The Dream

The Dream

            I wake up before dawn today. It’s the dream again. I notice my hands are shaking and my skin coated with a chill dampness, feeling a familiar squeezing in my chest, a pressure that seems to push yet pull me at the same time. It hurts. The faint chill of the night air whispers across my shoulder, raising small tingling bumps across my arms. I feel frozen despite the thick warmth that relentlessly swathes the hut. Blessedly, Xuan has not woken. He sleeps lost in his infant dreams, a small comfort tucked at my side. I imagine his dreams are happy. Peaceful images of sunlight filtering between the wide faces of banana leaves, the impossible stillness of water agleam in the rice paddies, a clear sky filled with puffed clouds so white the brightness burns. I watch his small chest rise and fall, the little snuffling sounds of his breath melting the ice in my core. His small face so at peace in a world so wrenched asunder. My vision blurs. His father was so alive in his small face: the way his lips turn up, just slightly at the edges, the warm brown of his eyes nothing like the almost-black charcoal of my own. I look now at the small sleeping features seeing so clearly the man’s he will never know. The man I know will very likely never come home.

I leave the pallet, careful not to wake Xuan, and go outside. The sky is just lightening in a burst of pink, the sun an orange section teetering on the horizon; the air heavy in apprehension of the coming heat of the day. I stand, willing the last flecks of the nightmare to ebb and fade from my mind. Birdsong fills the air around me, fragrant with the thick earth smell of rice paddies and the sharp undertones of dying fires and water buffalo dung. The day is clear; the fleeting pink sky is cloudless. I watch the sun rise, wafting higher and higher in the sky, slowly ripening the earth back to a dense perplexity of smells and color. I wonder at the possibility that at such a peaceful hour men are soaking the same soil at my feet in blood. The accounts of the few men returned, now remembered, bring knots to my stomach. The fire and smoke filling the clear sky with ashes of our homesteads… the falling forms of our men. No. I trim the images from my thoughts as the shadows of the dream lurch once more to clutch my chest. The squeeze I know well now to be Fear. But what fills me now disturbs me more. It leaves me unable to feel, numbing me beyond the point of even fear. Yes I feel it now as the doubt in me rises.  He’s really not coming home.

The sky’s lightening now from pink to ocher illuminating the serene greenness of rice plants in the distant. The village is just stirring, women emerging from huts and greeting me with smiles, large clay pots in hand making their ways down to the river to collect water. I pass others readying for work in the paddies and others preparing breakfast, the pungent smell of newly lit cook fires steeping the air between huts. I too must prepare for the day. I return to the hut, and after dressing for work in the rice paddies and feeding Xuan start towards the swaying green stalks just outside the village.

“Tanh!” I turn and see Hoa approaching me, two pots in her arms. “Good morning! Ah, Xuan looks well. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Of course.” I take one of the reddened clay pots and balance it on my free hip. We start off towards the direction of the river.

“You’re looking better. It’s good to see you’re back to working the rice fields. I’ve worried about you.” She shoots me a glance, assessing me.

I nod. “I think my fever is gone today. Xuan has been healthy too. Um, Hoa?” I pause, unknowing if I really have the courage to ask her…

“Yes? Do you need anything?” I try to speak but my throat tightens. I shake my head. “It’s...It’s nothing,” I manage to whisper. No I can’t bring myself to ask…

“I know it’s been hard for you,” she adds gently.

Hard. Yes, it’s been hard. The nightmare claws its way back into my head. The memory of that day fresh in my mind like an open wound…

“Tanh. We’re leaving now. I… I hope that we’ll return before the child’s born.” He turns…it’s the last time I see him.

Then that night. “Tanh.” Hoa’s cheeks are wet with tears. “Tanh, it’s…it’s… the area they were sent to…it’s been attacked.” Her words fall heavy on my ears. My mind fills with the images…land mines exploding, bombs dropping, smoke, everything burning. Men falling. Him hurt or…worse.

“Tanh?” Hoa’s voice interrupts my racing thoughts, “Are you alright? You don’t look so well….” I nod. But the images linger in my mind. We walk the rest of the distance in silence.

We approach the river. A shining snake glimmering silver in the day’s early light. We fill the pots, dipping them under the clear surface of the water; the cool water stings my hands.

“Hoa,” I force myself to start….I have to know, I decide. “Any news?”

“Oh Tanh.” Hoa whispers, “I’m so sorry. The…the scouts they’ve sent to the area haven’t returned yet…they fear the worst.” Hoa’s voice shakes.

“How long--”

“They…were sent five days ago. Tanh, I’m so sorry…but they say, any survivors….must be captured by now. Either that or--”

The pot slides from my grip, exploding onto the ground in a thousand pieces. Shards of dark red speckle the now-wet ground at my feet. Xuan cries in terror from the sound. I try to move, but my body has turned to stone. He’s…he’s gone. He’s never coming back.

My mind flashes through images of our life together…images that will only be memories now. The ground feels unsteady beneath my feet but I can’t move. The life I had shattered like the once- pot at my feet.

“Tanh, I’m so sorry. I know that this is probably not what you wanted to hear. And I am sorry I’d had to be the one to tell you.”

Not what I wanted to hear? No, I realize.  What did I want to hear? That he was coming home, that he was safe after all this time? But I knew that that was near impossible…even when I was being hopeful. What did I want to hear?

I feel Hoa’s hand, warm on my shoulder. “Tanh, are you going to be alright? You don’t have to come to work in the fields today.”

I just wanted to know, I realize. To have that final pain so the rest can start to be done with. I wanted to be free from the nightmare, and free from the inability to know for sure. And I realize that…I am.

I blink. I know what I must do. I must move now. I must find the strength somewhere inside to move…for Xuan. I will myself to turn towards her.

“No. I can do it,” I say my voice surprising me with it’s steadiness.

She nods. We turn and make our way towards the bright green field as the sun rises ever higher in the sky.