Dai loved me and had sacrificed his life for me. When he found out about his dark future, he decided to reject me, thinking, People are truly happy only when their lovers are happy. Dai wanted me to have a happy family, so he had intentionally built a wall between us. I hadn’t known about this before.
Now that I knew the truth, I loved Dai even more. But he kept rejecting me. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to let time solve the problem and continued visiting him every day. As each day passed, he started to become less and less cranky. Then one day he sat down beside me and said, “Hoa, I let you go back then so you could enjoy your own happiness. But everything didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Although I lived far away, I still knew about everything that happened to you. I love you very much. It’s not your fault. It’s the war’s fault. Both of our fathers were exposed to Agent Orange and passed the effects of the dioxin poison on to their children. That’s why you gave birth to such grotesque things. Now let’s talk about us. We can’t have children. We don’t know what the future will be like for us. So let’s just end our relationship now.”
“Dai, your parents have already passed away, and mine will too someday. Only you and I exist. There is no reason for us not to be together and spend the rest of our lives together. I beg you.”
Dai was moved by my words. Finally, days after this conversation, he agreed with my proposal and discussed the process for adopting a child. I was no longer anxious. On the contrary, I felt delighted, like a person walking on clouds. Our love had been rekindled.
Dai looked at me affectionately now. His deep eyes opened wide and seemed to brighten. Suddenly he embraced me tightly, so tightly that I felt my heart was breaking into pieces in his arms. His lips were warm against mine. I couldn’t breathe.
20 / A MORAL MURDERER
LAI VAN LONG
Lai Van Long was born in 1964 in the central highland city of Da Lat and currently lives in Ho Chi Minh City. He is a news reporter for the Ho Chi Minh City Police News and has won many awards for his work as a journalist. In addition, he has published two collections of short stories and three novels. Several of his stories have been translated into Chinese, French, and Japanese, including “A Moral Murderer,” his most famous story, which was highly controversial when it was first published in the early 1990s and cemented Lai Van Long’s reputation as a provocative and fearless writer. The story deals with several issues that are considered “sensitive” by the Vietnamese government: the personal appropriation by communist officials of land previously belonging to the bourgeois class; peasants’ disaffection with the propaganda of the revolution; forced political indoctrination in Marxist/Leninist thought; and the use of reeducation camps. More than anything, this story highlights the anger of the lower classes who felt betrayed by the empty promises of the revolution.
The following folk lyrics, which were associated with his memories of a distant past, now became his philosophy of life:
A prince inherits his father’s throne,
While a Buddhist monk sweeps fallen leaves …
He didn’t know when he had first memorized these lyrics and who had been the first person to sing them to him. All he knew was that when he was an elementary school student, the meaning of the lyrics evoked in him feelings of inferiority and aspirations for a better life.
He had survived thanks to his mother’s years of suffering and hard work. She had been a street vendor, selling sticky rice from a bamboo basket, and she carried him—her child—with her all around town. She was penniless and had spent years looking for her husband, who was gone. She had no relatives. His mother’s body became wasted and her eyes were sad, both of which made him pessimistic and quite reserved at school. He grew into a shy boy who tended to alienate himself from all social interactions.
In 1975 the roaring sounds of cannons and planes filled the air and the townspeople were bewildered. South Vietnamese soldiers, the last symbol of a regime that was about to be annihilated, took off their uniforms and tried to escape, lest the communists find them and exact revenge. For twenty-four hours, the city turned to anarchy—destruction of buildings, robbing, pillaging, and vengeful acts. Bloodthirsty people cried out cheerfully while others grieved their losses and hid quietly as they awaited what would come next.
He was sixteen then. He and his mother, the sticky rice vendor, divided the remainder of their uncooked rice into small containers because they needed to prepare themselves for the worst. He sat outside and guarded the front door of their dilapidated house and prayed for the safety of their shelter. However, his worries were unnecessary because those who had the guts and strength to become robbers were too busy destroying things, robbing, and shouting, especially when they ransacked big stores owned by wealthy families who had already deserted the city.
Three prisoners escaped from jail and used pistols to shoot and destroy the iron gate of a local judge’s house. The door of the mayor’s mansion was left wide open so that people could come in and share in the wealth that had formerly belonged to the mayor. The mansion’s security guard ordered his fellow guards to remove an antenna from the roof and cart away a television set. They even used a GMC truck to move out all the valuables. When lawlessness reigned, violence and power became synonymous.
At noon the following day, tanks and military vehicles of the “other side” entered the city. The entire town rushed out to watch the communist liberators. Communist red flags with a
