Fourth Game E-Book

Simone Malacrida

• Herausgeber: Simone Malacrida
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In a world where nothing is as it seems and where there are no personal ties, overwhelmed by the interests and ideologies that span thirty years of Vietnam's history, Lien lives three distinct existences, under the command of others, becoming a conscious instrument of pain and of death.
Working in the shadows, at the secret of his own conscience, a fourth path will try to wedge itself with extreme difficulty.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Fourth Game

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SIMONE MALACRIDA

“ Fourth Game”

Simone Malacrida (1977)

Engineer and writer, has worked on research, finance, energy policy and industrial plants.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

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I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

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XXI

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

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In the book there are very specific historical references to facts, events and people. Such events and such characters really happened and existed.

On the other hand, the main protagonists are the result of the author's pure imagination and do not correspond to real individuals, just as their actions did not actually happen. It goes without saying that, for these characters, any reference to people or things is purely coincidental.

In a world where nothing is as it seems and where there are no personal ties, overwhelmed by the interests and ideologies that span thirty years of Vietnam's history, Lien lives three distinct existences, under the command of others, becoming a conscious instrument of pain and of death.

Working in the shadows, at the secret of his own conscience, a fourth path will try to wedge itself with extreme difficulty.

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“All human beings have three lives: public, private and secret.”

(Gabriel García Márquez)

I

Phong Van, August-September 1944

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Among the small evergreen hills that could be seen to the north there was no sign of life.

No sound and no movement.

It looked like a desert, when in fact it was an impenetrable thicket, almost similar to the jungle that was located much further south of Hanoi, the main city located about two hundred kilometers away and of which Lien knew nothing.

He had only heard about it, like almost everyone else in the village of Phong Van, a cluster of huts and a few more decent wooden houses that served the farmers in the area.

Everyone farmed, including Lien's family.

His father, Dong Do, had a small plot of rice paddy and toiled all year round following the oxen as they ploughed and prepared the land, then oversaw its growth and harvest.

Two sowings and two productions a year, but not thanks to him or his wife Phuong.

It was all due to the weather.

In this way they managed to produce something in excess to exchange and the rest came from the small courtyard with a few animals in front of the hut.

There were no more than five hens, but it was enough to barter.

It had always been this way since time immemorial.

None of them had any memory of an independent past, and all of them had related to the royal rulers, the French, who had established Indochina, a name so insipid for a Vietnamese.

To tell the truth, the French were not doing well.

They had been conquered at home by a war that had surprised them and Indochina had become a sort of bargaining chip with Japan.

Dong didn't like the Japanese.

“They are much worse than the French.

They hate us.”

Lien, at the age of fourteen, had heard all sorts of stories about the Japanese and had gotten it into her head that they were evil, cruel and liars.

Never trust them.

Now, it seemed that the forces supposedly aiding the French in their control of Indochina would take over.

Little was known in Phong Van about the war in Europe, and it was weeks, if not months, late.

In Hanoi it was different.

“The city is dangerous,” Phuong had instructed her daughter since she was little, but not because she truly believed it, but rather because of tradition.

Her mother had told her the same sentence and so had her grandmother.

Country people had always been wary of the city, its cramped spaces and narrow streets.

Of the proximity to so many individuals as to make them all anonymous and identical.

Lien was a little envious of the city boys, even though she had never actually met one.

She imagined that they could study, something she was denied, meet many other peers, and not the usual faces they had always known, find the love of their life, and not someone imposed by their families for business agreements.

Having a different life, in short.

She didn't like taking care of the chickens and tidying up the house either, but it was better than standing with her feet and legs in water all day.

The gaze of the young girl, whose features were identical to those of any Oriental to an untrained European eye, was lost on the horizon.

To the south and east was the sea, something Lien had glimpsed only twice in her life, following her father on a visit to one of the area's major markets, near Ha Long Bay.

To the west the hills gradually increased, while to the north it continued with a series of hills and small mountains up to the border with China.

There were fighters there who were resisting the Japanese invasion and were organizing.

They were also closer to Hanoi, but there was a clear separation between those two worlds.

Vietnam and China had never gotten along either politically, culturally or hegemonically.

The populations looked askance at each other and, in general, the Chinese considered the Vietnamese inferior.

“Will it be like this now?” Lien wondered, given the Japanese domination in those places which had brought further discrimination.

The subjects of the Empire of the Rising Sun believed themselves to be the best Asians, but not in quality but in genetics.

There was a belief in them that forced isolation for centuries had tempered a society of individuals with a superior genetic heritage and hence the sense of self-denial and great will.

Now their dominion was unchallenged among the Asian peoples and this seemed to confirm it.

At least that was the feeling in Phong Van, among the farmers.

The city had long known about the retreat of Japanese positions throughout most of the Pacific.

Under the blows of the American advance, they had to move away from many places.

In Hanoi and, further south, in Saigon, there were already rumours of when Indochina would be liberated.

A matter of months, the experts said.

Among the peasants, however, who were reluctant to welcome the novelties of modern society because they were tied to the cycles of Nature, this was not the case.

For Dong and Phuong, it was just a matter of staying out of trouble.

Don't get involved.

Don't talk and keep your head down.

“No one will ever harm those who work the land because everyone must eat.

Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese or French.

Rich or poor.”

Lien wasn't convinced, but she didn't say anything.

One of the things he had learned was to never question parental authority.

Her father and mother had every right over her and the concept of individual freedom never crossed the girl's mind.

There were other thoughts in her.

Strange thoughts of physical changes he felt happening.

Questions that were incomprehensible to her mind and that she would not have been able to formulate.

Like everyone, Lien responded to all this with silence.

It was a constant in agricultural societies.

Few words exchanged and little communication.

The only exception to this cotton wool and fairy-tale world was the teaching of Chinese.

No one had understood the real reason, but in Phong Van there was a tradition of a bilingual minority community.

Everyone said it was a legacy from the past.

Of an old Chinese master who had settled there with his family and who had given his sons and daughters in marriage to local people, on condition that they maintained the use of their native language.

Thus, with the Chinese genetic traits having disappeared as they were diluted by generations of local Vietnamese, only a trace remained.

That of culture.

At Do's house, everyone freely chose the language in which to express themselves and respond.

It happened that you would ask a question in Vietnamese and receive an answer in Chinese or vice versa.

It was a characteristic feature of a small part of the village, almost always identified with the territorial demarcation.

Beyond a certain sign, a row of trees or an irrigation stream, the “mixed” zone began.

The indication had not always remained the same, but it was inherent in the nature of that village and those coming from the city would never have understood anything similar.

Lien wiped her forehead.

It was hot and the thought of being transported to higher ground where the humidity was lower was of no avail.

The position of the Sun left no room for doubt.

There was still half a day left before sunset.

“And what do you have to stay here for? Come on...”

The chickens became insistent and searched for food, knowing they could find it at Lien's.

They had come to the point of trusting a person, defying the natural instinct to run away.

The girl put back on her head the classic conical hat, stuffed by the expert hand of her mother.

It was one of the few things he hadn't taught her yet.

Phuong wanted to feel indispensable in something, since she had noticed how quickly her daughter had grown up.

Soon, she would be of marriageable age.

While rural life continued its endless cycle, military dispatches were transmitted without any pause.

Unaware of the future and the fate that awaited them, the farmers would never understand the chain of events and their consequentiality on a planetary level.

Games of alliances and espionage, of diversions and diversionary measures.

The Japanese presence was not to be seen as hostile as they were allies of the natural rulers of Indochina, the French.

In truth, it was the latter who had become collaborators following the fall of the Republic after the Nazi invasion of 1940.

Thus, a pact between Japan and Germany, a war unleashed by the latter in Europe, the fall of France and Japan's entry into the war against the Western powers, had determined the sending of troops onto Vietnamese soil, but not as invaders and conquerors.

This had become clear even to Phong Van, as it was the past history of the last four years.

What was not so clear was the future.

The Vichy Republic was collapsing after the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944 and now the battle for Paris was being fought.

Once the capital fell, the government in power would no longer be a collaborator, but an enemy.

Hence, the Japanese military directives.

Indochina's position was strategic in the territorial conflict that took place at sea, on the surface of that Pacific Ocean, whose name now echoed as a mockery of History.

For several days now, Japanese soldiers had been deploying to control the main cities.

Hanoi, Saigon and Hue first and foremost, plus a few ports scattered along the coast.

The interior was less interesting.

It was difficult to control, especially towards Vientiane and Phnom Penh.

There, perhaps, were the guerrillas opposed to both the Japanese and the French.

And then there were the armies of the North, bordering China.

Those had to be stopped because they were dangerous for the Japanese themselves, given their extreme proximity to an enemy that, if awakened, would become extremely powerful.

Everyone knew about China's enormous potential in terms of people, history and culture.

All dormant behind an Empire that was now decadent and had prostrated itself shamelessly before Japan.

Neither Dong nor Phuong had ever considered any of this, and even if they had been told, they wouldn't have believed it.

No possibility of understanding except the immediate, something so fleeting as to render any resistance useless.

The war waged by Japan, but also by the Americans and the Europeans, now passed over everything and any place could be reached very quickly.

A squadron of planes dropping bombs or diving in to fire machine guns could wipe out a village like Phong Van in just a few dozen minutes.

What was the point of a lifetime's efforts?

To nothing.

Everything was erased in a flash.

This is why a minimum glimmer of foresight was more necessary than ever, but this was beyond the scope of the peasants' duties, who knew nothing else to do but wait.

Nature, the rain, the harvest.

And, together with this, being rooted to the earth.

Attached like leeches.

None of them would have escaped.

To where?

To do what?

Having lost their home, their land and their crops, what would they live on?

Inertia and habit had claimed victims on every continent, far more than the violence of war itself.

The couple returned home with their tireless oxen at their side.

They were gentle and undemanding beasts.

Grass and water, things that were certainly not lacking in the vicinity.

Available to everyone, without having to pay anything.

Thus the animals were fed for free and their power served to make up for the lack of hands.

Dong and Phuong had failed to have any more children, unlike many families they knew, where offspring were plentiful.

Less manual labor to employ meant less potentially arable land and therefore less harvest, but also less food to provide.

Lien, from this point of view, was not very demanding.

Tiny and small, she had always eaten tiny portions, which worried her mother.

He had her examined once, but nothing suspicious or disturbing had emerged.

It was the only time Dong's family had seen a doctor, a real one, not one of those elderly healers you constantly found in rural villages.

Dong and Phuong were talking in Chinese, so as not to be understood by those outside their small community.

The topic was always and only one.

The harvest and the working day.

“Lien, anything to note?”

The girl shook her head.

He knew his parents would head home, where chairs would welcome their weary limbs.

His mother always complained about pain in her feet.

“So young and so much pain,” he used to say, before adding a string of insults against a miserable and wretched life.

Lien saw her mother as a grown woman, almost old, but Phuong was only thirty-five.

His parents lived across the creek as did Dong's parents.

They were old for the Indochinese environment and lived on the little that was left after the downsizing of the camps due to the division between brothers and sisters.

Lien had three aunts on her father's side with six cousins, both male and female, and two uncles on her mother's side with six more cousins.

A large family, but one in which the ties were tenuous.

Everyone had to make do as best they could and couldn't think too much about others.

A couple of cousins had gone elsewhere.

One even in Hanoi.

He was probably the only one in Lien's extended family who had an inkling of the full extent of what was about to happen.

He was the only one to have witnessed the progressive deployment of troops in the capital, with Japanese soldiers quietly taking up positions at strategic crossroads and in front of the buildings of power, inside which the French were experiencing moments of trepidation and panic.

Glued to the radio and the telephone, almost forgotten by a mother country that had other things on its mind in those days, they did not know exactly what to do.

Whether to remain allies of the Japanese, whether to fight them by joining the Vietnamese resistance forces, whether to surrender.

In reality, no one trusted the Japanese.

The brutal acts they had perpetrated everywhere had become the subject of sharing.

Everyone was waiting.

Something that was experienced badly in the city, with increasing tension and nerves on edge.

Nothing to do with rural peace, due more to tiredness and fatalism than to a real balance with the environment.

Lien had to hurry.

The outside of the house had been fixed and now she had to cook for everyone.

His mother would have refused to get up from her chair again after a whole day standing in the sun, with her back bent and her legs in the water, watching out for mosquitoes, flies, snakes and leeches.

Most of the farmers died from animal diseases, especially mosquitoes, or from snake bites or from falling into ditches that, only a few hours before, had not been there.

The rainy season and the dry season had their own dangers, different but equally lethal.

Then there was the joint pain in my back and joints.

They did not appear before the age of thirty-five, but they never left the unfortunate person, constituting an infinite scourge for his health.

For Lien, all this was a long time ago.

He didn't think about it.

To tell the truth, he never thought about the future.

It all seemed preordained and without any choice on his part.

If you were born into a peasant family in Phong Van, you stayed there unless you abandoned everything like his cousins, of whom he had never heard again.

They could have been dead or in grave danger, and as far as the girl knew, things were worse in the city.

He entered the house and saw his parents sitting.

He worked with herbs collected in the fields and on the first slopes of the hills.

He would mix them with rice flour and then cook the whole thing.

Some of the herbs would be kept aside to add to other vegetables and serve as lau, the typical hot soup.

Finally, a hard-boiled egg, divided into three portions, and a piece of fruit each, found on the way home after the morning outing.

Very little, but it was enough.

The other four eggs had been exchanged for a ration of fish that he had brought to his parents at the camp.

Combined with some boiled rice it had constituted lunch.

For the next day, same routine.

Very few supplies, especially dried meat, but nothing to report.

All the family members dined together and slowly.

Chewing for a long time was the best way to dampen the signs of hunger and general malnutrition.

After that ritual, we could talk.

First it was Dong's turn, then his wife's, and finally Lien's.

Trivial topics, certainly not anything elevated.

Evening came in an instant and with it darkness, since no one was equipped with oil lamps, much less electricity, something unknown in the Indochina countryside.

At that point, we went to bed or at least rested.

Unable to carry out any activity due to the lack of lighting and not needing a fire to keep warm, everything remained confined to the minds of individual people.

Almost always, too tired from the daily grind, they quickly fell asleep.

Lien used to stay awake longer and it was the best time of the day.

His favorite.

When he could let his mind wander and fantasize about the world.

About what cities were like or how his mother had lived as a young girl.

Had it really always been this way?

Unbeknownst to all the inhabitants of Indochina, in broad daylight, the final act of the war in France was about to take place in Paris.

For some, a minority to tell the truth, the fall of the government, while for the majority, liberation from Nazism and its collaborators.

That gesture of great affirmation and joy would have brought very different consequences in Southeast Asia.

By now it was clear that the Germans could neither defend the French capital nor continue to occupy it.

In less than twenty-four hours, the world that Lien and her family had been accustomed to living in for the past four years fell apart.

Once the Vichy government had surrendered, the Allies had arrived and taken provisional power, all French soldiers and officials on Indochinese soil automatically became enemies of the Japanese.

The order was clear and obvious.

Disarm them.

Almost always peacefully and without bloodshed, entire Japanese battalions took possession of the main cities and ports, while only a few colonial units managed to escape.

It was difficult for the old rulers to choose what was worse, since there were no acceptable solutions.

Today's enemies, that is, the allies of the Germans, or the enemies of always, that is, the independentists?

Among them, there was a strong communist component and one that had received support from the Soviets.

At that point, it was clear that the French would let the Japanese do their thing, given that the Land of the Rising Sun was in retreat.

An ephemeral interregnum.

Within two days, a provisional government was installed in Hanoi to preside over the so-called “Empire of Vietnam.”

A double tribute to the past of that people and to the great conqueror of today.

None of this leaked out to Phong Van.

The news would arrive in no less than ten days, delivered almost by hand, passed from mouth to mouth.

Merchants and small traders would have been the intermediaries, no longer officials since there was no authority whatsoever.

An empire without a communications network and a peripheral structure that received orders from the center and brought the situation back to the center.

Everything so precarious and so in antithesis to the immanence of the earth.

No one saw the breaking point coming, necessary to resolve that surreal balance between social dynamics accelerated by war or slowed down by tradition.

A mighty wave crashed down from the great cities.

Speed of speech versus speed of action.

The classic and ancient method versus a very modern and recent one.

No Frenchman would ever have risked his life for the Vietnamese, who had shown themselves to be unfriendly, especially since nationalism had made inroads through the proclamations of a charismatic leader like Ho Chi Minh.

And the Vietnamese themselves knew that countering the Japanese was only a matter of skirmishes because the bulk of the work had already been done.

Sooner or later the invading contingent would have been recalled to their homeland, leaving the field open to the eternal challenge between colonialists and independentists.

For the little time they had, the Japanese had complete freedom of action and concentrated on punishing the population.

They deeply hated other Asians so much that they massacred them.

The Chinese enclaves were the most hated.

A motorized convoy set out from Hanoi, crossing the bridge in a northerly direction and rejoining the rest of the force at the port near Ha Long Bay.

A sortie to the Chinese border was out of the question.

The territory is too far away and too vast.

We needed specific targets on which to focus our fire and create a scorched earth war.

For what?

Certainly not for the final victory, now given up for lost, but for a sort of professional code of those who had made a commitment.

To make the only Asian ethnicity worthy of the name triumph.

“They are building a gap and, as soon as they find it, they will penetrate north, spreading panic.”

The reports from the resistance's advance guards left no room for doubt.

We had to act, and quickly.

A commander stopped them.

“Don’t you understand that this sacrifice is necessary?”

They looked at him strangely.

What was the point of having their people massacred?

They had to defend him from the attacker.

“Instead, no, we must create a feeling of anger for the nationalist and revolutionary cause.

Because if everyone perceives foreigners as a threat, then internal divisions based on the form of government we want to give ourselves will be put aside.”

It was a cynical and evil calculation, but someone had to do it.

Sacrifice the few for the good of the many, indeed of all.

Any political leader would have done it and that's how the Vietnamese independence fighters reasoned.

“It will temper the desire for freedom.

The war, for us, will still be long even when Japan is defeated.

Our enemy will remain.”

The Japanese units began to scan the terrain, pushing further and further inland, without encountering any opposition.

There were only two orders.

Hurry and take no prisoners.

It meant destroying everything and killing everyone.

In silence, massacres of villages followed one another day after day, as the calendar advanced.

Less and less time available, more and more ferocity.

The units did not encounter any resistance and pushed inside to create a safety zone.

They were spotted about twenty kilometers from Phong Van, but the news only reached the village when this distance had already been halved.

They had at most an hour to escape.

It was lunchtime, when Lien brought her parents what she had exchanged that morning and found along the way.

There was commotion and someone had just warned Dong.

The man stared at his wife.

Without saying anything, the couple made a unanimous decision, as if it were written in the regular timetables of Nature.

They wouldn't have made it away.

Not with sore legs soaked from years of rice paddies.

And they would never abandon their village, from which they had separated on very few occasions.

Dong took his daughter by the shoulders.

That face, still that of a girl, not a woman, without any wrinkles and with smooth skin, possessed a magnetic power.

To ask adults questions, even without speaking.

“Go away Lien and don’t stop.”

The girl didn't understand.

Go where?

And why?

And what would his parents have done?

His father had to be categorical.

Only in this way could it withstand the devastating impact of enemy fire.

Nurturing the hope that all had not been in vain.

The years spent working hard and raising a family.

It wasn't supposed to end this way and it wouldn't have ended if at least one person had gotten to safety.

“The Japanese are coming. You have to run away.

Stop by the house and get what you need, but hurry.

Go to the heights to the north and don't stop.

Walk as long as you can, know the paths and know your way around.”

Lien, still shocked, tried to retort:

“Go where?

How much do I have to walk?

And you?”

Her mother came closer and stood next to her.

“As far north as you can go. All the way to China.”

Lien was surprised.

It took days of walking, at least five.

Where would he sleep at night?

“You have to go, do you understand?

The enemy is approaching.

You don't have to think about us, save yourself.

If all goes well, we’ll come looking for you.”

They were false promises that everyone knew were not true.

Tears began to fill Lien's eyes and flow down her cheeks, streaking them.

She didn't feel ready for all of this.

“Go, run. Don’t stop, promise.”

They hugged each other and those were endless moments, the kind that no one would want to end.

At least ten minutes had already passed and now there wasn't much time left.

Lien left abruptly, without looking back, even though her vision was blurred by tears.

They saw her disappear over the horizon, following her with their gaze.

Dong and Phuong did not move an inch and ate their meal, while the oxen rested on one of the banks of the rice field.

Lien crossed the fields and the stream and arrived home, causing a commotion among the chickens.

He thought about throwing himself on the bed, but then remembered he didn't have time.

His father's words were imprinted on his mind, a kind of guide for the rest of his life.

Deep in the girl's heart there was the knowledge that she would never see anyone again, even if hope remained.

At that point, something clicked inside her.

The survival instinct innate in each of us, even hiding a certain dose of selfishness, took possession of his spirit.

He took the canvas bag that could be carried on the shoulders.

He had to fill it with whatever was useful.

A blanket for the night.

All the dried meat supplies, the two remaining eggs, wrapped in a cloth so as not to break them.

He added some tufts of wild grass, even the good kind raw, a fruit and a handful of rice.

Finally, three containers with water.

There was nothing else in the house that could be transported.

The chickens had to be left where they were, since there was no time to wring their necks, pluck them and cook them.

It was a shame.

They would have been necessary for the journey, since, all things considered, there was only enough food for three days at most and Lien would have had to make do with the rest.

The same goes for the sack of rice, a Godsend too bulky and not very suitable for the long journey that awaited him.

She didn't think much about the road ahead and the route, otherwise she would have felt helpless.

It was a truly arduous undertaking that only the need for survival made conceivable.

He loaded everything on his shoulders and left the house enclosure, heading towards the hills.

She would have to keep an eye on the Sun at all times, especially after the first day, when her range would take her far from known paths.

Meanwhile, the Japanese unit had reached the vicinity of the rice field.

From the armored turret of the van that led the way, a fifteen-millimeter cannon and a machine gun protruded.

Four loopholes, placed on each side, served as lookouts.

The driver of the vehicle had the task of following the directions of the spotter, while the person firing the weapon had to take note of the presence of enemies.

The first to fall under Japanese fire were Dong's oxen, pierced through and through by a burst of gunfire that caused blood to spurt out, staining their light-colored coats.

Phuong jumped and threw himself to the ground, while Dong lunged at the animals.

A few blows knocked him down and his guts spilled out onto the bank, slowly trickling down into the rice paddy, which would soon be dyed red.

Phuong was still lying there in fear, but they had already spotted her.

“Move ten centimeters and I’ll shoot you...”, the shooter used to speak to his victims from a distance, as if they could hear him.

Phuong raised her head to check on her husband and a sharp blow hit her in the middle of the forehead.

“That’s it. We can go.”

The other farmers had fled, going into hiding, in an attempt to stay alive.

They did not know that a worse fate would befall them.

Immediately behind the van was the infantry unit, equipped with service rifles, pistols and knives for hand-to-hand combat.

They dispersed in various directions in groups of three, once the road was deemed clear.

They were the real executioners of that method.

Continuing on foot, they could wedge themselves in anywhere, while the van remained on standby and checked that no one escaped.

Thus, after ten minutes, they had positioned themselves right on the road that, with a natural bridge, forded the stream.

It was the only access point to the part of the village inhabited by the community derived from the Chinese.

That was the first objective, since it was about eliminating the ethnic group considered inferior by the Japanese.

Five cannon shots hit five houses and Lien, already halfway up the hill, clearly heard the dull sound of the explosion due to the light artillery.

It was different from the gunshots.

Less frequent but still intense.

A roar, not a hiss.

She thought things were going badly in the village, but she didn't turn around or have the urge to go back.

In his head there were only Dong's words.

“Go north.”

And that's what he was doing.

Groups of soldiers began to inspect the houses and the surrounding area.

Men were gunned down on the spot, as were old people and children.

Thus Lien's grandparents, her uncles and her cousins disappeared forever.

Non-elderly women were given additional treatment.

They were to be gathered in a special place kept under surveillance by three soldiers.

The search operations continued for an hour and flushed out all the members of the village.

There were about thirty women left in the center, but the maximum number was supposed to be twenty.

A consultation followed among the forty soldiers, who decided which ten should be eliminated immediately.

Generally, the ugliest or those considered least attractive.

Once the macabre counting was over, the ten chosen ones were shot dead, creating panic among the others.

“Shut up, nothing like this will happen to you.”

The soldiers, in groups of two, attacked the twenty and raped them in turns.

Luckily for Lien, the distance was too far for her to hear the screams, otherwise she would have been shocked.

Those who lived on the other side of the village did not know whether to hope to stay alive or to be slaughtered immediately, since they would never forget the heart-rending voices of the women begging for mercy.

Once they had finished satisfying themselves sexually, the soldiers had free rein to raid everything in the houses.

A few valuables, usually watches.

Some money, but not much.

Food, yes.

The trucks returned loaded with food supplies which were then exchanged for other goods, while the valuables remained in the pockets of the soldiers.

It was the right reward for having followed orders.

After two hours of their arrival, it was all over and all that was left to do was put the final seal on it.

Set everything on fire.

No one was supposed to return there, and in this way, a precise signal was provided, as well as erasing traces of the murders.

The bodies were piled up inside the houses, with even domestic animals slaughtered for pure pleasure.

After that, a fire was started using rags soaked in petrol and wrapped around a stick.

The straw and wood of the houses would have done the rest.

All this was accompanied by cheers and patriotic Japanese songs.

Lien, now at the top of the hill, turned and saw the flames engulfing what had been her village.

The hopes of ever seeing his parents or relatives again were minimal.

More tears, of pain and anger.

If he had had a rifle he would not have thought twice about killing the Japanese.

He had to distance himself further, since it was not yet safe and there were still three hours before sunset.

He didn't feel tired and hadn't eaten anything yet, only drank a couple of sips of water.

Too much tension had built up inside his body for normal physiological needs to control it.

He continued on his way, this time downhill.

Once finished, he knew there was a village to the east, but he had to keep away and that there were other slopes.

At the very least his goal for the day was to climb to the top of the next one and find a place on the way down to take shelter.

With a steady and determined step, he marched into the unknown.

Others, however, were marching back to where they had come from.

This was the Japanese unit, which would take a different direction the following day.

No one was interested in hunting down the few fugitives, but in raiding as much as possible and killing as many as possible.

One was worth one, without too much distinction or preference.

While on the one hand there was revelry and sharing of spoils, all overshadowed by the fanatical camaraderie of an army that considered itself superior, on the other there was loneliness and fear.

Up until that point, Lien had never spent a night outdoors and was aware of the dangers of the bush.

Before dark, he found a secluded and protected place.

“This will be fine,” he thought to himself.

He could not light a fire to warm himself or cook, as it might arouse suspicion.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said to himself.

He took the two eggs and drank them raw, just like that, without any hesitation.

Then he chewed the wild grass and a fruit.

“The dried meat for tomorrow...”

He mentally reviewed his route and supplies.

For two days he would eat meat, keeping the rice for the third.

Water, so far, was not a problem.

He wrapped himself completely in the blanket.

Fortunately, the temperature did not drop that much at night and her slender figure was such that it was submerged by that warm bed.

Every part of his body was safe, with no contact with the ground.

He placed the bag on his lap as if it were a pillow and rested his head on it, without even taking off his conical hat.

He closed his eyes and began to sleep, without caring about the external dangers of animals and men.

She was tired.

He didn't dream anything, dreams are for those who are calm and safe in their own home.

She woke up just before dawn, awakened by the sounds of Nature.

Her back felt sore from sitting in an uncomfortable position for too long.

He took off his hat, took a sip, and set off north.

All day he paced at a steady pace and repeated the scene the next day.

By now her feet were sore and so were her calves.

He had lit a fire for the night, just to warm himself.

She lacked a container where she could boil water and eat rice.

He hadn't thought of it and now he regretted it.

How much had he walked?

He was unable to determine a distance in kilometers nor to know whether he had actually kept north or had zigzagged along non-rectilinear lines.

In any case, China could not have been far away.

“One more day,” he said to himself.

She stood up, looking more and more battered.

By now the pace had slowed and the pangs of hunger were so strong that they convinced her to eat the raw rice, accompanied only by what remained of the water.

Now he only had the blanket and would have to make do with what he found.

She sat down exhausted before sunset and did not even light the fire.

She slept until the next day and until the sun beat down on her face.

After an hour, he stumbled.

It took two minutes before she stood up and Lien felt no pain from any sprains or breaks.

She was just tired and malnourished.

There was a slope not covered with woods and trees, but only with grass.

It must have rained the day before because it was slippery.

Lien tried to be careful, but she couldn't prevent her body from hitting the ground and, dragged down the steep slope, rolling down the valley.

The girl let herself go, thinking that it would be better to die.

She had taken some blows and was knocked unconscious when her body stopped.

He stood there for ten minutes without moving.

He had lost consciousness.

Someone passed by her.

“Another one who escaped from Vietnam and the Japanese.”

The Chinese farmer would have called his wife to help that thin and spindly girl.

II

Chongzuo, August-October 1945

––––––––

“Come on, get a move on.”

The private in charge of ration distribution was not very considerate in his treatment of Lien Do, a servant attached to the Communist People's Army stationed in southern China.

The war, the one between the imperialists, was about to end with the defeat of Japan, but everyone in Chongzuo was expecting something else.

Holed up in the south where Mao Zedong had reorganized the Communist forces, some were now preparing to move north under orders, while others would stay in the south to guard the border areas.

There was no worse situation than a power vacuum, and with Japan's retreat, this had been made evident throughout Asia.

Lien hurried.

He knew he shouldn't make the Chinese nervous, especially the soldiers.

For nothing, they would have slapped her.

She was not well regarded, even though she understood, spoke and wrote Chinese, but her features revealed her Vietnamese origin.

However, she was still grateful to those people because they had saved her, even if it had been done by farmers living near Pingxiang, the first town near the border with Vietnam.

After a few weeks, she was handed over to the People's Army, the only real institution capable of supporting her in exchange for work.

Lien had few rights, only the right to eat and sleep on a cot that had been assigned to her along with the other servants.

In a bag he had the three clothes he washed regularly and nothing else.

This was all he possessed, in addition to knowing two languages and knowing how to handle household items or cooking.

Compared to being dead or a prisoner, that was already a good advantage.

“But here we are prisoners,” one of her compatriots had confided to her.

In fact, the Empire of Vietnam had lasted very little, despite having inflicted evident damage on the society of its country of origin.

Now a decades-old dispute has been opened in Vietnam.

On one side the demands of the people, always ignored, and on the other the French, legitimate rulers also because they were part of the group of the victors of the war.

For Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, there would have been no end to the war and his communist orientation might even have received the support of the Chinese and Mao, if the historical rivalry between the Chinese and the Vietnamese had not taken over.

Despite all the dictates of Marxism-Leninism, nationalism still reigned supreme in this part of the world.

Something that Europeans had experienced first-hand and which had given rise to the phenomenon of Bolshevik communism, but which in Asia was far from being overcome.

Lien wanted to return to Vietnam, to see what had happened to her village and to find her parents or some relatives, but she was not allowed.

That's why her colleague had told her about the captivity.

Without bars and without prisons, but they were not free.

In addition, the People's Army was subjected to forced indoctrination that involved everyone, even non-Chinese servants.

On this, Mao had been categorical.

No exceptions.

Everyone had to be aware of the cause and have self-consciousness and class consciousness.

For this reason, teachers had been sent.

People of broad culture, who knew science and art, languages and poetry, but who had the communist ideology well in their heads.

They had been trained directly by Mao's first line leadership and from there they had been given the task of disseminating knowledge.

Mass indoctrination of every soldier, who had to gain full knowledge of socialism and weapons before being thrown into battle.

“Only in this way will we prevail,” it was proclaimed.

There were mass rallies where, through loudspeakers and informational material, people were educated about socialism using straightforward and easily understandable assumptions.

One step after another, without haste.

“Time is our friend,” they used to say, considering the advent of socialism inevitable.

Lien had been forced to sit back and stay in a corner, but she understood better than most.

Never having had a comparison with anyone, not having gone to school regularly, made her unable to evaluate herself and others and she always considered herself as the lowest wheel on the wagon.

An immense self-conviction of not being worthy.

On the other hand, the crowd was so large that direct contact with the teacher was not possible.

He was a young man of twenty-five, named Deng Jintao, originally from the inner Yellow River area.

He came from a family of teachers and his ancestors had gradually adapted to the various changes in power.

Deng was one of the most fervent supporters of the communist cause and hoped that something similar to what had existed in the Soviet Union for almost thirty years would be established in China, even though he was completely unaware of what actually lay behind Stalinism.

Deng was very tall compared to average, standing out above everyone else, and extremely thin, so much so that he could not find suitable clothes.

Some of them that were the right width were too short, while the ones with the right length were huge and her body was dancing inside.

As a result, he was quite clumsy in his movements, but he made up for this with a sharp and high-level intelligence.

He could speak four languages, in addition to Chinese, Japanese, English and French, and was one of the best translators in the entire region.

He wore a shaved head and a pair of round, crooked glasses.

The soldiers had great respect for him, even though he did not know how to handle any weapon and was completely unsuited to manly tasks such as wrestling and boxing.

Lien had observed a strange flash of lightning at the end of the night when it was already beginning to dawn, but no one else had noticed it except her.

If she had spoken about it, everyone would have laughed at her.

The same flash appeared, even more faintly, the morning of three days later, when the whole world already knew what it was.

Dispatches had arrived almost everywhere with news of this kind and the communist commanders of the People's Army did not know whether to be happy with the Japanese defeat and that well-deserved lesson after all the crimes committed, or to be worried by the strength of American capitalism.

In truth, few people cared about the United States since the main problem was to defeat the nationalist movement and take power in China.

Second, expand influence at the Asian level without being second to none.

Japan and Indochina above all.

For Lien, however, the priorities were different.

“When can I go home?” was a question he had dared to ask only once.

A soldier would respond with a punch or a blow with the butt of his rifle to the pit of her stomach.

Lien, very cleverly, had asked the question to Master Jintao, who, almost without looking at her face, had answered her mechanically.

“This is your home.

There are proletarian comrades like you here.

You must eradicate from your mind the old bourgeois notion of property and nation.”

The girl had not responded.

She had not told him anything about why, then, they discriminated against Vietnamese people, especially women, in this way.

She had walked away, spinning in the sloppy shoes that had taken her all the way to China.

Worn and threadbare, but still one of the few things that reminded her of her village and her family.

He thought often of his father and mother, but not of their fate or their last meeting.

He remembered his childhood, when Lien's smiles were still abundant and undimmed by the passing of life.

There was a specific time for such memories and it was when, at the end of the day, Lien lay down on her cot.

Before falling asleep, he would think of such a thought and thus be able to doze off peacefully.

Without dreams and without nightmares, with an empty mind.

The routine in Chongzuo was quite usual.

Work and clean, then listen to Master Jintao's daily lesson.

Nothing practical, but propaganda.

Lien had to wait a while before she fully understood the words that were constantly being spoken.

Revolution, socialism, proletarians, bourgeois, nationalists.

It seemed to her that Master Jintao was painting a future society that was still to be built, while one only had to look at the garrison camp to see something completely opposite.

Attachment to material life and no solidarity among comrades.

Violence and abuse everywhere.

Not that things were any better in the city.

There was a civil authority, only formally in the hands of the central government, and then no one even knew who these figures were after the departure of the Japanese.

China was so large that it was drifting towards a regionalist and localist trend, something that Mao wanted to avoid at all costs.

The population was not doing well.

Lien thought her old village was better and the food was better too.

For this very reason, it had also been used for cooking, since everyone appreciated what Lien prepared.

Her knowledge of wild herbs had become renowned and no one dared to eat anything without first having seen it.

“You can make poisons with some herbs...”, he had emphasized to give tone to his profession.

Those were the only moments of humanity towards her, after which she returned to being a Vietnamese servant.

In mid-August, news arrived of Japan's surrender.

Lien couldn't hold back her tears.

Of anger and despair.

Why did everything happen so late?

Why didn't they give up before?

He would still be in his village with his father and mother.

That day, Master Jintao gave a lecture on the difference between revolutions.

Lien learned that revolution was a natural process in human life and there had been many in the past.

Even in France, that country that Lien knew only as the master of Indochina, there had been something like this.

“Always bourgeois revolutions.”

Master Jintao knew French.

Lien smiled because she had heard two men speaking French years before and it seemed like a funny language to her.

With certain strange sounds, especially in the mouths of adult men.

“But the socialist revolution is different...”

Master Jintao hammered on certain points every day until they became common knowledge for all the soldiers.

Lien had noticed how the way young people who, until a year earlier, had been farmers or craftsmen, merchants or students communicated had changed.

None of them were soldiers and none of them were revolutionaries, nor did they know what communism was.

Now they talked freely, but always with prompting from above, about agrarian reform and collective production.

Lien was not allowed to argue with anyone, so she thought to herself and tried to put her thoughts in order.

From what he understood, it was necessary to rebel against exploitation and build a society that would not allow any discrimination.

To do this, an act of military force was needed, an overthrow of the existing power through a shock wave of unprecedented violence.

They were there for that reason.

So Lien began to think about the future.

They wouldn't have sent her to war, but perhaps she should have followed the military contingent.

Walk and move in line with it.

How far?

Beijing was the final destination, where the Communists would enter triumphantly to conquer central power in China.

“Where is he?” she asked some of her colleagues.

They pointed them far north.

Much more than he could have imagined.

He was saddened, as it would mean moving even further away from Vietnam.

"And then?".

Master Jintao had been categorical.

The socialist revolutionary process was unstoppable and inevitable and would overwhelm everyone.

After China, it had to be exported elsewhere.

So Lien was cheered up, thinking that Vietnam could also be liberated from the French through this revolution.

And, finally, he would return to the village.

Everything in the girl's head was aimed at how to set foot again on that piece of land of which she knew every little inconsistency.

“Ho Chi Minh is already here.”

A colleague confessed to her that, in truth, there was also a revolutionary force of socialist and communist origin in Vietnam.

Lien was very surprised by this.

“So what are we doing here?

Why are we not destined to make the revolution triumph in our country?”

He had only heard about this Vietnamese army and had never paid attention to it years before, but now it became of primary importance.

The colleague got impatient.

“You're always asking questions.

You'll end up getting into trouble.

They don't send us because we're enemies, you understand?

You don’t have to believe everything the Chinese say...”

Lien was disappointed.

She thought she had found a friend and confidant, but she hadn't.

So, was it necessary to distrust everyone?

But this was the exact opposite of what Master Jintao was teaching.

So, was he a hypocrite too?

She didn't think so.

From what little he had been able to observe, Master Jintao was a fervent supporter of what he was saying.

He could never have supported theses contrary to his thinking.

And if a man of such culture firmly believed this, who was Lien to doubt it?

She decided not to speak to her colleague anymore.

He would have kept his distance and meditated within himself.

Thus, her isolation became even greater, not even being able to enjoy the benefit of going to the city with others.

Usually, we went in groups of two or three, so that each person had a handful of minutes of freedom to do what they wanted.

Wandering around, checking out some cute boys, eating or relaxing.

They all covered each other and the commanders pretended not to see.

Lien always went alone and didn't have a free minute.

If she did not fulfill her duties, she would be punished.

Obedient to the directives, she was also grateful for the medical assistance.

Since she was in Chongzuo, she was visited regularly once a month, which had never happened to her before.

He did not understand that the People's Army was only interested in two conditions.

The first was a state of health to be able to exploit his work and not to spread diseases to the soldiers.

Commanders knew well that certain pathogens, if released en masse, could be much more lethal than an armed enemy.

And the gathering of so many men was an excellent means of spreading disease.

The second was to check the status of the women to see if they had become pregnant.

Promiscuity between servants and soldiers was not permitted, but these rules were often violated.

Such thorough monitoring served as a deterrent, as the orderly would be removed and the soldier punished with two weeks of forced isolation in cells considered to be gloomy hovels suitable only for animals and not people.

Lien's naivety did not allow her to see all this, but only the great availability of the Chinese.

Each visit was recorded, kept, and then sent to senior medical staff.

The soldiers, on the other hand, had a different treatment and their physical strength was mainly monitored.

Mind and body, both needed to be nourished and cared for.

In this, there was a certain continuity with Chinese folk tradition and the classics of Taoism and Confucianism, but this was never to be emphasized.

If there was something that infuriated the members of the People's Army, it was precisely this reference to tradition.

“Religion is poison,” declared every pamphlet distributed.

Thus the soldiers, almost always stationed in Chongzuo only for a two-month training, were indoctrinated and then deployed on Chinese territory for various types of operations.

They were determined and would reach their goal.

“We will win because we are right,” Master Jintao emphasized, forgetting the importance of military training, tactics and weapons.

Most of the supplies came from Soviet aid, although Mao had a fundamental difference.

All this was hidden from the eyes of the master and teacher, because he had to be made to believe in the inevitability of his role.

Only by convincing everyone of their own importance, while relating to the masses, could something exceptional be achieved.

Lien got lost in staring at the hills.

A year earlier, towards the end of August, he had had to leave home.

Run away without looking back.

Hiding from everything and everyone to end up in a country where she was considered a nobody, but at least she was alive.

Was it worth it?

He didn't know.

He started and felt the urge to leave. Pick up a few things and some food and start walking in reverse.

Logic told her to stop since it was at least double the distance in kilometers compared to the outward journey and much of it would be on Chinese soil.

If they had found her, she would have been killed instantly.

There was no mercy for deserters and traitors, including civilian personnel attached to the People's Army.

Much more sadly, he closed his eyes and imagined himself flying and seeing his parents still alive.

He would never have known that the bodies of Dong and Phuong, disemboweled and lying on the edge of the rice field, had remained there, exposed to Nature's banquet and had been removed only a month later.

Perhaps it was best not to learn these details so that Lien's mind could remain intact.

That day he did everything with a different spirit, as he did for the next five.

It was Lien's commemoration of his journey and he said he would repeat a similar ritual every year until he set foot in Vietnam again.

If anyone had stopped to look at her, they would have noticed something different.

A different light.

No one paid attention except Master Jintao.

At the end of one of his group lessons, he used to let the entire class file past him before bringing up the rear.

He found it to be a symbolic gesture of extreme composure and very much in line with the dictates of socialism.

The intellectual at the service of the people.

The maids always left last, just before the master, and Lien had remained last among the last, so that the master could linger on her longer.

Although he was a communist to the core, Deng Jintao was also subject to the psychological influences typical of the human mind.

The first and the last of a large mass are always noticed, more than the others.

Deng Jintao, after years of study, knew how to discern who had something brilliant inside them and he had always had the idea that this corresponded to a nobility of soul and feelings, further increased by the awareness of study and socialism.

Since he had been in Chongzuo, he had not noticed any person with such characteristics.

All good privates or officers, but none special.

Until that day.

Lien's gaze pierced him.

It came from a young girl, a Vietnamese servant, but he was gifted with absolute acumen.

Even at the level of the Party's underground leaders there was not so much hidden potential.

He replied with a shy smile and continued awkwardly on his way out of class.

In the evening, under the cover of darkness, he thought intensely about a similar situation.

Was it worth looking into further?

Or was he wrong?

He didn't know.

For the first time in his life, Deng Jintao had no answer and was in doubt.

He was experiencing the common human condition of the quintessential existential question.

He couldn't sleep, while Lien fell asleep as always, free from any preconditions and thoughts.

The master decided that he should speak directly, to probe and resolve the matter.

Only by analyzing it thoroughly would he have dissolved all reservations.

He waited for the next lesson and the habit, typical of all humans, of repeating a known mechanism.

Everyone always sat in the same seats, even if they were not assigned, and everyone lined up in the same way.

Without saying anything and without orders, one had a military behavior.

After having exposed the foundations of revolutionary action, he looked for the same light and found it again in Lien's eyes.

He blocked her.

The girl was frightened because she knew she could neither refuse nor prevent anything.

In front of her was a Chinese man, older than her, with a respectable position.

Total communication and social dyscrasia.

“You’re not Chinese, are you?”

Lien shook her head.

“How long have you been with us?”

“One year.”

Deng did everything he could to make her look up, otherwise she was looking down.

“What do you do besides serve?”