Twilight Territory

by Andrew X. Pham

These were lean times, the hardest years of Anh’s young life and her first experience of true poverty. Coi and Anh lived at the Rose Shrine of the Lady Buddha and sold yams on the street. Coi shouldered yoke-baskets, one with raw yams, one with a charcoal grill. Anh carried a woven tray of roasted yams on her head.

The Resistance was under attack. Its network of safe houses fell, one after another, in quick succession. Many organizers and fighters were killed or captured. Fearing the worst, Ha sent Coi an urgent message to go to Ba Ria immediately, as the French dragnet was closing around them.

In Ba Ria, Nhung and Ha asked Coi to take the baby in case something happened to them. Coi agreed, thinking that she would see them again in a few months. Little did she expect that war would shatter her family, nor that she would not see them again for decades.

Coi walked back to Phan Thiet by the little-known routes of back roads and trails she had trekked days earlier, covering another one hundred and sixty kilometers in four days and three nights while dodging patrols, bandits, and packs of wild dogs. With feverish eyes and drawn cheeks, Coi arrived at the shrine, her feet blistered and bloodied, her skin cracked and sunburned, barely alive, having walked more than forty kilometers per day for eight consecutive days.

Then a letter arrived at the shrine from Japan addressed to Tuyet.

The chief guard came to the door and ordered Tuyet and nineteen other inmates to step forward. He announced that the new warden had selected them for early release, effective immediately. They had five minutes to gather their belongings.

She could feel him, following her in his white short-sleeved shirt and brown fedora, just over her left shoulder. A few steps away, and nearly a decade in the past. What was it we talked about, my love? Distance and time.

Unlike the last time she had sat here with Takeshi, there now were no storm clouds. The horizon was clear, and so, at last, was her mind.

A sad smile came to her lips. At last, she allowed herself to grieve, for she knew she would never see the cherry blossoms of Hokkaido. Her vows, her duties were blood-bonded to this land. She remembered the sweetness and the laughter they had shared. Immortal moments.