I studied the photo for a while, then watched the ashes of the paper doll float down the river. The mother placed a wreath made of white flowers in the water, and eventually this too was consumed by the river.
The mother began to sob in the twilight.
“My dear son. You have someone to love now. Please come back to me.… My son … Please …”
As I left the riverbank, I felt like a sleepwalker. It was inevitable. I knew the thought would haunt me for the rest of my life: if I’d only let him kiss me that night, maybe he wouldn’t have had to return to the cold, dark woods.
18 / OUT OF THE LAUGHING WOODS
VO THI HAO
Vo Thi Hao was born in 1956 in Nghe An and currently lives in exile in Germany. For nearly two decades she was a member of the Vietnam Writers’ Association; in 2015 she resigned from that organization to protest the lack of freedom of expression in Vietnam. Her story “Out of the Laughing Woods” was well received when first published in 1991, and it was eventually made into a popular film. The portrayal of the group of women in the story as driven to a kind of hysteria after three years of isolated living at an army supply depot “deep in the ghostly arms of the forest” suggests the ways the war traumatized even those not involved directly in the actual fighting. The “laughing disorder” that apparently afflicts these women is likened to “the wild, cruel laughter of war.” There is no real path to recovery, no hope of finding happiness during peacetime. The women have been irrevocably changed by the war and counted now among its millions of victims.
It was the dark green water of the creek that caused it.
All four of the young women charged with looking after an army supply depot deep in the Truong Son Mountains began losing their hair until every one of them was nearly bald.
When Thao, the fifth member of the group, arrived at the depot, the other four women were glad to see her. Thao had long, silky hair, which reached all the way down to her feet. They treasured Thao like gold and made sure the forest would never destroy her beautiful hair by giving her fragrant medicinal leaves to use as shampoo.
But the forest was too powerful. Two months after she arrived, Thao’s beautiful hair began to turn thin and clumpy. Everyone cried except for Thao, who said, “There’s no need to cry. I already have a boyfriend and he is very faithful. Even if I’m completely bald, he will still love me.”
The other women stopped crying as they listened to Thao tell her story. Her boyfriend was a student at the University of Literature in Hanoi. His image came to Thao’s memory from some distant place, but then he appeared clearly in front of all the women as a loyal prince.
Because the women loved Thao, all four of them also fell in love with this man, though in a strictly platonic way. This kind of love is impossible to explain in peacetime. Only those who have experienced war and utter loneliness and who have been on the precipice between life and death can understand it.
They had lived in the forest for three years, three rainy seasons and two dry seasons. It was now the third burning-hot dry season. Their supply depot was hidden deep in the ghostly arms of the forest. Every now and then a soldier would stop by to pick up supplies and clothes, then leave in a hurry. But they usually lingered long enough to flirt with the women. Their behavior was typical of men who had been living away from women for too long. Some of the soldiers would silently admire them as if they were queens, planting dreamy hopes that attached to the women’s minds like cobwebs. But then the men would disappear and the women would be lonely again.
Gradually the violence of the battlefield crept closer to the remote army depot. The five women lived anxiously while the forest seemed indifferent, covering the ground with fallen leaves. The deep red color of the leaves was reflected in the bright, hot sky. The women dreamed of red at night while they slept.
One day around noon, three soldiers came to pick up some supplies. As they got closer to the depot they heard the sound of wild laughter. They stopped for a second, confused and maybe a little frightened. But then they recalled the stories people told about these woods and the witches who lived there and liked to throw parties from time to time. They kept walking, and as they neared the depot, one of the soldiers thought he heard something—probably a white gibbon, he figured, rustling off in the bushes. But as he got closer to the bushes a hand suddenly grabbed his neck. He heard the sound of wild laughter again as he struggled to free himself. The gibbon had a firm grip on him. Then he realized, to his bewilderment, that the white gibbon was actually a naked woman with unkempt hair and a haggard face. She laughed with her mouth open and head tilted up toward the sky.
The soldier’s voice was stuck in his throat. He was barely able to call out, “Hien! Hien!” A tall, older-looking soldier came running. Hien was both scared and slightly amused when he saw his friend immobilized in the hands of a naked woman. He had heard of a disorder women sometimes suffered, something similar to this situation. Hien moved closer and signaled to
