The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh Page B

his cheek. "At least you came back," she said quietly.
    He stared at the little sister, now naked in his bed, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. He had forgotten her name and was now too embarrassed to ask. She began to speak, quietly: "My mother died that same year. I stopped collecting garbage. In fact, the dump doesn't even exist now. I came to town alone."
    They each spilled their stories, talking throughout the morning. She in bed, he beside it. Kien found some rice and fried it over his kerosene stove, and they shared a small meal. She rested again.
    Later she opened her eyes, looking over at him with a small smile. She reached out and began tugging his arm, inviting him to slide in beside her. Kien held back.
    "Come on, please.You saved me," she said.
    When Kien declined again, she seemed thankful and didn't persist. "You're funny," she said. "Strange, I mean."
    Kien moved around the room picking up anything of value he could find. Paper money, lottery tickets, anything.
    After she'd dressed and was preparing to leave he handed her the money and the tickets. She started laughing gaily, but took them. He saw her out into the street and back up to the Thuyen Quang lake, where he had helped her the long night before. "You'd better make yourself scarce," she told him. "People will jump to wrong conclusions if they see you with me. I'll never forget you, though.You're really nice, and strange."
    The girl withdrew her hand and walked away. He felt so dry, so vulgar, so impotent and spent. The result of those months and years at war.

    He was at a stage when he had no idea how he would spend the rest of his life. Study? Career? Business? All those things he had once considered important, and attainable, suddenly seemed meaningless and beyond his reach. He was still alive —just. He had no idea of how he would earn his daily living. It was a time of utter isolation, of spiritual emptiness, of surrender.
    Yet the city was now coming alive again, this time in a synthetically generated frenzy of patriotism. Another war was about to break out! Pol Pot had been chased out of Cambodia by Vietnamese troops and because of that Pol Pot's allies, the Chinese, were threatening Vietnam's northern border. This would be another turning-point in their lives. Kien's friends emerged to advise him to rejoin the army. Long live his career! Long live the army of Vietnam! A good soldier would always be invaluable, they said.That went on for weeks.
    In the streets, on the trains, in offices, in shops, in teahouses and beer gardens, the talk once more was of fighting and weapons. Passionate discussions on the situation on the northern border, with China threatening to invade because of their humiliation in losing Pol Pot, removed from power in Cambodia by the glorious Vietnamese Army.
    And night after night express trains packed with soldiers rumbled through Hanoi on the way to the northern front. Tanks , and guns were jammed into freight cars, compartments were filled with young soldiers, and the smell of soldiers' sweat wafted out from train doors and windows. Kien caught the familiar smell of excited fear, of young men soon to be burdened with hardships, bullets and blasting, hunger and cold. This time on the northern border.
    "Just like old times, right?" said someone in the crowd close by. "Like in 1965 in the early days against the Americans," the rich city people commented.
    "At least we're much stronger compared to those days," others commented, confident of another victory.
    Kien listened, thinking they might be right. But he knew it wasn't true that young Vietnamese loved war. Not true at all. If war came they would fight, and fight courageously. But that didn't mean they loved fighting.
    No. The ones who loved war were not the young men but the others like the politicians, middle-aged men with fat bellies and short legs. Not the ordinary people. The recent years of war had brought enough suffering and pain to last them a thousand