Viet Nguyen - The Sympathizer

The commandant regarded me through glasses that magnified his eyes to twice their size, his poor eyesight a condition of having lived in cavernous darkness for ten years. If your confession was even just satisfactory, the commissar would let you proceed with what he calls your oral examination, he said. But my opinion of what he calls your written examination is that it hardly seems like a genuine confession to me.

Haven’t I confessed to many things, Commandant?

In content, perhaps, but not in style. Confessions are as much about style as content, as the Red Guards have shown us. All we ask for is a certain way with words. Cigarette?

I hid my relief and merely nodded casually. The commandant inserted the dart of a cigarette between my cracked lips, then lit it for me with my own lighter, which he had appropriated. I inhaled the oxygen of smoke, its infusion into the folds of my lungs calming the trembling in my hands. Even in this latest revision, you quote Uncle Ho only once. This is but one symptom, among many in your confession, that you prefer foreign intellectuals and culture over our native traditions. Why is that?

I’m contaminated by the West?

Exactly. That wasn’t so hard to admit, was it? Funny, then, how you can’t put it into writing. Of course, I can understand why you didn’t quote How the Steel Was Tempered or Tracks in the Snowy Forest . You wouldn’t have had access to them, even though everyone of my generation from the north has read them. But not to mention To Huu, our greatest revolutionary poet? And to cite, instead, the yellow music of Pham Duy and the Beatles? The commissar actually has a collection of yellow music that he keeps for what he calls research purposes. He’s offered to let me listen to them, but no thanks. Why would I want to be contaminated by that decadence? Contrast the songs you discuss with To Huu’s “Since Then,” which I read in high school. He talks about how “The sun of truth shone on my heart,” which was exactly how I felt about the revolution’s effect on me. I carried a book of his with me to China for infantry training, and it helped sustain me. My hope is that the sun of truth will shine on you as well. But I also think of another poem of his about a rich child and a servant child. Closing his eyes, the commandant recited a stanza:

A child lives in a life of plenty

With abundant toys made in the West

While the other child is an onlooker

Watching silently from far away

He opened his eyes. Worth a mention, don’t you think?

If you would give me that book, I’d read it, I said, not having read anything for a year besides my own words. The commandant shook his head. You won’t have any time to read anything in the next phase. But implying you only needed a book in order to be better read is hardly a good defense. Not quoting Uncle Ho or revolutionary poetry is one thing, but not even a folk saying or a proverb? Now you may be from the south—

I was born in the north and lived nine years there, sir.

You chose the southern side. Regardless, you share a common culture with me, a northerner. Yet you will not quote from that culture, not even this:

The good deeds of Father are as great as Mount Thai Son

The virtue of Mother is as bountiful as springwater gushing from its source

Wholeheartedly is Mother to be revered and Father respected

So that the child’s way may be accomplished.

Did you not learn something as basic as this in school?

My mother did teach it to me, I said. But my confession does show my reverence for my mother and why my father is not to be respected.

The relations between your mother and father are indeed unfortunate. You may think that I’m heartless, but I am not. I look at your situation and feel great sympathy for you, given your curse. How can a child be accomplished if his source is tainted? Yet I can’t help but feel that our own culture, and not Western culture, tells us something about your difficult situation. “Talent and destiny are apt to feud.” Don’t you think Nguyen Du’s words apply to you? Your destiny is being a bastard, while your talent, as you say, is seeing from two sides. You would be better off if you only saw things from one side. The only cure for being a bastard is to take a side.

You’re right, Comrade Commandant, I said, and perhaps he was. But the only thing harder than knowing the right thing to do, I went on, is to actually do the right thing.

I agree. What puzzles me is that you are perfectly reasonable in person, but on the page you are recalcitrant. The commandant poured himself a shot of unfiltered rice wine from a recycled soda bottle. Any urges? I shook my head, even though my priapic desire for a drink bumped against the back of my throat. Tea, please, I said, voice cracking. The commandant poured me a cup of lukewarm tinted water. It was quite sad watching you in those first few weeks. You were a raving lunatic. Isolation did you good. Now you’re purified, at least in body.

If spirits are so bad for me, then why do you drink, Commandant?

I don’t drink to excess, unlike you. I disciplined myself during the war. You rethink your entire life living in a cave. Even things like what to do with one’s waste. Ever thought of that?

Once in a while.

I sense sarcasm. Still not satisfied with the camp’s amenities and your chamber? This is nothing compared to what I went through in Laos. That’s why I’m also puzzled by the unhappiness of some of our guests. You think I’m feigning perplexity, but no, I’m genuinely surprised. We haven’t stuck them in a box underground. We haven’t shackled them until their legs waste away. We haven’t poured lime on their heads and beaten them bloody. Instead, we let them farm their own food, build their own homes, breathe fresh air, see sunlight, and work to transform this countryside. Compare that to how their American allies poisoned this place. No trees. Nothing grows. Unexploded mines and bombs killing and maiming innocents. This used to be beautiful countryside. Now it’s just a wasteland. I try to bring these comparisons up with our guests and I can see the disbelief in their eyes even as they agree with me. You, at least, are honest with me, even though, to be honest with you, that may not be the healthiest strategy.

I’ve lived my life underground for the revolution, Commandant. The least the revolution can grant me is the right to live above ground and be absolutely honest about what I have done, at least before you put me below ground again.

There you go again, defiant for no reason. Don’t you see we live in a sensitive time? It will take decades for the revolution to rebuild our country. Absolute honesty isn’t always appreciated at moments like this. But that’s why I keep this here. He pointed at the jar on the bamboo cabinet, covered with a jute cloth. He had already shown the jar to me more than once, though once was more than enough. Nevertheless, he leaned over and slipped the cloth off the jar, and there was nothing to do but turn my gaze onto the exhibit that should, if there were any justice in the world, be exhibited in the Louvre and other great museums devoted to Western accomplishments. Floating in formaldehyde was a greenish monstrosity that appeared to have originated from outer space or the deepest, weirdest depths of the ocean. A chemical defoliant invented by an American Frankenstein had led to this naked, pickled baby with one body but two heads, four eyes shut but two mouths agape in permanent, mongoloid yawns. Two faces pointed in different directions, two hands curled up against the chest, and two legs spread to reveal the boiled peanut of the masculine sex.

Imagine what the mother felt. The commandant tapped his finger on the glass. Or the father. Imagine the shrieks. What is that thing? He shook his head and drank his rice wine, its color that of thin milk. I licked my lips, and while the scratching of my dessicated tongue on my brittle lips was loud in my ears, the commandant did not notice. We could have just shot all these prisoners, he said. Your friend Bon, for example. A Phoenix Program assassin deserves the firing squad. Protecting him and excusing him as you do reflects poorly on your character and judgment. But the commissar is merciful and believes anyone can be rehabilitated, even when they and their American masters killed anyone they wanted. In contrast to the Americans and their puppets, our revolution has shown generosity by giving them this chance for redemption through labor. Many of these so-called leaders never worked a day on a farm. How do you lead an agricultural society into the future with no idea of the peasant’s life? Without bothering to drape the cloth over the jar again, he poured himself another drink. Lack of understanding is the only way to characterize how some prisoners think they’re being poorly fed. Of course I know they suffer. But we all suffered. We all must suffer still. The country is healing, and that takes longer than the war itself. But these prisoners focus only on their own suffering. They ignore what our side went through. I can’t get them to understand that they get more calories per day than the revolutionary soldier during the war, more than the peasants forced into refugee camps. They believe they are being victimized here, instead of being reeducated. This obstinacy shows how much reeducation they still need. As recalcitrant as you are, you are still far ahead of them. Here I agree with the commissar about the state of your reeducation. I was just talking about you with him the other day. He’s remarkably tolerant of you. He didn’t even object to being called the faceless man. No, I understand, you are not mocking him, merely describing the obvious, but he’s quite sensitive about his. . condition. Wouldn’t you be? He wants to meet you this evening. That’s quite an honor. No prisoner has ever met him personally, not that you are a prisoner. He wants to clarify a few issues with you.