At noon the day after that, order was restored after public loudspeakers announced a death penalty for robbers and pillagers. The peace of the first few days, characterized by anxiety, resembled a layer of fog covering the town. A change in history didn’t make a huge difference for poor people, who eventually still had to worry about putting food on the table. Before, this part of town had been populated by hired laborers and working-class people who had had various kinds of jobs. Then the liberation occurred. The hired laborers, the construction workers, and the street vendors stopped doing what they had been doing, and everybody now had the same job, no exception. In the morning they all carried baskets and machetes with them and went into the woods. In the afternoon they traded their chopped wood for rice at the community hall.
The sticky rice vendor’s son, who was in the tenth grade, dropped out of school and joined the town’s proletariat. He collected wood and sold it as a street vendor. On his first day doing this, he felt embarrassed. Whenever he walked by an area where people knew him personally, he tiptoed and lowered his head. However, his mother was always by his side in times of tribulations and hardships, so he soon became used to his new job.
In July 1977 the government encouraged people to resettle in the New Economic Zones. He and his mother were selected for resettlement. According to the program, young people who were seventeen or older had to live together in the youth volunteer camp.
At 5:00 a.m., reveille sounded in the camp. Everybody enthusiastically had their morning exercise. Then a fire was lit in the kitchen and the smell of cooking sweet potatoes and maniocs filled the air. At 7:00 a.m. everybody was ready to go to work in the field. At 11:00 a.m. they had lunch—rice mixed with ground corn, pumpkin soup, and baked dried fish. At 1:00 p.m. they went back to work. At 5:00 p.m. they ate dinner right where they were working. At 7:00 p.m. they worked the night shift until 9:00 p.m. In the evenings when there was not enough electricity or there was a storm, they gathered for political instruction. Thousands of people sat by a fire listening to one person lecturing on “Pavel and the October Revolution.”
If there had been no afternoon of October 21, 1977, he—the son of the sticky rice vendor—and thousands of other people would have become the Pavels of the New Economic Zones. But that was not his fate, because it turned out to be an unforgettable afternoon. He who had been fatherless suddenly had a father.
His father returned in a military Jeep with a driver and bodyguard. He had the look of a prideful hero. His hair was gray, bald above the forehead. He wore a faded uniform, and his dark skin indicated that he was an experienced man.
When they were finally reunited, his father and mother both cried. He was astonished and became madly happy due to such a wonderful surprise. Just a one-minute rendezvous between them erased eighteen years of longing and desperation.
The secretary of the village, who had the rank of captain, and the commander of the Youth Volunteer Association paid his family a formal visit for the first time. They lavished compliments on him when they shook hands with his father, a lieutenant colonel they referred to as “Comrade” and he called Dad.
He was very surprised at the commander’s obsequious behavior because one morning not long before, the commander had criticized his squad for not completing their duty, reprimanding them with harsh words: “You guys are remnants of the former regime! You prefer dancing and drinking over working in the rice paddy! All of you must work harder!” But now, good fortune had knocked on his door and given him a father who appeared quite late in his life but made significant changes.
His father, Mr. Suu, was able to rescue him from Squad 1, Platoon 3, Company 9 of the Youth Volunteer Association, as well as his mother from her shacklike house roofed with eight pieces of tin, the standard housing for citizens resettled in the New Economic Zones. His family now moved back to town, where his father “offered” him and his mother a luxurious mansion as a gift. The words “Villa Pensée” were engraved in a piece of marble across the front gate.
When they threw a party to celebrate the new house and the family reunion, Mr. Suu got drunk and formally announced, “Thank you, comrades, for offering this ‘Revolution’ house to us. The district leader, who had the rank of major, used to be the owner of this mansion. His father was my father’s boss prior to the August Revolution, and thirty years ago, I was the servant of his pampered son named Sang. I was fed two meals a day just to wash, groom, and feed his valued horses. Comrades, as you can see”—his father pointed to the back to the house—“the district leader didn’t give up his obsession with horses when he moved here from the central highlands. That five-compartment horse stable over there stands as clear evidence of his bourgeois lifestyle. Have you guys been able to help Sang get rid of his horse obsession in the reeducation camp?” Laughter echoed all around. The alcohol got everybody high, and so did the feelings of victory.
That afternoon, eighteen years after his birth, the son firmly believed that he would have a more fortunate destiny.
And he was right. He was compensated for his previous hardships; he was able to continue his education. If the word “compensation” had carried its full meaning, he would have become a history researcher, as he had always wished. But a new “offer” was made, and now he had to drop out of college at the end of his sophomore year
