“Are you deaf?” asked Lam Quang Vinh, Mr. Sang’s son, sitting behind the wheel.
He saw Vinh’s angry face through the window. A girl sitting next to Vinh in the car frowned to express her anger.
There was a second car trailing Vinh’s, and the people in it leaned out the window to curse him.
He turned back his head angrily.
“What?”
“Motherfucker!”
The first car accelerated and galloped as if to kill him, as if he was nothing more than an insolent, low-class bastard. The cars stopped suddenly and everybody got out and started threatening him violently. Vinh was the fastest—he kicked Mr. Suu’s son very hard in the chest, which made him buckle over with pain. The others stood around looking at him derisively. He staggered toward his home in the horse stable, leaving behind the contemptuous laughter.
“Tie him up! What a bastard. Somebody call Policeman Hung for me …”
His head was reeling. He went to his father’s bed and found a pistol, something his father had saved for him. The pistol was brand new and fully loaded. He checked the gun to make sure it worked, then left and kicked the door closed behind him. He saw his father’s jar of herbal moonshine that was still half full, but there was no need to drink it now. The hatred he had been harboring in his heart for over twenty years had already turned into courage.
He held the pistol firmly in his hand and walked toward the mansion where he heard loud, cheerful voices. He stood with his legs spread wide at the center of the open door to the living room where people were talking cheerfully, drinking, and smoking.
There were four men flirting with four lewd women. “They”—both the old and new bourgeoisie—were luxuriating in wealth, and it was they who threatened ill-fated people and made them suffer.
Bang! Bang!
He began shooting. Bodies fell on the floor, knocking over the things in the room.
Finally he shot the last man, who was the most detestable. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses, his gaze fixed up at the ceiling; his arms drooped lifelessly over the edge of the table where he’d fallen. Lam Quang Vinh, the prideful Viet-kieu vice-chairman of the company, was dead.
Bang! Bang!
He shot Vinh once more in the sweaty forehead.
Bang!
And he shot Vinh again, creating a large bloody hole in his forehead. Vinh’s body, in a custom-made suit, fell on stacks of beer cans and glasses. Blood, alcohol, and saliva were all over the couch, the glass table, and the clothes of both the survivors and the dead.
Some of the girls in the room had only been grazed by the bullets, and some were completely unharmed. But everybody was scared and dumbfounded, seeing corpses stacked one on top of the other.
Everything happened and ended so quickly. In the end, the loud voices of the people in the room were nothing compared to the sounds of shooting and the noise of things breaking.
After he took care of the business, the murderer walked to a wine cabinet and took out a brand-new bottle that still had a bright yellow seal. He used the grip of the pistol to break the bottle neck and threw back his head to take a long drink. He then used the last bullet to shoot the portrait of an old man wearing a loose traditional outfit, a circular headdress, and a French bracelet on the wall. The old man was a member of Mr. Sang’s family and represented its past.
“Were you drunk?”
“No.”
“Then why did your breath smell of liquor?”
“I drank after I did it.”
“Do you feel remorse for what you’ve done?”
“Why would I feel remorse for something I had planned twenty years ago?”
“Why didn’t you use the last bullet to shoot yourself, like many people would have?”
“Because I wanted to use it for something more important.”
“And what was it?”
“I had to act on my grandfather’s behalf and get his revenge.”
“Can you become a moral person again?”
“Only a truly moral person has the courage to fight back against generational oppression. I don’t want ‘the prince to inherit his father’s throne.’ My father tried to take care of this matter by joining the revolution, but I have my own way of doing things. Freeing oneself from an oppressive fate is a moral thing to do, at least for me. And if I have any children, they will never have to cut grass to feed horses, like the three generations before them.”
PERMISSIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nguyen Van Tho, “Unsung Hero” (“Vô danh trận mạc”), from Báo Nhân Dân. Copyright © 2010 by the author.
Bao Ninh, “White Clouds Flying” (“Mây trắng còn bay”), from Báo Văn Nghệ. Copyright © 1997 by the author.
Mai Tien Nghi, “Louse Crab Season” (“Mùa cua rận”), from Văn Nghệ Quân Đội. Reprinted in Tuyển truyện đoạt giảo cao 30 năm đổi mới, 1986–2016. Copyright © 2008 by the author.
Nguyen Ngoc Tu, “Birds in Formation” (“Vết chim trời”), from Truyện ngắn hay về kháng chiến chống Mỹ. Copyright © 2010 by the author.
Nguyen Minh Chau, “A Crescent Moon in the Woods” (“Mảnh trăng cuối rừng”), written in 1967, first published in Những vùng trời khác nhau in 1970. Reprinted in Truyện ngắn hay về kháng chiến chống Mỹ. Copyright © 2019 by the Vietnam Writers’ Association.
Hanh Le, “Miss Thoai” (“Thím Thoải”), from Tuyển tập truyện ngắn Sông Hương 30 năm, 1983–2013. Copyright © 2000 by the author’s spouse.
Nguyen Trong Luan, “The Corporal” (“Hạ sỹ”) from Văn Nghệ Quân Đội. Copyright 2014 © by the author.
Vuong Tam, “Red Apples” (“Quả táo đỏ”), from Quả táo đỏ: Tập truyện ngắn. Reprinted in Chiến tranh cũng mang khuôn mặt đàn bà. Copyright © 2008 by the author.
Ta Duy Anh, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the Village” (“Xưa kia chị đẹp nhất làng”), from Văn Nghệ Quân Đội. Copyright ©1989 by the author.
Truong Van Ngoc, “Brother, When Will You Come Home?”
