escape, a novel by luong minh dao - 5

                                                     escape   5
                                  a novel by  luong minh dao 


     The two youths opwened a door and pushed Van into the small room.   On the left wall of the room, there was a huge lithographed portrait of a character in a Chinese historical novel.   Under the portrait, there was a tall altar with a large incense burner on its top.   Before Van could put his thoughts together, they forced his left shoulder down until he sat on one of the chairs at the opposite side of the room.   Then, they left the room and closed the door.   A short while later, the door opened again, and a woman walked in.   She took a crystal vase from the altar, and walking towards Van, she said some strange words Van could not understand.  She dipped her fingers into the vase.   Suddenly, she sprinkled strong ointment over Van' head and shoulders before he had time to move aside to avoid it.   Van understood that she was blessing him before his escape by sea.   She left the room, and Van was left alone again.

     Not long before, Di-An had surprised him with a cliché good-bye kiss that he never expected.   They were sitting in a street café at a table near the sidewalk.   Van remembered drinking black coffee.  The smell of freshly steamed " tai pao"  in the café kitchen was relaxing.   Van looked at Di-An, and then, to the narrow street in  the thin-fog.

     " It is  too long ?" Van asked, putting his cigarette in to the ashtray on the table.
     " They seemed serious and reliable," said Di-An.  " Let's take a walk ".

    The streets were quiet, and the stores were still closed with heavy locks.   They walked side by side around blocks and then, headed back to the café.   At the crossroads. Di-An suddenly stopped and turned to Van in a gesture of waiting for a kiss.   They kissed and walked back to the café.   Sitting at their table, they waited in silence.   Van was confused by the good-bye kiss -- the kiss that he always hated, he considered it to be too theatrical and dramatically desperate.   Van had the feeling of pressure in his temples and could not complete the ideas he had at the crossroads : " Why it had to be a kiss ?", " Why don't you tell me that you love me ?", and " If you held me back ..."

     Then, the two youths arrived on two motorcycles, Di- An stood up.
     " Write me, Van " Di-An said.
    Slowly, Van  stood up and did not say a word.  The two youths took him to the house in a small lane and into this room.
     After waiting for a half hour, half-confused, Van saw the door open, and Phu-Oc one of the two youths, walked in.   He gestured to Van to follow him.
    " Follow me, not too close ,"  when Van reached the door, Phu-Oc said ," and do not talf to me ."

     They left the house  for the inter-province bus stop just a few blocks away.   Phu-Oc stepped into an idling bus and stood behind the driver.   They were talking and laughing.  Following some other passengers, an put his feet on the bus steps.  There was no vacant
seat.   The driver looked at him and nodded his head, telling him to get in.   After a little hesistation, Van walked to the end of the bus, and standing on the aisle, he held a strap hung down from a long iron bar above his head.   Some seconds before the bus left the stop, a young Public Security agent in  a khaki uniform stepped into the bus.   Walking towards the end of the bus, he looked at Van, then, nodded and smiled.   Van smiled back.  The young agent stopped and turned his back to Van.   Van looked at his dark blue shirt made from a curtain taken down from a window of his bedroom a day after he had been released from the re-education camp.   Then, he looked father down at his trousers of canvas -- the casual trousers that had been left in a corner of his closet for five years.   His  feet looked very different in his sandals that were made in Hanoi of clear plastic from their straps to their soles; Van' s brother, a physician cadre, who moved south after the end of the war, had given them to him recently.

     " Perhaps, " Van thought, " he thinks that I' m a cadre from the North on temporary duty or on vacation ".

      The bus stopped to pick up some more passengers.  The agent walked to the font, and before leaving the bus, he turned his head to give Van a good-bye nod.   Some passengers left the bus at the next stop.  Hesistantly, Van sat down in a window seat.
    " Is sitting more  dangerously noticeable than standing?" Van thought; " who  knows ?"

     The bus was going towards the city limit.   Most of the houses along the road were small and built with inexpensive materials.  There some grocery stores with corrugated tin roofs, a few customers were walking in and out.   Van had many incomplete thoughts before he  felt asleep. 

   Van woke up when the bus stopped on the roadside near the beginning of the path to a hamlet.  Phu-Oc left the bus first, then, some passengers, two young women and a man, and then  a mother with a little girl in her arms, Van followed them.  The bus drove away.  They walked on the path that crossed a large cluster of shack-like houses and small gardens of plants and young bananas.  Then, the path led them back to the road.   Van saw the bus leaving the police checkpoint hundred of meters behind them.

     " Keep walking until the bus catches up with us, " Phu-Oc said.

     They walked on the grassy border of the road.   At an abrupt turn of the road, the bus reached them and stopped.   Following the others,  Van stepped into the bus and sat in another vacant window seat.   Van heard the tires roll on the loose graved before the bus rushed forwards and left the hamlets behind.   Van saw the sun on treetops in remote villages and heard the cool morning wind blow rythmically a loose window of the bus.   He fell  asleep again, and during his sleep, he heard the passengers step up and down the bus at some stops.  Once he saw Di-An' s face, pale and sad.   Van woke up at another stop.   A woman left the bus.  She walked down the small dike in the middle of a cornfield.  She put down her bag, rolled her hair around one hand, and made a bun of the back of her head.   Then she picked up her bag and walked steadily on the dike towards an isolated hamlet of a new economy zone.   Fascinated by her ready appearance, Van wonderd whether she started a new life or continued the struggle for a better existence  in that distant area.   He  tried but failed to imagine the work he could do if he had to resettle there.   Van missed Di-An,

     When he crossed the yard and stepped into the large shack wher many pieces of used furniture were displayed, Van remembered, Di-An just finished making a chignon on the back of her head.  In the midst of hardwood furniture, Di-An looked fresh and full of vitality.

     " Good news?" Di-An asked.
     " You have known already, " Van said, shaking his head.  " Just the confirmation of my legal residence, they refused it and sent me back to the hamlet office, " Van said; " to go back to the beginning, it's absurd "
    " No, it's understandable, " Di-An said; " they do not want your presence."
    " No, I do not want anything except to make my living noiselessly."
    " Wake up, " sitting down in a chair at a table, Di-An said, " please sit back and look into your past ."
    
     Van walked to the table and sat on a chair at the opposite side.   Looking at Di-An and recognizing the harmony of lines and forms of her face,  Van left calmer.   He sighed and smiled.
    " Listening to your voice, I can say that you are serious, " Van said .
    " Who knows? " Di-An said, and smiling, she looked into Van 's eyes.   Did they label you as a puppet of the old regime?"
    "Oh,  yes," Van said, half-laughing.
     " You should think that they meant it; you were and will be a puppet for ever, " Di-An continued.
    " Are you serious ?" Van asked, leaning his back against the chair, smiling.  " You use their metaphor very well ." 

     They denied your human existence.  What could they do if they did not refuse your residency and deprive you of food rations ?  Puppets do not need food and shelter.  Besides, there is no room for puppets in this new regime, " Di-An laughed. " Can you see ?"
     "  You have an ironic view of my conditions, " Van  looled at Di-An, laughed.   " Can you see ?"
    "You have an ironic view of my conditions, " Van looked at Di-An, laughing; "but, it carries some truth.  I agree ."
    " The war was over, and we are what the war left behind, we cannot do anything to change it.   Why don't you give me your papers, " she said.  " Let me help you to make a reasonable decision ."
     
      When Van still did not know how to response, Di-An took the folder from his hand.
      " The application for affirmation of residency, " she said, looking at the open folder, " and the release order from the re-education camp.   Let us throw away the application."

    That afternoon , Van stayed to look after the furniture store, and Di-An went to China-Town to negotiate for Van's participation in an escape by sea, an unknown person organized it, anh Di-An knew the woman who represented him in all negociations.  Di-An came back in the late afternoon and let Van know the price in gold Van had to pay for that service.

     The bus stopped behind other buses at the ferrying station when the sun was above had.   Phu-Oc left the bus and boarded the ferry; he stood close to the ferryman's cabin on the left side of the boat.   The others followed him.  Van stood at the rail on the other side, and the others, stood on the pasengers' stands along both sides of the boat.   The ferry slowly crossed the huge estuary; the explosions of her engines echoed on the vast surface of water.   Duckweed floated on the waves alongside the boat and then, moved back toward the station.   Van missed Di-An, and suddenly he was aware that he had been indifferent to the outcome of his escape.

     He woke up when the sun was already on the top of the palm trees alongside the small yard, Van remembered.   Lying on the table of hard wood beside the window and in the midst of chairs and sofas to be repaired in the living room of Di-An' s house, Van saw ideas  of uselssness and waste; he felt the burning pain in the stomach.   Turning his head to the night, he saw Di-An sleeping on a sofa with unfinished back pads under her legs.   Her face was calm, but it gave Van the same anxiety as though he was holding in his awkward hands a vase of thin clear crystal and  did not know whether he would put it down or he should hold it tightly to his chest.   He wanted to cry out in anger.   He tried but failed not to think of the mornings when he stepped up the long stairs of a high school that was recently used as the City Public Security Headquarters, and walked an endless corridor to the Residency  and Foof Rationing Office.   The cadre behind the desk red slowly the application he had read many times before and repeated the same statement.

    " This lies within the competence of hamlet headquarters, " he wrote in the margin of the application, under  another note written by the district hedquarters.
     Van understood that he had to leave the city.
    Duckweeds became thinner when the ferry crossed the middle of the wide river and ran against the stream at an oblique angle.  A ferry was leaving the station on the other bank when Van 's ferry slowly approached the quay.
    They left the riverbank and went to a café the road.  They sat at three tables .  Van sat alone at a table near the road after buying a pack of cigarettes and a cup of coffee.

     He was smoking the third cigarette .  The café was crowded and very noisy.  The woman with the little girl sat and drinking soda.   At a table near the other end of the room, Phu-Oc and his friend were taking cheerfully, making gestures with their hands and their heads.   Suddenly, they stopped talking.   Phu-Oc stood up and walked to a man in a blue shirt, who  was standing in the shade of a tall tree on the other side of the road.   They talked for a short while, then,   Phu-Oc returned to his table, and the man left.  About five minutes later, after making gesture with his head to tell the women  and Van  to follow him,  Phu-Oc, followed by his friend, stepped outside.  They went in the same direction as the man did.   Van stood up and went outside when the woman reached the road.   After walking about fifty feet away from the cluster of cafés, they, following Phu-Oc, crossed the thick strip of bushes along the other side of the road.  In the middle of small trees, there was a short path leading to the river, and a samll motor-sampan was waiting at its bank.   The man was on its stern.   They stepped onto the sampan and sat on the seats along its sides.   The small boat ran up the stream slowly, its engine made flat  echoing noises.   Van felt tired and wondered when the preliminary phase of  his escape would end.

    After moving a half hour, the sampan headed for a boat floating in the middle of the river.   It was a twelve-yard long river boat with a round bow and a slightly curled stern.   It seemed that it had three compartments.   The longest one  had a lot flat roof, and Van saw the three window at its side.  The second, a little taller, seemed to be the steersman's room and had square sides.   The last part  had only a roof supported by poles, and it seemed to be the place for cooking and doing daily chores.   A man, aged around thirty, bending down from the stern, helped them one by one to board.  Van was the last person to be lifted up.  He raised his arms upwards, and the man held Van's hands and pulled him up.   The man squeezed his forearms and laughed.

    " If you were as heavy as the ladies," said the man, " both of us would fall down into the river.   I think that you left the camp not long ago with this weight. "
    " I' m Van. You are right ."
    " I' m Dan, said the man, extending his hand; Van shook it.
    " You are steersman ?"
    " No, My duty is to take the boat here.   Our steersman will arrive soon.   He was a lieutenant of the Navy."
    " He has transoceanic experiences? "
    " I d'ont know," Dan said, " his last post was commanding officer of my company."
    " And you?" smiling, Van asked.
    "  Can you guess?"
     " Second-lieuetnant of the Navy?"
    " You're wrong," Dan  laughed, " Sergeant of the Company of My- Tho, river navigation, three decorations ."
     Van sat beside Dan on a beam of the rail that bordered the stern, and they talked and laughed as if they were old friends.
    
     During the afternoon, about forty more passengers, men and women of broad range of ages, children and young children, boarded the boat.   Moving through the engine room, they went to the passenger' s compartment and stayed three without making much noise.   Not long after Dan  started the engine, another sampan approached alongside the boat.   A middle-aged man stood on its bow.

     "Chin," said the man, " help him".
    Dan stepped down the sampan, he and another man lifted up a huge bag of  rice to the stern of the boat.   Holding one end of the bag, Van dragged it on the floor.
     "Into the engine cabin, please," the man said.
    "Oh, it' s the engine cabin, " Van thought, continuing dragging the rice bag on the floor. He used his back to slide open the door into the cabin.   He dragged the bag to the corner beside the little door that opened to the passengers' compartment at a lower level.   Van saw the passengers lying, heads along the sides of the compartment, light was dim, and the windows were closed.   Van propped the bag against the wooden wall and left the cabin for the stern.   Van brought in one more bag of rice, two bags of juicy jicamas, one small bag of suggar, and one larger bag of dry shrimp.

     " Mr. Bay," said the middle-aged man, looking at Van, " you stay in the cabin, watch the food, and be responsible for cooking".
     " I ?" Van asked and understood that the man was the organizer of the escape.
     The man threw to Van a  pack of cigarettes, and Van caught it.
    " Yes, you " , said the man, " good luck."  He waved his hand, and the sampan left.
    The boat ran down the river, Dan at the steering post.   Standing beside Dan, Van did  not remember whether he had seen the organizer smile or not.
    " Giving a name and  job to a stranger, " Van thought, " he has a great sense of
 humor ".
    " The iron shaft was connected to this pole, " Dan said; " going through the floor of the stern, the shaft reaches a set of toothed wheels that connects it to another shaft.   The second shaft controls the stern-mounted rudder ". 
     " I don' t know why they did not use a wheel instead of this whimsical steering pole," Dan continued, laughing, " But, I like it ."
     Phu-Oc left the pasengers' compartment and joined them.   He stood beside Van, leaning his elbows on the edge of the cabin roof.   They talk about several things.
      " So you will be an architect in two years, " Van said.
      " Yes, if I stayed in hell."
      " Is it really hell?" Dan asked.
      " I don' t know, but I felt suffocated and hungry. "
      " Physically or intellectually?" Van asked.
      " Both," Phu-Oc said and laughed.

     Clouds rose steadily from the horizon, and it began raining in the late afternoon.  The boat slowly continued its course to the estuary.   Another motor sampan approached the boat, and some more passengers boarded it.   They were the steersman with his wife and their two daughters, and the mechanic with his wife and their baby son.   Dan and Van helped them board the boat at the port side of the cabin.   Then, the last passenger was a rather plump woman, aged around twenty- five.   She held a small bag in one hand and extended her other hand towards Van.   Without Dan' s help, Van pulled her through the window into the cabin, and she and Van fell on the floor, still holding each other' s hand.
     " Thank you," she said, blushing uneasily.
     " You're welcome, " Van said, half-laughing.
    Van sat up and let go her hand.  Smiling, she turned her eyes and went to the passengers' compartment.   She sat on the floor beside the connecting door.   Leaning her back  against the sidewall, she streched her legs and sighed with relief as if she had cast off all her worries.

                                                      ***

    It was raining more heavily.   In the cabin, light was very dim.  The steersman' s wife was breast-feeding her little daughter, her other daughter was sleeping at her side.   Farther, beside the starboard window, the baby boy was sleeping quietly in his mother' s arms.   Van heard Dan' s and the mechanic' s voices against the sounds of falling rain and the explosions of a small motor.
    " We don't have water tanks, " Dan sid.
    " I do not like this, " the mechanic said.
    " Put the hose over there, " Dan said; " It' s too short.  Hold the end above the opening."
     " Do you see the water level? " after a long pause, Dan asked.
    " Yes, " the mechanic said, " about a quarter of the compartment height."
    " We need more ."

    They were pumping river water into the compartment at the bow of the boat, Van guessed.   The wind became gusty, and the explosions of the motor were very dim.
    " Ouch!"
     " Don't stand there, " Dan said, " sit on the floor if you do not want to  land on water ."
    Van heard some window shutters flapping against the sides of the boat, and the rain falling.   Then, the sound of the little motor died suddenly.
     " Take a look," Dan said.
    "It' s all wet, " the mechanic said .
     " Do something."
    " Let me see ."
    " Are you really a mechanic? "  asked Dan after a long pause.
   " What can we do now, " the mechanic said.  " You did not hold the hose, and it broke loose ."
    " Ha ! What do you mean?" Dan said, " Don' t stand there, let' s go inside."
    
     The door to the stern opened.  Dan and the mechanic took off their raincoats ands walked in, bending a little forward.   From their heds, which almost touched the ceiling of the cabin, water dropped down the floor.   They stroked their hairs and  sat down beside the door without echanging a word.   They looked  at Van.   Looking away,  Van pulled   a rice bag to the corner between the partition and the portside wall, then, leaned his back against it.  Stretching his legs and crossing his hands under his head, Van closed his eyes.

     The steersman was at the steering pole.   The boat engine was running smoothly.   During his unsteady sleep, Van heard the steersman discusing with Dan about the depth of the river mouth and the side of the isle along which the boat would run to avoid the police checkpoint.  Once Van saw the search light sweeping on the waves alongside the boat.   Then the boat gained the coast water, the steersman walked into the cabin and told Dan to take over the steering.

                                                    ***

     Van woke up in the middle of loud noises of waves falling against the port side of the boat, which was swinging roughly.   The others sleeping side by side, and the bright light from thee starboard window was running quickly back and forth on their clothes.  The little baby girl was at her mother's breast.   With his knees bent to his abdomen,   Dan was sleeping soundly on his side.   Van stood up, gripping the beams of the cabin ceiling with both hands, he walked unsteadily to the stern.  The sea was rough with white- crested waves and strong wind.   Phu-Oc was at the steering pole.   Van stood beside Phu-Oc; holding firmly the edge of the cabin roof, he looked over the bow of the boat.   The waves were  huge, Van forgot the idea of making breakfast for the whole boat he  just had some seconds before.

    " Can you handle the rudder ?" Van asked.
    " Dan had taugh me before he took the break ."
    " Do you think that we need his help? Riding these waves id tough."
    
    When Van just finished his words, he saw a huge falling wave lift the bow of the boat up; at the same time, he felt that the rudder was put hard right, and the boat rode up on that wave.   Then, Van heard a loud  cracking sound, and the boat was put down, swinging form side to side and drifting on tall white-crested waves.   Phu-Oc and Van were throughly wet and almost had been thrown down onto the floor.   Van felt his shirt pocket, he took out the soaked package of cigarettes,  looked at it, and then, threw it over the side of the boat.

    Standing at the cabin door, the steersman stuck his head out.
    " What happened?" Phu-Oc repeated.
    Dan, pushing the steersman aside, stepped up the stern deck.   He grasped the steering pole and moved it from side to side several times; then, he dropped his hand, and the pole swung freely.
    " The rudder has gone," Dan said. 
     " The rudder,"the steersman repeated.

     Dan walked to the end of the stern, and Van followed him.  Holding the wooden rail, Dan leaned forwards and looked down the sea.   The propeller made with foam covering the place where the rudder was supposed to be.
     There was a commotion in the cabin and in the passengers' compartment, somebody fired some flares.   The flames ans smoke flew up a little higher than the waves and then, died away quickly.
    " Stop the engine, " Dan said.
    The engine was stopped.  The stern moved up and down.   There was nothing but the shinny blades of the propeller in upset water.   The waves had ripped away the tiller and the rudder.

    " Now, what can we do ?" Dan said.
    " Do we have any oar ? "  Van asked.
    " We have  nothing," Dan answered." I told them that the rudder was too weak for travel at sea, but, what could I do when they did not want to spend money ?"
    " I' m afraid that the bow could ..."
    " Yes.  Water ! " Dan said. " Let's take a look. "
    Van followed Dan.  Standing at the door of the cabin, the steersman and the mechanic looked at them; then, they went back inside.   Dan and Van, holding the edge of the compartment  roofs, stepped on the way of short boards, which  was built horizontally sideways along the boat side and was used as the path connecting the bow nas the stern.  After reaching the bow deck, Dan pulled up the square board covering the opening to the water compartment. 

     " Can you go down to check the water?" Dan  asked.
    " Why not ?"
    Van lay on his abdomen and dropped his legs down through the opening.   Dan held firmly Van's hand and lowered him until his feet  touched the bottom of the compartment.  Going up to Van's knees, water in the compartment was cold.
    " Cover the opening, so I can see better, " Van said.
    Dan put back the covering board.
    " I don' t see any crack, " Van said.  Then, he dipped his hands and drew a little water in his palms, Van tasted it.
    " Water is salty, " Van said.
     The cover was lifted up.
    " Very salty," Van said and raised his arms.

    Dan pulled Van up.  The deck was warm in bright sun.   They sat down ; leaning their backs against the wall of the pasengers's compartment, they looked at the tall waves.   The wind blew their tangled hairs.
    " It seemed that the steersman already gave up, " Dan said; " do you have any plan ?"
    
     The connecting door opened; Phu-Oc stepped up the deck and sat on the floor at the other side of the door.   The passengers'  compartment was quiet but, occasionally, someone coughed or vomited.   Van felt a strange  pain in his abdomen radiating up to his chest; it was not a pure dull pain, but a mixture of burning sensation and cramp.   He was certain that it was not seasickness and remembered that this sensation he had experienced once when he had been a teenager.

    His family live in the Resistance Front's territory, Van remembered, during the  first phase of the war against the re-invasion of French armed forces.  They had a house in the center of a garden  of fruit trees and vegetables.  Their neighbours were an elderly father and a young  daughter.  The two families dug foxholes along the fence that seperated the two properties to shelter from air raids.   In a late afternoon, two French spitfires bomabarded the area, and one of the bombs hit her father's foxhole, which was very close to hers and only ten meters away from Van' s shelter.   After the air raid, Van saw, behind the thin fence, the daughter kneeling and crouching in silence over the mound of earth made by the explosion.   Van saw her shoulders shaking violently.  Van could not move his legs to run away from that scene; the painful cramp in his stomach came suddenly and gave him the violent urge for bending down and cursing.

     " Are you thinking of any plan ?" Dan asked.
     " Are you asking me ? " turning his head towards Dan, Van asked.
    " Yes ?"
    " Without water, without food, with nothing?" Van answered. " The only thought I have is how to survive this, and I do not have any answer ."
    " Are you serious ?"
    " I' m serious ? I don' t know, " Van answered.   Then, they were quiet.
    " But, my friend, " turning to Dan, Van said, " do you have the courage to ask the others about this ?"
    " Maybe not, "  Dan answered. "  I do not know any of them.  Not now, they are too quiet ." 
     "  So you feel lonely, isolated, but do you have the courage to ask Phu-Oc the same question ?" Van asked Dan, leaning his hands against the floor to avoid being thrown aside bya sudden strong rise of the boat; " I ask you to do so because you are the same group, the organizers'  group."
    Turning to Phu-Oc, Dan looked at him. 
    " Are  we of the same group? Dan asked.
    " You' re asking me ? " said Phu-Oc, half smiling. " I don' t know. At this moment, I am very confused.  I can' t answer even  the question why I' m here, why you gave me the steering pole, and why I took it, why I  had paid for my friend to have a seat here, why a sudden huge wave, and why this boat ?"
    
     Van saw may wrinkles and twists of muscles on Phu-Oc face.  Phu-Oc' s voice rode on the sound of falling waves, and Van did not know whether he was shouting with resentment or he was crying with regret.   Van turned his head away and looked over the bow onto the ocean.
    " No", Phu-Oc continued; " you do not understand me, do you ?"
    Both of them did not answer him.
   " Let' s go back inside , " Dan said after a long silence.
    
     They used the way at the port side of the boat to go back to the stern.  Inside the cabin, the steersman and the mechanic were sleeping in two comers beside the starboard window.   Van sat in his corner with the large bags of food.   Dan sat beside him, leaning his elbows on the frame of the port window.   Phu-Oc stayed outside, sitting on the deck.  The poles supporting the stern roof were swinging.    The boat was drifting sidewise northeasterly with the ocean stream and the wind .

                                         ( to be continued ) 

    luong minh dao