In the dark of the night, a woman in a black, hooded robe walked along the southern end of Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. Every other lamp post illuminated the desolate strip in a dim trance. The half-darkness of the re-instated night curfews allowed the quietness of the scene to seep into the idle thoughts of the Chinese patrols. One such young soldier yelled at the woman approaching him.
“Stop. Put your hands up.”
The woman, head down, approached the uniform at an unaltered pace. The man called out a second warning and raised his rifle. She didn’t flinch. He threatened to shoot, and while still ten feet away, she pounced on the soldier with a tiger fury, knocking him to the ground with a precision strike to the throat. She kicked him in the groin. The rifle fell onto the pavement. She ignored it. He lay a curled-up ball, writhing back and forth. She stepped past him and continued around the edge of the mausoleum’s fence, pushing open the door to the courtyard of the One Pillar Pagoda. The thousand-year-old pagoda stood still and austere in the humid night air with high-winged roof tips like that of an ancient ship. A lily pond surrounded it, with slanted wooden support beams hanging over the water’s edge.
The woman walked up the stone staircase and removed her slippers. She bowed once and reached into her pocket for several sticks of red incense. She removed a match from her pocket. Water dripped from it. She rubbed it in her fingertips until the match flared, and she lit the five joss sticks and threw the match over the edge into the lily pond. She inserted the sticks vertically into the incense holders on top of an ornate red carved table. She bowed several times to each of the individual altars, then turned to put on her slippers and descend the steps.
As she emerged onto the desolate walkway, the wounded soldier writhed in pain with two other patrolmen attending him. They caught her eye and yelled in the woman’s direction. She bolted forward like a burst of wind unleashed from an approaching storm and used each of her arms outright to pummel the chests of the two men, sending them to the ground gasping for air. One reached for his pistol and aimed, but she unsheathed the knife on his belt and stabbed him through the chest before he could pull the trigger. She leaned over the other one still on the ground. He panted in fear and pushed off with his hands trying to escape her. She whispered a low threat.
“Tell Sun Quan I’m here.”
She straightened upright and walked behind the edge of the mausoleum. She leaped over the fence with ease and approached the locked entrance. She ripped the handle off the door and entered the dimly lit hall. The remains of Ho Chi Minh—Uncle Ho—embalmed and preserved from his 1969 death, were illuminated inside a glass coffin. She walked to its base, reached into her cloak, and removed a small wooden plaque. She placed the plaque on the coffin and backed away. A round knob had been carved into the shape of a bronze drum. On one side were names written in Chu Nom—the ancient Vietnamese script. The flip side had the same names written in Quoc Ngu—the Romanized national language from the 17th century. There were many names: Hung Kings, Le Loi, Le Thai To, Trung Sisters, Quang Trung. All the names were written in gold lettering except one. It alone had been written and underlined in blood red: Ba Trieu.
Lady Trieu removed her hood and bowed in respect. Footsteps approached. Soldiers filled the hall from both entrances, rifles aimed and cocked upon the single lady, who didn’t flinch.
“Hands up.”
She complied. She raised both hands over her head and stated in a low tone: “There’s nothing more precious than independence and freedom.”
She swung her arms to the side and a blinding flash of light engulfed the hall and backed the soldiers into a step-tied frantic retreat. When the light evaporated, they pulsed forward to arrest her but found themselves aiming their rifles at each other. She had vanished.
When the lights went out and the siren released the vertical collapsing walls separating Minh from the others, a strip of emergency light illuminated the base of the wall just enough for Minh to see the three marble tablets sitting on the table where Tho had left them. Minh concentrated and tried not to feel the anxiety of separation from his mother. Something more immediate pressed on his mind. He closed his eyes and slid his hand inside the back of his pants. It ran down along his buttocks, and with his index finger and thumb, spread his cheeks apart to reach inside. He breathed with caution in the squeamish moment, but he had resolved to do whatever was necessary. He thought of his great-grandmother, whom he had never met. But he knew the stories and the sacrifice. He thought of her pain and the daily struggle she endured as he reached further inside his resolve and felt for the piece. He felt the hard edge and pulled it out slowly—its edges rubbing harshly along his insides. With one final tense yell, he retrieved the marble tablet from his buttocks and held it up in front of him. During the frantic moments in the lake, when the water tossed them from the turtle and Lady Trieu blew them upwards in a whirlpool onto the shore, he had seen the tablet slip away from Tho, and with great concentration had grabbed it in his hands before being cast upward. When he arrived on the shore with Sun Quan towering over him, he inserted it without thinking into the only place he thought it might be safe. Where the Sun couldn’t see it. An instinctive reaction to the way he had been raised. No sacrifice too great and no action too small for the cause of freedom. For the cause of country. It had been stuck inside him for hours, but now he clasped it between his fingers, and the smell didn’t bother him.
The siren continued. He didn’t have much time, so he concentrated only on what was in front of him. “Why worry about things you can’t see?” his mother would often say, no doubt some iteration of what she had learned from Tho.
He placed the tablet parallel to the other three and shifted them in order so the scrolled line across the middle of them matched perfectly.
“What do I do with them?”
Silver shavings. That’s what Tho used. But he had no silver. Then he remembered the time Tho simply chanted without the silver. But what? What should he say? He barely noticed the pulsing siren around him.
“Come, spirit.” He shook his head. “From the bronze drum to the …” He yelled out in disgust. “Le Thai To. The two Trung sisters … ah …” He couldn’t remember anything.
He placed all four tablets in his palms on top of each other. He lifted them straight up above his head, as if presenting them as a sacrifice.
“Lady Trieu. The maiden of the lake. Take up the sword returned to you. Help us once more.”
A rumble shattered his concentration. A cold gasp of air sent chills through his body as he looked for something that wasn’t there. The walls shook slightly and a shadow appeared over him. Tall and foreboding. His thoughts went to Sun Quan. He was sure of it. He turned, but the darkness shifted and disappeared in the blackness of the wall. He moved toward the wall beside him, but another shadow whirled him around in circles until he stood face to face with an image of a woman, translucent on the surface of the polished black stone wall. The woman appeared young and wore leather straps along her tender shoulders. Her hair fluttered freely like it blew in the wind.
“Minh,” said the apparition. “Am I beautiful?”
Her chest drew his eyes and paralyzed him. He couldn’t answer as his intoxication wrested his body away from reality.
“Are you so easily swayed by beauty? Then how will you fight the ugliness, Minh?”
He gazed on her face as one who gazes at the marvels of a statute coming to life. It was her, from the water.
“Don’t let them have the tablets. Run, Minh. Run.”
He looked around, still locked inside the four walls.
“Where do I run?”
“Run, Minh. Be the man you think you are.”
“But—”
The wall behind him lifted, and he ran without thinking into the next room. The wall closed behind him as the next one opened in front of him. He held the four tablets as tightly as he could. He wanted to run faster, but her beauty haunted him, and he longed to gaze on her again, hoping her reflection would be in every ascending wall. He searched for her and leaned his back against one of the walls, calling, “Lady Trieu. I need to see you again.” The wall gave way into the ceiling, and he fell backwards, losing his balance; all four marble tablets slipped from his hand. They scattered on the floor, and he sprawled out on his chest reaching for them, but the wall smashed downwards, nipping the tip of his middle finger. He jolted backwards into the seated position. Once again, he only had one of the tablets.” He stood up and pounded on the wall. “Open, you damn wall! Lady Trieu!” The wall didn’t listen, but he heard a voice. “Run.” “But I only have one.” “Run!” He turned and sprinted the other way. Another wall opened and he ran through. Then one more. He could feel the soreness inside his buttocks. He thought of the three isolated marble tablets but he controlled what he could. “Endure.” “Be the man.” “Be the man you think you are.”
He stopped waiting for the walls to open. He simply ran at full speed with faith the walls would open in time. At last, the final wall revealed a wide-open space as part of a massive warehouse. He paused to witness the unsettling scene—smoldering armored vehicles on one side with a towering figure standing beside a Chinese man on the other side. Their eyes locked, and Minh let out a cry—not that of a man or warrior—but of a scared child. Sun Quan moved toward him at great speed and would have overtaken him in a second, but a shadow clipped the back of his shoulders and sent him sprawling to the floor.
“Run!” he heard himself yell internally. He took off in the other direction and slipped out a side door into the night air. He dove through a row of thick hedges and slipped through a narrow metal wall. If he had been a full-grown man, he wouldn’t have fit through the wrought iron. He panted and looked both ways, finally recognizing the street. The old French houses gave it away. He was northwest of the old city, not far from Ba Dinh Square and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. He fled down the street, hiding behind massive trees and parked cars whenever a vehicle passed by. The only place he knew to go was the Old Quarter.
A few dogs barked as Minh rapped against the door behind locked metal gates. He knocked again, looking around with an air of guilt. The small side street afforded him some protection from prying eyes. He had just been there the day before. Was it the day before? He had trouble remembering the date or the day or the last time he had slept. He rapped again, this time louder.
A light flickered and a middle-aged woman opened the wooden door.
“Auntie Huong.”
“Minh? Where did you come from?” She opened the padlock on the metal gate and whisked him inside, locking everything behind her. “Where’s your mother and Tho?”
“He still has them?”
“Who?”
“The Chinese giant. Sun Quan.”
“He has them?”
“I escaped. I need to know how to get to the resistance.”
“Shhhh—” She motioned him back further into the house, and they retreated to an internal room without any windows to the outside.
“What’s going on?”
“I remembered you saying your husband was in the resistance. How can I contact them?”
“Minh, I have no way to contact him. I haven’t heard from him in months.”
“Do you know any way? Anyone? I’m desperate. I—”
“You look exhausted.”
“Your father-in-law. We saw him. We got a boat from him. We— You won’t believe the things I’ve seen. I have to get word to the underground. To the resistance. Do you have any way?”
She paused for a moment. “All right. First, sleep. Lie on this sofa. Here.”
“Auntie Huong!”
“Now, Minh. The best thing you can do is preserve your energy. You’re gonna need it. I’ll get word to my father-in-law. I’ll see what we can do. Are your mother and Tho all right?”
“I can’t think about such things right now. That’s out of my control. I have to do what I can only.”
Huong smiled. “You don’t seem like the little boy I saw just yesterday.”
“I’m all grown up now.”
“Almost,” said Huong, pushing him into the sofa. “But even grown-ups need sleep. Do it!”