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It was sometime in August of 1976, I don’t remember the exact day, but there was a half-moon far away in the night sky; a dim light shone through the restless woods. I heard the frogs croaking louder and softer, starting and stopping continuously. Along with this croaking sound crickets were making shrill, chirping noises like they were composing “wild-nature” music. It made me feel like I was at a concert, but this particular one had only one audience—me. I was lost in thought. Then I heard heavy, brisk footsteps running along the bamboo fences, and the clicking of grenades jostling on the belts of the guards. Then the sharp metal sound of the AK-47s being cocked, ready to shoot. I shivered and looked out from the hut. Many shadows were moving in different directions.
“Shoot him, shoot him now, comrade.”
“He went this way. Let’s go,” someone shouted back. There were two guards approaching my hut. One of them came inside the hut, grasped Hung’s thin neck and threw him on the ground.
“Come on, move it,” the guard shouted, while he used his gun to scramble his belongings.
Hung staggered out of the hut as the guard shoved the gun in his back. I didn’t know what was going on, but I had an awful feeling. I wanted to stop Hung from going, but I didn’t know what to do. I saw Hung’s shadow appear under the unsettled moon, then disappear past the booth. I was frightened. I heard some gun shots vaguely in the distance, violently disturbing the night, and I felt like I had just been shot.
Everyone in the hut was awake, but we stayed quiet. I wondered what had happened to Hung, what would happen to us now. Would anyone know about this after the war was over, or was this the beginning of a new war—the war in which brothers kill brothers? Torture was happening everywhere in the labor camps around the country, but people did not seem to know or care, especially the people who negotiated this kind of “peace” for Vietnam. Happy to celebrate their victory after Saigon fell, the north took over all the southern cities and people called this a “happy reunification.” The happier they were the more bitterness I felt. I looked at the heads of my fellow prisoners in the dark and I wondered if anyone else felt like this. Or did they try not to think about it? I didn’t hear anything except my own thoughts echoing inside my head: “Am I going to weep? No, I’m going to fight, whatever the circumstances, till the last drop of blood.” I bit my lip harder, clenched my fists, stared at the moon going down at the side of the forest. Within myself there were only two things left—impotent hatred and the thirst for revenge.
At last, the wild rooster cried out somewhere in the bamboo bushes for his family. He was our dawn every morning. We got up restlessly to begin a new day. What happened last night stayed with me. “Am I going to die? And how? I have to find a way out!” I mumbled to myself. It was then that I remembered something my grandfather had said: “You are a good fighter and a good fighter has to be a leader himself; a good leader is a leader who doesn’t need to show up at the battlefield.” Was it true, grandfather? I am at battle right now I must start planning. First: we need to unite, we prisoners. Then what? Rebel, kill them, or escape? If we revolt, some inmates will oppose it. Then what will happen? If we want to kill the guards, how will we go about it? The guards have weapons; we don’t. How about scape? I could escape myself I don’t need any force from outside or inside. No one is going to get hurt. I only need a knife and a match.
And if they shoot me? Then I die faster than if I were tortured, or starved, or worked to death. I will be happy this way The thought kept drifting through my mind, like a slow- motion picture. I grabbed my latanier leaf hat, placing it on my head. We formed a single line, walked out of the hut, picking up our tools as usual.
“Hey, you! Come here,” the guard shouted.
“Are you talking to me?” I asked.
“Yeah, you. Are you deaf?”
I went to him hesitantly and he threw me a shovel.
“Are you in the L-19 group?”
“Yeah.”
“Rice field today.”
I walked away from him, following the group to the rice field. I noticed there were four guards in the group. One walked in front, two in the middle, and one at the end of the line. We reached the rice field outside of the woods about three kilometers from the clearing where our huts were.
“Build the dike around the rice field in order to retain the water for the rice to grow,” the guard said, while he demonstrated with his hands.
The soil was neither dry nor muddy. We stepped down, began to dig.
“Do you understand clearly?” the guard asked.
“Yes, comrade.”
He walked toward the woods and sat down beneath a tree, his eyes set on us. We formed a human conveyor belt, digging soil and passing it man to man down to the dike.
“Can you dig less?” I asked the man next to me.
“What’s the matter with you? Too much?” he said with a sarcastic look.
“Yes, I can’t carry it.”
“That’s your problem,” the man said.
I was angry and yanked the shovel away from him when he was digging in the soil; he lost his balance and splashed into the water. He jumped up, trying to grab me, but I had already stepped away from him. He was furious, having missed his chance at revenge.
“Come on, break it up,” a man in the group said.
“If he would dig less I would stop,” I said.
“Yeah, do him a favor. He’s a new guy, Chung,” the group yelled at him. Then the guard appeared.
“What’s going on here?” the guard asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You again?” the guard called to me. “Come here.”
I walked up to him. He hit my jaw with his elbow, swung his body around, and jabbed his rifle into my ribs. I tasted salt in my mouth as I fell to the ground. I wiped my face, and there was blood. I looked at Chung, who was glancing at the group with a look that said, “I’m not your enemy, the guard is our enemy.” But everybody just turned away.
“Go back to work. If you make any more trouble, you will be at the guillotine,” the guard shouted.
I walked back to my work station, already feeling the tight rope around my thumbs and toes. The pain went through my veins, spreading throughout my body. I felt cold and quivery I began to gather the soil, to pass it oil endlessly.
Time went by slowly, from one hour to the next Noon arrived finally; I knew this because the sun was beating down on my head. I didn’t know what time we could eat. My stomach was growling, my heart was beating harder, faster every second. My legs were trembling. I had no more energy left. I conveyed a piece of soil to one of the men on the line, but it felt it weighed a ton. My hands moved slower and slower; I felt weaker and weaker.
“Time to cat,” the guard yelled.
We all scrubbed our hands and cleaned our faces with the dirty water where we dug. I felt refreshed, even though the water wasn’t clean. I learned a good lesson: anything that is dirty has its own purity.
We all lined up, walking along the grassy trail back to the camp.
“Comrade. I found him,” comrade Son happily called to the other guard that was walking with us.
“Who?” the tired guard asked.
“The man last night,” Son replied.
“Where?” He turned around, and walked with Son toward the forest. We all looked at each other, following the guards like we were robots. There were many trees along the trail, with ferns and green moss on the muddy ground and dew on the grass where the shade was deep. Weeds crawled around, consorting with all the wild crawling plants. The forest was dense. We walked by a couple of ditches. It seemed to me there had been a struggle here some time ago. In the ditch, there were many dead leaves with mud scattered about. Small broken branches and stems from a young tree covered the trail. I saw handprints in the mud and on the tree. It looked like someone had been holding on to the tree, then had fallen down. I noticed the mud spots splattered on the ground. In the distance they grew more uneven. I saw the footprints: it appeared that someone had been limping here. Beneath the tree was a man lying on the grass with his head bent.
Everybody rushed to him. I saw a plastic bag carefully folded beneath the leaves. I picked it up, stuffed it in my pocket. I approached the dead man. One of his eyes was dangling on his check. His other eye stared at the pale blue sky and grey clouds. He was looking at the tall tree, whose shadow covered him like a blanket, as if he was searching for something up there.
There was a small indentation on one side of his forehead, with a big bruise. I knelt, and touched his head there: it was as soft as jello, moving in and out under his messy black hair. It looked like someone had used a hammer to strike his head. He had a broken nose; one side of his cheek was stretched up towards his eye and it made his mouth look a little like a half smile. His skin had turned green and his body was as cold as ice. He looked young—thirty-six. His arms were stretched apart while his legs were crossed together. He looked like he was going to be put on a cross... or had just been taken from one. He was very frail under his dirty white shirt and black trousers. I saw a little red hole on his stomach where the shirt had been torn apart. Around the hole the skin had turned brown. The brown color had streaked down to his thighs. The guard bent down and frisked the dead body but found nothing except the wedding ring on the corpse’s finger. The guard took his knife from the holster, cut the finger off and pocketed the ring.
“I knew him. He was in the L-21 hut group near mine,” Teo said.
“Are you sure?” the guard asked.
“Yes I’m sure because I was working with his group in the sweet potato garden last week.”
“Take him back to the hut,” the guard ordered.
Two of us grabbed his legs, two his arms; we heaved him up and walked onto the trail with the guard at our backs, his gun aimed at us. We walked about five hundred meters but the odor of the body was overwhelming. I was gagging. I released his legs, fling to the ground.
“What’s wrong with you? You never seen a dead body before?” the guard scolded, his face stern. While I was vomiting, the men constructed a stretcher consisting of branches, which they then tied to the body.
“Move it, I don’t have all day!” the guard shouted We elevated the dead body and began walking. It seemed like the trail was getting longer and longer. Finally, we arrived at the security booth.
“Put him down here,” the sweating guard said as he walked into the booth.
“What is it, comrade?” the guard in the booth asked
“We found the piece to the puzzle,” our boss said, and burst out laughing. “What do you think? Did you get your share yet?”
They winked at each other, with self-satisfied grins. One of them turned to us.
“Go in to cat. Come right back for your next assignment?”
We walked slowly to the usual place to get our food, but everything had been put away except for a small pot. Each of us took a coconut bowl and poured the watery rice from the pot into our bowls. There was more water than rice. I could count each grain in my bowl—plus one cockroach, displaying his belly and looking at me with his innocent eyes. It reminded me of the dead body we had just brought back. I wasn’t sure of my feelings at this moment, but I still brought the bowl up to my mouth and swallowed the rice. I felt something tickling in my throat. I started to choke.
Hung never came back and his body was never found. No one knew for sure whether he was dead or alive. We listed him in our collective Missing In Action memory. That evening, I went to our “communication center” to learn what I could. I found that the scene last night had been a setup. Some of the guards were jealous of those who had received bribes from Hung and the man from the L-21 hut; they threatened to call for an investigation. To get rid of the evidence, the bribetakers had terminated their victims—Hung, and the man I found.
The afternoon slipped by slowly as I finished my lunch. I was still hungry but there was nothing left to eat. I tried to keep my mind off my hunger but my stomach kept torturing me. I got up but had to sit down again because I was dizzy. I cupped my hand over my eyes, held it there for a moment, then opened it slowly. I saw a black cloud appear in the sky; the sun was barely shining, as if it didn’t have any more strength. The wind was whispering gently through the trees, then suddenly died down.
“Are you okay?” one of my friends, Thanh, asked.
“I’m all right, just a little dizzy.”
He grasped my hand and helped me up. We walked back to the security booth. I was thinking that my situation was getting worse. The guard walked out of the booth and came to us.
“Follow me.”
We walked behind him to the meeting place in front of the shack. All of the prisoners were there, sitting in rows of fifteen. Comrade Son stood under the awning of the hut. He started his speech as if he was a general:
“From now on, no one can go out for any reason, even if you have to go to the bathroom. There was an incident last night. I think you all know what I’m talking about. He asked our permission to go out, but he ran away. So we shot him. This is a very good lesson for all of you. I am a good person because I follow the North Vietnamese rules of how to treat prisoners. I follow Uncle Ho’s ways. If you don’t study hard and become a good citizen, you won’t have a chance to appear in front of the people” court and ask them to forgive you of your crime. You betrayed them and your country. You followed the southern puppet government, the U.S. regime. This is the time for you to do something to pay us back, to prove your sincerity to our people. If you don’t, you may stay here forever. Make your decision. I want you to write. down your family history, your background and whether you feel guilty or innocent. I want the truth. If you lie we know what to do.” He had a low, grating voice. Someone gave him a glass of water. He drank it, continued. “People are the owners, the government is the worker for the people, and the North Vietnamese government manages peoples’ businesses. Long live Ho Chi Minh,” he yelled.
“Long live Ho Chi Minh,” we repeated after him, like a broken record.
He paused for a moment while the guard walked over to the front row to tell them to stand up.
“Come here!” he pointed to a new captive who wore glasses.
The guard shoved the new man in the back with his gun to make him walk up to Son.
“You look handsome with your glasses. You are an intellectual from the south, huh? You know too much. You are the one who had a revolution against us, against our people, against our country for over twenty years and our people had to bleed all that time. You are a traitor, you are an idealist. Am I right, our citizens?” he rasped in his heavy accent full of scorn. Then he grinned.
“Yes, comrade, yes, comrade. He’s our traitor!” we all shouted as if we were furious. Many guns were held at our backs ready to fire. I felt so bitter since every bad thing I said about others made my mouth dirty. Did I have any choice? The prisoner wearing glasses said softly:
“No, comrade, I’m not an intellectual person. I’m a mechanic in the army and I never held a gun to anyone. Look, look at my hands. They’re all dirty with calluses. I’m not a traitor. Please forgive me!” He raised his voice louder and louder, repeatedly; but the crowd’s voices were overpowering his.
“Don’t lie to the party,” Comrade Son shouted. “I have all your files here. You were working for the secret police. You have to confess to us now!”
The crowd quieted. The prisoner kneeled down and crawled over to him and begged for forgiveness. “I’m not a traitor, please forgive me!” he patted his hands on Son’s legs and bowed down; Son pushed him away. He crawled back again, but this time the guard who stood next to Son raised his gun and knocked him down. The blood began to dribble from his mouth.
“Who will volunteer to punish our traitor?” comrade Son asked.
One of the men in the antenna group, the prisoners who spied for the guards, stood up and walked over to him like a dog obeying his maser. Son threw him a rope. He held it, pulled the prisoner’s arms to his back and firmly tied the left thumb to the right toe and the left toe to the right thumb. He jerked the man toward the flag pole, dragging him in the dirt like an animal. I didn’t know if I was an animal or a human being at this moment. The antenna group man walked over, picked up the glasses and gave them to Son while the captive was moaning, trying to get up on his feet. He couldn’t see anything without his glasses, his face was close to the ground. He pushed with his head, trying to sit up, but he didn’t succeed. Son walked over to him and pulled him up. The inmate stood silently, his mouth bleeding. Son held his glasses in front of his face.
“Are you trying to act blind? We are the people; we are the justice We know you so well, traitor. Why don’t you come and get them?” Son waved the glasses in front of his face and the captive stood still. “You ignore me.” Son dropped the glasses into the dirt, lifted his foot, then brought it down grinding glass into the dust. He laughed. The leader of the antenna group walked over to the captive, spit in his face, and kicked his stomach. The man fell down. The guard yanked him up. The next inmate stepped forward to continue the execution. We all lined up in a line, spit on him, and called him traitor. We held our confession papers, giving them to the guard as we walked up.
The guard called on individuals to stand up and make a remark. Abruptly a huge shadow covered the whole area. Rain drip-dropped on my hat. It rained harder every moment. The guard raised his voice louder and louder to lecture about his North Vietnamese theory. He tried to speak over the rain so we could hear him. The louder he spoke the stronger the rain fell. I got wet, but I was happy because I didn’t have to listen to him rattle on. Water flooded the ground, running down the side of the hut. We were wet like soaked rats. I looked around the group. Each row of people looked like gravestones in a cemetery. We sat still, thinking to ourselves. Some cold, some hard, and some joyous faces. I didn’t know exactly what they were thinking, but felt I could see into their minds. I knew they wished they were home with their families, with their wives and children. How will we get out of this trap? I thought. They just promise, but nothing is done. Look! The rain dropped down in a puddle at my side, making bubbles. The bubbles disappeared. Again, the rain dropped. More bubbles, then gone, so quickly.
“Come on! Let’s go back to the hut,” Thanh called to me.
I stood up and walked with him.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Politics, all lies. They make promises but don’t keep them,” he said.
“What do you plan to do?” I asked.
“Lower your voice,” he whispered. We looked around, but nobody was in sight.
“Do you have anything to eat?” I said.
“Yeah, some burned rice,” said Thanh.
“Where do you hide it?”
“Close to where I sleep so I can eat at night,” he said. “I’ll give you some when I go to sleep, but don’t let anybody know.”
“Sure.” He went to his spot; I went to mine.
There was mud all around the hut and we walked barefoot. Footprints were everywhere, some big, some small, in different shapes. Inside, the hut looked like a pigpen. I placed the bamboo frame on the floor, and put some hay over it. I had a nice bed—I felt so happy, like a child who sees his mother coming home from the market. It reminded me of when I was young. I would pretend to build a house with a bed in my father’s backyard. I remembered my brothers, sisters, and friends playing together. What had happened to my family? I wanted badly to see them. I wanted to put my head on my mother’s chest, feel her warmth and tenderness. I longed for my father’s embrace. I wanted to hold my sister’s hands, share her happiness and sorrow. When I was in trouble, I ran to my brother. Now, I wanted to sit down with my friend beneath the shadow of a tree, near a creek with a waterfall. I wanted to sit down on the green grass and look at the flowers bloom and smell the freshness of early spring.
My friend and I told each other our stories. Where were my loved ones? Here are my kisses, my embrace, my love, and my prayers. I want to send them all to you, I was thinking. I wanted to bury my head in my pillow—the pillow I used to sleep with, the pillow I used to fight with. Oh, my happiness, my happiness.
“You can borrow my linen bag.” Thanh patted me on the shoulder, winked, and handed me the bag. I knew there was some food in the bag, and I looked at him, showing my gratefulness. He turned around and walked away. I lay down on my bed, reached into the bag to get the dried burned rice. I put it in my mouth, chewed it slowly It was soft and mushy with a bittersweet taste. I swallowed it like a sweet drop of water which people in the desert thirst for. I let my happiness soak through all my body tissues, spread out to my veins, to my blood which ran to my heart. I could feel it beating faster and steadily It felt as if my heart was going to jump out of my chest, and so I pressed my hand over it on my shirt pocket.
I felt something hard. I took it out—it was the plastic bag that I had picked up next to the corpse. I opened the bag, and pulled out a photograph of the dead man’s family, some documents, and a letter to his wife.
I read:
Em,
What will I say to you now? I don’t know if this letter will reach you or not. It would be easy for me to say I’m sorry, but this was unbearable. I couldn’t hold onto my lift any more, any longer. I had to run. If they shoot me, I will die faster than by being tortured here. I know I hold the love for you and our children, but what can I do…?Will you understand me? I wish I could share with you and our children…I wanted to take my family there but how could I? I don’t want to compare the life of being tortured and the love that is out there for me. 1 don’t want to compare the life of being tortured and the love that is out there for me. I don’t care to look into these two things because I know it would be impossible for me to escape. Here are my kisses to you, hugs for my little daughter and son. I hope you raise them to be real human beings. Our son to be like me, our daughter to be like you. Send my love to my family and your family. If this letter comes to you, it will be very fortunate for me. If it doesn’t come to you it was my acceptance of fate. Whether I come to you through my spirit or body; dead or alive.
Farewell—dear,
Anh
The pencil writing was scattered across the page and to wards the bottom it looked like his hand had been shaking. I looked at his family picture and I saw him standing next to his wife. He was holding his son. His wife was pregnant though she looked very young. I didn’t know how old this photograph was, but I could see it was from his youth—the time of triumphs and fighting for victory. What had happened to this generation, all the young, brave men that stood up for our country, tor honor and duty? I looked at myself, felt that I was born at the wrong time. Where was my patriotism? I knew I had it in my blood, but it wouldn’t come out. I had to wait to take my chances. I felt I wanted to prove something to myself at this moment—do something for this family. I would hide the nylon bag which I had just opened. I promised myself I would take it back to his family if I could get out of this place. I prayed that his spirit would help me escape safely so that I could bring his message to his family. Where was his soul wandering? Did he have a place to rest? Did he know how to find his way home? Or was he just one of the wandering souls who have no place to go, no family to love, like a wasted person roaming the city? Or did he just die and that’s the end?
Outside, the night stood still, waiting for the new day. The moon was dim, shining through the hut, through the bamboo wall. All kinds of animals were on the prowl, ready for a hunting night, but leaves had folded on the trees for the sleeping night, I could hear animals calling each other to prepare for their journey. They were whispering through the trees, in the thickets. The air was getting cooler. It seemed as if the whole universe was ready for a new beginning of life. How long have I been here? I couldn’t remember. I touched the bamboo wall to count the marks on it: more than 350 days. It seemed like my whole life. I couldn’t sleep, thinking of the memories now long past.
Suddenly, there was a strange noise outside the hut. My eyes followed the rustling, looked beyond the barbed wire fence at the back of the security booth. I saw a dark shadow crawling towards the dead body which we carried in on our way back to the camp in die afternoon and left near the fence, not having had time to bury it yet. The shadow stopped at the corpse for a moment, then the figure moved back, vanishing beyond the fence. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Were there any guards in the booth? Were they watching us? There wasn’t any action. Could it be that the remnants of the South Vietnamese army had invaded the place and the guards had run off? But why was it so quiet then? If they had invaded the area I would have heard shooting. Maybe they attacked using a special force. I had heard of incidents like this lately I was more hopeful.
I raised my head, looked at the booth and beyond the barbed wire fence. Everything was still quiet. The moon hid its face behind the trees. I could hear the birds flapping their wings and flying away. In the distance, the rooster crowed. Above, the North Star shone, mixing together with the dawn which was finally arriving. The sky became brighter and brighter. I had not slept.
The old folks have a saying: If you’re awake all night, you know how long the night is. I understood that now. I got up and walked out of the hut to prepare for another working day. I went to the shack to pick up the tools.
“I’m in L-19 group. Where shall I work today?” I asked.
“You cook, but before you begin, call your friend Thanh and get a shovel,” Chu Tu ordered. “Come back after.”
I went back to my hut to find Thanh but halfway there I saw him coming towards me.
“Thanh, we work together today?”
“What is our job?”
“Chu Tu told me to have yon get a shovel and see him before we cook.”
“So we cook today. That’s good,” Thanh looked at me, smiling while we walked.
“What are you smiling about?” I asked.
“Nothing, really.”
We stopped at the shack to get shovels and went to the well to look for Chu Tu. I saw him squatting like a frog at the side of the well.
“What do you want us to do, Chu Tu?”
“Make me some tea first,” he said while he was washing his face. We walked to the place where we cooked.
“And don’t forget to fill the barrels up with water,” Chu Tu yelled at us.
I chopped some wood, then built a fire while Thanh got a kettle, filled it with water and put it over the fire.
“What will we cook for lunch?”
“White rice for our comrades. Leftover rice mixed together with sweet potato and old corn for us as usual?”
“Do we have any sweet potatoes?”
“No, but we have a small bag of old corn left,” Thanh said while he was checking the ingredients. I saw steam coming from the spout on the kettle. It began to boil.
“I’m going to Chu Tu’s hut to get his cup. I’ll be back” I ran out of the place. I came to Chu Tu as he was talking to some of the other comrades. I got his cup and he told me to make some for these other comrades too. I went back to make the tea and carried it to them.
“Would you like sugar in your tea, Chu Tu?” Thanh asked.
“Yes, here is my jar of sugar.”
Thanh took it and opened it. He got a spoon to scoop the sugar out of the jar, put some in the cups and stirred them.
“These cups too, Thanh.” I gave them to him.
He put more sugar in the cups a second time, but he didn’t stir them. I looked at him curiously, opening my eyes wider. I tried to ask him but he looked at me, winking his eye. I remained silent. We handed the tea to the hut. We came to the well, dropped the bucket of water into the barrel until it was full.
“Why did you do that before with the sugar?”
He didn’t say a word but gave me a smile, you are learning, I thought.
“You and Thanh come here,” Chu Tu called us.
We ran over to him.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Clean the cups and get your shovels,” said Chu Tu. “Come to the security booth after you’re done.”
We brought the cups to the well to wash I hem. Thanh put a little water in the cup, drank it. I looked into the cups, and saw there was some sugar left on the bottom. Now I knew his purpose. I hadn’t tested sugar in a long time. I used my finger to scoop the sugar, placed it on my tongue, and slowly let it melt. I didn’t want to swallow it. I just wanted to let it soak in my mouth, I wanted to see what the taste was, as if I had never tasted it before in my life. I smiled to myself.
“Are you dreaming?” Thanh called me. “Let’s go.”
I felt invigorated. I didn’t know where all this energy was coming from. I felt like I was a new person. I got up.
“Yes, let’s go.”
We walked to the security booth to see Chu Tu. He walked out of the booth to the gate. He waited at the gate till we arrived.
“Go dig a hole to bury the body you brought back yesterday,” he said, and pointed to the side of the gate.
We began to chop the weeds and surrounding grass away. Afterwards, we dug.
“When you’re finished, come and get me,” Chu Tu said.
He walked back to the booth to talk to the other guard. “Thank you for the sugar, Thanh,” I said.
“What are you thanking me for? Are we friends or what?” “Yeah, we are friends.”