“These strangers are charged with committing serious crimes against the people of this village. Who here has accusations to make against them?”
There was silence for a minute then one of the young women stepped forward. Her name was Ai and she was a popular girl in the village, well liked for her friendliness and amiability. She pointed at the older of the two strangers kneeling in the dirt. “I accuse this one. He asked me to pleasure him and I agreed but he wanted to use me as a boy. When I refused he seized my breast and twisted it until I screamed. Look,”
She opened her top; her breast had ugly and obviously fresh bruises on it. Bless You My Child, Phong Nguyen thought, memories of his time in a Catholic school resurfacing, that is one good start.
“And he hit me and threw me across the room. If two of our men hadn't come who knows what he would have done to me. Phong Nguyen noted that two of the men straightened slightly with pride. More of that later. Now he had his work to do.
“THIS ONE?” He roared with anger pointing at the older of the two men, the one he had no doubt was the Senior Cadre and almost certainly Japanese. “THIS ONE?”
His voice shook with simulated rage. “This is the one who on his first visit here told us how his sister had been raped and mutilated by our soldiers.” It wasn't actually, it was the younger one who'd told that story but who cared? Truth had nothing to do with what was happening here tonight.
“He accused our brave soldiers, the soldiers who drove out the French from the Recovered Provinces and brought us the respect of the world; he accused them of raping and murdering his sister when all along it was he who does such terrible things.” The crowd would remember that as the stranger confessing to raping his own sister, This was going well. Phong Nguyen spat on the ground in front on him. “Who else has accusations?”
An old farmer stepped forward and pointed at the younger stranger “That one took my best rice beer, the batch that I'd made for the wedding of Lat and Nod, drank a little and threw the rest away. And never even offered to pay for it.” Phong Nguyen shook his head sadly “Your best rice beer you say, the finest in the province I'm told.” That was a safe comment, every village knew the rice beer it brewed was unequaled in the province. “And never even offered to pay.” A deep sigh and a shake of the head.
Nao stepped forward. An older woman, her husband had died of snake-bite in the fields four years ago, Since then, she'd rented the farm out and raised her family by doing odd work for others in the village.
“I did their laundry for them and they left without paying. Next time they came I reminded them and they called me a bloodsucking landlord.” That caused a genuine surge of anger, what else could a widow do but rent out her farm? And Nao had never complained about her fortune but made the best of what life had given her. Her children were clean and polite and she never failed to make a generous donation to the monks.
“I heard them; we all heard them, insult our King.”
Phong Nguyen didn't see who'd called that out but it was true, everybody knew it. Now, those holding the torches were banging the ends against the ground, making the shadows dance and sway in the night air. In the background somebody had started tapping on a drum, a bit melodramatic but, running a revolution was half theater, after all.
“They never made a donation to the monks!”
Another unrecognizable voice, this time a woman. And again true and everybody knew it. Watching the two cadres, Phong Nguyen could see that realization had sunk in, this was no dream, no game, they had been outfoxed and they were going to die. They were both looking desperately around for a way out, for an escape for somebody to help them. It was pointless, they were already dead, they just hadn't stopped breathing yet.
Now the accusations were coming thick and fast. Alt the resentments, all the half-remembered injuries and wounds and insults of a lifetime were pouring out. In the atmosphere that was swirling around the village square, the two men kneeling in the middle were the focus of everything that had been bottled up and festered for years. By now, nobody could hear the individual allegations but it didn't matter. Few, if any, had anything to do with the two cadres in front of them.
It was a long-delayed release of frustration and anger poured out over a convenient target. Tomorrow, it would be remembered only as the two strangers being found guilty of all the things that had offended and insulted the villagers. After it had gone on long enough but before it began to ebb, Phong Nguyen raised his hand to stop the flood of charges. “Do we find these strangers guilty of their crimes against our village?” That was a loaded question of ever there was one - and even if it wasn't, the villagers could hardly turn around now and say no. The roar back was “YES”. As if it could have been anything else.
Lin made what really was the best Chicken Pad Thai in the province. It truly was superb. She may not have been the most beautiful girl in the village but the other women had already glumly concluded that her Pad Thai gave her first choice of all the eligible men in this village and the ones in the surrounding areas.
Her secret was her butcher's knife. The girls from the village had once gone to the provincial capital, taking what little money their families could spare with them. Most of the girls had bought a new dress or jewelry but Lin had bought a superb Swedish carbon steel butcher's knife and sharpening stone. Her mother had beamed with pride at her daughter's foresight for now she could slice chicken so thinly the strips were transparent. Flash-fried in seasoned oil, they melted in the mouth, blending with the rest of the Pad Thai to make a dish fit for the Gods.
Now Lin had her knife in hand as she stood behind the older of the two strangers. When Phong Nguyen chopped his hand down, she grabbed the stranger's hair, pulled his head back and sliced the knife across his throat. The blade was so sharp that it slid through the flesh with hardly an effort. Lin carefully avoided the spine, she didn't want to knick the finely-honed edge of her precious knife on a bone. As the stranger's blood sprayed out, Phong Nguyen drew his Tokarev TT-33 pistol and shot the other cadre through the head. As he did so, he decided he would have to tell Vo Nguyen Giap that these tactics worked as well when you were defending things as they did when you were subverting them. That was an important lesson that should not be lost.
Then something happened which astonished him. The shock of seeing the killings they demanded, the villagers should have been stunned, filled with guilt and shame. Then, those feelings could be turned against those who the dead had represented. “See, it was their fault you were forced to do this.”
But, here, now the people were proud of what had happened. They looked at the bodies with satisfaction. Looking at them, Phong Nguyen had an epiphany. In his years with the Viet Minh, he'd been attacking things; tonight he had been defending them. That was the difference, before the villagers had been attacking and destroying, tonight they had been defending and protecting. Guilt and shame went with destruction, pride and satisfaction with protection. The implications of that needed much thought. But first he had a message to send.