Bao Ninh - The Sorrow of War

Phuong sat quietly, eating casually as though nothing had happened. Kien would like to have seen her eating with more appreciation. After all, the food had been snatched from the jaws of blood and death.

Perhaps it wasn’t necessary to have such a vivid imagination, to be concerned at the source of the food and the entire circumstances they found themselves in. Kien supposed nothing was terribly wrong with eating and drinking normally to help recover after such a catastrophe. But on the other hand, watching how easily she ate and drank, he recognised that there was in Phuong, besides hunger and thirst, an unusual reserve of strength and resilience.

He ate almost nothing himself, studying her as she ate. Then he began to realise just how badly injured she was. His own clothes were dirty and torn but Phuong’s clothes were almost in shreds. Through the tatters her normally white skin was bruised, scratched and bleeding. Her face was black with smoke, her lips were swollen and her eyes were flat and sullen. A small trickle of blood continued to run down the inside of one leg, though the bleeding was greatly reduced. When she uncrossed her legs to change position and stretch her legs on the grass he noticed more blood on a knee. This reminded him: this wasn’t blood from a wound. It came from those tumultuous hours in the railcars.

Phuong ate only half her cake. ‘Finish it, Phuong,’ Kien said, ‘we’ll need all the energy we can muster to get back to Hanoi.’

But she sat on, shaking her head and staring. He was about to suggest she wipe the blood away, but decided not to. He said quietly: ‘Let’s go to that hamlet over there. You need a place to lie down. When we’ve recovered we’ll find our way home.’

But she didn’t even raise her eyes.

Kien noticed a small field on the other side of the road. Some bushes grew there, possibly a kitchen garden, for behind it were some small thatched houses. ‘Come on, it’s not far. Can you walk it?’

Phuong nodded sullenly.

Kien unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Put this on, at least.’

She looked across at him and said sharply, ‘At least! At least what? Do I look that horrible? Keep your shirt. Don’t worry about me any more. Your duty is to catch up with your unit. Don’t worry yourself about where I go next.’

Kien stopped unbuttoning his shirt. Embarrassed, he tried to explain himself: ‘You misunderstand me. If we don’t care for each other who’s going to care? As far as what’s happened, forget it, please. As far as I’m concerned…’

She interrupted sharply. ‘If you want to bury a memory then just don’t mention it. Secondly, you’d better ensure that no one else talks about certain memories, either.’

He had never seen her as cold and calculating as this.

‘Of course,’ he said, giving her his hand. ‘Now, let’s go.’

‘Yes,’ she sighed, giving him her hand to pull herself up.

They walked hand-in-hand, their shadows foreshortened by the overhead sun. The mid-afternoon heat was heavy on their backs. They looked like two very lonely souls drying themselves in the sun. The few passers-by could not avoid looking at them, especially at Phuong. Such a lovely young girl, but so dirty and tattered, and strangely casual.

‘What a nice couple, look!’ someone said, trying to lift their spirits.

They crossed the road and took a narrow dirt path which led to the kitchen garden they had seen. But the garden was empty and dried-up, the earth pitted with craters from bomb shrapnel. The hot wind blew across them languidly, adding to the desolation. Perhaps no one lived there now. The thatched houses which Kien had seen from far away had led him to identify it as a small village or hamlet, but in reality the buildings were an abandoned primary school, far from any village.

Trenches had been cut across the yard and wild grass grew between them. The classrooms now looked like artillery entrenchments, covered with thick layers of earth. Phuong and Kien went into one of the former classrooms where a few desks and broken benches remained. The teacher’s desk was empty, the blackboard had dropped to the floor and in the middle of the room was a heap of ashes, the remnants of a camp-fire which had been fuelled by wood from desks and chairs. The roof was ruined. Inside it was almost as light as out in the yard.

The scene of devastation tightened Kien’s heart. ‘Look at this,’ he said to Phuong. ‘How could anyone destroy a school? Don’t they respect life any more?’

‘Maybe it was our soldiers,’ she replied. ‘Soldiers do this sort of thing. War does this, war smashes and destroys.’

In her later life that tone would get her into some trouble, but Kien was so depressed he hardly noticed the cynicism.

It occurred to him that she was by now suffering from shock, some nervous disorder. He prepared a place for her to lie down. At least here they would not be disturbed by authorities wanting to question them and check their story. In addition there were enough bits and pieces here to make a bed and shelter.

‘Try to get some sleep, darling,’ he said.

She sat down beside him. ‘You’ll sleep too?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t you sling the hammock?’

‘Not a good idea. Belongs to a dead person.’

‘So what! Why should that bother you?’

‘Enough. Don’t talk like that.’

‘But if you don’t sling the hammock where will you sleep? You’ll feel horrible lying next to me,’ she said sarcastically.

Kien shook his head mechanically.

She lay down, putting her hands under her head, and faced up, making room for Kien to lie beside her. But Kien remained immobile.

‘I wish there were some water somewhere near here so I could bathe,’ she whispered.

‘Let me check. You sleep,’ he said.

‘Don’t go. Stay with me. I talk just to talk. I wish that I could look nicer before we say goodbye and we sleep next to each other for the last time. But then again even if I do bathe, even if I peel my entire skin away, I’ll be just as unclean. That’s destiny. Too bad.’

Kien looked at her. ‘You’re saying some rather funny things. What’s all this talk about “last time” and “goodbye”?’

‘Let it go. I meant we may not see each other again, but that prediction may or may not be true. I’m just making conversation,’ she said.

‘There are things we must ensure come true, such as my survival and return. This isn’t home, it’s a battlefield, it’s war. We have to have confidence in ourselves,’ he said.

Phuong talked on dreamily, her attitude gloomy and pessimistic. ‘We were born pure and innocent. Look how innocent we are now,’ she mumbled. He could hardly miss the allusion to their new status as multiple rape victim and brutal murderer. ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow,’ she droned on. ‘Don’t torture yourself, what’s the point? You go your way, I’ll go mine. We had such a beautiful life. You and me, my love for you, your love for me. My mother and your dad, and I would have been your wife, no doubt. That was in the past. Now we have a new future, a new fate. We had no choice in the new circumstances, it was an unlucky coincidence. Now I’m like this, you go your way, I’ll go mine.’

She didn’t finish her semi-delirious ramblings. Her head dropped back and she fell asleep. Kien sat staring at her.

Before his eyes she had metamorphosed. Once pure and beautiful, she had spoken like a callous, uncaring pessimist, ready to bury anything tender in their past. Finally, he stroked her, lifting her head and removing her shredded blouse, replacing it with his shirt. He wiped her neck and face and her bruised body. Then he gently removed her silk slacks and wiped the streaks of blood from her thighs, trembling as he looked at the bruises.