Dang Thuy Tram’s Dairies

I understand this young student. Only together for a short while, we could not leave each other. The next afternoon I returned to the clinic. Duong stayed for awhile but was captured when returning from work. They beat him terribly but still he didn’t even say half a word. They prepared a document to send Duong to Con Dao*, but fortunately an old teacher of his asked them to let Duong stay, so now Duong has been sent to the Army and is in training. Don’t know when he will go into combat or if he will be able to return to our forces or not, or if a bullet will stop his hope filled life.

June 28, 1968. My dear M! Are you back? Is it the same M of all those Wednesday nights on the old road? If you said that in our relationship you did nothing wrong to me, and if that is so then what will life be like? I am not a girl with a narrow heart, am not superficial, and the result is that I think about all the time which has passed. I don’t know what to tell you. No! My dear M, please go away. Don’t sow sorrow in my heart if between us there cannot be love forever, even if we both live through this war.

June 30, 1968. Fall hasn’t arrived but yellow leaves cover the sky. I have never felt as sorrowful and lonely as I do this minute. “Life has to go through storms but never bend in the face of the storm”. Please stand up Thuy, even if the winds and the storms blow hard, even if tears fall and fill up the sad river of sorrow, still keep your spirit strong. Thuy, by strength, by belief in justice, by your personal idea of life you can continue in this hard life. No victory can come to us without change through sweat and tears, without sorrow, and sometimes without the loss of blood and fall of bones.

When my heart was broken, tears never fell, but why am I so weak now?

July 3, 1968. July returned with the south wind blowing noisily through the trees, with cool air every morning, and the sweet moonlit nights in the jungle. The sun of July is still burning with a belief in victory, burning with a dream of peace. July this year is still heavy with sorrow and hate while the country is sunk in the smoke and fire of war. For a long time I understood the 20th of July, a day of negotiations, but to finally reach that day took the fighting and loss of blood and bones, and the revolution and strength of 30 million Vietnamese people, thousands and thousands of times all heroes in only 6 years. That was a summer in Ha Noi, when the July night had a gentle air and on the uncrowded way I said good-bye to the Liberation soldiers off to the sacred resistance. From then until now I have grown up more whenever July arrives.

Now it is July again, in the middle of mountains and forest. I ran with the wounded soldier, ran from the victory. Only Vietnamese like us see victory even though the enemy is chasing close behind us, even as our soldiers carry such heavy bags, even as we kick our way through river and forest to hide from the enemy.

Suddenly I think of To Huu’s poem…*

Everywhere in this land
Like the South sorrowful and True
Like the South courageous and bold

Our poet is completely right, because there is no place like this land.

Civilian soldiers can annihilate the Americans anywhere. Every piece of land is soaked with the enemy’s blood. Every family wears the heavy mourning hat, but still continues to fight with strength and a strange happiness.

My dear Thuy, how honored you are to be in the ranks of this fighting group.

July 5, 1968. A friend of M’s came back to the clinic. The story that he told was intended to heal the break between M and me, but on the contrary it allowed me to keep my self respect and still made me sad. M is not really worth my love. Why does everyone advise me to forgive him and to return to him? No, I will never accept incomplete love, and M is not a person to accept my forgiveness to regain only my partial love. M told me that he never was mistaken about me, even the smallest bit, but that is not true: 8 years ago when we said good-bye M had already mistakenly fallen in love with a girl that he knew he could not love or marry. That is when the mistakes began, and he has continued to make mistakes. My dear M! If you could read all of these words what would you say? How many nights of discussion would it take before you understood?

July 6, 1968. All those simple and true letters still cannot console my lonely heart. All my friends everywhere miss me and love me, but I still feel lonely. I still cannot stand with the group in the front lines. My heart lacks the Party’s flame and love to make it warm. I come to the Party bringing a completely true heart, but the answer seems to be the same, and M is still not worth my love. Life has three important things: ideas, careers, and love. Not one of them do I have. Why shouldn’t I be sad?