“Death of a Soldier”

This story was the opening chapter in Phan Lạc Tiếp’s first book, Bờ Sông Lá Mục (Decaying Leaves on the Riverbank, 1969). It was a candidate for inclusion into To Distant Shores but was replaced by “Passing the New Year on an Island.” Translated here for the first time from Vietnamese into English by Huân & Hà Phan (2023).

“Death of a Soldier”

Phan Lạc Tiếp (1969)

The sound of water flowed like a lullaby. I lay listlessly on the flat steel roof of the conning tower. Pressing my cap against my face, I tried to close my eyes but couldn't sleep further. Several M79 grenades rocked back and forth beside me, keeping time with the lapping waves. I heard the flutter of wind around my ears. Touching my palm against the steel roof, I found it cool and damp with dew. I removed my hat, tossed it to a corner, and sat up.  After a few stretches, the heat trapped in my jacket dissipated with the morning breeze. Daybreak cast a milky haze on the river’s surface, while on the banks, the dark green trees were still huddled in sleep. 

I turned to ask the radio operator, "Any messages from home?"

"No, sir. None."

I looked back. The troop carriers were trailing steadily along, their landing doors raised at attention. On the banks on both sides of the river, armored vehicles blended into the shades of an entangled forest and its pools of shadows. Spots of reflected light shimmered off the water’s surface through my binoculars, and I felt at ease. 

Looking down at the deck, the sailors from the preceding night’s watch were still fast asleep. They had wrapped themselves tightly in their blankets, and a layer of overnight dew had settled on their faces. Everything was silent and motionless. I suddenly felt sick. I knew they were just asleep, but there was little to distinguish these slumbering bodies from others who had died. Those bodies would also have been wrapped in blankets like that, with dew drops on their faces just like that. I looked around. Aside from the helmsman and radio operator, all was silent. I wanted to shake them awake. But the ambush the night before was still fresh, and my eyes stung from so much anguish. So I said nothing.

I peered more closely. In the 81mm bunker, two crewmen were curled up asleep. A pale foot protruded from under one of the blankets, just as Dực's feet had. I didn't want to look, didn't want to revisit those painful images, but I couldn’t help myself. Turning skyward, I shook my head to try to drive away these visions, but they grew clearer than ever.

Dực's body was found on a morning like this one. He was laid on a canvas cot and covered in a blanket. His feet jutted out, cold and white. A hand dangled at the edge of the gurney. At that moment, I observed that this hand still looked young and nimble, and I wondered if perhaps it had played a part in Dực's popularity. The hand was full, with long, slender fingers and neatly trimmed, squared-off nails. I thought of the melodies that had sprung from those fingertips, their notes meandering off the barracks’ roof on those sleepy nights anchored at some distant dock on misty waters. Those fingers would have danced on the guitar strings and swayed under the moonlight. 

But by the time Dực's body was transferred to the ambulance, that hand had stiffened, slipped from the gurney, and betrayed a bloated arm. I was shaken. Death was bewildering and indifferent. I looked at Dực's face faintly imprinted through the fabric, his mouth perhaps slightly ajar. And I was afraid. Dực's wife stood pressed against the wall.  Her face was pale, and she had gone silent. Her eyes were wide in shock.  Moments ago, this young woman, driven by devotion, had wept and demanded to be taken to see her husband’s body. But now, she seemed unable to comprehend that the cold, stiff, gaunt corpse was her love. She froze, unable to cover the last few steps. The gulf between life and death was too vast, too abrupt, with no bridge in between. The break was swift, cruel, and inevitable.

When the Red Cross ambulance carried Dực away, drops of water from his lifeless body dripped onto the ground. I didn't dare step on those spots. Everyone was stunned. The air felt scant and unsteady. Dực's wife fainted against the wall, and the nurses rushed her to the emergency room. 

Suddenly, cries and wails erupted from the anteroom. "I’d warned you...!" The wail was all-encompassing, and it made everything feel bleak and immutable. I found Dực's sister collapsed in a corner with a baby in her arms. Her hair hung loose as she told the story through tears. Dực had visited her just a week ago. Her husband worked as a laborer far away and came home only sporadically. So she was overjoyed upon seeing her brother. Even though they were poor, she had managed to prepare a duck for dinner.  Watching him eat, she felt an ache inside. She couldn’t swallow a single bite or hold back her tears. She worried about her brother because she knew his rebellious and mischievous nature. She said, "Brother, life and death come too easily in times like this. Please be careful. There are only a few of us left. Father is how he is, and Mother is old and blind." Then she held him and cried. She couldn’t help feeling like this might be the last time she'd see him. 

Her cries grew quieter, but each sob felt sharper as if they were piercing the bitterness and sorrow of everyone around.

When I arrived at the morgue with a few officers, we found that Dực's body had been prepared. We reached the waiting room through a muddy path bordered by tall grass. Inside, his sister was lying on a mat, mouth agape, breathing irregularly; her face was a pallid color. Some neighbors of Dực's wife milled about in a daze. One of them sat fanning Dực's sister. In another corner, Dực's wife sat hunched over, altering his shirt to fit him. A pile of military and civilian clothes lay scattered nearby. She calmly continued her work. Other than her ashen face, there were no other signs of emotion. She was the picture of a young wife, mending and sewing in the warmth of her humble home. When she looked up, I saw her golden eyes, and it was then that I noticed her beauty, a beauty that bore both endurance and innocence. I realized that Dực had been lucky in love. 

Just then, an old, plump woman dressed in the brown of a temple nun emerged from the morgue. She extended her hands and instructed another woman to pour liquor onto her palms. After a time of having the alcohol trickle over her hands, she directed the woman to stop. She rubbed her hands together, then pulled a betel leaf from a pouch. Holding it between her two fingers, she inserted it into her mouth. The old woman chewed on it a few times, then packed a quid of it next to her molars, swelling one side of her cheek. She said, "The body was submerged in water. You have to salve the clothes well, or it will smell." I felt a shiver run through me, goosebumps crawling up my skin. 

After a time, the resonant sounds of ceremonial bells began, followed by low, rhythmic chanting, both dissipating into the vapors of fragrant incense. Several soldiers in white uniforms grimly lined the walkway, holding rifles with their barrels pointing toward the ground. No one spoke loudly. When the first chanting ceased, they brought Dực's wife forward. She now had a wrap of mourning cloth around her head. She stood listless and dazed, her feet sinking beneath the black mud. The bells rang out once again, accompanied by murmurs of chanting.

A sergeant approached from outside, informing me the transport was ready. I instructed him to check with the relatives first. But Dực's sister was slumped in her stupor while Dực's wife remained in a trance. So I said, "Go ahead. Let’s bring the truck in."

The GMC backed in to edge nearer to the morgue. Its tires rolled over the muddy path and overgrown grass. The monk and Dực's wife stepped back. Everyone gathered to lift Dực's coffin onto the vehicle. Once the casket was loaded, the mortuary keeper handed the national flag to the sergeant and said, "Can you please cover it for me?"

A few minutes later, the vehicle jerked forward. I asked the sergeant again, "Are the travel papers and escorts all set?"

"Yes, they're ready."

We lined up along the pathway, saluting the fallen soldier. Besides the convoy of color guards and pallbearers in the truck, only Dực's wife came along. She sat detached, holding her husband's memorial tablet staked on a small green banana branch. Her face was vacant. Her eyes welled up, finally bursting into tears.

They had lowered the coffin onto two wooden beams within the open grave. Eight men held tightly onto two ropes. Their ends were frayed and sandy white. Everyone stood still. I was the representative for our unit, but wasn’t sure if I should say anything. The eerie silence was occasionally interrupted by sobs from Dực’s family. The soldiers in formation saluted, gripping their rifles, their eyes reddening. I turned to the sergeant and asked, "What’s taking so long?"

"He’s over there."

I glanced at the grassy path between two rows of long graves and saw the bugler hastily approaching. Wordlessly, he took up his spot at the head of the grave and adjusted his feet to stand at attention, causing a few small pieces of dirt to spill onto the coffin’s lid and break apart into sounds dry and crisp. I noticed that the bottom of the bugler’s trousers were worn, and the fabric at his knees was ripped across. He raised the horn to his lips and conformed them to the small circle of the brass mouthpiece. His eyes fluttered half-closed, and the notes poured out from the bugle in anguish. I listened and imagined that the sound had awakened snakes now slithering about. The bugler squinted his eyes and tensed his abdomen, causing the bugle’s pitch to ascend and tremble. Then its tone drew down, faltered, then ceased. The horn came to rest by the bugler’s right rib cage.

The bugler remained in place until the ropes were pulled up, and the dry mounds of earth awaiting at the edge had tumbled onto the coffin’s lid. Only then did he salute and rush away. Amidst the mourning of life's impermanence, my eyes followed him. He hurried towards the Catholic section. A few moments later, his horn sounded again. Then, he moved on to his next destination. 

Everyone waited to board the vehicle for the return. I stood under the shadow of a dying tree, looking all around. Mounds of graves surrounded me. Right beneath my feet was Dực's. Split by spade marks, clumps of dry and wet earth had bound to each other. I thought of life and death, distinct yet entwined. Dực's wife was led away. The smell of incense lingered. The thin golden sunlight spread out. The bugle occasionally sounded, sometimes near, sometimes far, like a beckoning call from beyond. I shook my head to dispel the sound. Looking up at the sky, white clouds floated by in succession. I didn't know how long I stood there. 

On the way back, I saw the bugler again. He was leisurely passing by on his motorbike, his horn swinging from the handlebars. His shadow stretched out, lightly skimming over the rows of graves.

*****

Now, the sun had risen. Our procession of boats was motoring down a fickle stretch of the river. Here, Thà had died, and Dực had perished from bullets fired from the thickets of trees. How long would the impermanence of life on this river go on? Like the daily rising and falling of water, it comes, and it goes: marching, patrolling, ambushing. Sometimes, the most dangerous and harrowing times aren’t as sorrowful as the idle moments floating on the river. A small explosion. A puff of smoke. It might be nothing, but it might also mean someone falling like Dực, like Tuân. It might mean the beginning of quiet, a signal for the enemy to go into hiding, or it might mean the beginning of a desperate and cruel confrontation.

The river narrowed. A sandbank emerged. Our formation pointed its guns toward the opposite bank. The deck was still, marked only by a few folded raincoats used as pillows from the night before. I looked ahead, then astern. I checked our communication channels and reminded everyone to be cautious and ready. Our flotilla drifted on. The green canopies of coconut plants extended in all directions, and the tops of cork trees reached out over the river.

We reached the end of the sandbank. The river expanded into bright sunlight, and a bustling town appeared ahead. The sailors disarmed their guns.

I looked down at the murky river. An image of Dực’s floating body emerged along with memories of past sorrows. I asked someone next to me, "Do you remember Dực?"

"Yeah, we were bụi đời together, drifters, you know…"

I sat silently for a moment, then continued, "How are his wife and kids?"

"They didn’t have any kids. But his wife's a bit lost."

"Why do you say 'lost'?"

"She's back to her old profession... Lately, that’s going much better. Americans, you know..." He spoke, chuckled, and then jumped off the deck. 

The 40mm gun had been cleared of ammunition, its muzzle pointing backward. I peered into the dark barrel. Its flare reminded me of the bugler's bell. Suddenly, the silence seemed filled with the sounds of the mournful horn at the cemetery. I turned to the artillery officer and said, "Let’s secure the barrels."

Phan Lạc Tiếp (1969)

Notes and Sources: Death of a Soldier

How I remembered this story 

This story was the opening chapter in my father’s first book, Bờ Sông Lá Mục (Decaying Leaves on the Riverbank, 1969). He wrote it around the time I was born, about the same time America was beginning to escalate its involvement in Vietnam. I recall reading this story or, more plausibly, having it read to me as a young boy. In my recent effort to translate it, I realized that the interpretation I’d carried around about it for decades had been wrong. 

For years, I thought this story was about my father’s journey to tell a young wife that her husband had been killed in action. I pictured my father in his jeep on his way to see the young woman. I imagined that he struggled with how he should tell her, juggled the different ways he had managed the task in the past, and wondered how many more widows he would have to visit in the future. In my mind, I had ascribed the wailing and crying described in the story to the moment when she answered the door and learned of the news from my father.

Should this chapter have been in the book?

When writing To Distant Shores, I realized I needed some way to introduce my father as a character early in the book. I solved this problem by letting my father speak for himself in the chapter “Passing the New Year on an Island.” 

I had considered using “Death of a Soldier” for that task because I have always loved it. But “Passing the New Year..” was the right choice because it painted a more rounded picture of my father. Both stories presented my father as a military officer, but “Passing the New Year…” offered glimpses of him as a young man and connected him to his family and village. Nevertheless, I was rooting for “Death of a Soldier” to make the book because it was the first piece of writing from my father that I remembered.

Betel chewing

Betel nut chewing appears in this story and in the chapter “My Grandmother’s House” in To Distant Shores. It deserves a more detailed description.

The tradition of “betel nut” chewing in Vietnam dates back over 3000 years. “In Vietnam, the areca nut and the betel leaf are such important symbols of love and marriage that in Vietnamese, the phrase "matters of betel and areca" (chuyện trầu cau) were historically synonymous with marriage” and offerings of the two are part of the formal aspects of marriage ceremonies (Wikipedia).

Chewing of areca nut and betel leaves was also common in everyday life, particularly among women of my grandmother’s generation. Its properties as a stimulant and mild addictive properties undoubtedly helped its popularity. The chew is not meant to be swallowed but spat out like chewing tobacco. The expectorate will stain the teeth red and eventually black after prolonged use. Before the influence of Western culture’s preference for “pearly whites,” black teeth were considered a mark of beauty.

The tradition originated from the legend of two brothers who loved the same woman (1, 2). The details vary depending on the telling, but the essential elements of the fable are as follows: 

Two orphaned twin brothers, Tân and Lang, are taken in by a local magistrate, and over time, they both fall in love with the magistrate’s beautiful daughter. By tradition, older brothers should marry first, but the brothers are deferential to each other and won’t divulge who is more senior. So the magistrate arranges a meal for the two brothers but with only one pair of chopsticks between them. He observes that Lang respectfully offers the chopsticks to Tân, thereby revealing Tân to be older. Tân marries the magistrate’s daughter, and the brothers become estranged through neglect and a case of mistaken identity. Lang runs away and dies at the edge of a river from grief and turns into a block of limestone. Tân searches for his brother, rests on the stone, passes away, and transforms into an areca tree. Seeking her husband, Tân’s wife wanders to the same spot, expires, and metamorphoses into a betel vine, entwining the tree. Years later, the emperor learned of this tale and decreed that the combination of betel leaf, areca nut, and lime shall be chewed together and offered at marriage ceremonies as a symbol of love and devotion. 

Astute readers of To Distant Shores will notice that plot devices like close male protagonists and meals as tests of characters are often used in Vietnamese fables. In relearning this and other tales from my youth during the research for To Distant Shores, I was struck by the differences in lessons offered by Vietnamese versus American folk legends. Vietnamese folklore reinforces Confucian ideals of familial devotion, knowing one’s place, and self-sacrifice. American stories, like Paul Bunyon and the Blue Ox, Johnny Appleseed, Jack and the Beanstalk, and The Three Little Pigs, tend to lionize individualism and action. In fact, when I first learned about the Three Little Pigs, I wondered why the three piggy brothers had to move out of their mother’s home even though they were unmarried. Who would take care of their mother? When the wolf arrived, I was puzzled as to why the pigs hadn’t teamed up and defended the same house from the beginning. And who was the oldest Pig? Shouldn’t he have known best and told his brothers what to do?

Translation

Because I emigrated to the United States when I was eight, I can’t read Vietnamese very well. So, translation was something I dreaded before starting my book project. But I’ve come to enjoy the work. The slowness of my understanding forces me to inspect every word and examine its role in the sentence and story. Choosing the appropriate English substitute provides insights into how the two languages differ.

I used the chatbot Preplexity or ChatGPT to create an initial translation for this story. This was a huge time saver compared to doing it manually. While chatbots’ ability to understand context and nuances is rapidly improving, they still cling to the original sentence structure when asked to translate, which doesn’t always work in English. So, I’ll rewrite most of these chatbots’ outputs to improve readability and approach my father’s tone. After about seven to ten revisions, when I can’t improve the translation further, I’ll pass it to my sister, Hà Phan, for further refinements. She usually provides suggestions for about one-third to one-half of my sentences, and I accept at least 90% of her suggested edits. Here’s an example of a translated passage.

“Người đàn bà trẻ, yêu chồng quá, lăn lộn đòi đi theo tới nơi tìm kiếm xác chồng ban nãy, bây giờ khác hẳn. Chị như không thể ngờ cái xác chết lạnh cứng, hốc hác kia lại là chồng chị. Chị ngừng lại.” (Phan Lạc Tiếp - Original Text)

“The young woman, too in love with her husband, rolled around demanding to go to the place to search for her husband's body a while ago, now completely different. She seemed unable to believe that the cold, stiff corpse was her husband. She stopped.” (Chat GPT translation)

“Moments ago, this young woman, driven by devotion, had wept and demanded to be taken to see her husband’s body. But now, she seemed unable to believe that the cold, stiff corpse was her love. She stopped, unable to cover the last few steps.” (Huân Phan rewrite)

“Moments ago, this young woman, driven by devotion, had wept and demanded to be taken to see her husband’s body. But now, she seemed unable to comprehend that the cold, stiff, gaunt corpse was her love. She froze, unable to cover the last few steps.” (Hà Phan refinement)

The most significant choice in this passage is the phrase “unable to cover the last few steps” in place of “lại.” “Chị ngừng lại” literally means, “She stopped again.” But  “lại” doesn’t mean “again” in this context. Here, its role is to convey a sense of hesitation. But translating it as “She hesitated” doesn’t work either because “hesitated” implies that the pause is only for a moment. But the scene is setting up the idea that the gap between life and death is insurmountable and those last few figurative steps are impossible.  “Unable to cover the last few steps” felt inefficient, using many words when only one was needed in Vietnamese.

If that example illustrated a moment when I felt it necessary to alter what my father had written, here’s an example where I chose to stay closer to his original text. 

“Tôi biết chắc là họ ngủ say, nhưng không có gì để phân biệt những người nằm ngủ này với những người đã chết, cũng quấn trong tấm miền như thế. Cũng đẫm sương làm thẫm thêm mặt dạ“ (Phan Lạc Tiếp - Original Text)

“I knew they were just asleep, but there was little to distinguish these slumbering bodies from others who had died. Those bodies would also have been wrapped in blankets like that, with dew drops on their faces just like that.” (Final version)

The final English version, “Those bodies would also have been wrapped in blankets like that, with dew drops on their faces just like that.” may come across as a little clunky. My English teacher might have wanted me to rewrite it as “Those dead bodies would also have been wrapped in blankets with dew drops on their faces.” But in Vietnamese, the repetition of the word “cũng” (meaning “also”) with its hard K sound lends the passage its rhythm, and I felt it was important to preserve that rhythm if possible. 

How might this repetition be reproduced in English? A literal translation would have been,

“...also wrapped in blankets like that. Also with dew drops on their faces.” 

But I chose, 

“...also have been wrapped in blankets like that, with dew drops on their faces just like that.” 

That was an instinctive choice. But I think I landed there because “like that,” with its coincidentally hard K sound like “cũng,” seemed to do a better job at keeping the rhythm than “also.” Finally, I had the word “just,” as in “just like that,” in one of my earlier translations, but I took it out before giving it to my sister. When she put it back in, that was confirmation that it needed to be there.

Translation is about hard choices. And sometimes, you can get in trouble by being “too clever by half.” You just hope you choose the best option.

Huân Phan (2023)