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Back Lost Soldiers Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. EPIGRAPH
  4. PRAISE
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. MAP
  7. PROLOGUE
  8. CHAPTER ONE
  9. CHAPTER TWO
  10. CHAPTER THREE
  11. CHAPTER FOUR
  12. CHAPTER FIVE
  13. CHAPTER SIX
  14. CHAPTER SEVEN
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  47. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  48. What’s next onyour reading list?

We stood in front of our house and the scent of the night air

Brought the memory of a thousand years returning,

The night so peaceful on the road where the young men

Came and went, offering their lives, their hearts filled with love

For this land. Now the moon hangs overhead, and the winds

Bring the scent not of flowers but of everything they lost.

The butterfly departed, fluttering behind him, back toward the river. For a moment Dzung felt abandoned, but finally he smiled again. It was a good sign, his father coming to see him.

He turned right at the end of the bridge and pedaled toward Nguyen Hue Street, home of the oldest and best hotels. Cyclo drivers fought jealously for their territory, stationing themselves every day at the same street corner or office or hotel. For several years he had kept a waiting place just across the street from the Rex Hotel, where during the war years the Americans had housed mid-level military officers. The Rex was well-remembered by foreigners and was almost always full. And the right tourist might pay ten dollars simply for a slow tour of the historic sights.

Yes, ten dollars, if they chose a cyclo over the motorbikes and taxis that were crowding him out of his business. It could happen. And Dzung felt very lucky today.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Brandon Condley loved Sai Gon. It was the museum of his own heart, a tortured and yet insistently happy city where along the streets his memories could once again race and dive amid the fecund ferment, the mangled but sly-eyed beggars, the crumbling old yellow French buildings now conquered and abused, the rivers muddy and eternal, the toothless cyclo drivers suborning him from the roadsides, the motorbikes loud and reckless, begging for the future, the never-ending stares, the measuring smiles, welcoming and wary, the con games of bright minds trapped inside dumb lives, the odd, funky food cooked on the streets, the black puddles on the sidewalks, wet from rain and urine and wash water thrown out of doorways, the stench of all that mixed together. In all an insistent beauty, pushing up through the muck of a fierce and dreadful past like Buddha’s lotus, a beauty just as real as what his own past might have become, always pushing, insistent as a weed, fresh as the future.

It was six o’clock. Dusk hovered over the center of the city like a dark descending blanket, giving the lights of nearby hotels and shops a special glow. Condley walked up from his place near the river, passing the old Sai Gon Opera House as he headed toward Nguyen Hue Street. It was hot, even for Viet Nam. The gluey puddles of water gathered along the street smelled like other people’s sweat.