
Saigon, Republic of Vietnam, 1989
Quyen looked out, at the ever-crowding streets of Saigon. The protestors, shouting their slogans, were united in something invisible, but still tangible.
United in their… their what? Righteousness? No, righteousness is too much, but there’s more than a bit of truth in that. Still. It’s not as though it’ll help us.
The people seemed to almost pulse with energy. On the borders of the streets, on the corners, the doorsteps, all the periphery that was unoccupied, he saw Western journalists, surrounded by their little phalanxes of men and women standing around them, holding up microphones to the journalists’ mouths, which, in the din of the streets, seemed to move silently, wordlessly. What the viewers at home wanted to know, what John and Jane Doe, eating their TV dinners at home in Anytown, USA, wanted to know, was what would happen to South Vietnam.
The American journalists, it seemed, were the most optimistic. Quyen walked up to one, cautiously, and listened in - no easy feat; the deafening chants made it impossible to hear anything. The newsman was a tall sort, one of those people who could only be American, and he spoke in an American accent that Quyen couldn't quite specifically place - Texan, perhaps? “And in these crowded streets, I - I think I can feel something, something inspiring. The people here, well, these people - they want change. I think they’ll get it. The people here are chanting - I don’t know if you can hear - they’re chanting ‘Su tu do! Su tu do!’ which is, uh, it means ‘Democracy!’”
Quyen rolled his eyes.
‘Su tu do’ means ‘freedom,’ you fucking idiot.
He walked off from the Texan, and perhaps 30 feet away was a British journalist, with the BBC, Quyen supposed. “-tuation here in Saigon is very volatile. The people are in - well, listen to them, they’re in a state of uproar, plainly. There’s talk - only rumors, but very credible ones, of the president, Khuong Huu Dieu, sending in the military to, uh, disperse the protestors, or perhaps the military themselves taking over the government. It’s potentially a dire situation. To be poetic, well, this is most likely a stillbirth of democracy.”
※ ※ ※
“Mother?”
Quyen was a young man, still in university, and his mother was not too old, but she looked much older than she was. She tired easily, and still she was with him, protesting eagerly, even more eagerly than was Quyen.
“Su tu do! Su tu do!”
“Mother?”
“Oh, I… I didn’t see you,” she said, a smile on her lips.
He swallowed slightly. “Do you think that she’ll be better?”
She thought for a moment, and then she turned to face Quyen. “How can she be worse than Diem? Or Thieu…” Her tone had grown furious, and her eyes had started to water.
“Mother… Are you all right?”
She hardened her face, and rubbed out the tears in two quick movements. “Yes, yes, of course, Quyen. You ask me if she’ll be better. All I can say is that your father is here, with is, supporting her. When we remove Dieu, perhaps he will have justice.” With that, she looked away, balled her fist, and began chanting once more, “Su tu do! Su tu do!”
Can she be worse? We have seen so many regimes. There was the emperor, until he was voted out - excuse me, ‘voted out’ - and Diem was killed, before I was born, and Thieu, that monster, he had been even worse. Old Cao Ky, had he won in ‘87, would have been the same, no doubt, for all of his talk of democracy for Vietnam.
But he was dead.
In a way, I almost mourn him. How odd. He was one of those old generals, and what would an old general know about democracy? He used democracy as tool to further infuriate Thieu, of course he did, but he still said it. No one else had challenged him, none of the old guard, only Le Xuan Nhuan in ‘83, a great man, the poet-cum-politician, but he didn’t have a chance in hell of winning.
Cao Ky was a hypocrite, but he promised a brighter future. Perhaps that was all that mattered. Perhaps Madame Cao Ky can deliver that future.
※ ※ ※
He was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of a descending helicopter. The crowd stopped shouting, and glanced up. By its insignia, he could see…
It’s the President’s helicopter!
In the distance, Quyen saw a man in a suit -
that’s Dieu? God, he looks so small - accompanied by a host of armed guards, rifles ready, and other important-looking men, walking quickly towards a podium that had been suddenly erected, behind, it seemed, plastic to protect the speaker.
The crowd looked out at the people, and saw that she was not there, and immediately, they began chanting for Madame Cao Ky.
They had called her ‘Ba,’ lady, and soon, that word, “Ba,” chanted by thousands, washed through Saigon, seeming to sweep away the world.
“Ba!”
The President began to speak.
“Ba!”
Barely anybody could see him, and nobody could hear him.
“Ba!”
What’s he saying?
“Ba!”
And then the President left the podium, his guards saluting him, and she walked out, Ba herself.
The people cheered louder than Quyen had ever known. He looked at his mother, and she was weeping.
“Why is she here? Is she the new President?”
“I think so, Quyen. I think she is.”
By now, it seemed that the microphones were working, and, as the crowd squinted, they could see that they had given her one, and she said, slowly, “I am the President.”
The people said, “Ba!” and it was deafening.
Will anything change?