The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh

cold, and deeply sad.

    When they slept in the jungle the rain fell on forest canopies, and Kien would dream of Hanoi in the rain, Hanoi with leaves falling. Now, as he watched the leaves falling, he remembered the jungle rains and the dreams of Hanoi. The dreams focused and refocused until past scenes and the present became a raging reality within him, images of the present and the past merging to double the impact and the smell and atmosphere of the jungle there in the room with him. Wave after wave of agonizing memories washed over his mental shores.

    One year in the seventies a false spring had appeared in Hanoi. The sun shone during the day and the air was as light and clean as any April or early May. The trees whose branches had turned bare during winter suddenly sprouted beautiful green buds. In the parks the flowers began blooming, and migratory birds began returning to nest under the eaves of city buildings. For those few moments in a season Hanoi lost its lonely, desolate look.
    One day after that week of sunny midwinter days the sky darkened, an icy cold wind began gusting along the newly greened streets, and a sorrowful, drizzling rain began. The newly emerged buds retreated, the blooms wilted, the birds remained hidden, and the colors and the new hope that had arrived like a golden promise evaporated into the reality of harsh grey winter.
    Phuong, his childhood sweetheart, his classmate, his female lead in one of the strangest opening nights of the war theater, and his self-created ikon for salvation in peacetime, had left him again. She had gone from him when the false spring faded and real winter returned.
    Phuong had left no note and since departing had not written to him. She had probably decided never to return. The doors and the windows in her apartment were shuttered and locked and had the look of permanency about them. That had been their first parting since he had returned from the war. Her sudden, cruel departure had cut Kien deeply.
    Kien sat forlornly in his apartment, emotionally exhausted. A glint caught his eye and he turned to face a small mirror. What he saw astounded him: his hair, his beard, his wrinkles, the circles under his eyes. He tested his voice; even that had changed; it was now deep and sad. His looks, his voice, seemed to upset others these days. Was it the empty, blank stare he now saw in the mirror? Was that what they turned from, avoiding his glances?
    He became bored with his university studies. One morning he simply decided he wouldn't attend. From that point on he ended his easy student life, quietly and for no apparent reason. He stopped reading newspapers, then books, then let everything go. He lost contact with his friends, then with the outside world in general. Except drink. And cigarettes. He couldn't care less that he was penniless, that he drank and smoked almost nonstop. He wandered around outside, pacing the lonely streets. When he did sleep, it was a heavy, drunken slumber.
    In his dreams he saw Phuong now and then, but more often he dreamed of crazy, twisted things, distorted apparitions of loneliness and sorrow. Horrible, poisonous nightmares brought back images that had haunted him constantly throughout the war. During the twilights of those cold nights the familiar, lonely spirits reappeared from the Jungle of Screaming Souls, sighing and moaning to him, whispering as they floated around like pale vapors, shredded with bullet-holes.They moved into his sleep as though they were mirrors surrounding him.
    He would often awake to find himself writhing on the floor, tears streaming down his face, shivering with fear and cold. His numbed heart was seized up and his emotions overcame him. When the icy winds outside blew fiercely and rain pelted heavily against his dark windows, he would just sit there, still, not wishing to move. Sad, foolish self-pity washed over him.
    He had tried desperately to forget Phuong, but she was unforgettable. He longed for her still. Nothing