The Shadow of Arms (39 page)

“Sure, he's not his father's son for nothing, I'm guessing.”

Quyen said goodbye with a nod and disappeared. Cuong gave the military currency to his brother. The latter said to Minh, “Now, you and I will go out for a nice lunch. What kind of food do you like?”

“How about buckwheat noodles with Chinese peppers?”

“Instead of that, how about we go get some fresh shrimp just pulled out of Da Nang Bay? I know a good place only a block from here.”

The two of them headed out side by side. Thach offered Minh a cigarette. Once they were outside Minh noticed a change in the expression on Thach's face—he seemed to have become an entirely different man. A few minutes before he had been talkative and constantly smiling with wrinkles gathering at the corners of his eyes, but now his eyes had grown hard and his demeanor subdued.

“Seems everything worked out fine. Any sign of suspicion from your brother?”

“No, sir. Because I'm his own family.”

“Good. The problems of your military service and getting a job here at the warehouse worked out perfectly.”

“The day after tomorrow is the cell meeting, sir. Do I have orders from the committee?”

“Yes,” Thach replied curtly and stalked on ahead. “We'll talk while we eat.”

They slipped out of the marketplace and stepped into a bar. The interior was dark with partitioned tables. Not a single customer could be seen. There were no waitresses, either, but two waiters stopped loafing and came over to greet them. They took a table in a corner and ordered shrimp curry and beer.

“The committee wants further training for you guys. We haven't yet been entrusted with any full-dress mission. A company force of another fifteen is scheduled to arrive here to reinforce the Da Nang Special District. My comrades and I will be conducting missions as their operation agents. This week's mission for cell C is to distribute NLF leaflets through all the campside villages down by the smokestack.”

“No combat, sir?”

“We aren't given combat missions during the training period,” Thach whispered flatly and took a sip of a beer. “We start by carrying out small-scale tasks and then move up to larger, more important missions. Cells A and B will cover the areas of Dong Dao and Turen. You, Comrade Pham Minh, will also be responsible for contacts with those two cells. Cell A is having its meeting today, cell B tomorrow, and cell C the day after. I had the leaflets delivered to Chrysanthemum Pub. Divide them up and deliver a bundle to each cell. The cell A rendezvous is to be at the bookstore down on the corner of Doc Lap Boulevard. The time is always twelve noon sharp. As for cell B . . .”

Minh took a notebook from his pocket and was about to write down the information when Thach raised his finger and shook it.

“No. Writing is forbidden. Whatever the order, you always must commit it to memory with no errors. The contact point for cell B is a teahouse called ‘Hoa' down at the edge of the pier.”

“How will I recognize them?”

“Ah, no need to worry about that. Members of the same company know each other's faces, no? They belong to a single family, so to speak. It was unthinkable a few years ago when the cells weren't as solid as now. Back then nobody could be trusted. We used to have three steps before any contact, but things are different now. The 434
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Special Action Group has had only two instances of betrayal in the last year. One informant was eliminated in advance by a cell trial and the other defected. Since we realized the defector was a traitor before he left, we had time to sever the contact links and we didn't even have to track him down for retaliation. Now, can you repeat to me everything I've said so far?”

Pham Minh repeated it all item by item to Thach.

“Good. Now go and retrieve the stuff at the Chrysanthemum Pub, then go to the bookstore.”

Minh rose. Without even looking back he walked out of the bar. When he reached the pub, he took a seat inside, ordered a cup of tea, and asked the waiter as he was leaving, “Would you check and see if the things I forgot this morning are here?”

“What did you forget?”

“Some books.”

“I see. Yes, I'll get them for you.”

The young waiter came back with three bulky volumes with dictionary covers. Pham Minh picked them up and left the pub. He looked around outside. It would be better, he told himself, to take a rickshaw than to walk. There were plenty of rickshaws scattered around the parking lot. He signaled for one with his hand.

“Doc Lap Boulevard.”

“You can walk that far.”

“You'll be paid, so what's it to you?”

“Got a point there, but I don't feel too proud of taking your money to go that far.”

“Let's go.”

The rickshaw slipped through the crowded market. Minh called for the driver to stop at the corner across the intersection from the bookstore. He paid and crossed the street. That edge of Doc Lap Boulevard was always quiet in the early afternoon. The central avenue leading to the pier crossed at the next block down. Where he was, Doc Lap was mainly lined with government offices, hotels, and upscale shops. The traffic whizzed by but few pedestrians were on the sidewalks. The nearest school was some distance away. Once school let out, a flock of students would descend on their bicycles and scooters.

Without pausing, Minh walked inside the bookstore. A middle-aged woman sat behind the counter, her face buried in a newspaper. Wary of the entrance, Minh kept his face directed at the shelves. There were textbooks in French, volumes of poetry, and all sorts of Vietnamese translations of foreign literature. He checked his watch: twelve thirty. He and the proprietress were the only ones in the store. Siesta, the dullest hour of the day, would start once lunch hour ended at one. Anyway, the bookstore was only busy before school in the morning, between one and one thirty when students were en route home for the siesta, and in the late afternoon when school let out for the day.

Someone walked into the store. Out of the corner of his eye, Minh recognized him as a youth he had often seen at the assembly camp. He was dressed in a clean white shirt and gray pants, with his hair neatly combed back. The black horned-rim glasses he had on were unfamiliar, so at first sight Minh had difficulty placing him, but he had kept the same moustache. Minh, standing with the three bundles of printed matter at his feet, turned around and gave him a questioning look. The youth strolled past the shelves and halted at his side. He then pulled a book down from the shelf and in a low voice said, “I'm the leader of cell A.”

Pham Minh glanced down at his own feet and whispered, “Take one.”

“Any other orders?”

“It's all in there.”

The youth casually stooped down and picked up one of the books, then made a round of the store before leaving. Minh put the remaining package under his arm and picked a book at random from the shelf to buy and went farther inside the store. Before handing it to the owner he checked the cover and discovered that it was a collection of Baudelaire's prose.

“Wrap this up, please.”

The woman wrapped the book without showing any sign of having noticed anything out of the ordinary.

“Two hundred piasters, please.”

Minh paid and the woman nodded in a cursory bow to him. Once back out on the street, Minh wondered where he should head next. The streets were still relatively quiet. He had no choice but to go home. It would still be two days before he could start working at Cuong's warehouse. He had no idea what he could do with the bundles of leaflets for the time being. On his way home he bought some fresh pork and a can of condensed milk from a street vendor. When he arrived home, he found his mother and Mi sitting face-to-face drinking green tea.

“Come and sit down here, you,” his mother said.

Mi stared into the teacup and did not look up at him.

“Is this how you two boys are going to be? Do you think I'm a bump on a log? I hear you've been out to Son Tinh and seen that bitch . . .”

“Who told you that?”

“So, the two of you are pouring your hearts out to each other behind my back. If your father were alive, your brother would never dare do this to me. That bitch of a bar girl has nothing to do with our family. So why did you go snooping around there?”

“I went on an errand for Big Brother,” Minh said without giving his reply a thought.

“That's a lie . . . you went there to ask her to help you get a job, didn't you? Don't you have any self-respect?”

What a great teller of tales his sister Mi had been, Minh said to himself as he let out a feeble laugh.

“Right, I asked her to talk to Big Brother. I see nothing wrong with that, do you?”

“Now that you've quit school, what good will it do for you to get a job with the help of those filthy creatures?”

“I need to make money. When I finish my military service, I'm going abroad to study. Anyway . . . all of us are eating the bread that Big Brother brings home, isn't that a fact?”

“Quyen and you are both my sons. If he breaks up with that bitch, I'll make a living even if I have to go out and peddle noodles on the street,” his mother said in a sniveling voice.

“You can't find a man with a clear conscience in Vietnam anymore. I've no doubt I can make as much money as Big Brother can. I've already lined up a job, so don't be worrying about me, Mother. And, Sister, I'd like to say a word to you, too. Will you listen to me?”

“Go ahead,” Mi said in a cold voice, avoiding Minh's eyes.

“Do me a favor and stop comparing me to your husband.”

Their mother intervened. “Goodness, you're giving me a headache. Don't even mention that man in my presence. I trusted the bastard, you know, and such a vile Viet Cong he turned out to be . . .”

“Mother . . .”

Pham Minh's tone was reproachful toward his mother, but Mi glared at him with fire in her eyes.

“Don't you dare insult the dead.”

“Sister, what's gotten into you? You never used to be like this. I'm still the same old me. I just don't understand why our family always has to hurt each other when we sit down together.”

Mi grabbed the cups and the teapot and jumped to her feet.

“Ask Quyen. Maybe he'll explain.”

The loud clinking of dishes being washed in the kitchen started to grate on Minh's nerves. He went into Quyen's unoccupied room. In it there was an old wicker bed with the bamboo sticking out, and some chairs and odds and ends. He tossed the bundle of leaflets down and fell onto the bed. He lit a cigarette but soon felt as if his chest and neck were bursting from suffocation. He wanted to scream: I have to leave this house, get away from this family. But he couldn't go anywhere without permission from the committee.

In his training he had been taught that the first essential condition for an urban guerilla to carry out his mission was to lead an ordinary existence. Revolution was not something realized by some dramatic events that occur one day out of the blue. A revolutionary fighter must battle with everyday routines and constantly build resolution as he lives day to day. Only upon such a foundation will he gain a capacity to induce dramatic events. Like the simple farmer who takes up his weapon as a sign of resistance after generations of his ancestors have lived in misery, revolution is not a brilliant flare but a rock-like sediment of silence.

Consequently, a revolutionary is not an anarchistic flower but a rock thrown into the wilderness of indifference surrounding it. At long last, these rocks will one day make a mound of rocks and they will strike and sparkle, roll and fly, their whole beings transformed into weapons. Unless he could survive at home, unless he tried to be one with his family, Pham Minh realized he would never be able to carry out a single task effectively.

His heart lightened. He extinguished the cigarette. He heard the sound of a bicycle bell. Lei must have come home for lunch. Minh reached over his head and locked the door. He heard Lei's footsteps entering the kitchen. Broken-hearted, his mother seemed to have retreated to her room. As he lay there using his arms as a pillow, Minh's thoughts again focused on the leaflets: I'll be an effective agent, I'll carry out missions never before accomplished by anyone in any of the units. He picked up the bottom bundle of leaflets, the one for cell C. Inside the thick dictionary cover there were about two thousand sheets of paper. A note was tucked into the top of the bundle. He took it out and read:

The purpose of the present leaflets is twofold: one educational purpose is to enhance the personal capacities of liberation fighters and the cooperative operational ability of each cell. The other is to constantly remind the people of the actuality of the NLF. The members of each cell should distribute them extensively in the areas under their responsibility, keeping within the bounds of personal security. Time: this Saturday evening. Place: the whole expanse of refugee hamlets from Bai Bang to Somdomeh. Each cell must fix individual mission areas and conduct at least two preliminary surveys and dry runs. The leader of the cell is to collect opinions of the cell afterwards and make a verbal report of the results through the chain of operations.

Pham Minh picked up a copy of the leaflet and read it. It was the essential principles of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front. He had read it dozens of time and was even tested on it while training at Atwat. The text began as follows:

Ever since the French colonialists first occupied our country, we, the Vietnamese people, have never ceased to fight for the independence and freedom of our nation. Our fellow countrymen throughout the nation, who had shattered Japanese and French imperialism in 1945, continued their cooperation and, as a result of the heroic war of resistance, won a great victory over the French invaders and the American interveners, thus leading the building storm of national resistance to culminate in a glorious victory. At the Geneva Conference in July 1954 the French imperialists had no choice but to agree to the withdrawal of their military forces from Vietnam. The nations participating in the Accords made a solemn declaration on the sovereign independence of Vietnam, promising her unification as well as approving the preservation of her territorial frontiers.