My Brother

My Brother

Author: Nguyễn Thị Thái Hoà

 Translator: Nguyễn Văn Thái, Ph.D.

This account is not fiction but a true story recounted by a woman who was an eyewitness and victim of the atrocities committed by the communists after the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975.

After South Vietnam fell to the communists on April 30, 1975, my only surviving elder brother was seized and sent to a concentration camp. Like my father, he had served as an officer in Artillery Battalion 12 of the defunct Republic of Vietnam. Although he was only a second lieutenant, he was unduly sent to the North.

Not until early 1977 did our family begin to obtain some scanty information about his whereabouts. I applied for a permit to go visit him. As part of a single-parent family, I undertook the long journey to the North, on my mother’s behalf, to search for my brother. “Search” is the right word because I didn’t know his exact location. After April 30, 1975 — dolefully referred to as Black April Day by Vietnamese refugees — prisons cropped up like mushrooms across Vietnam, instantly filled with defeated South Vietnam soldiers, sometimes even before construction had been completed. The prisoners were frequently moved, often without notice. Therefore, we might be told our loved ones were in a specific location, only to find out upon arrival that they had been transferred elsewhere. It was by a stroke of luck that we would find them as initially instructed.

Prompted by painstakingly gleaned tips on seeking imprisoned relatives, I joined my neighbors in a venturous but hopeful search attempt. Anxiety and fatigue were etched into their faces as they were lugging clunky baskets of food and personal items for the journey. We traveled mostly by train or bus, facing numerous difficulties; the trip took us more than ten days to reach Hà Nội. Before we arrived, more than half of our gift parcels had been confiscated by guards at checkpoints set up along the way. Some people had been robbed of everything.

It took us many more days of inquiries to find out where our loved ones were detained. Some people were lucky enough to locate their relatives early. I, the youngest and most fragile in the group, was one of the last, unfortunately, to come to know that my brother was jailed in Cao Bằng Lạng Sơn, the northernmost province bordering China.

We arrived at the camp as night fell. Sitting in a thatch hut outside, we waited for our names to be called. After one hour, a guard appeared; in a heavily accented dialect typical of Nghệ An, he called out names, checked permits, searched food parcels, and then brought the prisoners. I grew increasingly anxious as everyone’s name was called except mine. Fatigue, hunger, and worry made me feel faint. I kept standing up and sitting down; I felt like I was sitting on pins and needles, fidgeting nervously as I watched others being reunited with their loved ones, feeling a sharp stab of pain.

Eventually, another guard turned up and told me to follow him as my brother was reported to be in a different location. Fatigue forgotten I snatched the baskets of food and followed him into the pitch-black night. He walked ahead with a gun and a tiny flashlight.

After a long, silent walk of about fifteen minutes, I asked, “Sir, are we close?” He didn’t answer, just sullenly proceeded to push forward. After about another five minutes of walking, he suddenly stopped. I heard the gurgling of a stream. A man, who was spattering water friskily up the stream bank, hollered, “Hey! Stop right there.” I heard the whisperings of some other guards lying in wait. One of them appeared to be asserting what he had been waiting for, “You’ve arrived, heh?” The guide signaled me to stop. My stomach churning, I asked, “Sir, when are we going to make it to my brother’s place?” They burst into laughter and said, “Why hurry? Stay there. You have to do what we say… first…” They elongated the reverberation of the word “first” and then let out a raucous guffaw.

Hardly had I had time to respond when they teamed up to yank my baskets away from me and throw them as far as they could. They then stripped me naked, pinned me down, and spread-eagled me with two guys standing on my extended arms to allow a third one to rape me.  After one was done, they forced me to go down to the stream and clean myself up so that the next one could take his turn.

Amidst a desolate mountainous area like this, any desperate scream for help would go unanswered. With an unfaltering survival instinct, I clenched my teeth and braced myself for the ordeal. Not daring to scream for help, I descended into silent tears. I did not resist either, just begrudgingly letting the gang of seven barbaric animals savagely evacuate their filth onto my body and wishing this pitiful curse to vanish as quickly as possible.

Before leaving they patted one another on the shoulder, laughing their heads off. Their sadistic, barbariclaughter was the kind only devils incarnate could produce. One of them turned around and threatened, “You’d better keep your fucking mouth shut, you hear?”

After they left, I crawled to the stream to wash all the mucky smudges off my body. Putting my clothes back on,I groped around in the darkness, trying to find my two baskets. Frozen and shaking, I experienced acute pain throughout my body, fit to drop. With my two arms feeling broken and my body numb, I couldn’t walk; I had to crawl along the ground while figuring out which direction to take. I didn’t know how long I had crawled. At dawn, I reached the camp. I looked forward to seeing the sun rise so I could meet with my brother Hiệp todeliver the food to him and catch up with our group on our journey back home in the South.

Nonetheless, I had to wait until past noon before they called for Hiệp to appear. In a knavish voice a security guard feigned surprise by asking me, “Where were you all night to arrive so late? Don’t you know that the time for visitation is already up?” As a result, I was allowed to only leave the two baskets of food behind for Hiệp and have a brief conversation with him through the barbed wire. The guide who led the way last night was standing close by, ogling me with evil eyes.

Although I didn’t say anything, Hiệp could’ve guessed what had happened to his sister by looking at my miserable appearance and crumpled, scruffy clothes, blotched with muddy spots. I had a gut feeling that while my body was being forcibly and brutally desecrated last night, Hiệp was on tenterhooks waiting to see me. Helooked at me, his eyes fire-red; the blood vessels in his eyes appeared to be about to explode. He bit his lips, pounded his chest, clenched his teeth, and threw a fiery, fierce look at the security guard.

The two muted words “My God” had barely escaped his throat when, oddly enough, I distinctly heard them drilling ferociously into my brain. They were groans from his heart. Despite his pain, Hiệp’s eyes reflected perturbing distress at my appearance. I saw the hurt in his eyes, the piteousness of his love for the unfortunate fate his little sister had to endure. We were separated only by a barbed wire but we felt unreachable to each other as if separated by thousands of miles. He gripped the wire, trying to reach for my hand, his head bent down, his mouth murmuring, “Oh! Ti; Oh! Ti.”

I couldn’t say anything, just looked at him and silently wept. My stifled sobbing, ridden with pent-up emotions, testified to what had happened, which instigated his pain and rage even further. He collapsed and his friends carried him away. I stood frozen and horrified as blood oozed from his hands.

I was dismissed but didn’t want to leave. I wailed, begging them to let me stay with my brother. Attesting to my miserable state of mind, the group consoled me and advised one another to linger awhile for me so we could take the journey back home together. They rallied to support me in walking; I couldn’t help following them,carrying along with me in my grief-stricken heart Hiệp’s humiliated, painful, and incensed face.

This was our last meeting.

Back home, I lived through a universe of unspoken pain. I couldn’t share my trauma, not even with my mother. Silence spoke volumes. Why was I the only one victimized by the communist guards? Why did I have to be submitted to that abominable catastrophe? Can anyone show empathy for a young and fragile girl fallen on evil days into the hands of the brutal communist guards?

The swelling pain and rancor notwithstanding, I thanked God for not letting any of their seeds take root in my body. I accepted this as an act of God, a beneficial consolation.

As visitation time dawned on me again, I pondered the appropriate course of action. The sight of the evil-eyed security guards and the dogged feeling of trepidation kept on drifting into my mind. Be that as it may; but, “Oh, dear Lord”, I couldn’t afford not to go: The image of those emaciated, famished, and scabby prisoners I hadseen haunted me and broke my heart; I felt pity for them, anticipating my brother would have to live throughthe same kismet. I no longer had the heart to not go. I roamed around, doing errands, and prepared myself for the upcoming visitation journey. I simply could not be selfish.

Writing this rushed my memory back to my beloved brothers, Lộc and Kính, whose lives were cut short so I could survive.

Two months after that abhorrent night, I was on my mettle in a new venture to visit Hiệp again, only to find outhe had been shot dead near the camp fence. His friends told me that shortly after I had left, he came to and remained taciturn and brooding for days. Then one day, in a “political training session,” he couldn’t control himself and started to berate the security guards, accusing them of brutality and raping the prisoners’ relatives. That very night, he was dragged out of his dingy sleeping spot. Nobody knew where they took him. Later on, one heard a barrage of bullets unleashed and surmised how Hiệp’s life had ended.

The following day before the “hard labor” time, the inmates discovered Hiệp’s crumpled body near the fence behind the camp. The guards announced he had attempted to escape and had been shot. They ordered the inmates to wrap him in a sedge mat and bury him.

Ironically, he was buried at the very same spot where I had been assaulted.

“Oh, Hiệp! Oh, my God! Oh, Hiệp!”

The inmates ignored my wailing as I drooped over the crudely covered burial pit. In front of the guards, they had no courage to show sympathy or mourn for him.

After a week of staying in a Nùng village and submitting myself to all the requisite bribery in money and gold, I was finally permitted to hire workers to exhume my brother’s body for cremation. Probably foreseeing this, the inmates had buried him shallowly. When his body was exhumed, I felt he was buried alive just like more than 5,000 other innocent citizens of Huế had been during the 1968 Tết Offensive. Once again, I had to witness this heartbreaking scene.

“Oh, dear Lord!” The cruel deaths did not spare my loved ones.

That night in the desolate, freezing mountainous forest, I watched the flames consuming my brother’s body. The flames shot high into the eerie night sky, a Hell on Earth, devouring my beloved brother’s body and feeding on my heart. I saw his face flittering in the flames — the alternating youthful, resplendent face and the weather-beaten face of a wartime militant. I visualized him in his spruce military fatigues coming home on leave, calling my name from the perron of the house in his husky voice, “Hey Ti, I’m home.”

Oh, poor Hiệp! Why not Mom, Dad, Grandma, or Grandpa, but it had to be Ti first? Did you groan my name “Ti…” in anguish while you were being gunned down, didn’t you? I can’t forget your heart-wrenching cry, “Oh, Ti! Oh, Ti!” I still hear it distinctly. No one, however, ever heard my desperate lament for my wretched, downtrodden brother. I can’t forget his pained expression when he realized his baby sister had been violated.

My brother was shot dead and died painfully, without the chance to express his last wish, simply because he protested against the guards for violating his sister.

I brought Hiệp’s ashes from Cao Bằng Lạng Sơn to Huế, intending to deposit them in the family plot in Phủ Cam so he could rest alongside the other brothers. I also planned to return to Long Khánh and lie to Mom that Hiệp was alive. However, at the Huế train station, the guards confiscated my baskets and scattered the contents of the dried gourds the Nùngs had given me for his ashes in search of gold. Finding none, they kicked the gourds down the railroad track and left. I sank to my knees, desperately trying to retrieve some of my brother’s ashes, but they had disintegrated in the wind, trampled under the feet of unconcerned passers-by.

“Oh, Hiệp, please don’t go away. Please, stop leaving,” I pleaded. I cried, supplicated. My tears dissolved into his dispersed ashes, which mingled with my hair and clung to my weeping face. I could hold only a few remains. “Oh, dear Lord!” On this very platform, I had held Linh’s body, my innocent little brother’s. Less than a year later, I was cradling Hiệp’s partial remains with a devastated heart.

Years have passed but the wounds remain. The tears haven’t healed the wounds inflicted by Hiệp’s painful demise. My miserable, beloved, and pitiable brother!

During five years of several back-and-forth trips between the South and the North, owing to my love for my unfortunate father and brother, who fell into the hands of the cruel communists, I did my best to fulfill my duties as a daughter and a sister. Despite the bitterness and humiliation, I never allowed myself to collapse while my loved ones needed me. Each time I saw Mom, overburdened with grief, I remained silent; I couldn’t bear to let her know that her cherished only daughter had endured such gross injustices.

Today, I believe my brothers are protecting me from above, their ill-fated sister, who endured all their bad luck for them. Thus, I could surmount the hardships and adversity that have enmeshed my life.

I have no desire to revive old wounds. Nevertheless, more than thirty-five years after the fall of South Vietnamis inadequate to soothe the pain. The wounds fester and never stop tormenting my mind. The images of my loved ones rest peacefully in my heart, but the savage and despicable actions of the communists may never be forgiven or forgotten.

I see my grievances and pains still clawing furiously at the wicked faces of those communists who caused my unspeakable misery.

My family’s story is just one of thousands depicting the communists’ ignoble behavior toward countless unfortunate families in South Vietnam. Though recounting these memories intensifies the pain, it doesnevertheless serve as a dire warning to future generations against the inhumanity of the communist regime, which, over forty years ago, duped groups of naive youngsters my brothers’ age.

Also, I wish I could slap those who “while eating the nation’s rice, worship the communists”, those who sold their souls to the devils. Even overseas now, I still have to repulsively breathe the same air as those opportunists who, on account of power and greed, have turned traitors. I see the faces of the so-called intellectuals who know the communists are cruel and immoral but still seek their favor, turning a cold shoulder to their compatriots’ suffering.

I have endured mental and physical torment, misery, pitfalls, disadvantages, and loss; growing up in wartime. My childhood was filled with fear and death. At around nine or ten, I already heard my grandparents and parents instruct me to avoid certain people but didn’t know why. Early on, I witnessed scenes of charred bodies whenever the village was shelled. I realized early that my little heart hurt without knowing the reason why. My heart brimmed with fear. My mind wondered why people were killing each other; no one explained to children why adults did what they did. My youth was marked by the sight of fragmented bodies dug up from mass graves after the 1968 Tết Offensive; of corpses of innocent children, and bloodied bodies swarmed by flies and worms reeking on the streets I took to school. My dreams were overshadowed by the glaring, resentful eyes of my brothers shot dead in my grandparents’ house. My childhood was packed with startling nights of thundering cannon sounds, sudden rushes to the dugout, and the sight of caskets covered with the national flag returning home in the village.  

My nonage was overcast with doubts, fears, sorrows, and agonies.

I have been living in a cocoon, completely withdrawn. I couldn’t face my brothers’ friends or even my schoolmates, who were once close confidantes. One might be a friend today and a foe tomorrow, siding with the communists, pointing a gun at and killing your loved ones.

Death is inevitable; no one lives forever. Everyone will ultimately lie in a casket, six feet under. However, no one wishes to be a contorted or crumpled body crudely buried in a mass grave after being hit on the head with a hoe! Only the cruel and immoral communists treat people this way.

My heart aches for my lost family members. My body bore the price of survival, exchanging food and medicine for my loved ones in camps. Though my loved ones are gone, their memories live on, and the wounds remain deep. They died in painful humiliation, but at least they have been finally emancipated from this ugly, reprehensible world. However, those who are still alive cannot throw off the shackles of the wounds that have been so profoundly chiseled into their hearts and minds.

Recounting these memories only deepens the hurt, yet the pain irrevocably refuses to relent.