The Sorrow of War (10 page)

Kien wasn't involved in this new war. For him there had been just the one war, the one which had involved the Americans.That had been the final war as far as he was concerned. It was the one which now determined all events in his life: the happiness, the unhappiness, the joys, the sorrows, the loves, the hatreds.

It was that spring which had begun so sadly, so inauspi-ciously, with his country once more on the brink of war,

when something moved within Kien's heart, taking him from turmoil to peace. Something inside him, powerful and urgent, pumped life back into his collapsed spirit and snapped life back into him. It felt like love. Perhaps it was recognition of some wonderful truth deep inside him.

That same chilly dark spring night Kien started to write his first novel.

Kien returned home to find Tran Sinh, a former classmate of his and Phuong's, lying in agony. Sinh had been in the hospital for months but had now been sent home to await death. The time to die had come.

Sinh had been home in his first-floor room for two days now, awaiting death. He had joined the army after Kien but was wounded, then demobilized, before Kien. At first, when Sinh returned home, he had not looked like an invalid. He even planned to marry.

But day after day paralysis crept over his body, first traveling down his left leg, then his right, then along his trunk. By the time Kien was demobilized Sinh was walking with the help of a walking-stick, but within a short time his health had deteriorated further and he was confined to his bed. The doctors wondered how he had survived his terrible spinal wound, surprised he had not been killed outright. Instead, Sinh had lived and his suffering had been prolonged. "Incurable," the doctors had said. The more they tried to help him the worse matters became for him and the relatives caring for him, and this unhappy situation continued for four years.

Sinh's parents had died. His brother had married and left. Sinh was left in the room at the end of the corridor on the first floor, a room dark and damp, with its only window

facing the toilet. Kien pushed the door open and stepped in. Through the dim light he saw two children and a thin woman, Sinh's sister-in-law, sitting on the floor assembling cartons for the local biscuit factory to earn a little extra money. None of them looked up.

"How is he?" asked Kien, whispering.

"The same," the sister-in-law replied in a tired, bored voice. "Everyone who visits admires him for hanging on so long." She sighed.

The dying man lay on a bamboo bed in the far corner of the room. Kien approached and caught a whiff of an unbearably foul smell.The stench came from the filthy bedclothes.

Sinh's hair had all fallen out, revealing a darkening scalp, dry as old timber. His nose had flattened and his cheeks had collapsed, revealing his teeth and eye-sockets. Kien couldn't guess if Sinh had his eyes open or closed. He leaned over and asked, "Do you recognize me, Sinh?"

"He still recognizes you," interrupted the sister-in-law, "but he can't speak because his lungs have collapsed."

"Can he eat?"

"Yes. But it just flows out the other end."

Kien sat down on the stool by the bed, not knowing what to say. Sinh could move a little but his desire to live was clearly gone. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. If he watched carefully Kien could discern a slight rising and falling of the blankets.The room was still. Now and then the sister-in-law mumbled something about how harshly fate had treated her. Sinh's brother, sleeping in a loft above Sinh, suddenly began to snore.

Poor Sinh, the poet of the tenth form. What a great pity!

The summer before Kien had visited Sinh in the hospital. He could still move then but his will to live was dwindling. He would sit in his wheelchair and speak with a clear mind, ignoring the certainty of his fate, that he would soon die. He didn't complain or bemoan his destiny. Above all, he had never made his visitors feel uncomfortable.

Often he would work up enthusiasm and act delighted, smiling all the time at his visitors. He would chat away in his weak voice, speaking of school days and classmates, the pretty girls and the teachers and other matters removed from his present state. He would act as though everything Kien told him was fascinating: "Right, excellent, how could I have forgotten!"And:"Now I remember! How could I have forgotten that!"

Kien had pushed Sinh's wheelchair out into the hospital's pretty garden, past some mimosa shrubs in beautiful bloom. The afternoon had been so calm, the air so clean. The sunshine had slanted over the green lawn.

They stopped under the canopy of a spreading
bodhi
tree. "The sun divides the afternoon into halves," Sinh said, "and the mimosa petals close . . . See, that's a poem." He smiled. "I didn't dare think of myself as a real poet when I joined the army," he said. "I hoped to be someone like Le Anh Xuan, our southern hero whose works will endure from this war into the next century. Well, that was my dream. And while I think of it, I must confess I wrote many romantic poems for Phuong and for ages I was afraid you'd find out and beat me up."

There was nothing to say The two childhood friends were now in completely different situations in postwar life. After so many years of fighting they were able to speak to each other wordlessly, using the language of their hearts.

Kien saw Sinh back to his ward and said good-bye. He hugged him and kissed his cold thin cheeks.

"Come and see me, sometime," Sinh called after Kien as he left.

"Please," he had said, beginning to sob in a rare bout of self-pity. "Sometimes I wish I could kill myself and end everything quickly. War has robbed me of the liberty I deserve. Now, I'm a slave . . ."

And now, as he sat near the dying Sinh in his bedroom, Kien was choked with emotion. He buried his face in his hands, unable to bear it. He then got up and ran from the half-bedroom, half-mortuary, without even saying goodbye to the sister-in-law.

Back in his room, his muddy jacket and shoes still on, he lay on his bed and stared at the cracked, yellowing ceiling, his hands behind his head. Hot and painful tears silently ran down his cheeks.

What was to be done? What could be done? He coughed, wanting to moan out loud to ease the pain.

In truth he had been deliriously happy to return home to Hanoi when the war ended. He had spent more than three days traveling on the trans-Vietnam "Unification" troop train after the fall of Saigon. It was a happy feeling, and some soldiers now regarded it as the best days of their army life. Still, there had been some pain even then.

The train was packed with wounded, demobilized soldiers. Knapsacks were jammed together on the luggage racks and in every corner. Hammocks were strung vertically and horizontally all over the compartments, making them look a little like resting stations in the jungle.

At the start, there had been a common emotion of bitterness. There had been no trumpets for the victorious soldiers, no drums, no music. That might have been tolerated, but not the disrespect shown them.The general population just didn't care about them. Nor did their own authorities.

The railway station scenes were just like afternoon markets, chaotic and noisy.

The authorities checked the soldiers time after time, searching them for loot. Every pocket of their knapsacks had been searched as though the mountain of property that had been looted and hidden after the takeover of the South had been taken only by soldiers.

At every station the loudspeakers blared, blasting the ears of the wounded, the sick, the blind, the mutilated, the white-eyed, grey-lipped malarial troops. Into their ears poured an endless stream of the most ironic of teachings, urging them to ignore the spirit of reconciliation, to beware of the "bullets coated with sugar," to ignore the warmth and passions among the remnants of this fallen, luxurious society of the South. And especially to guard against the idea of the South having fought valiantly or been meritorious in any way.

But we "meritorious" and victorious soldiers knew how to defend ourselves against this barrage of nonsense. We made fun of the loudspeakers' admonishments, turning their speeches into jokes, ridiculing them.

By the time we reached the northern Red River Delta areas, where the roads were running alongside us showing the way home to Hanoi, we were all deliriously happy. All the dreams and wishes that had so long been pent up inside suddenly burst from us. Even the most conservative among us expressed wildly passionate ideas of how they would launch into their new civilian, peacetime lives.

Kien had befriended Hien, a girl soldier from Zone 9 battlefield in the South. She had traveled south in 1966 and been badly wounded in battle. Although her native home was Nam Dinh she had a Ha Tien provincial accent. At night Kien carried her to his hammock and they spent the night together. The rocking of the train set the hammock swinging and despite the cheerful teasing from the soldiers around them they hugged each other and slept together, awakened together, dreamed together, and hugged some more. They kissed hurriedly, sharing the last moments of their uniformed lives, the last kilometers of their battlefield of youth, in passionate embrace.

When the train stopped at her station, Kien helped Hien down from the train. He told her he wanted to leave the train there and take her home, but she laughed and refused.

"That's enough. Let our stories become ashes now," she said. "You need to get home, too. Go home as quickly as possible and take care of your house. See if there's anyone or anything left for you to live for. Maybe someone's expecting you."

"Won't we see each other again?" he asked.

"Who knows? In peacetime anything can happen. Now there's no war and we're not soldiers we needn't make promises to each other. Maybe we'll meet again, by chance."

Alone, Hien turned away from him, dragging herself along on crutches, her badly wounded leg swinging uselessly. Her slim body swung from one side to the other gracefully as she moved along, her shoulders raised by the crutches. Just before she went through the crowded platform gate she turned to look at Kien for a last time. Her eyes were sad, but misting over. She staggered a little, nearly losing her balance, then swung determinedly around and went through the gate and out of view.

From there to Hanoi the train's whistle seemed to sound continuously, saying "Good times, good times, good times," and the wheels clipping over the rail joints replied, "Happy days, happy days, happy days." As they neared beautiful old Hanoi Kien was intoxicated by the excitement, as though he'd been lifted to a higher level on a fragrant cloud. Swept up in the fever of anticipation of returning home, his eyes blurred over with tears for a homeward journey he had never dreamed possible.

It was already dark when he arrived at his old home after walking through quiet dark streets from the Hang Co railway station. He stopped and looked at the old building, which itself was also strangely dark; perhaps the families were all asleep. He entered the front yard cautiously, then approached the front door. Perhaps someone had waited up for him, he thought, for the door was unlatched. Surely no one would wait for me. How would they know? But as he began to climb the stairs he felt a dark sense of urgency and his heart tightened in foreboding.

A pale light shone from a yellowish lamp on the third landing, throwing a dim glow down the corridor. The door to the rooms where he and his father had lived was still the same, with the bronze plaque bearing his father's name. His hands began to shake, then his body, and tears of joy welled up inside him. He stood, swaying gently, fixed to the spot before the door.

Suddenly, another door down the corridor opened and a tall, slim woman wearing a nightgown appeared in the hallway. She stared directly at him, a mute cry in her eyes. Phuong!

He was transfixed, confused.

"Kien!"

She stepped gently forward, leaning into his arms.

Kien responded, gradually coming to his senses, and bent a little as her smooth arms tightened around his neck.

"Phuong, my darling," he murmured as he began kissing her, kisses for ten long years. An unforgettable embrace for each of them, from one heart to the other, an embrace they would remember forever, for nothing so wondrous had touched their lives in those lost years apart.

She gently rubbed her cheek on his lips, then his collar, then his rough army shirt.They whispered urgently to each other."It's been ten years.Ten years. I was sure I'd never see you again."

"We've each been ghosts in the other's mind," he said.

She continued to murmur, "But from this moment on we'll never be apart, will we, darling?"

Kien tensed a little. A feeling of deep embarrassment began to creep over him, a shadow of concern intruding into his happiness, a feeling of uneasiness that seemed to stem from the supple body he held in his arms.

He tensed. He could hear soft footsteps. Someone was watching them in their embrace.

Phuong, oblivious, began undoing the top button of her nightgown, from which she took a shiny key, slung like a necklace. His eyes blurring, Kien unlocked his door and went in. The air, stagnant for several years, flowed out, emerging like a dying gasp.

Kien turned and grasped Phuong's arm and began pulling her into his room. He had seen a shadow inside the door of her room and suddenly became brusque. She had not been alone.