The general Retires

The General Retires!

In writing the following lines, I've reawakened in some of my acquaintances feelings that
time had diluted, and I've also violated the sanctity of my own father's grave. I had to
force myself to do this, and I beg the reader, out of respect for the strong emotion that
compelled me, to judge lightly my weak pen. This emotion, I will state from the
beginning, is the need for me to protect my father's name.
My father, Thuan, was the oldest son of the Nguyen family. In our village, the Nguyens
are a very large family, with more male descendants than just about anyone except for
maybe the Vus. My grandfather was a Confucian scholar who, later in life, taught
school. He had two wives. His first wife died a few days after giving birth to my father,
forcing my grandfather to take another step. His second wife was a cloth dyer. Although
I never saw her face, I was told that she was extremely bad-tempered. Living with a
stepmother, my father went through many bitter experiences during his youth. At twelve,
he ran away from home. He joined the army and rarely came back.
Around the year 19, my father went back to his village to marry. Love was certainly not
involved in this arrangement. He had a ten-day leave, with much to do. Love has its
prerequisites, and one of them is time.
Growing up, I knew nothing about my father. I'm sure my mother also knew very little
about him. His whole life was linked to bullets, guns, and war.
When I grew up, I went to work, married, had children. My mother aged. My father was
far away. Although occasionally he would return, each visit was short. Even his letters
were short. Within those few lines, however, I recognized a great deal of love and
concern.
I'm the only child, and am indebted to my father for everything I have. Because of him, I
was able to study and travel abroad. He even provided for the assets of my own family.
My house, on the outskirts of Hanoi, was built eight years before my father retired. It is a
beautiful villa but rather uncomfortable. I had it built according to the plan of a famous
architect, a friend of my father's, a colonel only adept at building barracks. At seventy,
my father retired with the rank of major-general.

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 Although I knew about it beforehand, I still felt startled when my father returned. My
mother had already grown senile (she was six years older than my father), so I was
really the only one in the household who felt special emotions on this occasion. My
children were small. My wife knew little about my father because we had gotten married
during the war, when we had no news of him. In our household, however, we always
thought of my father with feelings of glory and pride. Even in our extended family, in our
village, his name was held in tremendous esteem.
My father came home carrying simple luggage. He was healthy. He said, "I've already
completed the big task in my life!"
I said, "Yes."
My father smiled. Strong feelings spread throughout the house. For half a month we
celebrated, with routines disrupted and nights when dinner wasn't served until twelve.
Visitors arrived in throngs. My wife said, "It can't go on like this." I had a pig killed and
invited relatives and neighbors to come take part in the festivities. Although my village
was near the city, we still kept to rural ways. Not until exactly a month later did I have a
chance to sit down and talk with my father about family matters.

Before I continue, I want to talk about my family.

I was thirty-seven years old, an engineer. I worked at the Institute of Physics. Thuy, my
wife, was a doctor working in a maternity ward. We had two daughters, who were twelve
and fourteen years old. My mother was senile. All day long she sat in one place.
Aside from the people I mentioned above, our household also included Co and his slow-
witted daughter, Lai.

Co was sixty years old, from Thanh Hoa: My wife met him and his daughter when their
house burnt down, a disaster that wiped out all their possessions. Seeing that they were
decent people, deserving of pity, my wife arranged for them to live with us. They lived
separately, in a house in the back, but my wife took care of all their needs. Without a
residency permit, they couldn't buy subsidized food like the other residents of the city.

Co was kind and hard-working. He was responsible for the garden, the pigs, the
chickens, and the dogs. We raised German Shepherds." I never suspected that it would
be such a profitable business. It accounted for our greatest income. Although Lai was
slow-witted, she was exceptionally strong and good at housework. My wife taught her

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 how to cook pork rinds, mushrooms, and chicken stew. Lai said, "I never eat like that."
And she really didn't."
My wife, my daughters, and I did not have to worry about housework. From the meals to
laundry, everything was relegated to the help. My wife kept a tight grip on our expenses.
As for me, I was preoccupied with many things. At that point, my head was buried in the
application of electrolysis.
There is one other point that needs to be stated: The relationship between myself and
my wife was warm. Thuy was educated and lived a modern life. We thought
independently and held rather simple views on social issues. Thuy was in charge of our
finances as well as the children's education. As for me, I'm perhaps a little old-
fashioned, clumsy, and loaded with anxieties.

Now I'll return to the discussion I had with my father about family matters. My father
said, "Now that I'm retired, what should I do?"
I said, "Write a memoir."

My father said, "No!"

My wife said, "Father should raise parrots." Nowadays, a lot of people in the city raise
nightingales and parrots.
My father said, "To make money?"

My wife didn't answer him. My father said, "I'll think about it."
My father gave each person in the household four meters of military cloth. gave Co and
Lai the same. I laughed. "You're very egalitarian, Father!" My father said, "It's a way of
life."

My wife said, "With everyone in a uniform this house will turn into a barracks." Everyone
burst out laughing.

My father wanted to live in a room in the back of my house, like my mother did. My wife
wouldn't allow it. My father was sad. The fact that my mother ate separately and lived
separately made him uneasy. My wife said, "It's because she's senile." My father
brooded.

I couldn't understand why my two daughters were not closer to their grandfather. I had
them study foreign languages and music. They were always busy. My father said to

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 them, "You girls give Grandfather some books to read." Mi smiled. Vi said, "What do you
like to read, Grandfather?" My father said, "Whatever's easy."

The two of them said, "We don't have anything like that."
I subscribed to the daily newspaper for him. My father didn't like literature. These days,
it's hard to digest the new writing.
When I came home from work one day, I found my father standing near where my wife
kept the dogs and chickens. He didn't look happy. I said, "What's going on?"

He said, "Co and Lai work too hard. They can't finish all their tasks. Can I help them?”

I said, "Let me ask Thuy."

When I asked her, my wife said, "Father is a general. He may be retired, but he's still a
general. He's the commander. If he acts like a common soldier, there'll be chaos."

My father said nothing. Although retired, my father still had many visitors. This fact
surprised me, and I was pleased. My wife said, "Don't be so happy about it. They only
want favors. Father, don't exert yourself."
My father smiled. "It's nothing major. I'm only writing letters. For example, I write, 'Dear
N., commander of Military District X. I'm writing this letter to you, and so on. In over fifty
years, this is the first time I've celebrated the Floating Cake Festival under my own roof.
In the war zone, we used to dream, and so on. Do you remember the little village on the
side of the road, where Miss Hue made floating cakes with moldy flour? She had flour
all over her back, and so on. By the way, M. is an acquaintance of mine, and wants to
work under you, and so on.' Is it all right for me to write like that?"
I said, "It's all right."

My wife said, "It's not all right."

My father scratched his chin. "They've asked me." Normally, my father inserted his
letters into official hard paper envelopes, measuring 20 x 30 centimeters,' with the
words "Department of Defense" printed on them. Then he would give them to the
person who had asked him for the favor. After three months, all these envelopes were
gone. For a while, he made his own with students' construction paper, also measuring

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 20 × 30 centimeters. A year later, he put his letters into ordinary envelopes, the kind
they sell at the post office at five dong for ten.

That July, three months after my father retired, one of my uncles, Bong, had a wedding
for his son.
Bong and my father had the same father but different mothers. Tuan, Bong's son, drove
an ox cart. Both father and son were grotesque characters, as big as giants and
extremely foul-mouthed. It was the second marriage for Tuan. He hit the first one too
hard and she left him. At court, he testified that she had a lover, so the judge had to let
him go. The wife this time was named Kim Chi. She worked as a babysitter and came
from an educated family. Tuan and Kim Chi messed around and he got her pregnant, or
so we were told. Kim Chi was a beautiful girl, and as Tuan's wife, it was truly a case of
"planting a sprig of jasmine on a pile of buffalo shit." Honestly speaking, we were fond of
neither Bong nor his son, but, since "a drop of blood is worth more than a pond of
water," we unfortunately still had to see them on holidays. We often heard Bong say of
us, "Damn those intellectuals! They look down on working people. If I didn't respect his
father, I'd never knock on their door." Having said that, he'd still come by to borrow
money. My wife would be tough, and always made him sign a promissory note. Bong
was bitter. He said, "I'm their uncle, and I only borrow from them as a last resort, but
they act as if they were my landlords." Most of his debts to us he never paid back.

For his son's wedding, Bong said to my father, "You have to be the master of
ceremonies. Kim Chi's father is a deputy. You are a general. You two are compatible in
status. My son and his wife will need your blessings. As a cart driver, I'm trash!" My
father agreed to do it. has a per

The wedding in our suburb was a ridiculous and quite obscene affair. Three cars. The
filtered cigarettes ran out near the end, and we had to switch to rolled cigarettes. There
were fifty trays of food, but twelve of them went untouched. The groom wore a black suit
with a red tie. I had to lend him the best tie in my closet. The word is "lend," but I doubt
I'll ever see it again. The groomsmen were six youths, all dressed alike, in jeans, with
wild facial hair. At the start of the party, a live band played "Ave Maria." A guy from the
same ox cart collective as Tuan jumped up and did a monstrous

"Ooh... eh... the roasted chicken I wade through lakes and streams Trying to find my
fortuney, ton Oh, money, fall quickly into my pocket Ooh... eh... the sick chicken..."

After that, it was my father's turn. He was uncomfortable and awkward. His carefully
prepared speech became irrelevant. A clarinet provided sloppy accompaniments after

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 each pause. Loud fireworks. Inane discussions between children. My father skipped
entire sections. While holding the paper, his whole body trembled. The unruliness of the
event-quite ordinary, natural, rustic, and a little unclean-pained and disgusted him. The
bride's father, the deputy, was also bewildered and awkward, and he even spilled wine
on the bride's dress. No one could hear a thing. The live band drowned out everything
with the upbeat and familiar songs of Abba and the Beatles.

After that, the first trouble came to my father because only ten days after the wedding
Kim Chi gave birth to a child. Bong's family was irresponsible. Drunk, Bong threw his
daughter-in-law out of the house. Tuan tried to stab his father, but missed, fortunately.

With no other possible solution, my father had to take Kim Chi into our house. That
meant two more mouths to feed in our household. My wife said nothing. Lai had one
more responsibility. Luckily, Lai was scatterbrained. Moreover, she was fond of children.

One night, as I was reading Sputnik, my father quietly walked in. He said, “I want to talk
to you." I made coffee. He didn't drink it. He said, "Have you been paying attention to
Thuy's business? It's very creepy."
My wife worked in the maternity ward, doing abortions. Every day she carried home an
ice chest with fetuses in it. Co-cooked them for the dogs and the pigs. To be honest, I
already knew about it, but I chose to ignore it since it wasn't all that important. My father
led me to the kitchen and pointed to the slop bucket, which had little bits of fetus in it. I
didn't know what to say. My father picked up the ice-chest and threw it at the German
Shepherds. "Damn it!" he began to cry. "I don't need this kind of wealth!" The dogs
barked. My father went into the other room.

A moment later, my wife came in and said to Co, "Why didn't you put this through the
grinder? Why did you let Father find out?"

Co said, "I forgot. I'm very sorry."

In December, my wife sold all of our German Shepherds. She told me, "You'd better
stop smoking those 'Gallant' cigarettes. This year our income is down by twenty-seven
thousand, and our expenses are up by eighteen thousand, which adds up to forty-five
thousand."

Kim Chi finished her maternity leave and had to go back to work. She said, "Thank you,
Brother and Sister. I'll take my baby home now."

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 I said, "What home?" Tuan had been locked up for disturbing the peace. Kim Chi took
her baby home to her parents. My father escorted her right to the door in a hired taxi.
He stayed at the deputy's house for a day. This man had just returned from an
assignment in India. As presents, he gave my father a piece of silk with a flower design
and fifty grams of ointment. My father gave the silk to Lai and the ointment to Co.

Before New Year's, Co said to my wife and me, "I need a favor from you."
My wife said, "What favor?"

Co talked in a roundabout way and made very little sense. Basically, he wanted to go
back to his village for a visit. Having lived with us for six years, he had saved a little
money, and now he wanted to rebury his wife's remains. After so long, the coffin must
have caved in, for sure, but, as they say, "Loyalty to the dead is the ultimate loyalty." Co
talked about living in the city and wanting to go back to the old village to see relatives
and friends. Of course, he'd been away for so long, but, as they say, "Even the fox,
dead for three years, still looks back toward the mountain."
My wife cut him off, "When do you want to go?"

Co scratched his head. "I'll be gone for ten days, and will be back in Hanoi before the
ceremonies marking the 23rd of the final month."
My wife calculated. "All right. Thuan (Thuan is my name), can you take time off from
work?"
"Yes."
Co said, "We want to invite Grandfather to visit our village." My wife said, "I don't like
that idea. What did he say?"
"He wants to come. Without him, I wouldn't have remembered this business about
transferring my wife's grave."

My wife said, "How much money do you and your daughter have?"
Co said, "I had three thousand, but Grandfather gave me another two thousand."
My wife said, "Good. Don't take the two thousand from Grandfather. I'll make it up to
you, plus another five thousand. That's ten thousand for you and your daughter. It's
enough for a trip."
The day before the trip, my wife cooked. Everyone sat down to eat, including Co and
Lai. Wearing her new clothes made from the military fabric my father had given her

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 when he came home, Lai was very happy. Mi and Vi teased, "Lai is the most beautiful."
Lai giggled. "That's not true. Your mother is the most beautiful."

My wife said, "Lai, remember to look after Grandfather on buses."

My father said, "Do you think I shouldn't go?" Co protested. "No! Please come. I already
sent the telegram. It would give me a bad reputation!"

My father sighed. "What reputation do I have?"

My father went to Thanh Hoa with Co and Lai on a Sunday morning. On Monday night,
as I was watching TV, I heard a "whoosh." I rushed outside and saw my mother
collapsed in a corner of the garden. My mother had been senile for four years, could eat
and drink when fed, and had to be led to the toilet. Normally, with Lai taking care of her,
we had no problems. That day, I had fed her but forgot to take her to the toilet. When I
helped her back inside, her head slumped on her chest. I didn't see any injuries, but
when I woke up in the middle of the night I noticed that my mother's body was very cold
and her eyes were wild. I was scared and called my wife. Thuy said, "Mother is very
old." The next day mother didn't eat. And the day after that she didn't eat and couldn't
control her bowels. I washed everything, changed the mat. Some days twelve times.
Knowing that Thuy and the children liked cleanliness, I did mother's laundry all the time,
and not in the house but down at the canal. Whatever medicine we poured down her
throat she threw up. bisbalor On Saturday she was suddenly able to sit up. She trudged
alone to the garden. She was able to eat. I said, "She's fine now."
My wife said nothing, but came back that evening with ten meters of white cloth, and
even called the carpenter. I said, "You're preparing for her death?" My wife said, "No."
Two days later, my mother was bedridden, and, like before, could neither eat nor control
her bowels. She declined rapidly and excreted a sort of brown, pasty, very strong-
smelling liquid. I gave her ginseng. My wife said, "Don't give her ginseng. It's bad for
her." I burst into loud sobs. It had been a long time since I'd sobbed like that. My wife
stayed silent, then said, "It's up to you."
Bong came to visit. He said, "The way she's tossing and turning on that bed is very
bad." Then he turned to my mother and asked, "Sister, do you recognize me?"
My mother said, "Yes."
"Then who am I?"

My mother said, "A human being."

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 Bong burst into loud sobs. "Then you must love me the most, Sister," he said. "The
whole village calls me a dog. My wife calls me a fraud. Tuan calls me a bastard. Only
you, Sister, call me a human being."
For the first time, my ox-cart-driving uncle, who's hot-tempered, vulgar, and immoral,
turned into a child before my very eyes.
My father had been home for six hours when my mother died. Co and Lai said, "It's all
our fault. If we had been home, Grandmother wouldn't have died."

My wife said, "Nonsense."

Lai cried, "Grandmother, why did you play a trick on me like this? Why didn't you allow
me to come with you so I could serve you?"

Bong laughed. "If you want to go with Grandmother, go ahead. I'll tell them to make
another coffin."
During the enshroudment of my mother's corpse, my father cried and asked Bong, "Why
did her body decline so quickly? Does every old person die in such pain?"
Bong said, "You're being silly. Every single day, thousands of people in our country die
a painful and humiliating death. The only exceptions are soldiers like you. One sweet
'Bang!' and that's it."
I had a shelter built and hired a carpenter to make the coffin. Co was always hovering
around the pile of wood my wife had brought home. The carpenter barked, "Are you
afraid I'm going to steal the wood?"

Bong asked, "How thick is that wood?"

"Four centimeters," I told him.

Bong said, "There goes a damn sofa. Who else would have made a coffin with such
good wood? When you rebury her, make sure you give this wood to me." My father sat
in silence, and appeared to be in deep agony.

Bong said, "Thuy, boil a chicken and prepare a pot of sticky rice for me." My wife said,
"How many kilograms of rice, Uncle?"
Bong said, "Your damned mother! Why are you so sweet today? Three kilograms." mod
vil

My wife said to me, "Your relatives are disgusting."

Bong asked me, "Who's in charge of the finances in this household?"

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 I said, "My wife."
Mr. Bong said, "That's normal. What I mean is, who's in charge of the finances for this
funeral?"

"My wife."
Bong said, "That won't do, my boy! Different blood stinks up the intestines. I'll talk to
your father, all right?"

"No, I'll take care of it."

Bong said, "Give me four thousand. How many trays of food were you thinking of
preparing?"

"Ten trays."
"That won't even be enough to flush out the coffin bearers' bellies. You talk to your wife.
I'd say you need forty trays."

I gave him four thousand dong, then went inside. My wife said, "I heard the whole
conversation. I was thinking thirty trays, at eight hundred dong per tray. Three times
eight is twenty-four. Twenty-four thousand. For miscellaneous costs, add six thousand.
I'll take care of the shopping. Lai will cook. Don't listen to Bong. He's a shifty old
man."62
"I already gave him four thousand."

My wife said, "I'm really disappointed in you." "I'll ask for it back."
"Forget about it. We'll consider it a payment for his service. He's nice, but poor."
We hire four traditional musicians for the funeral. My father went out to greet them. My
mother’s body was placed in the coffin at four in the afternoon. Bong pried open her
mouth to place nine Khai Dinh and aluminum coins inside. He said, "For the ferry." He
also placed inside the coffin an incomplete set of to tom cards mixed together with some
tam cuc cards. "It's all right," he said. "She always used to play tam cuc."

That night, I stayed up to watch over my mother's coffin, and aimlessly pondered many
things. Death will come to all of us, sparing none. again

In the courtyard, Bong and the coffin bearers were playing tam cue for money.
Whenever he had a good hand, Bong ran to the coffin, bowed down and said, "Dearest
Sister, please help me so I can clean out their pockets."

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 Mi and Vi stayed up with me. Mi asked, "Why do you still have to pay for the ferry after
you've died? Why were coins put in Grandmother's mouth?" Vi said, "Father, does it
have to do with the saying, 'Shut your mouth, keep the money"?"

I was crying. "You kids won't understand," I said. "I don't understand myself. It's all
superstition."
Vi said, "I understand. You need a lot of money in this life. Even when you're dead."

I felt very lonely. My children also seemed lonely. And so did the gamblers. And so did
my father.
My house was only five hundred meters from the cemetery, but if you took the main
road through the village gate it would be two kilometers. On the small road it wasn't
possible to push a hearse so the coffin had to be carried on the pallbearers' shoulders.
There were thirty of them taking turns, with many men my wife and I didn't recognize.
They carried the coffin casually, as if it were a most natural thing to do, as if they were
carrying a house-pillar. They chewed betel nuts, smoked, and chattered as they walked.
When they rested, they stood and sat carelessly next to the coffin. One man, who was
all sprawled out, said, "It's so cool here. If I weren't busy, I'd sleep here until nightfall."
Bong said, "I beg you guys. Hurry up so we can all go home and eat." We continued on.
I walked backward with a cane in front of the coffin, according to the custom: 'Escort
your father; Greet your mother. Bong said, "When I die, all of my pallbearers will be
hard-core gamblers, and instead of pork at the banquet, there'll be dog meat."
My father said, "Please, Brother, how can you joke at a time like this?" Bong shut up;
then he cried, "Sister, why did you trick me and leave like this... You've abandoned
me..."

I wondered why he said "trick." Had all the dead people tricked the ones who were still
alive? Were there only tricksters in this cemetery?

After the burial, everyone went back to the house. Twenty-eight trays of food were laid
out simultaneously. Looking at the banquet, I felt nothing but respect for Lai. At each
table, people were yelling: "Where's Lai?" And she accommo- dated them all, fluttering
about with whiskey and meat. Not until after dark, after she had washed up and
changed into new clothes, did Lai go in front of the
altar and cry, "Grandmother, I apologize. I didn't take you out to the field... And on that
day you craved crab soup and I didn't feel like making it, you didn't get any... Now when
I go to the market, who will I buy a present for?"

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 I felt very remorseful when I heard that. I realized that I hadn't bought my mother a cake
or a bag of candy in ten years. Lai continued to cry, "If I had been here, then would you
have died, Grandmother?"
My wife said, "Don't cry."
I got cranky. "Let her cry," I said. "It's very sad if there are no sounds of crying at a
funeral. In this house, who else could grieve for Mother like that?"
My wife said, "Thirty-two trays. Aren't you in awe of how close my estimate was?"
I said, "It was pretty close."

Bong said, "I checked her burying hour on the horoscope. Your mother has 'one grave
invasion, two overlapping deaths, and a migration." Should we invoke a talisman?"
My father said, "Talisman, my ass. In my life, I've buried three thousand men and it's
never been like this."
Bong said, "That's happiness. 'Bang!" and it's over." He stuck out an index finger and
pretended to pull a trigger.

That New Year we neither bought peach blossoms nor wrapped square rice cakes. On
the evening of January 2nd, my father's old unit sent people over to pay homage to my
mother. They gave five hundred dong! Chuong, my father's old deputy who was now a
general, went to the gravesite to light incense sticks. Thanh, a captain who
accompanied him, pulled out his pistol and fired three shots into the air. Later, the
children in the village would say that soldiers fired twenty-one cannon shots in honor of
Mrs. Thuan. General Chuong asked my father, "Would you like to pay a last visit to the
old unit? There'll be maneuvers in May. We can send a car down to get you."
My father said, "Fine."
General Chuong took a tour of our house, with Co as his guide. General Chuong said
to my father, "Damn nice place you've got here. A garden, a fish pond, a pig sty, a
chicken coop, a villa. No worries at all." My father said, "My son built all this."
I said, "It was my wife."

My wife said, "Actually, it was Lai."

Lai giggled. Lately, her head would bob nonstop, as if she were having a seizure.
"That's not true," she said. '

My father joked, “It’s the product of the Garden-Fist Pond-Pen Campaign.”

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 January 3rd. Kim Chi and her baby rode a cyclo by for a visit. My wife gave the baby
one thousand dong for good luck. My father asked, “Does Tuan write?”
Kim Chi said, “No.”
My father said, “It’s my fault. I didn’t know you were pregnant.”

My wife said, "These things are common. There are no virgins these days. I work in a
maternity ward, so I know."
Kim Chi looked embarrassed. I said, "Don't talk like that. Although, admittedly, it is
tough to be a virgin."  Hol Kim Chi cried, "Brother, it's humiliating to be a woman. Giving
birth to a daughter tore my whole insides out."
My wife said, "And, I even have two daughters."

I said, "So you people don't think it's humiliating to be a man?"

My father said, "For men, the ones who have hearts are humiliated. The big- ger the
heart, the bigger the humiliation."

My wife said, "We all talk like crazy people in this household. Let's eat. Today, with Miss
Kim Chi, I'll serve each person a chicken stewed with lotus hearts. Now that's 'heart' for
you. Eating comes before everything else."

Near my house lived a young man, Khong, whom the children called Confucius. Khong
worked at the fish sauce factory but liked poetry, which he wrote and sent to the
magazine Literature and Art. Khong came by often. Khong said, "Poetry is most
superior." He read me Lorca, Whitman, etc. I didn't like Khong, and half-suspected he
came by for something even more adventurous than poetry. Once, I noticed a
handwritten poetry manuscript on my wife's bed. My wife said, "These are Khong's
poems. Would you like to read them?" I shook my head. My wife said, "You're already
old." I shuddered. One day I was busy at work and had to come home late. My father
greeted me at the gate. He said, "Khong came over at dusk. He and your wife have
been tittering away, and he hasn't left yet. It's very annoying."
I said, "You should go to bed, Father. Why pay attention to this?" My father shook his
head and went upstairs. I walked the motorbike to the street, and rode aimlessly around
town until I ran out of gas. I walked the motorbike to a corner of a park and sat down like
some vagabond. A woman with a powdered face walked by and asked, "Brother, do you
want some fun?" I shook my head. Khong was trying to avoid me. Co hated him. One
day, Co said, "Will you let me beat him up?"

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 I almost nodded. Then I thought, "Don't."
I went to the library to borrow some books as an experiment. I read Lorca, Whitman,
etc. I vaguely felt that exceptional artists are frighteningly lonely. Suddenly, I saw that
Khong was right. I was only pissed off that he was so ill- bred. Why didn't he show his
poems to somebody else besides my wife? ind My father said, "You're meek. And that's
because you can't stand to live alone."

I said, "That's not true. There are many jokes in life."

My father said, "You think this is a joke?"
I said, "It's neither a joke nor something serious."
My father said, "Why do I feel like I belong to a different species?"
The institute wanted to send me on assignment to the south. I said to my wife, "I'll go, all
right?"
My wife said, "Don't go. Tomorrow, you can fix the bathroom door. It's broken. The other
day, when Mi was taking a shower, Khong walked by and tried something obscene. He
scared her out of her wits. I've forbidden that bastard from ever walking through the
door of this house again." Then she burst into tears, saying, "I really owe you and the
children an apology."

I was uncomfortable and turned away. If Vi had been around, she would have asked
me, "Father, are those crocodile tears?"
In May, my father's old unit sent a car down to pick him up. Thanh, the captain, carried a
letter from General Chuong. My father trembled while holding the letter, which said, "...
We need you and are waiting for you... If you can come, then come. There's no
pressure." I didn't think my father should go, but it would have been awkward to say so.
Although my father had aged noticeably since his retirement, holding the letter that day,
he appeared vivacious and considerably younger. I felt happy for him. My wife wanted
to pack his travel things in a tourist bag. He wouldn't hear of it. He said, "Stuff them in
my rucksack." My father made the rounds to say goodbye to the entire village. He even
went to my mother's grave and told Thanh to fire three shots into the air again. That
night, my father called for Co and gave him two thousand dong. He instructed him to
have a stone marker made to be sent to Thanh Hoa and placed over his wife's grave.
My father called Lai over and said, "You should find yourself a husband, my child."

Lai burst out crying. "I'm so ugly, no one will marry me," she said. "I'm also very naive."

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 My father became choked up. "My dear child," he told her. "Don't you understand that
naiveté is the strength that allows one to live?"
I didn't recognize all of these preparations as signs that my father would not come back
from his trip." Before he stepped into the car, my father pulled a student's notebook from
his rucksack. He gave it to me. He said, "I've jotted down a few things in this book.
Read it and see what you think."
Mi and Vi said goodbye to their grandfather. Mi said, "Are you going to the battlefield,
Grandfather?"
My father said, "Yes."
Vi quoted from a song: "The road to the battlefield is beautiful at this time of year."
Right, Grandfather?" My father cursed. "Your mother! Know-it-all!"

A hilarious incident occurred a few days after my father left. It so happened that, as Co
and Bong were dredging mud from the pond (my wife paid Bong two hundred dong a
day plus meals), they suddenly saw the bottom of an
earthen jar appear above the surface. Both of them dug on enthusiastically and
discovered the bottom of a second jar. Bong was sure that people in the old days had
used these jars to hide their valuables. The two men reported the news to my wife. Thuy
went for a look and proceeded to wade into the pond to join them, digging. Then Lai
went in, then Mi, then Vi and I. We were all smeared with mud. My wife ordered that the
pond be blocked off, and even rented a Kohler pump to siphon the water. The
atmosphere grew deadly serious. Bong loved it. "I saw it first," he said. "I'll get to keep
one of those jars for myself." After a day of digging, and finding two cracked jars with
nothing inside, Bong said, "There's got to be more." More digging. One more jar was
discovered. It was also cracked. Everyone was exhausted and starving. My wife sent for
some bread so we could regain our strength to continue digging. At the depth of nearly
ten meters we found a porcelain jar. Everyone was ecstatic and assumed there had to
be gold inside. We opened it up only to find a string of rusty, bronze Bao Dai coins and
the shreds of a fabric medal. Bong said, "Damn it! I remember now. A long time ago,
after I robbed Han Tin's house with that hoodlum Nhan, we were being chased and
Nhan threw this jar into the pond." Everyone had a good round of laughs. This hoodlum
was a very famous thief on the outskirts of town. Han Tin was a soldier in the Colonial
army. He had participated in a movement called "Coin-Spitting Southern Dragon to
Expel the German Bandits" during World War I. Both Han Tin and Nhan had been

The general Retires 15

 rotting in their graves for years already. Bong said, "It doesn't matter. Should this entire
village die, I'll have enough ferry money to stuff into everyone's mouth."
The next morning, I woke up and heard someone calling at the gate. I went outside and
saw Khong. I thought, "What a pain. This son of a bitch is the big- gest curse in my
entire life."
Khong said, "Brother Thuan, you have a telegram. Your father died."
The telegram from General Chuong said, "Major-General Nguyen Thuan sacrificed his
life in the line of duty at on Services at the military cemetery will be at on "I was stunned.
My wife quickly made all the arrangements. I went out to hire a car and when I came
back everything was ready. My wife said, "Lock the main house. Co will stay behind."
The car went to Cao Bang on Highway One. When we got there, the funeral had
already been over for two hours.
General Chuong said, "We owe your family an apology."
I said, "That's not necessary. Each life has its destiny."
General Chuong said, "Your father was someone deserving of respect." "Was the
ceremony conducted according to military rites?" I asked. "Yes."

"Thank you," I told him.

General Chuong said, "He went to the battlefield and insisted on staying near the front."
I said, "I understand, Sir. You don't have to explain."
I cried. I had never cried like that before. Now I understood what it means to grieve the
death of one's father. Perhaps it is the biggest grief in a person's lifetime.
My father's grave lay in the military cemetery. My wife took a camera along and had
pictures taken in different poses. The next day, we declined General Chuong's invitation
to stay and took our leave.
On the way home, my wife suggested we go slowly. It was Bong's first long trip, and he
loved it. He said, "Our country is as beautiful as a painting. Now I understand why one
must love one's country. Back home, even though Hanoi is so modern, I see nothing at
all to love."

My wife said, "That's because you're used to it. Elsewhere, people are the same.
They're the ones who love Hanoi."

The general Retires 16

 Bong said, "Then one place loves the other place, and people here love people there.
It's still one country, one people. Long live our country! Long live our people! Hurrah for
the spinning lantern!"

Perhaps my story ends here. After that, our lives reverted to what they were before my
father retired. My wife continued her work as usual. I finished my electrolysis research.
Co turned quiet, partly because Lai's condition had worsened. When I had time, I read
over what my father had written. Now I understand him better.
I've recorded here the confusing events that occurred during the year or so of my
father's retirement. I consider these lines as sticks of incense lit in his remembrance. If
you have had the patience to read what I've written, I beg you to forgive my
indulgences. Thank you.

The general Retires 17