry about that now. We had arrived, one way or the other, at the end of our journey. I asked, “Did he say where the liquor cabinet was?”
“No. But he said I could smoke.” She walked to the charcoal stove, took off her backpack, sat on a hearth rug, and lit a cigarette.
I slipped off my backpack and put it next to hers. I saw that the roof was only about six feet high at the far wall, and I went over to it and pulled out the pistol from under my leather jacket. Having learned a thing or two from the Viet Cong, I slipped the .45 and the two extra magazines between two rows of tied thatch.
Susan said, “Good idea. I think if the soldiers arrive, we could talk ourselves out of just about anything but that gun.”
I didn’t reply to that overly optimistic statement, but I asked her, “What did you tell that guy?”
She replied, “His name is Mr. Khiem, and he’s the village schoolteacher. As you suggested, I told him we were Canadian military historians who had been to Dien Bien Phu, and that we were also studying the American War. I also said that we were told in Dien Bien Phu to see the war memorial in the square of Ban Hin. I made that up.”
“You’re good at that.”
“I said I’d heard that many veterans of the American War lived in the Na Valley, and we were especially interested in veterans of the ’68 Tet Offensive, and more specifically the battle of Quang Tri City.” She drew on her cigarette and continued, “But Mr. Khiem wasn’t offering any names, except his own. He was at the battle of Hue. Finally, in frustration, I just said I’d heard the name of Tran Van Vinh come up in Dien Bien Phu. We’d heard that he was a brave soldier who’d been wounded at Quang Tri.” She looked at me and said, “I didn’t want to hang around that square any longer so I went for broke.”
“Did Mr. Khiem buy it?”
“Maybe. He was somewhere between incredulous and proud that they spoke well of Ban Hin in Dien Bien Phu.” Susan added, “Mr. Khiem is also a Tran and is related to Vinh in some way or another.”
I said, “There were lots of dead and missing Trans on that memorial. I’m glad we’re Canadians.”
She tried to smile and said, “I hope he believed that.”
“He didn’t get hostile, so I guess he did. On our next mission to Vietnam, we’ll be Swiss.”
She lit another cigarette. “Send me a postcard.”
I said to her, “You did fine. I’m really proud of you, and if Mr. Khiem went to get the soldiers, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Thank you.”
I asked her, “Does Tran Van Vinh live here, or is he visiting for Tet?”
“Mr. Khiem said Tran Van Vinh lives here in Ban Hin and has lived here all his life.”
“Where is he now?”
“Mr. Khiem said something about seeing his relatives off.”
“That should put him in a good mood. When is he expected back?”
“Whenever the daily bus arrives from Dien Bien Phu.”
I looked at the picture of Uncle Ho and asked, “Do you think this is a setup?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you Canadians have an annoying habit of answering a question with a question.”