For Kien, the most attractive, persistent echo of the past is the whisper of ordinary life, not the thunder of war, even though the sounds of ordinary life were washed away totally during the long storms of war. The pre-war peace and the post-war peace were in such contrast.
It is the whispers of friends and ordinary people now attempting ordinary peacetime pursuits which are the most horrifying. Like the case of Father Du, who presided over a very large and happily noisy family. Today he is the only living male. And Huynh, the train-driver, whose three sons all died on the battlefield. Like Sinh, wounded in the spine, more dead than alive until he finally died where he had lain for so long.
The spirits of all those killed in the war will remain with Kien beyond all political consequences of the war.
So many friends of the same age have long departed, never to return. Their houses are still here in Hanoi, their images part of them. Their images also endure in the faces of the new generation.
Kien remembers Hanh, a single girl who lived in the pre-war days in the small room close to the stairs, a room which now belongs to Mr Su. Hardly anyone now remembers why Hanh left, or when.
Hanh was older than Kien. When he was very young he would see men quiver with lust when Hanna walked by. They would fight each other to get close to her door. The ones on Hanh’s side of the street tried to fight those from the even-numbered houses across the street to stop them encroaching on their territory, meaning the doorways on the odd-numbered side, where Hanh would walk by at least twice a day. Every time Hanh passed, walking nonchalantly, her long tresses swaying, she would exude a youthful charm that aroused the men. They would stiffen, stop what they were doing, and stare after her with feverish, blatant desire.
The girls around there hated her, calling her a bitch, a whore, or a witch, because of her innocent influence, of which she remained either unconcerned or completely ignorant. Kien felt their passionate hatreds were based on envy and lies. Hanh was a normal, neighbourly girl, he felt. ‘Good morning, sister,’ he would say politely when she emerged. ‘Good morning, younger brother, you’re really a nice boy,’ she would say, tousling his hair. At the Lunar New Year celebrations she gave Kien a gift of money, just as she did the other children in the building. Brand-new crisp banknotes, and wishes for a happy school year. ‘Be a good pupil. Why, you already look almost grown up. Just take care not to be big in body but tiny in brain, my younger brother!’ she laughed.
But it was not very long before she began to change her style of address to Kien. He had turned into a handsome and strong seventeen-year-old and was about to graduate. But he and Phuong, his classmate and sweetheart from childhood, were both so intensely occupied with each other that neither seemed to notice what Hanh had observed, that Kien had matured into an impressively attractive young man.
War was looming. Hanoi was considered a non-combat area yet the authorities ordered the population to practice evacuation, to dig shelters, to heed air-raid sirens and to wear dark clothing. During a lunch break at home from school one day Kien was startled when Hanh slipped quietly into his room. ‘Hey, younger brother, how about helping me later. I want to dig an air-raid shelter under my bed so I don’t have to tear down the street every time that siren goes off.’
‘Okay, sister, I’ll help you.’
That evening was his first time in a room alone with a girl. It was small, but sensitively decorated. Kien wanted to ask her not to destroy the harmony of the room but she had already started on the digging work. He started to dig in the corner, by her small bed, about ten tiles in from the wall. He used a crowbar to break into the foundation, then a hoe and a shovel. Bit by bit, through bricks and the rubble of the foundations, they dug deeper.
Hanh had prepared a nice dinner, and bought beer for Kien. After dinner Kien began to feel a little uneasy, but said nothing, starting on the digging again. In the middle of the work there was a blackout and they had no electric light. Hanh brought out a small kerosene lantern and they continued, with Kien digging and Hanh carrying away the soil in buckets. Both worked silently, patiently for a long time.
‘This is probably deep enough,’ said Kien, panting, ‘it’s above my chest which means the level of your chin. Don’t make it too deep.’
‘Yes. Let’s stop there. But let me try it. We might need some steps for me to get down into it easily,’ she said, holding her arms out to slip into the shelter.
Hanh didn’t look much shorter than Kien, but once inside the shelter in the dimly lit room, she only came up to his chin. Her body pressed into his tall, muscular body as he lifted her down.
She sensed the intimacy and seemed to change her mind, wishing to get back out, but the shelter was too narrow and deep. Her urgent mood transferred itself to Kien whose body began heaving uncontrollably with a burning male sensation that he’d never felt before. He breathed heavily, trying to cope, but the sensations produced by her closeness, her perfume, her hair, her shoulders, her breasts pressing under her thin shirt hard against him, slowly overpowered him.
Confused and trembling out of control, Kien hugged her tightly, bending to kiss her neck, then her shoulders, as she twisted her body to get clear of him. Clumsily he pressed her against the earthen wall, triggering tensions in his muscles, which snapped a shirt button, springing it wide open and bringing him suddenly to his senses.
He threw his head back, stepped away and released Hanh, then lifted himself quickly out of the little shelter onto the floor, poised to run out of the room. But in his rush he knocked over the kerosene lamp, which went out.
‘Kien,’ Hanh called in a low voice. ‘Don’t go, don’t run off. Please help me. I can’t see a thing.’
Trembling, Kien bent down and grasped her under her arms and lifted her out, ripping his shirt open even wider as he lifted. Hanh raised her arms and placed them around his neck, whispering to him: ‘Go upstairs for a moment, but don’t stay long. Come down soon. There’s something I want to tell you,’ she said.
Kien went quietly back to his room, took a bath and slowly put on fresh clothes. But he couldn’t summon the courage to return downstairs. He started, but stopped. He sat down. He lay down, but he couldn’t sleep. His emotions were running riot, willing him to return. But his conservative training in restraint anchored him to the spot. The hours dragged by, until he saw the first glint of dawn. He sat up suddenly, walked barefoot to the landing and tip-toed downstairs to Hanh’s room, where his courage ran out again. He pressed his face to the door, his heart beating loudly. He didn’t dare knock, even when he heard a slight scratch of footsteps on the other side of the door and a latch being lifted ever so gently. Breathlessly Kien sensed Hanh’s body pressing on the inside of the door, a centimetre of timber between their bodies. He lowered his hand to the ceramic door-handle, trembling, but it froze on the handle for some seconds, then minutes, and he found no strength to turn it. He finally released the handle, turned round noisily and ran back upstairs, throwing himself on the bed in defeat.
From that day on, Kien avoided her. If their paths accidentally crossed, Kien would bend his head and weakly mumble, ‘…Sister.’ Hanh would look quietly and sympathetically at him and say, ‘Good day, younger brother.’ She seemed willing to say more, to tell him something she had long wanted to say, but Kien’s continued avoidance of her acted as a deterrent. The words she longed to say would never be voiced. Perhaps in their dreams, for soon she was gone.