Even so, he still believes in his writing and his talent. It is something else that needs to be addressed, something intangible, other than the writing. So, he begins again, writing and waiting, writing and waiting, sometimes nervous, over-excited.
He seems to mature as he works, and grows more confident from this belief, and pushes on with new confidence, despite all the past failures, patiently savouring the end result he anticipates from his artistic endeavour and creativity.
Despite this growing confidence, he frequently relapses and once again feels like a man standing on the edge of an abyss.
Despite his conviction, his dedication, he also sometimes suspects his recall of certain events. Is there a force at work within him that creates this suspicion?
He dares not abandon himself to emotions, yet in each chapter Kien writes of the war in a deeply personal way, as though it had been his very own war. And so on and on, frantically writing, Kien refights all his battles, relives the times where his life was bitter, lonely, surreal, and full of obstacles and horrendous mistakes. There is a force at work in him that he cannot resist, as though it opposes every orthodox attitude taught him and it is now his task to expose the realities of war and to tear aside conventional images.
It is a dangerous spin he is in, flying off at a tangent, away from the traditional descriptive writing styles, where everything is orderly. Kien’s heroes are not the usual predictable, stiff figures but real people whose lives take diverse and unexpected directions.
After all his trial essays, short stories and novellas comes this novel, which he suddenly realises is his last adventure as a soldier. Curious, for it is at the same time his most serious challenge in life; in writing this work he has driven himself to the brink of insanity. There is no escape, no saviour to help him. He alone must meet this writing challenge, his last duty as a soldier.
In contemplation an odd idea takes root in his mind – or has it been there for many years? At the bottom of his heart he believes he exists on this earth to perform some unnamed heavenly duty. A task that is sacred and noble, but secret. He begins to believe that it is because of this heavenly duty that he had such a brief childhood and adolescence, then matured in time of war. The duty imposed on him in his first forty years a succession of suffering with very few joys. Those who selected Kien to perform these sacred tasks also ordained that he should survive the war, even in battles where it seemed impossible to escape death. The heavenly glow which streaked, sparkled and vanished like a falling star had bathed him in serene light for just a few moments, then disappeared so suddenly that he had no time to understand its full import.
The first time he had felt this secret force was not on the battlefield, but in peacetime, on his post-war MIA missions gathering the remains of the dead. The sacred force nurtured him, protected him and willed him on, renewing his thirst for living and for love. He had never before acknowledged this sacred heavenly duty, yet he had always known it existed within him as an integral part of him, melded with his soul.
From the time of that realisation he felt that day by day his soul was gradually maturing, preparing for its task of fulfilling the sacred heavenly duty of which the novel would become the earthly manifestation.
It was in summer five years ago that, totally by chance, on a lovely warm day he had stopped by the Nha Nam township. And from there he went on to revisit Doi Mo, a tiny, ancient hamlet where twenty years earlier his newly formed battalion had been based and had trained for three months while awaiting transportation to the front, called the ‘Long B’.
The landscape looked to Kien as though it had been forgotten by time. The pine plantations, the myrtles, grassy slopes, and eucalypts in desolate and gloomy lines between fields were exactly as he remembered them as a young recruit. The houses were scattered about as he had remembered them, one on each small hilltop and each as dull and unimaginative as before.
With no particular plan in mind, Kien left the only road through the hamlet and turned down a dirt track almost overgrown by grass.
He knew the track led to Mother Lanh’s house. She had been godmother to the many young recruits, especially his own three-man special team.
The house was still there, looking exactly as he had seen it the day he left; earthen wall, thatched roof, kitchen at the rear facing onto an overgrown small garden. Near a flight of steps, almost obscured by wildflowers and shrubs, was the same old well, with its windlass. Godmother Lanh had died. So now it would be Lan, her youngest daughter, who lived here.
When Lan opened the door and stepped outside she recognised Kien immediately. She even remembered his platoon nickname, the Spirit of Sorrow. Kien had forgotten everything about her.
‘In those days I was just thirteen years old. I still called you uncle. And we girls of the backwoods have always been shy and unattractive,’ she added in self-deprecation. But what Kien saw before him now twenty years later was an intelligent woman, quietly attractive, with mistily sad eyes.
Tears welled up in those sad eyes when Kien told her that the other two in the three-man squad who had stayed with Lan’s mother had been killed on the battlefield. ‘What a cruel time,’ she said, ‘and so very long. The war swept away so many people. So many new recruits used to be based in my house. They used to call my mother their mother, and called me younger sister. But of all of them only you have returned. My two brothers, my classmates and my husband, too, were all younger than you, and joined up years later than you. But none of them has returned. From so many, there is only you left, Kien. Just you.’
She went with him to pay tribute to her mother. Kien burned incense sticks and bent his head in prayer for some time, letting the painful memory of those days throb through his temples while he tried in vain to conjure up the image of the godmother’s face. The last rays of the sun were slanting over the long grasses, now tinged pink in the sunset.
She began speaking quietly: ‘If people had been patient in those days and let parents know of their son’s deaths one at a time, my mother would still be alive today. But in the first weeks of peace the bureaucrats wanted to speed up the delivery of bad news, to get it out of the way quickly. My mother was here one fateful morning when an official arrived bringing a death certificate for my brother, her first son. She took the news badly, although she had feared and expected it. She was buoyed only by the expectation of her second son coming home soon. But a few hours later another courier arrived with a second death certificate telling her my other brother, her second son, had also been killed. Mother collapsed in a faint, then lapsed into a coma. She hung on for three days without uttering another word, then died.’
Kien stared down at Lanh’s tombstone, noticing for the first time a second, much smaller grave alongside it. She said quietly: ‘My son. He was almost eight pounds when he was born, but he only lived two days. His name was Viet. My husband was one of the Tay tribe, far from his province of Ha Giang. He had been based here for less than one month, so there was not even time to complete the formal wedding ceremony. Six months after he left I got a letter, but not from him. It was from one of his mates, writing to tell me he’d been killed on the way into Laos. I’m sure that’s why our baby faded fast and died. It had no will to live.’