21

Once in a while a breeze found its way in through the cracks in the truck’s canvas cover, but the heat remained unforgiving. Fifteen urban guerrillas, operatives of the Third Special District, had broken down into teams of five and were departing for Da Nang. They had marched down the Ho Chi Minh Trail along the Atwat Mountains to the border between the Second and Third Districts.

The teams headed into the Third District first had to infiltrate into Long Long, a big village in the Central Highlands from which a rough mountain road ran down to Da Nang. This village on the Thatra River was guarded by a contingent of US Special Forces and was an ARVN reconnaissance outpost. The conditions for infiltration were extremely unfavorable, but once they made it into the confines of the village they could hop on regularly scheduled freight trucks to Da Nang and down the coast on Route 1.

There had been another infiltration route from Atwat into Hue and Da Nang through Bien Hien, but the transfer point had not been securely recovered since a North Vietnam division recently was decimated in the area. With guidance from a local agent they made their way to Nhong Trong and marched through the jungle from there. They had one encounter with an ARVN patrol, but with the guide’s help they hid in the reeds along the Thatra River and waited in silence until the enemy party passed by.

In groups of three they finally arrived at the edge of Long Long where a farmhouse served as a sanctuary. The next afternoon they were escorted to the rendezvous point, a restaurant in the center of the village. Everyone was disguised as a peddler or a traveling peasant. They hid in the attic or the basement air raid shelter of the restaurant until their respective departure times. The freight truck that left the village once a day could only carry five men hidden inside under the cargo of produce. Pham Minh was in the second group to leave. They left at dawn. It was still very dark outside when they got into the truck, bearing loads on their shoulders like ordinary laborers and then burrowed underneath the cargo. Each group’s lead agent sat up front in the cab beside the driver. When they approached a checkpoint he knocked three times on the truck window. Then once they passed a safe distance beyond, he would knock again twice to sound an all-clear.

The road was an unpaved ledge precariously cut into the steep slope running down from the highlands into the jungle valleys and the truck bounced roughly as they cautiously inched their way onward. It had been built for wagons, originally dug out by villagers mobilized by the French colonial government. Pham Minh’s group of five had brought along an empty can so they could relieve their bladders without leaving the truck. For food all they had was lumps of cooked rice wrapped up in banana leaves. By the time they ate it, the rice was salty from the human sweat it had absorbed.

On the road down to the northern side of Da Nang, the truck approached a checkpoint at Kethak near the point where the Kudeh River emptied into Da Nang Bay. From the front they heard the signal of three knocks and instantly the men in back raked the vegetables up over their bodies. The space toward the front of the cargo bed was partitioned with boards so that even if there was an abrupt stop, the fruit and vegetables piled up high in the back would not fall down forward and be damaged. When someone looked into the back of the truck, all they could see was the cargo of produce piled almost to the canvas roof of the truck.

The Kethak checkpoint was manned by an ARVN QC sergeant and local militia. They checked the driver’s pass and glanced at the load. By that time, however, the agent had already handed over a “toll” of one thousand piasters, slipped in with the transit pass. If no toll had been paid, the sergeant in charge of the checkpoint probably would have made a fuss of unloading the entire cargo for inspection, saying he had to search for guerrillas and ammunition before allowing them through.

At the checkpoints on the outskirts of the cities, the inspection was usually more thorough for the outgoing traffic than for the incoming, mainly because the incoming trucks carried agricultural goods that were very scarce. Even when such goods were moving between so-called liberated areas under NLF control and the areas under South Vietnamese jurisdiction, both sides tended to be lenient.

The truck lurched forward again, and soon two knocks on the window were heard. Only then did the men in back pull their heads and shoulders up free of the vegetables, turning their necks to loosen the weight under which they had been buried. The five of them had been born again as brethren now fighting for the National Liberation Front. Apart from his four comrades, Pham Minh had no information about their higher organization, or about the identity of their fellow urban guerrillas, nor did he have any idea how they expected to regain the strength needed to liberate the nation while under the countless enemy guns, cannons, and aircraft in Da Nang.

According to the vague information they had been given, the number of NLF guerrillas active in Da Nang was at least two hundred. There were roughly forty teams, collectively known as the 434th Special Action Group of the Third Special District. In other words, the fifteen members in his training group at Atwat were comparable to a single company unit, and they were acquainted with no superior command above the level of company leader. The political staff of the district committee must have been handling the coordination with other teams on the next level above.

“We’re in Da Nang!” one of the team members shouted after hearing the sound of passing vehicles and peeking out through a parted canvas flap. Pham Minh could also sense they had arrived. The breeze now had the fresh smell of the sea. The truck pulled in past the inter-city bus terminal at the old Le Loi market and slowly parked in the lot for the produce market. The driver and the lead agent lifted the rear flap and pretended to begin unloading the goods. One at a time, the team members crawled out and casually joined in the work of unloading. To the eyes of onlookers, they looked no different from any of the other day laborers hired in the market to move the fruit and vegetables around.

When they were almost finished, they followed the eye signals of the agent to the Chrysanthemum Pub. It was the very place Pham Minh had first visited when he joined the Front. Since the pub was a place always jammed with travelers, nobody thought twice about strange faces, thus it was a textbook example of a good place for arranging a covert rendezvous. They walked in past customers eating nuoc mam noodles and passed inside the rear quarters behind the partition. No sooner had they sat down around a table in one of the rooms than a waiter stood before them. Their lead agent spoke.

“Bring us five bowls of noodles, steamed fish, and liquor. And pass the word that the cargo from Long Long has arrived.”

“Excuse me, . . . but who do you want me to tell?”

The waiter’s tone was respectful. The agent spoke again.

“We’re looking for Uncle Nguyen Thach.”

“I see. Just a minute, please.”

They were all either drinking tea or smoking cigarettes. Looking out through the screened window, Pham Minh was taking in the familiar sights of old Le Loi market spread out across the street from the restaurant. The aroma of fried fish and nuoc mam reminded him of the sweat of peasants. The strong salty smell of boiling boar’s intestines mixed with hot pepper wafted by. In the kitchen, sleek black sun-dried sausages were glossily shining and the fried bananas were deep yellow. Cooked rice with hot curry was evenly spread on a cutting board, and nearby side dishes of pepper, pork, cabbage and onions were being ladled around a whole duck that was bright red after being boiled and spiced.

There was not a single foreigner in the motley crowds bustling in the market. White people were nowhere to be seen, and in fact the distinctive sharp smells of the old market were deeply repulsive to almost anyone but the Vietnamese themselves. But the city carved up by many barricades and off-limits zones was coming to seem like a set of gigantic cages for animals and fowl. The young waiter who had gone out returned and stood there blocking Pham Minh’s line of sight. He came up to their table with a tray full of food.

“I’ve notified Uncle. He said he’ll be here shortly.”

The guide nodded.

“Now, let’s have dinner. I’m afraid this will be the last time we eat together.”

For the first time a humane look could be detected on the agent’s face. The team members asked no questions, nor did they chatter unnecessarily. They were heeding the unwritten rule that one never, regardless of time or place, seeks to discover anything about missions in progress. Nobody asked: Where am I being sent? Who’s my superior? Where are my comrades? What is the role of the owner of this restaurant? Are you heading back to Long Long? Is your assignment to help us with infiltration?

Such questions not only made no practical contribution to the mission, they only increased the risks and burdens as more people had more sensitive information. Another thing was, after once meeting a certain person and exchanging a few words, the next time you met somewhere you were to reveal no sign at all of the prior contact. Connections were to be formed only on the basis of what was needed for the current task. Once the common cause of the mission no longer existed, they should erase one another from memory.

It was their first hot soup since leaving Atwat. They also shared a kettle of hot liquor and a boiled fish garnished with ginger and nuoc mam. It was getting dark outside and a cooler wind was blowing caresses through the marketplace. Every so often they turned their eyes to the hall to check new customers entering the place. The guide kept checking his watch. Then a low voice came from the behind.

“Were you looking for me?”

A gentle-looking man in his thirties, clad in a jacket and black Vietnamese pants, was looking down at them. Pham Minh remembered distinctly that he was the same man who a few months before had received him here and put him in touch with the NLF. Though they were already acquainted, Pham Minh gave him only a blank look. Two other members of the team had joined in Da Nang at the same time and they, too, no doubt already knew the face of the operative known as Uncle Nguyen Thach.

It seemed likely that all fifteen of them who were slipping back into Da Nang in three separate teams would have their missions coordinated through this man. If someone were caught or turned traitor, the lead agent would be changed and the whole group would disintegrate and be reconstructed anew. Even members of the same team did not know the real names, former occupations, or hometowns of the others. All they knew of each other was the expressionless faces they now were peering at.

“I’ve come from Long Long. The goods are onions, cabbages, bananas, papayas, and some more. The tenants of our farm came with me.”

Nguyen Thach and the guide shook hands. The former sat down at the table across from the guide and examined them all one by one. Then he said, “I’ll buy the whole consignment.”

“Thank you, but time is short for me, so . . .”

The guide took out a piece of paper from his pocket. “Would you sign this receipt here, please?”

Nguyen Thach wrote his name on the document for transfer of the recruits and the guide took it back, folded it and put it away for his report to superiors back at Atwat. Then he rose from his seat. Without even looking at the team members, he gave a nod to Nguyen Thach and quietly walked down the hall and out through the door.

“Finished with your meal? Well, then, it’s time to get to work,” Nguyen Thach said.

He led them through the kitchen of the pub, where the women cooking stood aside to let them pass. They emerged from the pub through the back door. Thach walked over to the lot where they had parked the truck and stopped at the heap of baskets and bushels full of fruit and vegetables they had unloaded.

“What are you waiting for?” he said. “You’ve been paid, so start working. Hurry and get these stored inside. Don’t dawdle.”

For an instant the team members were puzzled, but as ordered, they picked up the baskets on long bamboo poles and followed Thach. He led them not to his own place, the car service shop, but to the office of his elder brother, Cuong. He went around to the rear of the brick building where the office was and unlocked a door. The office door was on the left, and on the right was another wooden door with an aluminum-grated window set in it. Before opening the door Thach turned a switch. Inside was a storage room of about one hundred fifty square yards. There were two thirty-watt light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. All sorts of boxes, sacks, and bags were piled up. Standing at the door, in a low voice he ordered them to hurry in.

The team members carried the baskets into the warehouse. As the last of them came inside, Thach closed the outer iron gate and relocked it. They gathered around and stood there awkwardly in the warehouse. Thach removed a few papers from his pocket and took them to a small desk and sat down.

“Over there . . . grab one of those boxes and have a seat. Come to me as I call your name.”

He held up some documents and read for a while before calling out a name. The person summoned would approach the desk and answer the questions posed by Thach. At the end of the interview he returned to his seat and Thach went on to the next piece of paper. Pham Minh was the last of the five to be called.

He walked up to Thach’s desk.

“Pham Minh . . . so you were a medical student at Hue University?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Born in Da Nang and . . . just a minute, is Major Pham Quyen of the provincial command Comrade’s elder brother?”

“Yes.”

“The chief adjutant of General Liam at the provincial government office, that Major Pham, correct?”

“Right, sir.”

Nguyen Thach frowned slightly, rubbing the tip of his nose as if absorbed in thought.

“Your brother, he must know you joined the Front. Doesn’t he?”

“Probably . . . I expect he does.”

Thach went on to the next page and then nodded.

“Can you convince your brother, or hide the truth well enough, so he thinks you have no connection whatsoever with the Front and that it was just a hot-blooded youthful whim?”

“I’m not sure . . .”

Then Pham Minh quietly continued: “To see two brothers, or a father and son, working one for the NLF and one for the government forces is not such an unheard of reality in Vietnam today. Sometimes they may even understand each other’s position. But in most cases, even within a family, the Front used to be able to maintain an advantage. Maybe my brother pretends to be ignorant of the fact. If I were ever captured, he himself would face danger or difficulties.”

“I can see that’s not unlikely.”

Once more Thach buried his head in the documents and remained silent for a while. Then, without raising his head, he asked, “Can you solve the problem of the draft for yourself?”

“I’ll discuss it with my brother.”

“In that case . . . enlist in the air force.”

“Enlist?”

Completely shocked and unable to believe his ears, Pham Minh bent closer to Thach, gripping the desk with both hands, and repeated what Thach had said. Thach looked him straight in the eye.

“Enlist,” he said. “There are hundreds of young men in Da Nang who have joined the navy or the air force and continue to live at home with their families. It’s not a difficult thing to arrange for someone in your brother’s position. The district committee sincerely welcomes your return and has assigned you a mission as assistant agent of the 434th Special Action Group of the Third Special District. Each team needs an assistant agent. The prior comrade died in action. Comrade Pham Minh’s assignment is to inform us according to action guidelines and orders from the district committee, and you will report to me whether operational orders have been executed properly.

“In ordinary circumstances, you’ll help me to carry out supply operations. As I’ve informed the other team members already, I’m only an agent myself whose mission is to contact the teams of a company group. If a mishap occurs, this contact point will be liquidated immediately. In that case contact instructions will be given from a higher level. In the city of Da Nang there are two battalions of urban guerrillas, all acting as teams and connected on the company level only. Fighters have no knowledge of their fellow fighters.

“Always keep in mind that any cell of an organization may at any time be eliminated for the sake of the whole. This is done by trial in the name of the people of Vietnam wherever the NLF exists. Especially you, Comrade Pham Minh, should bear this in mind, for with me you’ll be undertaking the mission of supply operations as well as the task of coordinating teams on the company level. First off, this week you’ll have to deal with the draft for yourself, and then we’ll see to it that you get a job working in the office of this warehouse.”

Thach looked at his watch.

“Comrade Pham Minh, you should go home tonight. We can meet here again around lunchtime on Monday. I hope you’ll be back with a good outcome.”

“What time is the curfew?”

“Ah, with the offensive now over, the curfew has been lifted.”

The interviews of the team members were finished. Those with family in Da Nang were to go home. According to the orders of the committee, they were to take some sort of job if at all possible. One team member who could not return home was entrusted to another member who could take him along.

“The team will meet every Wednesday at a suitable place to be communicated to you by Comrade Pham Minh.”

“How about an open cafe down by the beach?”

The other four gave their assent with nods and eye signals. They did not bother with goodbyes and they scattered from the warehouse one by one. As Pham Minh was about to leave Thach stopped him.

“Let me see you for a second.”

They went back inside the warehouse and this time both sat down facing each other across the desk. Thach spoke first.

“I also attended the University of Hue. Care for a drink?”

Thach opened a drawer and took out a bottle of whiskey. He removed the cap and took a few swigs from the bottle, then handed it to Pham Minh. He swallowed a little and felt his throat burn as it went down.

“On Wednesdays the various teams will meet at different locations. You will only need to deliver my messages to them. Have any experience in business?”

“No.”

“Ah . . . that should be no problem. All you’ll have to do is deliver the goods to us from across the smokestack bridge. I’ll give you a rough list of names and you can use that to promote trading.”

“What will I be selling?”

“Whatever the rich of Da Nang want to buy.”

Pham Minh tilted the bottle back again and downed a few more gulps. After a deep sigh, he spat out the words he had been trying to repress. “I didn’t join the Front to sell American goods to the rich, sir.”

Without a hint of surprise, Thach calmly asked, “What, then, do you want to do, Comrade?”

Pham Minh didn’t know what to say at first. Then the weight and clatter of rifles came to mind. “I joined to fight, sir.”

Nguyen Thach smiled. “You will, I expect, at the time of the great offensive. But you’ve been assigned here as an assistant agent because your actual circumstances are perfectly conducive for such a mission. That each person plays a fitting and proper functional role to achieve the larger goals is the basis for maximizing the operational strength of the Liberation Front. Through the long experience of the struggle against the French, the Front has been striving through pragmatic methods to secure realistically advantageous ground throughout our nation.

“Depending on the overall advantage, at various times our men may become pilots flying enemy bombers, or high-ranking enemy officers, or even interrogators of prisoners. The real question is whether the man is unconditionally under the control of the organization. Not long ago, in fact, fighting was not such an important mission, rather it was secondary.”

“If fighting was not such an important mission at a time when the crack divisions of the enemy and their missiles were swarming onto the beaches of Vietnam, then what was the NLF’s mission?”

Pham Minh’s tone was one of protest. Thach’s reply was gentle.

“What was important was that all the young people of Vietnam like you, even the small children, came to know the name of the Front as their own organization. The NLF calls it the mission of objectification. The people must know that the Front actually exists as the main power of the people, and that is more crucial than storming trenches or bombing police stations. Now, let’s drop the unnecessary talk. You and I have been given a mission, which is to figure out how to trade successfully and save money for the organization by securing better lines of supply.”

Thach opened the desk drawer again and took out a pack of cigarettes. He held it out, but Minh declined. Thach lit a long Pall Mall and seemed to relish it as he smoked.

“Comrade, I kept you behind here because there is something I should tell you. You should know in advance that your older brother Major Pham Quyen, on behalf of General Liam, is making a great deal of money by engaging in all sorts of black market trading and concessions.”

“My brother is that kind of a man.”

“And, Major Pham is connected to me.”

His eyes widening, Pham Minh felt himself choking as he stammered, “Do you mean . . . my brother is connected with the Front?”

“Don’t get excited. Major Pham is not that kind of man. My own older brother is one of the top merchants in Le Loi market. Apart from money affairs, he is a very good-natured and foolish man. You could say he’s like a ghost from the days of the old Cochinchina dynasty. He’s the kind who prays for old Emperor Bao Dai to return to life and resurrect the family’s trading concessions. In a colonial city like Da Nang, that my brother and yours should become business associates is only too natural. They match each other perfectly. Their dealings seem to be getting more active and the goods they are handling will also be diversified. To get yourself a job in this office, you, Comrade, should observe the formalities of going through your brother. Say you want to be of help with his work, or that you need to earn money. Make some plea convincing enough to persuade your brother.”

“My brother always planned for me to go to Malaysia or Thailand and open a private clinic and settle down.”

“Then, this will do. Tell him you want to earn money so you can go study abroad. Be careful not to arouse any suspicion.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nguyen Thach got up from his chair. “We’ve talked a lot today. I hope everything can be done by Monday. At any rate, let’s solve these things one at a time very carefully.”

They emerged together from the warehouse. Thach pointed toward the iron gate.

“That’s the way out.”

Pham Minh turned around. “How should I address you?”

“Let me see . . . I’m senior to you, it’s true, so that’ll do. And, there’s one other thing I forgot to tell you.”

Thach put one hand on Minh’s shoulder and spoke gently. “I own a car service shop to make a living. And in my office there’s a Korean military intelligence agent. Like the Americans, they’re trying their best to gather information on black market dealings. Among other things, that Korean is sure to be nosing around trying to uncover business connections with the Front.”

“I don’t quite understand, sir,” Pham Minh said in a perplexed tone, and Thach’s usual kind smile reappeared on his lips.

“To know the precise location of a land mine is always safest, don’t you agree?”

“I’ll see you on Monday, sir.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Pham Minh left the brick warehouse behind and walked along the blacked-out streets. Every now and then a sentry jumped out of the darkness to check his ID, then let him pass. It happened three times before he reached his house. From outside he could see that a light from the window was casting a milky white glow onto the leaves on the ground. Lei was awake, for he could see from the shadows which room the light came from. Cautiously he tiptoed in through the hedge.

The small front yard exuded a familiar fragrance of flowers. In the dark he could make out that the wisteria was still winding its tendrils around the rails of the porch. Cold droplets of water fell on his face as he brushed past the wisteria leaves. Sister Mi must have watered it that evening. He paused for a moment and then went around the right corner of the house. Light was flooding down brightly from the last window.

With her long hair hanging loose, Lei was sitting by the window, studying. She was wearing a white blouse and silk pants instead of ahozai. The picture of his family did not seem real to Minh. Out at Atwat along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, no scene as peaceful and silent as this was imaginable. This was a shadow of false peace built on the stage of the colonialists, just like the gorgeous gardens of Angkor Wat he had seen in a photograph.

Lei was lucky. Passing through Long Long, Khetinh, and Thatra, Minh had seen countless hamlets left with horrible scars from massacres. There, girls had been trampled, torn, and murdered. The search-and-destroy patrols of the ARVN or the Allied Special Forces regarded the girls in enemy territory as spoils of war. The rapes and other atrocities had provided the most vivid sagas of gallantry at the close of nearly every battle. Ah, Lei, my baby sister. Pham Minh laughed in the dark and steaming tears fell down his cheeks. Standing before that window, Pham Minh realized anew that he had reached adulthood, with no turning back.

“Who’s there?”

Lei must have sensed someone’s presence, for she dropped her book and stuck her startled face out the window.

“Lei . . . it’s me,” whispered Pham Minh. Lei was dazed, then she stretched out her hand and fumbled to feel her brother’s face.

“Why, brother . . . .”

“Quiet. I’ll climb in.”

He placed his hands up on the windowsill and vaulted up into her room.

“Where are you coming from? From Hanoi?”

Suddenly Lei looked around and then hastened to try to close the window. Minh sat cross-legged on Lei’s bamboo bed.

“Leave it be. Hot, isn’t it? Who’s home?”

“Mother’s sleeping and Mi also went to bed early tonight. Big brother is . . .”

“Not in?”

Lei let out a short laugh. “He said he got married.”

“Then the sister-in-law must be at home. Big Brother married? Hard to believe.”

Lei quickly changed the subject. “I know, but I’ll tell you about it later. You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“Yes, I have.”

“So, why are you back? I thought I’d never see you again.”

“How’s Mother?”

“Same as always. So you didn’t join the Front?”

Minh shook his head helplessly.

“No, I couldn’t gather the courage. I’ve been to Saigon. I should continue studying, after all.”

Lei took his hand. “You did the right thing, Brother. Shoan’s been so wretched and pitiful. Every time she sees me, she asks if there has been any news of you.”

He suppressed the urge to ask after Shoan. “So . . . our big brother got married. Don’t they live here?”

“No, I hear they have a place in Son Tinh. We haven’t seen it.”

Pham Minh knew very well what kind of area Son Tinh was.

“I have a favor to ask. Tomorrow, on the way to school, call brother Quyen for me.”

“Where, at his office?”

“Yes, just tell him I came back home.”

“All right, I’ll do it. Really, aren’t you going to see Shoan tomorrow?”

“I’ll contact her later.”

Minh placed a finger on Lei’s lips.

“And not a word about me to your friends, either. Promise?”

“Sure, I promise.”

“And what sort of woman is our new sister-in-law? How old is she?”

Lei shut her mouth. Then, all of a sudden, with tears welling up in her eyes, she put her arms around Minh’s neck.

“Big Brother has lost his mind. She’s a Korean woman, and they say she was a bargirl. So Mother is crying all day long.”

“It’s all right. I’ll see him and you shouldn’t worry about it.”

Minh patted Lei on the shoulder.

“I’ll bring you some green tea.”

“That’d be very nice.”

Lei went out to boil some water. Meanwhile, Pham Minh was sitting alone in her room. On Lei’s desk stood a palm-sized frame with a discolored snapshot inside. It was a picture of the two brothers and two sisters when they were children. Wasn’t it right after the Geneva Accords were announced? Sister Mi was a schoolgirl in an ahozai, Pham Quyen a young boy, and Pham Minh was holding little Lei who had on a white nightgown. Minh lifted up the picture, scrutinized it for a moment, then quickly set it back down with the image facing the wall.