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Late the next afternoon Trang called the passengers together.
“My friends,” he said, “despite our misfortune we have reached our goal. We’ll be in Chantaburi no later than five o’clock. I have told you that the Prime Minister of Thailand is an old friend of our dear friend and brother, Doctor Minh. With your approval, I shall ask him to be our representative to the Thai authorities. We can celebrate the Tet’s eve in Chantaburi, but I think it would be proper that we do so on our boat which is, according to international law, Vietnamese territory.”
With the end of their journey in sight, the passengers seemed to have forgotten the nightmarish incident that had engulfed them in sorrow and despair the day before. They applauded Trang’s announcement, and Minh was asked to speak.
“I shall never forget, as long as I live, our boat family. I shall do everything I can to help all of you settle in the new lands of freedom, either in Thailand or America. Obviously, the situation here is very favorable to us because of my connection with the Prime Minister, but one always has to be careful about politics in Thailand. The Prime Minister reached power through a coup d’etat , and there could be a counter-coup at any time. When we arrive there, I’ll contact the Prime Minister and see what his attitude to us will be.” His short speech ended with several rounds of applause.
Early in the evening the junk lowered its anchor off Chantaburi. Operation New Spring had come to an end. A police motorboat met the refugees. In Thai Minh asked the police officer to take him to the local army commander. Within half an hour, Minh and the police lieutenant were at the office of Colonel Amneuy Luksanand, commanding officer of the 25th Royal Thai Infantry Regiment. Minh explained the situation, reported the bandits attack, and requested that he be allowed to contact the Prime Minister, his old friend Chamni. The colonel politely invited Minh to wait while he phoned Bangkok.
Minh was admiring a pot of blooming orchids when the colonel entered the living room.
“Professor, the Prime Minister is on the line. You can use the phone in my office.”
Minh picked up the receiver. “Hello, Mr. Prime Minister. Congratulations.”
“Stop it, Minh, I’m still Chamni, your old friend.”
“But I’m now a boat person without a country, a wandering soul, as we say in Vietnamese.”
“Forget about your boat and your wandering soul. You can stay in Thailand as long as you wish, as my government’s guest. Thailand is now your country. Buddha will protect you. I’ll have the colonel bring you to Bangkok tonight so you can have a good rest and we can meet for breakfast tomorrow. As for your compatriot boat people, how many of them are there?”
“Nineteen, including me.”
“They’ll be given special consideration by the Ministry of Interior, but in the meantime they’ll have to stay in a refugees camp. I’m sorry about that, but I can’t change all the laws even as a Prime Minister. I have to leave for a meeting now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well, my dear friend.”
“Thank you and goodnight, Mr. Prime Minister.”
The colonel invited Minh to have dinner with him before his trip to Bangkok by helicopter. Minh explained that because it was Tet’s eve, he preferred to eat with his compatriots. The colonel quickly proposed that the whole group be invited along to a Chinese restaurant. They accepted the invitation but they had no appetite: Minh had warned them before dinner that they would be temporarily sent to a refugee camp.
Minh slept soundly in his spacious room at the Royal Thai Army guest house, the same one he’d slept in before when he’d passed through Bangkok on his return to Vietnam from the States. He woke refreshed and relaxed. A hot shower, a luxury he’d almost forgotten, in a large marble bathroom in a foreign residence in a foreign land, brought back to him memories of the night he’d spent with Jennifer at the Statler Hilton in New York ten years before. He vividly recalled the passage from Markings that had come to him so suddenly that morning as he’d watched her sleeping beside him:
As she lies stretched out on the riverbank—beyond all human nakedness in the inaccessible solitude of death, her firm breasts are lifted to the sunlight—a heroic torso of marble-blond stone in the soft grass.
Minh had feared then that she would die. And now she was dead, killed by a bomb. But her actual death didn’t frighten him as he had imagined it would. He was almost grateful that she had passed away. With her, his innocence, their innocence, was gone. He now had to face life in all its about realities, without illusion, without the benevolent protection of the Blue Dragon, by himself and for himself; and only as a lonely individual, outside the North Vietnamese Party discipline of collectivism, could he fully develop and maintain his integrity as a writer. Will the White Tiger leave me alone, he wondered?
He sank into a blue velvet sofa and lit his pipe, following the spiralling smoke with his dreamy eyes. Pulling the Tao Te Ching from his knapsack, he read Chapter 42: “One gains by losing and loses by gaining.”
He smiled at these wise words of Lao Tsu. “Indeed,” he said to himself. “I’ve lost everything, but at the same time, I’m gaining everything back. I’m reclaiming myself. Thank you, Jennifer, and you too, Xuan and Loc. Thank you, Vietnam, thank you, North Vietnamese Party. Thank you all. I’ve lost all of you in different ways in different circumstances, but I’ve gained everything. I’ve regained myself.”
There was a knock on the door. A soldier stood at attention and announced, “Sir, the Prime Minister is in the living room.”
Minh hurried downstairs.
“ Swasdi , my good friend Minh. Welcome to Thailand. Make yourself at home.” Prime Minister Chamras Panyakupta, in a dark blue civilian suit, greeted him, his arms opened wide in a welcoming gesture.
“Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” Minh said, his eyes wet with gratitude.
“As I’ve always said, we were friends, we are friends, and we’ll always be friends, regardless of our personal situations.”
“Yes, I know, and again, congratulations on your new position.”
“Well, it makes little difference. I had to stage a coup d’état to protect the monarchy and to cleanse the country of corrupt and opportunistic elements. Now, I simply have to work harder and longer hours at the office and be a little more careful about my private life.”
They laughed and went into the dining room for breakfast.
“Mr. Prime Minister.”
“You can still call me Chamni in private.”
“Chamni, you don’t know how grateful I am for your inviting me to stay in Thailand as your government’s guest for an indefinite period. But I’ve thought it over, and no matter how much I’d like to accept your kind offer, I still feel I must decline it, at least at this particular moment in my life. I plan to return to America as soon as possible. Really, I don’t know exactly why I want to. I hope you understand. Perhaps when I settle in America, I’ll write and explain everything.”
“You don’t need to explain anything to me. But to be honest, I don’t quite understand why you want to go to the United States. There, you’ll always be a stranger. Here, you’re among people of the same color skin, the same religion. Still, it’s your decision. But you can rest assured that if and when you change your mind you can always count on me. I’m sorry we don’t have much time to talk the way we did in the good old days, but I deeply sympathize with what has happened to you.”
“Someday, Chamni, you’ll know why, perhaps when I write a book about my own experiences. But for the time being I’m numb with gratitude and affection for you and I can’t say much about anything.”
Chamni pulled an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Minh. “Take this. It’s just a little something for your needs while you’re in Bangkok. If you need more, don’t hesitate to contact my aide-de-camp and tell him what you want. He’s the same officer who greeted you at Dong Muang Airport when you passed through here ten years ago.”
“Thank you so much, Chamni. You’re very kind and thoughtful.”
“And now that I know of your plan to leave for the U.S., I’ll ask my office to get a first-class open ticket for you on the Royal Thai Airways. There’s a direct flight now once a week from Bangkok to New York City, with a stopover in Paris. Minh, I’m sorry I have so little time to spend with you. I must go now.”
At the door Chamni stopped and put his arm on Minh’s shoulder. “Goodbye, my friend. Be happy. Life is for living, and not to be worried about or even understood. Remember our Buddhist doctrine of the impermanence of all things.” He paused. “By the way, I’ve asked my secretary to pack some of my new clothes for you, we wear about the same size, and other things you might need. It’s up in your room now, I’m sure.”
“Thank you, Chamni, thank you, Mr. Prime Minister,” Minh murmured to himself as Chamni’s black Mercedes sped away flanked by an escort of police motorbikes.
· · ·
Minh tried each of the three brand-new suits and found that they all fit him perfectly. He thought mockingly to himself, “The North Vietnamese Party haven’t treated me badly after all. I still keep my shape and my mind in order.”
Dressed in a light brown Manchester cotton suit and a striped dark blue Thai silk tie, Minh walked slowly to the American Embassy on Wireless Road, six blocks away. The morning was still cool. The noise, the dirt, the smell, the chaotic traffic on the crowded narrow streets didn’t bother or annoy him as they had the last time he was here. He even liked them now. They were, he believed, part of the necessary, insignificant price one had to pay for individual liberty. And after all, he thought, smiling, “I can always go back to the clean, air-conditioned suite at the Royal Thai Army guest house.”
Minh asked a Thai woman clerk in the consular section of the American Embassy for an application form for an immigrant visa to the United States of America. He glanced at it and discovered that he didn’t have all the necessary information to fill it out properly. He had no passport to prove his citizenship, he’d forgotten the number of his green card, (the permanent resident identification issued to him fourteen years ago by the U.S. authorities), he didn’t have five passport-sized pictures, he didn’t have a job. He decided to fill in only his name, place and date of birth, skipping other items, with the exception of two: respondent in Thailand—the Royal Thai Army guest house; and actual and former professions—one of the boat people, formerly professor of political science, Thomas Paine College, Amherst Massachusetts, U.S.A.
He gave the form back to the clerk who couldn’t hide her surprise at so many unanswered items. She politely asked him, “Sir, are you sure that the address of your respondent in Thailand is given correctly?”
“Yes, Madam,” he answered softly and added, “May I see the viceconsul? ”
“Yes sir. I think so. I’ll give him the form. Please wait.”
To Minhs amazement the interview with the vice-consul went without a hitch. He was questioned about his credentials and his past, a quick phone call was made to Chamni’s office to confirm his identity, and he was issued a temporary entrance permit. When he arrived in the States, he was told, he must go to an immigration office, where his status as a permanent resident would be promptly restored.
Minh decided to leave Thailand on the seventh day of the lunar New Year. Officially, it would be the last day of the Tet holiday, the day when the Vietnamese took down the traditional Cay Neu , the bamboo tree they planted in front of their homes before Tet to ward off bad spirits. On that day, on the wings of a Royal Thai plane, he would fly to New York. He would kneel at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. He would leave behind all the Tets of the past with their thousand-year old ceremonials and traditions. From then on, he would spend his Tets in the cold and snow of the United States, deprived of all the perfumes and tastes of his native Vietnam. He would surely miss them. But, he hoped, he would have gained something new, Something he had never quite understood before: the real meaning and essence of Tet, the spirit of Tet, the moment of truce between the Blue Dragon and the White Tiger, the harmonization of Tinh, feeling, and ly, reason, among his fellow men and women, among the living and dead, between tradition and revolution, among the past, the present, and the future. But it would be henceforward the spirit of the historic Vietnam that he held in his heart, not the political one—the mystic Vietnam, not the vulgar and brutal one.
He would live and work in New York City. Jennifer would have liked him to do so. For the first time in many days, he thought of Loc, no longer in admiration and gratitude, only with compassion. He felt liberated.
Suddenly, vivid details of the last night he spent on the soil of Vietnam and in the bed of Madame Luu surged back into his memory. He burst into a prolonged and tearful laughter. He knew he was laughing at his own laughter.