LONTAR issue #1 (10 page)

Of former lives worth stealing between sanitized salutations.

In memory of Harry Harrison (1925-2012), et al.

The Yellow River

Elka Ray Nguyen

Elka Ray Nguyen (Canada/Vietnam) is the author of one novel (
Hanoi Jane
, Marshall Cavendish, 2011) and the writer and illustrator for three picture books for children (
Vietnam A to Z
,
1,2,3 Vietnam!
, and
The Gecko Who Grew and Grew...
). Born in England and raised in Africa and Canada, Elka has spent the past 16 years in Southeast Asia. She lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has an author's site at elkaray.com.

Three months ago, just after I turned eighteen, I began my mandatory military service. While guys attending university are exempt, and my grades were good, I lacked the cash for a higher education. I figured that the army wouldn't be so bad. At least it'd get me away from my dad and his new wife, who has a voice like a chainsaw.

I was posted to Kon Tum province near the Laotian border, in an area so remote that it made the village where I grew up seem urban by comparison. Along with three other guys I am charged with patrolling the Yellow River by boat, our route taking about six days up and four days back, all of them through thick, gloomy jungle.
 

Supposedly, we are on the lookout for smugglers and poachers, although why any criminals would choose to navigate such a torturous route when there are plenty of easier unmonitored options, I have no idea. Naturally, I am in no position to ask. Even my superior, a twenty-six-year-old named Loc, has no clue. We are just following orders.

Besides me and Loc there are Binh and Chau, both of whom, like me, are greenhorns. Chau is short and fat and Binh is tall and skinny. Binh's parents own a
pho
shop in Binh Duong, which means that he's practically a city boy. Chau's folks grow coconuts near Ben Tre. He spends most of his free time looking at nude photos of his supposed girlfriend on his mobile phone. I doubt that he's ever met the girl. Both Binh and Chau are scared of the jungle.
 

"More fucking rain," says Chau, pushing his wet hair from his eyes. "We can't leave in this weather."

It has rained steadily since we left our base two days ago. Normally, I wouldn't care, but yesterday Binh and I came down with chills and fevers.

"Better tie those down," says Loc, pointing to our duffel bags. Last trip out, a bag of supplies had snagged on an overhanging branch and fallen into the river. I'd managed to retrieve it, but all of our rice had turned moldy.
 

Chau does as he's told but continues to bitch. Loc and I ignore him. Even when the weather is decent and things are going fine, Chau complains constantly. The only time he stops whining is when he's eating.
 

Standing knee-deep in the river, I hoist a jug of gasoline into the boat. This village is too small and poor to have a dock. I turn back to look at it: about two dozen temporary-looking stilt huts scattered across a hillside with the taller communal house in the center. A half-dozen half-naked kids are standing on the bank watching us. Two women, one of whom is pretty, are washing clothes upriver. I hoist another jug aboard. Compared to the villages that we'll pass in the coming days this dump counts as civilization.
 

"Can you check on Binh?" says Loc. He's wearing his army-issued cap tilted to one side, which looks slightly subversive. Even though Loc's my boss, I like him better than the other two. He enjoys reading, so we share books. And like me, he knows how to use a computer. Both of us miss going to Internet cafes. Out here we're back in the Stone Age.

I wade out of the river and head towards the hut where Binh is staying, which is about fifty meters away. The woman who owns this hut is the closest thing that the village has to a doctor. She's around sixty-five but looks about twice that. Last night, she'd applied some foul-smelling medicinal paste to both mine and Binh's chests. The stink of it had kept me awake for hours.

Seeing me, the old lady nods. Binh is lying on the floor with his eyes shut. His skin has a grey tinge that I don't like. He looks even thinner than usual.

I take the thermometer out of my pants and maneuver it under Binh's armpit. He murmurs but doesn't wake. The old lady watches me intently. Binh seems to be breathing too quickly.

While the old woman's foul paste—or plain luck—seems to have helped me, it hasn't done a thing for Binh. My temperature is down to thirty-eight-point-five today. His is over forty.

"You should not go," says the woman. She fingers the tassels of her scarf. Her hands are misshapen from arthritis.
 

I wipe the thermometer on my pants and slide it back into my pocket. Last night, the old woman hadn't said a word. I'm actually surprised to learn that she speaks Vietnamese. I'd assumed that she could only speak her
dan toc
language.

I nod towards Binh. "Because of him?"
 

The old lady shakes her head. Through her sparse hair I can see her scalp, which is paler than her face is. "No," she says. "That way is not safe."

"Why not?" I say. I wonder if the rain will cause the river to race. About half a day up there are treacherous rapids. But we've made the trip before in heavier rain. I figure that the old woman's never been further than the next valley. These mountain people have all sorts of weird superstitions.

She runs her tongue over her teeth, or rather what's left of them. "Bad place," she says. She leans out of the doorway and spits. A large spotted sow shuffles over to sniff at the wet patch. "Bad luck place. Haunted. If you go that way, don't stop. Not till Buon Ra village at least. Especially not at night." She spits again. Binh moans in his sleep. There's a film of sweat on his face.

"Haunted by what?" I say. We always travel straight through to Buon Ra. It's rough enough spending the night there, since there's no electricity and the place reeks of pig shit. There's no reason to make it worse for ourselves and camp in the jungle.

She says a word that I don't recognize, a word that I guess is a name. The Jarai bogeyman, I guess. Ong Ke. I remember how my dad used to threaten me with him as a kid, if I failed to sweep the yard well enough or dropped an egg when I was collecting them.
 

"Who's that?" I say. I know that I should get back to the boat. We should get a move on.

"Girl," says the woman. "Beautiful girl." A thin blanket is covering Binh's lower body. She tugs it over his chest. He moans again, his legs thrashing. The old woman leans back. "A witch," she says. In a soft voice, she tells me the story.

I want to say that I don't believe in such things. But I keep quiet. She is old. And the truth is that I find her scary.
 

"You boys be careful," she says.

"Thank you," I say. I have the strange and unreasonable feeling that she knows what I'm thinking. I try to look as sincere as possible.
 

When I get back to the boat, both Loc and Chau look irritated. "Where were you?" says Loc. We're all soaked. I've started to shiver again.

"I was with Binh," I say. "He's worse. Fever over forty. Breathing too fast."

"Shit," says Loc. "Should we take him back?"

I don't say anything. It's not my decision.

I think that we should take him back, although it'll take a day and a half to reach our base and another five hours' drive to the provincial hospital. But I doubt that Loc will turn back. For one thing, our last trip had to be aborted when our motor broke down. For another, Loc's got a Jarai girl waiting for him in the last village on our route, a plump, black-eyed beauty who for some unfathomable reason has taken a shine to Loc. While I like the guy well enough I can't see what this luscious girl sees in him. He's scrawny, buck-toothed and has ears that stick out as though someone had used them to carry him around back when he was a baby.

Loc squints up the river. "I better go see him," he says glumly. I watch him walk off in the direction of the old lady's hut. With his clothes stuck to his skin Loc looks even scrawnier than usual. I can't believe that that cute
dan toc
girl has the hots for him. But then, I don't understand women. Along with this ethnic girl, Loc has a fiancée back home. Apparently, she's a real catch, since her dad is the vice director of a State-owned construction company.
 

Chau is sitting in the boat's cramped cabin, smoking a cigarette. I climb in and sit beside him but he doesn't offer me one. When Loc gets back, neither of us says anything. I know that we're both hoping that Loc has chosen to turn back. This rain sucks. If anything, it seems to be getting stronger.

"The old lady says he's doing better," says Loc. "We're going to leave him here to recover."

Chau flicks his cigarette butt overboard. I pick at one of the dozen or so mosquito bites that dot my left foot. For some reason the bloodsuckers have turned my left leg into an all-you-can-eat buffet but avoided my right leg. I see one circling my left foot and try but fail to squish it.

"Let's go," says Loc. Without being told, Chau heads towards the front and I take my position at the back. Loc pushes us off, then scrambles aboard. The parts of his legs that have been in the river aren't any wetter than the rest of him. It takes me three pulls to get the motor started. I seem to have better luck with it than the other guys but I still don't trust it. I suspect that the mechanic who fixed it back at base put some shoddy Chinese parts into it.

While Loc and Chau hate the jungle, I don't mind it so much. It is gloomy but it can also be beautiful. And it's full of surprises. Chau thinks that it's boring out here but if you keep your eyes open, you can see some unbelievable stuff. Between our morning snack and our cold rice lunch I spot a kingfisher, a yellow spider the size of my outstretched hand, an orange caterpillar covered in vicious blue spikes, and a mushroom that looks like an oversized purple penis. Only the last sighting interests Chau, who makes some crude remark about it.

We often pull up after lunch and have a nap, but today we keep going. We're all wet and uncomfortable and our progress is slow. The river is running faster than it usually does. Bits of vegetation and small branches are starting to appear, so somewhere up ahead there must be flooding.
 

Chau's at the front so he should have seen it first, but maybe he was napping. Whether he was or he wasn't, he somehow misses it, so it's Loc who yells: "Log! Straight ahead!"

I turn but am too late, or else I turn us into a rock, because all of a sudden there is a great bang and a sickening scraping sound and the boat is shuddering. We are lucky to make it to the shallows without tipping over or sinking. The gash is about the size and shape of my forearm. God only knows how we're going to patch it.
 

Of course I've heard Loc swear before, but never with such creativity. I feel too sick to swear. My left shin is raw from where I scraped it jumping out of the boat and my heart is racing. Chau is sitting in the shallows with his head in his hands. For once he's not complaining. The rain seems to have stopped, although huge drops of water continue to break loose from the overhanging vegetation.
 

In jungle this thick it gets dark early. The trees lean out over the river on both sides, almost forming a tunnel, so that even if the sun were out we'd be shaded. The bushes are so thick that there's no place to pitch a tent. Luckily we have two machetes. It takes Loc and me twenty minutes of hardcore hacking to clear a space big enough for us to set down a tarp and build a fire-pit. If we're really lucky we'll manage to start a fire and cook a hot meal before the rain starts up again.
 

My first attempt at fire-lighting goes nowhere. Loc fans a small flame to life only to lose it to some damp kindling. Chau refuses to help. Either his face is still wet from the rain or he's been crying.

"Everything's soaked," says Loc, after our third and fourth attempts have ended badly. He peers doubtfully into the surrounding tangle of trees, bushes, ferns and creepers. "Do you think there'd be some drier wood in there?"

I seriously doubt it. Even when it doesn't rain, the jungle is damp. But maybe some low-lying branches are less soaked than the sticks that we've collected. "Want me to look?" I say. Venturing off into that thicket is the last thing that I want to do.
 

"Don't go too far," says Loc.

I nod. I don't plan to.

In the trees, it's as if night has fallen. Maybe it has. Dusk comes suddenly in the tropics and I left my watch on the boat, in a Ziploc bag along with my mobile phone. The watch might be of some use out here but the phone wouldn't. Even back at our base it's hard to get a connection.

I find some dead branches that seem relatively dry and hack them off with my machete. I use the machete to hack my way forward too, which means that it should be easy to retrace my steps. I just need to turn around and follow the path that I'm carving.

I don't know whether it's my recent illness, our boating accident, the darkness or the story told to me by that old lady in Buon Cham village, but I'm feeling jumpy. I'm usually fairly calm, not the kind of guy who lets his imagination run away with him, and yet here I am, the sense that I'm being watched growing with each step. I want to turn and bolt out of here.