2
Chan Te Shoan left through the main gate of the Lycée de Pascal at 65 Doc Lap Boulevard. She hung her head low, hiding her face behind her long hair. Lei had told her that morning before class that Pham Minh had dropped out of school and had come home the night before. Lei was a year behind Shoan, and Pham Minh, who had been studying medicine in Hue, was Lei’s older brother.
She didn’t know why Minh had quit school, but for some reason the news made Shoan uneasy. He was still too young to be drafted and anyway, medical students were almost always guaranteed deferments. But ever since Minh had left Da Nang for his uncle’s in Hue, the growing distance between them had been making Shoan anxious. Every few months Minh came for a short visit and each time confirmed Shoan’s fear that he was turning into someone else.
More than half of the seniors at her school had disappeared. Most of those who had married were now young widows. And it was not just the women of Shoan’s generation who were affected. There were many women from her neighborhood who, having lost their husbands, had gone to Saigon and become prostitutes. There were housewives selling their bodies to soldiers from the nearby posts while awaiting their husbands’ homecoming.
Walking toward the embankment of the Da Nang pier where Minh was waiting for her, Shoan felt a sudden urge to turn around and go home. In the distance she could see the white marble wisteria-covered walls of the ivory building that used to be the French customs house. Ahead, the row of open-air cafes. She walked beside the old iron railings just above the waterfront.
Even from afar she recognized Minh’s distinctive posture. He wore a white shirt and was sitting with his head drooped. One arm hung over the back of the chair and he had both legs propped up on the seat of another chair beside him. Hanging from his fingertips, nearly scraping the ground, was a burning cigarette from which curled a bluish smoke. Shoan passed through the chairs and as she came up behind him, Minh slowly turned his head.
“Hey, Shoan,” he murmured, squinting, as if dazed by her appearance.
Shoan was about to pull over a chair to sit down facing him, but Minh pushed forward the chair beside him.
“Sit next to me. You always smell so good; I knew you were here before I saw you.”
Shoan obediently took the chair he had been using as a foot prop. The breeze played with their hair. Naked children lined up on the embankment below and jumped into the sea one by one. The children’s innocent squeals of laughter and the constant splashing almost made the two forget the sound of gunfire that resonated through the neighborhood from time to time. Friends met up on bicycles. Minh and Shoan sat in silence in the occupied peace of an occupied city. Shoan watched the naked children, her eyes half-closed.
“When did you get back?”
She already knew but asked him anyway. It was her way to reproach him for not coming directly to see her upon his return the day before. Minh understood her intent and quickly replied.
“Yesterday, but I haven’t even been home. There were some people I needed to see. I called Lei to come downtown and we had dinner together. She’s grown. And she was very critical of our older brother.”
Minh often let himself vocalize his wandering stream of thoughts. Normally Shoan would have been eager to listen, but now she could not control her impatience.
“What about school?”
Minh froze, his arm half-raised, and gazed at her. Slowly he lowered his arm and answered with deliberate curtness, “Ah, I quit.”
With a questioning look on her face, Shoan stared at him.
“What book is that?” asked Minh, picking up a thin volume in French on top of the textbooks she had neatly placed on her lap. He read the title aloud.
“Louis Aragon. Les Beaux Quartiers . . . A few miles away children are being mutilated by bombings, and the ghosts of this colony are teaching trash like this. I don’t have time to study an atlas of anatomy when the swamps and the rice fields are strewn with the bodies of my countrymen.”
Shoan took back the French text and laid it on her lap.
“The living can’t stand it, either,” she said quietly, but Minh turned and beckoned to a waiter.
“Garçon, what is there to drink?”
“We have Coke and lemonade, sir.”
“That’s it?”
The waiter looked blankly at Minh. “You haven’t had lunch yet, have you?” Minh asked Shoan.
“I’ll eat when I get home.”
“No classes in the afternoon?”
“Yes. Two hours after the siesta.”
“Then there’s no point in going home,” Minh said, looking up once more at the waiter. “Bring us two orders of bánh mì.”
The waiter wiped the sweat from his neck with a napkin and said, “We don’t have any. We do have crêpes made from C-rations, though.”
“What about noodles with nuoc mam?”
As a response, the waiter pointed across the street. The sun beat down and people, exhausted by the heat, were beginning their naps, sleeping in the shade with newspapers on their faces. A couple of rickshaw drivers sat by the curb, eating noodles from a street vendor. Minh was about to get up, but after a quick glance at Shoan he settled down again.
“Fine. Bring us something to eat and drink. Doesn’t matter what.”
“You seem nervous,” Shoan said.
“That customs house, this sidewalk cafe, people like us hanging around here, that idiot of a waiter. . . it’s like it’s been this way forever.”
Minh gazed out at the ocean. Or he was averting his eyes to avoid Shoan’s.
“Shoan, I’ve . . . I’ve made up my mind. At a time like this, I can’t do anything. Even if I’m still young.”
Inside Shoan there arose a strong urge to grab him by the neck and give him a violent shake. But she remained still. Disinclined for the moment to expand on what he had said, Minh remained silent as well. The waiter brought their drinks. Minh took a deep breath and exhaled.
“This is the first time in ages I’ve felt this light and refreshed.”
After a few sips, Shoan asked tentatively, “Where do you plan to go? Hue?”
“No. I . . . don’t know where I’ll go yet.” Then, unable to contain himself any longer, Minh leaned in and whispered to her, “But I won’t be gone long. A friend from the jungle is supposed to meet me here.”
Shoan felt a painful thud in her heart, like from the heavy blow of a blunt object. She picked up the drink and gulped. The rim of the glass made an abrasive sound as it grated against her teeth. Her hands were shaking.
The two sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. A German hospital ship was slowly steaming into the harbor. The war refugees who had crossed the narrow finger of water in the harbor streamed along Ivory Road. More people in need of food. Among them was a boy with both legs amputated. His sister, a small girl not much bigger than him, was carrying her legless brother on her back. From the medical vessel rang the joyful sound of a bell. Ever since the guerrillas had set off the C-4 bomb on the pier, military police searched everyone except for some women and small children.
“The education won’t be like what I’ve been getting at school.”
Shoan knew what he meant. There had been many students who suddenly disappeared from home or school after receiving their draft notices. Some were later discovered as corpses in some small village or down in the Mekong Delta, their bodies sent back to their parents. She had also heard of students who’d climbed walls to sneak into their friends’ houses in the middle of the night only to vanish. Others were said to have become hawkers around the foreign army bases.
“I’m going to Uncle Trinh’s tonight. I’ll see you there.”
Shoan shook her head and said, “No, I’m not going back to school today.”
“There’s some place I have go alone,” Minh said coldly. But he did not move. It was Shoan who rose first.
“Aren’t you going to see your family at least?”
“I already told Lei everything. And I don’t want to fight with my brother.”
The two walked side by side, crossed Ivory Road and continued all the way to the intersection where Le Loi Boulevard began. As they approached the side street leading to Shoan’s house, she paused and turned to Pham Minh, as if to ask his destination.
“I’m heading for the marketplace . . . be at Uncle Trinh’s at around seven o’clock, okay?”
Lowering her head, Shoan was quiet a moment before speaking.
“You haven’t heard about the curfew, have you?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“Civilians on the street after eight p.m. are to be arrested and anyone trying to run away can be shot.”
Minh glared at Shoan. What she meant was that with an air strip and US Marine checkpoints on the way to Dong Dao there would be no way for her to return home at sundown, let alone by eight o’clock in the evening.
As for Pham Minh, not knowing what the future would bring made returning to Da Nang unthinkable. Starting that day and for the next three months, he would have to survive at the center of Vietnam’s wretched reality, in the swamps and marshes. The organization might send him back to Da Nang as a civilian agent or part of the urban staff organization. But they also might keep him in the jungle. Minh saw Shoan’s big eyes moistening. He wanted to wrap his arm around her slender waist and kiss her. Instead, he shyly held out his hand.
“Chào co, Shoan. See you soon.”
“Chào ong . . .”
She didn’t take his hand but ran, all the way across Le Loi Boulevard, her long hair and the skirt of her white ao dai swaying from side to side. Minh dropped his hand. As he walked toward the marketplace, he began to regret having seen her at all.
The market quarters were divided into an old and a new section. The nice shops on Le Loi Boulevard ran from the pier to the front of City Hall. The traditional open market, held daily and just for Vietnamese, extended from the bus terminal area to the outskirts of the city. There, the population of Da Nang and its surrounding area could trade in artisan and agricultural products, from every kind of vegetable and grain to coarsely woven clothing. It was a modest market. Most transactions took place in the narrow back alleys between Le Loi and Doc Lap Boulevards, a bustling area where the goods that had leaked out from the American PX4 and other military supply warehouses got traded.
The old market was where Pham Minh was heading. It was in disarray, its stalls cluttered with mangos, bananas, and coconuts; salt fish and dried shrimp; noodle dishes, bánh mì, sausages, and fried pork. All laid out in small wooden baskets or on military ponchos. Minh walked into the market and looked around.
“Chrysanthemum Pub . . .”
There was a lot of confusion in the parking lot of the bus terminal. The incoming and outgoing buses all were overloaded with packages strapped high on their rooftops. Minh saw a round signboard with a chrysanthemum painted on it. The small bus had been crammed so full of chairs and its ceiling was so low that travelers would suffer the painful effects of a long journey days after it had ended. National Route 1 heading down to Saigon was the busiest. Occasionally there were buses that made round trips inland. Cutting through the bedlam of the crowd, Minh approached Chrysanthemum Pub. It was filled with passengers and soldiers. As Minh hunted for a place to sit, he stopped a man carrying a big tray full of nuoc mam noodles.
“When’s the next bus to Quang Tri?”
“Oh, there happens to be one tomorrow. Leaves at six in the morning. After that, you’d have to wait three days till the next one. You can spend the night here.”
“But I’ve got to meet my uncle from Khe Sanh . . .”
It was the first part of the message Minh had been instructed to deliver. The man pretended not to have heard him.
“His name is Nguyen Thach, has he been here yet?” Minh added.
The man scanned Minh from head to toe and then pointed to the interior of the restaurant behind a screen of beads.
“Go ask in there.”
Pham Minh drew the beads apart and went in to find the inside partitioned into dark windowless rooms. It seemed the exterior was for eating and the inside for drinking tea or liquor. He hesitated and somebody nudged him from behind, saying, “Keep going.”
Minh looked back and saw that the waiter had followed him in. In the last partition, Minh found a middle-aged man in a white shirt and black pants with a cup of tea before him and his face buried in his hands.
“This man here says he came to meet Uncle Nguyen Thach, sir.”
The middle-aged man slowly looked up. His gentle face and the tiny wrinkles around his eyes reminded Minh of the principal of his primary school.
“Are you Mr. Pham Minh who’s been attending Hue University?”
“I am, yes.”
“Sit down, please.”
The man behind him left and Minh took a seat facing the middle-aged man.
“Pardon me for asking, but did you bring your ID?”
Minh took out his ID card and showed the man the yellow sticker authorizing travel issued by the Vietnamese government. It was an ID no less valuable than his own life. The man took it from Minh, examined it, and rose from his seat.
“Come with me.”
Minh followed him out through the back door of the pub to a filthy alley behind the market. Naked children were swarming all over the place and the air was rank from the garbage and dishwater tossed out into the street. They entered the back door of a shop that appeared to deal in medicinal herbs. Like everywhere in Asia, an old Westinghouse fan turned slowly on the ceiling overhead with the steady sound of metal rubbing on metal. An old man who had been dozing looked up at them and exchanged nods with the man. They went upstairs. Before the door opened, Minh recognized the voice of one of his friends.
“The National Liberation Front is the only democratic force in Vietnam. We will be the ones to achieve unification. The peace conference accords must be abrogated.”
As the door opened the voice fell silent. A young man in black who’d had his back to the door turned around.
“Pham Minh, so you’ve come.”
“Thanh.”
Minh shook Thanh’s hand. It was hard and rough. Minh examined his friend’s bony face and shining eyes.
“I heard at school that you were coming. Where have you been?”
“We’ll talk about it later. Let’s start here . . .”
Thanh introduced Minh to the seven young men in the room: two middle school teachers, three young draftees, and two AWOL soldiers. The middle-aged man who had escorted Minh there was the last to hold out his hand, saying, “I’m the Uncle Nguyen Thach you’ve been looking for.” He silently counted all those present and said, “Everyone’s here, apparently. Or is someone missing?”
“Pham Minh is the last comrade, sir,” answered Thanh. “Everything is set for departure?”
Thach nodded.
“We’re leaving by cargo truck. Is there anyone whose government ID is not in order?”
The two AWOL soldiers raised their hands.
“No one else except these two?” Thanh looked about. “We’ve got to get your pictures taken first. We can easily buy the IDs in the market, and it takes less than half an hour to forge them.”
Nguyen Thach pointed toward a bedroom behind the curtains. “In a wooden basket back there you’ll find outfits for eight. There’s also some canteens and bread. You two, come with me.”
Thanh spoke to Nguyen Thach as he was about to leave. “I need your signature here, please.”
“Oh, yes, sure.”
Tapping his finger on his forehead, Thach turned back and signed the document Thanh held out.
“It’s region eight, third city. What day is it today, and the date?”
Nguyen Thach told him.
“I can’t even say what year this is,” Thanh said.
“It happens when you live in the jungle.”
After Nguyen Thach left with the two men to have their photos taken, Thanh said, “That guy . . . he was a graduate at the university. Now he’s in charge of this district.”
Pham Minh thought of the young men who had thrown grenades into the American officers’ club not long before.
“Is he the one in charge of combat?” Minh asked.
“Nguyen Thach is not someone who takes part in firefights. He is . . . well, he is an underground organizer.”
“Does headquarters know we’ve volunteered?” one of the teachers asked.
“I’m not sure. But once you depart your names will go on the roster of the district committee. You’re not the only ones who want to fight imperialism.”
Pham Minh sat on the windowsill and watched the crowded shops on the street below. The cool breeze from the pier billowed the cheap material of the curtains like sails. Thanh offered him a Trong cigarette. The two men took a deep puff, exhaled the smoke that smelled of grass, and looked out the window.
“You’re the only one from Da Nang.”
“And the other guys?”
“Not from Da Nang . . .”
“Where are they taking us?”
Thanh hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’m only taking you as far as Tungdik.”
“Do you have a government issue pass? I mean from there, it’s a liberated district.”
“You really don’t know?” Thanh said with a sigh as he looked at Minh. “Even on the outskirts of Da Nang, it’s all our zone of occupation. The enemy is no more than tiny specks floating in our ocean. At night we even occupy the few checkpoints and control posts that they have. From Tungdik, you’ll enter the Atwat Mountains. I trained at Dong Hoi training camp, but you’ll be sent to the Atwat Mountains.”
“I could always see the Atwat Mountains in the distance when I went out into the fields. But how come we’re going there?”
“That’s where guerrillas are being trained,” Thanh replied. Realizing he’d said too much, he hastily added, “Whether it’ll be Atwat or the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I can’t say for sure.”
“Think I’ll be stationed in a city?”
“I don’t know,” Thanh tried to evade Minh’s question. “I suppose those from the city will be assigned to cities and those from the country to the country.”
“And you’ll be . . .”
Thanh crushed the cigarette butt with his foot and said, “The first unwritten law of the NLF5 is never ask the mission or unit of your comrades. Each individual is like a single cell of his own small unit. Besides that, all you need to know is that you’re a member of the special operations corps receiving your orders directly from the district committee and central headquarters.”
Feeling his words were too harshly formal, Thanh put his arm on Minh’s shoulder and said, “Sorry, you’ll learn it in time. Have you been home?”
Minh shook his head and said, “I saw Shoan.”
“Shoan ... oh, you mean, Chan Te Shoan. Listless girl, always reminds me of a sick canary. Her entire family is Catholic, aren’t they?”
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
Minh blushed and Thanh stopped talking. Then Minh spoke, fumbling with the words.
“Shoan is . . . a poor Vietnamese woman . . . like those you can see in Saigon, in Hue, here in Da Nang, everywhere.”
“True. I’m sorry. But women are not the only ones poor. The whole nation is poor. Go anywhere around a foreign army base. The houses there are like little whorehouse boxes. Little brother is drumming up customers, father is standing lookout, mother is taking the money, and sister is selling her body.”
Thanh’s voice gradually got louder and his eyes reddened as he went on.
“Generally, the living will survive. But some children will die setting booby traps, some girls will accidentally be killed by guerrilla bombs. And then there’re those who must be executed because they happen to have taken the side of the enemy. It’s all because this is a struggle for the people.”
An aroma of bananas frying in oil floated through the window from outside.
“What time do we leave tomorrow?’ Minh asked.
“Around seven . . . maybe a little earlier or later.”
“I have to go somewhere first,” Minh said, getting to his feet.
“You can’t. You’ve already made yourself a member of the organization.”
One of the teachers who had been eavesdropping with the others came over to Minh and said aggressively, “We can’t trust you. Nobody should leave this room.”
Minh looked around at them. Then he plopped back down on a chair beside the window. After a long while Thanh came near him and said in a low voice, “All right. Go. But you have to be back here before dawn breaks tomorrow.”
Walking Pham Minh to the door, Thanh added in a loud voice meant to be heard by everyone, “It’s urgent, so hurry to make the contact. And try to be back in time to get some sleep.”
Thanh stopped at the top of the stairs and quickly whispered to Minh, “I get it. Say hi to Shoan for me.”
Minh left in a hurry out the back door of the herb shop and turned down Le Loi Boulevard. He meant to go to Dong Dao. He didn’t know if Shoan would be there or not, but he thought a quick visit to Uncle Trinh would help calm his restless and troubled heart.
Footnotes: