“That’s something that had to happen. Now is no time for hesitation; only action counts. I didn’t want this to happen but it did. So: I must be ready for any eventuality.”
He puts out his hand and touches the submachine gun by his side, the way a farmer touches the back of a buffalo before stepping down behind the plow or a rider smoothes out the mane of a horse before getting it to gallop. This had been a habit of his ever since the age of thirteen, when he followed an uncle out to the woods in search of game. When An’s fingers touched the cold iron of the gun, a strong wave of emotion spread throughout his body, reaching all the way up to his brain and bringing along a sense of power, faith, and iron will all at the same time. The chill of the weapon passed a torch through him. Touching it was like the people of old touching the tablet to make an oath, it made him feel quite at ease. To An, the weapon was like a faithful warhorse or hunting dog. It was no longer an inanimate object but had become part of his own body and will.
In the dark, a twisted smile crosses An’s face.
“I don’t want this! I absolutely do not relish this hunt. But now that I am hunted, I must become the hunter.”
He watches Ma Ly sit down with the commanding officers. No doubt he is reporting briefly on the situation and suggesting that the division chief watch An because of “a military secret of national import.” So An guesses silently. As it turns out, a moment later, Ma Ly stands up together with the division commander, and both of them begin to move along the front edge of the stage to go toward the back.
An cannot figure out where they are heading. If they are going toward the back of the stage, then it will become extremely inconvenient for him because the engineering team running the generator will be right there. But this presupposition is probably incorrect because it would be too hard to reveal a big secret given the noise of the generator and the curious stares of the electricians. Will they go into the deep woods surrounding the clearing? But should they do so they might run into the patrolling soldiers. On the other hand, with the division commander having a very loud voice, perhaps he will take the Meo to the stream, where his voice will be carried away by the noisy falls and thus not heard by anyone. Fortunately, that will be the most favorable spot for handling the situation because on the other side of the stream is what is called a “death zone,” a cliff wall that goes straight up, and on that huge wall not a single bush can push its way out into the air. That is why not only men, but even antelopes, dare not climb it. It was not the northern soldiers but actually the military recon troops of the South Vietnamese that gave the region the name Death Mountain.
An follows the two men—now his prey—hiding behind trees as he goes along. As he thought, the division commander is taking the Meo to the bank of the stream. Since it is quite a distance, the music fades to be replaced by the increasingly loud rumbling of the waterfall. Like a leopard An follows them. He does not realize that the wind has changed direction, turning the leaves backward, making the forest move so that the steps of the prey as well as those of the hunter become lost in the overall symphony of the leaves. After about ten minutes, they arrive at the bathing spot, almost exactly where An had been sitting earlier in the afternoon. An idea flashes by, like a lightning shaft through the air:
“Could it be that a few hours earlier, I hesitated to bathe in this stream because I would have to take care of them in this very spot?”
He does not have time to think much more, because the conversation has begun, with every word quite audible:
“Dear commander, we Meo are absolutely loyal to the revolution, that is why I think I am duty-bound to report this to you. An extremely important affair.”
So Ma Ly begins in a trembling voice. Maybe he is not quite himself. Maybe he hesitates between his own fear and the fear of his conscience, “the conscience of someone loyal to the party and government”…Or perhaps he is in a quandary, caught between his fear of An, one who has already escaped from an entire army, someone to be feared, and his own thirst for power. Or maybe he instinctively feels the danger to him lurking in this game. An cannot figure out the reason but there is no mistaking Ma Ly’s trembling voice and his shortness of breath.
An curses him with deep contempt. “Son of a bitch…You shake as you fuck…”
At this point, the division commander’s voice can be heard firmly saying, “All of us are duty-bound to be loyal to the revolution. It’s good that you spell out your thoughts clearly like that. I am ready to hear you out.”
“Commander…”
Ma Ly begins again, his voice no longer so shaky: “Commander, isn’t that true that in the division there is a company commander named Hoang An, a Tay from Cao Bang who is fighting directly under your command?”
“Correct! Company Commander Hoang An is a bold, clever, and promising leader. It can be said that he is the right-hand man of Battalion Commander Dinh Quang Nha…But his native village is in Dong Mo, Lang Son, not in Cao Bang. I know by heart the bio of Commander An, the way I know the CVs of all the battalion commanders in my division.”
“I report to you, Commander, that Hoang An’s native village is actually Xiu in That Khe district, Cao Bang province. He used to be the third company leader of Company 1, Battalion 109, a unit with special assignments stationed in Ha Dong in 1957. At that time I was deputy squad leader in his company. His real name is Chi Van Thanh. He was recruited as a Party member after he joined the army, in September 1951, three years before the liberation of the capital.”
“What did you say? He has been a Party member before?”
An notes how the division commander’s voice has grown louder as he posed those questions. When he had joined the division under the name of Hoang An, he had used the papers of a dead comrade who was not a Party member. And he had been newly recruited into the Party exactly two years ago. It was the division commander himself who had ordered that he be recruited into the Party on the spot after a series of combat successes achieved by An’s unit. An now hears Ma Ly laugh ironically; after a moment of silence, Ma Ly goes on:
“When I joined the army, Chi Van Thanh had already been a Party member for six years. He was recruited right in the Viet Bac resistance zone.”
“OK, then. Go ahead and tell me more. I am listening.”
“Chi Van Thanh motivated me to join the Party and proposed that I become deputy squad leader.”
“Then?”
“Then, one day he simply disappeared, saying he had a chance to visit Hanoi. The command did not know the reason for his departure and ordered that he be found, but without result. After about a week, the command staff sent someone down to officially report that Chi Van Thanh was a spy planted by the puppet army in our ranks so as to sabotage us from within. Because his identity was about to be revealed, they had reported, he had fled together with another spy in the guards. Both of them are Tay from Cao Bang and natives of That Khe district. Border defense soldiers went in pursuit, even crossing the Viet-Lao border, but all they could find was two tiger-eaten corpses and two abandoned rifles.”
“If he has been determined to have been eaten by a tiger, then how can he come back and live under another name? Especially when two rifles have been abandoned. Do you think, Comrade, that an escapee can throw away his rifle and survive in the woods with only his bare hands when in front of him are both wild animals and the enemy?”
An gets the feeling that his division commander does not believe what the Meo is telling him and that he is trying his best to lead him toward another explanation.
In hesitation, Ma Ly mumbles for a while but then speaks in a most decisive way: “I know. What you said makes sense. But I cannot be mistaken, since Chi Van Thanh also recognized me. He even told me not to call him by his old name, that he had been pursued and that he had changed his name and family name.”
Suddenly, whistlings and passionate shouts echo all over the woods:
“Bravo, bravo…”
“Encore; one more dance…”
“Once more! Hurray…Once more, please!”
“Once more! Please do it again.”
An is sure that the Cham Rong dance must have just been performed, the dance of spring, the dance of love, of festivals and of aspirations. He imagines the crowd’s excited faces under the headlights. At the same time, an idea comes into his mind:
“Dear commander, you and I have no enmity or hatred, we don’t have any unhappy memories of each other. You have been like a generous brother to me but right now I have no choice. Please pardon me.”
An points his gun at Ma Ly’s back, aiming at a span and a half below his left shoulder, and pulls the trigger. An explosion. Surely the Meo’s heart must be a mess. Moving his gun half a millimeter to the left, he shoots two bullets into the other, much larger, man. The whole thing happens in a blink. Both bodies fall forward almost at the same time, in the same direction.
An lowers the gun and puts it down at the foot of a familiar tree, where he used to sit by himself in the afternoon. The reflection of the fireflies in the water on the other side of the stream and the uncertain light of the phosphorescent balls under the tree bushes are all he needs to find everything. After hiding the gun, An walks toward the two corpses, which are piled one on top of the other. Both corpses are warm. First he carefully takes the pants of each man so that the blood from their chests does not smear their pants. The he picks up their weapons and flashlights, their cigarette packs and lighters, the nail cutters in their shirt pockets, notebooks and pens, and stacks everything on the grass. Then he takes off their shoes and socks. Figuring that all has been taken care of, he carries the Meo upstream to Roaring Elephant Falls.
Stopping to breathe a bit, he then throws Ma Ly’s body down the falls. He hears the corpse drop into the water and watches as the black body is carried violently downstream. Coming back, An tries to pick up the division commander. He is very heavy. Finally he gets the sturdy body over his shoulder and walks step by slow step to the falls, where he puts the corpse down on the bank. He then pulls from his pants pocket a parachute string and ties one of his legs to a nearby tree. Gathering all his strength, he picks up the corpse and throws it down the cascade. The momentum from his throw makes him fall after it, but the string stops him. An then jumps up and unties the string, then goes back downstream, where he immerses himself in the icy water to get the blood out of his clothes. He then picks up the flashlight and submachine gun, intending to go back to the underground chamber. But as he looks up, suddenly he hears running feet and glimpses a dark silhouette disappearing among the black trees. Though he does not get a clear look, it is for sure a living creature, not some ghost.
“Was someone watching me?” he thinks to himself, immediately going in pursuit of the dark shape.
Whatever made the noise might as well have been a fox or some other animal. It disappeared in a flash, leaving no trace, as if it had blended in the woods. Nonetheless, An tries to follow, pursuing it all the way to the edge of the forest, where finally he stops. Though the prey he was after might be human or a ghost, or even a fox, he lets it escape. To follow any farther would put him in danger of getting caught with the trappings of a murderer, wet from head to toe.
“Well, I will take care of you later,” he resolves, and proceeds back to the underground chamber. Luckily for him, the quarters are totally deserted. Hanging his wet clothes on the drying rack, An stands there a moment looking at the fire in the brazier lit to dry clothes in the damp underground chamber, feeling at once sad and indifferent. He feels like sleeping. But, that being impossible, he puts on fresh clothes and goes back to the clearing, joins his unit, and quietly hides himself behind his troops as the performance continues.
After about ten minutes, he puts a hand on the shoulder of the fellow in front of him:
“Having a good time?”
Taken aback, the fellow turns around and looks at him.
“Where did you go, Chief, to be here only now?”
“Commander Nha told me to go with him and take a nap in the underground chamber. I overslept.”
“You missed half of the evening already, you know.”
“So be it…But at least I had a good rest. Besides, being ten years older than you, I no longer yearn as much as you do for the pretty girls. Isn’t that right?”
The soldier laughs heartily. “To that question I have no answer.”
“Go ahead, enjoy the show, lest you lose out on the fun,” An replies, putting a sudden end to the conversation. He then uses his right hand to squeeze a vital spot on his left shoulder. Only now does he feel his whole body aching after the strenuous and tense episode he has just passed through. His eyelids start to weigh heavily like lead and it begins to seem as if they will no longer obey the will of their owner.
“I can’t sleep now,” An thinks to himself. “I have no right to do so. Having just declared to everybody that I got a good nap with the battalion commander, I cannot have a reason for napping some more.”
But, starting to yawn, he pulls out his pack of cigarettes and lights one of them. As soon as the smoke spreads, five or six heads turn around, greedily looking to share in a smoke. Arms spread toward him:
“Me first, Commander. I had my hand up first.”
“Liar, I was the one to raise my hand first. Sitting where you are in front, how could you smell the smoke before anyone else?”
“I am third. Please do not forget me.”
“How about me? Is not an old soldier entitled to a smoke?”
“I thought you all were fixated on the show,” An replies. “That’s why I dared open my pack of cigarettes…You all certainly have keen noses.”
The cigarette then passes from hand to hand through the ranks with its butt burning bright then dimming then burning again. In the end it disappears even as more hands are raised in expectation. An looks up to the stage but in his ear he can still hear the thud and the gurgling sound of the water when the body of the division commander was thrown in.
“He certainly was a strong man. He must have been an authoritarian father to his children and an exhausting husband in bed. People from maritime provinces consume lots of fish, so they are born potent, needing no bear or tiger paste. His heart was really pumping blood. It spurted out like water from a sprinkler.”
So thinking, An instinctively put his hand on his neck to ascertain whether he was entirely free of the commander’s blood. On the way toward the waterfall, blood from the commander’s corpse kept flowing out, gooey and warm, soaking the base of his neck and then flowing past his chest, his navel, all the way down to his pubic hair, making him feel extremely uncomfortable. It had then split into two streams flowing down the interior of his thighs, feeling a bit sticky like a sauce coming from a stew pot. It made a very strong impression—an unforgettable one. The blood felt like a kind of thick tree sap but it was warm and gave a slightly fishy smell. All of a sudden, An feels his limbs go weak. A hatred rises up and becomes a whisper in his heart:
“Why couldn’t you just shut up, you damn Meo? I didn’t do you any personal harm. Besides, you have no idea why I had to flee my home province. How can you understand the pain of someone forced to leave his homeland? What dark wind blew in your direction so that you dumbly listened to others? What wicked black veil covered your eyes so that you looked on me blinded by such a poisonous thought?”
Onstage, they are performing a short piece of cheo theater from the traditional ethnic Vietnamese playlist. The piece is called Xuy Van Gia Dai (Xuy Van Feigning Madness). An cannot recall any of the details of the story, only that it is about a woman betrayed in love who has gone mad. The actress onstage wears a bright red skirt the color of kapok flowers with a white magnolia flower in her hair. Her confused movements and her beautiful, thoroughly sober look don’t seem to go together at all. Her singing is mournful, imbued with authentic melancholy, but at the same time quite alluring. To An, it isn’t the singing of a madwoman, but rather that of a female bird calling for her male compa
nion.
“Male and female birds call to each other in the spring, coo throughout the summer, make love throughout the fall, and take turns brooding their eggs over the winter. Those are the happy birds. Only we suffer. Now we can never call to each other or carry out a courtship with our words and songs. We can no longer make love and never will we have children to cuddle and nurture like little birds that are taken care of by their parents.”
As these thoughts slowly pass through his mind, they cut like a knife heated hot in a furnace and now applied to his skin and flesh. He can almost feel his skin and flesh sizzling under that horrible knife. He misses her, the pretty wife he had. His first love but also his last. The one and only woman in his life. Fused with his flesh for sixteen full years, she will live forever in his soul.
“Dong, where are you now? My lover, please ride the wind and the trees, please borrow the voice of birds and beasts to give me an answer. Where are you? And where is your little sister?”
Dong and An had become lovers at the age of fifteen. But they had known each other since they could barely walk. They had been the closest neighbors, their houses separated only by a mountain slope. Both their mothers had become pregnant in the same year, and had given birth to each of them in the same moon, her at the beginning and him at the end. The following month, the two families agreed to take the full-moon day to celebrate the first full month of both children. The mountain village people had gone to her home to kill a cow and celebrate at noon, and in the evening they had come to his family’s house to roast a pig, boil chickens, and have a feast. The festivities went on until very late and everyone stayed the night, not returning to their homes until the next day.
The immense flank of the mountain had been their playground during childhood. It was where she would follow him into the bushes to find ripe fruit, catch May bugs and ladybugs, or dig up cricket holes. When they were five, he had taken her on their first adventure, leaving the familiar hill to go look for the springs that brought water to the village, then up the mountain to where one could hear the sporadic songs of the nightingales. In the winter of that year, a pharyngeal epidemic had spread throughout the district. Xiu Village was lost in an isolated, faraway valley yet it, too, could not avoid the common plague. Since then An had been an orphan. His father had died one day, and the next, his mother also passed away from an epidemic that killed mostly young ones. His parents were its only adult victims. What had been odd was that he was living in the same home yet he stayed in splendid health. His parents and the young dead had to be collected, put on the same pyre, and buried together in a corner of the valley so as to prevent the epidemic from spreading.
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