A veterans' psychiatric hospital in Maryland. A private room on the second floor: beige walls, minimal furniture, a bed next to a window.
The man on the bed is asleep, sedated. A psychiatrist—male, late thirties, bearded—stands to his left.
Nguyễn Văn Quyết watches the comatose figure, concern creasing his brow.
The patient, now in his early seventies, twitches and grunts in his sleep.
He had been ordered to this small track to lie prone beneath a bush, next to a tree. The air was thick and heavy, deathly hot despite the early hour. Sweat trickled down his face. Mosquitoes colonized his exposed skin. Ants crawled inside his trousers. He felt the squelch of something bloated and slick against his ankles—leeches, no doubt, from the swamp they'd trudged through in pursuit of the guerrillas.
The enemy was holed up in this village.
The lieutenant had called for an airstrike. His troops had the village surrounded.
But you couldn't tell the VC from the civilians. The communists used men, women, boys, and girls indiscriminately. The orders were clear: No prisoners. Anyone trying to escape—shoot them dead!
The distant rumble of aircraft engines sent a tremor through his gut. Soon, the gasoline stench of napalm would fill the air.
The doctor frowns. The veteran’s agitation increases. His grunts turn to moans, though his words remain indecipherable. His head thrashes from side to side.
“Get me a sedative,” he says to the nurse on the other side of the bed.
She scurries off.
He swats at the flies buzzing around his face. A sound, faint but distinct, reaches his ears—running footsteps. Swift. Desperate.
A figure rounds the bend.
He grips his rifle, breath tight in his chest.
His orders are clear.
The figure sharpens into a young girl. Her black hair coils around delicate Asian features. She hesitates, glances back in terror, then turns to face him.
He lifts the rifle. Aims at her heart.
Fires.
The nurse returns, hypodermic in hand. The psychiatrist waves it away.
The crisis has passed. The old man settles back into deep sleep, his lips moving in an inaudible whisper.
It is his first time in a brothel. He is nineteen. Months in the jungle have stripped away everything familiar. It is a long way from squirrel-hunting in West Virginia.
He has done terrible things—things that will never leave him.
But now, in this thinly walled cubicle, lying on this makeshift bed, he is naked and unguarded. It has taken more than a few drinks to reach this state of calm.
And then there is her.
She is a Vietnamese angel, watching him with quiet concern. She speaks in low, melodic tones he cannot understand. She strokes his brow. She holds his hand.
It feels like she cares.
His anxieties unravel. He exhales. Tentatively, he smiles.
The patient is calm now. The psychiatrist studies his face, softened by an unfamiliar, gentle smile. Then he glances at the attractive young nurse.
He makes a joke.
“Perhaps it’s you he’s dreaming about, Hà Liên.”
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