“I have lost my patience with you,” answered Manh, repulsed by Dzung’s rhetoric and looking to regain control of the interrogation. “You end up talking nonsense that no normal Vietnamese can understand. You are dangerous.”

“Maybe I read too much, or perhaps I simply think too much,” said Dzung. He had lost his smile. He knew that he had certainly said too much and that Manh would very likely make him pay for his careless words. But there was no point in stopping without finishing his thought. “Or maybe I have been through too much. But this I know: Courage did not save us, and fear will not protect us. So you’re wrong to think I would ever be afraid, not anymore. The truth is, I’ve lost all my fear. But I’ve lost all my hate too. I’ve lost them both. Can you understand that, Manh?”

“Enough of this, I have a job to do,” said Manh with crisp formality.

“I accept that,” said Dzung. “And I do not hate you for it. In fact, I think I pity you.”

Manh stubbed out his cigarette, becoming adamant. “For the last time, I am warning you! Do not talk to me like that! I have a task to perform, and you are a part of this task. I will hear no more lectures from the nguy enemy soldier who is so smart that he lives without water in District Four with too many children and a baby who is dying. Oh, yes, Dzung, I know all about you. And your puppet-general father. And especially your friendship with the former American soldier and intelligence operative who now pretends to be looking for the bones of dead veterans as he makes his way around our country and reports to his superiors on how to begin some new aggression. And I will have no more comments about the revolution or the war, in which I would like to point out my father gave his life. Yes, when I was a young boy! So talk to me about love and being willing to die for your children, and complain all you want about the camps, but you are still alive. And you will either listen to me and cooperate with me or you will be taken away for further political instruction. I have the authority to make this decision. It would not be subject to review until you are reevaluated in the prison camps. And such a reevaluation can take a very long time.”

“I am sorry about your father,” said Dzung, reading the loss in Manh’s usually fierce face.

“It was a long time ago,” shrugged Manh, recovering.

“I miss my own father every day.”

“Your father was a traitor.”

“I loved him. So did his soldiers. He talks to me frequently. That’s how I know he died.”

“We are not here to talk about your father.”