escape, a novel by luong minh dao 5 - 2

                                  escape 
                                     a novel by luong minh dao      5 - 2

    In the afternoon, the sea and the wind were less rough, and Van could see whitecaps spreading sparsely to the horizon.   Some high clouds were drifting slowly .
      " Would you like to see what happened to the rudder?" Van asked.
     " Why not ?" Dan said and stoop up.

     They went to the stern deck.  They took off their shirts and pants.  Each of them held a rope and tied one end to a peg at the stern side.  They jumped down the sea with the other ends of the ropes in their hands.  Van felt comfortable in cool water.
    " The tiller and the rudder broke off from the the soldered connections," Dan said, holding the small iron shaft at the stern; " there is nothing we can do."
     " Soldering?" Van said," why they didn't use bolts or nuts instead of soldering ."
    " You have a brillant imagination," Dan said, laughing.
     " Do you think that we can see use a board to steer the boat ?" Van asked, letting himself  floating on the water .
     The boat stretched the rope and pulled Van forwards.  Dan submerged himself, then,  rose up.
    " Yes," Dan said, " like the first seagoing ship; but, you can see, our boards, even the longest ones in the  passengers' compartment floor, are not long enough for that job."
    " And the engine becomes useless without the rudder."
    " You are right," Dan said.
     They stayed in the water, floating slowly with the boat.   Clouds from the east horizon started pilling up.  Van saw the blue areas of the sky disappear steadily.
    " Let' s go up," Dan said.
    They climbed up the deck and threw down the ropes .
     " Do you think," Van asked, smiling, " that we have fallen into a devil's hands?"
    " Whose ?"
    " The evil organizer of this escape ."
    " No, not falling; we jumped into them.  And so, you cannot have any question."
     "And even if we do have," Van said," we cannot do anything about it ."
    They laughed and put on their dry shirts and pants.
    " Did you ever question why we could smile and laugh in the situation like this ?" Van asked.
    " Why do I have a question?" Dan answered, and they laughed.

     In the cabin, the steersman's wife, sitting on the floor with her back leaning against the wall and her legs streching, was feeding her baby girl.   Her older daughter, over two years old, was holding a piece of French bread in  her little hands.   Van stepped in quietly.  He sat down on his place.  They looked at each other. 
    " My husband is giving up all," she said." I' m Kim."
    "I' m Van," Van nodded." Yesterday, they gave me a new name, Mr Bay; I don't know why."
    " He didn't say anything to us, " half-smiling she said." He either closes his eyes or sleeps."
    " Perhaps he understood our situation," Van said," I ' m very sorry ."
    " We did not have time for preparation," she said, looking at her husband lying in the corner.  " They looked for a steersman and met my husband, they hired him for our trips fares.  We had only a half hour to leave our home ."
    " I'm sorry ."
    " Do you think that it's time to distribute food ?" Van continued after a long pause.
    " Without sweet water, rice and shrimp are useless; we have only two bags of jicamas and a small bag of sugar."
    " We all ar very thirsty," Kim said.
    Dan poured his belongings on the floor and gave Van his empty shoulder bag.  They opened a sack and put some jicamas into the shoulder bag.  They were happy that jicamas were not hardened; all were very juicy and of the same size.
    " There is no difficulty in distributing them," Van thought.

    Van opend the connecting door.  Surprised by the heat from the passengers'  compartment that blew up to his face, he almost stepped on the feet of a young woman, the passenger who had fallen on the floor of the cabin when she boarded the boat.   He walked in the narrow aisle between two rows of passengers sitting or lying side by side to the front end of the compartment,  Van took the jicamas from the shoulder bag and gave them to the passengers, one each.  Occasionally, he sat down, said some words to a young girl or a young boy to pacify their fears.
    " My mother told me," said a little girl aged about two, who had been with her mother on the same bus with Van," a ship will rescue us."
    Her face was very red and sweating.  She turned, then, raised her head and looked into her mother' s eyes .  The mother smiled, and, holding her against her chest, she kissed her daughter' s hair.   Van could feel her fever.
    " Oh , yes, yes, " he said, turning his eyes away, and then looking into the bag of jimacas. 
     I hope that it's sweet," Van handed to the little girl a jicama of the size of a tennis ball, " and you will feel better ."
    " I think that to stay in the cabin is better for her," Van said, looking at the mother.
     " No , I thnik that it's safer to be here," the mother said.
     Van half-opened his mouth, he wanted to say some words, but he kept quiet and stood up.
    " Who can be certain that what will happen in the next minute?" Van thought. " Who knows which  place is safer? Who can be certain that the wind will not blow away the cabin and its occupants tonight?"

    When Van walked to the middle of the compatments, he saw the two girls who had been on the bus with the little girl.  One of them told Van that there were a few passengers in the compartment under the passengers'  floor.   They helped Van, took some jicamas, and went down the lower floor to distribute them .
    When Van  reached the door of the cabin, his face was wet with sweat.  He sat down on the floor in front of the young woman.   She looked tired.
    " I could hardly breathe," she said. " When you go, will you please leave the door
 open ?"
    Van wondered what had held her back from  opening the door herself.
     " Of course, I will,"  said Van : " I'm sorry."
    " You remember me ?" she asked.
    " Yes".
    " I'm Ho-A." She smiled .
    " I am Van ; they gave me a meaningless name, Mr Bay, and this crazy job." Van smiled and handed a jicama.
    Van went back to the cabin.  He gave to the wives of the steersman and the mechanic their families' jicamas.  Then, he went to the deck with the sack of sugar.  Van handed it to Dan, who was talking to Phu-Oc and his friend .
    " Now, it's your turn," Van said.
    " Your job is welcome?" Dan looked at the bag and asked.
     " No difficulty," Van answered.
    " But, who needs this when we do not have water?" Dan asked.
    " Who knows?" Van answered; " At least, we have to make a proposal."
     Dan went to the passengers '  compartment.  Van went back to his corner, feeling empty.  Not long after, Dan came back.
    " Only some old ladies wanted sugar and kept it in their shoulder bags," Dan said and put the sack down.
    Van showed the shoulder bag to Dan.
     " Close your eyes and take one, " Van smiled and said.
     " Let me take three," Dan said; " you forgot two of us."
    " I'm very sorry," Van said and wondered why it could happen.
     Dan took the jicamas from the almost empty bag and went to the stern deck. 
  Phu-Oc and  his friend and Dan ate their jicamas and continued talking.  Sitting in his corner, Van  took a jicama from the bag and looked at it.  Its dull yellow skin was rough with the scars left by its stripped-away roots.  While Van did not decide how to peel off the jicama skin, Ho-A appeared at the connecting door and handed him a pocketknife. 
     I know  that you have nothing with you," Ho-A said and smiled.
    "Thank you".
    Van peeled off the skin and gave back the knife to her.   Ho-A moved back to her seat behind the partition wall.  Van leaned his back against a bag of rice and bit into his jicama.  It was very watery and sweet.  Suddenly he noticed that the steerman's daughter was staring bleakly at his jicama with her dull eyes.  He stopped chewing and swallowed down his food.  Then he moved towards her, and put his jicama into her hands.
     " I'm sorry," Van said, holding her hands gently." I love you".
    Van moved back to his corner and turned his head to Kim.  They looked at each other for a few seconds.  She showed the jicama in her hand to Van. 
    " No thanks," Van said, shaking his head lightly. 
  
                                                        ***

      When  Van woke up, the cabin was very dark.   The steersman, the mechanic, and Dan were standing on the stern deck, looking down the bottom half of a metal barrel.   There were  a small flame and smoke above its open top.   The boat was drifting slowly.
     " I hope that they can see us," the steersman said.
     " I hope so," Dan said." In the darkness, they can run over our boat."
    " The sky was completely dark," the mechanic said. " It' s too hot. I do not like this ."
    " I'm afraid that another storm is to come soon, " said the steersman.
     Van  felt asleep again.  Then violent knocks at the door woke him up.   Van leaned forwards to open the door, but it had been latched.    As Van lifted the metal bar, the door slid open.  In the dim light, Van saw Ho-A's face, and her large eyes.
     " I have diffilculty breathing," she said, taking some deep breaths.
     " You have an asthma attack?"
     " No, I just don't have enough air," Ho-A said. " Let me rest here ."
    She sat half on the cabin floor.  Her back  leaned against the vertical beam, and her left  leg bent to  rest her foot in the lower corner of the doorframe; her right leg hung loose above the stairs to the pasengers' compartment.   Ho-A put her hands on her lap and closed her eyes.
    "  The way you sleep is quite strange," Van said, as he rearranged the bags of food.  " Why don't  you lie down? I can bend my legs and save room for you ."
    Ho-A looked at Van, then, lay down on her side.  Van rested his  back of rice and put his hands under his head.
    On the other side of the cabin, the two families were sleeping, and the little girl putting her arm around her mother's leg.  Outside, Phu-Oc and Dan were adding cloths into the barrel; then, they poured fuel into it, and the fire was brighter.
    " Can they see us ?" Phu-Oc asked.
    " It's the steersman's idea; only he can tell you, " Dan said and laughed.
    They went  into the cabin and sat in the corner opposite to Van 's.
    " I saw you having a slight limp," Van said to Dan.  " You have pain some where ?".
    " No , just  a  little cut by the propeller when we checked the rudder,"  Dan said, pointing to his ankle. 
     " Be careful, my friend; it could be infected, " Van looked at the small cut above Dan's ankle; it was black in the dim light.
     The sea bcame rougher, and the wind ws blowing harder.   Van did not know whether the boat was drifting on high sea or stayed folating in the territorial waters.   He fell asleep again.  When Van woke up, it was mid-morning.  Ho-A was lying on the floor and  saying some words in her sleep.  On the other side of the cabin, the little girl was playing with her jicama, and the baby, at her mother's breast.
   " How are you?"  Van asked.
    " Thank you," Kim said; " just a liitle pain in my back.   My husband was tossing and turning all night ."
    Kim looked down her little baby girl.  Van thought that she was crying.   He looked away and stood up.
     " Another hot day," Van thought, stepping to the door.
     Phu-Oc  and Dan were floating up and down with the waves behind the stern of the boat.
     "... Down here," Phu-Oc said; " you will feel less thirsty."
   " Good idea," Van  said.
     Van took off his shirt and  pants, holding the end of a rope, he jumped down.  Water was cool and clear.   Van coiled the rope around his arm and let the boat pull him along slowly.   He floated on his back and looked to the sky.   It was widespread, Van thought and wondered why he thought that the blue sky was widespread.
     " Mr. Bay! Mr Bay ! "
    Van heard somebody called his  new name in a high pitch voice.   He swam to the boat and climbed up.  The two young girls, standing on the passengers' deck, were gesturing to Van to come.  Van climbed up the boat.  The two girls slid down the passengers'  compartment through the square opening in the middle of the deck; Van followed them.  They went down the compartment below the passengers' floor through another opening.
     There were five pasengers in the compartment.  They were lying on the narrow floor a little higher than water level in the middle of the boat bottom and near the division wall that seperated the water compartment from the rest of the boat.   The two girl sat on their heels beside a young man who was lying immobile with one hand on his abdomen and the other dipping into water at the  edge of the floor.  The skin of the young man was bleak-green.  There was neither blinking of his eyes nor sign of life on his face.  Van held his wrist; there was no pulse.   Van put his arm down and understood that he just did a silly act.   " The young man is obviously dead," Van thought; " possibly, he died last night ."
   " He is dead," Van said.
   After trying three times, Van succeeded in closing the young man' eyes with his fingers.
   " What can we do now?" Ha-Hue, one of the girls aked with tears in her eyes.
   " He's already dead," another answered Van. " Nothing we can do ."
   " We cannot leave him lying dead here," Hue-Tu, the other girl, said.
   " Let his family decide, " Van said >
   " He has only her," Ha-Hue said, pointing to the young woman at the other side of the dead body.  She was sitting with her legs bent up, resting her chin on her knees and staring at the floor, immobile.
    " What do you think, Miss?" Van asked.
    " It cannot be him, " the woman said and  cried; her shoulders trembled violently.
     Van turned his eyes away from her.
    " No, we mean what we have have to do with his body," Ha-Hue said.
    " I don't know, " the woman said.
    " Let's ask the others," Van said.
    They climbed up the ladder to the passengers' compartment and walked towards the stern.
   " I knew them," Ha-Hue said.  " He was a teacher in my district.  They were an engaged couple.  Yesterday they told me that he did not have money to pay for the trip; when he went to see her leave, the owner of the boat suddenly changed his mind and let them go together.  Yesterday he still played with the children and entertained them with some magic tricks.   We were surprised that he could be the first person who died on this
 boat ."
   They stopped  and sat on the floor in front of the three passengers who was talking and chewing.
    " The young teacher in the lower compartment was dead, " Van said to them.
    " We knew," a woman of over fifty said. "  We must wait for time to deliver him to the sea."
   " Don' t worry, " another woman said.
    Van  sighed with relief, he was always afraid of burial ceremonies that, in some occasions, he considered as disturbing the dead.  They left the compartment and climbed up the passengers' deck.  Van went to the stern; Ha-Hue and Hue-Tu stayed on the deck.

    At  around two in the afternoon, they put the teacher to the sea.   He was wrapped in a thin blanket and carried by four men to the bow deck.   Carrying some burning incense sticks, an old woman followed them.  They delivered the body to the sea by the starboard side.  The parcel drifted along the boat towards the stern, and then it floated away father and father and disappeared into the white wave caps.   Holding the rail bar, Van was staying alone on the stern until he saw a little silhouette of a cargo ship moving  slowly southwest.  He went to the cabin and woke Dan up.
   " I saw a ship, " Van said and went back to the stern.  Dan followed him.
    " There, " Van pointed to the ship and said.
   " Too far away from us, " Dan said and looked to the waves in front of the stern.   They could see us if we have good flares, but we don' t ."
    Van turned and leaned his lower back against the tail.
   " Do you miss the Mekong River?" Van asked.
   " Our territory was  limited to samall rivers, " Dan said.  " We participated in only a couple of opeartions there ."
   " Another ship, " Van said.
   " Another cargo ship, " Dan turned and said.
    Dan went to the cabin.
   " Give me the flare," Dan said.
   " A ship ?"
    The mechanic pulled his bag to the door, took a large revolver, and gave to it to Dan.
    " It' s armed," the mechanic said.
    They stood on the deck, waiting.  The mechanic did not change much; he seemed sober and fitter.   Van did not know why he had felt indifferent to his presence before.  Ho-A appeared at the cabin door.  She went towards them and stood beside Van.
    " How do you feel ?" Van asked.
   " I feel better," she said .
     The ship was coming closer with steady speed, and Van could see its dark grey starboard side.  Van guessed that it would  passed the stern of the boat two hundred feet away.  The two girls were on the passengers' deck with some passengers.  Dan fired the flare, the last flare they had.   They started waving white clothes and shouting.  The flame and the smoke shot up the air and died away.  The ship kept its steady speed and passed the stern of the boat.   Van could read some letters and numbers on its starboard side of its bow.  The ship moved southwest, and its silhouette disappeared in
 white-crested waves.   The passengers had stopped on the sides of the boaot were louder and faster.
     When Ho-A started walking to the cabin, Van held her hand up to keep her back.
    " For longtime, we didn't talk," smiling, Van said.  " You were always sleeping... Did you count how many days we have been drifting?"
    " How many days? let me see, " Ho-A said, using both hands to keep her hair stay behind her neck.  " Four or five days, In think ."
    " I did not count them," Van said. " I had this good quality since my second year in concentration camps."
    " You looked very calm," Van asked after a long silence.  " You still have hope?".
    " Not really having hope, I am just waiting. " Ho-A said. She looked into Van's eyes and smiled.  They rested their lower backs against the bars of the rail, looking to the southwest horizon.

    " Do you want to go down the water?" Van asked. " It really you feel better ."
    " No, I do not hnow how to swim," Ho-A siad.
   " So, just drop your feet down, let the waves cool them ." 

                                                ( to be continued ) 

   luong minh dao