Love Beneath the Napalm

Chapter 11: THE STONE MAN OF LANG SON

151 e l e v e n T H E S T O N E M A N O F L A N G S O N Vo Van Tuynh stumbled up to the top of Tam Thanh Mountain and wiped his sweaty brow. His hand felt slick on his bamboo cane. Pain shot through his leg as he leaned his back against the cliff and gazed out over the jade green paddy fields of ky Lua. The red roofs of Lang Son village glittered like rubies in the distance, beyond the Mac Citadel wall. The wall had been built in the sixteenth century to keep out an earlier Chinese invasion. Vo Van Tuynh rested his palm on the cane top and let out a long, low sigh. “Father! Where are you?” The old man heard the rattle of pebbles tumbling down the footpath, and a few seconds later Huong’s head peeped above the cliff face. Her soft white skin stood out among the craggy rocks like a pearl nestled in an oyster shell. Vo Van Tuynh smiled fondly and reached his hand out toward her. He 152 The Stone Man of Lang Son pulled her gently up to his level, bent down, and gave her a kiss. Huong blushed in gratification, then glanced up at a huge rock above them, which protruded out over ky Lua Valley. The rock was shaped like a woman carrying a child. Legend had it that every afternoon the woman brought her infant to the top of Tam Thanh Mountain and watched for the return of her husband, who had gone off to fight the Chinese. One day, after they’d waited five years, a violent storm struck the mountain and turned the mother and child to stone. . . . Huong frowned. “Why do you always come here?” she asked. “You know it only makes you unhappy.” Vo Van Tuynh’s mouth tightened in a grimace as he released his daughter’s hand. “I don’t like to be around that market any more than I have to,” he said. “You know that.” A flock of lag geese, brown as river water, soared over their heads, crying noisily. The birds cast a shadow on the rock above them and then dove toward the rice fields. A peasant leading an oxcart along the road to Lang Son, the same road taken by the Chinese tanks twenty-four years before, glanced over his shoulder as the geese swooped low and circled his cart. He beat at a couple of them with a long rattan whip, and they all flew away. “Besides,”Vo Van Tuynh added,“I like to remember when I used to carry you here.” His lips softened in a smile, but his eyes looked sad. Huong took his hand once more. “That was a long time ago,” she said. Her father’s smile faded, and he slipped away from her. Huong gazed at him beseechingly. “Come away now. Please. It’s not . . . healthy.” Her voice faltered as a shadow, darker than that cast by the lag geese, spread across his face. She peered off in the distance at Cao Loc Mountain, the portal into China. Her face brightened for an instant, but then she glanced anxiously at the old man. “You have to let go, Father,” she murmured. Vo Van Tuynh darted an angry look at her and brought his cane down hard on the stone pathway. He hobbled off without a word. A spasm shot through his leg as he marched along, and every few steps The Stone Man of Lang Son 153 he grunted in pain. He heard Huong rushing to his aid behind him, but he set his teeth and hurried on as fast as the steep descent and the old wound in his leg would allow him. ——— Vo Van Tuynh spotted the two men as they entered the market and started to make their way across to him. His face flushed with annoyance. He swept the star anise pods off the teakwood table at which he was sitting and into a drawer. He leveled them out alongside many others and shut the drawer. The fennel-like odor of the fruit lingered behind, however, and he beat the air with his hands to drive it away. Then he spread the other fruit out on the table so as to cover as much room as possible. Rambutans, longans, dark red lychees...