Late Blossom

by Laura Lam

  Outside, I saw Mo Muoi loading the sampan with bags of glutinous rice cakes. Sac’s mother was assisting her. The two women appeared to be in a great hurry. Their bags were laid neatly in a row, then covered with a large plastic sheet heaped with un-husked rice. That morning Uncle Muoi had gone to the rice field to work but he came home for lunch. He was holding an ARVN flag, which he placed strategically at one end of the sampan. Its bright yellow background and the three red stripes were clearly visible from the house. With this, he could pass safely if he were spotted by government troops.

  He quietly poled the sampan away. When he came back, some two hours later, all that was left in the sampan was the un-husked rice.

  THE BATTLE OF NEW YEAR’S EVE

  The Truong Son Mountains are trembling

  The Mekong River tides are swelling

  On this eve we pledge to die for the motherland

  Nothing is more precious than a free country

  Ngoc Lien, of the Long Hair Army

  We left the village after the day of the kitchen god, exactly one week before Tet – the Lunar New Year. My grandmother had made the annual offering of flowers, sesame cookies, and peanut bars to the kitchen god. As soon as we got home my mother hurried to sew new clothes for my brothers. Despite our poverty, they always had new and colourful clothes during the Lunar New Year holidays, a Vietnamese tradition.

  My grandmother and I went to the flower market on Nguyen Hue Boulevard for an ornamental orange shrub, also bought branches of white and pink cherry blossoms for the front entrance of the house. According to ancient Vietnamese belief, the orange tree will bring good luck and the cherry tree will scare evil spirits away. Cherry trees were too scarce for every family in the city to have one, so branches were used. If cherry branches were in full bloom on New Year’s Day, it was considered a good omen.

  The day before New Year I went shopping with my mother. We bought a huge bunch of assorted flowers, half a dozen watermelons, bananas, tangerines, vegetables, two live chickens, several live fish, pork, and ingredients for making banh tet – the savoury glutinous rice cakes all Vietnamese love. In North Viet Nam, they are called banh chung, and the shape is square rather than a long tube.

  I washed and ironed red cloths for the altars and tables – red and gold have always been the traditional colours for Tet. After cleaning the house thoroughly, I helped my mother with the food preparation. The day passed quickly. After sunset the house was alight with candles and incense sticks. While banh tet simmered in a large iron pot, a vegetarian meal was prepared as offerings to our ancestors. Grandmother would lead the prayer at midnight. In the past, fireworks had been used to celebrate each New Year’s Eve but now, as the war escalated, this practice was forbidden by the government.

  Around ten my brothers pleaded with me to start cracking red-dyed watermelon seeds. We sat on the floor and I began to tell them the legend of the red watermelon. My mother busily arranged the food for the altars. It was almost midnight.

  The clock on the wall chimed twelve clear tones. We had entered the Year of the Monkey, 1968. Grandmother listened out for the first animal’s sound in the first hour of the New Year – which would suggest either a good or a bad coming year. There was none to be heard. Instead came a series of explosive sounds. Could they be fireworks after all, even though fireworks were banned? We looked at each other, perplexed. Another series of explosions followed, louder this time, then more, more, continuous volleys of sound. We found our neighbours gazing intently at the fire-lit sky. We saw arrows of orange flame and mushrooms of black smoke rising into the air.

  “War! War is coming to Sai Gon! Alert everyone!” shouted Mr Tu, the water carrier.

  People burst from their homes and ran to the main road. My brothers and I followed, made a left turn onto another road and we saw ARVN troops and a row of tanks on the far side of the Blue Bridge. From there, we could hear the screaming of sirens. Everyone panicked and was confused. They ran back into their houses, searching for valuables. My brothers and I hurried home. People milled about frantically, not knowing which way to run. A few minutes later I saw families with bags and pillows racing toward the cemetery. Bay Ca’s family arrived at our front door. His tearful wife said their house had no concrete walls so it would be safer for them to be with us. Bay Ca had stayed in his house, telling his family not to worry about him. We all squatted together on the floor, the adults holding the little children in their arms, our ears deafened by the explosions.

  The noises diminished and we all waited … in spooky silence. We heard nothing more, not a sound, not even the whispering of the wind or the stirring of a leaf.

  Unusual flashes of light went past our front window, followed by steady footsteps approaching our house. We held our breath and waited. I looked up and saw two human shadows, with guns silhouetted against our living-room wall.

  They didn’t move. My father and I stood up and peered out of the window. Two soldiers, in ARVN uniform, now turned their eyes toward us. The dim-light from our kerosene lamp glowed on their faces. I could see their most intense eyeballs – moving vigilantly and cautiously. Trying my best to remain calm, I said, “Hello Big Brothers!”

  One of them answered with a soft voice, “Little Sister, please tell everyone inside not to run away. Please stay where you are.”

  I nodded. They quietly moved on, heading towards the dark alley that led to the cemetery. Whatever the truth, I felt they weren’t from the ARVN forces we’d seen near the main road. My father agreed. They must have been Nationalists.

  I whispered to the others. Bay Ca’s wife was most upset. If there were Viet Cong soldiers in our neighbourhood, there would be a direct confrontation with ARVN troops at any moment. We all rose to leave the house. My mother and I put all our money inside my handbag. My father took a pile of papers out of a cabinet and tucked them inside his shirt. Grandmother packed a few banh tet. We took two bags of clothing with us. My brothers Hau and Nhan, aged five and four, each grabbed a live chicken and, holding the chickens in their arms, they ran with us across the cemetery. So we escaped the area.

  We found shelter at the school I had attended briefly in 1963, occupying a classroom on the ground floor with ten other families. Next day, the battle that came to be known in America as the Tet Offensive resumed, but there were quiet periods in which people managed to get some rest and sleep.

  One of the chickens had run off and the remaining one became my brothers’ pet. It was guarded very closely. We ate the banh tet and some French bread, and drank water from a sink. It wasn’t drinking water but luckily no one fell ill. My brothers kept asking for rice and for meat. There wasn’t any, and even if there had been, it was impossible to do any cooking. The price of French bread had doubled and my mother was very anxious about the food situation. Ba Chieu market next to the school had been closed down.

  The next morning I was surprised to see several families preparing meals in the schoolyard. Classroom chairs had been chopped up for firewood. Heaps of animal hair suggested a cat or a dog had been butchered. Seeing other children eating hot food, my brothers started begging for the same. I volunteered to go home and collect some provisions. My mother told me to go quickly and hurry back.

  * * *

  The air was calm as I strode along the roads. I saw no wounded or dead bodies until I reached the long alley leading to my home. There, I noticed traces of blood around the garbage dump. It was then I saw a male body dressed in civilian clothes, face down and arms splayed out as though in the act of grabbing something. Terrified, I covered my eyes and ran home. As soon as I entered the house a bullet flew past me like a gust of wind. Its fire hit the glass jar of sugar on the kitchen table, which smashed into pieces. I fell to the floor, my body frozen in terror. Bullets were suddenly pouring like a rainstorm outside the house. Each time I opened my eyes I saw darts of fire at the windows. Sobbing, my hands covering my face, I called out to Quan Yin.

  In the brief silence that followed, I smelled
the thick burning air as I raised my head. There were bullet holes in the walls. I grabbed a pillow from the bed, covered my head and crawled to the kitchen counter. I found the can of US Army sausages Bay Ca’s wife had sold us a few days before. I pulled down an aluminium pot from the rack, crawled to the rice barrel and used it to scoop out rice. On all four, I left the house just as a new hail of bullets erupted.

  I made my escape by a different alley the other side of Bay Ca’s house. I wanted to avoid the dead body on the garbage dump. I spotted some people wandering about – possibly thieves. I recognized none of them. One man was on a motor scooter. The engine stopped suddenly. I watched him being taken away by a group of ARVN uniformed soldiers, leaving his motor scooter behind. With the pot of rice and the can of American sausages on my right shoulder, I crawled, squatted, walked, ran, biting my lip. Suddenly right in front of me, blood stains spattered the wet and muddy ground. A headless body lay alongside a human arm and a handbag. The head was at some distance, next to a heap of garbage, half a face visible under a pile of hair. It belonged to a woman. One eye wide open, gazing in disbelief. Her broken flesh and skin were like those of a pig on a butcher counter.

  I suppressed my screams and ran … as if the dead woman’s angry spirit and her own wailing voice were chasing me. I tripped, fell forward, then clambered to my feet again, and my eyes stinging with tears, I ran on in overwhelming terror.

  At the junction between the alley and the main road I stopped, took a deep breath, and waited. Then I ran as fast as I could, past the theatre, past Ba Chieu market, ignoring all the deafening sounds. The rice in the pot spilled out along the way. My clothes were spattered with mud. When I got to the school’s main gate, my grandmother and brothers were standing there, waiting. My father scolded me. How stupid I was to have done what I had! I gave my brothers the American sausages, which they managed to open. They quickly gulped down its contents.

  Eventually, the New Year battle came to an end. Weary people straggled out onto the road. Holding the hands of my two youngest brothers, I forced our way through the crowd. All we wanted was to go home.

  When we got there, we found the door wide open. Clothing scattered all over the floor. They had been urinated on. There were piles of human excrement in each corner of the room. We were forced out of the house. We went to talk to neighbours. Their houses were in the same disgusting condition. They told us how ARVN troops had occupied the neighbourhood. Several of us went to the well to collect buckets of water. We forced ourselves to go back into the house to start the cleaning process. Photos from family albums were scattered all over the kitchen floor. On the back of one of my photos was the hand-written message, “Hello girl! I wish I could fuck you. I haven’t had it for months.” I tore the photo in pieces. Like thousands of young women in Sai Gon, I had fantasized that I would one day meet and fall in love with a newly graduated officer from the military academy. Now the dream was shattered.

  * * *

  Before the Lunar New Year, thousands of NLF soldiers had infiltrated a hundred towns and cities in the South. Commandos moved arms, ammunition, and explosives into Sai Gon from their main base near a rubber plantation north of the capital. Senior women of the Soldiers’ Mothers Association, an NLF organization, were responsible for organizing the transportation of weapons into the city. A sixty-eight year-old woman, Mrs Ranh, known as “The Iron Mother of Cu Chi”, had obtained a dozen truckloads of rice, foodstuff, clothing, and medicine for the Nationalist troops. Mrs Ranh’s eight children had joined the NLF and all had been killed. Her devotion to the cause was fierce. In Central Sai Gon, an elderly woman, Mrs Chanh had supervised the movement of weapons into Sai Gon by sea in two large boats covered with pineapples. Additional weapons were stored in private houses and shops in Sai Gon and guarded by elderly women. According to General Ho Thi Bi, dubbed by Ho Chi Minh as “the Eastern Region’s Heroine”, and whom I interviewed after the war, the NLF forces attacking Sai Gon had been assisted by 235 civilian families who formed into groups at twenty-nine locations. Altogether, the guerrillas established four hundred bases in Sai Gon and its immediate surrounding areas. They aimed at nine strategic locations: the Joint-General Staff Headquarters, the Presidential Palace, the National Radio station, the US Embassy, the Tan Son Nhat airport, the National Police Headquarters, the Special Military Zone, the Navy Command Department, and the Chi Hoa prison.

  In the vanguard of the Nationalist forces was the platoon of the Long Hair Army under Le Thi Rieng, who had received assistance from General Ho Thi Bi’s forces based in the suburbs of Sai Gon. During the battle at Tan Son Nhat airport, fifteen woman commandos fought against the Americans for an entire day. The remaining members of the Spearhead platoon attacked the US Embassy, some seventeen commandos, five of whom were under Sister Dieu Thong – one of the nuns of Ngoc Phuong Buddhist temple. They assaulted the embassy early in the morning using civilian cars, AK rifles, and dynamite. Once they’d entered the embassy compound, they fired on the guards and quickly seized control of the first three floors. Above the rooftops, US and ARVN troops poured heavy gunfire from helicopters.

  Le Thi Rieng had been captured with two members of her platoon and once the ARVN force identified who she was, they executed her immediately. As if Rieng had predicted her own death, she had left a poem for her two young children prior to that Lunar New Year. Sister Dieu Thong and her team suffered no serious casualties. Altogether, thirty-two women of Rieng’s Spearhead platoon were killed in the battle. The head nun of Ngoc Phuong temple, Sister Huynh Lien, held a secret memorial service for the dead. A long poem was dedicated to Rieng. Memorial services for her were also held by the NLF and by the government of North Viet Nam. Her death was a major loss to the Nationalists.

  American troops in Long An, on the outskirts of Sai Gon, also came under surprise attack during the Lunar New Year’s Eve. With assistance from a male infantry unit, the Long An women artillery team inflicted heavy casualties on the Americans in the night. The US Army retaliated with an air raid. All the women managed to escape unhurt through a muddy field. During the attack, when the women directed fire at a GMC convoy, the cannon fire also hit the residence of a provincial chief and damaged his jeep. Unhurt, the chief then made a public announcement, “Whoever finds the woman who led the attack will receive a large sum of money as an award. The quantity of cash will be as high as the height of this woman.”

  * * *

  The government ordered a nightly curfew throughout the South and closed down all the schools for several weeks. My mother and I had no sewing, and since the French bread bakery was near our house, I decided to sell bread.

  Before sunrise Trung helped me carry fifty loaves in a large bamboo basket to a busy street corner near Ba Chieu market, where I sat until early evening. Trung and Nghia fetched more bread from the bakery before lunch. I sold at least one hundred loaves a day. Most of my customers were ARVN soldiers. Sometimes they passed along the main road in army vehicles and bought all my bread at once without bargaining. Vietnamese soldiers at the US-ARVN headquarters also walked all the way to my stall to buy bread. A woman with a large assortment of bread and sandwiches next to my stall became angry, “This wicked little girl is stealing all my customers.” Often the soldiers came to the stall to flirt with me. I imagine they felt obliged to buy my bread. Some even refused to accept their change after giving me a bill worth more than the price of the bread.

  I saved a small sum of cash and one day decided to give myself a treat. I bought three metres of pure silk in purple and had an ao dai made. It was my first coloured dress. Instead of a traditional highnecked collar, I chose a boat neckline – more fashionable and cooler for summer wear, I thought. I also bought three metres of black satin for a pair of trousers, and a purple umbrella to go with the dress. I kept them in my attic room, for a special occasion.

  I met my ancient-literature teacher at the market. She invited me to a summer party at her house. I could wear the new purple dress. When the day c
ame, Trung and Nghia took my place at the bread stall in the afternoon. I promised to buy each of them a little present by way of thanks.

  I went home to change my clothes. My grandmother but not my mother was home. I stood in the front of the mirror. I thought I looked most elegant. I even put on lipstick and face powder, for the first time. I took the purple umbrella with me.

  The people I met at the party were my teachers’ friends and relatives. They were kind and hospitable and complimented me on my dress. When I left the party that afternoon, I went to the stall to check on my brothers. They had already gone home, having sold all the bread.

  When I walked in, my mother was sitting at her sewing machine. The moment she saw me she dropped her giant black scissors and they landed with a loud bang on the sewing machine’s cabinet. As if she was in shock, as if I had committed a terrible crime, she stared angrily at my dress, then at my face.

  I stood still, head down, not knowing what to do or say.

  She rose, knocking over her chair. “

  You whore!” she shouted. “You look like a rotten whore!”

  In her rage, her eyes bulged and the veins popped out on her forehead. I made a rush for the attic staircase. I heard her shouting behind me.

  “What’s happened to her? Why is she dressed like a whore? Is that what I gave birth to? A common whore?”

  I changed my clothes with trembling hands, quickly wiped the makeup off my face, rushed down from the attic, picked up my brother Nhan and fled the house. I stopped in the alley next to Bay Ca’s house, chest heaving. I could hear my mother’s rapid footsteps behind me. Then she was upon me, her bamboo stick raised. She tore Nhan from me and thrust him back toward the house. He cried out when he saw her grab my hair and start beating me. The more I struggled, the more she struck me. My terrified brother continued screaming and wailing. She beat me till her strength gave out. Then she dropped the bamboo stick and took my hair in both hands. Shouting that a whorehouse was the only place I belonged, she slammed my head against the wall. She would have killed me if my grandmother hadn’t arrived on the scene, followed by Mrs Buoi. They shouted at her to stop. She called back contemptuously that I had come from her womb, disgusting as I was, and that she had the right to do whatever she wanted with me. Finally, telling Mrs Buoi to mind her own damn business, she let me go and stomped back into the house.