When Kien joined up Hanh had already become involved with the Volunteer Youth Brigade which had gone off to the Fourth Military Zone. When Kien returned to Hanoi before heading south he found a new occupant in Hanh’s old room. The deep shelter had been filled in and tiled over and there was no indication that the floor had ever been disturbed.
‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ she had said. The words lingered with him for years.
When later he recalled his actions, her words, his timidity, he would grieve, and regret his loss.
The passing of beautiful youth had been so rapid that even its normal periods of anxiety and torment, of deep intensive blind love, had been taken from him as the war clouds loomed. A moment so close, yet so far, then totally lost to him, to remain only as a memory forever.
Kien sighed and pressed his face to the cold glass window, looking out into the dark night. He could see the top of the tree in front of his house, the leaves brushing wetly against his window.
In the streets below, scattered lights shone, the light mixing with the rain. Illumination stopped at the end of the street, marking the start of the vast lake. Swinging his vision to the right he saw the dark cloud canopies low over the familiar tiled roofs of Hanoi, although hardly any of the houses emitted light. There were no cars on the street, and not a single pedestrian.
At this moment the city was so calm that one could practically hear the clouds blow over the rooftops. He thought of them as part of his life being blown away in wispy sections, leaving vast, open areas of complete emptiness, as in his own life.
The spirit of Hanoi is strongest by night, even stronger in the rain. Like now, when the whole town seems deserted, wet, lonely, cold, and deeply sad.
When they slept in the jungle the rain fell on forest canopies, and Kien would dream of Hanoi in the rain. Hanoi with leaves falling. Now, as he watched the leaves falling, he remembered the jungle rains and the dreams of Hanoi. The dreams focused and refocused until past scenes and the present became a raging reality within him, images of the present and the past merging to double the impact and the smell and atmosphere of the jungle there in the room with him. Wave after wave of agonising memories washed over his mental shores.
One year in the seventies a false spring had appeared in Hanoi. The sun shone during the day and the air was as light and clean as any April or early May. The trees whose branches had turned bare during winter suddenly sprouted beautiful green buds. In the parks the flowers began blooming and migratory birds began returning to nest under the eaves of city buildings. For those few moments in a season Hanoi lost its lonely, desolate look.
One day after that week of sunny midwinter days the sky darkened, an icy cold wind began gusting along the newly greened streets, and a sorrowful, drizzling rain began. The newly-emerged buds retreated, the blooms wilted, the birds remained hidden, and the colours and the new hope that had arrived like a golden promise evaporated into the reality of harsh grey winter.
Phuong, his childhood sweetheart, his classmate, his female lead in one of the strangest opening nights of the war theatre, and his self-created ikon for salvation in peacetime, had left him again. She had gone from him when the false spring faded and real winter returned.
Phuong had left no note and since departing had not written to him. She had probably decided never to return. The doors and the windows in her apartment were shuttered and locked and had the look of permanency about them. That had been their first parting since he had returned from the war. Her sudden, cruel departure had cut Kien deeply.
Kien sat forlornly in his apartment, emotionally exhausted. A glint caught his eye and he turned to face a small mirror. What he saw astounded him; his hair, his beard, his wrinkles, the circles under his eyes. He tested his voice; even that had changed; it was now deep and sad. His looks, his voice, seemed to upset others these days. Was it the empty, blank stare he now saw in the mirror? Was that what they turned from, avoiding his glances?
He became bored with his university studies. One morning he simply decided he wouldn’t attend. From that point on he ended his easy student life, quietly, and for no apparent reason. He stopped reading newspapers, then books, then let everything go. He lost contact with his friends, then with the outside world in general. Except drink. And cigarettes. He couldn’t care less that he was penniless, that he drank and smoked almost non-stop. He wandered around outside, pacing the lonely streets. When he did sleep, it was a heavy, drunken slumber.
In his dreams he saw Phuong now and then, but more often he dreamed of crazy, twisted things, distorted apparitions of loneliness and sorrow. Horrible, poisonous nightmares brought back images that had haunted him constantly throughout the war. During the twilights of those cold nights the familiar, lonely spirits reappeared from the Screaming Souls Jungle, sighing and moaning to him, whispering as they floated around, like pale vapours, shredded with bullet-holes. They moved into his sleep as though they were mirrors surrounding him.
He would often awake to find himself writhing on the floor, tears streaming down his face, shivering with fear and cold. His numbed heart was seized up and his emotions overcame him. When the icy winds outside blew fiercely and rain pelted heavily against his dark windows, he would just sit there, still, not wishing to move. Sad, foolish self-pity washed over him.
He had tried desperately to forget Phuong, but she was unforgettable. He longed for her still. Nothing lasted forever in this world, he knew that. Even love and sorrow inside an aging man would finally dissipate under the realisation that his suffering, his tortured thoughts, were small and meaningless in the overall scheme of things. Like wispy smoke spiralling into the sky, glimpsed for a moment, then gone.
That cold spring, Kien was frequently out on the streets late at night. On one memorable night, near the Thuyen Quang park by the lake, he saw two figures struggling on the ground under a kapok tree. One of them, a man, rose quickly and drew a knife from his belt. Kien jumped into the fray, kicked the man, then knocked him into a gutter, before chasing him off. He turned and saw that the second figure was an attractive young girl. Kien called a pedicab going past, bundled her into it and headed for home. Once inside, he saw she was made up in the familiar, tartish way made famous by the ‘Green Coffee Girls’ of the area. These were the most notable Hanoi prostitutes, so called because they waited for their men in a certain group of coffee houses.
‘You know whose life it is you’ve just saved, and brought into your home. Well, do you?’ she asked. ‘I’m a Green Coffee Girl.’
She stood, feet slightly apart, looking directly at him. Not yet nineteen, but sure of herself. A little paler, a little less healthy than he had first thought. And on closer scrutiny her bright clothes, attractive from a distance, had seen better days.
‘That punch was worth a lot to me. That was real trouble for me. I owe you,’ she said, taking charge. ‘You were just wonderful,’ she added, stepping out of her skirt slowly. She continued to undress for him, ending by pulling her blouse lightly over her head. It was a smooth performance, but something was wrong. She began to shiver, smiling hesitantly, shyly. Kien noticed her smooth skin was blue with cold, that her ribs formed sharp lines under her breasts. She was starving.
‘Let’s share that cigarette,’ she said, in a final effort to retain her composure. But after only one puff she slid into his bed, sighed like a sleepy child, and was soon in a deep sleep.
When she woke up she saw Kien sitting over by the table and realised with astonishment that she knew him. In the morning light she could see him clearly and recognised him as the friend of her big brother, in the same platoon, from years ago. Kien came over, lighting a new cigarette, then sat down on the bed beside her. In the light of the new day, he had recognised her, too, despite the make-up.