by Kien Nguyen
Master Long took the old man by the elbow. “Father,” he said. “I think it is time for us to leave.”
The old magistrate nodded. “Make sure every animal is out,” he said. “Then burn the place down. The owner of this house once held a noble status among the fishermen in the village. Reducing his property to ashes will teach the rest of his men a lesson and keep scavengers away.” Turning to Song, he said, “As for you, little girl, you are under arrest and will be prosecuted later. I will personally act as judge to determine your fate.”
He ordered to Song's two captors, “Take her back to my mansion.”
Magistrate Toan led the march toward the Nguyen family's main house, holding his torch up high like a flaming sword. No longer a feeble old man, he strode forward, a fierce and bony soldier, ready to fight. At the front door, he paused to give the soldiers time to get outside the gates of the compound. Master Long stood in the garden, watching his father twirl his weapon in the dark night. A proud smile blossomed on his face.
The first thing Magistrate Toan burned was the wooden stand that supported the eucalyptus in the shape of a phoenix. Its ancient wood caught fire readily. Soon, the weak blaze reached the sculpted tree, and sparkles of embers crackled and flew like tiny stars. Next, the old man set fire to the panels of doors as he ran inside the house. Through the windows, Dan watched as his father's library went up in flames. The magistrate dashed from room to room, applying the spark to anything flammable in sight. The flames, small at first, shone in the darkness like so many lanterns. Slowly they coalesced to form bigger fires, licking at the walls like a thousand red snakes. The strong wind helped fuel the flames. Before long, the sulfurous hue of the inferno climbed to the magnificent roof, and the sky lit up in brilliant orange.
The smoke darkened the air as the breeze dispersed it. Frightened sparrows flew from under the carved roof-panels, where their nests were glued like cement to the tiles. Their shrill cries were lost in the thunderous roar.
Part of the roof fell to the ground. A cloud of dust rose above the fire, spreading the ashes of the hundred-year-old mansion. Magistrate Toan reappeared at the door like a demon, with the raging fire behind him. His arms were spread outward. His face was covered in sweat. Dan heard the laughter crackling from the depths of the old man's lungs. His mind had been overrun with terror at the first sight of the magistrate and his soldiers, then secretly thrilled by the splendor of the fire. Now he was consumed by the knowledge that he had lost his home forever.
Again, Ven cupped his mouth with her hand. Her tears fell onto his face, blending with his own. Before his vision was blurred completely, Dan saw Master Long. He, too, was watching the fire. His glasses reflected tiny specks of bonfire.
As the men were leaving Dan's house, Magistrate Toan threw his torch inside the bedroom that Dan shared with Ven. It landed on their wedding bed and burst into a chrysanthemum of flame.
chapter six
The Reunion
The fire burned all night, bringing down enormous portions of the house. On one side, the entire brick wall collapsed. The tile roof fell into the rooms below. The exquisite furniture, impeccable artwork, and haunting memories of Dan's once-happy family were all consumed in flames or buried under debris.
No one in the Cam Le Village dared to come within a hundred yards of the smoldering ashes for fear of the old magistrate. The sumptuous mansion had always brought pleasure to their eyes and pride to their hearts; now they watched through the cracks of their doors as the centerpiece of their town was converted into a useless ruin.
Steps away from the wooden path, Dan emerged from his basket. A few red cherry blossoms, caught by the wind, swayed in midair before landing on his head and shoulders, then falling to the ground. Their scarlet petals looked like drops of blood against the lifeless grass. With a leaden heart, he padded down the walkway, searching for Ven.
A loud crash drew his attention to the remains of his bedroom. A heavy block of concrete lay on the scorched ground, and above it, through a cloud of dust, he saw a gaping opening in the wall. From this cleft, Ven emerged, brushing dirt from her palms. He barely recognized her through the soot smeared on her face and the exposed portions of her arms. On her head she wore a conical straw hat fastened with a wide band of fabric to keep the wind from sweeping it away. In the usual fashion, the black cloth band would have been secured under her chin. Instead, Ven had wrapped it over her mouth and nose.
Dan looked into his wife's slanted eyes. Though they were nearly hidden underneath the brim of her oversized headgear, he felt a wave of relief. He spread his arms and waited for her to come to him.
“You are awake, Master Dan,” she said as she picked him up.
With her fingers, she applied dirt all over his skin and clothes. Dan wiggled, trying to push her away and wiping his face with the back of his hands. His struggles only made the oily soot spread, until he resembled a sad jester in an impoverished opera troupe.
“Stop!” he screamed.
“Please, young Master,” she urged him. “We must keep our identities a secret. You can see for yourself from what happened last night, the magistrate and his son are very dangerous men. We cannot have them recognize us in public.”
“Can we leave here?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Why not?” he insisted.
Patiently she explained, “We must beg for food and gather news of your parents at the community hall. And we must remain in town. I cannot take you back to my grandparents' home. Magistrate Toan said that he would look for us there.”
“Where will we sleep?” Dan asked. He had always been afraid of the dark, and the thought of spending another night in the garden was daunting.
“Don't worry, Master. I'll find a warm and safe place for you to rest, away from the guards and soldiers.” The determination in her voice kept him from asking more questions.
Two weeks passed in a deceptive calm. No one in the Cam Le Village paid much attention to the two new beggars haunting the entrance of the community hall—a burly woman dressed in filthy rags, carrying a little boy inside a torn bamboo basket on her back. Everyone assumed the child was her son. Although most villagers disliked the sight of strangers asking for food instead of working, paupers were common, and it was unremarkable when one disappeared and another showed up. The earth had always provided an abundance of food and fuel. Through the act of giving alms to the less fortunate, the well-to-do would gain recognition for their good deeds and win merit in Heaven.
The townspeople were preoccupied with their own sorrows, as they yearned for news of their missing sons, husbands, and fathers. In nearly every family, a loved one had been arrested at the seaport. The whole village's destiny was entwined with that of its bold fishing captain, the ill-fated Master Nguyen.
The boy spent most of his time playing with his soiled puppets while his “mother” begged for food or money. His mournful expression, too sad and mature for a child his age, seemed to darken each time a soldier crossed his path. His guardian showed no emotion as she inquired about the posted news from the literate passersby She listened to the tidings with outward composure. Yet an astute observer might have noticed that under the large straw hat her eyes betrayed a spark of emotion that seemed like pain.
Late one morning, the crowd of distraught wives and mothers in front of the community hall was startled by the sound of motor vehicles rapidly approaching. With the permission of the guards, the women hastened into the street. Beneath a cloud of russet dirt from the distant road, a dark sedan rushed toward the villagers. At the turn of the street, it stopped and glared at the pedestrians with its headlights.
Behind the car rumbled a much larger conveyance. No one in the town had ever seen this type of transportation before. Like the car, the new machine was drawn forward by neither man nor beast. Its enormous body seemed as gawky as a giant water buffalo, and just like the animal, it snorted forth smoke and water. Under the blazing sun, the people of the Cam L
e Village at last saw their lost relatives riding atop the wagon.
With expressions of agony and acceptance, their imprisoned loved ones looked back at them. Seated on a wooden plank in the truck's open back, the captives had been riding from Hue City since the previous evening. Soldiers of the Royal Court, carrying impressive firearms, accompanied them.
The sedan surged forward, swallowing the road with furious speed. Its sudden movement dispersed the villagers in every direction. Amid the confusion, the truck followed the sleek automobile through the crowd.
The women cried out when they saw the convicts up close. Signs of physical abuse were visible on every one of them. Recent wounds lay atop old ones in various shades of blue and red, turning their faces into living masks of torture. Their hands, too, bore testimony to their suffering. When the prisoners were arrested, the guards had pierced their palms with an iron poker and inserted heavy rings through them. A chain through the shackles connected the men like a string of human beads. With brutal efficiency, the device served to keep them from escaping, as well as to help transport them from one place to the next.
Despite their anguish, the villagers understood the severity of the alleged crime. Throughout Vietnam's history, the atrocities committed by pirates had infuriated the authorities. Sea bandits had looted coastal cities, getting away with murder and mayhem, for years. On those rare occasions when some of them fell into the government's hands, they were shown no mercy. Upon seeing their menfolk, the women ran alongside the truck without fear for their own safety, until the vehicle was brought to a sudden halt.
Master Nguyen and his two wives sat among the captives. Unlike the others, their eyes were blindfolded with black rags. Their expensive clothes were torn, covered in blood and the filth of the road. Master Nguyen's headdress, the elegant silk panel that had always been folded in neat layers on the crown of his head, was torn and slanted toward his ear. Yet he still remained stoic, as was fitting for a man of his stature.
First Mistress, on the other hand, resembled a broken puppet. She was shaking uncontrollably. Her face was the sickly beige of an opium addict's during a fit of withdrawal. She turned toward the noisy crowd, calling out for sympathy. Her supplication was cut short when a soldier smashed the butt of his rifle into her face. The blow broke her nose and knocked her to the wooden floor. Jets of blood sprayed from the wound. Her companion, the subservient Second Mistress, reached around blindly in search of her. The soldier jerked the chain connected to the younger woman's shackle with his foot, restricting Second Mistress to her seat.
When the clock inside the community hall struck twelve times, the villagers' true torment began. Magistrate Toan, who had been concealed behind the dark window of the sedan, stepped out to announce that the hour for the capital punishment had arrived and that this would be the villagers' last opportunity to bid farewell to those they loved. He ordered a number of his men to hold back the crowd while others unhooked the back door of the truck. The prisoners inched single-file toward the opening, descended a few steps, then jumped the remaining distance to the ground.
Master Nguyen and his two mistresses were the last to make their way toward the opening. Sightlessly they fumbled for a wall to guide their steps but found none. It must have been a frightening experience for them, feeling the sunlight that penetrated their coarse blindfolds, yet being unable to see.
A couple of soldiers on the truck shoved Master Nguyen from behind. He fell forward and crashed into First Mistress. She, in turn, staggered ahead. Like a toppling line of dominoes, the prisoners collided against one another, while the iron shackles pulled at their hands. Dan's parents were dragged across the truck bed by their bloody palms and flung onto the earth like three rice sacks. The laughter of the soldiers carried above the distressed cries of the onlookers.
Among the hysterical women, a beggar, whose face was half-covered under a large conical straw hat, watched the scene with visible sadness. After the prisoners were assembled in front of the community hall, she withdrew into a shady grove that faced the marketplace. Behind an oak tree, the little boy was waiting for her. Traces of tears stained his muddy cheeks. He raised his arms toward her.
“Save my daddy, please,” he said.
The beggar took his head between her hands, drew him toward her, and kissed his forehead several times. Tears also welled up in her eyes. “I can't, young Master,” she said. “I can only try to save you.”
She lifted him up and laid him inside her basket. With a sweeping movement, she swung it over her shoulders and started off.
“Where are we going, Ven?” the boy asked in a faltering voice.
“We are going home, young Master. They are going to kill your father at the doorstep of his mansion. Custom requires that a pirate must be executed in front of his own house. Because his crew spent so much time there, they will meet their fate in the same place. It is your duty to watch this ritual with a calm and strong mind and then judge for yourself: Does this bloodshed require revenge? Let this experience guide you into adulthood. Someday, I hope you will raise your head and say in the enemy's face, ‘I am the son of a man you killed because of your own greed. And now it is my turn to claim your life.’ And then you will draw back in order to watch life ebb from his eyes. When that time comes, I want to be right next to you.”
Snug in his basket atop his wife's shoulders, Dan cried until exhaustion claimed him. Even while he slept, the image of his father and two stepmothers in their helpless state tormented his thoughts. Ven made no effort to assuage her young husband's grief. When at last he stopped sobbing and fell asleep, she was thankful for the quiet.
After a few more turns on the dusty red road, they approached the tall brick wall of their former home. At the entrance, behind a few large fir trees, a couple of soldiers slumped against the hard concrete, fast asleep. Military hats, made of straw and decorated with tufts of horsehair, covered their faces.
Ven used a post placed at an angle against the wall to hoist herself up a few inches. Looking into the garden, she saw no one. The desolate ground baked under the hot sun, lonelier than a cemetery. Ashes swirled in the wind like flakes of wild pollen.
She lifted Dan out of the basket and tossed him over her shoulder. The boy woke groggily. She hurled the empty bamboo basket to the other side of the wall. He stretched his thin limbs around her. His breath, like the muggy air, was hot against her neck. Then, with the boy's legs wrapped around her waist and his arms holding her neck like those of a little monkey clinging to its mother, Ven's limbs were free to help her to spring over the wall, using the post for support. After perching briefly on top of the barrier, they landed on a soft bed of grass. Ven used her back to absorb the impact of the fall.
Once they got to their feet, Dan thought he heard a car engine over the gusts of wind that sighed above their heads. The wicked noise that had rung in his ears for the last two weeks grew louder. Was fear making him imagine the sound? The alarmed expression on his wife's face told him she heard it, too. She reached for the bamboo basket, urging him to climb inside.
From his basket, he saw the dazzling light reflected from the shining top of the car over the far end of the tall wall. Behind it waddled the truck, bearing its cargo of human misery. Moments later, the pounding footsteps of the soldiers reverberated in the humid air. Above the clatter, Dan heard the cries of the victims' relatives, who panted after the two vehicles, reaching up in a vain effort to touch their loved ones' hands.
His wife remained calm in the midst of the chaos. She stood at the edge of the yard, examining their surroundings. The garden was made up of a number of rectangular plots of well-kept grasses, separated by wooden paths. Parts of it were far enough from the main house to have been spared from the fire. At the corners near the wall were clusters of mango, guava, and jackfruit trees with thick foliage, which merged to form a canopy over the compound's ornate entrance. One of the tallest mango trees had several branches reaching out over the main pathway. Without hesitation,
Ven climbed the tree, holding on to its branches as she moved upward.
Dan wrapped his hands around his wife's neck and crouched lower in the basket. Although her burden was awkward, she moved with skill and precision. Soon they were thirty feet above the ground, looking down at the road through a thin curtain of leaves.
Balancing on a horizontal branch, Ven shifted the basket in front of her. Dan remained motionless, but his mind raced with curiosity. All around him, green mangoes in various stages of growth dangled on their thin stalks.
The fruit reminded him of the little prizes his father had hung on the branches of the cherry tree at the beginning of every New Year's celebration. For as long as he could remember, that tradition was his father's way of rewarding the servants for their hard work. He scratched his nose and blinked away a few tears. His wife made no gesture to comfort him.
“You have cried enough, young Master. Now please be still,” she said to him.
He twisted to face her with a pleading look. “I don't want to be here. Please, Ven, please. You cannot make me. You have no right, for you are not my mother.”
She set the basket on a wide horizontal branch that forked outward like the two grasping jaws of a pair of pincers, less than two feet away from the tree trunk. In her eyes he saw an unfamiliar expression that terrified him. “Be grateful that I am not your mother,” she said. “She has abandoned you. She chose to value herself and a lowly gardener over you, her own son. As for me, the gods have cursed me since the day my grandparents sent me to the house of Nguyen. And now you are becoming a heavy load for me to handle, but I am bound to you under Heaven's law. I assure you, young Master, I have had many moments when I was tempted to leave you. But I knew that if I did, my conscience would forever haunt me. I made a vow to take care of you. I hope that you will always treat me with the respect due to me as your lawfully wedded first wife.
“You don't want to witness the gruesome details of the execution? I am afraid that I cannot spare you this dreadful sight. In order for you to harbor the revenge in your head and the bitterness in your heart, you must witness the death of your father at the hands of his enemies. Only then will your grief be so profound that it will force you to seek payback. Now, be silent.”
