Days of Affliction

DAYS OF AFFLICTION:

A Novel of the 1968 Tet Offensive

by

Brian Carland

Published by Quiver Books, Portland Oregon,

at Smashwords

Copyright 1991, 2011, 2012 by Brian Carland

All rights reserved

Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Portions of this novel were first published under the title A Brother of Jackals by Quiver Books, an imprint of Cuivre River Publishing Company.

QuiverBooks@hotmail.com

Cover photo by Adam Jones: adamjones.freeservers.com

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But when I looked for good, evil came;

And when I waited for light, darkness

came.

My heart is in turmoil, and is never

still;

days of affliction come to meet me.

--The Book of Job

CHAPTER 1

Minh sat with his back against a tree on the hill side. Before him stretched five miles of rice paddies and then the city, with its ring of ARVN and US bases. The jungle began here, on the hill. Last year, or the year before, a large bomb had exploded on the hill, creating a small clearing. The clearing allowed him to sit in the shade of the tree and have an unobstructed view of the rice paddies and the city beyond.

He was supposed to be on watch. That was easy enough. Nothing could move anywhere on the plain below without being easily observed. This was what worried him. Tonight, his regiment would move across the rice paddies and attack the city. It would be the first blow in the General Uprising. But if they got detected out there, on that vast coverless expanse, not only would they not attack the city, but half of them would never make it back to the safety of the jungle.

No one else seemed to be much worried about this. Twice in the last hour small groups of officers had come to the clearing and examined the countryside with binoculars. They had checked their actual observation against their maps. All seemed to be relaxed and enthusiastic.

One of them joked with Minh. Tomorrow night, boy, he said, you will sleep in the city. Perhaps in the governor’s bed!

Minh shrugged. If we get across the rice paddies tonight, you mean. If we get caught out there I’ll sleep in the mud forever.

The officer laughed and then became serious. Don’t worry. The night will cover our movement. The night is our friend.

Minh watched a peasant drive a pair of bullocks across the top of a dike. The man and the animals were about two miles away. A pair of gunships took off from the American helicopter camp. Even at this distance he could make out the subtle difference in shape from the utility helicopters. That was why he had this job, he supposed. He had unusually good eyesight.

Why was it that no one else worried about crossing the rice paddies? The battle in the town did worry them, he knew that, but they all just assumed that getting to the town would be easy. Perhaps it was because most of his comrades were rural people and he was from the city. They were apprehensive of city streets while he was leery of rice paddies. In Minh's experience even the simplest things might turn on you and present danger.

There might be more traps in the city than the countryside, but one had to be careful of his choices anywhere. Minh knew that. He had learned to examine his choices critically, looking for flaws. His grandmother taught him that.

His mother had died before he could even remember her. When he was ten and his brother nine, his father was drafted into the army, and killed in battle. The orphaned brothers were raised by their father’s mother, all of them living in an uncle’s home in a city further south than the one they would attack tonight.

His grandmother was a pure Catholic in a country where nothing was pure. One could go into any home and find the paraphernalia of at least two or three different religions or sects. People's philosophy seemed the result of combining attractive or useful aspects of dissimilar systems of religion. That seemed sensible to everyone. Everyone but his grandmother.

God is not confused, she told him once. He does not reveal a little of himself to one people in one age under one Name, and then adopt a different Name and personality for another people in another time.

But you’ve said we are somewhat like God, Minh objected. If that’s so, then why are we confused about who He is?

She gazed at him for a long time when he asked her that. How old are you? she finally asked.

Ten.

She nodded. You will do well if you live long enough. She stroked his head. We are confused because God’s enemy, Satan, wants us to be confused. He presents us with empty choices, disguised as presents, and urges us to accept them.

The boy struggled with that. Finally, he slowly spoke, Then we must be a little like Satan too, or his gifts would not appeal to us.

The old woman’s eyes brightened. Ah, she said.

The memory of his grandmother calmed him. It would be all right.

Mai pulled a dress over her head while Roger sat on the creaky bed in her room. He wore only fatigue pants as he drank from the lukewarm can of beer she’d given him from the little refrigerator by the bed. She thought he seemed unhappy today, but it was so hard to tell with him. He was the strangest of the GIs she knew. It was as if he was afraid to show his feelings, afraid to trust even a whore with his happiness or sadness.

Roger had been coming to see her for three months now. In the beginning he’d seemed grateful to have found the villa. He’d told her he didn’t like visiting the laundries that lined the road for over a half mile between the camp and town. Mai understood that. She knew what such places were like. The men had sex on cots, on pads on the floor, on mats. Usually sheets hung between the makeshift beds, some¬times tilting plywood walls separated cubicles. Always, they could hear the sounds of others doing what they were doing nearby. It could be distracting. If the customers took too long, the girls might reach beneath them and play with them in a direct mechanical way, moaning encouraging obscenities, perhaps even moving their pelvis a little from side to side to stimulate. At the laundries, time was money.

One of her customers had brought Roger to the villa. Here he could have a bed in a real room and sleep with someone like Mai, who was not compelled to have sex with three men an hour. His gratitude had translated into healthy tips for Mai.

Mai sat down on the bed next to him, smoothing her dress across the front of her thighs. Her French father had given her a much lighter skin than most Vietnamese, and a fuller, more European, build. She spread her hands to show Roger the new shade of fingernail polish she’d found. It was just a bit darker than her dress.

You like? she asked, smiling down at her hands.

Yeah, sure, I like. He took another sip of the beer. There was a flatness to his voice. Perhaps he was becoming bored with her. She hoped not. He was a steady customer. She wanted to please him.

He smiled, but it seemed to her a forced smile, and then he gestured to the wall beyond the foot of the bed where she had hung two pictures, one of the Pope, the other of Nguyen Cao Ky, the vice-president. Which one of those fellows did you say was the Pope? he asked.

It was an old joke between them. She giggled and lightly slapped his forearm. Mai was Catholic, and Ky was the only prominent Catholic in the largely Buddhist government. For her, he ranked just under the Pope.

As he dressed, they made small talk. Tonight, she told him, there would be a lot of fireworks at midnight. It was Tet Eve. Tomorrow was the first day of the lunar new year. This would be the year of the monkey.

They’ve been setting off those firecrackers for days now, he said, lacing up his boots. What’s all that about?

Scare Demons, she replied. First day Tet, Demons gone. Mai made a vague but all encompassing gesture with both arms, demonstrating the flight of demons. She giggled. Maybe Demons go Hanoi.

Let’s hope so.

There was a sink in one corner with an old round mirror set over it. The mirror was dotted with brown stains, like a car that was beginning to show rust. Roger had to bend a little to comb his hair. He talked about his hair as he combed it. She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself.

I’ve picked up a little red from the sun here, he said. Right at the tips. Wish I could grow it a little longer. The Army won’t let me. He finished combing his hair, but remained bent over for a minute, studying his face. He reached up with a forefinger and pulled down the skin under one eye, examining the white. He rolled his eyes a little, so he could see more of them. Finally he grunted with satisfaction and stood straight. He turned to her and smiled, the expression seeming more genuine this time. He said good-bye, promising to return next week.

After Roger left, Mai sat quietly on the bed. She wondered what these strange American men thought of her. Most, she supposed, were so intent on getting sex they gave little thought to her life. Roger joked about her pictures of the Pope and Cao Ky. Did he understand? Did she understand?

She had been born here, in this villa. Her mother had worked here. Back when Mai was a little girl it had been the French who were entertained, as Mrs. Nguyen, the savvy mistress of the house liked to put it. Mai’s father had been a French officer who, Mai liked to think, had fallen in love with her mother. A frequent visitor, he arranged that her mother was his exclusively. He had shown much affection to Mai, playing with her and telling stories of his home in France. Although her mother had never said so aloud, Mai knew that she expected the French officer to marry her one day and take them to France.

Then came 1954 and Dien Bien Phu. It seemed only a matter of days between the first signs of concern in her mother’s face and the sudden disappearance of all the French, including her father. Soon, her mother and Mrs. Nguyen were arguing daily. Mai would sometimes sit under the window of her mother’s room and listen.

Henri will be back. He said so. You’ll see, her mother would say.

No he won’t. All the French are gone. All. They will never return. Not Henri, not any of them. It’s time you gave up this fantasy and begin to earn your keep.

Henri gave you money for me when he left. He told me so!

Mrs. Nguyen snorted. It wasn’t much. It was just for a few weeks until he returned. It’s all gone now, and he will not return. For all we know he died at Dien Bien Phu.

No! No! Mai heard her mother begin to cry. Henri is not dead! He will come back to me.

There was a minute or so when the only sound was sobbing. Then Mrs. Nguyen spoke in a lower voice, Girl, listen to me. If it were up to me I would leave you be. But it’s not. My husband insists. He says if you do not join the other girls in entertaining he will throw you out and get another. He means it. We have argued. See this bruise? Then both her mother and Mrs. Nguyen cried together.

Mai did not believe Mrs. Nguyen. Even at seven she could sense that Mr. Nguyen was subordinate to his wife. They bickered back and forth constantly, but it was Mrs. Nguyen’s wishes that were always carried out. Mr. Nguyen played his role as gatekeeper and handyman with resentment burning in his eyes.

Once, when he was drunk, he boasted to his wife, If I had a cunt I wouldn’t need you.

If you had a cunt, Mrs. Nguyen replied, you’d be the ugliest woman in the city.

There came a day when both the Nguyens went to her mother’s room. After a fierce argument, Mr. Nguyen began to throw her mother’s clothes out the window. Only then did Mai's mother agree to return to the work of the villa.

Circumstances had changed. The French troops were replaced with Army of the Republic of Vietnam soldiers, who were paid badly. Mai’s mother went from being one man’s mistress to many men’s whore. It wasn’t long before she fell ill. She lost weight and began to cough all the time. It was a tiny apologetic cough in the beginning, but one day she woke up and it had become a large wet one, and a day later she was dead. Mai was eight years old.

The day after her mother’s death, Mrs. Nguyen brought Mai to her own room. She sat her down and stood above her, playing with the bracelets she always wore, biting her lip.

Finally, she spoke. It was the low voice she used when she had pled with Mai’s mother to return to work. Well, your mother is gone now. What am I to do with you? She paused and began to bite her lip again. Mai felt tears welling up from an empty place in her stomach.

What am I to do with you? Mrs. Nguyen repeated. Your mother said there were no relatives. You have no family. She paused, twirling the bracelets on one arm with her hand. That’s so, isn’t it? You have no family?

Mai nodded, trying to hold back the tears.

Well. Well. Mrs. Nguyen studied her, tilting her head to one side as she continued to twirl the bracelets. You are a pretty child. Yes. I suppose... Her voice trailed off. For a while there was only the clinking sound of the bracelets. Then that stopped also. Mai looked up.

I suppose we can find something for you to do around here. You can help out with the cooking and cleaning. There is always a lot to do.

So, Mai became a servant in the villa, sleeping in a corner of the main room, the ‘parlor’ as Mrs. Nguyen called it, fetching and carrying for all the women who worked there. Mrs. Nguyen was careful to keep Mai away from Mr. Nguyen, who seemed fond of her. One day Mrs. Nguyen found Mai sitting on her husband’s lap. She sent Mai away on some errand, but the little girl paused beneath the open window and heard the woman say, That girl will make us a lot of money when she grows a little. If you spoil her I’ll cut your cock off.

Mr. Nguyen began to protest his innocence, but it did no good.

"If you touch her again I’ll cut