Hà Nội—1975–1976
Sitting next to Uncle Đạt and listening to his story that night, I realized that war was monstrous. If it didn’t kill those it touched, it took away a piece of their souls, so they could never be whole again.
A sob. Grandma emerged from the darkness, tears glistening on her face. She opened her arms, wrapping them around Uncle Đạt. “What a journey you had to go through. I’m sorry, Son.”
“I’m sorry, too, Mama . . . for taking so long to come back.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here now.”
The bàng tree stirred, its branches rustling against our roof. I’d seen a pair of brown birds building their nest on a high branch. Now I heard them call each other. The sun was yet to rise, but I saw light ahead of me: with Uncle Đạt home, for sure my mother would return.
Grandma put on her jacket. “Go back to bed, both of you.” She reached for the bicycle’s handle, then swirled around, smiling at Uncle Đạt. “Ngọc and Sáng will be so happy to see you.”
I was pouring water into the kettle when Uncle Đạt cleared his voice. “Hương, I need a favor.”
“Sure.” I nodded, expecting him to ask me to go get him more liquor.
“I hope Nhung doesn’t come back. If she does, tell her I’m not home.”
“But why, Uncle?”
“Well . . . things change. People change.”
I bit my lip. Miss Nhung looked so wretched last night. “I’m sorry, Uncle, but I can’t lie. Miss Nhung has been kinder to Grandma than Uncle Sáng’s wife. She is one of the few people who still visits our home, despite Grandma’s job.”
“It’s over between us, Hương.”
“She taught me how to ride a bicycle—”
“I don’t care, and I don’t want to talk about her anymore. Okay?”
I turned away at the harshness of his voice.
After finishing breakfast, I was about to feed the squealing pigs when my mother called at the door. Pulling it open, I met her face, wet with tears.
“Hương, where’s your uncle?”
Uncle Đạt was sitting with his back in our direction. He was as still as a statue frozen by time.
“Đạt!” My mother stumbled toward him.
My uncle remained motionless until his shoulders shook. He grabbed his chair’s wheels, turning around. His body was bathed in morning light, his chest sunken under his shirt, his face gaunt under the sprouting beard. The stumps of his legs. Their horrendous scars.
“Sister Ngọc.” His face twisted into a smile.
My mother held my uncle, her cries muffled.
“You made it home.” She knelt down, touching the stumps. “Your legs . . . I’m sorry.”
“Mama told me you went to the battlefields. I’m glad you got out alive.”
“Brother, I wish they’d taken my arms and legs instead.”
“Why say that, Sister? What happened?”
My mother didn’t answer. Her back hunched, as if she had to carry a burden larger than herself.
“Sister, something bad happened to you? Tell me.” Uncle Đạt dried her tears. “No secrets between us, remember?”
The look on my mother’s face told me she wanted some private moments. She had a secret she didn’t want me to know.
The pigs’ squealing had risen into a high-pitched screeching. “These awful animals,” I mumbled. “Let me go feed them.”
Hurrying over to the animals, I prepared their food, dumping it into their trough. In the living room, my mother was pouring tea into cups. Wiping my hands against my pants, I sneaked into my room. Keeping the door slightly ajar, I stood eavesdropping. For once, I was grateful that our house was small and the distance between me and the kitchen was short.
“Mama told me you saw Hoàng,” my mother said.
“We underwent the same training in Ba Vì with Thuận, Sister. Unfortunately, all of us were separated before going south. I saw him weeks later, when I was struck down with malaria and had to camp by the roadside.”
“How was he? How much time did you have together?”
“He was in good spirits, and in good health. During the one day that we had together, I laughed more than I did during the many previous months. Hoàng couldn’t stop talking about you. He told me how he’d torn up his outer shirt to win your heart—”
“You know where he was going? Did you see him again?”
My mother’s questions told me she didn’t want to talk about the happy memories with my father.
“I didn’t see Hoàng again, no. . . . ,” said my uncle. “He was heading south but didn’t know exactly where. He told me he’d do all he could to survive, to come back to you.”
“Brother, I don’t deserve him.” My mother’s words were not knives but they would leave me bleeding for years to come.
“Sister, why did you say that? What happened?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m ashamed of myself. I did a very bad thing. I’m a bad, bad person.”
My palms were sweaty. So my suspicion was true. My mother had killed people on the battlefield. Innocent people.
“Listen to me, Sister Ngọc. Look at me. I won’t judge you. Trust me.”
Silence. The shuffling of my mother’s feet. Was she leaving? I reached for the door’s handle, ready to rush out to stop her.
“Sister Ngọc, we all had to fight against the enemy to be able to survive. Don’t feel guilty—”
“It’s not about that, Brother. It’s worse.”
“Tell me. I’ve seen enough horror to understand.”
Silence.
“Sister, if you can’t talk to me, confide in Mama. She can help you.”
“No, Brother . . . I can’t burden Mama. Besides, I feel filthy. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve Hương, either.”
I cupped my mouth with my hands.
“I don’t know what happened to you, Sister, but the fact you risked your life looking for Hoàng is very honorable. And you must have saved many patients along the way.”
Silence.
“Sister, why don’t you move back home? Hương needs you. I’ve seen the sadness in her eyes.”
“I have nothing to offer her. My misery will only drag her down. I’m not ready yet.”
“When will you be ready? Look at me, Sister. . . . I can’t cope without you here. There’re even two beds in my room. Come home and be my legs. Do this for me, please?”
Despite Uncle Đạt’s best efforts, it was more than another week before my mother came home. Grandma acted as if they hadn’t fought; she prepared a big welcome-back meal. But my mother hardly ate; she didn’t talk at all. While we were still at the table, she retreated into the bedroom.
I got up early the next day, excited to share breakfast with my mother, but she’d already left for the factory. Returning home, she had dinner in silence. And in silence she helped Uncle Đạt wash. Watching them, a lump of envy filled my throat. Perhaps I had to make myself injured so she would touch me?
“What’s going on with her?” I asked Uncle Đạt the following day after my mother and Grandma had gone to work. He was sitting at the table, going through the pile of books Grandma had selected from our bookshelf.
“I have no idea.” He flipped through the pages of a book. “She doesn’t want to talk yet. Give her time.”
“Everybody tells me to give her time. How much longer does she need?”
“I don’t know.” He dropped the book, picking up another one. “Many of my friends aren’t able to speak, either. Everyone is trying to cope in their own way.”
I shook my head. What more could I have done to deserve my mother’s trust?
My uncle pushed the books away. “These are all so boring, don’t you have an interesting one?”
“I think my mother killed somebody. A baby. That’s why she doesn’t want us to know.” Words blurted out of my mouth.
Uncle Đạt stared at me.
“I heard her say it. In her sleep.”
“Don’t mention such a thing! Whatever happened, I know your mother didn’t intentionally kill an innocent person.”
I picked up my school bag, heading for the door. I didn’t say good-bye to my uncle. I’d expected him to help me, but there he was, telling me off.
Several days passed. I tried to listen to whatever my mother said to Uncle Đạt, but heard nothing new. She remained cold and distant. A stranger among us.
And why didn’t Grandma do more? Whenever she was home, she buried her nose in her cooking, cleaning, and washing. As if all those chores could heal my mother.
I dreamed of leaving, of abandoning the stuffiness of our home, the secrets, the dark history. I knew where Grandma hid her money and I could take some, to buy a bus or a train ticket and food for the road. I’d go from North to South by myself, and I’d search for my father along the way. I could find him, and if not, đi một ngày đàng học một sàng khôn—Each day of travel earns one basketful of wisdom. Once tired of traveling, I’d stay in Sài Gòn with Auntie Hạnh. Perhaps under the light of my aunt’s lucky star, I could be free from the bad omens that seemed to cling on to our family.
But the thoughts of leaving vanished as soon as I saw how deep the wrinkles were on Grandma’s face. It was as if each of her children’s returns had given her nothing but those wrinkles. She was the one who’d shielded me from the bombs, and perhaps it was now my turn to help her survive those weapons’ impact, years after the moments they were dropped onto our lives.
So I didn’t leave. And I tried to find ways to get to know my mother again. Still, she’d closed all the doors into her world and refused to hear me knocking.
The week after my mother’s return, I headed to her room to tell her dinner was ready. Pushing against the door, I saw her on the bed, her head bent over a notebook, the pen in her hand scribbling across the page.
As she looked up, her mouth opened. She hid the notebook behind her. “You should have knocked.”
“Come and eat.” I turned away.
From then on, whenever my mother was out of the house, a fire was ignited in my stomach. I found myself passing her bedroom often, but Uncle Đạt was there all the time. I tried to appear helpful. As I brought him another glass of water, some more liquor, a bowl of peanuts, or another book, I looked around. My mother’s bag was on the floor. A bamboo cabinet stood, the lips of its mouth—its two doors—tightly closed.
I wished Uncle Đạt would go out. He’d been an engineering student before he was drafted. Without any work experience, a degree, or his legs, nobody wanted to hire him. Grandma had talked to countless people about him, but it was all in vain.
“I’m going to clean your room, too dusty,” I told Uncle Đạt two days later, when he was by the dining table, listening to his portable radio.
Inside the room, I reached for my mother’s bag. She hadn’t unpacked her clothes, as if she needed to be ready to depart any day. No notebook. I opened the cabinet, my hands running frantically among Uncle Đạt’s belongings. I looked under the two beds. Nothing.
How stupid of me to have hoped. The notebook was small, my mother could have brought it with her.
Days passed, bringing me only frustration.
One afternoon, I returned home to see Uncle Đạt’s message on the table. His friends had come by, bringing him to the funeral of a former teacher. I raced to the front door. The lock was secured, yet there was no inside latch. My mother and Grandma could come in at any time with their key. I pushed a chair against the door, piling another chair on top. Should someone enter, the crashing sound would be my alarm.
I searched my mother’s bag. This time, it contained a worn-out notebook. I held my breath as my fingers opened the pages. Rows and rows of my mother’s handwriting, not as neat as I remembered, but tottering, as if the words were rice plants bashed by a storm.
Names of trees and herbs and detailed notes on their medicinal qualities. Pages and pages of them. Recipes for treating different ailments. Many plants bore strange names, and my mother even sketched their trunks, branches, and leaves.
I flipped to the last page, which contained more notes on herbal medicine. Some of the words had been smeared with drops of water. They’d been written a while ago, perhaps in the jungle. But from whom had she learned these herbal treatments? I didn’t remember her having anything to do with our traditional medicine.
I closed the notebook. For sure she was recording something else the other night, something she wanted to hide from me. On another notebook, smaller than this.
I was tired of not knowing. Perhaps my mother had met my father on the battlefield and something terrible had happened between them.
Pressing my stomach onto the floor, I looked under the beds. Dust had gathered into a thin layer. Sneezing, I stood up. Putting aside my mother’s pillow, I peeled her straw mat away, searching among the bamboo slats that made up the bed’s frame. Nothing.
I eyed the pillow. It looked a little crooked. I picked it up, squeezing it. My heart dipped as my hands made out something hard. Here it was, the smaller notebook, hidden inside the soft cotton. It was rather new, bound with a rubber string. I opened the first page. My mother’s handwriting. As tottering as I’d seen on the other notebook.
16/5/1975
My son,
Would you ever forgive me? There’ve been countless nights when I dreamed about you. I dreamed about your blue face. The blue face that is now buried under the earth. Oh my baby, please forgive me. Forgive me. . . .
The diary left my hand, falling onto the bed. My mother had a son. With whom? I stood up, pacing back and forth. I wanted to continue reading, but feared that what I learned would tear my family apart. My mother had started writing down her thoughts recently, after she’d moved to Auntie Duyên’s home.
I almost laughed at myself. Here I was, thinking that I’d found the key to my mother’s secret, yet once I opened her door, I wanted to lock it and throw the key away. Sometimes something is so terrible that you need to pretend it doesn’t exist.
The wall clock struck five times. My mother, Grandma, and Uncle Đạt could be home anytime. I eyed the diary’s cover. I had caught a glimpse of my mother’s sorrow, I had to see what type of a monster it was. Besides, my world had already been shattered, ignorance couldn’t save it now.
I turned to the second page.
18/5/1975
Hoàng, my darling husband, where are you? Now the war has ended, many soldiers are returning home. Why haven’t we heard from you?
Oh my darling, I used to believe that my love for you would be strong enough to help me overcome the bombs and bullets, so that I could find you, to tell you how sorry I am. I’m so sorry. I was a coward for pushing you to go to war. Only when you left did I learn you were my life. The jungles I passed, the rivers I crossed, did you ever set foot there? I desperately hunted for news about you. Oh my love, don’t stay away from me. Please come home. Please forgive me. I beg you to forgive me. Last night in my dream, you looked at me sternly. Your eyes told me I’m no longer worthy to be your wife. I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.
21/5/1975
Last night Duyên shook me awake. The night was cool, but my whole body was soaked with sweat. My throat burned. Duyên told me that I’d been screaming. I nodded, saying that it was only a nightmare. When she fell asleep again, I sat there, curled against darkness. I feared sleep. I feared darkness. Whenever sleep or darkness approached, they rushed at me. They pinned me to the jungle floor, their hands choking my throat. Other pairs of hands pressed me against the earth, against rocks and tree roots. Their mouths were red as fire as they laughed. Pain, hot as burning coals, pierced my body. I was being torn into a million pieces. Where are they now, those monsters? I hope that they rot in jungles and valleys, that their souls will never be able to come home.
I read the entry again. What was that all about? Who were they?
30/5/1975
I shouldn’t have ventured out, but Duyên said a walk would do me good, fresh air from the river would make me feel better. We hadn’t gone far from Duyên’s house when a hut came into view. Unlike other homes, its roof was covered with leaves and twigs, just like our medical stations in the jungle. Without thinking, I crouched down low. Next to me was no longer Duyên, nor Hà Nội, nor the peaceful Red River. I was back inside my hut in Trường Sơn, a young soldier, his head white with bandages, moaning under my hands. Distant sounds of gunfire, sounds of hand grenades exploding. Nurse Hòa ran in. “Sister, the enemy is coming!” she said. Hòa and I hurried to carry the soldiers out of the hut’s back entrance, into the jungle, and down into the secret shelter. Those who could walk helped us. We ran, panted, and ran. Explosions drew closer, forcing us to cover our tracks. I returned to the hut to see injured soldiers still stuck on the bamboo slats that served as their beds.
“Into fighting position,” I screamed at Hòa, then ran to a corner of the hut, picking up my rifle. An explosion shook the ground. Hollers from the hut next door. Shouts in the Southern Vietnamese dialect.
A man darted past our open door, throwing something inside. I don’t remember pulling the trigger, just the butt of my AK slamming repeatedly against my shoulder. The man stopped running. He clutched his chest, sank to his knees, collapsing to the ground. The hand grenade he’d thrown was rolling on the dirt floor. I ducked. A powerful blast. My world became blank.
Duyên’s voice called me. I blinked to see myself on the Red River’s bank, surrounded by men, women, children. They were staring at me, whispering. I wanted to disappear, crawl into a crack of dirt. In people’s eyes, I’ve become mad, possessed by ghosts. One of the women was telling Duyên she should seek a shaman and make an offering, to chase away the dead spirits who’d stolen my soul.
3/6/1975
These days I spend my time indoors, not daring to come out. This morning a young man passed by my window. He’d lost both arms. Such a handsome man. The men I’d journeyed south with were handsome, too. They had hope in their eyes, songs on their lips, laughter in their hearts. But at the clinics where I was stationed, the men who came to me were no longer singing. Some had their insides spilling out from torn stomachs, some had dangling arms or legs, others had half of their faces blown off. Did they hate me when I had to operate on them without the help of anesthesia? As they were tied down onto makeshift operating tables, I cut into them. Should I have tried harder to keep their limbs?
And the two men who’d been roasted alive by napalm, my tears couldn’t extinguish the smoke rising from their flesh. Could I have done more to save them?
I was cooking when terrifying noises came from a neighbor’s house. A man was kicking and screaming at his dog. I heard the dog’s howls and saw myself lying on the jungle floor, my hands tied behind my back. Pain sprang up from my legs, which were bleeding.
“Fuck your mother!” A man kicked me hard in the stomach. “You killed my friend.”
I curled into a ball after the kick, telling myself not to bawl. If I did, I’d give the enemy satisfaction. I glanced around. The hut of my clinic was a short distance away, columns of dark smoke twisting above its roof. My stomach wrenched. What had happened to those who remained in the hut?
Another man grabbed me by the hair. “Show us the place where you hid your comrades!” He pulled my head up and around so I could see in all directions. “Where the hell is it?” he screamed. “Point it out to us and we’ll spare your life.”
I closed my eyes, not believing in the enemy’s promise. I’d be a fool to trust them. The shelter, luckily, was far away, on the other side of the hut. Among the patients in hiding was a high-ranking officer whom the enemy must be after. His personal guard was in charge of protecting the shelter, but if the enemy found it, the guard’s fighting would be an egg thrown against boulders.
“Tell us now, you Communist bitch with your thick cunt!” A kick landed on my ribs. Another on my face. I couldn’t help but howl.
Duyên’s children came, asking me what was wrong. Everything is wrong with me. Perhaps it’s true that the ghosts have possessed me. Perhaps they’ve taken my soul, so that I’m just an empty shell.
I pressed the diary against my chest, every cell of my body aching for my mother. I’d tried to imagine the horror she’d had to face, but it was even worse than that. How lucky that my mother had slipped through the grasp of death to come back to me. How courageous of her to have stood up for her comrades. I couldn’t wait to tell her how proud I was to be her daughter.
I cocked my head. No noise at the door. I eyed the clock once more. Time was running away from me. I lifted the diary with both hands, flipping the page as gently as I could.
17/6/1975
Last night, enemy planes roared into my dreams. Explosions shook the jungle. Smoke burned my eyes. The air stank of burnt flesh. A pillar of our clinic had collapsed onto Dương’s stomach, the stomach that I’d sewn up the day before. Next to Dương were the scattered body parts of Nurse Sánh. I knew I should be rushing patients down to our shelter, but I found myself running out of the clinic, into the open air. I held my face to the sky, yelling at the coward enemy who sat high in those airplanes.
I woke up again with my cries choking my throat. Every night this happens. My head throbbed. I needed some water, but couldn’t get up. My hands were sticky, as sticky as Nurse Sánh’s blood.
I want to meet the pilot who launched the rocket that killed Sánh. I want to rub her blood onto his face, so he could taste her suffering.
Duyên told me there was a job opening at her factory and that she’d talked to her supervisor about me. I could take the job if I wanted to. Not much skill is required, she said. I would need to iron newly made clothes, fold them, and put them into boxes. First I shook my head, but she said manual work would be good for me; it’d stop my mind from running wild. “Besides, you can’t live on your mother’s labor forever,” she said. I let those words sink deep into me. She was right. I had become a burden for Mama, for Hương, for her, for everyone.
I asked if I could think about it for a couple of days. I know I must work. But I fear meeting people. I fear their questions. At least Duyên hasn’t questioned me much. I’d told her everything about my trip South, but not the fact that my body had been soiled. Not about the baby.
She can’t know, otherwise she’ll tell Hoàng when he comes back. And if he knows, he won’t touch me anymore. Who would want to touch a woman who had been trampled by other men?
Today I rubbed my body until it bled. I want to wash the filth from my skin, but it’s too late.
21/6/1975
Hương visited me. She’s taller than me now, more beautiful than I could ever imagine my daughter to be. Her skin glows its youthfulness, her eyes lit up with the light of innocence. Watching her, I saw the best of Hoàng and me. I saw determination and love for life.
She seemed very happy today. I took in her gentle voice as she read the letter from her admirer to me. I wish I could tell her that I am her admirer, too, that I love her so much. How come I can’t tell her that I love her, my own daughter? In our family, love is something that we show, not something we speak about. Mama has never said that she loves me, but she shows it by caring and cooking for me. Now that I’m incapable of taking care of Hương and cooking for her, I wish I had the courage to tell her how much I love her.
But Hương must hate me now. She must hate me for being stupid. I’m stupid for telling her the truth about me encouraging her father to go to war. I’m stupid, stupid, stupid!
1/7/1975
Mama came by. Seeing the bones that protruded from her shoulders, I remembered lines from an old folk poem: “My elderly mother is a ripe banana clinging onto the tree, the wind could rattle her to fall, leaving me an orphan.”
Mama is not yet old, just fifty-five this year, but she doesn’t look young. I fear that she could fall anytime, my heavy burden on her back. I’m a terrible daughter, for having been angry at her, for blaming her. I wish I could take back the words I’d flung at her, but words are like water: once they have escaped one’s mouth, they’re spilled onto the floor. Words are like knives, leaving invisible wounds that continue to bleed.
But Mama didn’t visit to talk about our fight. She insisted that I come to town with her. She said she’d asked a well-known healer to help me. Sitting on her bike’s back saddle, I rested my face against her shirt. She smelled so clean, so fresh. Fresh like the rice fields of our village in my faraway childhood. Fresh like the laughter of my brothers and sister. With my eyes closed, I saw the smiling faces of Thuận, Đạt, and Minh. They can’t be dead. They must come back to me.
I lifted my head once we entered the Old Quarter. Our bike passed small lanes. Lanes that were covered with the footsteps of Hoàng and me. Over there, under the curving roof of Bạch Mã Temple, Hoàng had told me he wanted to marry me, his kiss still hot on my lips. When will he come back? Will he ever kiss me again?
Will I ever have one single day when I can forgive myself?
When the bike approached Traditional Medicine Street, the smell of herbal plants flooded into my nose. I shuddered. I was back in Trường Sơn, in front of my eyes was Mrs. Ninô, brewing jungle medicine in her clay pot. She poured the condensed liquid into a bowl and set it in front of me. She asked if I was sure. Instead of answering her, I looked down at my stomach. A tiny body was nesting inside of me. My flesh and blood, my own child. Tears blinded me as I gulped down the bitter liquid. I was killing my baby. My own baby.
“Hương, what are you doing?” I started, and looked up to see my mother. She snatched the diary from my hands. “How dare you?”
“Mama . . .”
She brought her diary to her face and screamed so loud that I jumped away from her.
I was thinking of what to say when she picked up her sandals, flinging them at me. I ducked and the sandals hit the wall behind me with a big thump.
“My thoughts are private, for me to keep!” she hollered.
I stared at the woman in front of me, her face red, her hair unkempt. I’d searched for the mother I knew, and I thought I’d seen a glimpse of her in the diary, only to end up confronting a stranger. Only a stranger would want to hit me. Only a stranger would have a child with another man and abort her pregnancy to conceal her sins. “You’re a baby killer,” I heard myself say. “You betrayed Papa! Wait until I tell him.”
“Fine. Go and find him. Tell him. Tell him!”
Slamming the front door behind me, I ran. I didn’t know where to go, but I had to get away from my mother. I no longer wanted to see her face.
Cries choked my breath and I slowed down. I had run all the way to the Long Biên Bridge, its body arching like a skeleton across the Red River. Perhaps my father had died. Perhaps the river could take me to him.
Closing my eyes, I saw Grandma as a young child, being cursed by the fortune-teller, I saw my mother in the jungle, drinking herbal medicine to abort her baby. We had all been cursed, generations of the Trần family. I had to end it now. I pushed myself ahead.
The river curled its red in front of me. I looked down at its fast current. Thủy and I had been here, dipping our feet into the water, our laughter still singing in my ears. I had no more friends. No more family who cared about me.
“Hương.” Someone snatched my hand, pulling me back. “I’m so sorry.”
I shoved my mother away and kept walking. No words could take back what she’d done to me.
She ran, blocking my path. “You’ve discovered the root of my sorrow, yet it’s only half of the truth. Please . . . give me the chance to explain.”
We sat in a corner of a tea shop. My mother had ordered a glass of soybean milk for me, but I left it there, untouched.
“You’ll answer all of my questions?” I asked.
She nodded, glancing around, even though the shop was empty; the owner was out on the street, talking to her neighbors.
“Who’s the father of the baby?”
She squeezed her cup of tea, her knuckles white. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Something that felt like vomit rose to my throat.
My mother bent her head. Her mouth was closed, as tight as a clam.
“See? You said you’d tell me everything, but you can’t. You can’t because you betrayed Pa—”
“Please . . .” My mother raised her hands. “The truth would only hurt you more.”
“Hurt me? Nothing is worse than knowing you had a child with another man.”
My mother’s face scrunched up. She opened her mouth, but instead of words, delirious laughter spilled out from her lips. “Would it be worse if the father of my child is the enemy?”
I stared at her. She couldn’t be sane.
“You’re right.” She nodded. “I betrayed your father since I wasn’t strong enough to fight them.”
“What do you mean? Who are they?”
Clutching my shirt’s collar, she pulled me to her. “The enemy . . . a group of men . . . they captured me . . . they did horrible things to me. One of them . . . fathered the baby.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t accept what she’d just said.
My mother released me. She covered her face with her hands. “If you must know, the men were Vietnamese. They spoke the Southern dialect.”
I shut my eyes. I wanted everything to turn dark, get smaller, and disappear. Disappear and take me with it.
To this very day, I still wish I could go back to the moment my mother found me with her diary. I should have been able to figure out her reasons for aborting the baby from what I’d read. On the other hand, I was just a fifteen-year-old girl who hadn’t experienced her first kiss, who had had no idea, really, how babies were made.
“Hương, I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” whispered my mother.
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Mama. I’m terrible . . . for doubting you. . . .” I gripped her hand. “Mama, in your diary, you said that you love me. I love you, too. And I need you.”
“Oh, my darling. You are my everything.”
We hugged each other, our tears flowing onto each other’s face.
“Mama, I need to understand. I want you to get better, so that we can be a family again. How long were you captured? And how did you escape?”
“Those monsters . . . they had me for a couple of days. I thought they’d kill me, but a soldier on their side took pity on me and helped me get away.”
“A soldier on their side?”
“Yes . . . a Southern Vietnamese soldier. During the night, he unbound me and led me into the jungle. He said he’d seen my diary, with your picture among the pages. He had a daughter of the same age.”
“What happened after he let you go?”
“I wandered among the trees, lost. I wanted to take my own life, but your voice and Grandma’s held me back. I don’t remember where I fainted, but when I came to, I was in a cave, surrounded by local people, who’d abandoned their village for the cave because of the bombings. One of them was a traditional healer. She cured my injuries with medicinal plants. During the month that I was there, she taught me many things about jungle medicine. When my physical injuries had been healed, I left the cave to join another medical unit.”
“Your pregnancy . . . when did you find out?”
“When I’d spent a few weeks at a new clinic. . . . At first I didn’t think about it when my bleeding didn’t come. When I noticed the changes in my body . . .”
I twirled the glass in my hand.
“When I was sure I was pregnant, I had to find my way back to the healer. I couldn’t bring the baby here. I couldn’t raise the child of our enemy. I didn’t want you, your father, or Grandma to find out.”
I bent my head, the baby’s blue face filling my vision, his faint cries throbbing in my chest. What would it feel like to hold him?
My mother swallowed hard. “The decision to terminate the pregnancy . . . it was the hardest I’d ever made. When I staggered out of the cave, I wanted to continue my mission, to find your father, Hương . . . but I no longer had any strength. I realized that I’d been a fool, for thinking that I could brave the war and find him. During my long walk to return to Hà Nội, I wasn’t afraid of the bombs, but I was fearful that he would discover about my body being soiled, and that I’d killed an innocent soul. . . .”
I hugged my mother’s shoulders, unable to find a single word to console her.
“Sometimes I think your father doesn’t come back because he knows,” she sighed.
Arriving home, we found a crowd of people in our living room. Grandma was wailing. She’d returned from work to see the front door wide open and chairs strewn across the floor.
Seeing Mama and me, she laughed and cried. She hugged me so tight, I struggled to breathe.
The next evening, I made Grandma and my mother go out with each other. They came back, their faces red, their eyes swollen. Grandma held a large oil lamp, which she’d just bought. She filled the lamp with oil, lit it, and placed it on a chair next to my mother’s bed. That night, and during years later, my mother would sleep with the lamp burning bright next to her.
But now she was no longer alone. She began talking to Uncle Đạt, too. I heard their murmurs whenever I walked past their room in the evenings.
I often found myself wondering about the baby. Would I have been able to love him the way a sister was supposed to love her brother, or would I hate him because half of his blood had come from the man who had attempted to kill my mother’s soul?
Nightmares still tortured my mother, but she no longer kept herself isolated from us. After coming home from her factory, she cooked. She asked me about school and Grandma about life in the Old Quarter. She wheeled my uncle out for a walk and helped him exercise. One day, she brought packages of dried plants home. As she brewed a pot of those sliced roots, stems, flowers, and seeds, her tears fell. But she told me she had to conquer her demons: the medicine was for Uncle Đạt, who’d told her his disability went beyond what the eyes could see, that he could no longer make a woman happy. My mother hoped the brew would help him; her recipe for treatment was among the many she’d learnt from her healer and recorded in her notebook.
Two weeks after my mother had laid bare her soul to me, the bàng tree provided shade for us to wash our hair, and the oil lamp gave light for my mother to help me with my homework. She showed me different ways to answer the most difficult math questions, and I was amazed.
Bit by bit, Miss Nhung found small ways back into my uncle’s life. She visited occasionally, bringing with her one time a cassette full of songs that Uncle Đạt ended up listening to every day, and another time a book that Uncle Đạt stayed up the whole night reading. My mother told me that when Uncle Đạt returned, he still loved Miss Nhung, but he believed she would be better off with another man.
The only one who hadn’t turned around was Uncle Sáng, so one day, when my mother told me she needed to pay him a visit, I joined her. My uncle hadn’t been to our house at all, but he and his wife kept eating Grandma’s food. Twice a week, Grandma had been preparing different dishes, and I had to deliver them.
It was night when we lugged the bike up to Uncle Sáng’s apartment. My uncle poked his head out of the door’s crack. “Sister Ngọc . . . Hương.” He glanced down to my empty hands. A look of disappointment crossed his thin face.
“How are you, Brother?” My mother pushed the bike inside.
Uncle Sáng closed the door behind us. “Fine, Sister.”
“I thought you were sick, terribly sick! Too sick to come see your Brother Đạt.”
“Shhh. Keep your voice low, won’t you? Hoa is already sleeping.” Uncle Sáng grabbed my mother’s hand, pulling her deeper into the gloomy apartment. “Sit down, Sister. You, too, Hương.” He gestured toward the reed mat on the floor.
“We don’t have to sit.” My mother’s voice was icy. “Why haven’t you been home to see Đạt?”
“Things are complicated.” My uncle wrinkled his forehead. “I’m leading a campaign to wipe out capitalists, bourgeoisie, and traders. And Mama . . . as you know, is a con buôn.”
“So that’s the way you two treat Mama? You despise her in front of others but you use her as your slave?”
“No. No. You’re getting me all wrong here.”
“Tell me in what way I’m wrong.”
“Lower your voice.” Uncle Sáng knitted his brows. “I’m thankful to Mama, but I have to abide by the Party rules. We need to rebuild our country with the hard work of laborers and farmers. No association with capitalists, bourgeoisie, and traders.”
“Capitalists, bourgeoisie, traders? Sáng, Mama labors so hard out there to earn every single cent. She’s a worker, not a bourgeois.”
“I have to abide by the Party rules. ‘No association with capitalists, bourgeois, and traders,’” my uncle repeated.
“So the Party is your God, is that it?”
“Sister, we fought so hard to regain peace for our country. We sacrificed our lives to chase away the capitalists, the exploiting class—”
“Exploiting class? Don’t let them brainwash you, Sáng. You know what happened to us during the Land Reform. They condemned our family wrongly. They called us exploiters. They killed—”
“Shut up,” Uncle Sáng hissed. “I have no connection with landlords.”
“I know. You faked your papers. You erased your family roots so that you could become a Party member. How sad. But don’t forget, Sáng, how our father died.”
“Don’t you dare make things up. Get out of my house.”
“Sáng, I’m not here to argue with you. Please come home and see your Brother Đạt.”
“I told you I can’t, but he can visit me.”
“He lost his legs, Sáng. He lost his fucking legs and can’t walk.”
“He has a wheelchair and—”
Whap. A smacking sound. My mother had slapped Uncle Sáng across his cheek.
“What kind of brother are you?” she screamed. “Don’t sell your family so cheap for some political ideology!”
My uncle’s hand reached up to his cheek. His face twisted into a look of disgust.
“You crazy woman!” he hollered. “Get out of here, or I’ll have you arrested.”
“Arrest me then. Arrest me!” My mother beat her fists against her chest.
“Mẹ ơi!” I reached out for her. “Let’s go.”
My mother looked at me, tears filling her eyes. “Just a minute, Hương.” She straightened her back and faced my uncle. “I know you’ve climbed up the ladder, Sáng, but don’t think you’re too high up. You’re still my younger brother. Without Brother Minh here, I’m the eldest in the family. I have the responsibility to teach you.”
“I don’t need anyone’s teaching. Get out of my house.”
My mother coughed and spat on the floor. “From now on, you’re no longer my family. I hope your children will do better than you and remember their roots.”
We walked out.
I felt proud that my mother had stood up for Grandma, but somehow I also found myself mourning for the youngest uncle of my childhood—someone who had laughed with me as he slivered bamboo, creating colorful lanterns that came alive under moonlight of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
I ran up the staircase leading to my class, my stomach empty since I hadn’t had time for breakfast. All was quiet around me.
On the third floor, I turned into a long corridor.
Teachers had started their lessons inside the classrooms I passed. Some boys were stealing glances at me through the open windows. I tried to make myself smaller, embarrassed at the sounds my sandals were making.
The bursting noise of my class welcomed me in. No sign of a teacher. Good. I hurried to my seat.
“What happened? Why are you late?” Trân rushed toward me.
“I overslept.” I smiled at her. She was one of the girls most friendly with me. I wondered if she’d visit my home some time.
“Watch out,” voices rang from behind my back, then roaring laughter. I didn’t have to turn to know the boys were playing some stupid games again.
Trân took something out of my hair. A paper plane with my name scribbled on its wings. “From Nam. He really likes you.”
“Well, I don’t like him.” I opened my bag, pulling out my notebook.
“I see Teacher Định,” someone called out. My classmates shouldered each other, scrambling to their desks. Our history teacher appeared, but he wasn’t alone. Next to him was a tall boy; unlike those in my class, his skin was as dark as a farmer’s.
We stood up in unison to greet our teacher, who smiled and nodded for us to sit down.
“Tâm, your new classmate.” Teacher Định gestured toward the boy. “Help him get settled and don’t give him a hard time, is that clear?”
“Yes, Teacher,” we chorused.
“Come see me if you have any problems,” Teacher Định told Tâm. “And to help you get familiar with things, Thiết, our class president, will take you on a tour when school finishes today.”
“Thiết is sick, Teacher,” someone said.
Teacher Định looked around the room. “Someone else will give you a tour then.” His eyes found me. “Hương, okay?”
“Yes, Teacher,” I mumbled, though all I could think about was how I wished I could skip the entire day, to be home, to have a long chat with Uncle Đạt. I needed to say sorry. There had been moments when I considered him a burden, even though I’d promised to help him when he first returned.
At the sounds of drumbeats, my classmates spilled out of the room like bees fleeing their hive.
“Need help with guiding the new cutie?” Trân came to me, giggling.
“Thanks, but it’ll be a quick tour.” I stuffed my notebook into my bag. How could Trân even think that the new boy was handsome? What was his name again?
Trân glanced toward the back of our classroom. I followed her gaze. The new boy was at his desk, his head bent over a book. I wondered what he was reading.
“Hi, Hương,” someone called out. Nam. He smiled nervously at me. “Can I invite you for—”
I dropped the paper plane into his half-open bag. “I’m on duty today, the introduction tour.”
“Oh.” He scratched his head.
“Want to invite me instead?” Trân pulled Nam’s arm. When they were nearly out of the classroom, Trân turned her head. “Have fun,” she mouthed.
I cleared my desk. I remembered the boy’s name now. Tâm. His name meant “Good Conscience.”
Tâm was still reading when I got to him. “Ready to go?”
He lifted his face. His eyes were deep brown, framed by long lashes. “Go where?”
His heavy middle-region accent surprised me. Grandma spoke this accent, but only at home. Why did Tâm leave the middle region to come here?
“The tour, remember?” I mumbled. I wished I’d asked Trân to take over the duty, but no student would dare disobey the teachers. If we wanted to pass our grade, our mark for the “Good Behavior” subject had to be adequate.
“Oh.” Tâm stood up. “Thanks for doing this.”
We left the classroom. The corridor was empty. Gray clouds had gathered in the sky, sprinkling a drizzle onto the yard. We stood on the balcony, gazing down at the wetness beneath.
“We have around five hundred students here.” I zipped up my jacket. “School starts at seven-thirty every morning except for Monday, when we arrive one hour earlier to sing the national anthem and greet the national flag. Behind that tree is the canteen, the soccer field is at the back of that building.”
“Is there a library?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t have many interesting titles, to be honest. The book you’re reading, is it good?”
“It’s too good. I can’t stop.” Tâm showed me the cover. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“Ah, Victor Hugo is an incredible writer.” I smiled. “I adore his poetry. I read this last year and dreamt about visiting France to see that magnificent cathedral.”
“I know.” Tâm returned the book to his bag. “I’d love to visit Paris one day, too. . . . And I was hoping our library would have a great collection. I’ve left most of my books at my village, for my sister.”
“That’s nice of you. . . . I have a few books and could lend you some.”
“Really?” Tâm’s eyes brightened. “That’d be great. Thanks.” He pulled up the collar of his jacket. “Do you live far away from here?”
“I’m on Khâm Thiên Street. Where’s your home village?”
“In Hà Tĩnh Province. Uhm . . . your neighborhood, Khâm Thiên, was heavily bombed, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”
I nodded and stared at the branches of a phượng tree. They were barren, shivering in the wind, like Grandma and I had during our walk to Hòa Bình. I pointed out the brown lids scattered around the schoolyard. “Bomb shelters. The largest one is in front of the canteen. You should know where to run if the bombs come back.”
“I hope they never do. In fact, I wish there would never be another war on the face of this earth.”
I turned to Tâm. I’d never heard any boy talk like him. “You have a relative who fought?”
“My father . . . he came back miserable. We are lucky, though. Many men of my village never returned. How about your relatives?”
“My Uncle Thuận died. Uncle Đạt lost both of his legs. We’re still waiting for my father.” I felt the heat behind my eyelids and bit my lip hard to stop myself from crying in front of a boy I barely knew.
“I’m sorry. . . . How long has your father been gone? Have you heard from him at all?”
“Seven years, nine months and twenty-five days.” I lifted the Sơn ca from my pocket. “My Papa carved this for me in the jungle.” I could no longer hold back the tears.
“Shhh.” Tâm put a finger on his lips. He brought the bird to his ear. “Uhm huhm.” He nodded. “Uhm huhm, thank you, Birdie.” He arched his brow. “Oh, you want to talk to her now, Birdie? Okay, here she is.”
He placed the Sơn ca next to my ear. “Do you hear him?”
I shook my head, smiled, and wiped my tears.
“He said you’re a special girl, a princess, and you shouldn’t hang out with me.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Because I’m a nhà quê.” Tâm called himself a country bumpkin. He dropped his bag, stepping away from me. He bent low, pretending to hoe his field. He thumped his back with his fist, wiping the invisible droplets of sweat from his face, and resuming his hoeing again. He looked so funny that I had to laugh.
Cycling home, I couldn’t get Tâm out of my mind. His smiling eyes and his warm voice made me giddy. I told myself to stop thinking about him. Men could be evil, like those who’d harmed my mother. I had no idea what type of a person Tâm was. I shouldn’t trust him so easily.
I arrived home to find Uncle Đạt on the floor, whistling. He was working on a new trough for the pigs.
My mother was busy in the kitchen, delicious smells twirling up from her hands.
She looked at me over her shoulder. “Feed the animals, they’re driving me crazy.”
“Sure.” I laughed. “What’re you cooking?”
“Tofu in tomato sauce and coriander.”
My stomach cheered. I hadn’t had it for such a long time. My mother cooked it the best.
“Will lunch be ready soon?” Uncle Đạt glanced up at the clock. “Nhung will be here in a minute.”
“I’m excited to see her, too.” My mother tossed a bunch of green spinach into a sizzling pan.
When I finished feeding the pigs, the food was on the table. Miss Nhung distributed the chopsticks. She was so thin that I could see the blue veins on the back of her hands. I hoped Uncle Đạt would take care of her, but how could he, without a job?
“How do you like your new school, Hương?” Miss Nhung smiled at me.
“It’s not so new anymore, but it’s great, Auntie.” I thought again about Tâm.
“What do you want to study later when you go to the university?”
University sounded grand. I hoped I could make it. I sucked in a breath. “I don’t know yet, Auntie.” I found words beautiful, but didn’t know whether I’d be brave enough to be a writer. I’d been reading books by Phùng Quán, Trần Dần, Hoàng Cầm, and Lê Đạt—writers who’d been imprisoned in the Nhân Văn Giai Phẩm movement. Their work during the mid-1950s called for freedom of speech and human rights, bringing me closer to my grandpa, who lived at the same time and held the same liberal ideas. Yet such work also highlighted to me the risks that writers faced, with a government that censored everything. “A circus rope walker balances breath-taking difficulties,” the poet Phùng Quán wrote. “Yet tougher still to be a writer enduring a lifetime on the path of truth.”
I knew that, like Phùng Quán, if I wrote, it could only be the truth as I saw it. I couldn’t twist my words to please the ears of those in power.
“I hope you’ll become a doctor, Hương,” said Uncle Đạt. “Your mother can teach you a few things about herbal medicine. It has magical powers.” He winked at Miss Nhung, who blushed.
My mother smiled, scooping tofu into Uncle Đạt’s bowl. “When do we need to leave?”
“In half an hour.”
“I have oranges and incense for Thành’s altar,” Miss Nhung said.
My mother nodded. “I’ve prepared a small bag of rice for his parents.”
“You two are wonderful,” Uncle Đạt whispered, and I felt glad that my mother and Miss Nhung had taken the afternoon off work to accompany him. His friend died in the bamboo forest on this day three years ago, and Uncle Đạt needed to burn incense for him. But it would be hard for my uncle to tell the grieving family about their son’s final moments as his life was extinguished by the B-52 bombs.
Uncle Đạt shifted in his chair. He’d turned to look at the kitchen cabinet several times. There was a glass of water in front of him, and he kept staring at it.
“You okay?” Miss Nhung reached for his hand.
He shook his head. “Sister Ngọc . . . would you mind getting me some liquor?”
He turned to Miss Nhung. “If you haven’t heard, em, I’ve had problems.”
She put down her chopsticks. “Yes, your mother told me, anh. It won’t be easy to give up alcohol, but I hope you’ll try.”
My mother went to the kitchen and fetched the bottle.
“Don’t put the whole thing in front of me, Sister,” said my uncle. “One small glass will do for now.”
Receiving the glass from my mother, Uncle Đạt sniffed it. He finished it in one go and closed his eyes.