The Eaves of Heaven (12 page)

A devout Catholic from the North, Viet was forty-two, a small man, dark and wiry, with disproportionately large forearms. He had migrated to the South with his family in 1954. Viet had been fighting Communists since he was a teenager, first as a member of his village civil defense, later as a soldier in the French indigenous force. His native village, Bui Chu, was a Catholic bastion that had suffered and fought bitterly against the Viet Minh until the very last days before the Geneva Accord.

Viet’s second in command was a tall, lanky southern farmer with mild, easy manners. Already in his mid-fifties, Nhan was still as fit and alert as a man half his age. Unlike Viet, who fought on religious grounds, Nhan had a vendetta. His eldest brother, a village chief, had been murdered by the Communists ten years ago while Nhan was fighting under the French. His brother’s death brought hardship on the entire clan. Nhan retired after the French withdrew in 1954, but several consecutive crop failures set him back into working for the government.

We debated over why the VC attacked our truck prematurely instead of waiting to ambush the whole team. It also seemed bizarre that they did not try to enter the hamlet while we were pinned down outside. We were certain about two things. First, the ambush didn’t make sense. Second, our twenty-seven men could not hold the hamlet without prompt military reinforcement.

“How many rounds of ammunition do we have left?” I asked Nhan.

He smiled as though I had asked him how many guests we were expecting for dinner. It was one of those all-encompassing smiles that could be a response or an expression for a dozen different emotions.

“Just under fifteen hundred rounds left.”

“Order the men to shoot sparingly,” I said. “Make every bullet count.”

Viet shook his head. “It’ll be tough since we’re up against AK-47s. Our green recruits were pretty shaken up by them. Half of my men ran back to the hamlet at the first shot. They didn’t stay around long enough to hear my orders.”

I chuckled. “I was pretty shaken up too.”

Viet said, “The local guerrillas don’t have these kinds of armaments. We’re definitely up against the National Liberation Front’s regional force.”

“In that case…” Nhan sighed. “It could be a whole NLF company. A whole company will overrun us in no time.”

“Then we all die,” Viet said.

“Maybe our Regional Force will reinforce us soon enough,” Nhan replied.

“Don’t count on it. We’re bastards to the big military brass in Phan Thiet. Besides, those cowards at headquarters never stick their heads out unless they absolutely have to.” Viet snickered. He was a hardcore crusader, one of the very few people I’d met who wasn’t afraid to die.

I radioed Lan. Our strategy depended on whether or not we could count on reinforcement. Lan said Captain Trieu, the Province Military Chief of Staff, refused to send troops unless we were actually attacked. I said if we were under heavy attack, it would be a funeral march because by the time they got here, we would be dead. It wasn’t good enough. I told Lan he would need to do better and signed off.

“Too bad there’s a half-moon tonight; otherwise we could try to sneak out of this hamlet and run to the hills,” said Nhan.

Viet dismissed that notion with a flip of his hand. “Even if we’re lucky enough to have cloud cover tonight, they’d still hear us sloshing through the paddies.”

“We will just have to figure out a way to last as long as we can,” I said.

W
E
called the team into the classroom. Heads hung low, they shuffled inside and squatted on the ground. Like all RD teams, this one was a mix of draft-dodgers and retired soldiers, some too young to shave, some too old to fight. They had enlisted for the back-breaking work of building bridges, roads, houses, and schools; teaching children; and providing basic health care. They had to be paramilitary propagandists for the government and good Samaritans for the villagers. The ARVN looked down on them as draft-dodgers and the Americans’ peons. USAID secretly used them as decoys to provide cover for the American intelligence operatives—a fact I had recently learned.

For their troubles, RD teams were favorite targets for the guerrillas. It was much easier to take potshots at men working in the fields than it was to attack a well-armed platoon. And when they died, their families received almost no compensation.

Seeing the fear in their faces, the way they turned to me for direction, I felt the full burden of leadership for the first time. A few hours ago, I had handed them the wages of an unwanted war, like poison in their pockets, the money some would soon repay with their lives. Anxiety for my own safety vanished, and I felt strangely composed.

“Brothers, you all know our situation is precarious. I just want to give you my thoughts. You know our job is to help improve people’s lives, but the Viet Cong believe we’re traitors and spies for the Americans, so they hate us. They hate us more than they hate the soldiers.

“Now, I know you did not join RD to fight. And you know I didn’t volunteer to be in the army, so like you, I don’t want to be in a battle.”

The seven older cadres didn’t need a pep talk, but I could tell by the way their faces softened that they appreciated the honesty. Veterans didn’t follow bravado. It was a trait in leaders who led men to their death. And at the same time, I couldn’t tell them the whole truth. How could I explain to them that their own Regional Force, less than an hour’s march away, wouldn’t come to their rescue?

“But tonight we must fight because they’ve got us surrounded and outgunned. And they will kill us if we don’t fight with everything we have. If we stand together, we might get through this and see our families again. All we have to do is to hold out long enough for the Regional Force to get here. It’s our only chance of survival.”

In the next room, an injured man moaned. A shiver went through the gathering. Nhan cleared his throat and said he agreed completely with me. Viet added that he would rather get killed than captured by the VC. The veterans nodded. Pale-faced, the draft-dodgers sat in silence. I turned the briefing over to Viet, who set about explaining our defensive plan.

I
TOOK
the radio outside and sat on a bench beneath a lime tree in the playground. I felt as though I should say a prayer, and I wanted to say one, but I didn’t know how. I wasn’t very religious. Not many people of my generation believed in anything. True faith was rare when you saw how true believers suffered and died just as easily as anyone else. I had seen a full twenty years of war. So for a few minutes, I thought about my mother. I believed her spirit protected me.

Dusk deepened into night. A northern wind cleared the sky for a scattering of stars and a half-moon. I radioed my assistant, Lieutenant Lan, at headquarters. Lan was very apologetic, saying that he had pleaded with Trieu for every sort of concession. I was angry, but I couldn’t blame Lan. I knew Trieu was no hero. His decision was not surprising: Why should he get his soldiers killed for a bunch of paramilitary guys working for the Americans.

There was one option left: An Binh hamlet was within range of the pair of howitzers at Phan Thiet Airport. I didn’t want to mention it earlier. In the ARVN, if an officer in the field called his superior at HQ and requested one of two things, he invariably got the lesser of the two, or nothing at all.

“Ask Captain Trieu to support us with his artillery tonight when they attack. We won’t have a chance without it.”

“Good idea. I wonder why he hadn’t thought of it.”

“Of course, he did. He just didn’t bother mentioning it.”

“Then I’m sure he doesn’t want to do it.”

“Damn it! I don’t care if you’re sure or not. Just ask him!”

“OK, sorry, Lieutenant. I’ll go talk to him again.”

Even though shelling the creek amounted to little more than a gunnery exercise for his men, Trieu would most likely decline because it was his privilege. If I wanted his help, I would have to promise him a favor in return, effectively placing myself in his pocket.

“Wait! I changed my mind.”

“I’m still here.”

“Go see Mr. Richardson yourself and ask him to make that request for us. If you can’t convince Mr. Richardson, get him on the radio for me.”

Ben Richardson was the head of USAID in Phan Thiet. On the record, he was an advisor, but in reality he was our boss from both the objective and financial perspectives. Trieu wouldn’t dare refuse Richardson’s request—not unless he wanted to risk a transfer to some unsavory post.

“Good idea, sir. Anything else?”

“No, that’s all.”

“Roger that, sir.”

“Over and out.”

Putting down the radio, I chuckled. Why should I bother worrying about what that arrogant fool will do to me? Before Trieu could take his revenge on me, I would have to survive tonight first.

The hamlet had become eerily silent and deserted, the streets empty, ghostlike with bluish-gray shadows, the corners and crannies filled with night. Cooking fires had been extinguished. Even the dogs had gone into hiding. Houses darkened, their doors locked, windows shuttered. The entire populace cringed, coiling tightly into itself. People knew they couldn’t leave the hamlet. The VC would not bother distinguishing them from RD cadres trying to escape. They did what trapped peasants had done through the ages: They barricaded themselves inside their homes and waited out the night, whatever the outcome.

A déjà vu. I had been here, in a place like this. I remembered those long nights hiding in bushes, hay bales, field shacks, waiting for dawn as the legionnaires swept through the village and scoured our ancestral home like malevolent demons. That was fifteen years ago. It made me immensely sad.

THE NORTH
JULY
1945

18. T
HE
L
AST
M
AGISTRATE

The raven came to see him for the third and final time, the day before his death. It alighted in the brazen afternoon, dropping like a blot of ink onto the broiling courtyard. It peered into the audience hall and, spreading dark wings, cawed at him. He accepted the harbinger with equanimity. Six years he had been waiting.

Pham Van Thuan was the last magistrate of his line to preside in Tong Xuyen Domain. Forty-five years old, he had few regrets. He had fathered four sons and four daughters among his three wives. His accomplishments and social status were adequate for a man who knew what he wanted from life. Two things mattered to him: the prosperity of his domain and the impeccable quality of his service as magistrate. He took pride in executing his office faithfully and wisely. Of the hundreds of cases he had judged during his two-decade tenure, only a handful of his rulings had been overturned by the district court. This was a well-known fact, as his name had been mentioned in the upper halls for promotions. If he so wished, he could have risen all the way to the Senate, but like his father and his grandfather, he was a simple man who cherished the country life. Hunting birds in his orchards, strolling in his gardens, and raising pigeons were his passions. For him, the greatest pleasure was seeing Heaven reward the peasants for their hard labor with righteous rain for the planting season and sultry sun for the harvesting days.

When he told his wife about the raven, she begged him not to go to the council meeting the next day in the district town. The Three Temple Lunar Calendar listed the day’s base-nature as Fire. His was Metal. Incompatible, as one melted the other. It would be a bad day for travel. Terrified, she rushed to the Ancestral Temple and lit three incense sticks for the Lady Buddha. She knelt at the altar and prayed as she had never prayed before, making desperate pledges for her husband’s safety.

She knew it was a time of great political upheaval. World War II was ending, and the various factions were maneuvering against one another. Vietnamese were killing Vietnamese to gain advantage. Days before, their nephew Quyen, an active Nationalist, had been kidnapped and murdered by the Viet Minh. Quyen was among the first victims in the Viet Minh’s drive to eliminate key members of the wealthy class that formed the core of the Nationalists.

That evening, a pensive spell descended on the magistrate, and he asked for the traditional
mat nha
service. His wife protested that the Lunar New Year was months away; there were no blossoming narcissus available for the centerpiece. He smiled and said any bloom from his garden would do. So she cut roses from his prized bushes and put them in a bowl of water. She placed the arrangement on a platter full of white riverbed pebbles coated with
mat nha
—a honey-like extract made from the tiny sprouts of sweet rice grains. She served it to him with a pot of black tea. They sat in the gazebo, looking out on the carp pond. He held a pebble in his mouth, the essence of rice slowly dissolving on his tongue. A mild sweetness, the flavor of freshly steamed jasmine rice. Above the darkening bamboo hedge, the sky turned coral pink. Shoals of finches danced, racing over the fields. He was deeply in love with the land.

She would later recall that he was not himself when he woke the next morning. He seemed distracted. Moreover, he was in a good mood, which in itself was very unusual. Even the servants who helped him dress noted that he seemed happy, almost carefree. He put on his trousers and dark blue silk robe without much fuss about the quality of the ironing or the proper starchiness in the fabric. He pinned the magistrate ivory emblem on his chest and donned the ceremonial headdress of coiled cloth. A servant polished his leather boots while he talked to his wife about the dinner he wanted that night.

He ate his usual breakfast of glutinous rice patties with slices of meat cake and hot tea on the veranda, where he could watch his pigeons stirring in their roosts. His wife sat and pleaded with him to take the car, but he refused. Various political factions were inciting riots and there were demonstrations daily at the district town. Driving his luxurious automobile—there were only two in the entire province—through crowds of famine-stricken peasants would bring only trouble. He knew people instinctively feared and respected an official mounted on a horse.

He rode out the gates with Canh and Khi, his two most trusted guards, jogging at his side. He was in high spirit, full of plans for improving the security of the district and his own domain. He told his men that he would buy horses for them so they could travel faster. It would help them catch highway bandits. He also told them that he would seek permission from the district chief to arm his bodyguards with guns. Heaven knew all the political factions had access to plenty of firearms.

They traveled comfortably, the men at a jog to match the horse’s slow canter. It was an easy pace for the dawn hours, the air still cool and pleasant, the sky whitish and overcast. Tendrils of mist hugged the newly sown paddies.

They rounded a bend in the road where a tall ancient tree brooded by the river. There was a moment of stillness. A gunshot rang out, startling birds from the bushes.

The bullet slammed into his chest and pitched him backward off his horse. Canh and Khi closed around the magistrate, sheltering him with their bodies, but no more shots came. Blood gushed from his mouth. He shook briefly, eyes fixated at the sky. There was a hole in his chest the size of a sour berry. His ivory badge gleamed red with blood.

His life—the important parts—was blessed with peace and prosperity. He would be survived by many loved ones. He had sired eight children: three with his first wife, one with his second wife, and four with his third wife. He had fulfilled his filial obligations, cherished his wives, and left his children a greater estate than the one he had inherited. He had lived his own life and had been privileged to judge the deeds of others. He had presided over more than his share of hearings on robberies, rapes, domestic violence, land disputes, drunken brawls, smugglings, and sundries of minor crimes. It was enough humanity to last a lifetime twice as long as what he had been given. He had been fortunate to guide his domain through the Great Famine and to savor the imminent fall of the Japanese, who had brought so much death and suffering. It was as much as a man of his era could hope for. And so ended the feudal age for the line of Pham of Tong Xuyen.