The bonze tried to sit in front of a huge pagoda. The people inside came out to watch but government soldiers roared up in a truck and began to push them away. The soldiers jabbed and threatened with the barrels of their rifles, and soon the bonze had to get up and move again.
He was crying a little. The crowd began to drop away. He no longer looked straight ahead, 'he wandered in a wide arc looking about for a place to sit. The section of town was familiar, he was leading Tan home.
He finally settled by the Emperor's Gate. He sat and began to pray and the crowd ringed around him. Three of the other monks sat to pray a few feet away from him, while another placed a metal gallon can at his feet like an offering. The bonze finished praying and dumped the contents of the can over himself. The crowd stepped back a few paces, and Tan held her breath against the fumes. The young man burst into flame.
Tan watched. No one in the crowd spoke. The bonze was the black center of a sheet of flame, he began to rock forward, began to fall, then straightened and held himself upright, still praying. The only sound was the burning. Tan watched and wondered if it was a sin to watch. She smelled him, meat burning now and not gasoline. He fell over stiffly on his side, a crisp sound like a log shifting in a cooking fire, and as if a spell had been broken sirens came to life and the crowd moved away. Tan pedaled home as fast as she could. She didn't tell what she had seen. She fixed dinner but couldn't eat, saying that her teeth hurt from the American.
Shortly after that the Virgin Father and his brother Nhu were murdered in Saigon. People shouted in the streets, honking horns and raising banners and the nuns kept Tan's class inside all day and told them stories of King Herod. Father was put in jail. He was a loyal friend of the Ngo family. Some government soldiers came during dinner and drove him away for questioning. Quat tried to stop them but Father told him to sit and finish his meal. He would be back after the questioning. He told them all to pray for him. The soldiers took Father away. Quat sat at Father's desk, facing the wall, and cried.
One of the office doors opens and a doctor walks into the waiting room. He nods to the boy in the face harness. The boy closes his mouth tightly and shakes his head. His mother whispers to him. He won't go. The doctor leans down next to him, talking in calm, fatherly tones. The boy's face turns red, he presses his knees together and clamps his fingers to the edge of his chair. The mother whispers through her teeth, the doctor takes hold of the boy's arm and squeezes. The boy goes with the doctor, looking to his mother like he'll never see her again.
The sergeant major darts after the Moorish idol, seeming to nip at its tail. They shoot through the tank in jumps and spurts till finally the bigger idol turns and chases the sergeant major all the way back under the shelter of the Golden Gate.
When Tan was sixteen she lived in the Phu Cam section of the right bank with Dr. Co, one of Mother's brothers. He didn't allow Tan and Quat and the other to call him Uncle. Always Dr. Co. He was older than Father. Father died in the jail from tuberculosis. A man came from the government and said that was what happened. Father was buried in the Catholic cemetery.
Most of the Catholics in Hue lived in Phu Cam. Dr. Co was political chief of their ward. He had eight children of his own and now five of his sister's to care for. The house was very crowded. Sometimes Tan rode her bicycle back into the center of town, to their old house in the Citadel. She would watch it from across the street until she saw someone moving around in it. Everything had to be sold or left behind, there wasn't even room for the family altar. Dr. Co kept Father's desk.
It wasn't good living with Dr. Co and his wife. Their children teased the younger brothers and Xuan all the time. Tan was the oldest girl and had to work hard in the house. Quat and Dr. Co hardly spoke to each other. Quat was going to Hue University with the money Father had put aside for him, money that Dr. Co thought should be used to run the combined family. Quat drove a taxi and brought some money home but it didn't seem to please Dr. Co. He said the university teachers were Communists. And that the Communists were responsible for Father's death. Quat spent much of his time with his friend Buu, who was working in the Struggle Movement. Dr. Co said the Struggle Movement was backed by the Communists, and that Quat or Buu or anyone else who got involved with the crazy Buddhists and their burn ings and demonstrations would end in serious trouble. Quat never argued, he just walked away.
Tan went to the Dong Kanh girls' high school. She would ride along the river on Le Loi Street on school mornings, enjoying her freedom from the Co house. She did well in her studies and was considered one of the prettiest girls. The boys from Quoc Hoc would say things sometimes when she rode past but not in a mean way.
Dr. Co had late-night meetings at the house. All the children would be- crowded into one room and Madame Co would go to sleep, but Tan had to serve the men. There were politicians from the ward and men who must have been doctors or worked at a hospital. They spent the night buying and selling medicines. Tan was tired at school the next day and she hated the way the men looked at her and made jokes when she brought them their food and drinks.
Tan tried to be obedient and agreeable in the Co house and tried to make sure everyone got enough to eat. Quat had his dinner out and the younger brothers could fight for themselves, but Xuan was small and thin and Tan had to save something out of her own bowl to give to her when the rest were sleeping. They would sit up and Tan would try to tell the stories Quat had told her, but the only one she could remember completely was about the Trung sisters. Xuan loved that one and always asked for it. Tan left off the last part, the part where the Chinese came back and the sisters had to drown themselves.
One day in the spring Tan and her classmates were let out of school early. People were milling in the streets, radios blasted news at every corner. Everyone had a different rumor about what was happening. Tan tried to bicycle home, but the way was too full of people. They were crowded around an old man carrying a radio and Quat's voice was coming from it.
Tan was excited and scared. Quat said that the Struggle Movement was coming to fruit all over the country and that here in Hue the Buddhists and their friends had control of the city. Control that they meant to keep until their demands for reform were met. After each demand that Quat read, the people in the street cheered.
It was a strange kind of control. There weren't soldiers in the streets with guns like there had been after the Virgin Father was killed. The soldiers were all staying in their barracks in the Citadel. The city-government people were staying inside too, and there was no one guarding them. There were Buddhist flags flying everywhere. The Buddhists had the radio stations and the people in the streets. Tan had never seen so many people outside at once in her life.
The people in the streets were saying that they couldn't be beaten, the soldiers in the barracks were on their side and the Americans wouldn't dare interfere. The generals in Saigon would have to have elections, for none of them had the Mandate of Heaven.
In Phu Cam people were in the streets too, but they were much quieter. Trucks drove through with loudspeakers saying not to worry, they wouldn't be hurt. No one seemed to believe them.
There was a meeting at the Co house late that night. The doctor and his politician friends from the ward were there. Quat was there, and Buu, and several other people from the Struggle Movement, including two bonzes. They talked about peace, talked about how to avoid having people get hurt. Tan listened from the next room. Buu explained how the Buddhists had control of the city, how the First Division was staying neutral and the Americans were all hiding in their compound. He explained that it was important for the city officials to cooperate if they were going to avoid violence. That much of the violence might be directed at the city officials themselves. Dr. Co and his friends pledged to do anything they could to help in the difficult times ahead.