Dr. Co cursed the Saigon generals and the Americans. This was what came of declaring a truce with the Communists. Dr. Co gathered his papers and money and some of the medicines he had stored in the attic. Ever since the Struggle Movement failed, Dr. Co had been bringing home supplies and storing them in the attic. Things he said the Americans had given him. He put the medicines and a few cartons of cigarettes in his suitcases, but he left the American ham and beef upstairs.
In the early evening someone pounded on the door. Dr. Co told Tan to say he had gone to the hospital to treat casualties, and ran up into the attic. The pounding continued, someone yelled that they should come outside, that no one would be harmed. Dr. Co was called by name. Tan sat on the floor, too scared to answer the pounding. It stopped. After several quiet hours Dr. Co came down.
They tried to sneak out late at night. At the railroad tracks someone called for them to stop and searchlights came on. Dr. Co ran into the darkness and Tan tried to follow. The suitcase she'd been given was heavy and when she heard men close behind her she had to drop it and scurry away. Tan spent an hour squatting in the shelter of a small pagoda and then found her way home. Dr. Co slapped her for leaving the suitcase behind. How would the family eat, he asked, now that she had thrown all their money away? Tan saw no sign of the suitcase Dr. Co had been carrying.
They lay on mats in the children's room, several feet of darkness between them. They didn't speak for over an hour. Neither slept. Then there was pounding on a door down the street. Voice shouting. Screaming, and a shot, very loud, very close, and a woman wailing on the street. Pounding on a door, closer. Dr. Co came over and lay by Tan, putting his arms around her. She couldn't tell which one of them was shaking so hard. Pounding right next door, more shots, more crying. Tan held her breath. She felt Dr. Co's heart beating against her back. The pounding came again, on the other side of the house. They had been passed over. The pounding moved on down the street.
Tan felt Dr. Co's breath hot on the back of her neck. He pushed his face through her hair and kissed her there. She was the one shaking now, she was sure of that. He rolled her onto her belly and pulled her clothes up. The northerners were near, she couldn't cry out. She couldn't think who she would cry to.
Tan felt crushed under his weight, the matting dug into her breasts. She tried to think of prayers. She was glad she didn't have to see his face. Tan bit her lip against the pain and he pushed into her from behind. That evening, frightened by the pounding, she had forgotten and not called him Dr. Co, had not even called him Uncle. Father, she had said, what will we do?
Dr. Co lay still on top of her when he had finished. He lay so still and so long that Tan thought he must have fallen asleep. But then he rolled off her and she groped her way to where she could wash herself. Tan sat shivering under her father's desk until dawn.
It rained heavily all morning and the fighting sounds were muffled. Dr. Co didn't meet her eyes or speak. When Tan looked out she saw a few of the country people riding by on bicycles. They didn't seem to notice how wet they were getting.
The pounding came in the afternoon. Dr. Co was called by name. He went up in the attic to hide. The people outside said they would start shooting if no one came out. Tan opened the door.
There were country people and a few people dressed in city clothes. They all wore red armbands. One was a girl who went to the Dong Kanh high school with Tan, a very pretty, popular girl. She wore a pair of pistols in her belt. Another of the people was Buu.
He looked much older. He held a clipboard in a hand with only one finger and a thumb on it. He pretended he didn't know Tan.
Buu asked where Dr. Co was. Tan said he had gone to the hospital. Buu said they knew that wasn't true. The people stood in the house, dripping, and told her not to be afraid, they were here to protect the Vietnamese from the Americans and the Saigon generals. Tan was too frightened to speak. Father, her uncle, the nuns in school — all had told of the terrible things that the Communists did to people.
Buu sat on the ladder leading to the attic and asked if they were hoarding meat in the house. Tan shook her head. Buu said he had learned about decay since he had been away from the city. If you lived too close to it you never noticed the smell, but any outsider could tell right off that things were rotten. Buu led the people up into the attic and they found Dr. Co hiding behind containers of American beef.
Dr. Co cried and pleaded. They bound his hands behind his back with wire, told him not to worry. They were only taking him for questioning. Buu told Tan to stay in the house until told what to do by the People's Army. The country people carried the meat out into the rain. Dr. Co didn't say good-bye.
Tan dressed in black and waited for night. There was no trouble at the railroad tracks and she reached the Phu Cam Cathedral. Women inside were wailing, beating their faces with their hands. There were no men. No men and almost no boys.
The Communists had come that morning, sobbed Madame Co, and had taken all the men and boys away. Just to a political meeting, they said, and then they would be brought back. They had taken Madame Co's four sons and Tan's two brothers. No one had returned. Xuan had volunteered to go for help to the government soldiers. She knew her way in the Citadel.
Tan told Madame Co her husband had gone to work at the hospital.
She started after Xuan in the morning. Rain beat down and there was fighting everywhere. She ran north toward the river, ducking between buildings when the fighting came close. She saw northern soldiers. She saw Americans. Loudspeakers said the People's Army was winning. A sound truck blared that the government soldiers were in control.
Tan was knocked to the pavement by an explosion. Her head hurt. She went on. Somebody shot at her. She felt the bullet pass, dove to the ground and cut her hands open. She stumbled onto a man lying dead in a puddle on the street. Tan crawled off him and ran for the river. The fight roared around her, trucks burning, houses burning, flames sizzling up to meet the rain. Tan saw blood running through the gutters with the rain. A flying piece of brick hit her, her side burning, and an old man fell in front of her, bleeding, tangled with his bicycle. It was the lake of fire,the nuns had told of, it was the Day of Atonement. Her head hurt. Tan ran upright down the middle of the street, knowing only that she had to reach the river.
The bridge was gone. There was no way back to the Imperial City. Her head hurt. She had to get across. She held her head in her hands, tried to remember. She was the sister of — there was someone floating by in the water, facedown. She was the daughter of — the water was gray, its surface alive with rain. Glowing embers blew from the fires in the walled city and died as they landed on the water. She held her head and sat on the bank of the Perfume River, trying to remember who she was.
The air conditioner blows on Tan, her nipples stand up and hurt a little. She folds her arms across her breasts. They are so big, so hard, since the Chinese doctor did them. She is a tiny, thin woman with huge breasts. She wonders if they'll ever be small again, be soft. If she gives him her eyes maybe he'll let her have her body back.
There are pictures on the wall. Chins pushed back or strengthened, noses straightened and reduced, harelips mended. Oriental eyes made round. Before and After, say the pictures.
When Tan went back to the Co house it was full of government soldiers hiding from their commanding officer. They sat half-naked on the floor with their clothes hanging to dry, eating what was left of the food, cooking on a fire made from Father's desk. They called for Tan to come in and sleep with them. She ran. The Americans and Communists fought in the Bien Hoa suburb to the north. The Americans built a pontoon bridge and Tan crossed with thousands of other homeless people. The people said the Americans would feed them.