We both turned our faces away from the rebuke and my cheeks were hotter than the sun could ever make them, even though the lieutenant had spoken to the other private. But I was not to be spared. The lieutenant tapped me on the shoulder with iron fingertips. I looked back to him and he bent near with his face hard, like what I’d said was far worse than the other.
He said, “And what was that about the dragon?”
I was too frightened now to make my mind work. I could only repeat, “The dragon?”
“The dragon,” he said, his face coming nearer still. “The thing about the dragon going south.”
For a moment I felt relieved. I don’t know how the lieutenant sensed this about me, but somehow he knew that when I spoke of the dragon going south, it was not just a familiar phrase meant to refer to a long time ago. He knew that I actually believed. But at that moment I did not understand how foolish this made me seem to him. I said, “The dragon. You know, the gentle dragon who was the father of Vietnam.”
The story my father told of the gentle dragon and the fairy princess had always been different from the ones about ghosts that I sought in the candlelight to chill me, though my father did believe in ghosts, as do many Vietnamese people and even some Americans. But the story of how our country began was always told in the daylight and with many of our family members gathered together, and no one ever said to me that this was just a made-up story, that this was just a lovely little lie. When I studied American history to become a citizen here, there was a story of a man named George Washington and he cut down a little tree and then told the truth. And the teacher immediately explained that this was just a made-up story. He made this very clear for even something like that. Just cutting down a tree and telling the truth about it. We had to keep that story separate from the stories that were actual true history.
This makes me sad about this country that was chosen for me. It makes me sad for a whole world of adults. It makes me sad even for Lieutenant Binh as I remember his questions that followed, all with a clenched face and a voice as quick and furious as the rifles at our sides. “Is this the dragon who slept with the fairy?” he demanded, though the actual words he used at that moment of my own true history were much harsher.
“He married a fairy princess,” I said.
“Who married them?” the lieutenant said.
I couldn’t answer the question. It was a simple question and it was, I see now, an unimportant question, but sitting in that clearing in the middle of a forest full of men who would kill me, having already fired my rifle at their shapes on several occasions and felt the rush of their bullets past my face and seen already two men die, though I turned my face from that, but having seen two men splashed with their own blood and me sitting now in a forest with the fear clawing at my chest, I faced that simple little question and I realized how foolish I was, how much a child.
The lieutenant cried, “Is this the fairy princess who’s going to lay eggs?”
And in a moment as terrible as when I first felt the fear of my adult self, I now turned my face from the lieutenant and I looked across the clearing at the tree line and I knew that someone out there was coming near and I knew that dragons and fairies do not have children and the lieutenant’s voice was very close to me and it said, “Save your life.”
I don’t know if some time passed with me sitting there feeling as crumbly and dry as the tree trunk I leaned against. Maybe only a few seconds, maybe no seconds at all. But very soon, from the tree line before me, there was a flash of light and another and I could only barely shift my eyes to the private sitting next to me and his head was a blur of red and gray and I was as quick as my rifle and over the trunk and beside my lieutenant and we were very quiet together, firing, and all of the rest is very distant from me now. Half of our platoon was dead in those first few seconds, I think. When air support arrived, there was only the lieutenant and me and another private who would soon die from the wounds he received in those few minutes in the clearing.
Not many months later the lieutenant came to me where we were trying to dig in on the rim of Saigon and he said, “It’s time.” And all the troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam were streaming past us into the city, without leaders now, without hope, and so I followed Lieutenant Binh, I and a couple of other soldiers in his platoon that he knew were good fighters, and I did not understand exactly what he meant about its being time until we were in the motorboat of a friend of his and we were racing down the Saigon River. This was the last little bit of my childhood. I was holding my rifle across my chest, ready to fight wherever the lieutenant was leading me. But the lieutenant said, “You won’t need that now.”
He was taking me and the others into the South China Sea and when I realized I was leaving my country and my wife and my unborn son, I was only able to turn my face to him, for I knew there was no going back. He looked at me with a quick little smile, a warm smile, one man to another, and a nod of the head like he thought I was a good fighter, a good man, a man he respected, and all of that was true, and he thought he was helping me save my life, and maybe that was true, but maybe it wasn’t true at all. You must understand, though, that I did not choose to leave.
My son, I love you. Your mother does not love me now and you have a new father. Has she told you about me? Are you reading this? I pray you are; with all the little shiny pebbles of my childhood faith that I can find in the dust, I pray it. And I am writing to tell you this. Thousands of years ago a gentle and kindly dragon grew lonely in the harsh wide plains of China and he wandered south. He found a land full of beautiful mountains and green valleys and fresh, clear rivers that ran so fast in their banks that they made a singing sound.
But even though the land was beautiful, he was still lonely. He traveled through this new country of his and at last he met a beautiful fairy princess. She, too, was lonely and the two of them fell in love and they decided to live together as man and wife and to love each other forever. And so they did live together in the beautiful land and one day the princess found that she had laid a hundred eggs in a beautiful silk pouch and these eggs hatched and they were the children of the dragon and the princess.
These children were very wonderful, inheriting bravery and gentleness from their father and beauty and charm and a delicacy of feeling from their mother. They grew and grew and they were fine, loving children, but finally the dragon had to make a very difficult decision. He realized that the family was too large for them all to live together in one place. So he called his family to him and told them that even though he loved them all very much, he would have to divide the family into two parts. His wife would take fifty of the children and travel to the east. He would take the other fifty children and travel to the south. Everyone was very sad about having to do this, but they all understood that there was no other way.
So the princess took fifty of the children and went far away to the east, where she became the Queen of the Ocean. And the dragon took fifty children far away to the south, where he became the King of the Land. The dragon and the princess remained with the children until they were adults, wise and strong and able to take care of themselves. Then the dragon and the princess vanished and were reunited in the spirit world, where they lived happily together for the rest of eternity. The children married and prospered and they created Vietnam from the far north to the southern tip and they are the ancestors of all of us. Of you, my son, and of me.
For a time in my life, the part of me that could believe in this story was dead. I often think, here in my new home, that it is dead still. But now, at least, I do not wish it to be dead and it does not make me feel foolish, so perhaps my belief is still part of me. I love you, my son, and all I wish for you is that you save your life. Tell this story that I have told you. Try to think of it as true.
A GHOST STORY
Let’s say I got onto a bus, a Greyhound bus, and you saw me coming down the aisle, an Oriental man. Your eye wouldn’t be practiced enough to know by looking at
me that I’m Vietnamese—I’m just Oriental at first glance—and you certainly wouldn’t know that I have a special story to tell, a story about ghosts. All you see is a late-middle-aged sort of shabby Oriental man, a little frayed at the collar and cuffs, his hair a little shaggy over the ears, and he’s heading your way and there is a seat next to you. As he approaches, would you raise your newspaper to cover your face or maybe turn to look outside even though we are sitting in the New Orleans bus station and there’s nothing to see out there but a sidewalk and a driver throwing some suitcases into the baggage compartment? This way he would know he wasn’t welcome in that seat, and being an Oriental gentleman, he would know how to take the hint and walk on past and sit someplace else. Or would you keep your eyes on him as he approaches and maybe even give him a little smile so he knows he’s welcome to sit in that empty seat? It’s just far enough to Biloxi that it’s good to sit next to someone for the trip. Biloxi is where I go to see my daughter about once a month, and if you would keep your eyes on me to let me know it’s okay for me to sit next to you, I would tell you a true story about Vietnam.
This happened in the central highlands, not far from the city of An Khê in the year 1971. One day in late spring a Vietnamese Army major named Trung visited his mistress in the city and they spent the afternoon in a garden and the early evening in her bed, where they made love with the pollen of the flowers still clinging to their faces and arms. Afterward, the room was full of a pale light and they fell asleep. But when the major awoke, it was very dark. He had slept much too long and he leaped from the bed cursing and sweating and he threw on his clothes. He was stationed in a base camp on the other side of the mountains and he had a meeting with the base commander first thing in the morning. The major had to return to the camp now, in the middle of the night. His lover was very frightened for him. In the daylight the road through the mountain belonged to the Republic. But at night the communists could come out of the forests whenever they wished, making this trip very dangerous. Nevertheless, the major had no choice. He kissed his lover good-bye and went out to his car.
He was frightened, but he was a serious officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, a very brave man, and before he opened the door to his car, he held his hands out in front of him and he vowed to master the tiny tremor in them. He would not leave until both his hands were absolutely still. The moon was very bright, but there were many clouds and they passed over the moon and the major could not see his hands. But he waited patiently until the clouds parted and he could clearly observe that his hands had become motionless before him. Then he got into the car and drove away, not even looking back to the window of his lover’s house, where her face could be seen weeping.
The major drove very fast and he was soon on the road that wound up into the tops of the mountains, and whenever the moon was free of the clouds, the major, in fear of the communists, turned off his headlights and leaned forward to follow the twisting road by the silver light. This light of the moon that would have been very bright to show the bodies of two lovers entwined was only barely bright enough to guide him through the mountains. But the major knew what danger he was in, and when the moon disappeared and the road could not be distinguished from the deep chasms just beyond, it was only with great reluctance that he turned on his headlights.
He drove on like this, turning and twisting up and up and at each turn his hands tightened on the steering wheel for fear of a roadblock, a hundred rifles pointed at him, beginning to fire, shattering glass, the end of his life. But he finally reached what he knew was the highest point of the mountains. He saw a white road marker in the beam of his headlights, a jagged stone sitting at the turning of the road, and then he was in a pass with the road leveling off for a time, the trees mounting darkly on both sides of him, and the only chasm for the moment being the darkness before him, beyond the reach of his lights. The road began to descend, though gently for now, and he followed a turn to the right and something flashed before him in the light, his heart seized up, but it was a rabbit dashing across the road. He could see the final high kick of the long hind legs as the animal leaped into the darkness of the trees, and the major even laughed aloud, in relief but also in scorn at his own moment of fear.
The road turned sharply to the left and the moon appeared in a break in the clouds, but its light was snagged and slivered by the surrounding trees. The major knew that in a mile or so he would be through the pass and the road would cling once again to the side of the mountain and wind its way down, with a chasm on one side. He glanced at the tree-striped face of the moon, and when he brought his eyes back before him, a woman appeared in his lights, standing in his lane of the road and he was rushing toward her and he could hardly believe she was there, a slim young woman in a beautiful white aó dài, and she raised her hand to him, a clear gesture telling him to stop, and all of this happened in a few seconds, but as this lovely woman held her ground, her hand raised, and the major rushed toward her, he thought of the Viet Cong and their tricks and he would not stop his car in this mountain at night for anyone and he swerved sharply, his tires crying out on the pavement, and he went around her, the wheel heavy in his hands, and he yanked at it and he was back in his lane and there was nothing in his lights but the road.
A trick, he thought, a trick, using a local girl to lure me into a trap. And then she was before him again, or another girl, perhaps a sister—how could it be the same girl? he was hurtling along the road, leaving her behind—but a beautiful young woman in a white aó dài was before him and she raised her hand and this time he could see her face, for some reason her face was very clear—round, smooth skinned, a thin nose as if she had French blood, and her mouth was wide. Pleasing at first glance but the mouth grew wider, the mouth widened even as he watched it in his headlights and his hands prepared to swerve around the girl—it was the same girl as before, he was sure of it—but the mouth was growing wider and wider, a great crack in this beautiful round face, and the mouth opened, gaping wide, like the chasm of the mountainside, and a tongue came out, huge, bloating as it came, swelling as wide as her face, as wide as her shoulders, undulating forward from her mouth, red and soft and as wide as the road now, and the monstrous tongue licked at the car and the car lifted up, and the major’s eyes and his head were filled with a vision of the tongue and then all was darkness.
He drifted into consciousness and he felt himself lying on the ground. He opened his eyes and gasped, for the young woman’s face was before him, bending over him, and there was moonlight on the face and he stared at her mouth, a wide mouth but a human mouth, and it opened and no great tongue came out, only words. “Major Trung,” she said, and her voice was very soft, softer than his lover’s kiss, even when his lover touched his tongue with hers. The young woman said, “You must sleep for a time now. There is an ambush ahead. I am Nguyn th Linh of the street called Lotus in An Khê. You will see me again. I wish for you to be alive.” The major tried to answer, but he could not speak. The darkness rushed back upon him and he fell unconscious.
When the major woke for the second time, the road was still dark, though there was a faint silver glow in the air. He raised himself onto his elbows and looked around. He was lying beside the road, and his car, which he expected to find crashed into the trees, was sitting just off the road, as if it had been carefully parked there. The major stood up and he was surprised to find not a single pain in his body, no bruises, no scratches, nothing whatever to show that he had crashed his car and had been thrown out. He looked at his watch and found that he’d been unconscious for two hours. He decided that he’d had a hallucination. The strain of the drive through the mountains, the pleasures of the afternoon, the flower pollen—perhaps one of the flowers was a rare thing, producing a drug that worked on him so that he had parked his car and had gotten out and slept and dreamt all of the rest about the girl in the white aó dài, this girl Nguyn thi Linh of the street called Lotus. That was it. A kind of lotus had affected him and had named it
self in the very dream it provoked.
So the major got into his car and drove on. He still had time to make it back to the base by dawn, and he smiled at this strange narcotic fantasy that he’d experienced. But he did not go a mile before he found a terrible Sight. Along the road were the bodies of many men, dead soldiers strewn from the forest and down the slope and across the highway. He pulled his car over and stepped out into the stench of blood and cordite. He needed to take only a few steps until he recognized a man’s face twisted upward from the ground in the agony of a death two hours old. This was the wreckage of one of the major’s own night patrols, clearly ambushed and destroyed in this spot, just as the young woman had warned in the major’s dream. But now he was not so sure it was a dream. Just in case, he bowed low and spoke aloud his thanks to the woman in his vision. Then he got back into his car and returned safely to the base.
This is a simple enough ghost story, and if you have turned your face to the bus window while I spoke and if it is clear to me that I have been boring you, as I can do to people—my daughter’s American husband, for instance—then I will stop right there and let that be the story for you. But there is more. If you’ve looked at me while I’ve spoken and there is a light in your eyes and no condescension, then I will tell you more, for I know this story to be true.
The next week, when the major returned to An Khê, he did not go directly to his lover’s house. First of all he went to the street called Lotus. It was a narrow street at the edge of the city on a little rise so that it looked out over the tops of banana trees, across a plain, to the mountains. The street was very quiet, though the sun was not yet high. The major heard the sound of the wind and the muttering of chickens and that was all. He faced a stretch of modest wooden houses with slate roofs and he thought he would knock on the nearest door and ask about the girl.
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories Page 11