the case by luong minh dao - 1
t h e c a s e
short story by
LUONG MINH DAO
Lời dẫn:
- sang Huê Kỳ định cư sau 1975, ĐÀO MINH LƯỢNG ( 1936 - ) , tác gỉả tập thơ
VÔ CÙNG / Sùng chính viện, Saigon 1960) . Nguyên thẩm phán, chánh án tòa án Saigon, người từng chủ tọa xử án một phiên tòa mà cựu tổng thống VNCH Nguyễn Văn Thiệu là bị cáo .( nhật báo Sóng thần có bài tường thuật nơi trang 1 vào khoảng cuối tháng 3 / 1975 ).
-hiện nay tác giả ờ San Diego ( Hoa kỳ) . Vợ của Đào Minh Lượng là nữ ca sĩ Băng Tâm , con gái ông Hoàng Cao Tăng, nguyên giám đốc Đài phát thanh Pháp Á Saigon , thập niên 50 .
-cách đây dăm năm, anh NGUYỄN MẠNH CƯỜNG ( 1934 - , phu quân một nữ nhân vật tiểu thuyết THỦY VÀ T6 , Đại Nam văn hiến , saigon 1967 ) - gửi tập truyện ngắn viết bằng tiếng anh ( american- english ) với đôi lời nhắn từ tác giả : tùy nghi sử dụng.
- điều làm tôi ngạc nhiên, tập truyện ngắn này không có tên người dịch- vậy là tác giả Luong Minh Dao tự viết .
-không quên, mổi lần , anh ghé qua Thư Viện Quốc gia ( 34 Gia Long , Saigon 1- nay Lý Tự Trọng - thời kỳ trước 1963, chưa xây Thư viện mới trên nền Khám Lớn ) -anh cung cấp tiền ăn trưa , để tôi ngồi lì buổi chiều ở thư viện với 'cơm tây cầm' ( bánh mì thịt) rong vòng 3, 4 năm ròng. Lời cảm ơn này tuy thừa, nhưng nhờ đến, hẳn tôi không thể không nói lời cảm ơn.
- thật mà nói, tiếng pháp + anh ngữ của Đào Minh Lượng , khi ấy, chỉ ' đọc chạy chữ thì được' - còn, hiểu được, hoặc đủ khả năng dịch được, thì chưa ?
- nay, anh viết tập truyện ngắn thẳng bằng anh ngữ ( riêng tôi, rất khâm phục ) gồm 6 truyện : The Case ( làm tựa đề sách), The Armband , From Troyes, Fever, Escape và A Street name .
- trước đây, tôi đã gửi it bài tới Newvietart.com ( France) - anh Từ Vũ đã cho đăng ngay, đâu đó, 1, 2 truyện thì phải - và nay, tôi có dịp, sẽ cho phổ biến toàn tập truyện ngắn LUONG MINH DAO trên web. THE PHONG' S POEMS.
THEPHONG
Saigon , Nov, 30, 2012
the case 1
a novel by luong minh dao
Yen, the cadre in charge, was walking on the aisle in the middle of the shed. She stopped at the table where Van was writing his confession. He looked up and met Yen's eyes, bright and calm. He put some pages to the left, letting Yen read them without leaning herself forwards. Then, he continued his writing. The words spread over the page from margin to margin without interruption. He wanted to recreate the passionate feeling he had had when he had been writing articles for the issues of a law review published by the Supreme Court of the previous regime, and he wanted his confession to be a novelette .
" To be a novelette? " he thought, " Why not ?" . He remembered that idea he had when he started to write his confession, " simply imagine that suddenly you wake up and find yourself in a communist Writers' Camp, and keep in mind that your work carry out the duty of the Regime's literature ."
" This idea transforms the torturing confession into an enjoyable entertainment, " Van thought.
Since he was a six years old boy, Van remembered, he saw many wars that torn his country, a small peninsula surrounded by water of the Pacific Ocean, and affected incessantly his life . During the colonization of France, he saw workers come back from rubber plantations with ulcerous wounds in legs and feet, during the occupation of Japanese Army, he daily saw carts collecting the bodies of villagers who went to the capital to look for the chance of survival and died of hunger on the streets. His family had fled from the capital to small towns, from small towns to isolated villages, and back and forth to avoid war miseries, living in several areas controlled either by the Resistance or by foreign forces. The American forces withdrew in honor. The last war ended to open not an era of peace but a period of re-education, which was praised by the victorious side as a favor granted to the defeated. Van and hundreds of thousand men working for the previous regime were summoned to report to several centers and were moved to several concentration camps in all parts of the country. One night, Van and three hundred prisoners were knocked up from their sleep and loaded into six trucks. At sunrise, the trucks unloaded them in his camp in the middle of a cluster of almost forgotten hills.
" Accepting drastic in lnguage, culture, and ruling system, " Van thought, " writing a novelette from any randomly-chosen viewpoint was not an illusion. " Van put down his pen, smiling .
Inside the shed, about two hundred prisoners were writing their confessions. They sat at two columns of long tables made of large branches and trunks of trees they cut down from the near forest. Most of them were thinking, heads bent over their pieces of white paper. It was the third day of their third session of written-confession and self-criticism in this camp. Outside, the morning was bright, windy, and cool. A sudden rush of wind, coming from the window at the other side of the room brought with it the smell of fresh peach and lime from Yen's shirt. Van looked up and saw only the silhouette of Yen's profile. He took in a long breath and thought of a scene in the novel of an American writer who worked for the Liberation Front during the sixties, in this scene, a prison guard, with a fresh rose in her hand, passed by ther door of a cell where a prisoner waited for his undecided execution day.
Sighing, Van looked down his paper and restarted writing to explain why he had not left the country on the last days of the old regime as his friends had done. Van wrote down a dozen of reasons to show that he was not a planted agent of American CIA.
" Who knows the reasons of an event,' he thought,' which is only the consequence of a chaos of factors in the sunset of a political regime ? One more reason does not make any difference ."
" Maybe" , he wrote, " slow and hesistant, I was simply a person who was left behind by my family and my friends who were suffering from the fear of punishment from the victorious side and the fever of escape from the country ".
Yen left Van's table for her desk. Her hair was waving back and forth on the shoulders of her shirts, which was patterned with little pink and light blue flowers -- the shirt that she had worn in the evening several months before, when she had presented herself for the first time in Van's house.
In front of the prisoners sitting on the lower parts of their bunk beds, Van remembered, Yen stood with ease under the light of an electric lamp. The prisoners had ceased talking since she stepped into the house. Van heard the monotone explosions of the generator engine from a far corner of the cadres' zone; Van did not know why they reminded him of a certain peaceful evening somewhere in the far past .
" I am Yen, the cadre responsible for this house ." Yen said . "I graduated from The National Security University last month . Do you know what a university is ? "
Yen looked around. No answer.
" I believe that some of you did finish twelfth grade ?' she continued with a slow and very clear voice.
Nobody moved, the large house seemed absolutely quiet. Van did not understand Yen much. " Maybe " , Van thought, " she belevied in propagandist documents about the vicious nature of the previous ruling class in the South -- they were all uneducated and ferocious malefactors, puppet servants of the American Empire, or, maybe, she was using a metaphor to keep the sleepy prisoners awake ."
The whole house fell in deep silence -- the silence of protest or contempt, Van did not know. Yen was talking about her experiences when she had been assigned to a post of ferrying during an operation on the Ho Chi Minh trail, and how she had saved a convoy of military supply from the bombardment of B52's at daybreak.
" Only discipline can make difference," Yen continued. Breaking the rules of traffic, a truck could cause chaos on the muddy shipping bank an could slow the progress of ferrying across the river that should be finished before daybreak to avoid bombardments. I always emphasize the vital importance of discipline enforcement, and I will continue to do it here ."
Suddenly Van noticed a medal sized mending patch on a shouder of Yen's shirt.
" Just a very small patch, and that made her shirt seemed more fragile and precious, " Van thought, preferring to believe that the patch on her shirt was only an adornment .
" It is absurd to believe that it is simply a mending patch . " Van thought and was pleased with his idea.
Standing behind her desk in front of the two columns of tables, Yen looked around the room, the prisoners were writing. Yen turned her head and looked to the side door, Van followed her eyes. From his seat, Van saw the red bare yard beside the shed and the bright- green hilltops at the horizon.
" Behind those hills, " Van thought, " there is a small town of Biên Hoa." He remembered that, during the break in a self-critique session of Van's group, not long after Yen's first appearance , Yen had asked him during a break if he had been in that town.
" I will visit it some day," she said
" It is only a small town, ' Van said, ' calm and lightly populated; there are no special activities because the town is too close to the city of Saigon "
" My saving isn't enough for traveling further, " Yen said. " This camp is my first post ".
' I understand', said Van.
On the side yard, the sun was very bright. The shadow of tall trees fell on their exposed roots at the border of the yard. Yen looked at her watch and tapped her finfers on the table.
" It' s time. You will continue tomorrow. Number the pages, put your papers into your folders, and give them to the persons at the ends of your tables beside the aisle. I will collect them before you leave. This afternoon, you will dicuss your confessions in your groups. "
Van put his folder to the end of his table, and then, above it, the two other folders of the other prisoners sitting at the same table. Yen started collecting the papers from the fist row. When she came to Van's table, he looked at her
" She is the first person who reads my story, " Van thought. " How can it be so ironic ? " Then, he thought that he had to say some words to her .
" We restart tomorrow, at what time ?"Yen took the three folders.
" We like writing confessions " Yen said without looking at Van. She left for the next table. Van was the last prisoner who left the room. He walked along the aisle, and before passing her desk, he nodded lighty to Yen. Half smiling, Yen followed him with her eyes without returning his nod .
The sun was above his head, but the wind, still fresh and cool. Some prisoners on duty were leaving the kitchen with food containers for his house's lunch. Van thought of a little tasteless rice and some small blocks of steamed wheat flour, a special food created by the prisoners who worked in the kitchen, the flour was donated by an international organisation during the recent flood in the central and the south regions.
Making a circle on the floor, the eleven prisoners in Van's group were sitting on their single reed mats in the bright oblique sun.
" Our sins, our crimes we couldn't hide, " San, the tall prisoner who was sitting beside Van, spoke slowly with his head gently titting forwards; he had been the Deputy District Chief of a province. " They were obvious an intolerable; they were .."
Yen, standing behind Van, looked down their heads. Van saw her her shadow on the empty space of the mats. The prisoner secretary of the meeting was sitting quietly opposite to Van. Van could not see his face because he was leaning forwards, but Van knew that the prisoner was sleeping. The other prisoner still delivered his confessional speech with monotonous voice. Sudddenly, a prisoner in the group close to Van started crying loudly, beating his chest; Van starled, and the secretary, straightening his back in a hurry, dropped his pencil on the mat.
" It was entirely my fault, " he said in a hoarse voice; " this filthy judge; the authority vested in me was only a dirty anti-revolutionary means to deceive the People, to slow the final victory of the Revolution. How many crimes I committed during the past years, the years of obscurity, of sins ? ..."
Paralyzed, Van looked at the prisoner without blinking his eyes. He heard Yen step on the floor towards the prisoner.
" It's enough ... enough ." Yen' voice seemed very load but calm. " Don't make more noises than it is necessary for your group ."
Van could not understand her clearly, he wondered whether the words Yen just said were real or only in his imagination. The prisoner continued to beat his chest some more times before he covered his face with his hands, weeping.
Van closed his eyes. He remembered the burning sandy yard in front of the building in the Interrogation Camp during the pilot period of Phoffffffffenix Operation in an area within his jurisdiction. The huge buiding was divided into several small rooms, and each room had a large window and a tall door, in each room, a prisoner lived and wrote confessions. The Police jeep stopped in front of a room in the middle of that building.
" He is in this room, Sir," the Police chief said to Van, sitting on the back seat and leaning forward towards Van : " I do not know if he can survive the injury. I understand that only your investigation can protect us from the accusation of torturing prisoners . "
Van left the jeep for the room; the Police Chief and his clerk with a record book in his hand followed him. The room was bright, in its front half there was a white wood table and two simple chairs at its sides. There were a revolver and a thick pad of paper on the table besides a piece of paper half-covered with handwriting. Van saw a blood-like spot on the chair that faced the window. The prisoner was lying on a single bed near the back wall. There were spots of dry blood on the left hand of the prisoner and on two small areas of his hair, one on his left temple, and the other above his left ear. He looked pale. Leaning over him, Van heard the prisoner breathing regularly .
" I am Judge Van, do you have any complaint ?"
Van was pleased that the prisoner opened his eyes and shook his head obviously to say no. Van straightend up and thought about the second question that could not cause any equivocal answer in case the prisoner answer in case the prisoner answered with the movement of his head.
" He took the colt from the interviewer's belt and shot himself before the interviewer could response, " standing beside Van, the Chief of Police said. " Maybe he regretted or was afraid of the punishment from his comrades because his confession did help us to raze a communist planted base and take some prisoners to this center last night ."
" You were forced to confess with a weapon? " Van asked; the prisoner shook his head again, then, closed his eyes.
" Please record carefully the prisoner's responses," Van said, turning to his clerk, who, standing beside the head of the prisoner's bed, was writing on his record book.
Van ordered his clerk and the Chief of Police to perform some more procedural acts. They left the room when the paramedics came. The prisoner was carried on a stretcher to the idling ambulance outside .
" You turn, Van , " the prisoner sitting next to Van said.
Being put on the spot, van could not postpone his choice of the way to make his confession nad was happy that his choice was not as painful as the choice the prisoner in Phoenix Operation Camp had made,
"I praticed law for fifteen years ,' Van strted his confession; his voice was clear with Hanoian accent. Yen wlked to Van's group and stood beside them. Van paused .
"You can continue, " Yen said. " I want to listen ."
Van saw Yen smile for the first time.
" Her eyes reflect only benign curiosity, " Van thought .
' Thank you, " Van said to Yen, and, looking to his prisoner friends, he continued his confession.
" Since the beginning of my professional life, I was a ' sitting judge' ; as you know, in the old political system, the function of a juudiciary branch member is to interpret laws, and the fudamental principle of interpretation is that the body of laws is a living organism, not the dead rules that were framed in black printed words ."
Van suddenly remembered the first lecture he had delivered in the Criminal Law class in the capital for newly nominated judges a few years before. He looked at Yen and was aware that, without any obvious reasons, he wanted her to see the beauty of the old regim's legal system.
" Why? " he thought but did not have a definite answer. " Perhaps I like her. It's quite an easy but amusing explanation ."
The body of laws develops in time and reflects social progresses. Conflicts of interests between individuals and between individuals and governments happen everyday in multiple new forms and nuances. The legislative branch cannot produce law at that speed; and judges have to step in, interpreting curremtly existing laws to settle the disputes without hampering social progresses. Interpretation of laws is quite an art; and I believe that, during the past fifteen years, practicing this art, I always protected the supremacy of our people's interests. "
Van paused and looked to Yen. She was standing still with her arms folded in front of her chest. Van met her eyes before she turned her head away towards the window at the other side of the room, and thought that window, Van saw only the sky without a thread of cloud.
" But, from Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, " Van continued, looking at the prisoners,. ' the whole legal system of the old regime is only the production of the ruling class to maintain its power and to defense its interests, a ruthless means to suppress The Revolution and persecute our people."
" Van , " Yen said, turning to the group. " I think it's better to concentrate on your personal activities. Stick to the confession guideline ."
Van believed that he saw Yen' s friendly smile when she left for another group.
The sun just appereared above the horizon when Van took his flask of tea and walked to the door. He was ready for the morning labor during the two-days break of the confession session. Some prisoners were standing on the yard in the gathering space for his group, talking. Van joined them.
" What a beautiful day , " Van said to the prisoner of average height who had been the chief of Economic Planning Department in a province near-by the capital. " Can you guess the site of our labor this morning ?"
" Cleaning up the fence along the road down there, " he said and smiled, pointing to the barbed wire fence at the feet of the lower hills. " I guessed so because we can have a coffee break in the small shack not far from our camp, the security guards are not difficult and like to chat with the young owner of the shack, " he comtinued and laughed
.
On the path to the ayrd, the head of Van's group was walking towards them,
" Today we work in the cadres' zone, " he said, "making the foundation for a new kitchen and dinning area. And, Van, you stay home, the cadre Yen will work with you ."
" No problem. Do you know what about? " Van asked and was aware that he just voiced a meaningless question .
" I don't know".
Van went back to the house. Sitting on his bed, he looked to the door and waited.
When Yen arrived. light outside was so bright that Van could not see her face but her silhouette.
" Van', she said instead of greeting hello.
" Yes. I am waiting for you, " Van said ".
" I work at your case today, " Yen said and sat in a chair at the table in the center of the house, where the prisoners usually played Chinese chess after evening meals. Van saw her face, fresh and calm.
" Come here and sit down, " Yen said, pointing at the opposite chair. " Do you know why I am here ?" Yen asked, opening her little notebook.
" No, I do not know, but I am ready, " Van said with a smile after sitting in the chair .
" Are you certain?' Yen said and looked into Van's eyes. " They said that you spent your spare time to make many crosses from spoon handles, and you gave them to your friends in our camp. Is that true ?"
" Yes; but I made a few, not many ".
Suddenly, yen stopped her writing, looking at Van.
" Are you catholic?" she asked.
" No, I am not, " Van leaned his body a little sideward and said; suddemly he understood the absordity of the situation.
" I read your confession and your file , " Yen said, " and I believe that you cannot be baptized recently ".
Van saw her lips from a vague smile, so vague and fleeting that he thought light and shadow were confusing his vision.
" You are not catholic, but you did make crosses. Why ? Everybody knows that the cross is the main symbol of Christianity ? ".
" Are you answering me sincerely ?"
" I have to confess to you that I cannot remember the reason. But, I am certain that it was not for a religious cause ."
" Of course, I do. Pehaps, now, I can tell you a reason: the cross was only a spur-of-the-moment choice. I wanted to do something to pass time, my friends could made rings, combs or hair pins; but, I did not have tools, and they were too difficult for me . "
" I understood what you said ." Yen interrupted Van. " You just gave me an interpretation to go along with my question, didn't you ?"
Van looked into Yen's eyes, feeling happy without an obvious reason. He held back the answer he had in his mind and kept silent.
" Did you ever thought that you were dragging the cross, " presssing the point of her pencil on the open page of her notebook, Yen continued, " wandering around this camp an your fields of labor to tell your friends that you are suffering for a lost cause or for the others ?".
Van felt a lttle burning in his chest. Yen was staring at him, and her eyes were very bright.
" No certainly I did not " , after a very short pause, Van answered. I never ..."
" But, I have to confess that, " Van thought, " I like the way you use metaphors ..."
" What? " Yen interrupted Van, raising her voice a little .
" Your metaphor, " Van thought.
" No, I never thought that I shoudered the punishmnet for others . " Van answered Yen. .
" I could refuse to be here, and I have been here, and I am alright here. I do not have any reason to think that I am suffering, especially suffering for the others; I cannot hold myself responsible for the others' acts. And now, perhaps, I almost find the meaning of being here ."
" Really?" smiling, Yen said and looked down her notebook.
" The search for the meaning of being here may be painful, " Van thought, ' but ... "
" What did you find ?" Yen asked.
" I did not find it, " Van answered, " but I think that I almost reach its definition. However, I am happy now ".
Yen posed continuosly several more questions, always boldly looking into Van's eyes.
" Do you have any cross with you ?"
" No", Van answered, looking down his chest,
" Good. Did you think that, with the professional experiences of judging the others for fifteen years, you can dodge all my questions ?"
" No . I have no reason for thinking so, " Van said, looking into her eyes. " I have nothing to hide ".
' Good, " Yen smiled; " I give you a short break ."
Yen closed her notebook and stoop up. She crossed the room and walked down the back yard. The sun was very bright, but the wind coming from the remote hills was fresh and full of the senses of young leaves and flowering buds. Van followed her. Yen stepped up a low mound of red earth and stood in the shade of a tree at the yard border. Van stopped at the foot of the mound and looked at Yen. He thought of few strokes of a brush that forms a human shape which is set apart from the background of the blue sky and the read land in a very simple painting, so simple that its beauty became rude and brutal.
" Van", Yen turned her head to Van and said. " You will go blind in that bright sun. Come here; stay in the shade ."
Van climbed up the mound, the shade was not large, he stood beside Yen. They looked at each other, then, to the far valley.
" Thank you ". Van said.
" You are from Hanoi"?" Van asked after a long silence .
" You think so ?".
" From your accent and the words you used, I guess ".
" Do you miss Saigon ?" Yen asked.
" Yes ", Van answered promptly. " But, more frequently, I missed the North ."
" Why the North ?"
" I do not know. I left the capital when I was eighteen."
" Do you miss Hanoi ?" after another moment of silence, Van asked, looking at Yen .
" I do not know; perhaps thought of it sometimes for only a fleeting moment, " Yen said, facing Van .
Her hair, blown by the wind, covered part of her face and her lips. Van had the feeling that some strands of her hair were fluttering over his face. Yen turned her head away and looked down at the walley, its tree tops of young leaves were bright green. The sense of home made shampoo left on Yen's hair reminded hIm of his sister when his family had left the capital to live in a village during the last year of the Japanese's occupation. Sitting on the veranda in fronr of the large brickyard of their house, after washing her hair, she used to dry with a white towel and hummed romantic songs chanting the beauty of simple life.
Van looked at the valley and understood that he could find in Yen's presence some memories that had been forgotten for a long time.
" I think that there is a certain house under the trees in the valley, " Van said; " and standing here, I have the feeling thet it is in a dream but not uite beyond reach ".
Yen stood still for a long moment, looking down the valley.
" I have to go ", she said. " I give you some free hours ."
' Thank you" , Van said and stood there, followed her steps with her eyes until Yen went through the gate to the cadres' zone. he looked down the mound, and then, to his feet in the makeshift sandals at the ends of his prisoner trousers which were stamped with the abbreviation of his camp name. Van sat down. He thought of Yen and avoided making any interpretation of her words and her attitude.
***
When Van walked into the house, most of the prisoners were standing in front of their belongings, ready foe the surprise search for prohibited possessions performed by Yen and another educational cadre. Van took his bag and stood in front of his bed. The search was a little noisy and chaotic; the prisoners had to keep many different items for their future needs, and most of them were maskeshift. When Yen stopped in front of Phong, the prisoner standing next toVan, she looked at Van.
" How are you ?" Yen smiled and asked.
" I am fine; thank you . How are you doing ?
"I'm alright, " Yen answered Van and started the search.
Phong slowly pulled out some shirts and pants from his large traveler's bag, they were wrinkled but clean. An almost wom-out toothbrush, a paste tube, and a comb were tied together. A tablespoon and a rice bowl were put inside a large soup bowl, and all of them, in an old plastic bag.
' Why the bowl could be so large, too large for a prisoner 's daily ration?" Van wondered and looked at Yen.
Standing quietly, she was watching Phong displaying his daily items on the floor. Phong opened the second bag - a huge bad made of thick canvas. A sauce pan, old and battered, fell on the floor, Phong tried to pull out a larger pan but failed; its handle stuck to the kettle spout. Van saw a blush on Phong's face.
" You have so many pans, why ?" Yen asked, sitting down on her heels. " Let me help you; you are very slow, Phong ".
When Yen put the last item on the floor, her hands were all sooty .
" Now, your turn, " turning to Van, Yen said .
Van opened his bag, there were some white shirts neatly folded on the top. Yen dug her hand into the bag, and then, stopped.
" I'll soil your clothes, " looked at Van, Yen said. " You must take them out for me, Van ".
In response, promptly Van put his hand into the bag from the other corner of the opening before Yen took her hand out. Van's hand reached Yen's open palm. Without moving her hands, Yen looked at him. He held her hand, it was soft and warm.
' No, " Van thought, " not only the feeling of softness an warmth I have, but also the feeling of encounter with a motion I have looked for and hoped for ."
Yen did not say a word. Van was completely immobile, he felt that his memories just moothly floated away and saw only Yen's bright eyes in the immense space of silence. Suddenly, Van face turned pale. He shut tight his eyes; on the space between his eyebrows, appeared some deep wrinkles. After some fleeting seconds, his face turned red, and then, became calm when his desire for shouting loudly a rude criticism of this unreasonable situation just died out.
" Are you alright ?" Yen asked and slowly took her hand out.
" Yes, I am . I have no complaint at all ", Van said after a noiseless sigh, his voice was warm. " Thank you ".
' You frightened me," Yen said, " I thought that you had chest pain ."
" I am sorry. Thank you ".
They continued the search without exchanging a word. Van put his blongings back to his bad when Yen went to other prisoners to continue her duty. Van stood there until the end of the search.
The cadres left the house, and van went to his bed. He put his bag away and sat down. Streching his legs, Van leaned his back against the wall at the head of his bed. He stared at the klarge door on the other side of the house, and through that door, he saw thw horizon. he could not concentrate in any ideas.
Hung, a young magistrate of the previous regime, stepped into the house and wallked towards him. Van folded his legs to save room in the bed for him.
" Whta happened to you ?" Hung asked, sitting down. " I never saw you like this before; you look strange ."
" I do not know. I just had the feeling that I found something or a certain notion than cvan give my life here a meaning. " Van sighed. " But, it is only a thgought about an awkward situation, a situation that is ridiculously unreasonable. The situation itself is deadly conceivable, and nothing can affirm the certainly that it existt and will ontinue to exist. I was frightened, then angry, I donr konow ."
" What is that so important situation ?"
" I cannot define it with certainly ."
" Are you teasing me ? " Hung said an smiled. " Or, are you going crazy ?" Hung laughed. " Let's go outside. I have a cup of tea and a cigarette for you ".
Outside, the prisoners were preparing extra foods for their evening besides foods provided by the camp. Blue smoke disappered in the wind shortly after rising from their improvised stoves. Hung and Van sat down on the two short stools at their small makershift table in front of a window. They drank tea smoked cigarettes, and talked and laughed,
***
Hung and Van sat at the table under the window, that day, they did not have cigarettes but tea. It was sun set ; Hung was playing " Romanze an A Minor " of Paganini with his guitar.
Van thought that he had not seen Yen for a long time. Yen had come to work on her case for several days, and the last time had been in a beautiful morning with fresh wind and right sun. When Yen had stepped into the house, Van had felt irritated with his fleeting idea that Yen had come simply for one reason; to have his companionship and to give him some idle hours.
" The idea seems sarcastic, ' he had thought ; " It cannnot be my opinion.". After they had clarified some principles of the old judiciary system and his professsional activities, it had been ten o' clock. Yen and Van had gone to the same solid mound of earth and had talked about life in Saigon and Hanoi.
" And, where did you live before you moved south ?' Yen asked.
" Rue du Lac," Van answered without hesistation. " It is always- quiet beside a small lac of clear water, and willow on its bank more incessantly in the wind in fall. I miss it. "
"Oh, I know it. It is a beautiful street , " Yen said. " It is just a block away from the street where I lived with my parents before I went south. I love it too ."
" I know your street," Van said. " It runs pararllel to Rue du Lac, with tall trees on both sides. It is very romantic but full of vitality. The trees become green rapidly after the fall of yellow leaves. Its houses always gave me the feeling of conssolation and hope. I always went home from school by that street."
" Your first love lived there ? " Yen asked, looking into Van 's eyes.
" I wish so." Van said.
" You wish so ?" Yen asked, and they laughed.
"How is your street in Saigon, your last addresss, Van ? "
" It is a very short street with tall trees and close to the airport, but there is almost neither air nor land traffic," Van answered. " My house steps back a little from the street, solated like an island in the center of a small piece of land and some surrrounding houses whose occupants I never met ".
" Why ?" Yen asked.
" I dont know. Perhaps they were strangers." They looked ateach other, laughing.
Before leaving, yen had told van that she would come to see him at his home when he was released from camp. Van, standing there, had folloved her with his eyes until she had gone through the gate. He had missed her voive right after she had disappeared behind the wall between the two zones of the camp.
I was dusk; Hung put his guitar away. Van heard the sound of the generator engine from the cadres' area and thought that it was part of yen's image that always reminded him vaguely of a certain lost hapiness.
The last time Van saw Yen, Van thought, ewas not long before. It was almost noon and rather cool. She walked with another cadre on the way to the camp infirmary. They were talking.
" How do you do " walking towards Yen, Van said ans smiled from some distance. " How are you?" yen said, turning her head towards him, whn Van came closet. Then, she turned to the cadre, and they continued their conservation.
" Certainly", Van thought, " she does not want to stop to say some words to me as she always did when we met each other outside." Van made a quick cecision, he continued walking.
" For a long time, I haven' t seen Yen, " Van said to Hung.
" The cadre of our home?" Hung asked.
" Yes ".
" I heard that the cadres were having a long session of self-criticism and revision. A cadre reponsible for the kitchen has fallen in love with one of our district-chief deputies and receive a ring as a promise. He was sad did not know for how long he had to wait for their next meeting.
Van went to bed at the begining of the curfew and woke up with the noises of other prisoners talking and of belongings bags dragged on the floor.
" Transfer to another camp ," a prisoner said to Van and sighed. " This is the miserable third time ".
Van smiled.
It was foggy and rather cold outside. Van put on his jacket, took his bag, and went to the gathering yard beside the house. He sat on his sandals on the damped ground behind a prisoner in a file. The others continued to come, and they made four files on the right side of the yard. There was a male cadre stood beside a table close to the front row, he face looked pale in the light of the hurriane-lamp on the yable. Van could not see anything behind him.
" All were out ", leaving the house, a male security cadre said. He walked into the dim light in the other side of the yard; Van heard his rifle hit rhythmically against his hip for a short while, then, silence.
Van saw Yen appear in the light of the hurricane-lamp and walk to the table. She picked up some pieces of paper from the table and looked at the prisoners.
" When I call your name," Yen said, " stand up and repeat it, then, go to the other side of the yard and sit down; make five files ."
Her voice is always clear, Van thought, and fascinating. Yen started reading the list. After the first prisoner sat down, she called the second. Van saw the front part of her hair falling on her shouders and her chest, and he thought about the artistic contrast in black and- white photography. He remenbered severals moments when he felt yen suddenly became the center of a painting, the painting that made time full of meaning.
Van thought that he had heard his name. He stood up when Yen called the second time.
" I am very sorry", Van said after repeating his full name.
Van put on his sandals and took his bag, He saw Yen give the list to the male cadre and leave the table. She walked to one of the low mounds of earth on the other side of the yard before Van sat down. She took there and looled to the cloud-like fog covering the valley. She wore a light vest over his shirt, the shirt at her first appearnce in Van's house. The legs of her dark trousers moved lightly back and forth in the wind. Van looked at her silhouette against the sky and felt that the air between them suddenly became cold crystal, so cold that its presence could not be denied. He had the feeling of shortness of breath and anger.
" Why?" Van thought, " Why she has to be here, in this camp ? Why it has to be now, not years ago ?"
***
When the male cadre called the last prisoner, Van heard the truck engines in the cadre' area. Then he saw their headlights moving through the gate into the prisoners' zone.
The prisoners were loaded into five trucks. They left for their camp before .sunrise. They passed the cadres' houses. The electric lamps at the gables of the buildings were still on, their lights were sleepy and blurred in thin fog. Van thought of Yen.
' Where is she ?" Van wondered. " What is she doing at this hour?' []
luong minh dao *
----------
* about LUONG MINH DAO
- born : 1936- North Vietnam.
- former Judge of Tenneger's Court at Saigon .
( before 1975 )
- his poems were printed in ĐỜI MỚI Weekly ( Saigon 1954) with
pen name MINH LƯỢNG and were published in a book named ENDLESS
( Sùng Chính Viện Publishing House, Saigon, 1960). There were 118 poems in the book, with three chapters ; ENDLESS , IN THE CITY , A POEM FOR RESTING .
- he' s living in San Diego ( California / USA ).
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