24

Date …

A Beauty Queen hotel was located on Nguyen Chi Thanh two-way boulevard which had a strip of land planted with flowers in the middle. That was a huge building with “super-modern” style including the panes of light blue glasses, the walls tiled granite and the row of flagpoles which represented many countries fluttering in the wind and expressed the color of international tourists …

Hanoi was built as large as 240 thousands inhabitants could live under the French domination. Therefore, it was only a small area whose streets were in the shade and the villas were at both sides of the roads. The population in Hanoi was then increased up to three or four millions people huddling into slum dwellings with streets formed automatically and houses built without getting any permission from local authorities or even without having any path leading to so-called houses … By way of consequence, the city was brusquely enlarged. It looked unorganized, dilapidated and extraordinary because of lacking the capital to properly extend construction as well as the mentality to mark the boundaries of the city. The habits and customs of the villages and provincial people were applied to the conditions in Hanoi by the “planners” who hadn’t known to think of a large two-way boulevard with a strip of flower garden in the middle of it at the first time till the reform period and international integration were started, the economy was developed. That had been counted as the most beautiful road up to then.

On the avenue, the Beauty Queen hotel had a front position which was called “the golden co-ordinate” in the city. The strangest thing was that it had been begun construction since its ground was the municipal refuse tip where the laborers establishing “a venture housing area” had occupied and built blocks of four-class houses, squat or short-lived market. A ridiculous saying was raised: The customers would later on travel to the hotel by ox carts and delivery tricycle as there hadn’t got any lane for cars yet.

Then, the event that the clearance of the above mentioned venture housing area and short-lived market were carried out to give up their ground to a spacious two-way thoroughfare passing by the hotel when the 8^th floor of the hotel was formed made the mundane people surprised.

What a smart hotel owner! He bought the dirty-cheap land where “the venture housing area”, short-lived market and four-class houses full of mud and puddles were located at his own expense. Then, the purchase price of the ground appeared to increase almost a thousand times right after the avenue was opened. How he could know the boulevard was going to build there in advance.

Thieu smiled with pleasure. It was rumored that a “general” coming from Soviet Union brought a lot of money with him to there and built the hotel. It was impossible for a civilian but a “general” to have such big amount like that …

Standing on the high floor and seeing from the air, Thieu viewed the thoroughfare where streams of people and vehicles were running with a heavy traffic. That was an image of a modern street which met the international standards like one of the roads in Moscow. The hotel also met the international standards and contained an international space. Good gracious! Nobody expected that he was a joint chairman of Board of directors controlling that hotel. He had never dreamed of having such future even in his sleep when he was still wandering on the streets in Moscow to trade jeans and T-shirts not long ago, but then …

What a wonderful change!

It could be accounted mysterious to know about how Thieu was able to be an owner of that two-owner hotel located on the most monumental street in Hanoi. Thieu carefully kept his mountains of money without knowing what to do when he had just come back Hanoi. Fortunately, he by accident met Phuong Lien – his classmate in the school-time. Lien had already got married as well but she had forsaken her husband before doing business in Germany. She came back Vietnam when she had a remarkable capital. However, the key important thing was that Lien’s father used to be a deputy minister like Thieu’s one and then he was promoted to higher position which was in charge of upgrading infrastructure and expanding traffic network. With the advantage of her father’s contemporary title as well as her intelligence and relationships, Lien still couldn’t “make any big deal” due to the undercapitalized reason. Therefore, Thieu turned out to be her solution.

A road which met the international standards became necessary when the country was reformed and developed. As a matter of course, a boulevard like that which was implemented by the foreign source of capital ODA was mentioned in the scheme map. Lien got that information from her daddy. Actually, her dad firmly followed “the doctrine of revolutionary hero” and “self-sacrifice for the people” without seeking any profit. He considered his work above everything. His information about the scheme map was worth golden value at that time. Nobody, even the press could know anything about the scheme map. Meanwhile, Lien had soon “winkled” information since when the idea of opening the avenue was still in its embryonic stage. Lien was a typical character of Vietnam “red capitalist” class which was born in the process of investing and developing the business of foreign companies in Vietnam. Lien was a beneficiary due to her “close relationship” with powerful circle which could help Lien with earning property. Thieu was quite lucky to have Lien as his co-operator.

What a poor Hanoi in whose houses hadn’t got the way to lead! “The houses whose fronts looked the streets” there appeared to be lucrative assets beyond price. Thieu and Lien had had the front of their dreamlike hotel looked the boulevard. Meanwhile, the foreigners had to invest some tens of millions dollars if they wanted to develop that industry there.

That was Thieu’s unexpected “promotion”. His good fortune was on the up-and-up. Satisfying with Thieu’s behaviors, Lien’s father gave other grades of the civil service the okay to receive Thieu as a Deputy General before he became a General Manager A.M.E – an organization which was in charge of traffic Development Project and the process of releasing billions of dollars from foreign source of capital ODA – a deferred loan.

Phuong Lien was the person who named the hotel Beauty Queen which was directly operated by her. Lien was interested in hotel business. Thieu was too in spite of the fac that he was the joint chairman of Board of directors only. He could apply his “ideas”, aesthetic taste and style of playing the whore of all kinds at his will and pleasure … .All of a sudden, Thieu and Phuong Lien were in agreement with one another like that. They absolutely respected, co-operated and united each other for the common sake of themselves …

… “The owner first and the customers later”, Thieu was performing a rehearsal of guess receiving on that day. Thieu was playing a role of a customer who dropped into the Beauty Queen hotel for spending a night. Like a Royal gentleman-at-arms officer, the doorkeeper in white uniform with a kepi hemming silver lamé on his head approached the car and professionally opened its doors while Thieu’s BMW was slowly moving its wheels to the doors. A waitress who was tall, with a fair complexion, a plump-body and a happy face in short skirt showing her bare legs was smiling and welcoming the guest before guiding him to Reception booth.

It had taken Thieu for months to recruit such the waitress standing at the threshold of a door to receive customers. According to his point of view, she would give the customers the exciting feelings right at the first minutes they arrived in there. How quite disgusted for customers with a girl who was tiny, normal and vapid with a glacial face, slightly dragged a half-smile out of her lips and embarrassedly said hello to the guests! On the contrary, all the customers’ senses would be aroused when seeing a waitress who was as fresh as a daisy, fervid, attractive and full of vitality. They would keep wishing to stay there although they did regret their money due to high cost of the hired rooms. Thieu discovered Tuong Van, his ideal girl whose image could be considered as a symbol of the Beauty Queen hotel. She received twice salary in comparison with other staffs. She was not only paid for her work but also her tall stature, fair complexion, fresh smiles and bright face by nature. Nobody but Tuong Van was allocated and used a certain type of typical French perfume so that any customers could taste a special attractive fragrance mixing with the smell of the virtue bud’s skin as well when they appeared to present at the hotel.

Thieu thoroughly had a professional waitress staff which specialized in careful performance of their duty toward the open-handed customers. Waitresses would lead the guests into their room, infuse tea, prepare their drink, turn the taps on to let the water out off the bath-tubs and drop in the wash-basins, give face-flannels to them and linger there some minutes in order to deliver a few courtesy conversations so that the customers would perceive the warm feelings of being cared. There was a “superexcellent” dance group in the Beauty Queen hotel. With 1000 dollars, the special guests like the great names of business industry could alone have wine while a whole flock of fairies were dancing around him. The clothes on those dancers were intentionally slipped off their bodies one by one in accordance with every shift of rhythms and by the way of consequence, the nude shows would have never stopped till there was nothing but suites of bikini on their figure. Enjoying the surrounding tall plump spotless white bodies, he could experience and fondle the shoulders of them from waitress to waitress if he disbursed more money. At last, the “standard” price would be fixed for him if he wanted to go to bed with his chosen girl. In case he wanted to sleep with two or three girls at the same time, it would be alright as well but he had to pay the according “coefficient” 2 or 3 or up.

No one but “Chinese Emperor” could think out such an item which it was surely confirmed that there wasn’t any international hotel in European countries and American could have due to the very high service price.

It could be accounted extremely cheap for billionaires to get such a “fun” like that. 1000 dollars were of no avail. People heard on the grapevine that in Washington, it cost 1000 dollars for one person just to spend one night in the White House. That meant he could lose a thousand dollars within a night of doing nothing but closing his eyes and sinking deep in a sleep or a dream in which it wasn’t sure that he could become a president. What a quite expensive price! It could be counted as a big gap in “comfortable” inferior to the nude dance team in the Beauty Queen hotel.

Thieu emptied his pockets of their contents to build the hotel in cooperation with Lien Phuong. Besides, he had to borrow with interest from the bank in order to have enough capital which could make the hotel finished. It was accounted synonymous with the event that Thieu was a penniless person at that moment. He was not only a “poor” guy but also a debtor. Revoking capital invested in the hotel construction was the future thing. The daily profits were used as the funs to keep running the hotel and pay salaries. To settle the contemporary condition, Thieu had to make money by taking advantage of his title, A.M.E General Manager whose company specialized in building traffic infrastructure. The mechanism of “asking – giving” in the subsidization period created 101 ways of getting money. Thieu had set up a network which was closed, synchronous and safe whenever misappropriating the state expenses. All his second-in-commands and chief accountant were members of his gang. The corrupt amount would be divided among them and of course, Thieu’s part was always the biggest one.

Several ten thousands dollars were “buried” in accordance with every overland kilometer. The longer the road was the much money was buried. How people could count the money once it was “buried”. So much money would be left in excess once every part of construction materials was appropriated, some stage of technical standards was missed and the quality of construction materials was downgraded … Nobody but his team including persons from supervisors, check-takers upon deliveries to project managers … that “were in cahoots with one another” and were in collusion with each other for sharing the corrupt amount.

All the big wheels from the project managers, chiefs of management board, project economic and technical appraisement consultants to the whole members of a department which financed all the expenses and its capital important person was Viet Thieu had closed the line of stealing the money from the state and sharing those corrupt amounts. The more projects were implemented the more money they had. The State had to implicitly accept the rate of loss from 15% to 30% or even 50%. Let’s said 15%, 15 out of 100 millions dollars invested in the project would be fallen into the hands of “closed line”. As a General Manager of an A.M.E company, Thieu looked like a conductor of an orchestra who was supplying concrete guidance in playing a song “steal the money from the State” year after year. With no weak spot in the records which were adequate and close, nothing was happened. All the project technical data were approved by all relevant levels of government. All the technical assessments and economic and scientific appraisements were orderly prepared. All the steps of inviting to tender was done in compliance with the process. The winner of the bids legally played their roles. In many cases, “the green and red pawns” had been arranged to perform a play named a tender whose winner himself was a holder of several official positions such as a “designer” or a “coordinator” of the whole building project since the first minutes when the project was developed.

The contractor had to downgrade several technical standards to misappropriate 15% of the total value of the project. That amount which was “the loss of the State” would be divided among their line.

By the way of consequences, the money would be shared among whoever taking part in the project no matter how low quality “the road” was. The whole “line” would live on the structure of the street.

Date …

Thieu drove the old Toyota whose paint was rubbed off to Do Son. A “High Official of the State” was sitting in the car. He was a prime-minister who played a capital important role in Thieu’s business. Both teacher and student were “traveling incognito”. The “High Official of the State” was disguising himself as a carpenter who was in a soft large shirt and mica sun-glasses with a sun-helmet on his head and a bag carrying a farmer’s pipe and a box of pipe tobacco on his hand. Thieu was also disguising himself as an ill-mannered brick-maker with whom nobody wanted to keep in touch.

“As a woman of easy virtue in everywhere but a wife in one place”, Thieu set his serious manner in the Beauty Queen hotel as an exemplary owner without performing any “playfully teasing” behavior in spite of dozens of beautiful waitresses. Meanwhile, the “High Official of the State” didn’t dare to “satisfy his sexual desire” because he was scared of anything would happen in the circumstance that he was living in Hanoi where was “near the sun”. Therefore, the teacher and student disguised themselves and traveled to Do Son to look for a “dark corner” and played the whore.

-       “A den of vice” is established in every country – the High Official of the State raised his opinion – The flesh-pots will meet an indispensable demand in our life. There but not any other places, the concessionary regulations which go beyond the rules of the law are specially applied. In United State of America, gamble is freely performed in Las Vegas. The same place is Macao in China and in Vietnam, a “resplendent capital” or this “vale of good-time girls” is spontaneously formed in Do Son.

-       In Netherlands, the so-called place is named a red light street in Amsterdam – Thieu added – there is a girl with nothing on but a suit of bikini sitting below the halo of the light in every window of the shop. The passers-by can observe her at their will and pleasure as though she is a manequin who can be fat, thin, slim, small or even as big and rough as a female elephant with the breasts as large as Mundial balls. Their figures are of all kinds. Anyone can choose and meet any of them as well. They can do anything in the room of window after lowering the blind to avoid the passers-by’s sight. The curtain is considered as a signal of a deal which is finished when the window is uncovered.

-       I have known everything clearly. It’s not necessary for you to “teach” or make boast of it. I myself had already been there a whole day on the occasion of making a business visit to European countries. The special zones of red light are built not only in Amsterdam but also in Paris, London and New York.

-       However, you mayn’t have known one event which I had experienced. In Amsterdam, everybody will get free of charge as a promotion gift whenever he wants to whore if his sex organ is as long as 20 centimeters.

-       I had already tried even that event. But I couldn’t win anything as my property is 15 centimeters only.

-       In general, no place is as good and cheap as Do Son in our country. According to my calculation, I had to spend 350 Spanish dollars for one time in Madrid. That amount which is equivalent to 5 millions Vietnamese dongs can give me 50 times in Do Son where the cost is just 100 thousands Vietnamese dongs only.

-       Those girls are foreign products whose complexion is soft white while our local goods own “Indochinese” skin whose color is leaden. How you can make a comparison.

-       It’s not sure that every “foreign girls” have silky and white skin. Their complexion can be counted as “skin with big pores” which cause lumpy spots and aren’t smooth at all. We can get girls whose “Asian skin” is as silky and white as all white Chinese paper if we spend time in selecting. Such women look more attractive. The skin is second only to the figure. Meanwhile, the face can be considered in term of the next rank. It’s unnecessary for us to have a full fastidiousness because we don’t choose a wife. Our most favorite is that we can feel pleasant to the touch. You can set your mind at rest as the “check” will be happened in the person of me during the time we are going to stay here so that you can enjoy the girls whose Asian complexion is the most beautiful one. In Do Son, there are several thousands prostitutes whose average age is from 18 to 30 and thus we can be spoilt for choice. How can you have enough money to win the right to make such selection if you are in the red light streets in Amsterdam, Paris, London or New York?

My plan is as follow: You will feel the breasts of ten girls within three days staying here. Even when you are extremely infatuated with sex, you mustn’t “have carnal knowledge of anyone” but touch and see their beauty, otherwise you will lose your desire to feel all the 10 women. In case you “perform your action”, you will be tired and you will no longer covet anything. You will do nothing but see and touch. How good you are!

-       Ok! I will follow your arrangement!

A common “Country-field Garden” mini hotel was built in the boarding-house area where the customers hired before bathing in the sea. All the swimmers in a state of nature kept coming in and out all the time without paying any attention to anyone.

Thieu took the whole hotel on the lease. Nobody but both of them can enter that hotel. It was 9 o’clock in the morning. The “brick-maker” got in the Toyota and started “setting out” while all the excursionists were at sea. None of the policemen wanted to check such a guy in a soldier’s hat, rubber slippers and a soft large shirt dull with grime like him. He looked like a dishonest or crack-brained fellow who would be ready to pick a quarrel with everyone in order to be as a protest. There were several small centers in Do Son could compare with the red light street in Amsterdam. There were blocks of houses with the plates “pleasure-house”. The “permanent” staff was always at the door and ready to give a warm welcome: “Drop into my house for some drink”. Some drink there would be automatically understood what to do. The permanent person could be either a boy or a girl in two-string shirt showing the upper half of her breasts and her thighs. She had a golden hair and eyelids applied red color. She looked so voluptuous that some man would have to smack his tongue and call at her place as well whenever passing by despite such activity hadn’t scheduled in his plan …

Thieu was strolling at leisure. Viewing his way of walking, nobody wanted to waste their breath to make any invitation. That was what he wanted since he would have never been bothered. In “Fairy Mountain”, a permanent woman who was tall, big and fat in a short shirt showing her armpits and a pair of trouser legs rolled up as high as the upper parts of her knees had attracted Thieu’s attention. Her limbs were imposing. Her complexion was fair and silky. She looked desirable. He decided to see her. Such middle-aged woman brought Thieu to the living room with alacrity and served him some drink. Thieu crushed her corpulent biceps with fingers and gave her a tickle.

-       You are so bulky and portly. What kind of food are you eating everyday?

-       There are young girls in the house.

-       Oh, no! I like big corpulent middle-aged woman.

She smiled:

-       I am just a help who stands there to receive guests.

-       That makes me like you.

-       I’m an old woman.

-       Never mind! Let’s come in the room! – Thieu ordered.

The woman was indisposed to follow him. Croak! A sound was raised when Thieu pulled the elastic upper hem of a pair of her trousers down. Her plump stomach looked like a pile of finest flour. Her complexion was quite nice. A couple of her immaculate white rears were as big as a pair of floats. Thieu pillowed his head on her thighs which looked like the columns of a temple and were as soft as a cotton cushion.

-       Don’t throw off your shirt in a hurry. Pretend to be a boorish woman whom a scoundrel is going to slip off her trousers and sexually assault.

She laughed and obtained complete satisfaction:

-       The 18-year-old girls can’t hold a candle to me. Let you suck my breasts …

Thieu didn’t do anything on his clothes but tore her thin shirt before slipping his head in her breasts as if he was a child who was sucking his mom. He had to use his both hands to cover her single breast. He was extremely happy. Then, he strongly gave her a clap on her rear after he had been fondling her for a while:

-       Finish! Put on your clothes!

She smiled:

-       Is that all? Don’t you do anything else?

-       No, I don’t.

-       You “rub me up the wrong way” … it will be similar to a mouse’s tail stirring a bottle of grease if your thing was pinned in my thing.

Thieu repeatedly nodded out of satisfaction:

-       You are rather good. Here is the money. I give it to you as a reward. Now, you come out and get in my car. I will send you to “Country-field Garden” pleasure-house on X Street so that my friend can experience your figure. You will repeat what you have just done. One more time, you play the part named “a cloddish woman” whom a robber is going to slip off her trousers and sexually assault. It’s just a pretended action. It’s not a true violation. You won’t have any sexual relations with him but play a drama and we all have fun. That’s all. And we will give you money again.

-       It’s accounted really damned “uncomfortable”. It had better for me not to pretend at all.

-       No!

-       Before getting in the car, the woman brought with her one extra suite of clothes just in case when the ones she was wearing were torn in the process of “play-acting”.

-       Latter on, you take a motorbike taxi to go home when you finish work as nobody meet and see you off – Thieu reminded – Once serving the “rustic carpenter”, if he asks you about the situation of your family, you must say: “I can’t afford to earn enough 200 thousands a month in spite of doing field work all year round. Meanwhile, I can have fun without getting tired at all when I’m here. I’m very happy as I can make 200 thousands within an hour only. We can help you with “relaxation”. In the old days, how people could be so easy like this. Anybody who slept around would be fastened against the raft and float on the river. How base the feudal system was when the event that the couples gave each other their “precious things” had no relationship with it but it kept accusing them of heinous crime. What a happy life in modern society! I love this way of living. I have a great pleasure. I can earn money to build a house with a mezzanine. There is no need to lead a “moral” life in poor condition.

Thieu was afraid that she would weep and sniff noisily: She had to live in want. Her children were suffering hunger and she had to feel ashamed to choose that mean of earning money for the life of her old mother. By way of consequences, the “love for country and people” in the blood of the “High Official of the State” would be aroused and the joy will be disturbed due to his worry. Therefore, he requested her to make clear the “point of view” like that …

… On the second day of their “entertainment”, Thieu invented another “game”. He visited the “Light” country-seat. As an “infinite”, he entered. The female owner’s smile was quite cheerful. The Most High raised his demand:

-       Can you bring here 10 girls?

-       10?

-       Yes! I will give you a triple price.

Her eyes lighted up:

-       We have already had three ones here. I will call other 7 ones from other restaurants.

-       Hurry up! All must be the young ones! Remember!

She returned her desk and made 7 phone calls: Hello! Is it Weeping Willow restaurant? … The Sea in Remembrance … Milky Way … Violet Dress …

… 10 minutes later, all the girls arrived in succession for the meeting hall. The colors of their shirts were violet, blue, pink … . Their figures were tall, short, charming and fragile. Their complexions were pale white, tan …

Thieu was sitting on the sofa while those 10 young women were standing in arc line-up.

-       We will perform as though we are taking part in a “beauty” contest.

-       Yes, sir!

-       Well! All of you! Slip off your trousers!

-       Will we throw off our trousers first?

-       Yes, you will.

-       How special you are!

The 10 jeans were unbound the buttons showing 10 pairs of outstanding thighs. They were of all kinds such as tapering, chubby, straight, long or thin …

-       Take your upper covers off!

The 10 shirts were unbound the buttons and the hooks of their undershirts were unfastened showing 10 pairs of superb breasts of all kinds. They were long or full. They looked like round white rice-cakes or goat’s horns. The colors of their teats were pink, brown or black …

-       About turn!

The pairs of outstanding rears were in front of Thieu. He became a tenderfoot trainer.

-       That’s all right! Stop the show! Come here and sit on the bed.

Frankly speaking, there were only several nice ones among 10 girls. It was assumed that nobody but “rather beautiful” ones dared to be women of easy virtue. It was totally wrong. On the contrary, there were many persons who were extremely ugly despite the fact that they have enough necessary organs. However, such parts were counted as nothing. It was really unusual to meet a well physical appearance girl. Thieu had made an observation when he swam in the sea and he realized that most of the women there were unsightly. By the same token, it wasn’t easy at all to collect enough 10 beautiful girls in order to dance in the nude round the “High Official of the State”.

Thieu pulled out a handful of loose change and tossed them. The gang of girls fought over them. They stretched their hands to catch the money as if the small notes were the dead leaves. Their performance on tiptoes was just like the activities of picking flowers and catching butterflies. They amused themselves, smiled, weighed down on each other and hopped while their breasts, thighs and groins were unclothed. Only a few people had chances to experience that view under the sun. Thieu recalled how the Western bourgeois exceeded the limits in the foreign film. Some guy sat on the cart while four naked girls pulled and pushed round lake. The Chinese feudality whose men and women couldn’t touch each other was counterfeit virtue. In the olden times, tens of nude girls took a shower with their customers in a bathroom in the house of prostitution. Generally, from the East to the West, from ancient times to the present, from the feudal systems to the capitalists, it was not strange at all for the whole mankind to have the same type of playing the whore like that and that game wasn’t accounted new in Do Son. People said that there were four women with nothing on surrounding the king Tu Duc whenever he went to bed …

Thieu pushed, touched and played rough tricks with them to the point of satiety despite he was still correctly dressed.

They had been joyful for an hour and a boring atmosphere appeared. He couldn’t think out any game stranger and thus that game turned out to be the most dissolute. The game became trite with repetition. The non-stop interest would never last long. Thieu asked them to put on the clothes. He tenderly gave them light ears before rewarding money to them. Then, they parted …

Date …

It was Sunday in the morning. I arrived in the Quiet Poplar Garden Resort. There weren’t many visitors there. A group of students were taking a stroll along the bank of the lake. A couple of Western backpacker was having sightseeing in the countryside block of ancient houses. A flock of children was playing Ferris wheel …

Hai Yen was sitting in front of her laptop when I entered the office:

-       Oh! My God! Trung! You see! – Yen pointed at the screen of the computer while her face was green-white as a sheet.

-       What?

-       Thieu has already been captured by the police.

I was motionless for a while. The line of terrible letters mentioning the new on the web-side was flickering. The press described some streets which belonged to A. M. E’s responsibility. They had much depression and many cracks as though the earthquake had just happened. After the investigation was taken place, the result was reported: The road-beds weren’t constructed in accordance with the technical standards because part of the material was appropriated. The deceit was so obvious that a bamboo stake appeared in stead of a bar of iron when the buffalo banged its head against a post of barrier in somewhere by accident. Several bridges built by A. M. E were broken within a short time. Those above mentioned events brought the inspection to A. M. E and the ring of high caliber corruption which caused the loss cost tens of millions dollars was discovered. The money had been shared among the relevant grades of the civil service. The key person of the case was Nguyen Viet Thieu who bore the main duty. That was a serious affair which was announced on the press and aroused a wave of indignation among the people when the misappropriation had become one of national catastrophes in the structure of the contemporary society. That case was counted as a typical one which needed to go on justified trial as a warning to others …

I and Hai Yen were dumfounded when looking at each other:

-       Everything is clear and nothing was worth suspecting. Have you seen Thieu recently?

-       He came here three months ago. We exchanged some conversation with each other. However, we seemed to have neither relationship nor sentiments towards each other any more. His image no longer exists in my “mind” and vice versa. My image no longer exists in his “mind”. We had had our own ways of living since the date we parted in Moscow.

-       I see that he has become another person since he set up house in Vietnam. He ran in the circle of “economic government officials” with absorbed interest. He was victorious, satisfied and vainglorious due to his great power and high status – The General Director of the company whose projects cost hundreds of millions dollars. The turkey-cock like him considered himself as a very important person. He became high-ranking leaders’ close person. He was egocentric and impervious to reason … . The current structure gave him a chance to earn even a million dollars like a knife through butter. By way of consequences, he turned out to be so subjective that he counted himself as a quite extraordinary person whom the “Creator” made present on earth. The money and the power made him bewitched. Within a few years, he entered the upper strata. According to my opinion, his today result was unavoidable. How he could easily steal the Government budget like that. I think he has the strength of will. He is active and courageous. He has a manner which gives enough ability to undertake the great work. What a pity! His car didn’t have a “brake” so that he was sent to the abyss. I know of what to scare despite I am accounted “stupid”. One time, I had mentioned my worry towards his business when we discussed about Viet Thanh’s study of information technology in America. However, he didn’t listen. He was taking advantage of the victory to advance so that he thought he was a “small God” …

-       I have understood Thieu since we were still serving in the army. He is quite a person of extraordinary characteristic which can help him with an important position. Once he wants to do anything, he will do it at all cost. During war time, he was terribly brave and strong. In Soviet Union, such manner was clearly performed when he dared to do business with Russian mafia. In Vietnam, the gap between I and Thieu became bigger. He was not only a “mandarin”, a member of “upper class” but also rich so that he “forgot” me at times no matter we always shook hands, rejoiced greatly and regaled each other with wine or beer whenever meeting. But, he would forget me right after turning on his heels. I had to “sympathize” with him due to his busy. On the other hand, the position in society between I and Thieu – “a high-ranking mandarin” – was a very big gap. Therefore, I didn’t want to get close to him due to my complex. Our friendship has existed from the time we were at the battlefield to the period we traded jeans and T-shirts in Russia. But then, there was a big difference in status between us. I hadn’t “been in sulks” at all. Thieu had after all done his vital forces in making money. He was in a “favorable position”. He was finding a golden opportunity. His star was in the ascendant like a kite. He was so engrossed in collecting so much money that he ignored everything. The money corrupted the human’s morals.

-       Now, nobody can help him.

-       Actually, he didn’t take all the amount of corruption but divided among his “ring” such as the members of financier, the constructor, the organization which checked and took over the works … and the whole gang of “closed” ring.

Beside, nobody acknowledged receipt of taking money by signing his or her name and hence no evidence was showed while the case will be considered basing on the proof and the data. Other people won’t be involved even when he made any statement because there was no witness …

-       Why don’t the names who “shared” the money with him save him?

-       Once everything has been in open, nobody can save him even if they wanted to. This side knocks out another side. This ring exterminates the other one. Everyone has no way to escape but the death once the ring was discovered. Moreover, the people who used to share money with Thieu want Thieu to expiate all their crime and push him down into a chasm so that the traces of their crime would be destroyed.

-       How savage and cruel they are!

-       That’s life. Don’t be innocent. Money is a demon which can do everything encompassing the most inhumane things.

-       What kind of punishment will Thieu receive?

-       The embezzlements of national property have made our people extremely indignant and distrustful of leaders since the reform policy was carried out and caused the economic development. Therefore, the government had to call upon everybody to take part in the fight against corruption to restore the public confidence. Who are corruptors? Nobody else but persons who were in high position have chance to misappropriate. And the riff-raff can only “embezzle” nothing but several bulbs of sweet potatoes in their houses. The Thieu’s case will be counted as a concretely typical trial which must be hardly chastised in order to soften the masses. Let’s say China, a whole ring of big wheels received a death sentence. The government made an example of them so as to make the people satisfied to their hearts’ content.

-       The unit of Thieu’s corruption amount was millions dollars which was an extreme big figure in our country …

-       On the other hand, the corruption amount was taken from the source of ODA capital loaned by foreign countries. Thieu’s action makes governments of the loan-countries unconfident and the source of ODA capital reducible. By way of consequences, Thieu’s guilt is going to become much more serious. He is going to be accused of compromising our country. How he can be spared …

Hai Yen looked haggard. Anyway, they used to have some period of living in sin and have a son who is studying information technology in United State of America no matter they no longer have either sentimental or economic relationship. They had spontaneously parted as friends and they didn’t feel hostility towards each other.

I, Yen and Mr. Van (Thieu’s father) – The retired Undersecretary of state for Ministry of Industry – visited all the “government agencies” to “study” Thieu’s condition. To be honest, we tried to “save” him. We didn’t know how to “save” him but our set target is to “help” him with the escape from his crime or the mitigation of the punishment. Thieu alone stayed in a magnificent villa on a newly built road named Pham Hung for a long time. The “beautiful young girls” are of course coming in and out in great number. According to what Thieu’s old hired woman had informed, Thieu was taken up by the police at half past seven in the morning last Tuesday just at the moment when Thieu was starting the engine of his Lexus and was preparing to go to work. Thieu was still a chairman of a meeting organized by “the Prevention of corruption Board” which was established by head of company A. M. E last Monday. As the General Manager, he concurrently held the title Board leader who had just launched an emulation campaign to prevent the embezzlements of public property in his company. On the contrary, the Board leader himself was captured on Tuesday in the morning. The file long since recorded Thieu’s crimes was as thick as a span. Thieu hadn’t received any warning or his nerves of steel were so strong that he ignored all the advices. Thieu believed that his ring was so closed that it hadn’t got any loophole and nobody could or dare to interfere in his business. Many big wheels gained their interest from his activities which could make everybody but not Thieu himself “dead” if they were exposed. What Thieu would lose could be accounted less than what “they” would lose for their positions in the society were higher than Thieu’s one. By the same token, they themselves had to protect Thieu. “They” themselves had to obscure the problem in advance. Thieu hadn’t forecast the truth that a hand couldn’t afford to cover the king of day. Meanwhile, the other people were getting higher positions. Their power was stronger and they insisted on punishing him as an example to others. That event could be counted as a “decisive” battle which one side knocked out his side in the same industry and in the interdisciplinary fields. “How you dare to capture me!”. That was his saying as per his female servant told. Thieu scornfully laughed when listening to an arrest warrant which mentioned that he would be put in temporary detention issued by investigative agency. Many newspaper reporters presented there at that time. Thieu’s case soon became a “burning” question which was immediately mentioned in the papers and internet at the same time and attracted all the country. All the newspaper offices turned out to be “respected” by the whole population due to their reporters’ courageousness and fervent struggle against corruptors whom the people resented and abhorred most. The grassroots’ most favorite was the event that the corruptors were “beheaded”. That made the masses satisfied to their hearts’ content. Corruptive offence was exaggerated ten times as serious as the truth. Some sorts of magazines and newspaper had delivered pure fabrications or inflated the importance of an event as well. Thieu’s case had become a social question and a great landmark marked the State’s determination to prevent the embezzlements of public property. That was also very forceful evidence which was concretely produced …

Thieu’s crime was then a symbol of social negativity which nobody dared to speak in support of him.

Mr. Van, Thieu’s father looked for his ex-staff who was then working in high-ranking level and was going to try Thieu for corruption. The poor daddy would like to understand the details of his son’s case as well as ask for commutation. The competence of currying his staff’s favor with a big sum of money as bribery wasn’t excluded. The junior dodged and didn’t receive his ex-boss. It wasn’t accounted “ungrateful” but the main thing was that he himself was terror-stricken due to fear as well. The spirit of fighting against corruption among the people was rising as high as a waterfall. He would be for sure removed from office if he had any connection with that case. He was too smart to avoid seeing Thieu’s father at that time. Mr. Van was hopeless. He served the revolution all his life which looked like a spotless mirror. But then, he had to face such a plight like that. He left his family and took part in revolutionary activities when he was 18 years old. He participated in seizing power in 1945. He moved to the North of Vietnam and was responsible for military weapon industry when the resistance war was broken out. He was accredited to a position of Undersecretary of state for Industry when the peace was set in 1954. The leader in the period of “living on ideal only” was as quite bright as a mirror. All their interests were a command car with a square-shaped back serving his business trips (his staffs could borrow it to carry their wives and children to the hospital in cases of emergency at times) and the standard record books named A and B Ton Dan which gave him the right to get some grams of meat, a package of Bridge River tobacco, bags of tea under the brand names such as Thong Nguyen Tam Dao, Dien Bien and Bac Thai. Those were all! He hadn’t absolutely received any “envelope” or even a dime from any organization or individual yet, let alone such and such projects with 15% peculation as a reasonable loss …

Mr. Van had devoted and “served the people” to the last minutes during his term of office. He stayed in a collective apartment Kim Lien which was not only ugly but also cramped when he retired on a pension. The father is clean-fingered and had dedicated his whole life to the revolutionary cause while his own son had stolen millions of dollars from the State …

Mr. Van was painful, shameful and brazenly entreated mandarins for “clearing his son of accusation” for the sake of blood relationship. How he could let him die. He had got no result in spite of “losing face due to crouch”. He could do nothing but sadly lament with me and Yen in the long run. After carefully collecting information for a while, I came to the following conclusion: Thieu perhaps took the highest and the most terrible punishment. To a country whose main economic element was farmer and in comparison with the people’s strenuously daily search for food, the Thieu’s corrupt amount of millions of dollars was counted as a heinous crime. Thieu had to “lay down his life” for the relief of the masses’ mind and the rehabilitation of the people’s confidence in the State.

 What I had forecasted was right: 6 months later, Thieu was sentenced to death.

Date …

In the developing countries, corruption is the “disease of all time”. Taking a look at such and such countries, we will see the terribly corruptive “achievement”. For example, the President of X country was accused of embezzling 40 billions USD or the President of Y one which was famous for its wealth was sentenced to death due to his misappropriation as well. By way of consequences, how Thieu could avoid a painful destiny in the end.

Under the pressure of public opinion, Thieu’s previous fighting achievement wasn’t taken into consideration as a factor which was used to commute his death sentence because the whole country, not excepting Thieu had struggle against the enemy and sacrificed their lives for our motherland. He was “unfaithful to soldier quality” when he performed his corruptive behavior. He was no longer a member but an enemy of the people. As a member of revolutionary organization, he had changed himself into a counter-revolutionary. By the same token, he had to be chastised. The unique privilege was granted to him during the time he stayed in the death cell was that he could receive the careful visit and feed from his kith and kin. Mr. Van, I and Hai Yen had the right to sometimes paid him a call and supplied provision. The partition made of glass separated us and thus we can only see each other and had to use headphones whenever we talked. With an “iron moral strength”, Thieu’s spirit wasn’t low so much. He still looked “balanced in his manner” and didn’t show any mental disorder. I and he didn’t talk too much but exchanged our glints which seemed to express all what we wanted to say whenever we met. Time for serving his sentence was coming. After getting approval, Thieu gave me a letter in our last meeting. I, Mr. Van and Hai Yen were reading Thieu’s letter, or rather his notes in the guest room of the retired Deputy Minister with his old furniture which belonged to him during his term of office (Mr. Van refused to all Thieu’s luxurious property):

“… I would like to receive my death. The human is nothing but a speck of dust in this universe. We present ourselves on earth for a certain period of time so as to gesticulate before turning into ashes and dust. I like someone’s poem saying about human existence:

Experiences the time my life

Like a star moving in the sky

Or a storm passing by latitudes.

As an incarnation, who am I?

I’m a speck of dust in universal nebula

Which fly this world to present myself.

My signature is identified by my fingerprint.

The rhythm of my heart harmonized with the motion of the earth and the heaven.

I look like a river whose water is the snow on the mountain,

Whose status is changed from limpid to muddy due to silt,

Whose landslide bank is sad while alluvium deposited one is happy.

Like plant, we alternately receive and lose. We are mingled, truth and falsehood between.

Like an ant, I walk

To the direction of the horizon where the delusion is blinking.

The ant seemed to shoulder the whole weighty Milky Way

With its indulgence as energy source.

I board at a life inn.

My unconscious lips perceive the time as a drink.

One day, I waked up and my dream was over.

How I am when my life is going to finish.

I would like to “return ashes and dust” before due date some years. It’s all right! Actually, a life can only exist once it is understood vaguely and relatively and is circumscribed in a certain circle so that it can be accounted “eager”, unaffected and unprejudiced. The correct sentence will be: The life is meaningless once this circle is broken and the terminal destination appears.

For what a human is born. How very spontaneous and sanguine the children are during their childhood! The youth is eager to make their way in the world. Considering the ideal as the goal, they passionately try their best to win it. They are seduced by everything including beautiful wife, intelligent children, houses, property, station and honors …

Everything turns out to be ordinary when they are old or they have all in their hands and they become indifferent to them.

I had observed “the life” of a hen when I was young. She used all her vital force to lay an egg everyday. Her oviparous action made her so thin that she looked ragged. Then, she incubated her eggs. She had kept lying in her nest without getting up for a whole month no matter her body was bitten by lice. With hunger and thirsty, she still had a non-stop incubation without spending time to go out and find anything to eat or drink. Meanwhile, she was every time searched for food by scratching garbage or soil for earthworms and pecking paddy all day long otherwise she wouldn’t be full enough. But then, she kept incubating on an empty stomach as though she was mortifying her body. One month later, the chicken hatched. She took her children to some place in order to search for food. They were happily chattering. She fiercely protected her offspring. She eagerly rushed headlong and fought against any hawk which swooped down and was going to catch her newborn babies. Whenever finding out any worm or ant, she didn’t swallow but made “chick-chick” sound to call her progenies and give it to them despite she was having a gross appetite for it.

She was still eager although she was ragged and exhausted due to incubating and feeding children. She and her offspring wouldn’t “part” till her babies were big enough to search for food by themselves. She would mercilessly give at any chicken which was still undecided and attached to her pecks which were so strong that her chickens would no longer dare to came up to her. She continued her oviparous circle within a week. The second rank was taken place. The ranks kept increasing up to the quantity of double figures. The same process went on happening till she was getting old and died …

You see! Our lives are the same. Nothing is accounted different. The life is existed due to the factor of reproductive urges which the Creator has granted to all beings.

We will optimistically live if we are unconscious, illiterate, unacquainted or uncomprehending. Everything turns out to be devoid of sense once we thoroughly understand all the things. The “Great Buddha” was dead to honors, became a monk instead of getting married and having children after they had discovered the insignificant of human existence since time immemorial. They didn’t care for delicious food and good clothes, were neither hedonistic nor voluptuous. They didn’t pay any attention to love. Beautiful girls were nothing to them. It was useless to seduce them with curiosity. It was considered more profitless to give them high position and great power. They didn’t want money but a little vegetables and soya-cakes. They kept body and soul together just on soup while they were sitting under the foot of fig tree to carry out their religious lives.

They are of highest moral value. However, the life won’t exist and develop if the whole mankind is the same to them. There aren’t any large houses but caves. There aren’t dishes such as meat, fish or delicacy … . There aren’t either cars and airplanes or ships …. There isn’t anything including firearms, tanks, cannons and rockets … (it will be accounted great blessed for our mankind if there aren’t firearms, tanks, cannons and rockets …).

The world with nothing refraining from activity won’t develop and there won’t be an industrial world like this. How there are the existences of modern cities, skyscraper buildings, undergrounds running in the earth’s womb, computers which are eerie and mysterious as though they were objects in the mythological stories with thousands of “witchcrafts” and everything would appear right after receiving an order and events such as the creation of new cells by cross-breeding and asexual reproduction which produced artificial sheep or artificial men. How civilized the mankind is! “Ignorance comes after wisdom”. They create a nuclear bomb which can burn the whole city down and have ability to destroy even the Moon. The universe will no longer have the Moon. There will be no moonlight which is the poets’ inspiration to write poems.

The more industry is developed the more life environment is destroyed beside the appearances of all kinds of goods and the manufacturing ability of all kinds of modern machinery. Among billions of billions planets, the Earth is the unique one which the Most High gives the atmosphere so that the breath process is taken place and the life can exist. However, industrial exhaust fumes are making the ozone layer thinner and thinner. Carbon dioxide is causing greenhouse effect. By way of consequences, the Earth becomes warmer. The forests step by step disappear just like a fresh lawn under the feet of hungry cows. The limpid rivers were very muddy due to the effect of acid. The event that the life on Earth will no longer exist turns out to be indispensable. Is there any solution to save it? The Earth will also be exploded and becomes a cloud of nebulosity dust within several millions years more even when the environment is protected. The lights of the King of day will be out itself once the solar energy is run out. By the same token, the mankind turns out not to be permanent and I will have to go to the next world as well. Therefore, I don’t feel remorse at all as everybody will also be gathered to Buddha in the end, sooner or later. The whole mankind has to “launch into eternity” in the long run.

It’s funny and I’m happy. I don’t feel sad or worry at all. My fear was over. Now, I am as “cool” as a cucumber …

… I was born in a peasant family in a poor village. My father had to search for food by groping for crabs, picking shell-fish, hunting green grasshoppers and catching locusts. One day, an idea flashed upon him: why I have to be so miserable like this. I have to overthrow the wealthy and take back the property getting from the exploitation of people like me.

He staged a revolution. Although he was committed to prison and the chains made the skin of his four climbs ulcerated, he was still sanguine. His absolute belief helped him with the survival after getting terrible thrashings. He became “mandarin” which was renamed “the people’s servant” when revolution won its complete victory. He was accredited to the Deputy Minister of Industry no matter the reason why the car could automatically move or the plane could fly on the sky was beyond his comprehension. Just ignored everything, he kept receiving his position as the Undersecretary of state for Industry. Then, he nearly won the post of Minister …

When I grew up, he set his “good example” by firstly appointing me to a battle-field to fight against the enemy instead of sending me to school in order to study how to manufacture cars or planes.

At the front, I was intrepidly calm. I was afraid of neither lethal weapons nor the death like my father who didn’t scare of being tortured. I was utterly dedicated to struggle. I spontaneously fell upon the enemy in the most dangerous places. Let’s say Sanh mountain creek – the reaper valley where my combat unit measured our strength against American soldiers day after day and month after month. Shells and bombs were rained and appeared everyday like the sun. I lived in either the rain or the sun as though I was going out in either the bombs or the shells. I silently poured the B40 cannons which looked like banana inflorescent on the enemy’s tanks. The whole block of iron and steel was blazed up just like a plastic toy despite its great dimension was as huge as a dinosaur. What a spectacular sight! We won the victory in Sanh canyon like a legend. The whole American most modern war industry in the world was the second to the soldiers in a country where the make of even a needle was beyond its manufacture. The industry of those fighters’ nation was the production of baskets, closely-woven baskets, pressured bricks and soil digging at that time. There, the lighter was called “the machine which produced fire” and the word “machine” was applied to even a small poker used to turn the light of kerosene up and down!

I had presented in Quang Tri during the flaming summer in 1972.

Quang Tri where bones were piled in mountains and there were flowing streams of blood was a human-mill of “the war monster”.

The ancient stronghold with 12-meter-thick walls, a 2.160-meter circumference and 2.000 square meters in area had been built since time immemorial and was assumed to be a historical monument for future generations’ view. However, it unexpectedly turned out to be the place for both hostile forces to pull about because the war kept racing against the clock. The Quang Tri antique citadel became the symbol of victory which the two sides tried their best to occupy.

I had been there for 81 days. The 2.000 square meters in area had to catch 328 thousands tons of American bombs which were equivalent to 7 atomic bombs one of which was released in Hiroshima. Is there any site in the world had to catch such quantity of fire-power like that during the Second World War? The answer seemed to be no place but Quang Tri ancient stronghold. I carried my light machine-gun under my arm and fought against the foe on all sides. I had shot down hundreds of enemies and I didn’t even bother to count the quantity.

The blood had been shed on every square meter of ground in the Quang Tri antique citadel. 10.000 liberation soldiers had fallen there. The dead bodies overlapped one another in the area of 2.000 square meters. Neither a brick nor a piece of wall remained unchanged. Each soldier like us had to face to 100 bombs dropped from the enemy plans and 200 shells fired from the enemy bases in average. Even so, I was still alive while my other 10.000 companions in arms departed this life. How to explain my wonderful destiny? I had stood my ground in the fortified positions in order to halt the advance of enemy’s infantry for 81 days so that we weren’t dislodged from our position. Any side which could occupy this area would be counted as the winner. My reinforcements crossed the Thach Han River mingling with blood every night. They came there to take the place of soldiers who laid down their lives for our motherland. They were exhaustible sources of manpower supplementing the regular army like me during 81 continuous days and I was “a soldier who didn’t know how to launch into eternity”. I was the former soldier. I received waves of reinforcements tens of which had been already gathered to Buddha while I, “the former soldier” was still alive. I believed in my everlasting fate. I was an undying symbol of life. But now, I was gunned down by a “bullet named dollar”. It’s accounted ridiculous when we think deeply.

I had participated in the theatres of war in Phan Rang and Xuan Loc in particular. There, the violent war in which we husked a hard shell named Republican troops’ struggle to the bitter end to hold the ground in Saigon was taken place. I was a leader of a seasoned spearhead which riskily attacked the enemy’s headquarters. Xuan Loc was counted as the most dangerous confrontation firestorm in the Ho Chi Minh campaign whose target was to affranchise Saigon. I presented in the wing marching in Independence Palace and the puppet’s General Staff dated 30 April. I didn’t have any “war booty” in my hand although the city was overwhelmed with property. I only had a doll which was bought in Ben Thanh market and was attached to the rucksack on my back before moving to the North of Vietnam in order to attend school in Soviet Union. Unexpectedly, I now become a corrupt criminal whose embezzlement amount cost millions of dollars … I, a person who didn’t pay any concern to either a penny or a dime in the city which I took part in the war and had shed my blood to liberate was dying for the dollars of my country so much that I lost my clear-sightedness.

How to explain the above phenomenon? It’s due to what I had experienced and seen during the time I lived in Soviet Union.

A great state-run economy which everybody was the owner turned out to be derelict or seemed to have an invisible owner. Meanwhile, the capitalism and the imperialist camps have their real owners and thus they are actually interested in and devoted to their work. On the contrary, the national property belongs to everybody in our socialist camp and by the same token, “everybody’s business is nobody’s business”. It has been the universal truth which has been known and handed down from generation to generation among the Vietnamese common people since time immemorial. Thousands of books are used to interpret every aspect of the mentioned theory which appears to be so simple that a word: Private or Public can represent the whole.

The great Soviet Union with 70 years of building and developing seemed to be as steady as a rock. Even so, it was collapsed. The only reason was that it was caused by the principle “the private property wasn’t admitted”.

I started enlightening and rushing into the labyrinth of earning money work at any cost in order to win the title capitalist owner.

Working for a developing country with its contemporary structure, I had never had many more opportunities to make money than ever. I didn’t alone get a commission but shared among every member of our closed ring. However, my most foolish thing is that I didn’t realize the event that nobody but I had to bear all the responsibility to the law as a “conductor of an orchestra”. Meanwhile, all of them were only “members of a chorus”. I was a person who took the biggest amount and I had received the money without being foresighted. And sooner or later, truth will be out in the long run.

Frankly speaking, there are hundreds or even thousands of “corruptors” like me. Some of them had embezzled much more money than me but they were skillful at “rubbing away all the remained stuff sticking on the corner of their mouths”. On the contrary, I didn’t know how to “rub away all the remained stuff sticking on the corner of my mouths”. By way of consequences, I was caught eating on the sly.

It’s alright! Perhaps it was the will of God who designated me as an “example”. I accept my destiny. So long everybody! Later on, I will be reincarnated and will turn back my human existence in my next “life cycle”. The mankind’s property must be superabundant at that time. Science and technology will develop so much that the human will seldom subsist on manual labor. The human will reach the highest point of the wealth and the “human affection” won’t simultaneously remain much. The hearth will no longer exist. Each person will become an independent unit. The human’s thirst for money won’t be as terrible as the present circumstances because they money will after all become meaningless once the people have already satisfied all their material needs.

However, it’s the matter of future while I have to change my life for such the meaningless thing now.

Alas! What a life with a never-ending philosophy and a tortuous argument! Nevertheless, I mustn’t live with it anymore although how “absurd” it is! …

Good bye forever!”

Date …

The clack sound was raised when the door was opened. Vaguely sleeping, Thieu waked up with a sharp start. The electric torch was shone directly on Thieu’s face and made him so dazzled that he had to put his hand over his eyes.

Four superintendents came in and the awful voice of their nailed heels of shoes crunched on the floor. Nobody said a word. What a silent space! An opaque light was gradually appearing and peeping through the window of the death cell. Some bird was harmoniously chirpping in the garden.

One of superintendents showed out a piece of paper and Thieu stared at it. There is a name Nguyen Viet Thieu written on the paper. The lines of letters in the paper seemed to dance and play the hide and find game.

Thieu sat up. The superintendent fingerprinted Thieu’s ten fingertips on the paper. The black ink made the tortuous fingerprints just like the drawings of an ancient map clearly salient. Each fingerprint represented a life map.

The superintendent’s fingers were frozen and as hard as bars of iron. They were controlling Thieu’s fingers.

Thieu’s life maps were kept in the State huge store warehouse for what?

-       Do you completely understand the content of the death certificate?

Thieu started reading. He didn’t know whether he comprehended it or not. The words seemed to dance. Thieu’s capital punishment was confirmed in the text which mentioned the execution date was that day. The delinquent’s health and spirit were of sound mind at that moment. He could realize his condition.

The lines of letters which seemed to deform and dance appeared and disappeared in the death certificate.

Thieu wondered whether he was a heavy sleeper. Perhaps he was dreaming. It was untrue. In Thieu’s dream, the text turned out to be the death certificate because he was dazzled and thus wrongly read it. Everything was unexpectedly unreasonable, unclear and unconnected in general. Thieu read it again. He saw the text was written: Birth certificate. A full name was Nguyen Viet Thieu. Date of birth was … in … Commune, … District, … Province. The last object was a stamp and a signature of Village mayor Le and the last letters were his name.

-       Do you completely understand the content of the text? - The superintendent repeated and brought Thieu back to reality.

-       Yes …

Thieu shook his head as though he wanted to get rid of his dream but it kept staying in his mind although it was dawning. The birdsong was repeatedly clearer and clearer outside the room of the prisoner under death penalty.

-       You can brush your teeth, wash your face and have breakfast.

Thieu’s fingers were so weak that he couldn’t make a press on a tube of toothpaste and thus the superintendent had to help him.

A glass of coffee was placed on the table and its perfume pervaded the air. Thieu sipped it with a wandering glance. He appeared to be in full possession of his faculties when he had swallowed his last gulp. His state of losing his clear-sightedness was no longer existent. He had a sense of his last minutes. He was going to be executed by peals of gunfire. Thieu was suddenly bathed in perspiration. He had his legs flaccid out of fear. He had showed an overmodest attitude. He did wee-wee by accident with abundant flow and made his trousers wet.

The superintendents didn’t say a word and everything reduced to silent except for the absolutely clear voice of the birds in the garden.

-       Have breakfast, please! - The superintendent brought a bowl brimful of noodle served with beef with him to give Thieu. All the prisoners under death sentence were eaten delicious food and were full before the time of execution so that they wouldn’t be hungry ghosts. A bowl of noodle soup was enough for the demons to be full during their phantom lives. It was accounted very miserable if they had to suffer a human’s hunger throughout the ages even when they had already been ghosts.

Thieu kept chewing and swallowing despite his tongue tasted nothing. He was tremblingly holding a spoon in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in another one.

That year, Quang Da forest was a site of a battle in which Thieu’s whole combat unit had laid down their lives for their fatherland except him. All members of American squad rounded up and were determined to take him alive. Thieu mingled with the trees or rock mounds and being calm as if there was fighting beside his companion in arms, he held the AK rifle with the barrel pointing at the enemies and shot down the ones within his sight. His hands had never shaken. The event that he made his trousers wet were far from happening. He would sooner die than let them take alive.

In such the above mentioned Quang Da battle, Thieu had a narrow escape from death due to his ingeniousness. He was resisting and mixing in the deep jungle. He phlegmatically performed his action while his life was hanging by a thread. But then, he was so tremulous that he dropped not only the spoon but also the chopsticks.

The superintendent looked at his watch. That simple movement made Thieu’s hair stood on end. It was in a hurry …

Both sides of the country lane were grown with very green grass. The little boy Thieu was sitting on the back of the buffalo which was rearing and running just like a cavalier who was sitting on the back of a war-horse and galloping as what the tales of the Three Kingdoms described. The strong and fat buffalo with its pair of very sharp-pointed horns was imposing and ferocious. The other kids’ buffaloes were terror-stricken whenever seeing it. Thieu’s strong and fat buffalo looked like Lu Bu’s red-haired horse. Nobody but Thieu could control it. He tightened its nose while he was holding a bamboo rod and repeatedly whipping it. The strong and fat buffalo had to submit despite it couldn’t hide its resentful bloodshot eyes.

The country lane-sides were overgrown with very green grass and wild flowers. With extremely loud scream, Thieu was just like Truong Phi living in a area on the other end of Truong Ban bridge.

There weren’t any war-horses which dared to get close to it in order to exchange butts. The lad Thieu was like a Mandarin of Justice. He didn’t know what to do but keep galloping ahead. He didn’t know where to continue his way as the country lane-sides were overgrown with very green grass wasn’t an endless one.

-       Bang … bang … bang … - The little boy Thieu shouted the gun sound.

-       Bullets have penetrated my heart. I have already died. I’m no more.

The strong and fat buffalo stopped running. The child Thieu felt to the lawn while his hands were holding his chest.

The kids gathered around him:

-       Your suspended animation is very true to life …

Thieu had riden “the strong and fat buffalo of his life” and had had a non-stop advance during the last tens of years. He advance from victory into victory darted forth. The American lethal weapons couldn’t harm him. Then, “the strong and fat buffalo” bossed the show on all the roads in Russia planted with Silver poplars at both sides in order to “fight against the command and planed economy” by making money based on its weaknesses. Next, he took advantage of its collapse and reverse trend so as to rob the property in the second period.

It was the second time the superintendent looked at his watch with a normal action as usual such as a slight turn of his head and a patient glance. That was all but made Thieu dumbfounded with a start. He stopped dreaming and was back to normal. It was six to twenty in the morning. It was winter and it came over misty so that everybody’s face couldn’t be seen clearly. Thieu’s whole body was biting cold as though his blood vessels were frozen.

-       You can write the last letter to your relatives – The superintendent gave him a pen and a piece of paper.

Thieu drew his body. He had to use all his strength to prevent the pen from rolling out of his fingers. His jaws of teeth repeatedly knocked against each other.

The superintendent held his shoulders to help him with his calm and thus the pen could be moved in accordance with the lines:

“Dear parents! Good bye forever! Hope you don’t be so sorrow. Forgive my filial impiety …

To my son Nguyen Viet Thanh! Try to study and become a good person. Don’t be discouraged because of me. With the knowledge of the advance technology, you will survive on earth. The money I had deposited in the bank in San Francisco is enough for you to study as high as a Doctor of Information technology. You mustn’t use that amount to do any other thing but learning. Change your knowledge for true money after graduating. Don’t imitate me. I’m a product of time in trouble. Meanwhile, you are a perfect product of future time. My beloved …

To Hai Yen! Good bye forever! Remember to help our child: Nguyen Viet Thanh to settle down with your full affection.

To all my friends! Forgive me! My mistake is to earn money at any cost. Meanwhile, the material property isn’t a capital importance, a “first-class” factor as I thought.

With the above universal truth, I will be a true man if I am going to be reincarnated as a human being one more time.

Good bye forever!

Nguyen Viet Thieu”.

Thieu drew a signature which was exactly the same to the ones signed on hundreds of economic contracts.

Thieu handed over the letter to the superintendent. The content of the letter proved that Thieu was still in full possession of his faculties. He didn’t have mental disorder or went mad …

Ding-dong! The bell of a clock struck. The bell of the Reaper echoed. Ding-dong! To other people, that was the signal of the dawn. A new day was coming. A clear and loud crow resounded from somewhere as a call for the sun appearance. Two superintendents approached Thieu and lifted his arms up:

-       let’s go …

The path leading to execution grounds was still dim with dew which was so thick that they couldn’t see each other clearly.

Thieu staggered. He had his legs fain. The two superintendents seemed to drag him. Thieu’s legs looked like two bulbs of sweet potato burdening and moving on the grass.

… Thieu was freely coming and going on the country lane with the fields planted with wild bright yellow chrysanthemum. The butterflies were as yellow as the flowers. Thieu was chasing them … They hid themselves in the golden sun. He stood on tiptoe and assumed to have already caught one of them but it turned out to be a piece of sun staying in his palm when he opened his hands.

It was rather strenuous for the two superintendents to drag Thieu because he seemed to totally lose consciousness.

Thieu was in the middle of surrounding wild daisy and yellow butterflies. He was having his legs tied from loss of control. The skylarks were pleasantly singing above his head. Oh, no! He thought. The superintendents, the death certificate, the last meal and the way leading to execution grounds … were in his dream. Everything was just a dream. I was in the dream. There were the dreams which sometimes frightened and made me tired.  They were nightmares and what happened in such the incubuses weren’t true. The true thing was Thieu who was happily running on the street with wild yellow daisy grown at roadsides. What a nice sun! It was lucky! The path leading to execution grounds presented in my dream only. My neighbor girl whose breasts were as big as a betel-nut was holding my hand and pulling me. She was courting fondling from me and asked me to pick more chrysanthemums. Her cheeks were full of stamens. They were freely walking. How I could have a dream of going to the execution grounds. That made me had my heart in my mouth …

The superintendents bound Thieu’s hands together behind the stake which was planted on the execution grounds. The rope was made tense. Wow! Thieu kept dreaming. How I could have such a pain like that when the yellow butterfly perched on my hand. The yellow butterfly could make people sore. How unreasonable it was! But my hands hurt. It was true. It was because the yellow butterfly perched on them.

-       Gunners! Step in your position! Prepare! Ready! – The verbal command of the execution leader resounded in the curtain of the wet dew.

The wild daisy changed into yellow butterflies which were flying in front of Thieu and looked like a frightful jumble. What a beautiful landscape! Thieu was freely dancing and tossing about on the lawn …

-       Bang … bang … bang … bang … bang …

The gun made Thieu conscious and his dream vanished with one thousandth second. His blood made his clothes wet and died red the yellow butterflies.

Thieu’s body collapsed from losing its spirit. His head leaned on the bamboo stake. Then, Thieu’s soul which was excessively light and ephemeral just like a butterfly mingled with the flock of butterflies. Only that the butterfly Thieu wasn’t yellow but blood-red and the yellow color of the forest of butterflies had been changed into blood-red one as well. They and the butterfly Thieu were flying nihility.