Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

He took a deep puff, gazing at Pham Minh’s exhausted face. Thanh tugged Minh’s tender cheek and went on softly.

“Listen to me, you child. Shoan will be graduating soon, won’t she? If she wants to go on studying she’ll have to go to Hue or Saigon, but in wartime I don’t think her parents will let her. Then, what next? You know what rich parents in the city do with their daughters, don’t you? If they can’t send them abroad, they’ll hurry to marry them off. To an old man, or to an officer in the military, or to a landlord’s heir loafing about at home while supposedly on reserve duty with the navy or the air force.”

Pham Minh glared at Thanh. “What are you saying?”

“I’ll tell you a little tale. It’s a bit superstitious. There’s nothing so heartbreaking as a love story in these times. But heartbreaking emotions weaken us and warp our minds. There’s a saying that a fighter who carries a photo of his lover with him will be killed without fail. It applies to our enemies as well. The grim reaper must love snatching the lives of lovers.”

Pham Minh tossed away his cigarette butt and got to his feet. Thanh did the same.

“Don’t be angry, Pham Minh, it’s very important to talk this over. Unless you’re exceptionally strong, you can’t avoid the hundreds of coincidences out there. I have to go.”

The two looked at each other. Pham Minh awkwardly said, “The reason I came. . I myself was surprised. I still don’t know whether joining was the right thing to do.”

“You’ll do fine. You’re not a weakling, my friend. Now I really have to go.”

Pham Minh felt like crying. It had not been this bad when he slipped away from the bomb shelter behind Uncle Trinh’s house, leaving Shoan. The changes in Thanh, his childhood friend, and his words of zealotry had confused him. All those vague passions he had felt back in school now seemed vain and empty like a summer night’s dream. From now everything in his past was gone. After robbing Minh of his nostalgia, Thanh was already off to places unknown. When Pham Minh took a few steps forward to grasp him by the shoulders, Thanh held out his hand, “ Chao ong , Pham Minh.”

In the confusion of the moment, Pham Minh took his hand limply. Thanh shook it and turned to go.

Pham Minh opened Hoc Tap again.

“The history of peoples’ wars is the universal law of the development of the class struggle, the unfolding of the revolutionary capacity of the people, which in the beginning is weak, but which grows strong, clearly proves through the evidence of history that a people’s war develops in accordance with that universal law. In this process of development, the people’s war inevitably must pass through many difficulties and undulations, reversals and retreats, but no power can alter the general trend of marching ever forward on the road to victory.”

The words in the text were shimmering and the meaning was slow to be absorbed into Pham Minh’s head. He suddenly realized that he had read the same lines three times. He shut the book and lay down, folding his arms behind his head. Raindrops running off the leaves felt cold on his toes. All around he could see volunteers lying here and there or sitting in small clusters and talking.

There were about fifty men who had come from the Second and Third Special Districts. The First Special District, Saigon, had three special action units numbered 159, 65, and 67. A special action unit normally had between one hundred and two hundred fifty members. Urban guerrillas usually consisted of students, laborers, teachers, office staff, merchants, military deserters, and so on. Most of them had made contact with lower level operations agents before being screened by the NLF district committees and the People’s Revolutionary Party.

Once the list of volunteers’ names was received, they had to pass a thorough investigation of their past and were under surveillance for a certain period. Then they would be sent to the provisional schools in the border region for military training and special education to become urban guerrillas. At intervals of two or three months, the groups that passed through the screening arrived at the assembly points.

They were not allowed to talk to each other about their birthplaces or their occupations, nor were they allowed to mix with those in earlier or later training groups. Since the people now undergoing training at this place were to be assigned to various places scattered around Hue and Da Nang, in most cases they would only get to know about ten others who fell into the same group. It seemed that all the volunteers expected had arrived, and they would soon depart from Maram, the assembly point, for the training facility in the Atwat Mountains. An officer in the regular khaki uniform of the Viet Cong had arrived the day before. The ten common huts that housed volunteers were about half-empty. In each were people in black Vietnamese clothing, in one hut all the occupants were women. Most of the women were quite young and a few still had the long hair characteristic of schoolgirls. Pham Minh was startled by the thought that Shoan might be among them.

“Even on stormy days, time goes on.”

Pham Minh thought of those words from Uncle Trinh, who had been lying on his back smoking opium.

“Minh, a shooting star!”

He could still hear Shoan’s surprised voice as she held his hand tightly in hers. The inside of the bomb shelter behind Uncle Trinh’s house was very cozy. The cement ceiling was a bit damp and the blanket on the ground was wet, but there was no barricade and no guards anywhere nearby. Through the square ventilation hole overhead you could see the night sky. When you took a deep breath, the fragrance of roses and cannas and chrysanthemums seemed to penetrate all the way into your lungs. The relentless pounding of cannon and the rattle of automatic weapons in the distance also had gradually subsided as daybreak approached. The flares could no longer rip open the sky. Shoan kept on trembling. But it was because of the chill of dawn sneaking into her thin ahozai , and she was calm and unashamed when Pham Minh undressed her. As the morning sun rose on the far horizon, they heard the chirping of the birds as they soared up in the air for the sake of that fleeting and precious dawn. Shoan’s face was bluish white from the chill and the sorrow of parting.

As the sunlight broke into the shelter, Pham Minh could see the ugly hills of Dong Dao standing under the patch of sky. Trenches and barbed wire and sandbags were strewn everywhere you looked. American soldiers with blackened cheeks were clambering down the side of the mountains. Shoan’s lips were cold and parched.

Footnote:

7 Army of the Republic of Vietnam

Krapensky was talking to Captain Kim.

“We’ve got trouble. War supplies have started circulating in the market. For the last couple of weeks, enough combat rations to feed two whole companies have leaked out. We’re keeping an eye on the situation. If this stuff sells out there in the market, that means the Vietnamese are eating it. The National Liberation Front is Vietnamese too.”

“What about arms?”

“I was only talking about rations.”

“So, you suspect Korean soldiers are dealing?” asked Captain Kim, his brows furrowed with irritation.

“Not so fast. All the supplies come from the US Army. We’re allies fighting together, so we have to stop this together. If it were luxury goods out of the PX, it’d be different. These are combat supplies.”

As he finished speaking, Krapensky held out a document.

“A vehicle log?”

“Yeah. It’s a record of the Korean vehicles that passed through all the checkpoints on the outskirts of Da Nang. I’m asking you to use this as a starting point for an investigation.”