The Mountains Sing(49)
My uncle held the bottle with both hands, staring at it.
“It was depressing whenever we passed a destroyed area. No birds, butterflies, flowers, or green trees. The howling wind sounded like the cackling of angry ghosts.
“It was more dangerous, too, as the enemy could see us more easily from above. I’d never touched a dead person before the war, except my father, but now I was constantly digging graves, burying my comrades.”
I reached for my uncle’s arm.
“Thành and I became best friends. We told each other we had to survive, to get back to our families. Thành showed me his wristband made of tiny wooden beads. His mother had walked the Yên T? Mountain’s thousands of steps, to reach the sacred Yên T? Pagoda where she received the wristband from the head monk whose blessing she believed would protect her son from harm. I showed Thành my lucky charm: the S?n ca bird.”
My uncle took another sip of the liquor.
“After many weeks, we arrived in Qu?ng Bình, a central province. As we stood on a riverbank, my jaw dropped. In front of me, hundreds of sampans glided on the emerald water. They’d come to pick us up, bringing us into the famous Phong Nha caves. We rowed under thousands of magical-looking rock formations that hung low, glimmering like domes of stars above the flickering light of torches.”
“The caves sound stunning, Uncle.”
He nodded. “Yes. . . . For a little while it felt as if we’d left the war to enter the world of peace. There were no more bombs and bullets, no more death. Just water lapping against our boats. I smelled the sweetness of peace in those caves, H??ng. I inhaled it, and I longed for peace.
“When we arrived at the heart of Phong Nha, I found thousands of soldiers resting on sandy beaches along the riverbanks. I tried to find Thu?n and your father, but they weren’t there.
“Phong Nha isn’t a cave—it’s a gigantic system of caves. Where I rested, sunlight poured in through cracks between high mountains, twinkling on the rock formations. The mountains shielded us. At night, artists who’d traveled all the way from Hà N?i sang, danced, and read poetry to us. For the first time in months, we were able to talk and laugh freely. We no longer had to be afraid of our own voices.
“I had one of the best nights of my life in that cave. I could hold a girl performer’s hands, inhaling her hair’s perfume. When I fell asleep on the riverbank, amidst the water’s gentle lapping sounds, I dreamed of Nhung.” Uncle ??t gulped down his liquor.
Miss Nhung? Last night, my uncle’s girlfriend had arrived shortly after our dinner. She’d waited for him seven long years, and I’d thought he would be happy to see her. But he avoided her eyes and only answered what she asked. Grandma was still boiling water for her tea when my uncle said he was exhausted and needed to sleep. After he’d gone to bed, Grandma tried to console Miss Nhung, but she left, crying. Had the girl performer made Uncle ??t change his mind about Miss Nhung?
“The cave was so peaceful, H??ng, that I wanted to stay there, forever. I imagined getting married and raising my children there. But when morning came, we had to leave.
“To help us get to the South, the H? Chí Minh Trail cut through both Laos and Cambodia. But the American bombs found us there. We brought the war into our neighbors’ homes.”
I saw myself in the girls and boys in our neighboring countries who had to run for shelters during bombings. Years later, I was to learn that hundreds of thousands of Laotians and Cambodians perished in the war known internationally as “the Vi?t Nam War,” but called by the current Vietnamese government “the Resistance War against America to Save the Nation.” Regardless of its name, even today the war continues to kill children in Vi?t Nam, Laos, and Cambodia, with millions of tons of unexploded ordnance still buried in the belly of the earth.
My uncle swallowed. “Soon, we moved back onto Vietnamese soil, into southern areas controlled by the enemy. Thành and I stayed close. I hung on to my lucky charm, and I pulled the little bird out night after night, whispering to it. By this time, the war had cut down more than half of my company. There were just around fifty of us left.
“I had to be alert and careful all the time. In a war, the smallest mistake or negligence could cost a man his life, H??ng.
“Once, we stopped at a stream to get drinking water. One of my comrades made a sign. He gestured toward the stream, then pointed at his nose. I cupped some water into my palms, sniffing it. It smelled of soap. Our captain sent a small group of us upstream. We sneaked through the jungle, keeping a safe distance from the stream’s bank. After a while, we heard muffled laughter. Creeping closer, I saw a group of soldiers through gaps in the foliage.”
My uncle stopped speaking. The oil lamp flickered.
“There were around ten shirtless men washing themselves on the opposite shore. They were young, these foreigners, perhaps just eighteen or nineteen. Some were white and had blond hair, while the others were so black, their skin looked like it’d been smoothed with charcoal. Two boys were just standing in the middle of the stream, splashing water at each other, laughing. Dappled sunlight glimmered on their bodies, glittering on the stream’s surface. The air smelled fresh and happy. It was such a peaceful sight that I just watched, entranced.
“Rounds of gunfire shook me. In the blink of an eye, the foreign boys had fallen backward into the stream. They howled, kicking up water. Their handsome faces twisted into pictures of horror. I stayed frozen as more bullets pierced through them, blowing their flesh into the air.