Escape from Saigon (2 page)

Long doesn't think they were married, nor does he know why his father had come to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He might have been a soldier or a businessman. All Long knows is that by the time he was two, his father was gone. And his mother was never happy again.

Long does not know why his mother wanted to live in Saigon. Because of the war, she might have thought they were safe there, since it was the capital of South Vietnam and an important base for the military. Known as the Paris of the Orient, the city captivated the senses with its tropical flowers, graceful palm trees, constant crush of people and traffic, its bright sun and unrelenting heat. In the midst of war, it was full of energy, intrigue, and excitement.

Many Americans were in Saigon. The United States supported South Vietnam's struggle against the Communists of North Vietnam. With the assistance of other democratic nations, in 1961 the U.S. began to send advisers and then troops to help in the conflict. By 1965, nearly two hundred thousand American soldiers were serving in the Vietnam War, fighting alongside the South Vietnamese.

Saigon in the 1950s, when it was known as the Paris of the Orient. Bicycles and cyclos were, and still are, a popular form of transportation

The American government had its embassy and military headquarters in Saigon. In 1968, shortly before Long and his mother arrived in the city, the Communists launched an all-out assault on South Vietnam. They almost took over the American embassy, and there was fighting in the streets of Saigon. Because of this, security was tight in the city, and soldiers were everywhere. Long soon got used to seeing military jeeps, trucks, and soldiers on the streets. He learned that if you begged for candy and gum from the friendly American GIs, you usually got it.

When Long was three or four, he and his mother moved in with a Vietnamese man. It's possible his mother married this man, for Long thought of him as his stepfather. The man had a son, an older boy Long called his stepbrother. The four of them lived in a tiny apartment in a rundown neighborhood near the Saigon River. They had no electricity or indoor plumbing. When they needed to go to the bathroom, they waited their turn at the wooden stalls lined up along the banks of the river.

During the decade Americans fought in South Vietnam, children in villages as well as cities discovered that many GIs were friendly, and often carried candy and gum for them

The war had little reality for Long. What was real was how his violent stepfather treated his mother. When he struck her, Long tried to protect her.

In 1971, when he was five, Long and his mother fled the city to escape his stepfather. In the village where Long's mother had grown up, they crowded in with relatives. There was always someone just a few steps away. One of them was Long's grandmother, called Ba. He liked Ba, who was tiny and feisty and cooked delicious, spicy food. Ba often chewed a seed called betel nut, which had turned her teeth dark. Many Vietnamese, especially older ones, chewed betel nut, believing it improved their health and protected their teeth from decay.

Today, homes in rural Vietnamese villages look much like they always have. Long may have lived in a house like this one

Caught in a crossfire, two village children cling to their mothers as an American paratrooper searches for Vietcong snipers

The village, which sat at the edge of a jungle, was its own separate world. While the adults and older children worked in the rice paddies outside the village, the old folks like Ba cared for the young children.

During the year that Long and his mother lived there, war did not disturb the village. But in many other areas, villagers lived in constant fear of soldiers. They also feared the South Vietnamese who were Vietcong (short for Vietnamese Communists), guerrilla fighters who sided with the North. The Vietcong did not wear military uniforms. Instead, they looked the same as the South Vietnamese villagers, making it very difficult to detect them. At any time, the Vietcong might raid a village, taking all the villagers' food, killing their livestock and burning their homes, and even torturing or killing the villagers themselves.

Trouble could also come from soldiers of the South Vietnamese army, who were looking for Vietcong or their sympathizers. During the decade that American soldiers fought in the war, they, too, might terrorize a village in their search for “Charlie”—their name for the Vietcong. Whole villages could be destroyed by any of these soldiers, or villages might be bombed from the air. Some villagers were killed while working in their rice paddies or while trying to protect their families.

But in Long's village, these terrible things had never happened. And in spite of food shortages affecting the entire country, he had enough to eat.

Long adapted easily to village life. He was always barefoot and wore shorts and cotton shirts. Though his mother had worn dresses in the city, here she wore pants and long-sleeved shirts to work in the humid heat of the rice paddies. When she pinned her hair under the cone-shaped cane hat she wore to keep the hot sun off her face, she looked like any other villager.

A special treat for Long was riding the big water buffaloes used to help with the work. These animals were the villagers' tractors. Long looked forward to the day he could be a real buffalo boy and help take care of the great beasts. Sometimes his mother took him out to the rice paddies so he could see how the rice was growing. He liked walking along the dikes, but kept a careful watch for snakes and lizards.

Long wanted to become a buffalo boy like the boy shown here

Though the villagers worked hard, they also had good times. Storytelling was considered an art, and storytellers drew appreciative audiences who listened intently to their retellings of old legends and folktales. Some villagers enjoyed chess and card games. Others played musical instruments while villagers sang and danced. Every holiday was a village celebration.

Each morning, Long attended classes in the one-room schoolhouse, where he sat on a wooden bench with the other children. He wished he could go to school all day, but only children whose parents could afford to pay extra tuition were allowed to do that. In the afternoons, after he had helped Ba sweep the house, gather firewood, or weed the small family garden, he had the run of the village.

Long was an easygoing little boy with a big smile, and he readily made friends. If any of the villagers were disturbed by the fact that he was half white, he does not remember it. “When I was very young, I looked like the other children,” he says. “I had black hair, brown eyes, and my skin was dark enough that I could blend in. As I grew older, it became more obvious that I was half white. What set me apart from the other children when I was young wasn't the way I looked, but that I had no father. I didn't mind. My mother was gentle and sweet. I didn't feel the loss of a father, as long as I had her.”

But something wasn't right with his mother. She slept more and more, ate little, and grew silent. She lost interest in village life. She still took excellent care of Long, but she seemed distant. Only rarely could Long get her to smile.

One day she took him on a walk across the fields and rice paddies and along a jungle path. They reached a road where an automobile was waiting. Long had never been in a car, and found it a great curiosity. It was large and shiny. The door opened, and Long's mother urged him to get in. He climbed into the backseat, expecting her to join him. Before he knew what was happening, the car sped away. His mother still stood by the road.

Long panicked. He cried her name, but the car would not stop. When at last it did, the driver had brought Long to a vast plantation that had once belonged to the French. There, a Vietnamese couple tried to make him feel welcome. They offered him toys, food, and new clothes. They were very kind to him. They said they owned the plantation, which would be his new home, and they would be his new parents.

But he would have none of it. Where was his mother? He wanted his mother! Whenever anyone tried to talk to him or come near him, he shrieked at the top of his lungs. All day and all night, for several days and nights, he cried and carried on. He refused to eat, even though his stomach rumbled from hunger.

Finally, the couple gave up. Long was put in the car and returned to the place where his mother had left him. She met him there, her face without expression, and took him back to the village. Long was bewildered. Why had his mother tried to give him away? She would not answer him, and in his relief to be back with her, he did not ask again.

A few months later, in 1972, when Long was six, the world as he knew it ended. Awakening one morning on the sleeping mat next to his mother's, he was surprised that she was not yet up. He shook her, then realized how still she was.

He screamed, and his grandmother rushed in. “What is it?” Ba cried. Trembling, Long pointed at the silent form on the mat. Ba touched her daughter's cold face. When she could not awaken her, she began to wail. Other family members quickly gathered around. Long's beautiful mother was dead.

How had such a terrible thing happened? No one knew for sure, but later Long heard relatives say that she had probably taken poison.