The Eaves of Heaven (23 page)

THE NORTH
1949

29. C
ROSSING THE
F
RENCH
L
INE

“O
ur village is no longer a safe place for the family,” Father said. “We must cross the front line and go into Hanoi and wait until the war is over.”

The French had withdrawn from Tong Xuyen. The Resistance was gaining considerable strength. Fighting in the Red River Delta became more fierce and more frequent. Soon every man, woman, and child would be required to join the Resistance and fight the French. Anyone who refused would be considered a traitor.

We were sitting with Father in his study. It was the first time he explained his intentions to Tan and me. Father had been home less than a week and was still reeling from the shock of Mother’s death. He hadn’t spoken much about his year of servitude in the French regiments.

“Viet Minh have left us alone because your aunts and Mother helped them when the French were stronger in our domain. Now they will demand more material and financial support, but I haven’t found where your Mother hid our family’s treasury. It may take me months or years of digging up the entire estate before I find it. By then we may run out of money to contribute to the Viet Minh.”

“Father, we don’t have any enemies in the village. Do you think they will rise against us?”

“War changes people, son. Even if they like us, they can’t refuse an order from the Viet Minh. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the Communists kill me. I will leave tonight to find a way to cross the French line. When it’s safe, I will send for you and your siblings.” Father turned to Tan. “Nephew, you can choose to stay with your stepmother, but I think it’s best if you come with us.”

“I’d like to go, Uncle,” Tan replied without hesitation.

T
HE
next morning, Father was already gone, having departed quietly during the night. A week later a messenger arrived from Hung Yen province with news that Father was at Uncle Loc’s house, which was half a day’s walk from the province seat. Aunt Thuan instructed our old guard Khi, Tan, and me that we were to leave the next day. I had picked out a few items to take along, but Khi said not to take anything expensive. Traveling as peasants, we would have no way to explain owning something of value.

At the first crow of the rooster, we set off without breakfast or good-byes. There were five children in our group: baby Huong, Hong, Hung, Tan, and me. We were accompanied by three adults: Khi, Noui, and Vien. Khi led our little expedition. Noui, a man in his early twenties, was an adopted member of our extended family. He knew the back roads to Hung Yen. Nanny Vien was a young widow whose baby had died prematurely. She had been hired to nurse Huong.

Under the cover of darkness, we left the estate through a secret gap in the bamboo hedge. A mist hovered over the fields and obscured the footpath on top of the dikes separating the paddies. Nuoi led us in single file. Vien followed behind him with baby Huong in a fabric sling across her chest. Hung and Hong trailed behind her. Tan and I came behind the boys to keep an eye on them. Khi brought up the rear. It was difficult to see my own feet, but Noui pressed onward at a fast clip. We needed to get clear of the local fields before the peasants started coming out at dawn to work. There was always the chance of being recognized by the villagers. Eight-year-old Hong tired after half an hour, and Noui carried him on his back. Hung was ten and didn’t last much longer than his younger brother. He soon rode on Khi’s back.

Stumbling along behind Tan, I kept wondering if I had done the right thing by leaving the champagne bottle behind. What if someone dug it up? Would he sell it or give it back to us? At last, I decided that I would never know if someone took it, so in my mind the bottle would always stay safely buried in Mother’s garden. I could hold on to it forever this way.

We turned onto a smaller road and suddenly the hackles rose on the back of my neck. This was the place where Uncle Thuan had fallen. The sky was shifting to a deep shade of lavender. The air took on a heavy swampy odor. The big tree loomed like a monstrous shadow at the bend of the road.

Tan paused, staring at the tree. We had come here together once after his father’s assassination. Tan looked at me. He was visibly shaken. His life had been changed irrevocably in this place by a single bullet. I shuddered as we passed the spot where his father had laid. I muttered a prayer to Uncle Thuan and Mother to safeguard us on this journey.

After sunrise, Khi slackened the pace, but didn’t let us rest for another hour. We sat behind some bushes and ate rice balls with a sweet powder of sesame seeds, peanuts, and sugar. Later in the morning, a group of Resistance fighters stopped us on the road and asked Khi where we were going. Khi said we were a peasant family going to live with our relatives in a village outside the province seat. At the time, there were many peasants on the roads displaced by intense fighting so they found our answer credible and allowed us to go on our way.

We skirted several villages, taking mostly footpaths through endless, unchanging miles of rice paddies. I had never walked so far. My feet blistered. Khi pushed us steadily onward. We reached Uncle Loc’s house by sunset.

Uncle Loc was my mother’s youngest brother. As the family’s only son, he inherited the majority of his family fortune, which included his countryside manor. He was married and had five daughters and one son. He was one of the last relatives on my mother’s side to remain in the countryside, most having moved to Hanoi a year ago.

Khi went back to the estate the next day. The rest of us stayed with Father at Uncle Loc’s house. Early in the morning of our third day, a guide arrived at the manor. He took all nine of us by foot on the main road toward the province seat. Hung Yen at the time was a twilight territory much like our village had been a year ago. The French controlled the countryside during the day, the Resistance during the night. We stayed on the well-patrolled highway, avoiding back roads that were watched by the Resistance. The Viet Minh considered people crossing over to the French area as traitors and regularly executed them as such. Our guide knew the French troops at each checkpoint and was able to bribe our crossing all the way through to the province seat, where he again helped us to buy French papers that allowed us to travel.

The passage was surreal. It happened in a blur of exhaustion and confusion. Before I realized it, we were sitting on a bus rolling toward Hanoi. I opened my burlap bag and took out the flute Hoi had given me the day before we left home.

T
HAT
evening, Hoi had come by to see me. He waited for me by the old banyan tree just down the road from the rear gate of our estate—the same place where, since we were boys, he had always turned back after walking me home.

Hoi was still skinny and half a head shorter than me. His teeth had grown in unevenly. Sometimes I found it incredible that my shy, undersized friend, who was always the last boy to be picked for soccer teams, had become the most respected teenager in the village and the leader of the local chapter of Uncle Ho’s Youth Brigade. The boy who could never recite his lessons in front of class without tripping up a dozen times could now give rousing lectures about the evils of colonialism.

“I heard your father was released by the French,” Hoi said.

Surprised, I said nothing. My family had kept it a secret.

“Those long-nosed thugs! You must avenge…” Hoi sighed, looking away. He had asked me to join Uncle Ho’s Youth Brigade many times.

Since the French withdrew from our domain, Hoi’s family had emerged as the chief Resistance organizers of our village. In this new sphere, his family was more powerful than ours. Only recently did I realize the small considerations that my family had shown his over the years were what kept us safe while elsewhere in other domains, wealthy families were targeted for retaliation by the peasantry. Hoi never mentioned it, but I knew he kept the other boys at school from bullying me when I avoided joining their Youth Brigade.

It was strange to see that we were at opposite sides of a sudden chasm, though it did not feel that way, not between us.

I wanted to give him my school supplies and books, but he had no use for them now that he was an important Youth Leader destined for greater things. I handed him a compass on a lanyard. I could tell he liked it by the way the grin grew across his face.

Hoi gave me a bamboo flute he’d fashioned. When I saw the two words he had seared onto the barrel with a hot iron, I knew that he knew we were leaving.
Friends Forever.

As we grasped each other’s forearms, Hoi smiled. I smiled. It was all here. Hundreds of cricket fights. Innumerable days roaming the muddy paddies, fishing, catching frogs, flying kites, roasting grasshoppers. I could not count the number of
banh da
I had eaten at his house. How many thousand sunny days were we allowed in one childhood? Were there ever enough?

Fourteen years old, we were more boys than men.

I did not know I would never see Hoi or Tong Xuyen again. As always, we parted in the shadow of the old banyan tree. It was amazing how a bend in the road could obscure a lifetime to come.

THE SOUTH
1975

30. T
HE
F
ALL OF
S
AIGON

S
ixteen years of fighting had reduced the war to a troublesome liability. We accepted it like an offshore storm that never left. The battles, the bombs, the highway ambushes, the countryside insurgency, the draft cycles, and the ever-mounting casualties had become the ebbs and flows of a long, long war. We never expected victory—our leaders were too corrupt for that—and yet defeat never entered our minds. We convinced ourselves that the ever-present, powerful Americans would never desert us. We had become too dependent, lazy, blind, and selfish to save ourselves.

The end came swiftly. The cities didn’t fall; they tumbled, one after another in quick, horrific succession. On March 13, 1975, the first to go was Ban Me Thuot, a key hold in the Central Highlands. Five days later, Pleiku was lost. In three more days, the enemy overran Quang Tri. Hue, the capital of central Vietnam, was abandoned two days after that. President Thieu and his staff of incompetent generals accelerated the downfall with their order to abandon the 1st and 2nd Corps. The stalemate was over. The tide had turned permanently. Within three weeks, eight provinces were forfeited; 40,000 troops were massacred during the retreats. It was devastating, but no one could predict that the Viet Cong would sack Saigon’s presidential palace in another twenty-six days.

My brother Hong was working at the Forestry Service of Phu Bon, a province in the Central Highlands. When the VC took the province seat, he escaped to Bao Loc on an L-19, a two-seater propeller plane; it was sheer luck that he had caught his army pilot friend in time. Had he tried to escape by road, he would have been among the tens of thousands of civilians who perished in the forest on their exodus to the coast. From Bao Loc, he caught a bus into Saigon. Hong walked through the door of my father’s house empty-handed. He had lost his home and everything he owned. Days later, my brother Hung, a high school principal, fled Ham Tan, a mere sixty-five miles from Saigon. The news Hong and Hung brought home was terrifying.

Madness had descended on the city. People were in a selling and buying frenzy. Refugees sold whatever they had. Others liquidated assets at a fraction of their cost to raise money for passage out of the country. Former northerners like my family, who had lived under Communist rule, were the most anxious to leave. The majority of southerners, however, did not think that a Communist takeover would be disastrous. They snapped up cars, motorbikes, houses, and staples at bargain prices. I sold my car and was in negotiation to sell our four-story house. The prospective buyer backed out of the sale when the Viet Cong approached Phan Thiet.

A day later, as the Viet Cong began encircling Phan Thiet, my wife’s mother, brother, and sister fled on their neighbor’s fishing boat and arrived in Saigon the next morning. When they came to stay at our house and gave us the news, I immediately rode out to Vung Tau on my Honda motorbike to see if I could find a fishing boat to take us out to sea. The highway was busy in both directions with refugees from the outer provinces heading to safety and Saigonians fleeing to the coast in search of passage out of the country. Army trucks rumbled into Vung Tau along with hordes of expensive civilian cars. The wealthy and the powerful were flocking to the coast. Vung Tau’s population had tripled in the past month. I scoured the docks, but it was hopeless. Every single vessel, including motorized dinghies, was already booked or bought outright. The hotels and vacation houses were filled with people waiting to board their boats; some were already living on them. Vung Tau officials declared the city closed to new refugees.

The cost of buying passports, tourist visas, and plane tickets out of the country had skyrocketed out of our reach by the time we saw that a collapse was inevitable. It had become the choice of the super-rich with weighty government connections. Many folks lost their savings in passport cons. Saigon was full of scam artists and opportunists offering the gamut of escape options, from airplanes to ferries to overland border crossings via trucks. Every day, my brothers Hung, Hong, Hoang, and I crisscrossed Saigon looking for contacts and deals. The pall of desperation had fallen over us.

M
Y
best friend Tat, the handsome buddy from my high school days, came to me with a proposal. His brother Han, who worked at the Ministry of Transportation, had a deal with the captain of a small coastal merchant ship belonging to a Chinese company. The captain, a Vietnamese of Chinese origin, agreed to take twenty passengers at the price of ten gold leaves each. Tat didn’t have the money for his family and suggested that if I loaned him the gold, I could take seven members of my own immediate family. We had been close friends for more than twenty years, so I agreed to his terms. I wanted to meet the captain. Han said the captain refused to meet anyone until it was time to go and that the full fee would be due upon embarkation.

Bach Dang pier was near downtown Saigon, and there were many boats and ferries bringing refugees in from other parts of the country. Tat and I found our ship not on the pier but moored off-shore on the other side of the Saigon River. It was a pathetic sea-going junk. Packed to the gunwales, it might carry thirty passengers. Without any other viable alternatives, I swallowed my misgivings and hoped for the best.

A week before the city’s collapse, I went over to Tat’s house. Neither of us had a telephone, but we lived only three blocks apart so it was easy stopping by to see each other several times a day to check on the status of the boat. I thought it was very safe and fortunate that Tat lived only two minutes by motorbike from me. It was going to be very close because southerners like our ship captain were complacent and had no idea of the dangers of waiting to the final hours.

Tat said, “The captain announced that he’ll go as soon as the Americans start to leave.”

“That’s very risky. We don’t even know for certain if he would take us. We haven’t even met him.”

“I told Han the same thing. He said the government hasn’t allowed ships to take people to sea yet. The chaos must begin before the captain can leave without permission. By then, no one will care.”

“Why can’t he bribe the officials? Your brother can help him find the right contact in the Ministry.”

“I doubt the captain will want to part with any of his gold. Besides, he probably can get more money at the last moment when people will pay anything to leave.”

“So we wait for the end.”

“Yes, we wait for the Americans.”

P
RESIDENT
Thieu and his cabinet fled well before the Americans. On April 21, 1975, Thieu abandoned his office and country. He flew to Taiwan with his family, taking along fifteen tons of personal luggage, rumored to be the wealth of the country. His disgraceful exit delivered a detrimental blow to the troops’ morale, and on the following day, Xuan Loc, a critical defensive point merely thirty-five miles from Saigon, crumbled into the enemy’s hand. It would be remembered as an epic battle, a display of heartbreaking courage against overwhelming odds. Our trusted American allies never came, but the embattled and impoverished ARVN had gallantly fought on alone, outnumbered and outgunned.

Refugees poured into the capital, running from the shelling and fighting in the adjacent towns that formed a defense line around the city. The number of refugees swelled dramatically as the Viet Minh pushed the ARVN back toward Saigon. Reality was fast disintegrating into nightmare.

State-controlled television and radio broadcasts lied to keep citizens calm. Even the Voice of America was no longer trustworthy. Only the BBC remained factual, and none of their reports bore good news. Like everyone else, I spent my days dashing back and forth all over the city, gathering information and rumors wherever I could. The latest and most credible news was the firsthand accounts from the tens of thousands of refugees seeking shelter at pagodas throughout the city.

X
A
L
OI
Temple near my house had more refugees than it had celebrants during the New Year prayers. Hundreds of people huddled and slept wherever they found space. Plastic tarps were strung up in the courtyard and along the sides of the temple to shelter the newcomers. They were all in very bad shape. Some were injured. Many were missing family members. Women sobbed, their children crying inconsolably. Old men sat like statues, staring off into space. These people had run for their lives.

At one corner of the yard, a middle-aged man sat alone, calmly smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, oblivious to the chaos around him. His shirt was torn; dried blood stained the sleeves; his pants were caked with mud. I asked him if I could sit next to him. He glanced sideways at me and kept smoking. I sat down and waited for him to talk. Usually, people were anxious to talk about their ordeals, but the man just rolled another smoke. I finally asked him where he came from.

“Nha Trang,” he replied without turning.

“Is your family here with you?”

“They didn’t make it.”

“The VC captured them?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “They killed them.”

Not knowing what to say, I blurted, “Do you think we’ll be safe here?”

He ground the cigarette beneath his sandal, stood up, and walked away.

B
Y
April 27, 1975, it looked as if the end of the world had arrived. The Communists had surrounded the capital—the final foothold of the South’s forces. Artillery shells, rockets, and bombs tore up the outskirts of the city. ARVN jet fighters screamed across the overcast sky and swooped along the edges of the city, trying to turn back the advancing Communist forces. North, south, and west of Saigon, columns of black smoke curled upward, the blazes spreading. Torrents of refugees poured into the city on every road. Terrified, traumatized, and exhausted, they rolled toward the last sanctuary. They came like an undulating human carpet, filling, choking the new Bien Hoa superhighway as far as the eyes could see.

On April 28, Duong Van Minh took over the role of Chief of State. Fully armed South Vietnam troops appeared on Tran Quoc Toan Boulevard, where the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam headquarters was located right around the corner from my father’s house. These were the “Red Beret Angels,” the South Vietnam elite airborne force. They were our very best men, known for their courage and seen in every parade. They were our heroes, symbolic of South Vietnam’s pride and power. Their dedication, ferocity, and sacrifices were legendary. They were the ones who had shown us that we could fight the VC and win. It shook me profoundly to see them sitting on the curb with their heads hung low, their rifles on the sidewalk. Without their confident swagger, they seemed so young, more boys than men. Had it been fifteen years since I was drafted? I walked up and down the street, trying to catch their eyes. I recognized that look of battle fatigue. Their morale was broken. Hopelessness pulled on their limbs. It was plain on their faces; the war was over.

I got on my motorbike and rushed over to Tat’s house, determined to convince the captain that we must not wait any longer. I was prepared to pay a premium to make the captain see reason. The moment I saw Tat sitting outside his house, I knew our hopes were dashed.

Tat wouldn’t look at me. He mumbled, “They confiscated the boat.”

“Who?”

“The police.”

“Why?

He shrugged. “They have family and need to escape too.”

“When did you find out?”

“Yesterday evening.”

I was speechless. We were dead. It was as simple as that. I sat with him fifteen, twenty minutes, dumbstruck. I could feel the seconds ticking away. I was angry that he hadn’t told me earlier, even though I knew I couldn’t change a thing.

I said, “We must not give up. We must keep looking. Let me know immediately if something comes up.”

He promised he would, and I left on my motorbike.

I didn’t know where I was going, but I needed to go somewhere, anywhere. My stomach was souring. Where to start looking all over again? I revved the engine, and sliced and weaved through the bustling streets. I joined the throngs of tens of thousands looking for an escape route. All of Saigon, including the hundreds of thousands of refugees, was on the road, coursing manically in a dozen different directions. Cars, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles, and cyclos jammed the avenues. Accidents clogged the intersections. No one cared, no one stopped. We were like animals trapped in a burning cage. But there was nowhere to go. Fighting blocked the highway to Tan Son Nhat Airport. Streets leading to government and military sites were barricaded. I found one dead end after another.

On Mac Dinh Chi Boulevard, a sprawling mob of Vietnamese and foreigners swarmed the American embassy. They surged at the gate, begging to get into the sanctuary. White foreigners pushed through the crowd and were allowed in first. The Vietnamese clamored and shoved each other to get to the guards, waving documents and shouting their qualifications: employees of American companies, contractors, relatives of Americans, wives and children of American soldiers. I watched from a distance, knowing that a decommissioned officer had no priority, regardless of my service. My office had provided a cover for CIA operatives. If the Viet Cong caught me, I expected to be tortured and executed. My wife and children would be sent to live in the jungle.