Late Blossom

by Laura Lam

  Contents

  Praise for Late Blossom

  Author’s Note

  Family Tree

  Map of Viet Nam

  YEAR OF THE CAT

  RIPE FOR SERVITUDE

  BEGINNINGS OF LOSS

  TAKING SIDES

  THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ELEPHANT

  ORGANIZED DEATH

  SCENTS OF WAR

  IMPRISONING A VILLAGE

  PEASANT REVOLTS

  TO SAI GON

  CITY LIFE

  VILLAGE REVISITED

  THE BATTLE OF NEW YEAR’S EVE

  UNCLE NAM’S HOUSE

  MEETING THE AMERICANS

  REVOLUTIONARY CELL

  FAREWELL TO A DREAM

  APPLES TOO PRECIOUS TO EAT

  FINAL DAYS

  ANDREW

  ACROSS THE SEA

  A NEW LIFE

  SAI GON REVISITED

  MY FATHER’S STORY

  OTHER LOVED ONES

  BITTER LEGACY

  Major Historical Events

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  About Monsoon Books

  Copyright

  Praise for Late Blossom

  “A haunting account of a young, indomitable Vietnamese woman’s life and love that describes the two intertwining wars coexisting in Viet Nam -- the the American war against Communism and the Civil war between those supporting the Americans and the authoritarian South Vietnamese regime and the ‘nationalists’ who supported Ho Chi Minh’s struggle to regain independence and freedom for Viet Nam. Ms Lam emphasizes the profoundly negative impact of the ‘strategic hamlet’ program and the US bombing that stirred fierce opposition to the South Vietnamese regime and empowered the ‘nationalists’. Late Blossom also provides extraordinary descriptions of the great events at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the ‘Tet offensive’ in 1968, and the fall of the Sai Gon regime in 1975, illuminating insights into the reactions of ordinary South Vietnamese.”

  Desaix Anderson. Charge d’ Affaires, 1995-1997, US Embassy, Ha Noi.

  “For me a good book is one that leaves its mark on you. Late Blossom does that. I couldn’t put it down. It’s what I call an accompaniment story, that you read again and again. Like a favourite teen title that you read again as an adult, but as an adolescent at heart.

  It’s an exceptional book that describes the war in Viet Nam without obscuring it, with an epic dimension, much like ‘Gone with the Wind’ and the ‘Thibaults’ of Roger Martin, with the same themes of war, sacrifices, bombings and destinies that cross. The characters are captivating and we share the dreams and disenchantments of the heroine.”

  Badia Hadj-Nasser, bestselling French author

  For the victims of all wars

  Author’s Note

  On ‘truth’:

  Clive James once observed that autobiographies are full of fiction, while novels are full of reality. I would like to address this issue up front. I have tried here to present what happened, simply, directly, and without judgment. It is for the reader to make judgments; a wide range of interpretations is inevitable. Reality is also complex, and I have deliberately left it so. There are contradictions in making sense of things, inconsistencies of behaviour, and moral choices with many, many angles to them. This is what war does to people.

  I have tried to make the account accurate within my own complex frame of reference. It is my reality. Acknowledging that all people have their own filters and frameworks, this is as close as I can get to what happened. The conversations and events are as I remember them, or as others have directly reported them to me. Most background facts are drawn from a large literature, given at the end.

  On names:

  The name of my country, Viet Nam, should be written as two separate words – like Hong Kong, United Kingdom, United States. The same rule applies to all Vietnamese names of cities, towns, buildings, persons, and animals. For example, the capital of Ha Noi, the city of Sai Gon, the port of Hai Phong, the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the street of Cach Mang Thang Tam should not be condensed and written as Hanoi, Saigon, Haiphong, Dienbienphu, and Cachmangthangtam. In the Vietnamese language, each noun, each verb, each adverb, and each adjective carries only a single sound. There are a few names that are not of Vietnamese origin, such as Tonkin and Cochinchina (given by the French) and Dalat and Pleiku (tribal names) and each of these names carries more than one sound.

  Vietnamese heads of state were referred to as “Emperors” before China’s millennium-long domination. Under the Chinese, they were known simply as “Kings of An Nam” – rulers of the peaceful south. However, at the beginning of the Nguyen dynasty in 1802, Gia Long broke away from the Chinese influence and proclaimed himself Emperor of Viet Nam. Domestically all Vietnamese rulers adopted a full Chinese style imperial regalia. The line of emperors came to an end with Bao Dai, who abdicated in 1945.

  Following the country’s reunification in 1975, a number of street names in cities and towns were changed. For example, Tu Do Street is now Dong Khoi Street, Thong Nhat Avenue is now Le Duan Avenue, Cong Ly Avenue is now Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Avenue. Streets named after Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French and who had once been considered as “heroes” by the ARVN regime were removed in 1975. Streets and place names in French have also been renamed, with the exception of those few honouring the individuals who had made great humanitarian contributions, such as Dr Pasteur, Dr Calmette, and Dr Yersin.

  On poetry:

  Vietnamese people, not only scholars, often express their emotions in the form of verse. Those who compose poetry include farmers, fishermen, housewives, soldiers, factory workers, pedicab drivers, street hawkers, a girl on the bus, a beggar at the temple…

  On anonymity:

  Several names of individuals in this book have been changed in order to protect their identity. Names of my home village, the local garrison, and the province have also been changed.

  Frequent abbreviations:

  VIET MINH – Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi. League for the Independence of Viet Nam (Nationalist force during the French War).

  ARVN – Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (American-backed regime in the South).

  NLF – National Liberation Front (Nationalist forces in South Viet Nam during the American War).

  VIET CONG – Nationalist Force, labeled as Vietnamese Communists (term used by Americans and ARVN regime).

  USAID – United States Agency for International Development.

  Family Tree

  Map of Viet Nam

  YEAR OF THE CAT

  Little caged bird,

  Who will send you across the sea,

  To flee your cage to find freedom?

  I was born in the Year of the Metal Cat, 1951. Every twelfth year, according to the Vietnamese lunar calendar, is a Cat year. An astrologer once predicted that my life would change significantly during each such year.

  And so it turned out.

  In 1963, the Year of the Water Cat, my family left our ravaged village in the Mekong Delta for the capital city of Sai Gon. We had tried to escape the cruelties and dangers of war. In exchange we now lived in one of the poorest sections of Sai Gon, at the end of a narrow dirt alley, in a small house with mud walls and an earthen floor backing onto a bamboo grove and a cemetery.

  The shock, after my rural childhood, was intense. Most of the houses in my new neighbourhood were run down and only a few could afford electricity. The rest of us still used kerosene lamps. Out on the main road, about half a kilometre away, were rows of electrified street lamps and, farther along, larger houses, French colonial in style, with spacious gardens, all equipped with electricity. There, at the intersection where the main alley began that led toward our house, an old man wit
h a long white beard managed a herbal medicine shop, a big Chinese woman ran a barbecue restaurant, and clusters of food stalls sold French bread, noodle soups, and various types of sweets. Nearby stood two giant metal containers where the whole neighbourhood was supposed to deposit its garbage and where one or two beggars could often be seen sifting for usable items.

  The main alley itself was mostly paved but nearly all its branches – the smaller alleys that wound their way between houses – were unpaved and turned into muddy swamps during the monsoon season. The front yards were uniformly tiny, but many held a fruit tree – a breast-milk tree, for instance, or a guava, or a water-apple – and young children managed to find room for hopscotch, jump rope or chopsticks tossing.

  On the way to our house was a large French bakery. More than half its employees were young men who worked mostly at night. Because of the heat from the burning charcoal ovens, they sweated terribly, in their shorts and sleeveless shirts; every morning the entire neighbourhood was filled with the aroma of their freshly baked bread. Each morning we also heard the voices of traveling street hawkers selling breakfast food – French bread sandwiches, sweet glutinous rice, beef and chicken noodle soup, crawling cakes (banh bo), and falling cakes (banh lot).

  Like the majority of houses in the area, our house had no running water when we first moved in. We had to either carry what we needed from the neighbourhood well, or pay Mr Tu, the water carrier, to do it for us. The well was usually crowded with teenage girls and women who laughed and giggled while drawing their water. Near the well rose a huge breast-milk tree (vu sua) that provided permanent shade over the entire area.

  Life in the city was different. The sweet cooling breezes we had known in the countryside were now replaced by permanent tropical heat and humidity, and the peace and tranquility of our delta village by the raucous noises and pungent smells of city life. Our new neighbours quarreled loudly, day and night, and shouted profanities at each other; rival hawkers argued and fought; motor scooters smoked and putt-putted; three wheel pedicabs, called cyclos – clattered and rang bells; radios and televisions chattered and sang. And from the distance, as the years passed, came the encroaching sound of gunfire.

  Now it was the spring of 1975, the fateful Year of the Wood Cat. I had just turned twenty-four, and although my father still worked for the same government transportation ministry where he had been employed since 1956, I had become the leading breadwinner for my parents, four brothers and a sister. I now worked as the personal assistant to a deputy minister, arranging meetings for foreign businessmen with senior government officials and heads of Vietnamese companies. My office was located in the heart of Sai Gon, on the ground floor of a lovely colonial building on Tu Do Street, known under the French as Rue Catinat. It ran from the Notre Dame cathedral down to the Sai Gon River. Near my office, standing prominently on the same street, was the familiar statue in black cast-iron that overlooked Lam Son Square, once known as Place François Garnier. It depicted two soldiers holding their guns and pointing them, ironically, at the House of Representatives on the opposite side of the Square. For many years, Lam Son Square had been the focal point of public protests against the American-backed regime.

  Tu Do Street itself was filled with offices, art galleries, boutiques, theatres, fashionable restaurants, and three of Sai Gon’s five-star hotels. All of the buildings were built in the French colonial style – with red tile roofs, French doors and windows and French tile floors in black and white or floral designs. Rows of evenly spaced trees on either side of the street also gave it a French flavour. To judge from photos I had seen in magazines, Tu Do Street could have passed for a Parisian thoroughfare. Most of the French restaurants in the area remained open in the early months of 1975, like the Aterbea, run by a Corsican who was still able to get fresh strawberries from Dalat, and there were several cafés in the French style, such as the Brodard across from my office, with tables on the sidewalk and a zinc bar within. The Givral Patisserie was a few steps further away. Each morning, the fresh aromas of Viet Nam’s famous coffee from Ban Me Thuot and Givra’s freshly baked croissants wafted up along the street. Further along toward the river was Maxim’s, considered the best French restaurant in all Indochina. A few steps from my office, not too far from Notre Dame Cathedral, were the grand hotels like the Continental and the Caravelle in Lam Son Square, the Rex on Le Loi Boulevard, and finally the Majestic down on the river front itself. But that spring, even though the centre of Sai Gon kept some of its bustle and there were people who still fooled themselves into believing the war could never penetrate the city, the noose had begun to tighten around us.

  On 27 March 1975, the Saigon Post carried the headline “Reds Take Over Tam Ky” (a provincial capital seven hundred kilometres to the north). The newspaper reported half a million refugees in Da Nang, where Northern troops were fifteen kilometres from the outskirts of the city. It said that a thousand refugees had been killed while fleeing the Central Highlands, and an overloaded ship, with three thousand refugees aboard, had gone down in a storm near Hue, the old imperial city. Route 7 from Pleiku, the paper reported, was the scene of a “long, bloody evacuation,” and this latest Northern offensive had generated, all in all, nearly one million refugees. While Northern troops continued their advance toward the capital, South Vietnamese government officials were pleading for the warring sides to observe Article 11 of the Paris Agreement and avoid retaliation and mistreatment of individuals who had cooperated on either side. Signs of crisis were all the more visible on the city streets. There were more hawkers than ever, selling whatever they could get their hands on, and heavily made-up bargirls searching desperately for foreigners. Meanwhile, our well-dressed Caucasian visitors had been quietly slipping away, leaving the city to be fought over between the khaki-clad Americanised army of the Republic of Viet Nam and the black cotton uniformed peasant army of the National Liberation Front.

  The military was now everywhere, and barbed wire surrounded their buildings and emplacements. In our neighbourhood, groups of soldiers could appear any time, day or night. Sometimes they claimed they were looking for young men who were evading the draft, but incidents of gang rape had become common. In reality, they were members of the defeated Southern army who had retreated to the city after their sectors were taken over by the National Liberation Front and Northern troops. Left to forage for themselves, they preyed upon the poorer neighbourhoods where people were intimidated by anyone who wore a uniform.

  I myself experienced a series of narrow escapes. One night, on my way home from work and away from the busy main street, I passed a group of soldiers in an alley. Some of them were leaning against a dark wall, and they were talking and laughing. When they saw me they fell silent. I could see the red ends of their cigarettes and feel them staring at me. Their stares made me shiver. I quickened my step, but knew I couldn’t move fast enough to avoid them. I wanted to run, but sensed that would be the worst thing to do. Just then, I spotted an older man coming out of a building. He was wearing a white shirt with tie and dark trousers. His back was stooped a little, his hair was grey, and he had on a pair of clear eyeglasses.

  I rushed up to him and called out, “Good evening, Uncle!” He understood the situation at a glance. He greeted me enthusiastically in return and, taking my arm, had me walk right beside him, talking as though we’d always known each other. He headed us in the direction away from my house, but that didn’t matter to me. Behind us, to my vast relief, the laughter of the soldiers faded. Afterwards, the kindly man offered to walk me home, “I think it would be better if I take you all the way to your house.”

  But I said to him, “Thank you, Uncle! I am so lucky to have met you. But I think it’s now safe for me to walk home by myself.”

  He was a herbal medicine doctor who had been visiting a patient in the area. He bade me goodbye with a bow and a warning, “From now on, tell your brothers to meet you at the bus stop.”

  This I didn’t do, but I stopped working late in th
e office or shopping in the city centre in the evening, and always made sure to get home before dark.

  Others weren’t as lucky. The niece of Mr Tu, our neighbour and the well-water carrier – Bay was her name – had been gang-raped by a marauding group of men in military uniform. Not long before that, the body of a young woman had been found by a beggar in one of the garbage dumps near the main road, not far from where we lived. The woman had been raped and murdered. No one in our area even knew who she had been.

  Meanwhile, the fall of the former imperial capital, where thousands had been slaughtered, made it clear that we in Sai Gon would not be spared. My situation was further compromised by the fact that my uncle, Nam, in whose house I had once lived at the Joint General Staff Headquarters in Tan Son Nhat, was a colonel in the army of South Viet Nam. He was a man with a “blood debt” for his control of major military operations in the South, among them the notorious Operation Phoenix. The Phoenix’s goal had been to uproot the National Liberation Front’s infrastructure, and during its campaign there were mass arrests, detentions, and murders of “Viet Cong” agents and suspects. Widespread incidents of abuse occurred in rural villages and many innocent people were killed. Nam had already been marked for elimination by the National Liberation Front. He had long since left Sai Gon, but as a member of his family, I was sure to be hauled in for interrogation.

  In addition, for several years I had been dating foreigners, especially Americans, who were now the deadly enemy of the combined nationalist forces. How long could I manage to conceal this if subjected to investigation? And even if I succeeded, what made me think I could escape the fate that awaited so many women in the ruins of war, who, even now, were being raped, beaten, shot, and dumped in ditches by the soldiers of the two armies?

  My great hope was an Englishman named Andrew, whom I had met the previous year at my office. Andrew was a management theorist who taught at a major university in Hong Kong. He was doing research on corporate management in various Asian countries on the Pacific Rim. I had arranged contacts for him with a university professor and several Vietnamese companies. When he and a colleague came to my office the first time in July, 1974, he impressed me, even though the meeting was brief and formal. The next day, when we bumped into each other on Tu Do Street and exchanged greetings, I felt a current between us, and even though it would be months before we met again, my instincts were right.