Home Again, With Hope

Hanoi, April 19

Even though we had not seen each other in 41 years, my brother and I immediately recognized each other when I arrived at Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi.

Wearing a white shirt, necktie and holding a bouquet of red roses, my brother leaped off the ground when he saw me. As we hugged, laughed and wept, I whispered, “My God, brother Lan, brother Lan,” over his shoulder.

He responded, “I have been waiting for you so long.”

Lan came to the airport with his wife and their daughter Loan. As we drove to my hotel, we held hands. I was happy to see that his hands were still firm and strong despite decades of suffering and hard work.

I reminded my brother of what I wanted to do and whom I wanted to see while I was in Vietnam.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything is set up the way you wanted. Tomorrow at 8 a.m., we will return to take you to Son Tay to visit father’s grave.”

At 3 a.m., the rain woke me up from my nap. Hanoi rain. As I looked out of my hotel window, I wondered what Hanoi was like now. I wondered if the Philamonique movie house and the Cau Go theater I used to go to with my father were still around. I wondered if my family’s old house at 10 Le Truc Street was still there, along with the ngoc lan tree that filled my childhood with fragrance and shade.

I suddenly thought about the last night my father and I were together in the old house. Waking up at midnight in the nearly empty room, I saw him sitting alone, smoking.

“Back to sleep, daughter,” he said. “Tomorrow we will go to the airport. We have to go south.”

But the next day at the airport, my father pushed me into the plane alone and said, “Chinh, you have to go first. I’m going to stay to search for Lan. I’ll come south later.”

“Be brave” were his final words to me.

April 20

My heart was pounding as we drove to Yen Ky Cemetery, located in the mountains of Son Tay Province, about 40 miles northeast of Hanoi.

My father, mother and two brothers are all buried there. My mother died when I was 6. She had just given birth to a son, when her hospital was bombed during a World War II raid. My other brother, Khue, also died when I was young.

When we arrived at my father’s grave, I realized that it was brand new. My brother couldn’t afford a good grave after my father died, he told me. He had this one made, with a headstone, only two weeks before I arrived. He didn’t want me to think my father died without dignity.

After approaching the grave, I put both of my hands on the headstone and instantly felt my father’s presence. I felt as though we were touching.

I spoke aloud to him.

“Father, it’s me. I’ve come back. I wish that I could have seen you in person instead of seeing your grave.”

Tears streamed down my face as I asked for his forgiveness for not being next to him when he needed me most.

After burning incense and offering flowers and fruit, my brother and I planted a small bamboo tree in front of our father’s grave.

I stood trembling for a while, then knelt and kissed the headstone.

“I have to go, father. I love you.”

*

After leaving the cemetery, we visited the Hoa Lo Prison, which the American prisoners of war called the “Hanoi Hilton.”

My brother told me our father was put in this prison for two years before he was moved to another one.

Hoa Lo Prison was being torn down; on its site an international hotel is planned. Its gate and some walls remained standing. The sounds of the hammer machines continued to pound in my head even after we left.

In the afternoon, we looked for our old home at 10 Le Truc St.

“What do you see?” my brother asked me, as we stopped in front of a small flea market where a woman was selling shellfish soup and vermicelli.

“Here, look carefully,” he said.

I still didn’t recognize anything until he pointed to a cluster of small stores.

“You remember? There’s the iron gate.”

The iron gate used to be the entrance for cars. In front of our former two-story villa were now seven flats and stores selling everything from shoes to bird cages.

“After you went south, the house was confiscated and remodeled to house a dozen families,” Lan said.

Our formerly spacious living room was now filled with beds. When I stepped up the worn wooden stairs to my old room, a young girl opened the door.

I asked her which part of the room she slept at. She pointed to the left side, which is where I used to stare out of a small window, dreaming, during my happy childhood days. Outside that window I used to see the beautiful ngoc lan tree; now the girl and I saw only uneven roofs of houses.

I quietly wished the best for her dreams.

April 21

Today, I visited my godfather, Ngoc Giao, who had been a leading writer of Hanoi before the country was divided.

Our house used to be something of a literary salon. Artists frequently came to our home, including Ngoc Giao, who was my father’s best friend and had authored best-selling novels before the war. After the Communists took over the north, my godfather was forced to stop writing.

He lives in a two-story villa, at the end of a narrow alley. After ushering us into the living room, his son said to me: “My father wore his best suit today. He has been waiting for you all morning.”

Ngoc Giao, 86, appeared on the stairs in a beautiful suit and tie, his face framed by his long, flowing hair. His arms opened, and he received me with tears in his eyes.

“Chinh, I have been waiting for you for several years,” he said as we hugged. “Here, young girl, look.” He then removed from his pocket a small photograph of me at age 14. I had written “Dedicated to my father’s best friend” on the back.

After a few minutes of chatting, Ngoc Giao led me upstairs to his room and pointed to a wooden bed by the window.

“This is where your father slept,” he told me. “When your father was released from prison, he secretly came here on rainy nights.”

I sat down on the bed and put my hand on the wood. It touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes.

Ngoc Giao then told me that after my father was released from prison, he had very little to eat and only a small place to sleep at the old house on Le Truc Street.

“That was a hard time, a very, very hard time,” he said. “Every morning, my wife packed some sweet rice for your father. Your father had to walk several miles to the pavement where my family used to sit and sell rice cakes. When he got there, he quickly took the sweet rice and then walked away. The important thing for you to know is that your father was a man of dignity. I am proud to have been his friend.”

My godfather then took my hands and told me he was sorry he wasn’t at my father’s side when he died in 1978.

“Your father always told me that he loved you, his young child. He said that he understood you and predicted that some day you would be an artist.

“Shortly before his death, in our last meeting, he said he hoped that he could survive until seeing you back. If he did not, he asked me to give you this message: ‘Please tell her that I have tried to live up to high ideals because I want her proud of me.’

“I have waited for you for years,” my godfather told me. “After passing on your father’s message, I will be happy to see him in the other world.”

April 22

I spent my last night in Hanoi at my niece’s home. My brother, who is retired, lives part of the year with his daughter Loan at this home, and the rest of the year at his younger daughter’s home in Saigon.

Many times I found myself wanting to ask my brother about the stories of father and of him that haunted me. But I didn’t. This was a time for a happy reunion, not for opening old wounds. I told myself to wait for another chance.

The next day, my brother planned to accompany me to Quang Tri, Hue and Saigon.

April 23

Farewell to Hanoi. The last time I left Hanoi, it was without my father and brother. This time, my brother sat beside me as our plane took off. We held hands as we stared out the window. Had we left Hanoi together 41 years ago, our lives would have been so much different.

We arrived in Dong Ha, where my brother and I took a double room at a guest house. After returning from a late meeting with other members of the Vietnam Memorial Assn., I returned to the room and saw my brother asleep. My father looked exactly like that when he slept.

April 24

At 7 a.m., my travel companions and I arrived at the site of the new school we had come to help dedicate. The two-story school had been built by the Vietnam Memorial Assn. near the former demilitarized zone to honor those who died during the war.

With me to help dedicate the school were journalist Terry Anderson, the former hostage in the Middle East, with whom I co-chair the association; project supporters James Kimsey, a Vietnam veteran and president of America On-Line; businessman Vincent Perez; and Joy Carol, an association member and director of Christian Children’s Fund.

The new school was named after Lewis B. Puller Jr. The Vietnam veteran and Pulitzer-Prize winning author, who committed suicide last year, lost both legs at the site where the school now stands.

About 200 villagers, local officials and students in blue and white uniforms attended the inauguration.

These children, I believe, represent the hopes of a future Vietnam.

“I hope you will live a life full of freedom and happiness in a peaceful world,” I told them in my opening speech. It is a wish I prayed for as we planted trees in the schoolyard.

*

After the inauguration, we arrived in Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam.

In the afternoon, I stopped by Thien Mu Pagoda, where I had played the role of a nun in my debut film 38 years ago.

“Are you Kieu Chinh, the film actress?” asked a man selling incense in front of the pagoda when I stepped down the stairs to leave. He smiled at catching me surprised. “I remember you,” he said. “I met you when your film crew reeled here.”

Almost 40 years had gone by, back to the year 1957, when I had worked on that film. His family, in all those years, had changed nothing and still made a living selling incense in front of the pagoda.

On our last night in Hue, my companions and I joined a classical music demonstration, reciting poems on a boat paddling on the Huong River. Sitting next to me, my brother Lan was very moved by the poetry. Before leaving the boat, each guest was given a paper boat with a candle in it to let float down the river with his or her wishes.

Brother and I lit the candles and put the paper boats onto the river.

“What do you wish, brother?”

Looking at the fleet of paper boats carrying lit candles floating away, Lan said: “I wish you will soon be back.”

April 25

At 11 a.m., we landed at Tan Son Nhat airport in Saigon. I had been away 20 years, and so much was different.

There was no more empty land. Among the gray-roof old houses were red-tile new houses. Many huge billboards stood up and narrowed sights. Vehicles of all kinds were everywhere. The center of town was full of noise and smog; people were wearing all fashions of clothing. Some of them held the cellular phones.

While walking on a busy street, a man in a rickety handmade wheelchair stopped me.

“Lady,” he said. “I am a disabled veteran of the South Vietnamese army. Would you please give me some help?”

My heart ached as I went to my hotel, still thinking about the veteran.

April 26

I returned to my old house in Saigon, a small villa next to a horse racing track. The new owners, however, closed the door when I told them that I was the former owner of the house and that I returned from the United States in search of memories.

April 27

The time had come for my brother and I to share stories. We walked to the small attic of his daughter’s three-story home.

“I have lived alone in this room for some time,” he said. “This is my own private world.”

The room was so small, just big enough for a small bed and a wooden container for clothes.

As we sat on the bed, we turned pages of my family’s three photo albums. When we turned to a photo of him being held by my father at a very young age, I looked at him and spoke.

“For decades, I have wanted to ask you questions. After we separated that night, where did you go? Where did you sleep that night, and how did you get along after that night?”

“Hiep Cao and I rode off to Bac Ninh, joining the movement of patriotic students in the jungles,” he replied in a low tone.

“Father stayed to search for you, you know that?” I asked. “When did you see him again?”

“Almost one year afterward. In October, 1955, I returned to our old home on Le Truc Street to reunite with him.”

“Did you join the army, go to the battlefront or become a member of the Communist Party?”

“No. You must understand that not everyone became a cadre or soldier.”

“After two years in Hoa Lo prison, when father was transferred to a new jail, did you call on him?”

“Just one time.”

I asked my brother what our father did while in jail.

“When I last saw him, he worked on a team that made bamboo handicrafts. They made bamboo baskets. Some time later, I was put in jail, too. I was in Hoa Lo Prison for a year, then labored in other camps for the next three years.”

Suddenly, Lan grabbed my hands and his face looked 10 years older.

“Sister, stop here. I’m not going to answer anymore questions. The war caused a lot of pain for everyone, not just our family. Everything is gone. We should just understand our love for each other now. That’s it.”

I put my hands on his and spoke in a calm voice.

“I understand, brother, but please just answer a few more questions. I want to know how father died, what he said before he passed away and who stayed at his bedside.”

“In 1978, he died of diarrhea. He didn’t have medicine or anyone next to him. He was ill in the morning, so I went down the street to buy Keo Bot powdered candies for his rice soup. When I returned, he was gone.”

We were both quiet for a moment, and then my brother lowered his head, waiting for my last question.

“What did you do in jail?” I asked.

“I did everything to survive. I made rubber tire sneakers and burned wax to make candles.”

I suddenly remembered the candles on paper boats carrying our wishes down the Huong River. I hugged and kissed my brother.

“Tomorrow morning, you have to go,” he said.

“I will be back some day,” I said. “Hopefully, I’ll come back with our sister, Tinh, and our children, so they can meet their cousins.”

April 28

I packed my luggage at 2 a.m. and arrived at the airport at 5 a.m. to begin my trip back to the United States. As I entered the gate, I looked back and saw that my brother was running toward me, wanting to say goodby again. I turned back and ran toward him.

We each pressed our hands against the glass that separated us.