Up Country (70 page)

We left the pagoda and walked into the village of Ban Hin.

T
he village of Ban Hin was not like the tropical and subtropical villages of the coastal plains; there were no palm trees, for one thing, but lots of pine and huge leafy trees, plus thick clumps of wild rhododendron that were starting to bloom on this cool February afternoon.

The village was hemmed in by the steeply rising mountain to the east, the rice paddies to the north and south, and the one-lane dirt road we’d arrived on.

The peasants’ huts were mostly rough-hewn pine with roofs of thatched bamboo leaves. Each house was surrounded by a vegetable garden, and in some of the gardens I could see the entrances to earthen bomb shelters, remnants of the American bombing.

I wouldn’t have imagined that a valley this remote had been bombed, but I recalled in Tran Van Vinh’s letter to his brother, Lee, that Vinh had mentioned that their cousin, Liem, had written and described trucks filled with wounded soldiers, and columns of fresh troops heading south. I could picture this now, this remote valley road that began at the Chinese border, where much of the war matériel originated, then wound its way to the Laotian border where the Ho Chi Minh Trail network began. I had the feeling that anyone here over thirty years old remembered the United States Air Force.

The village was filled with kids and adults of all ages, and it seemed that most of the residents of Ban Hin were home on this last day of Tet.

In fact, everyone was staring at us, the way people in a small rural
American village might stare at two East Asians who were wandering around in black silk pajamas and conical straw hats.

We reached the center of the village, which consisted of a red dirt square, no bigger than a tennis court, surrounded by more houses and an open pavilion that housed a small produce market. I could see some picnic-like tables where people sat, talked, drank, and ate. They stopped what they were doing and looked at us.

I always knew that if we got this far, the biggest problem would be here in this village. The military facility on the road added to the problem.

In the center of the square was a simple concrete slab about ten feet long and six feet high set on another concrete slab on the ground. The vertical slab was painted white, and on the white paint was what appeared to be red lettering. At the base of the slab were Tet blossoms and joss sticks burning in ceramic bowls. We walked over to the monument and stood before it.

The red lettering was, in fact, names, running in rows top to bottom. Across the top were larger letters, and Susan read, “‘In honor of the men and women who fought for the Reunification of the Fatherland in the American War of 1954 to 1975.’” She said, “These are the names of the missing, and there are a lot of them, including Tran Quan Lee.” She pointed.

I saw Tran Quan Lee, and saw, too, that there were many people of the family of Tran listed as missing.

We both read the names, but did not see Tran Van Vinh. So far, so good. I said, “The dead must be on the other side.”

We walked around the monument, whose entire surface was painted with red-lettered names that looked as though they’d been recently touched up.

A crowd of about a hundred had gathered, and they were inching a little closer to us. I noticed that a number of middle-aged men and women had missing arms or legs.

I looked at the names of the dead, which were listed chronologically, like the names on the Wall in Washington. If Tran Van Vinh had been killed in action, we’d have no idea when, but it wasn’t before February 1968, so I started there, while Susan began at the end with April 1975.

I held my breath as I read the names.

Susan said, “I don’t see him yet . . .”

“Neither do I.” But I didn’t want to see his name, and I may have
unconsciously blocked it out, though every time I saw a “Tran,” my heart skipped a beat.

The crowd was right behind us now. It felt a little odd staring at the monument to the dozens of dead and missing of this village, all of whom had been killed by my compatriots, and maybe even by me. On the other hand, I had my own wall to deal with. Also, I was Canadian.

Susan and I kept reading the names, and she said softly to me, “A lot of these names are women and children, and the names are noted as having been killed on the homefront, which I guess means by bombs.”

I didn’t reply.

Susan and I met in the middle of the list and read the last of the names to ourselves. I said, “He’s not here.”

“Not here, either. But is he still alive?”

“I’ll bet everyone behind us can answer that question.”

As I stared at the simple slab of concrete with hand-painted names, I couldn’t help but think of the polished granite wall in Washington. In the end, there was no difference in these two memorials.

I said to Susan, “Canadian. Ready?”

“Oui.”

We turned around and looked at the crowd. In rural South Vietnam, we had aroused passing curiosity; here, we aroused intense interest, and if they discovered we were Americans, they might get hostile. I couldn’t read anything in the faces of the crowd, but they didn’t look like a welcoming committee. I said, “Bonjour.”

There was some murmuring, but no smiles. It occurred to me that with Dien Bien Phu so close, there might be some residual animosity toward the French.
Ong die here . . . grand-père.
I said, “Nous sommes Canadiens.”

I thought I saw the crowd relax a bit, or maybe that’s what I wanted to see.

Susan, too, said, “Bonjour.” She then said something about us coming from Dien Bien Phu, and was it okay if we made une photographie of Le Monument?

No one seemed to object, so Susan stood back and made une photographie of the names of the dead.

Finally, someone came forward, a middle-aged gent in black wool pants and an orange sweater. He said something to me in French, but I totally didn’t get it, and I didn’t think he cared if the pen of my aunt was on the desk of my uncle.

Susan said something to him in halting French, and he replied.

The guy’s French was a little better than Susan’s, so she mixed in some halting Vietnamese, which had the effect of startling the crowd and bringing everyone closer.

It couldn’t be long before a few soldiers showed up and asked for our passports and discovered we weren’t actually Canadians.

I was starting to feel less like James Bond and more like Indiana Jones in a movie titled
Village of Doom
.

Susan was giving this guy the line of crap about l’histoire de la guerre américaine, which he seemed to be half buying.

Finally, she said something to him in more fluent Vietnamese, and I could hear the name Tran Van Vinh.

Asking for someone by name in a small town in Vietnam, or Kansas, or anywhere sort of stops the show.

There was a long silence, then the man looked at both of us, and I held my breath until finally he nodded and said, “Oui. Il suvivre.”

I knew I had not come this far to visit a grave, and here I was in the village of Ban Hin, and the answer to the question of whether or not Tran Van Vinh was alive was, “Yes, he’s alive.”

Susan glanced at me, nodded and smiled. She turned back to the guy and continued in broken Vietnamese, with a little French thrown in, and he replied to her in slow Vietnamese, with lots of French. We were actually getting away with this.

Finally, he spoke the magic word, “Allons.”

And off we went, following him through the crowd, which parted for us.

We passed through the covered market, and the man stopped at a community bulletin board covered with clear plastic. He pointed to two faded black and white photographs of Americans in flight suits with their hands in the air, surrounded by pajama-clad peasants carrying old bolt action rifles. There was some room left for another picture of me and Susan in a similar pose.

The man said, “Les pilotes Americains.” I glanced at Susan, and we made eye contact.

We continued on a narrow tree-shaded path between small houses toward the towering mountain at the end of the village where a group of low hillocks lay at the base of the mountain, which I recognized as burial mounds. Beyond the burial mounds were small wooden houses.

We followed the guy up a winding path toward a house built of hand-hewn pine and thatched with bamboo leaves.

We got to the door of the house, and the guy motioned us to wait. He entered through an open door.

A few seconds later, he came out and motioned us inside. As we entered, he said something to us in French about chez Tran.

We found ourselves in this one-room house whose floor was packed red clay. Glass windows let in some gray light, and I smelled charcoal burning somewhere in the damp air.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see hammocks folded along the walls with blankets in them, and on the floor were a number of woven bamboo baskets and chests. A low table without chairs sat in the center of the floor on a black rug.

In the far corner was a clay cooking stove, which glowed red from the firebox with burning charcoal. To the right of the clay stove was a simple altar against the wall, and on the altar were burning joss sticks and framed photographs. Hanging on the wall to the right of the altar was a big poster of Ho Chi Minh. Beside that hung a Vietnamese flag and some framed certificates or awards.

I looked around again to confirm that no one was home.

We stood there a moment, then Susan said, “He says this is the house of Tran Van Vinh, and we should wait here.”

I don’t like being boxed in by walls, but it was too late to worry about that now. We had arrived, one way or the other, at the end of our journey. I asked, “Did he say where the liquor cabinet was?”

“No. But he said I could smoke.” She walked to the charcoal stove, took off her backpack, sat on a hearth rug, and lit a cigarette.

I slipped off my backpack and put it next to hers. I saw that the roof was only about six feet high at the far wall, and I went over to it and pulled out the pistol from under my leather jacket. Having learned a thing or two from the Viet Cong, I slipped the .45 and the two extra magazines between two rows of tied thatch.

Susan said, “Good idea. I think if the soldiers arrive, we could talk ourselves out of just about anything but that gun.”

I didn’t reply to that overly optimistic statement, but I asked her, “What did you tell that guy?”

She replied, “His name is Mr. Khiem, and he’s the village schoolteacher.
As you suggested, I told him we were Canadian military historians who had been to Dien Bien Phu, and that we were also studying the American War. I also said that we were told in Dien Bien Phu to see the war memorial in the square of Ban Hin. I made that up.”

“You’re good at that.”

“I said I’d heard that many veterans of the American War lived in the Na Valley, and we were especially interested in veterans of the ’68 Tet Offensive, and more specifically the battle of Quang Tri City.” She drew on her cigarette and continued, “But Mr. Khiem wasn’t offering any names, except his own. He was at the battle of Hue. Finally, in frustration, I just said I’d heard the name of Tran Van Vinh come up in Dien Bien Phu. We’d heard that he was a brave soldier who’d been wounded at Quang Tri.” She looked at me and said, “I didn’t want to hang around that square any longer so I went for broke.”

“Did Mr. Khiem buy it?”

“Maybe. He was somewhere between incredulous and proud that they spoke well of Ban Hin in Dien Bien Phu.” Susan added, “Mr. Khiem is also a Tran and is related to Vinh in some way or another.”

I said, “There were lots of dead and missing Trans on that memorial. I’m glad we’re Canadians.”

She tried to smile and said, “I hope he believed that.”

“He didn’t get hostile, so I guess he did. On our next mission to Vietnam, we’ll be Swiss.”

She lit another cigarette. “Send me a postcard.”

I said to her, “You did fine. I’m really proud of you, and if Mr. Khiem went to get the soldiers, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank you.”

I asked her, “Does Tran Van Vinh live here, or is he visiting for Tet?”

“Mr. Khiem said Tran Van Vinh lives here in Ban Hin and has lived here all his life.”

“Where is he now?”

“Mr. Khiem said something about seeing his relatives off.”

“That should put him in a good mood. When is he expected back?”

“Whenever the daily bus arrives from Dien Bien Phu.”

I looked at the picture of Uncle Ho and asked, “Do you think this is a setup?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you Canadians have an annoying habit of answering a question with a question.”

She forced a smile and smoked.

I walked over to the family altar and looked at the framed photographs in the dim light. I noticed that all the men and women were young, in their early to mid twenties. I said to Susan, “No one gets too old around here.”

She glanced at the photographs. “They use photos of the deceased when they were in their prime, no matter how old they were when they died.”

“Really? So if I died today and I was Buddhist, they could use one of the photos you just took of me.”

She smiled. “I think they’d call your mother for a slightly less recent photograph.” She added, “The family altar is more ancestor worship than Buddhist. It’s sort of confusing. The Vietnamese who are not Catholic call themselves Buddhist, but they also practice a primitive ancestor worship. Plus, they practice Confucianism and Taoism. They call it Tam Giao—the Triple Religion.”