Twilight Territory: A Novel

by Andrew X. Pham

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A sweeping first novel of love, war, and resistance in post–World War II Vietnam, by the award-winning author of Catfish and Mandala.

The peak of the hot season, 1942: The wars in Europe and Asia and the Japanese occupation have upset the uneasy balance of French Indochina. In the Vietnamese fishing village of Phan Thiet, Tuyet ekes out a living at a small storefront with her aunt Coi, her cousin Ha, and her two-year-old daughter, Anh. She can hardly remember her luxurious life in the city of Saigon, which she left just two years ago.

The day Tuyet meets Japanese major Yamazaki Takeshi is inauspicious and stifling, with no relief from the sand-stirring wind. But to her surprise, she feels not fear or wariness, but a strange kinship. Tuyet is guarded, knowing how the townspeople might whisper, yet is drawn to Takeshi’s warmth all the same. A wounded veteran with a good heart, Takeshi grows to resent the Empire for what it has taken—and the promises it has failed to keep. As the Viet Minh begin to battle the French and Takeshi risks his life for the Resistance, Tuyet and her family are drawn into the conflict, with devastating consequences.

A lushly panoramic novel, by turns gritty and profoundly moving, Twilight Territory is at once a war story and a love story that offers a fascinating perspective on Vietnam’s struggles to break free of its French colonial past. At its heart is one woman’s struggle for independence and her country’s liberation.

 

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Release date: January 23, 2024

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Print pages: 382

Sample

. . . 1 . . .The Major and the Shopkeeper

Tuyet remembered the first time she met Major Yamazaki Takeshi. An inauspicious day at the peak of the hot season of 1942. The late afternoon sun had slipped below the roofline, leaving the street in shadow. All day, the dragon-­bone wind howled and showed no sign of abating. Hot and sandy, it was an unpredictable whirling thing that swept through once every few years and never brought anything good. It chafed the skin, infected eyes, and put grit in the teeth. It tore leaves and branches from trees, blew red dust into every nook and crevice. It made the dogs distempered. Few people ventured outside other than the children who played in the street, year-­round, rain or shine. They were launching paper airplanes into the roiling sky.

Aunt Coi arranged a low table just inside the shopfront. “Slackers aren’t earners,” she said when Tuyet complained that the weather was too foul for business. Coi was forty-­six years old, Tuyet twen

ty-­eight. Coi was a diminutive woman with half-­moon eyes. She had glossy black teeth, dyed for fashion as a teenager. Since Tuyet’s mother had passed away fifteen years earlier, Coi had been Tuyet’s mother, best friend, and confidante.

Coi hollered through the house, “Are you ready with the batter yet?”

“Coming, coming,” Tuyet replied from the kitchen.

Their rented home was one half of a house, divided right down the middle by a bare brick wall, the living space consisting of three narrow adjoining rooms. The bedroom was in the middle between the kitchen in the rear and the shop, which faced the street. Ten removable planks, two meters tall, served as the door of the wide shopfront. Along the side of the house, a strip of dirt was a well-­tended vegetable garden with basil, chili peppers, mint bushes, tomato plants, trellises of bitter squash, and green beans. Coi, Tuyet, and her two-­year-­old daughter, Anh, shared a divan in the bedroom. The only other furniture was a small dresser bought from the landlord. Coi’s twenty-­two-­year-­old son, Ha, slept in a hammock strung in the shop.

Tuyet added a ladle of rainwater to the rice batter, thinning it to the creaminess of fresh milk. She lugged the bucket through the bedroom where Anh was napping. It was their afternoon routine: baking banh cang dumplings to supplement the income from the shop, which comprised three wooden bins, shelves for dried goods, and some odds and ends. Jars of cooking oil or rendered pork fat, vats of fish sauce, and a barrel of low-­grade rice. The kind the locals now ate.

“Don’t light a fire just yet. Nobody wants dumplings in this weather,” Tuyet said, stepping outside for a look.

Windows were shuttered against the hot wind. Down at the corner, a shiny black automobile turned onto their street, a dirt lane that rarely saw cars. It was the first time an expensive vehicle had graced this part of town, the children crying, “Big car! Big car!” It crawled as though the driver was trying to find an address. Boys trotted along for a peek but dared not come closer. As it drew near, Tuyet saw Japanese soldiers. Recently, there had been a strong Japanese presence in the town since they took over the Phan Thiet airbase from the Vichy French government. But it was the first time anyone saw Japanese soldiers in this neighborhood.

“Auntie, what about this big car?”

Coi held her breath when the car slowed to a stop in front of their house. She dragged her niece into the bedroom and latched the door behind them. The two women stood in semi-­ darkness, peering out through gaps in the door panels. Four Japanese, two soldiers and two officers, stepped out from the car. The officers entered the shop and stood just inside the threshold, removing their caps and smoothing back their hair. Both men were immaculately dressed in dark green uniforms, shiny medals, and boots. They stood at attention, square-­shouldered, straight-­backed, presenting themselves to an empty room. The short one was in his twenties, thin and grim-­faced. The other, half a head taller, balding, rangy, and well-­tanned, in his thirties.

“We beg permission to offer greetings!” said the younger officer in stilted formal Viet. “We seek a friendly visit as not to cause you concern.”

Behind the door, the two women stared at each other, perplexed at the Japanese’s odd phrasing. His accent was heavy but understandable. Tuyet reached for the door. Coi shook her head.

The men waited in silence. The young one cleared his throat. “Please, misses and children come out. We saw you go inside.”

Tuyet whispered, “Misses and children? I think he means us.”

Coi shrugged. Tuyet peeped through the crack. The Japanese seemed at ease, content to wait. They ignored the crowd gathering across the street. Tuyet reached for the doorknob, but Coi motioned for her niece to stay, took a deep breath, and went out, closing the door behind her.

“Greetings, officers,” Coi said, shakily. She bowed at the waist. A simple peasant, she had never faced a ranking soldier, unsure of whether she had permission to speak or even to look at them. “Is there something wrong?”

Both men bowed stiffly. The younger officer said, “I am Lieutenant Tanaka Kenta. This is my commanding officer, Major Yamazaki Takeshi. We come to see Miss Le Tuyet.”

Their friendly tone emboldened Coi. “Forgive me for asking, but what do you want with her?”

“I am a translator,” replied the lesser officer, who had a shrewd face and small teeth. He was young, but he carried himself with such imperial hauteur that Coi mistook him for the superior of the pair. He inclined his head toward the older man. “The major begs permission to speak to Miss Tuyet.”

Coi bowed and retreated into the bedroom. She grabbed Tuyet’s arms. “This is horrible! How do they know your name?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before.”

“What are we going to do?”

“If they want to arrest us, there’s nothing we can do,” Tuyet said and touched her hair, checking the chignon. She gulped and stepped across the threshold.

“Greetings, officers. I am Le Tuyet.” She bowed, hands clenched firmly over her stomach.

The lieutenant repeated the introduction, and then said, “Major Yamazaki Takeshi would like to make your acquaintance. Please accept this small gift for the inconvenience of our visit.”

On cue, the driver entered and placed a gift-­wrapped box on the dining table.

“Um, thank you . . . sir,” Tuyet stuttered, then bowed. “Forgive me, but what is this for?”

Major Yamazaki smiled and bowed.

Tanaka said, “The major saw you last Monday at the Permit Office.”

“Oh, that!” Tuyet grimaced. “I’m very sorry about that. I did not mean to make a scene.”

The major said something to Tanaka, who translated: “Understandable. He is not here to reprimand you.”

The major stepped forward and addressed Tuyet in French, “Madame, do you speak French?”

“Yes, but not well.”

“Très bien!” the major countered enthusiastically, his eyes brightening. He had a strong, squarish face, prominent cheekbones, and a high-­bridged nose—­a keel of a nose, colossal—­ quite unusual, even for a Japanese. His mouth was wide and expressive, artistic. It was not a handsome face, but there was something interesting and layered about it that intrigued Tuyet.

“Let’s give my translator a rest.” The major dismissed Tanaka with a nod, and the lieutenant went outside to smoke.

“I appreciate the risk you took for your friend. It takes strength and courage to stand up to corrupt officials.”

“Thank you, but I am neither strong nor courageous.” Tuyet sighed as she invited him to sit at the table. “I am—­we all are—­struggling to make a living. When those officials suggested bribes on top of all the taxes and restrictions, I lost my temper.”

“For good reason. You did the right thing. I would like to ask a favor of you.”

Tuyet glanced at him, on guard. “It depends on what it is, Major.”

“I would like you to advise me on a few civil matters.”

“Me?” she said, incredulous, touching her chest. “Reporting on people like an informer.”

He laughed. “No, nothing as dreary as that.”

“I can introduce you to senior people who are more knowledgeable.”

“That might be useful later, but for now your opinion will do.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked down at her hands, her mind racing. She said, “This is very sudden. I’m afraid of what people might say. May I think about it?”

“Of course, madame. I will return in a few days for your reply.”

“Thank you. Please take your present with you. I have not agreed to advise you.”

He simply smiled and bowed. With an elegant gesture, he put his cap back on his head, spun on his heels, and left.

“Your gift,” she called after him, but he had already stepped out into the foul bluster.

The major got into the car. He smiled and tipped his hat to her. The Japanese officers were gone in a red cloud of dust. The crowd watched the car leave.

Coi was chattering, but Tuyet didn’t hear a word. She stood at the door staring after the big black car. In the booming, swirling heat, Tuyet felt a strange disquiet, her eyes suddenly heavy, tired, oblivious to the goggling neighbors and noisy children barging into her shop.

“What did they want?” Sau asked in her loud, fish-­market voice, their next-­door neighbor a gossipy widow.

Coi gave Tuyet a look, and they set about closing up shop, bringing in display baskets of fruits, shutting the windows.

“What’s that?” Sau pointed at the box.

“It looks like a box, Sau,” Tuyet said, barring her way as Coi shut the door on the magpie.

“Oh, heavens, that woman! It’ll be all over the neighborhood by nightfall.” Coi huffed and settled onto a stool at the table.

“That’s the least of my problems.” Tuyet paced the room, slapping her thighs. “People are going to think I’m some kind of Japanese sympathizer.”

“Aiya! I didn’t think about that. I thought he was trying to get friendly with you.”

“No, there are plenty of women in town. He knows where to find some pretty ones who don’t need gifts.”

When Tuyet first arrived in Phan Thiet from Saigon as a newly divorced single mother, a wealthy merchant had approached her with a business proposition. After a few chaste meetings, he had revealed his real aim over dinner at a fine restaurant: an indecent proposal for her to become his mistress. She had flipped a hot bowl of fish soup into his lap and given him such a public tongue-­lashing that even his wife had hated her ever since. Tuyet was worried this Japanese was nosing down the same path.

She sat down across from her aunt, the box on the table between them. They glanced at each other. Tuyet had lived with Coi since she was eighteen, when she ran away because her uncle was forcing her to marry an older man against her will. Coi fingered the sunflower-­yellow wrapping paper. Tuyet’s daughter, Anh, stumbled out, rubbing sleep from her eyes, and climbed into her mother’s lap.

“Tuyet, aren’t you going to open it?”

“I didn’t accept it, so how can I open it?”

“Why not? There’s no harm in looking. We could re-­wrap it.”

“Auntie!”

“We must know what’s inside. What if it’s a bomb?” She made a face.

Tuyet laughed. “If you’re dying to see it, just say so.”

“I’m dying!”

“Go ahead then, but I’m not touching it.”

Coi harrumphed. “If you’re going to act like this, go into the other room while I have a look.”

“Ha! You think I’m going to fall for that? I’m keeping an eye on you.”

Coi undid the artfully folded wrapping. “Look! Canned fish and canned milk and ham and chocolate and tea and candies! Smell this bag of candies, Anh. What do you think it is? Strawberry?” She handed it to Anh. “Shampoo! And soaps!” She put a bar to her nose. “Lavender!”

“Let me see that.” Ten bars of imported soap. A sudden urge to bathe made her itch all over.

Anh scurried to the bedroom with the candies.

Coi hauled her back to the table. Tuyet returned the bag to the box and put Anh in her lap, the little girl on the verge of tears.

“Look, baby. It’s not ours. We’re holding it for the Japanese man. We can’t eat what’s not ours, right?”

Anh lowered her head, rolled up into a ball of misery on her mother’s lap, and sucked her thumb. She was small for her age. Both Coi and Tuyet were afraid that the child would grow up to be undersized like them. They had been overfeeding her, but nothing could fill out the little girl.

Tuyet eyed the cans of milk and the other gifts, feeling both flattered and insulted. These wartime luxuries were worth more than what their shop had brought in the previous month. Tuyet chewed her lips, refraining from stuffing a bar of chocolate into her mouth. How difficult life had become since war had broken out in Europe. Two years earlier, they had been living in Saigon and her husband had been the captain of the Pan-­Asia team, a star player of the country’s foremost football club. They had been the toast of the town. Fancy restaurants had declined to bill them for meals. They had been invited to more parties than they could possibly attend. Now, she realized with a deep sense of melancholy that she wanted the bar of soap as though it were gold.

“Empty stomach teaches the knees to crawl.” Tuyet murmured her late mother’s favorite proverb.

“There you go again with your pride,” Coi grumbled.

“Please, Auntie, put it all back.”

“It’s a greeting gift,” the older woman said. “When possible, believe in the good intention of others.”

“No truth more convincing than the lies one tells oneself,” Tuyet retorted.

Coi waved her open hands in the air. “All right, it’s your present, do whatever you want. But I think it’s only fair to decide when Ha gets home. He is part of the family.”

Tuyet acquiesced by raising her chin. Coi’s only son was a brilliant young man. “Yes, Auntie, Ha will have an opinion. Whether we accept it or not, there will be consequences. I’m sure of it.”

At dusk, Ha pushed his bicycle through the gate and along the side of the house. The black secondhand bike was one of two luxuries he had bought with his wages. Their dining room furniture had been the first—­a crude unvarnished table and wooden stools. It was his wish that the family be modern and dine properly like well-­to-­do people. The previous year, after receiving his Tu Tai II secondary school diploma, a major accomplishment in colonial education, Ha had been offered a good position in the provincial government, but he had chosen instead to work with the Forestry and Agricultural Services for a meager salary. He had said he did not want to condone official thievery or repression of the motherland. Everyone had thought it had been a terrible waste because for the first time in history, many Viets were given posts that had always been held by the French. With the war in Europe, there were few Frenchmen to fill the vacancies. Even Ha’s schoolmates had said he was a magnificent fool to pass up such an opportunity. But when their neighbors insisted to Coi that if she wanted to be wealthy, she should order her son to work for the government, she had replied, “I want my son to be a good man more than I want to be rich.”

“What’s for dinner, Mother? I’m starved!” Ha loped into the house. His huge appetite never managed to fill out his boyish frame.

“Banh cang, as much as you can eat,” Auntie said. They couldn’t waste the batter and had made a heap of dumplings to be eaten with sardine stew and chili-­garlic fish sauce.

Ha pointed at the gift box. “What’s that?”

Ha’s father, a village tailor, had committed suicide after he had gambled away their house and savings, leaving Coi and twelve-­year-­old Ha homeless and destitute. At the funeral, Coi had pulled her son into her bosom. “Weep for your father, son. We will mourn him one full moon, and then we will mourn him no more. If you love your mother, then be a virtuous man. That is all I ask.”

Tuyet had been eighteen then and remembered that day well because her cousin went to bed a boy and woke up the next morning a man.

He became very quiet. He read voraciously and held himself to some stern inner compass, taking on more responsibilities than anyone expected of him. Now, at twenty-­two, he spoke and carried himself like someone twice his age. Ha was serious, driven, and idealistic, though given to bouts of melancholy, which he hid from others by walking in the forest.

“Most of that,” Ha said, gesturing at the box, “isn’t available on the black market. Our Japanese friend must have access to some very exclusive stores. A man of rank.”

“I don’t care if he’s royalty,” Tuyet snapped.

“So you think this could be an overture to romance?”

“I hope not.”

“Don’t underestimate your beauty and charm,” he said wryly, trying to keep a straight face.

She smacked him on the back of the head.

Ha yelped. “A thousand apologies! Seriously, now, let’s say he wants to meet you. How could he do that? Would you like it if he chatted you up in the street? Maybe sent a dowager? But that would be too much, especially since you had never seen his face. I can’t think of any other way. If I were him, I would have done the same.”

“Oh, really? What a strategist you are. I thought you haven’t even asked a girl out yet,” Tuyet said, arching an eyebrow.

Ha blushed. He was clumsy when it came to girls—­the one thing he couldn’t glean from books.

Coi intervened. “The major had to come here himself. It’s the honorable thing to do when a man courts a woman.”

“Nobody said anything about courting!” Tuyet cried, a bit too shrill, to her own dismay. “Don’t you go jumping to conclusions, Auntie.”

“Friendship, that’s right. My error.” Coi rolled her eyes.

Tuyet ignored her. “I wonder why he brought a Japanese translator. I always see the French and the Japanese using Viet interpreters.”

“Japanese are proud and discreet,” Ha said with the sweeping generalization of an unseasoned youth. “The major wouldn’t want to involve a Viet interpreter in his private affairs.”

“When the major returns, I’ll tell him it’s too risky for me.”

“It might be dangerous to reject a Japanese. We don’t even know what he wants. Let’s think this through.” Ha rubbed his chin, elbows on the table. “We don’t know a thing about him. I’ll ask around. He could be a dangerous character. Never offend someone making a friendly gesture.”

Tuyet glanced at her cousin, who sounded very mature. Although he was six years her junior, he was becoming the head of their household. He looked so much like his father, the kindly eyes and the pensive expression. It was easy to underestimate him.

 

. . . 2 . . .Nightmares

Major Yamazaki Takeshi had arrived in Indochina two months earlier to take command of the Phan Thiet airbase. The post had been given as a reward for his service in the Second Sino-­Japanese War, though he suspected it had more to do with him saving a general’s life. That act of bravery had wounded him in battle and put him in the hospital for multiple surgeries. He was still suffering from his injuries, but considering the easy life he was enjoying in the fishing town, he knew he would gladly save the general and be wounded all over again.

He had slept well enough during the first two months in the convalescent ward, buoyed by painkillers and sedatives. The mind had held out until the body healed, and then it had begun to fragment. Nightmares breached his sleep. He came to expect them. He returned to a familiar city almost every night, to the same scene of destruction, trapped beneath a starless, impenetrable sky.

In his dream, he plunged down a dark, muddy alley, hurling ahead toward a cleft of gray, careening off mossy walls. Something was chasing him, not far behind, keening cries of pursuit jabbing at his back. He had to reach somewhere, across the burnt-­out city. The sky flashed dull orange. White whips of lightning fractured the night, electric stitching on storm clouds. Far off, sporadic cackle-­pops of gunfire. A spark brushed by his face, a firefly, on fire, a throbbing red dot.

He reached an open square. Gray snow was falling. He looked up. Black clouds burned, peeling sheets of flame. Ashes drifted down. Shadows shifted, splotches of ink stretched, forming shapes, spilling over hills of rubble. From shattered buildings poured hundreds, thousands of skeletal figures, pale ghosts, walking cadavers. Starving night creatures staggered forth to scavenge the debris of that dead city.

His pistol. The holster was empty. He had to cross the city. He started across the square, splashing through puddles. The water rose and the ground became sodden. He was wading through a knee-­deep swamp. Something snared his ankles and dragged him down. Bony hands tore at his clothes. He sank to his chest in a cesspit of churning body parts, limbless torsos, severed hands, bloody legs thrashing, flopping like fish in the throes of death. Something slithered into his mouth. He fought for air. His screams choked in his throat; nothing escaped but an indistinct warble, a muffled gurgle, unheard.

The night opened like an abyss. He fell in.

Takeshi jerked awake, dripping in a pool of sweat that had soured the bedsheet. His head throbbed, cheek clammy against the pillow. A swampy taste in his mouth. His throat dry, hoarse, his limbs leaden. He felt wearier than the previous night. His left shoulder creaked, protesting his effort to rise. He fingered the scar between his nipple and collarbone. The bullet had punched through his left shoulder and out the front. Raising his elbow higher than his ears was painful. Shrapnel had mangled his right leg. A long-­distance runner in his prime, he barely managed an ungainly jog with his stiff knee, which bent only halfway. Whenever a storm approached, his knee ached. He managed with medicinal herbs, morphine when he could get it, alcohol, and heavy doses of stoicism.

He rose from his narrow bed, banged his knees against a chair, and fumbled for a match to light the oil lamp on his desk. He padded in his slippers over to the dresser by the window and put on his clothes, folded on a bamboo rack. The shelves held few personal items: a small oil painting, paintbrushes, several seashells, and a small box of books wrapped in wax paper to preserve against the humidity. He poured some water from the pitcher into the basin on the dresser, washed his face, and with a damp towel wiped his chest, shoulders, and arms. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, feeling as old as he looked.

Out of habit, he checked his pocket watch. He had had an unfailing sense of time since childhood. His father had set his internal clock to wake at predawn on the purple edge of night. The old man had drilled into his only son the importance of completing a quarter of the daily chores in the first three hours before taking breakfast. Takeshi donned the practice hakama, cinched the obi tightly around his waist, and laced up the bamboo armor. He grabbed his bokken and headgear and stepped outside.

Lieutenant Sakamoto Ryota waited for him in front of the main house, which served as the officers’ quarters. The camp was still asleep, dark barracks lining the west side of the airstrip. Yellow kerosene lamplight spilled from the mess kitchen where cooks were preparing the morning rice. Sentries walked their rounds along the perimeters. In the wooden tower, little more than a crow’s nest, the silhouette of a sentry against the glowing sky.

In silence, they lumbered toward the practice field, an odd pair of friends, one lanky and tall, the other stocky and short, nearly the same age, born on opposite sides of the same island, Hokkaido. Neither man broke the silence. On a patch of barren ground, they went through a routine of stretches, calisthenics, and kata exercises. The motions, the cuts, the parries, the sweeps as old as time, second nature since they were boys. As early sunlight needled through the trees, the aging veterans sparred, their grunts, cries, and the violent bokken clack-­clack-­clacks sounding across the fields.