Chapter 2
Kien begins by recalling a single, lucid memory of visiting his mother’s second husband, a pre‑war poet, in a modest house on the Chem suburb’s edge. The poet, despite poverty, treats Kien warmly, offers tea, and delivers a solemn lecture: “A human being’s duty is to live, not to kill,” urging curiosity and resistance to dying for others. Kien absorbs this counsel, later returning after the war to discover the house destroyed and the poet dead.
Back in Hanoi, an anonymous man approaches Kien at his editorial desk, requesting a love story for his sick wife; Kien dismisses it as boring but is intrigued by the man’s dedication.
Kien then surveys the lives of his apartment building’s residents: Mrs Thuy, a widowed teacher, courting Mr Tu the bookseller; Mr Cuong, who mistakenly strikes his own mother; Mr Thanh, who repeatedly attempts suicide; blind Mrs Sen, whose greedy nephew and wife conspire to evict her to a mental hospital; old barber Du, who begs Kien to write a play about him; and numerous petty dramas that flow from the communal water tap.
A pivotal encounter occurs with Hanh, a neighbor who asks Kien to help dig an air‑raid shelter under her bed. While digging, sexual tension erupts; Kien experiences overwhelming desire, pushes her away, and thereafter avoids her, their unspoken words lingering.
Later, during a false spring in Hanoi, Kien’s childhood sweetheart Phuong abruptly leaves without explanation, intensifying his loneliness.
In a drunken nocturnal wander, Kien rescues a young “Green Coffee Girl” after she is assaulted near Thuyên Quang park. He brings her to his home, offers cigarettes, learns she is a starving prostitute from a notorious street‑girl collective, and discovers she is related to a fallen comrade, Vinh. He gives her money and farewells, feeling both violated and compassionate.
Kien’s post‑war life spirals: he abandons university, turns to alcohol and cigarettes, roams empty streets, and writes only at night, earning the nickname “Ha Le lighthouse keeper.” He is haunted by recurring visions of jungle battles, especially the Screaming Souls, and hears phantom laughter in a hut where a mysterious long‑haired figure was once seen. Soldiers debate whether the sounds belong to a “Forest Man,” a deranged comrade named Tung, or supernatural entities. The MIA remains‑gathering team later discovers a clear‑plastic‑bagged corpse that seemingly exhales smoke, accompanied by a fleeting flock of geese and a mournful jungle song.
At the climax of victory, Kien is at Tan Son Nhat airport on 30 April 1975. Amid victorious troops, he stumbles upon a naked dead Southern prostitute. A brutish armored‑car soldier drags and tosses the corpse, inciting Kien’s moral outrage. He intervenes, preventing further desecration, and engages in a heated exchange with the soldier and an officer, condemning the disrespect of the dead. The incident haunts him, later resurfacing as a nightmare where the corpse’s ghost confronts him.
Throughout, Kien’s reflections on death, duty, and the futility of war intermingle with his obsessive night‑time writing, his isolation, and his lingering guilt over the many lives, loves, and losses that have defined his sorrowful existence.