Bao Ninh - The Sorrow of War

Perhaps it was all his fault. Perhaps one day she would forgive him for dragging her into this fiasco in which she had been gang-raped by thugs during an air raid, then held by force. And finally had to watch him beating a man’s head in before her eyes. Perhaps she would forgive him. That was in her character.

But since the train? With the driver? Was all that true? Could he ever forgive her, that was the question. Probably not.

Kien lay there motionless. Far away he could see smoke rising from the bombing raid. The air was heavy and still and the smoke rose gently, signalling the end of the worst day of his life. He raised his pistol slowly, first looking down the barrel, then raising it slowly to his head, his finger on the trigger. Why did people claim that life was always better than death? It wasn’t so. He pondered then why he was trembling now, about to take his own life, when he had not hesitated to take the life of another. He moved the pistol around to the point of his nose, his finger still on the trigger. He closed his eyes, but hesitated. He seemed to hear a distant voice calling his name, a voice from far, far away, a sad voice, as though it were calling across water. ‘Kiiieeennn?’ it called.

Then he heard it again. Startled, he opened his eyes and lowered the pistol, letting it drop on the grass.

She was running towards him, calling for him. He kicked the pistol into the water as she approached and it splashed like a fish jumping for an insect.

But she had not seen him. She was still searching, making her own path running through the bushes around the lake. In the dark she missed him, running within a few steps of him, calling.

He waited until she was well past, then left, walking away from the school, towards Highway One. It was getting dark by the time he reached the other side of the marsh; by then a deep mist had settled over it, reducing visibility. He groped his way over the last short distance to the road and headed for the hamlet to the north.

Even nearing town he could hear Phuong’s faint voice calling his name. He imagined it was the same call he’d heard earlier, echoing somehow through the darkness.

That same evening Kien presented himself to the provincial military headquarters, telling them he’d survived the bombing raids on the station. On the following day he was placed in a newly formed platoon and marched into Nong Cong, to a liaison point. From then on he had no news at all of Phuong until the war ended nearly eleven years later.

Well, that was not quite true. He had received one letter when he was stationed by the Dac Bo La river. He was with his scout platoon enjoying the relative quiet of the post-Paris Agreement. The letter didn’t come from the North, but from Division 2 which was in the battle zone area Interzone 5. It read:

My name is Ky, but they call me ‘The Beehive’, the one with a pock-marked face. I am now an assistant investigator to Mr Chon. When Division 2 attacked Kontum the scouts from your regiment came to help us. Perhaps you recall that well, but if you don’t it doesn’t matter. But I recognised you immediately, and if I had reminded you then, you would have recognised me immediately. But the few times I did come face to face with you during that campaign I kept silent because the fighting was so fierce that it commanded our whole attention. I also hesitated because I would have reminded you of something that happened so long ago. It was in the past and it would have made you unhappy and affected your fighting spirit. But the more I observed you the more I realised you are an experienced senior scout, and would easily have been able to cope.

Now it is quiet, we can take a moment to look back. So, when I got back to the Delta, I decided to immediately write to you. Kien, do you remember the ruined and abandoned school near Thanh Hoa?

Kien put the letter down in amazement. It was not from the bare-chested officer who’d called Phuong a whore, but the officer with a pock-marked face, who’d been in the school.

After the quarrel with you we were rather uneasy. Even though we were already officers, we were still young and innocent, and didn’t know how to behave properly. We felt terribly bad about what we’d said to you and wanted to run after you to console you, but you had a drawn pistol and we thought better of it.

Some time later, but not long after you had left, the young girl came to us looking for you and calling out your name, asking if we’d seen you. What we told her made her more anxious.

She kept on looking until she was exhausted. It was hard for me to persuade her to return to the classroom because you’d already gone. We had made a very big mistake in kidding you about what she did and we saw that hurt you. Contrary to what we’d told you, your girlfriend was not like that at all. She was charming and kind, and beautiful in appearance, she was very much in love with you.

We stayed in the school for another day. She was still there, waiting for you, when we left. We offered to take her as far as the Pine Forest where trustworthy drivers could give her a lift back to Hanoi, but she refused. She said she would continue south, perhaps to join the volunteer Youth Brigade. She was so young, so brave, so beautiful, even when she was sad.

We couldn’t delay. Our unit left the next evening, with her still in the empty school. So, after seven years of fierce fighting I still recall the incident, and easily recognised you. And that’s why I am writing to you now. If you’ve seen her already, before receiving this letter, that is excellent. Otherwise, I hope my letter will have some good effect. When the war is over and hopes of meeting former friends are realised, find her, Kien, if you are still alive.

The letter warmed Kien’s heart, consoling and cheering him. He began to hope for something like a miracle, for some strand from his past to follow into his new post-war life. He might have something wonderful to return to, after all.

There would be a miracle, he had written. A miracle that would allow people to emerge unchanged from the war. So, despite the horrors of war, despite the cruelties, the humiliations, despite all the ridiculous prejudices and dogma which pervaded everyone’s life, his Phuong would remain young forever. She would be untainted by war. She would be forever beautiful. No one would ever come close to her beauty. She was as a green meadow after spring rains, as fragrant as the flowers in bloom waving against the horizon and waves of fresh grass rustling. She was passionate, untamed, magnetic, with that same miraculous and unfathomable beauty, a beauty that made the heart ache; a vulnerable, innocent beauty forever on the brink of the abyss of destruction. That would be his miracle; Phuong would be untouched, unchanged.

Several years later, on a night when he was deep in desperation, Kien dreamed that his life had been transformed into a river stretching before him. He saw himself floating towards his death. Then at the very last moment, when he was about to go over the edge, he heard Phuong’s call echoing from that bitter dusk of the marsh near the school. It was the final call of his first love. Though they hadn’t had a happy life together, or moved towards a glowing future, their first love had not been in vain. They were back there in the past together, and nothing could change or rob them of that.

Fate waited to take them from the terrible present back to the happy days of the past.

Spreading before him are the past forty years. Memories, numerous memories wave to him and urge him to march forever along the road of the past. The past without end, a never-ending story of loyalty, friendship, brotherhood, comradeship and humanity.

Forever he would ache with longing to follow that shining light from the horizons of his past, to return to those moments of the first sparks of war, the glimmerings of his first adventures and the light of love shining from deep in his childhood.