18

Date …

It took around 10 minutes for the camera to film a long video clip named The released prisoner.

Duc Vinh had freedom in 1938 after he had been staying in the prison for 8 years.

There was an old man with a grey head and a haversack on his hand in the car station in Yellow Water mountainous town. He looked lonesome in his small figure.

The dying afternoon light made the shadow of the mountains covered the dull red gravel station full of refuse and leaves taken out from cooked cakes.

The dirty truck carrying goods whose coat of paint rubbed off somewhere was roaring as though it was breathless and extremely strenuous because of running on a long road.

-       Where to go? Boorish old man! – A rascally assistant driver asked him - Do you have any money to buy a ticket?

-       Well … I want to go to Hanoi.

-       Stay here and dig yam in the forest for living. Come back Hanoi for what? Hanoi is now swarming with people who must queue up for buying a few kilograms of sorghum and vermicelli. You know!

-       But I have something to do in Hanoi – “The cloddish elderly” politely smiled.

How was it? What the affairs of the world on the turn! A graduate with a Western degree and excellent French skill, a District chief and a Vice-Provincial chief became “a rustic old man” who couldn’t do anything but dig yam in the forest. It was accounted “adverse” even when he took such a terrible car to travel Hanoi.

Duc Vinh was reservedly sitting in the behind row with chairs whose pads were hard sackcloth but not in the front one with chairs whose pads were wrapped up in imitation leather. That was his condition.

The assistant driver pityingly added:

-       Sit here! My old dad! We have a few customers only. I just make a joke and nobody harms you at all.

Duc Vinh slowly stepped forwards. The car moved his wheels. The Yellow Water mountainous town was quickly fallen behind. How many days had the eight years? Why was the destiny of Nguyen Duc clan imprisonment? Mr. Duc Nguyen had to receive prison sentence due to his “stubbornness”. With his very “gentle” manner, Mr. Duc Vinh still had to stay in the jail. What a world situation! There were two sides on earth: A faction and B one. The A one put the father into the prison and the B one incarcerated the son … Nobody could escape his fate.

It was nightfall when the truck arrived in Hanoi and the station there was as slovenly and dirty as the Yellow Water one. The gangs of roughnecks, pickpockets and robbers were innumerable. “The rustic old man’s bag” was snatched in a twinkling of the eye.

Duc Vinh didn’t regret his property at all. What a piece of bad luck! “The prisoner’s fortune” was nothing but a suit of rag clothes. On the contrary, how “unfortunate” the thieves were when making a “wrong” thing in order to get the internee’s tatters only.

Duc Vinh was strolling in the city where the lamps had just been lit up by electricity. The old resplendent Hanoi City had been downgraded to market streets and slum compartments “like” his life. Duc Vinh shook his head to drive away such a thought which could make him present at Yellow Water camp for another eight years rest. He oughtn’t to have any ideological error otherwise he could be wrongfully accused. He ought to make clear that in the former Hanoi City, the bourgeois wealthy were enjoying their lives in magnificent building while working population was huddling in their slum. Then, the people were the owners of Hanoi City. Their lives were simple, industrious and economic. All villas were divided into many rooms which were shared among laborers. The citizen stood side by side with country folk. The working population living in the city and the farmers living in the countryside were alike. Everybody had the same lifestyle. Working was everyone’s happiness and reason for living. Doing business which would create dishonest traders was bad. It had to be destroyed and it had been annihilated. All busy shops which were the symbols of “private economy” had been perfectly wiped out because they worked against the ideals of contemporary regime. The contemporary city was the wholesome city whose owners were working population.

“The cloddish elderly” was walking in the middle of the asphalted road without scaring of being knocked down by a car since there were neither car nor traffic regulations. Nothing would happen even when someone wanted to pass water in the middle of the street as if he was standing at one side of the country lane.

On arriving in the bank of Sword Lake, Duc Vinh took a rest. By accident, he leaned his back against the century-old sesame hanging its branches in blossom and reflecting in the lake. Duc Vinh realized with a start that it was the tree where he used to have many dates with his girl friend tens of years ago when he was a student in Albert Sarraut School. The sesame remained unchanged. Its leaves looked like the ones of former half-century. Meanwhile, he had had a remarkable decline like that.

“The boorish old man” calculated in his mind the cost of the “traveling expenses” amount in his pocket which he was given when he was released before hailing a bicycle rickshaw to be sent to the house no. 15 Bis on Quan Thanh Street. It was the bicycle rickshaw working at night. Its rattle and the rider’s tatters gave Duc Vinh a “warm” feeling od a fellow-suffer.

-       What a stroke of luck! I “haven’t got any customer” since I started working in the early morning and thus I accordingly have nothing in my stomach yet. My arms and legs are going to shake with hunger and I’m assuming that I will have an unnourished night – Informed the driver of the bicycle rickshaw and he “quoted” for a road pick – Receiving you as my custom, I would be grateful if you could give me some dimes which were enough for me to have a bowl of noodle soup “without pilot”.

-       What do you mean by “without pilot”? – Asked Duc Vinh when he was vigilant over the price quoted for the above mentioned noodle soup whose name sounded so “metaphysical” that it might cost much in comparison with his traveling expense given in the prison camp.

-       It’s the bowl of noodle soup “without meat” which is very cheap. It costs 3 dimes only. Don’t worry!

-       It’s alright because I just have 9 dimes in my pocket.

The front wheels of the bicycle rickshaw were turned left and right on the spot because it was being tremblingly driven under a very weak strength. He was too hungry and tired to undertake his work. The speed of his bicycle rickshaw would be slower than that of a walker if he kept being in such state. Realizing the situation, Duc Vinh gave him 3 dimes in advance.

-       Take your bowl of noodle soup “without pilot” first otherwise you won’t be able to drive your vehicle. It takes a long way to reach the house no. 15 Bis on Quan Thanh Street.

The driver received the money in his shivering hand. Getting out of the eating-house, he looked remarkably nimble and pleasant. He quickly turned a pedal with a strong force in a flash.

-       Well! I can survive till tomorrow. I had spent 2 dimes and I still have 1 dime. Fulfilling my responsibility for you, I will arrive in the “back door” of Spring Field market where “cheap women of easy virtue” who are cutpurses are waiting for their customers. Each of them has to lean her back against some foot of a tree in some dark corner in order to take 1 dime only. What a pleasure! Or we directly “go” there to get “two creatures”, just for the fun of it – The driver suggested – You sometimes have a chance to leave your countryside and make a visit to Hanoi. There is no reason for you to “enjoy yourself”.

Duc Vinh had compassion:

-       Thank you for your persuasion. But some other time maybe! I have to be in the house no. 15 Bis on Quan Thanh Street now.

The “energy” getting from 2-dime noodle soup made the speed of the bicycle rickshaw very fast. Duc Vinh got out. He wasn’t fully confident. It was typically my house! It was the old iron fence and gate that was now dilapidated, decayed and rusty and was reinforced with barbed wire. The street lamps gave a dim light. It was pitch-black in the house. The door bell was no longer in use. Duc Vinh knocked at the gate. He had to make a call after being fed up with tapping:

-       Dear Ham!

His voice was diffident. He didn’t want to attract surrounding people’s attention.

Duc Vinh was very perseverance in knocking and calling alternately whereas the house looked like an uninhabited one.

A ward militiaman was going on patrol in the evening. He jerked up his chin and asked while he was passing by:

-       An old man! Where are you from? What do you want? The owner Ham has informed our ward about his whole family’s absence from his house and they won’t be back till tomorrow afternoon.

Duc Vinh said “yes” as thanks and then “left”.

Duc Vinh spent a desolate night in Hanoi. He searched for a boarding house near the station. Everybody laid their backs on mats being spread over the ground to sleep. All men and women were mixed together. They were hell-cats trading feather, waste articles and scrap iron, old blind men taking massage as their career and drivers of bicycle rickshaws and delivery tricycles. Their bad smell of perspiration pervaded the air.

Duc Vinh was tossing and turning all night. The yard-bed of the inn was just like that of the prison. It was messily sticky and terrible. He didn’t dare to have a “high requirement”. He knew his “condition” was then lower than even those old blind men taking massage as their career and there was no reason for him to be sad.

Duc Vinh kept strolling up and down in the following morning so as to wait for Ham’s return. “The old boorish man” was passing by the surroundings of “Albert Sarraut” School which was located opposite to former Governor-general’s Palace. He thought of his certificate of finishing serving a sentence which mentioned his good performance and he felt scare of nothing. He realized his freedom and he understood that he had a right to walk in that area. Vinh was contemplating his old school whose ancient architecture remained unchanged such as a long block, a red heaving roof, a pattern on the frame of windows. Vinh was given a start when seeing a gate plate stated that the headquarters of Thought agency. How strange! What a marvelous organization which could undertake, supply concrete guidance and change the mankind’s thought. Vinh seemed to see an Annamite kid in white shorts. His father was a District Chief. He was playing with the Westerners’ children. The Annamite lad was a good learner and he was the second of none in studying. Nobody knew how his zigzag life cycle was but then he was an old timid cloddish man who was gazing many times at his old school like that.

Duc Vinh went to the bank of the West Lake and was sitting there in the blurred curtain of dew. A black coot was flying in a far distance. A little girl with a flat winnowing basket carrying ripe Dracontomelon duperreanum which were skinned and cut into rings on her hand was approaching him and made an offer: 10 rings per cent. She picked the falling Dracontomelon duperreanum on Quan Thanh Street and made them ready for sale. Duc Vinh tasted the flavor of it which was rather vinegary, acrid and sweet just like the taste of life.

It was completely deserted in the bank of the West Lake. The whole Hanoi people were busy with their work except the old man who had just been released. He was so free that he came there and looked at the waves and the dew.

Vinh wheeled round the house no. 15 Bis on Quan Thanh Street at noon. He could look at it in the daytime more clearly than the night before. The Cananga odorata was still there giving its very yellow flowers whose perfume pervaded the air. The tiling was dilapidated. The walls were moss-grown. The decayed windows were patchily covered. There was a halo of sun spreading on the small yard full of dry leaves.

Duc Ham tightly hugged his brother and shed bitter tears. Both grey heads huddled together for a while. Mrs. Ham hurriedly took a handle of tickets to buy comestibles. Nobody was in the house but the two men. Trung was a postgraduate. He had already got a Master of Science degree in economics in So Viet Union. However, he was still staying there for trading jeans and T-shirts.

Mrs. Ham lighted a fire in beehive-like coal oven and boiled the leaves of holy basil, lemon and shaddock in a pot in order to clear the smell of “imprisonment” on Duc Vinh body. Duc Ham gave Duc Vinh a suite of “big wheel”:

-       This is cadre’s uniform. You dress this one. It looks more suitable and you will escape notice whenever going out. I used to wear it when I was a Provincial Party Committee Secretary.

Duc Vinh stood contemplating himself in the mirror. How strange! He didn’t immediately look “too bad”. With a grey head, his face became distinguished and composed but not timorous and pusillanimous as before.

After “relaxing” a day and a night, Duc Vinh’s physiognomy was back normal. The color of eight-year imprisonment was sunk into oblivion. The two brothers were sitting on the sofa and sipping cups of countryside alcohol made of sticky rice. They had no new information to exchange as Ham, Hung and Lan Vien usually visited Vinh. To be very fair, Vinh could use “the articles of daily necessity” which were high quality goods Make in America despite of staying in the jail due to the new policy in which stated that the prisoners were allowed to receive the support presents from America. His “standard” is better than that of other people who lived in the society. How Ham could get boxes of powdered milk cost 100 dollars each like Vinh had. How he could frequently smoke 555 tobaccos. The only thing the prisoners couldn’t enjoy was Martel. Vinh admitted:

-       It had no possibility of escape from imprisonment. The losers must be committed to prison. However, what a humanitarian revolution! I had never been beaten or led a merry dance yet. That came of my “humble obedience” and “sincere re-education”. Except for the first period when “support regulation” hadn’t been applied yet, it was poor me because I had to eat manioc in stead of rice. Later on, the prison was like a convalescent home and daily working was just like an exercise.

Vinh snorted of laughter and raised humorousness to let his disgraceful days pass.

-       Our mother gathered our father in 1976 when you were still in the prison and the relationship between the enemy and us remained quite stressful – Said Ham.

-       How strange! You went on “promotion” like that in spite of the “obstacle like my curriculum vitae”. When I was still a Vice Provincial chief in Phan Rang, the secret service in the President Palace used to raise a question: I had a younger brother working for Vietcong in the North as a high-ranking leader. Mr. Thieu rejected that idea. He said: The country has been divided into two firing lines and it’s the same old story if the whole brothers confront each other. The most important thing is their allegiance to their regime. For instance, “the Republic of Vietnam” well knew that the Top-ranking general Duong Van Minh has a younger brother working for Northern armed forces as Colonel. Our General Pham Ngoc Thao also has a younger brother working for the government in Hanoi as “a big wheel”. There are many cases like those. In brief, “my side” “sympathized” with the mentioned matter.

-       My circumstance was special. Thank to Doctor of Letters carrying out the Modernist movement and our Great Oldest Uncle that were considered enough to “defeat” the “blemish” named “follow the enemy by mistake”, my curriculum vitae “turns red”. Mr. Thanh Quang who guided me to war resistance “was in danger” a bit during the reform period. But then, he had advancement in the Organization Department of the Central Committee. He “supported” me a lot. However, my resume was raised again when I “spontaneously” paid each member of a cooperative a flat rate and was accused of destroying the agricultural co-operative movement. Mr. Thanh Quang was very worrying. With such trouble, it was beyond his scope to protect me. It was needless anymore. I was responsible for my action. I straight presented all the real situations and “accepted” the loss of my title Provincial Party Committee Secretary in Thanh Do “with pleasure” before receiving a job as a researching expert in Agricultural Department of the Central Committee.

-       I read the newspaper and knew all the situations in the society although I was in the prison. What you did from 1960 – 1970 and made you disciplined was named the unprompted action to “pay a flat rate” which was later on named “pay a flat rate number 10 movement” in 1980. It broke the structure of agriculture co-operative. The government handed over the fields to all the farmers and “let them alone to cultivate”. Your action turned out to be a sound decision which made our country agriculture resuscitative. But why you hadn’t been “counted” as a “founder”, “initiator” since 1980 and why they didn’t restore the former rank of you …

-       I was ahead of my time. It was very blessed of me not to be run over to death when I “brought the light and run in front of the car”. My action was taken place while the history hadn’t ripe yet and thus it was certain that I had to receive the “accident” when I was a vanguard. Like our father, he “carried out the Modernist movement” in the wrong context so that he had to stay in the jail and nobody acknowledged his merit except the history, “the generations yet unborn”. On the contrary, the contemporary wheel of history will follow an extremely strict advance without “calculating” anything, let alone us, the nothing on the world once it operates.

-       Indeed, I don’t understand what is the different between your “pay a flat rate” and the late “pay a flat rate number 10”.

-       90% of their content is similar. Well! Don’t talk about this thing. It’s very complicated and headachy. What we need now is “relaxation” and happiness.

Ham gave Hung in Thanh Do town a call in order to “inform his plan” as well as called to ask Lan Vien in Saigon to join in “the great reunion” in the Stone Farming House. In expectation of Lan Vien’s arrival, Ham and Vinh took a passenger car to Thanh Do. “The three old men” Ham – Vinh – Hung wanted to sit side by side after “a stage of life” …

Vu Hung lived in a suburban house which had just rebuilt with thousands of square meters large gardens, a lotus pond and an ancient tree garden. The retired two-stars general loved the pastoral landscape, planted yellow reed, kept pigeon and diligently looked after bonsai …

In the meeting-minutes, nobody expected to see the view that the Grey Tiger general was “lackadaisically” embracing “the released old man” and convulsively sobbing. Meanwhile, they run after each other in Phan Rang in April 1975 eight years ago. And they then were holding close together and crying. What a “contradiction”!

The three old men – the three destinies – were drinking a bottle of “alcohol made of large – size – grained glutinous rice whose seed was yellow”. They had to use wine to fade away their sorrowful memories, “buy” innocent emotion and try to join the life wounds.

The woman who served the three old men with feast was Hue – the iron woman in agrarian reform and then the famous “leading bird” in the co-operative movement.

Hue had been old. She was old before her time. She seemed to be another person. Previously, she was very self-motivated, seething and “extremely keen on advancing”. But she was then nonchalant, indifference, sluggish and everything was OK to her.

Her life was unstudied and unpretentious beside the assiduousness in growing vegetation and watering the plants.

All memory seemed to fade from her mind. Her past was fallen into the mist. She had forgotten or she didn’t want to remember anything else. She was no longer Hue in the old days or a chairwoman, a tribunal president in Dong Phong commune during agrarian reform period, a symbolic person who was well known all over the nation in the co-operative movement.

She looked at Ham with the opaque eyes as if he was a stranger. She totally forgot the time when they were “the counterpart of another” and were always side by side to create “great cause”. Both had “fate in position and fame”. Even so, they then wanted to “forget each other” after many years of distance as though nothing had happened …

Mrs. Hue brought Ham a bowl of noodle flooded with shoot soup. Their glacial glints emotionlessly met. Ham had a bite of shoot fiber and spoke highly of it …

-       I was in Saigon in the afternoon dated 30 April – Vu Hung finished his fourth cup of wine. Among three persons, his drinking capacity was the second of none. His face didn’t turn red at all. He was still in possession of his faculties and was making the meeting unaffected. He tried to pretend to be “mechanical, inflexible, dry, simple and soundless” in order to reduce the “symbolic” meaning of the meeting among three men whose destinies had experienced the tornados and storms within half century. He added – Frankly speaking, Mr. Duong Van Minh was abreast of the time at that moment. His policy was to surrender but not to be determined to fight and to struggle to the bitter end to hold his ground otherwise everything would be ruined in Saigon. The strength of Liberation troops just like the clean breaches would certainly smashed the opposing resistance. Consequently, how terrible the storms of war would be! I used to face dangers many times. Thank to the affection and the “protection” of the Great Oldest Uncle and the Doctor of Letters Nguyen, I only had one scar on my head because a bullet slid on it no matter I was always at war with the enemy. What a blessing our family has! – Vu Hung snorted of laughter and struck his moustache. Hung was keeping his beard which was rather long and handsome and aged him visibly in spite of his vigorous body.

Ham asked Vu Hung to let Ham have a look at Hung’s “War Medals” which he gained during the war time. With Ham’s persistent suggestion, Hung was still so scared of “being accused of boast” that he embarrassedly refused. Hue brought a big lacquer box with her. A heap of very yellow medals were twinkling. Two shirts of “big wheel” could be counted as enough space for him to hang all those medals. Hung had attended the Southern battlefield since the first years of the war. He couldn’t remember how many engagements he fought. He had had a 10-years combat which hadn’t stopped until a great victory was made in spring 1975. Those medals “told” us his feat of arms.

-       Hung said – I wish our mankind only has a lasting peace but not any war. Nobody wants to attend many “battles” in order to have “a pile of medals”.

Hung immediately gave supplementary ideas right after discovering his “wrong viewpoint” when saying like that:

-       The human must indispensably overcome the violent fighting stage so as to reach the last “flourishing peace” goal. By the same token, we must sacrifice our lives to that glorious cause without regret.

-       Do you want to read my husband Hung’s poems? – Hue asked.

-       Poems? – Ham showed his bewilderedness.

-       Yes. It’s his poems which are as much as a book telling about life experience and truth conclusion.

-       OK! Let’s have a look!

-       No! Everybody can see my medals but not my poems. I can’t let  first and foremost Mr. “Provincial party committee secretary” see them because he always rectified other people’s thoughts – Hung pointed at Ham with a joke …

Date …

It looked quite melancholy when the door railing was exposing to the sunshine at the beginning of summer. The crows in the garden sounded tumultuous at noon. The sun was glistening. How strange and new the very early everything was!

Lan Vien was having a stroll around the ancient house of a graduate of a pre-court competition-examination with the walls which were moss-grown due to the time in the Stone Farming House. The devastated landscape performed a gloomy feature. The old and stunted peach garden in front of the gate remained a few flower opening in late spring. The Stone Farming House hadn’t had any warmth of inhabitants for years. The gate and all the doors were clocked. Duc Ham sometimes came there for tidying up while Lan Vien was staying in Saigon, Duc Vinh was receiving his prison sentence, Lu was living in America and Trung was absorbing in “doing business” …

Lan Vien was deliberately walking. The dry leaves were smashed on the stone veranda floors and yards. The young birds were chirping. Lan Vien looked up: There was a sparrows’ nest on the curved knife-like roof of the building. The birds were flying around there and making rustle noises. The knife-like roof was as big as the one in the village temple like a “symbol” of the clan Nguyen Duc’s “damn” stuff. According to the ancient feudal law, civilian population had no right to build an arched roof. However, Mr. Doctor of Leters didn’t care of course because the legislation was no longer “strict” at that time and the people followed their practice. The roof of the Stone Farming House stood out from a blue sky, the old-century trees garden, the lotus pond and the stone landing made the strong-willed patriotic scholar’s soul sparkling.

Lan Vien stepped up onto the stone bridge to pass by “Dregs Brook”. The “middle gate” was collapsed. The uniquely remained “front gate” was dilapidated. The spectacle had miserably “changed” for only tens of years while the owners were still alive.

Lan Vien fretted with her childhood memories. She reproached herself for obliviousness of her hometown because “hometown” had made her terror-stricken since reform period. Lan Vien had just come there from Saigon the day before. From Noi Bai airport, she took a shortcut to directly reach the Stone Farming House, put everything in order and was waiting for receiving Duc Vinh, Duc Ham and Vu Hung in an “official” meeting in the “house of worship” on the occasion of Duc Vinh’s freedom.

Lan Vien trod on the stone landing of the lotus pond. The water was limpid and the surface of the pond was immense. The sun was resplendent. She would like to have a bath there and wash her silk shirt by bopping it with noise and rinsing it in the water of the pond. How many years old she was! She looked still young with spotless white plump-body which was dazzlingly bright under the reflection of light. She used a dipper made of coconut shell to get and pour water on her bare shoulders as smooth as a baby’s bottom and breasts as white as porcelain. She was enjoying the feeling of dazing with memories of girlhood in the Stone Farming House precinct. That lotus pond itself was the place where she and her “servant” Vu Hung rowed the small bamboo craft around there in order to put the tea in each lotus flowers before fastening all its petals at many times and hadn’t taken out the tea till the next morning. The perfume of stamen lotus stayed in the tea would pervade in the air whenever infusing such tea to give the relaxation minutes to the Doctor of Letters who always felt anxious about national work.

The water of the pond remained limpid as before while the life kept changing a lot. The surface of the pond still serene but the life was full of thunderstorm. She couldn’t go back the pure girlhood anymore. The troubled waters can be cleared with alum. Meanwhile, the life can’t regain its color once it has already experienced the vicissitudes.

Lan Vien opened the very heavy doors “as thick as a table” made of iron wood. The grinding noises were sounded. The hinges of the doors were worn out. The smell of long-term mould ground due to dampness pervaded the air in the uninhabited house. She had to pile dry leaves up, smoke out and light fire in order to get the warm environment.

It was early afternoon when a taxi from Thanh Do town arrived in the Stone Farming House. On that day, Lan Vien had shed tears as much as she used to weep on the date the “correct the fault” policy was carried out and Ham went home from Hanoi. She felt self-pity for Nguyen Duc family, herself and other people’s intricate plights.

-       That’s all right! Today is a happy day. Let’s forget everything. Let’s be as unaffected as the beginning period tens of years ago – Vu Hung suggested – Come on! Let’s see what you have arranged today “meeting party”.

Hung knew that he had to create a funny atmosphere but not “mawkish” one. The perfume of the candles which were lighted and placed on the ancestral altar pervaded the air. The aloe wood was sweet-scented. The Father’s eyes seemed to tell the presence of the dead. He looked straight into Duc Vinh’s face – his eldest child. The Father didn’t blame him for his actions which were against the purpose in life of his father, his Great Oldest Uncle. Time was over. Nothing should be blamed. Nothing but the sacred consanguinity was cared for at that moment.

The dead didn’t mean disappearance and nothing remained … Duc Vinh seemed to perceive his father’s spirit existing there. It was so near. He then started. It was correct that he didn’t follow his father’s ambition when he was studying in Albert Sarraut School. He always felt his father’s foolishness in his mind. He was more astonished at Ham’s “madness” like his father when Ham followed the “anti-oppressed” ideal. The conclusion is that there are always two opposite side on earth. Like them, they belonged to two conditions no matter they were father and sons or they were consanguineous and whole brothers …

According to him, there was no universal truth under the sun. Violence was the truth. Money was the truth. To him, there weren’t the right and the wrong but benefit and disadvantage. He took the District chief position to be high up in the hierarchy, to get big amount of salary and to have beautiful wife and intelligent child but not to be banished in Con Lon islands like his father. He had to finish his studying and win all certificates so as to make his way in the world but not make the study unfinished like and win no degree like Ham.

He was “smart” and “careful” like that. However, his “future” turned out to be nothing but eight terrible imprisonments in remote places which was difficult of access. One day in the prison is thousand years in the society. He assumed to be died without leaving a visible corpse …

Duc Vinh wondered what the human was. Vinh often composed poems in his melancholy days in the jail. He joined his thoughts into verses in rhyme:

Who creates the earth and the heaven?

I am a human for what?

How extremely logical the life is like that!

And what an absurd it had as well!

Everyday occurrence is “receiving-losing” itself.

Wish and tiredness I have both

Happiness travels with sorrow

To search for the truth like to look for a needle in a straw heap

What a fearful fate the human keeps!

But, it’s more terrible to shift from earth to paradise

A river running the life likes

I am a tiny fish in fine waters

Due to many falls, rapids and much further,

I have a tattered body.

Duc Vinh had a vague philosophical viewpoint: the life was after all devoid of sense. First was to enter the world, to be “unconscious”, to eagerly live, to struggle for better conditions and to seize the common fame and wealth. He hadn’t enlightened with a start until receiving “8-years exile sentence” and he had been “opponent” against the life …

The atmosphere in the Stone Farming House aroused Duc Vinh’s soul. He found himself like a fish which was shifted from very muddy waters to the source of limpid one. He was sobbing with his memories. He was too familiar with the verses “in rhyme” which were performed during the time the movement of composing poems under the new styles was taken place from 1932 to 1945. The youth Duc Vinh had some writings at times when he was studying in Albert Sarraut School. However, he just wrote for fun. How he could have a literature confidence once he was concentrating on and thirsting for being a mandarin. But then, Vinh naturally would like to use a “mean” of “poems written under the new styles” to express his ideas during the time staying in the Stone Farming House after experiencing the life.

I return my old house and gate

While I can’t go back my childhood of flying kite.

My mom’s image is flickering by the window railing.

Sunshine in March unexpectedly inundates.

What a sad the present and poor past!

The voice of the crow at noon remains unchanged.

Pick a green leaf in the garden. That makes its stem resiniferous.

As fast as a dream the life went.

Vinh appeared to remember the melancholy poems which Khuat Nguyen had composed when falling into disfavor. Promoting that remote relation, he wrote:

Under the moonlight, after getting drunk I’m sprawling.

The oriole stops my good sleep in the morning of the next day.

That’s all, right?

I must have a painful life, why?

The relationship between Illusion and Reality are so tight.

Everything might be nihility.

How quickly a dream will be over!

The golden light will thaw the early dew on the grass.

Hung, Ham and Lan Vien were listening to him. Four of them were thoughtfully sitting round the table in the old-century tree garden in the Stone Farming House. It was funny! They were then considering everybody’s standpoints about the philosophy of life after a very long period of devoting themselves to the life cycle. Vinh’s state of mind was also the rest’s one. In the end, the “two sides” which were as different as the water and the fire during their almost whole lives then had the same thinking …

… Following Vinh’s suggestion, Vinh and Hung disguised themselves as two old men and came back the old “Thuan An Provincial court” in order to “do sightseeing”. Ham and Vien didn’t join them because they had no memory of that place.

The “District court” remained its old feature – in the time of Duc Nguyen who supplied concrete guidance in building. An immense trench surrounded the large square ground and leaved a unique path for going in and out. A sentry box hanging a curfew bell used to stand there where servants were on the watch round the lock. The very low District Building whose roof was covered by shoe cap in shape-tiles remained unchanged. The two generations Duc Nguyen and Duc Vinh tried a case there. So many guilty persons had to be flat on their faces there before the body-guards struck them with canes on their backs. It was also there where Vu Hung led his delegation of demonstration seized power.

The District court was then a “permanent office” of appropriate authorities. The newly large four-floor blocks behind it were working places of secretary and president themselves.

The two “old men” entered with short steps into the “permanent” office and had a look at the old District court.

-       Two elderly! What do you want? Where are your letters of recommendation? – A gatekeeper puffed deeply at the hubble-bubble pipe before raising a domineering question.

-       Well … we would like to puff deeply at your hubble-bubble pipe. That’s all.

-       How annoying! I assume that you will present some complaint after traveling here from the “countryside” but you just want to puff deeply at my hubble-bubble pipe in stead.

-       Yes! You are correct! Your hubble-bubble pipe gives a sounding forth in clanging peals whenever you puff it.

Duc Vinh and Hung took turn to pass from hand to hand the hubble-bubble pipe. They dreamily discharged smoke.

-       What good tobaccos! We don’t choke with smoke …

Duc Vinh looked at the space of musty dark “District court” through the smoke. The image of a powerful young mandarin in his term in silk dress and with an ivory badge on it flickeringly appeared in front of his face. “The image of District chief” accordingly disappeared when the smoke melted away. A human existence had been over as quick as a smoke melt.

-       How would our society have been now if the event that you had a flag on one hand and a riffle on another hand, rushed into my District court and I gave you my royal diplomas and certificates hadn’t happened in the history? – Duc Vinh asked Hung when both had gone out and were sitting in a tea shop.

-       There isn’t the word “if” in the history. I only know that is what had taken place in the history and the historical indispensable stage must be like that.

-       What happy developed countries! They live in peace without spilling blood. Their people only take their votes and give their choices. All sides take turn in ruling the government.

-       What they have today is the result of hundreds of years of building the democratic republic while our country is more underdeveloped than them and thus we have to use the violence.

-       And such violence lasted nearly half century. The two sides pulled about each other. A great number of people died. In the long run, the power would fall into the hands of either side. That was all … Except for the people, their position remained unchanged.

-       You are wrong. This is the greatest revolution in Vietnamese history. It’s our national exploit which drove the aggressors from our country, made the reactionary feudality collapsed, won the independent. How we could gain the independent without war and violence – Vu Hung seriously “rectified” Duc Vinh’s thoughts. Both then smiles together.

-       Well! The wheel of history had run. Its indispensableness must be like that and it had happened like that. We are still alive and it’s good enough for us to be able to walk together and “recall the history” like this … Let’s look ahead and try to adapt ourselves to the life and the new context …

Date …

Leaving the Stone Farming House, Duc Vinh and Lan Vien got the plane to Saigon.

Staying at his younger sister a few days, Duc Vinh “received a new house” as a “compensation” of the government for his villa in Tan Son Nhat area which was confiscated when Lu had evacuated and Vinh served his sentence.

One day, an old man appeared in a dilapidated four-level house in the alley no. 20 near Da Kao market where no one but cycle rickshaw riders, longshoremen and peddlers had been gathered together. Poor “boorish old man”! Nobody knew why he didn’t stay with his descendants but led a solitary life. Perhaps, he had to pitifully wander on the pavement of the streets so as to earn his daily food.

Duc Vinh laid down his back and had a look at the corrugated iron roof which was torn to pieces. The sun darted its beams through the holes of the roof. He smiled: His whole life had been lived in luxury villas and it was time for him to shelter in the house like that. It was accounted “justice”. It was alright because he didn’t plan to be there long. Under the arrangement between American government and Vietnamese one, the civil service employees and military officers who used to work for American were allowed to reunion their family by settling in America after doing porridge. Duc Vinh’s name did figure on the list. All the procedures were in progress. He tried to spend his time in the space of slum dwellings in magnificent Saigon, a Far East pearl like that. He had a try so that he would understand more about the value of villas in America which were his future destination …

19

Date …

It was 30^th of 12^th lunar month. Mrs. Duc Vinh looked at the clock. It was the break of day in Vietnam at the moment. There were 12 hours different between two countries. Vietnam would welcome the first of the first lunar month in a little while. The fire-crackers would explode in salvoes to start the bewitching minutes of the New Year. Everybody would burn incense to worship family ancestors, wear new clothes and congratulate the children on the occasion of New Year’s Day before visiting acquaintanceship houses and “worshipping their ancestors”.

It was 30^th of 12^th lunar month in her place in the afternoon. There was also glistening golden light. The sun in Texas was the same to the one in Vietnam. Mrs. Vinh melancholically came in and out. She had never perceived the spaciousness, sadness and desolateness in her house and garden.

Lu was cleaning a bunch of bananas and arranging a tray of five kinds of fruit including bananas, mandarin oranges, oranges, persimmons and bright yellow finger citrons under Vietnamese style.

The perfume of aloe wood pervaded the air. The candlelight was sparkling. Mrs. Vinh had a magnificent altar as if she was living in Vietnam. There were a red lacquer throne trimmed with gold, a pair of wood panels on which parallel sentences were inlayed with mother-of-pearl, bright yellow horizontal lacquered board engraved with Chinese characters, vial shaped lamp support and bronze urn … The picture of Uncle Doctor of Letters Duc Nguyen who was impressive in Doctoral court dress was hung on high position. The higher place was the painting of tycoon Great Oldest and the picture of the Scholar Thao, her father.

The New Year’s Eve feast including a boiled chicken with a rose in its beak, rice cake having four cornered dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in rush or bamboo leaves and boiled and jam of five tastes was displayed. Mrs. Vinh rolled her hair with black silk headscarf, wore copper four-panel traditional dress with a red brassiere and a floss bag. With such clothing, she was the very image of Miss Nhu who was the Scholar Thao’s daughter, as beautiful as Thuy Kieu and very famous in Gia Binh, Thuan An on the date she “contracted marriage” with the young District chief Duc Vinh.

As was her usual practice and no matter she was in the house no. 15 Bis Hoang Lan Street, Hanoi or in the villa in Tan Son Nhat area of soldiers’ families in Saigon, she always went down on her knees in front of the altar of family forbears in order to worship, long fondly to see her parents, ask the ancestors for their protect and help with easiness of Duc Vinh’s works, talent and good for the clan’s first paternal grandson Lu so that he could succeed his forefathers and the health for her so that she could take care of her household while her eyes dewed with tears whenever the early evening of 30^th of 12^th lunar month came. On such early evening like that, the sparkling very yellow sun in the North remained unchanged in her mind. After 1954, she had to switch on the air condition with very low centigrade in every date of 30 like that in Saigon. She was accustomed with a vase of apricot tree full of yellow blossoms, watermelon with its pink pulp and some written parallel sentences bought from a Chinese teacher in the Big Market. Arrived in Texas, United State of America, she was very happy when seeing the sun of every date of 30 there as glistening as the one in the North of Vietnam. That made her burned out her nostalgia for Northern Capital area which was her native place.

There, her husband had to stay in the prison. She heard on the grapevine that his released “procedure was in progress” and he could reunion his family in America. Time was the question. She had to wait and hope. The more she waited and hoped the more she missed her native country including the Scholar Thao’s deep immense premises where the voices of students reading manual composed of sentences of three words in Chinese, Five-word verse … were stridently sounded, the vast lotus pond, the old-century tree garden, the stone landing pier and the ancient Stone Farming House where she was in charged of effectively running a household …

Lu brought a string of small fire-crackers to the gate and burned it. Crack, rack, bang … Crack, rack, bang. The sound echoed in the garden and the street where the foreign children were playing. They turned round and took a stare without understanding what had happened. Certainly! How they could know that it was the noise of burned fire-crackers on Tet holiday once he wasn’t Vietnamese children. They knew nothing but the sparkling candlelight and the flickering lamplight on the Noel pine on Thanksgiving Day …

The voices crack, bang of long string of small fire-crackers shook the Yellow Pine Garden. Lu family which was the unique Vietnamese family in that town was taking the ceremony of welcoming the lunar New Year. Lu had drawn the glints of American neighbors who repeatedly nodded out of satisfaction while enjoying the perfume of burned fire-crackers. The state of being like a fish out of water made Mrs. Vinh and Lu extremely lonely. They would harmonize with surrounding houses in listening to the crack, bang sounds of burned fire-crackers, watching the dense smoke rising high and how excited they would be if they lived in Vietnam. On the contrary, Lu family looked like the stray persons coming from another planet who were expressing their emotion of time while the surrounding people were curiously “observing”.

Lu’s house in the Yellow Pine Garden performed the ideal of modern life. It was large with sufficient conveniences, huge grass garden, surrounding ancient trees, the birds flying around there and making rustle noises. Slowly getting out of the garage, Lu drove straight into the four-lane highway to go to Houston where Lu’s working place or Johnson’s base – the “headquarters” of NASA located.

In the town, the people lived in the block of houses sharing the walls without having any blade of grass or any shade of a tree but stone terraces, iron gates and surrounding glass windows with their aluminum frame. The smell of petrol and vehicles pervaded the air. The noise of engine was resounded all day long …

Mrs. Vinh had nothing to complain but she kept missing the deep moss-grown houses with ancient tiles, the doors as thick as a table, the yards tiled with Bat Trang bricks, the flower-gardens grown orchids and chrysanthemum, the lotus ponds, the stone landing piers, the tiled country lanes with their inclined planes tortuously running in the shade of bamboo. The house in the Yellow Pine Garden had something like cheerlessness, strangeness and insensitiveness despite its conveniences. She craved for listening to the barks of dogs, the plaintive crow under the afternoon sun, the moos of buffalo calf, the noise of children in the by-street and the Vietnamese intonation as melodious as warble. There, she heard nothing but the zoom zoom sounds of running vehicles, the rustle of pine leaves, the even voices of people speaking English which she couldn’t understand anything. She turned out to be deaf and dumb. The American people of big build with pinky-white complexion were effervescent while she was as flimsy and speechless as a shadow beside them. The Western ladies whose weights were just a ton inquisitively looked at Annamite old woman alone staying there as though a sparrow losing itself in the flock of phoenixes.

Mrs. Vinh didn’t stay up late to see the New Year in. she stayed awake for what. How she could hear the crows shifting the watches rumbling all over the hamlet. How she could hear the drums in the temple beaten whenever the ceremony of worshiping the King of the Stronghold was taken place. How she could hear the earth-shaking sounds of burned fire-crackers in New Year’s Eva minutes. The whole people in the Yellow Pine Garden slept like a log. The neighbors’ lights were out. Who both mother and son in her family should enjoy the New Year’s Eva.

The next morning was the first day of the lunar New Year. The atmosphere was as monotonous as the New Year’s Eva. One more time, a burst of burned fire-crackers was alone raised in Lu’s house but not the whole houses in the Yellow Pine Garden. A speaking voice was resounded from the outside street:

-       That’s the custom of the Vietnamese people whenever welcoming the Tet holiday.

Mrs. Vinh again worshiped family ancestors with a hearty feast displayed on the first day of the lunar New Year. Both were sitting round the table but having nothing because of surfeit. Each person had a try for each dish such as a piece of rice cake with four-cornered dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in rush or bamboo leaves and boiled, a bulb of onion preserved in salt, a chunk of pig’s head paste, a bowl of shoot soup … She was listlessly missing her childhood in the Scholar’s house in the old days. She followed her mother to a Tet kermis dated 28^th of 12^th  lunar month to buy some spotlessly white glutinous rice, some verdant Phrynium placentarium, an emasculated cock with yellow legs and bright red crest.

Mom used to attend market before Tet

To sell autumnal dead leaves and winter wind

And buy little spring sun

Which made her cheeks pink.

Her white conical straw hat kept flower-like raindrops.

Her blue bag-like flaps held the wind.

She sold the dark sad cloud.

And bought some bright ones. It was a happiness to win.

There were so many riots of dawn squeal all over the whole village. The sound of braying meat pattered. The people were wrapping the cakes beside baskets of snow-white glutinous rice and bright yellow husked green pea sprouts on the part-house. The Scholar Thao was spreading the strips of red paper on another part-house under the dry golden light and composing parallel sentences for Tet. The boiling pot of rice cakes gave the chug sounds in the evening of the 30^th of 12^th lunar month. The Scholar Thao droned out his worship essay in the next day “The leaves will sweep away all the misfortune in 12^th lunar month …” The whole family engaged the ceremony. The Scholar Thao’s beloved daughter Nhu was scuttling along in key chain, satin skirt and Vietnamese dress whose flaps was fastened despite she was just 13 years old.

-       Come here! Let me congratulate you on the occasion of New Year’s Day – the Scholar Thao fondled Nhu’s velvet hair.

-       Oh, goodness! Many matches are proposing marriage to her although she is 13 years old only. They used casuistry “13-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy are old enough to get married” to say that she is available – Mrs. Scholar informed.

-       I don’t want to wed – Nhu was sullen.

-       That’s al right! My very beautiful daughter! You won’t contract marriage with anyone till you are adult. Now, you must study as well though you aren’t a boy. You must be able to read and write Chinese characters and be good at Vietnamese language.

Nhu locked her arms about her father’s neck:

-       I can read Vietnamese language.

-       But you haven’t been proficient in calculating such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.

-       I know the multiplication table like the back of my hand.

-       Well! My bud is very good …

Nhu had filled out a lot after she was expert at multiplication, division. She soon became “Mrs. District chief” in Thuan An. All chiefs of villages and village mayors had to hang their heads in front of “a kid”: Madam! “Mrs” District chief …

Well! Everything seemed to have just happened but why her hair turned grey …

… In the morning of the second day of New Year, Mrs. Vinh’s son drove her to “Vietnamese club” in Houston. The custom was formed when the people living in a foreign country whose race is different from them couldn’t stand their lonesome during the Tet holiday and had to flock there in order to have a meeting.

There were a great number of people in the Club precinct. A lot of tables were set for a cocktail party. What an empty-headed thing! How they could experience the enjoyable feeling once they use a cocktail party to “celebrate Vietnamese New Year Festival”. Who was after all able to organize groups of tables in which each group had “a four-person table or two eight-person tables”. They sat together and were arranged in “positions” and ages so that they could have formal address. By the same token, all dishes were displayed and everybody with an empty plate on one hand and a “forceps” on another one would take what they wanted. They were eating, strolling and munching like a pig. They met one person but they greeted another person. The Vietnamese “cocktail” was as “ashamed” as a “robbery of charity gruel” held in the middle of village temple in the old days when the poor people with a bowl of rice porridge on one hand and a package of roasted groundnuts on another hand ran around. In the countryside, everybody had to sit round the table and had to spend time in saying invitation words such as “You first!”, “Have a try, please!” and “Forgive my take in advance, please!” … before getting any food. Everybody had to eat and drink politely and thoughtfully. On the contrary, the “manner” of cocktail was that everybody took a roasting-jack so as to stick whole cook meat and crammed it into the mouth, chewed like a pig, drunk with loud gulps or was gulping and running in fussiness all over the precinct. Nobody had a talk lasted more than a half minute. They paid a lip-service “How are you?” or “How about you?”, made a shake of hand and kept clutching at a dish filled with food to another place as if they were beggars fighting over their ration …

Mrs. Vinh was fed up with the way they attended a party just like “freeloaders”. The kids including boys and girls were also sprawling on the lawn, eating and excessively joking …

She was discouraged when she was at home and she felt more disheartened when she spent her time there. However, she could meet those who were appropriated to the situation and harmonious with her so that she could have heart-to-heart with them to relieve her nostalgic …

… Lu was standing on a high platform to observe the comprehensive view of precinct. “Such mass of below people” whose original points were in “somewhere” immigrated to there and set up house in the unknown country like the Western Hemisphere area. They looked like wild goose downs which were blown up to the sky, over the ocean by the “immigrant wind” and landed on the ground in America of 100% different from their hometown. Tens of years ago, they peacefully lived behind the bamboo edges in the village with the tortuous country lanes which were planted with reeds at both sides, the ponds which were floated with water-ferns, the roofs of yellow cottages, the plaintive crows at noon and the coo in the early morning. They transplanted rice seedlings on the fields while listening to the warbles of skylark and harvested apricot yellow rice in October when turtle doves swooped down and feed early paddy. Then, the war happened and like a game, they were divided into two sides in order to kill each other. Part of them followed “National side” which later on suffered defeat. They had to leave all their property such as houses, fields and gardens and get in the “landing crafts” so as to plant themselves in the South. The wind or “the first evacuation storm” started blowing and sent them – the wild goose downs from the North to the South.

20 years latter, their “National” side one more time lost the battle. They again left their property and took their panic-stricken flight to the sea direction. They drifted on raging waves and gave the ocean full powers to hold their destinies. They had gone adrift to international refugee camps just like duckweeds before United States of America allowed them to settle there. The America sympathized. More than 200 years ago, the American forefathers still lived in an ancient continent in Europe. One year, they got failure of potatoes crops and suffered from a dearth. Receiving the news about a new continent whose soil was boundless and rich, they immediately looked for it … The convoys of the poorest, the most venturesome and the most energetic people seized the land of the autochthonic reds. As likely as such troops had to kill millions of the reds before occupying their ground. The invaders were in business, sifted the sand for gold, built the railway network, manufactured machinery, created cultivated crops by cross-breeding to achieve an output more abundant than usual which was so surplus that the “overproduction” phenomenon had happened and mountains of oranges were poured into the sea to keep prices stable. The votes of confidence in members of parliament and president would decide who could be the leaders (the hegemony wouldn’t be found by a winner of a bloodstained battle between two sides). Their country turned out to be the greatest one in the world. They were too rich. They had lethal weapons in abundance. They produced guns and ammunition for what if they didn’t attack other countries. They won one combat and lost another one. They received their fair-weather friends who were the losers and had to imperil such losers’ lives in order to cross the sea like their ancestors 200 years ago: Their forefather crossed the ocean to land on there as well.

The second evacuation wind had removed and planted the mass of Annamite wives and children in that ground. With seedy faces, “the delegations of Annamite people” who were homeless flocked in the streets, polished with great care and painted “indigenes’ toenails and fingernails”. The “natives” could hold the nail cutting forceps and create the click click sounds when pruning their nails for a while before applying glossy paint within a minute. However, the rich “autochthones” were so lazy that they refused to such work. They had time to make planes, cars and computers but not to trim their nails by themselves. Just ignore them! Therefore, our Annamite people could earn their bread. Moreover, they could “feather their nests” as well. Oh, hell! They could be “rich” due to doing nothing but cutting nails. Then, they tried to support their children of the English learning, becoming doctors or Doctor of some majors. They were as respectable as any other guy.

Their lives were accounted rather stable. They had enough property and to spare. Some of them had cars. Their only sorrow was that they were nostalgic. They missed the countryside in Vietnam, the bamboo edges in the village, the taste of eggplant pickle, the streets in Saigon with rows of verdant tamarind trees at both sides and the Saigon market with the perfume of durians pervaded the air.

They solaced their homesickness with meeting there. To rouse the hilariousness from the monotonousness, North Vietnam Cheo tunes and South Vietnam Cai Luong melodies were harmonized with the music.

-       This place has been the “ground for us to settle” at the moment although we are nostalgic – the “Annamite people” confirmed – We have already driven our stake in this land. The tree has already struck roots into the ground. By and large, the earth is public property but not private one. The soil is immense. Millions of years ago, the intelligent people, the smart people and the unflinching people wandered on the face of the earth. The African strolled and unexpectedly arrived in Europe. The Southerners traveled Northern Hemisphere. The gusts of evacuation wind removed the whole group of people and planted them in another place as easy as falling of a log. That is what had happened in the past, what is happening in the present and what will happen in the future.

The Christian Aid Organization said: At the moment, more than 160 millions people have to leave their property in order to search for another destination due to the war, the natural disasters and large-scale developing projects.

It hasn’t stopped there. There is an expectation of one billion people who have to depart because the climate is hot and the sea level is going to rise so high that it will flood the land of many people by the year 2050 …

Therefore, our today evacuation of 1.5 millions people to America is everyday occurrence …

Lu took a dish of food and approached a table where five girls were chattering and smiling. They look like five petals in Vietnamese dresses whose colors were pink, violet, white, blue and yellow.

-       Hi! Phuong Dung! Hi! Everybody! – Lu advanced forwards the bud in white dress.

-       Hi! – They all clinked glasses together before drinking beer.

-       Let’s sing some song for fun – Lu suggested.

-       OK! Let’s sing! A Trinh Cong Son’s song! I’m the first singer.

Phuong Dung stood up:

-       Have you still remembered or forgotten? A Saigon was raining and the sunlight appeared unexpectedly, an old street where I knew a person, street lamps were illuminated all nights so that you could have a look at the vault of green tamarind leaves. Have you still remembered or forgotten? …

Trinh Cong Son’s songs were so interesting that their hearts clenched with the rhythms. An image of a resplendent Saigon of love and youth appeared in their minds.

Those girls all had their own dream time when they stayed in the legendary Saigon. Their school age was the image of very early white Vietnamese dresses and hairs that touched their shoulders. The streams of crowded people and vehicles hurried off in thoroughfares. The coffee shops, the pairs of lovers’ date places had romantic atmospheres with music. The singer John Lennon in The Beatles band aroused desirousness and joy of living. The streets of villas hid themselves behind leaf canopies in Saigon. The shadows of high society girls appeared and disappeared under the flower trellis and were dreamily catching the golden light. The Saigon of “provincial youths” who were poor but full of perseverance with implicit talents flocked there to eagerly struggle for wealth and fame. The genius Trinh Cong Son together with his first songs presented in Saigon during his period when he lived in misery and want. He was timidly playing guitar and singing in front of the students of literature at the back yard of some university. Those songs unexpectedly grew and became permanence. The Saigon of romantic gentlemanlike officers bid farewell to their sweethearts under the vault of green tamarind leaves before attending a battle the next day and left their body in the “war summers”. The Saigon received the vanity whirlwind from the Western world which was profuse and vigorous as though a rosebud stretched all its petals after taking a rain and performed its bright beauty. The Saigon was sweet beside the deep rumba, the memorial drops of rain and sun … that had never faded in the hearts of the people living in a foreign country.

The memory made everybody wet with tears.

-       Wake up! It’s enough for lackadaisicalness! Strive! Integrate! Think of our future! Abba! Come on! Let’s join!

Phuong Dung raised her voice first.

The Western marvelous melodies excitedly resounded in a boisterous brouhaha. The five girls took the spoons to beat the plates. They embraced each other and held hands. They danced the Solo, the Pop Rock, the Tango, the eventful Cha cha cha, the tumultuous quickstep whose dancers ran round the garden … They danced the gentle classical Austria waltz when being fed up with exultancy. The people sitting round surrounding tables started singing as well and then the whole precinct was full of singing.

Lu persuaded Phuong Dung to go to a concern in the distance. They threw themselves down on the grass. They had a special relationship. That was a friendship. They would neither marry nor leave each other.

Dung’s body put on flesh. She was beautiful with a fair complexion and intelligent. She was good at her “nail” job. She could earn tens of thousands dollars a year. She had already had her own house and car. She lived alone without getting married. Lu once talked with her when they had just fallen in love:

-       Should we contract marriage with each other and have a family under Vietnam traditional style before having a baby?

Dung held Lu in her arms and cried:

-       I really want to be like that. However, I haven’t got enough “faculty” to fulfill all the responsibilities of a wife and a mother. I don’t want to be in the kitchen, do cooking, set the table, wash dishes and serve the whole family …

Following her sweetheart’s advice, Phuong Dung and he evacuated from Ca Mau seashore and got in the “fishing vessel”. They submitted two taels of gold to the “ship-owners”. On the boat, there was none but “republican officers” who had escaped from re-education camps and became hooligans. They hadn’t appeared to be the beast of prey till they were at open sea. They beat Dung’s steady to death and threw his corpse into the sea in front of her eyes. Then, they took turn to sexually assault Dung. Dung had to eat humble pie, repress her tears and endure many violations which was bobbing, rocking and pressing time to the waves. She would be killed and her cadaver will be again flung in the water if she repulsed.

She had to be alive first. She thought out all the deceptive tricks to survive. Dung treated the biggest scoundrel with kindness and consideration on the vessel. He became Dung’s protector and had “exclusive right” to make love with Dung. His inferior fellows were so jealous of him that they rose up, didn’t comply with his orders and combined forces to beat him to death. One more time, Dung was “public property”. Ten burly guys applied strong massage for Dung’s body. On the floor of the boat, they hadn’t stop weighing down on Dung until one day when they ran out of food and fresh water and the whole gang was as ravenously hungry as scattered potatoes and had a burning thirst which made their mouths alternately closed and open just like the fish going aground.

Dung got the impression that they were going to kill her to drink her blood, cook her flesh so that they could reduce their thirst and hunger.

Dung’s fear reached the climax. She approached the “ringleader” who looked most authoritative in the herd of predators. Dung gave him spiritual “affection” because he was too weak to satisfy his sensual love due to hunger and thirst indeed.

-       Help me, please! I will be your wife. You are the only person I “love” most in the world.

The rascal was nonchalant. He had no mood to care for loving matter in such a circumstance.

Fortunately, the boat was buffeted adrift in Bidong isle, Malaysia at that time and they were taken to the refugee camp. Dung had an escape from death, from shedding skin and splitting meat as “food” and she was sent to America within a year.

-       Having such a “life story”, how I can be a normal person to wish for a husband, a child and a family – Dung talked to Lu.

-       You should make a new life for yourself! – Lu advised.

-       No! I have chosen my way of living. I will “go about with” American fellows who may love my Oriental beauty and I will become their “strange thing”. They will give me money. I want to be rich so that I can live in this country. I will quit my “nail” career. I will have spare money in the bank and at last I will be able to have a “miscellaneous kid” who is very handsome with fair complexion, yellow hair and blue eyes. We will have a happy life.

Lu had no idea about Dung’s “life style” but there was still an intimate affection between them in some certain instant which Dung’s tears always wetted Lu’s chest.

Those were sincere tears. However, her will was stronger. Dung had deeply become impregnated with the philosophy of “violent applications” after all the events which had happened on the evacuation boat. Dung was no longer a well-mannered Annamite girl.

-       How about you? You should look for a “Western girl” in order to get married – Dung suggested – To be honest, our children will have many preeminent features if we lead an Anglo-Saxon match to the altar.

If you lived in Saigon, how you would “touch a Western bud’s skirt”. On the contrary, there are a lot of such girls like that here where the equality is existent. That’s why it’s called United States. The mix between our blood and the blood of the Anglo-Saxon will create the “dominant mongrels” in biological aspect. Our children will be tall, big, good-looking, intelligent and clever with fair complexion. We share our blood and we get such a “product”. Is it wonderful?

-       But the thoroughbred characteristic will be no longer existent – Lu commented – Our offspring will be more similar to our match than us. They will be so strange to us and seem not to be our children.

-       I didn’t expect you have such a “conservative and backward mind” like that – Dung smile.

Lu shook his head. He was afraid of Dung. He was “at the end” of her philosophy of life. He apparently disagreed with Dung but he was just like her indeed. It had naturally happened as a law, only that Lu wanted a sweetheart, a real American wife who was faithful to him forever …

Sari who lived near Lu’s house was a Middle East girl of Egyptian descent. She was more beautiful than any thoroughbred Western bud. She had an Oriental affectionateness and Western resplendency. She was a Creator’s wonderful product which was counted as the most perfect product on earth. Middle East girls were ideal women which had much more “three subjections, four virtues and four attributes such as industry, appearance, speech and behavior” than Chinese ladies who always followed the custom of foot-binding in olden times. Taking a job as a shop keeper in a small supermarket, Sari couldn’t earn much money. However, she refused and avoided Lu when he approached her and declared his love to her. How a girl who had knowledge of four basic operations only so that she could sell goods without getting mistake could “treat him as a bunch of nobodies” like that. A source of wild perseverance was flared up in his mind and he insisted on demonstrating his value out of revenge. Lu spent his most time to win the heart of Li Da who had just been a graduate in “Vietnamese learning” and wasn’t as beautiful as Sari of course. She was a bit dry and inflexible, had reason and “intellectual obstinacy”. She stayed with her lonely disabled father in a small apartment in Houston. They lived simply and unobtrusively. Her mother had another husband in California. Li Da wallowed in the knowledge of social sciences and Vietnamese learning all day long. Even so, Li Da told Lu straight out without hesitance in return for his suggestion of “marriage with Vietnamese person”:

-       I don’t want to tie the knot and then fall into the “orbit of husband and children”. I do want a free life until I am 40 years old at least. At that age, I will perhaps have a baby. It’s the matter of future anyway.

Li Da accepted Lu’s love. Lu could continuously stay in Li Da’s house for months. They had a passionate love with right duty. Li Da could stay at Lu’s house in the Yellow Pine Garden for a whole month like a Vietnamese “daughter-in-law” as well. Even so, they were still free persons with their own “withdrawal if necessary” or “distance”.

Following such type of living, the more they lived the more they felt “interesting”. They could live together if they wanted or they could also part if they were bored with each other. Li Da could have other boy friends at her pleasure and will and Lu could have as much girl friends as he wanted as well. Nevertheless, both didn’t actually have a strong attachment to any “stranger”. Practically speaking, it’s very difficult to have a long-term love without pleasure, passion, matter and hundreds of other conditions that served that unshakeable love.

Keeping company with Li Da, Lu realized he was just a “soldierly” guy who can pilot a plane and carry out NASA’s diplomatic works. That was all. Meanwhile, Li Da buried herself in her books and she knew everything including the knowledge of history, society, the world cultures since ancient times up to then, the Vietnam history and culture …

Li Da paid less attention to Pop, television, sport and cinema stars.

-       Do you know what brought you here from the country of ivory bamboo, bamboo, straw and thatch …? – Li Da said – By and large, it was due to the so-called delicate “geopolitics” in your country and thus your nation had to accept a rub and a bump among antagonistic violent forces during the historical process. “Survival of the fittest” is the maxim about the law of mankind throughout the ages. The man of gigantic strength always finds the way to rule the weaker persons in comparison with him no matter where he is. The huge institution in Northern Vietnam dominated Vietnam the whole of thousand years. With its small area and weak forces, the Vietnamese race was still undaunted and insisted on being unyielding. How your nation could develop once it had the uninterrupted war. The “ruling career” based on Confucian principles made your country underdeveloped: A backward science and technology beside the tangled ties of tenets and moral standards. Those were inferior. How your nation could avoid the capitalist colonialism’s waves of violence which were covering the whole of the West in 19^th century. One more time, Vietnam had to make a protracted resistance war during a whole century. Therefore, your race was counted as first-class courageousness and unyieldingness in the world. Taking a weak force to fight against a strong one and insisting on not accepting to be slaves were your country’s characteristics. Up to now, your country still looks like a small planet which is under the attraction of two vast planets hanging about it. How it can balance those two attractions so as to be existent … I admire your nation and that’s one of the reasons which makes me love you …

Li Da proved the law of life by going back in time:

-       During the period of the European darkness in the Middle Ages, the handicraftsmen stayed aloof from religious castles by moving their house from feudality lands to the roadside and riverside areas, establishing the urban centers and leading a free life. That created the premise of The Renaissance. The human changed its color from “feudality culture” to “urban culture” during the time from the 14^th century to 17^th century. The doctrine said that the State would no longer belong to the Church. The new mentality: escape scholastic dogma. It was confirmed that human had the highest value.

The 18^th century was the century of light. A steam engine appeared. Galilei, Copernic declared that the earth is round and its orbit is round the sun. The “human right” which was mentioned in the American declaration of independence was the foundation of a Jurisdiction State. In 1789, the French revolution erased the structure of feudal society and declared the concepts such as freedom, equality and humanity …

France is the glorious origin of human right, freedom, equality and humanity. However, that was what they said. What they did was the law “survival of the fittest”. France was invaders and rulers in Vietnam, wasn’t it?

What else? It’s America. It is the origin of human right as well. It released bombs on Vietnamese grounds, rivers and mountains for the sake of international strategy in the world ruling. Your country had to suffer.

What a savage and cruel life! The more we study history the more we are fed up with human …

We love each other. Our love will soften the “historical wound” and prove that the human of all nations would like to have a friendship with each other and affection for each other but not hatred …

Lu was proceeding by trial and error in Li Da’s “reasoning labyrinth”. He appeared to understand something which was higher and deeper behind the sensual love in the relationship between him and Li Da.

Lu became more thoughtful and unruffled …

Date …

It was in the airport of Tessate capital. Mrs. Vinh and Lu were like a cat on hot bricks. Li Da helped them keep calm with putting their minds at ease. The sky was clear and the sun was bright. Mrs. Vinh Looked up and saw the boeing which were crowdedly landing on and taking off.

It had been eight years since the date Mrs. Vinh left her husband and Lu saw his father the last time. That was the period Mr. Vinh served his sentence in a prison camp in a mountain area. He had started his mandarin career since he was over 25. He always played the role of the people’s parents. Then, the time when he himself had to plant manioc and vegetables had come. He had to sleep on cement bed and use banana leaves as a blanket. He eat no tablet whenever getting sick. He had to try his best to overcome the illness. There were 3.000 days within eight years. How long! He assumed to spend his whole life in the prison. Such punishment seemed to be enough for him. The new liberation area had been consolidated and became firm without worrying about disturbances after eight years. The order of an autocratic institution which was extremely close was established. The prisoners had beginning to feel their age. They remained neither energy nor hostile ability. Therefore, they were released as persons who had finished their “re-education”. That was the winner’s humanitarian policy. The event that the winners took off the heads of the losers was the same old story in the history. Different kettle of fish, the imprisonment was used instead due to nothing but the concern about rebellion. Nobody should be after all blamed … American Ally let “Republican Vietnam” alone to fall into the hands of Vietcong. That was the necessary condition of an “international strategy” with no place for “sentiment” despite the fact that American had to care for the “moral” aspect of the question when Vietnamese people had worked in American domination machinery for 20 years.

All the military officers and big wheels working for the old government in Saigon were listed in H.O. condition after being released from prisons. H.O which was the abbreviation of some word meant the immigration into America. With all the papers in order issued by Vietnamese and American governments, they took the flight departing from Tan Son Nhat airport …

Mrs. Vinh and Lu were standing close to the barrier in the waiting room. The guests who had just gotten out of the boeing started proceeding the procedures to enter a country at the relevant booths.

-       My dear Vinh! My dear Vinh! – Mrs. Vinh burst into tears.

The man with his hoary head raised his hand and weaved. Wearing a grey suite, his manner looked elegant. It wasn’t suitable at all for him to dress the clothes he had put on at the car station near the mountain prison camp in order to attend such a rich American country. Both quickly recognized each other in spite of eight years interruption of meeting and many changes of appearance.

He had a peaceful bearing just like a professor. The image of “a District chief”, “a Vice Provincial chief” appeared right after the tie was knotted and he was putting his steps on the red carpet in the so-called international airport. It was extremely different with the image of “the cloddish old man” whom the bicycle rickshaw driver of former times suggested: we can meet the cheap women of easy virtue at the back door of Spring Field market with a dime only.

While crying as much as she could, Mrs. Vinh embraced her husband so tight that he had to unfasten her arms with force in order to take Lu and Li Da in his arms.

-       This is my closest steady – Lu introduced.

Mr. H.O’s luggage was nothing but a small suitcase. That was alright. He had left four fifth of his life which was glorious and bitter and the spiritual property of an “indomitable family” in his native soil. He looked for a leisurely life and enjoyed the landscape there, a foreign country. What a great blessing when he still be able to have a happy ending like that!

The curious American people looked bewildered when they inquisitively viewed the “crying scenery” in the meeting after the war. Like the American soldiers coming back from European battlefields after the Second World War, they clasped their mothers, wives and children and wept buckets at the airports and harbors … as well.

They wondered why such scenes still happened up to then. Would the views like that never disappear in the history of mankind?

Getting in the Camry, Li Da drove them from the airport to their house. As a “bystander”, she had least emotion. The neighbors surrounding the Yellow Pine Garden recognized the bright lighted lamps and the noises of speaking and smiling in the Annamite house in that evening. Lu opened a bottle of champagne. A detonation liked a sound of signal fire which opened a new life after eight years of waiting. They had then reached the summit of their hopes.

It was the first night Mrs. Vinh shared a bed with her husband in her comfortable room. Her tears wetted the pillow. They were embracing and fondling each other on their sleep wear as they didn’t want to feel their destitute old-age complexion. That was a psychological love. Their carnal desire was no longer existent.

… Some months later since the date Mr. Vinh lived in Texas, a small flower bed appeared in the center of the precinct of Lu’s house in the Yellow Pine Garden. Those fine roses were multicolor: red, yellow, white, pinkish … Duc Vinh and his wife took care of them and enjoyed their beauty every morning and afternoon. Duc Vinh sometimes picked the most beautiful flowers which began to open and offered them to their neighbors who accidentally passed by …

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