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An altar for young Gion
By Tran Khac
In
early 1972, my unit was on its march along the Ho Chi
Minh Trail when a flash of light shattered the curtain
of darkness. Light blazed; explosions blasted. Luy and I
clenched our fists, shoving each other into the dirt.
When the sound of bombs receded, I stood up, stunned to
find the forest in tatters; the smoke of bombs and then
the settling dust of the ravaged earth gradually exposed
the canopy of heaven in a night that was clear and vast
and thick with stars.
I heard the cries of men pleading. Where was Luy? I
shuddered: My hand held Luy’s wrist. That’s all there
remained of Luy’s body, his severed hand, with its
exquisite wrist watch losing luster.
 Since
my unit was on an urgent march, we left behind a small
group to bury our dead. From that day until now I’ve not
been able to find Luy’s remains, and so when I visited
Luy’s ancestral home in Tang Phuc Village, I was unable
to take him’s remains to the War Cemetery.
I stopped my motorbike at the "Y" in the paved road and
asked a girl approaching me
"Can you tell me the way to Tang Phuc?"
The girl looked at me, then broke into a smile.
"Don’t you recognise me, Mr. Nuoc?" she asked. "Have
you returned for Luy’s Death Day Commemoration? Tang
Phuc Village is that way – it’s not far."
I was dumb founded and looked again. It had been only
two years since I’d been back, but the village had
changed so! Sure enough– There, just beyond, stood the
gate to Elder Khang’s house. I thanked the girl and rode
off.
The entire household came out to greet me, showing
closeness and warmth. Luy’s mother, Elder Luy–according
to the customs of our area, we call the parents by the
name of their eldest child–had grey hair, but her eyes
remained clear. As for Luy’s wife, she seemed younger
now and happier because Quyet, Luy’s only son, had
finished school with a degree from the University of
Transport. These days, Quyet flew in an airplane over
the Ho Chi Minh Trail to survey a new north-south route.
I lit three sticks of incense and silently gazed at
Luy’s picture on the family altar. The enlargement was
fuzzy because the photo had been taken for his
identification papers. Luy seemed to gaze at us from
some remote place.
"When will you marry?" I later asked Quyet.
He smiled. Elder Luy answered, her reply was like a
dropped knife.
"I’m about to send word to Thoa in the lower hamlet
to come here so you can meet her. She’s extremely
dutiful."
I didn’t dare laugh aloud. These days, youths are free
to fly to their own heights. A young man like Quyet
might be in Hanoi today, in Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow,
and then off to Australia or France the following month.
These days, the young follow their own ideas. Why should
a father or mother worry if they’re not married? I was
thinking this, but I didn’t dare say anything, though
Quyet and I caught each other’s eye and smiled.
The entire village had prospered since the "Open Door"
policy. Every family had built a brick house with a flat
roof. There were even some two-story houses with cupolas
on top. Cupolas had been the rage in 1990; villagers
built parapets with green and lemon-yellow ceramic
balustrades and, on top, red roof caps; the result
looked like the colorful hub of a cart wheel. Labourers
working in Iraq had brought this style, which originated
in the Middle Ages, back to Vietnam.
Luy’s house was the only one in the village that
retained the ancient and traditional Vietnamese style
because, as a widow and single parent, Luy’s wife hadn’t
been able to make money and Young Quyet had only been
working for a few years. Their house was divided into
the traditional three sections with decorated walls and
a tile roof. A courtyard made of bricks from Bat Trang
included a cistern with a vaulted cover to keep out the
falling bamboo and mahogany leaves, and there was a
garden hidden behind the kitchen. This was an honest
family. There had been some changes in the interior: a
floor of flowered tiles, an electric light, a 14-inch
colour TV.
Luy’s wife said to me, "We have a lot. More than I
ever dreamed of. If we want more ‘modern things’ then
Older Brother Quyet will have to buy them."
From the time she’d been widowed, Luy’s wife had called
her son "Older Brother."
Elder Luy looked on with approval.
"Yes," she said, "the house will belong to the
two of them. Soon, it will be their worry."
Once again, the two of us- "uncle" and "nephew"–looked
at each other and smiled.
Quyet leaned close to my ear. "As if I already had a
wife! Hardly!"
We all sat down to enjoy the meal, with the entire
family gathering around the tray of dishes. Elder Luy
had considered me her son from the day I brought home
Luy’s things and the news of his death. Sister Luy or
Luy’s wife gave me responsibility for Quyet’s studies,
so when Quyet came to Hanoi to attend university, he
lived at my house. Because we were so poor, my wife had
to re-tailor an old shirt of mine, taking it in at the
armpits for Quyet to wear.
"Our household is poor, nephew," she told him, "but
the poorer you are, the more you must live up to your
name, determination."
During this visit to Luy’s family, my wife remained at
home. In her absence, Sister Luy doted on me.
I poured a cup of rice alcohol and placed it in Elder
Luy’s hand.
"Have a little, Grandmother, so we, younger ones, can
also enjoy ourselves."
The older woman began to weep; her tears were prolonged.
She set the cup of alcohol on the table.
"The only thing I want in life is to cradle your
younger brother’s remains and take them to the War
Cemetery. But I don’t know where he is."
"Think about it, Grandmother," Quyet said. "There
are so many people missing all over the country, not
just my father."
A neighborhood child ran in the house.
"Grandmother," he said, using the generic form of
address "may I borrow your hoe?"
"Of course, Grandchild," the old woman answered.
"But come here first and have something to eat."
The child was merry. "My grandfather sent me on
ahead. He’s waiting at the end of the alley."
"Then go on out to the garden and get the hoe. It’s
in its usual place, leaning against Young Gion’s altar."
The boy ran out of the house. Elder Luy called after him
"Let me get it for you. It’s not gracious for you to
go alone. And take some bananas with you for your
younger brother."
"Please," Sister Luy urged me, "eat as if you
were at home. Grandmother’s still a little crazy that
way. She remembers him on every Death Day Anniversary
and every Tet and whenever she picks up her chopsticks.
At times I’ve had to say, ‘How can our guests eat if you
act that way?’"
With that, Sister Luy also began to cry.
I was dumbstruck.
"Young Gion - Who’s he? Do you mean he has an altar?
I’ve come here often but never heard of this."
Quyet spoke next.
"Don’t you remember, Uncle? Young Gion flew the F-4
that was shot down in our garden in 1972."
"How could I forget? I was just taken aback about an
altar."
"Ah, well," Quyet said. "It happened this way..."
And so, hearing the story of Young Gion once again, I
finally understood this last detail: At the end of 1972,
when American B-52 bombers tried to smash us into ruins,
a flaming "phantom" plummeted into Elder Luy’s garden.
The plane exploded as soon as it struck the earth,
thrusting itself deep into the family fish pond and
creating a terrible stench.
The village returned to quiet soon after the turmoil of
the bombing. Elder Luy, her daughter-in-law and grandson
filled in the "pond." In the front of their
rehabilitated garden they planted several dong rieng
bushes of aromatic ginger to harvest and sell in order
to buy food. The seeds took root quickly; the plants
grew tall, with dense leaves and colourful flowers.
Not many people knew that every year, on the Day of
Lonely Souls, Elder Luy bent her head to a private task.
Every year, on the Fifteenth day of the Seventh Lunar
Month, she slipped behind the ginger bushes, taking with
her sticks of incense to light in memory of the young
American who lay buried beneath the earth.
After receiving compassion pay for Luy’s death, the
family was able to rebuild the house. A few bricks
remained. Elder Luy led one of the workers out behind
the garden and asked him to build an altar. Only then
did everyone know that the elderly woman had been paying
homage to the young American pilot. A number of people
thought her idiotic and half-witted.
"He’s an enemy!" they said. "How can you honor
his monstrous deed with the sacred smoke of incense?!"
"They were both soldiers," Elder Luy would say,
turning to her daughter-in-law. "They were both
unlucky..."
Whereupon the two women would think of Luy and begin to
cry. This had all happened more than twenty years
before. Now, I was touched to hear Luy’s wife add more
details.
"A MIA delegation came here looking for the remains
of American soldiers who’d died during the war. They
said an American’s bones remained inside the airplane
carcass. They asked permission to dig up the plane and
take the remains back to America."
The excavation took several days. Once more, Elder Luy’s
garden was devastated, her crops demolished, and the
earth turned inside out. The Americans winched the
airplane up our of the old pond. Then they retrieved
from the mangled cockpit the pilot’s smashed bones and
his intact skull protected by his pilot’s helmet.
As the excavation team was arranging the bones on a
nylon sheet spread out near the excavation site, the
head of the delegation checked around for the source of
the strange fragrance of incense in the blue smoke
floating over the leaves of nearby trees.
Looking around, the American noticed Luy’s mother at the
end of the garden. She was murmuring a prayer to some
ancestor, at least he supposed so, for he couldn’t see
her face but only the altar. The American stood there,
curious. Parting the ginger bushes, he walked towards
the altar. He knew a few words of Vietnamese, which he
spoke with a heavy accent.
"What is this?"
The interpreter asked Luy’s mother again and then
explained.
"This is the house and the resting place of the soul
of your pilot who died in battle. For the last
twenty-five years, she has kept his soul free of hunger
and thirst. She lit the incense today to pray for his
safe return to his family, so he can rest in peace."
"My God!" the delegation head said.
He asked permission to follow Luy’s mother into her
home. His face turned pale when he saw the family’s
altar in centre of the house and, on it, a photograph of
a soldier of the Vietnamese People’s Army. His hands,
with a camera, trembled as the interpreter told him that
the woman’s son had died in the war and that she still
didn’t know where he was buried. The mother was
seventy-one years old; her last life wish was to bring
home whatever remained of her son, to wash his bones in
sweetened water, and to make him a proper burial. She
hadn’t yet been able to do that.
The American followed Asian custom by standing, head
bowed, his palms together in prayerful silence. He stood
in front of Luy’s altar as a representative of dead and
living Americans, expressing compassion for the mothers
in Viet Nam.
After he’d seen the simple house and the tattered
clothes the old woman wore, the American thought of
giving Luy’s mother a few dollar notes. But the
interpreter put out his hand in time to stop him and
then made a long speech, turning to the curious
villagers who had gathered.
"I just explained to the American how in Vietnam each
village has an altar to the village spirit and to the
people who made some great contribution to our country
and its people, and how at its cemetery each village has
a small pagoda for wandering souls, where we pray for
the missing. In the past, this area was a battle front.
The enemy died in droves. And so I explained that on a
nearby hill you built a small temple to the lonely
spirits. I told him how each year in the Seventh Month
on the Day of Lonely Souls, you go to that altar to
light incense in a ceremony to honor the wandering
souls. I told him about the offerings of boiled sweet
potatoes, rice wafers, popcorn, and white rice soup
ladled into ‘bowls’ made from banyan leaves, about the
first secret buds of bamboo shoots."
The gathered villagers nodded their heads. As for the
American, his eyes opened wide as if he’d just stepped
into a strange world.
Elderly Luy sat on her heels, chewing betel nut. She
asked slowly,
"What’s his name, the man who piloted the plane?"
The interpreter answered. "His name is John. John
Brown."
The American pulled a picture from his pocket to show
her. "There he is. John Brown."
The picture showed a handsome young American with an
intelligent appearance and eyes that seemed to be
laughing. The American continued
"His mother is alive. She lives in a retirement
community for elderly people who are lonely. His wife
married someone else."
Mrs. Luy spit out her betel saliva.
"Gion. I’ll remember now. His name is Gion."
One might think that Elder Luy would have destroyed
Gion’s altar once the excavation team had taken the
pilot’s remains back to America. But no. On each Tet New
Years, on each Day of Lonely Souls and on each
anniversary of Gion’s death, the old woman takes a glass
of water and a bunch of bananas or oranges to set on the
altar in the garden. Then she lights incense; when the
incense finishes burning, she quietly re-enters her
house.
The old woman has always told the men of the village
"My son went to the South, but he has returned to the
North. At times he is in the jungles of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. At times he is in a corner of the kitchen under
the gables. Who knows when the souls of the dead are far
away and when they are near?"
The village of Tang Phuc is on the Yen Vien rail line
that runs north of Hanoi. Bomb craters from the B-52
attack left the earth looking like a sieve, but by now,
ordinary life has pressed everyone into making a living
and seeking personal riches. Still, perhaps every
Vietnamese, deep within his or her spirit, would find
Elder Luy’s gesture ordinary.
The afternoon of that visit, before I returned to Ha
Noi, I went out to visit the altar standing in a corner
of Elder Luy’s garden. The altar was as tall as a
person; its facade was straight. There was a hollow like
a place to rest in the back of the altar, and in the
middle there were sticks left from burnt incense. Below
the altar, on the ground, I noticed a bit of grass
burning. A few cinders lifted with the breeze. Luy’s
mother had just been there, burning ritual money for the
dead.
Translated by Lady Borton |
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