Victor over the Past - Chapter 6

From: … Nguyen @yahoo.com>
Subject: Nguyen 's Biography
To: thuyhang606@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 9:42 AM

Thân tặng TH quyển hồi ký …

" Về chia sẻ kinh nghiệm với bạn bè. TH cứ tự nhiên. Nếu bài học cuả mình có hữu ích được cho đời thì mình nên chia sẻ. Có vậy thì xã hội mới tiến bộ và phát triển được. Những gì mình có thể để lại trên đời này thì mình nên để lại."

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CHAPTER 6

 I still remember when I got to Tra Vinh, I was overwhelmed by the place we lived. It

 was a very big mansion. It had dining room, living room, family room, meeting room,

four bedrooms upstairs, and three bathrooms. All the outside walls of the mansion were

plastered with at least 24 inches of concrete. There were servants in every corner of the

mansion. There were a cook, two or three kitchen helpers, one janitor, four bodyguards,

and ten perimeter guards. Everybody no matter young or old called me master. I was

surprised at the formality and the respect people gave me just because my father was the

mayor of the town. And I also remember the first day that I arrived; I had forgotten how

my father looked. It had been a year or two since my mother, my sisters and I had seen

him. My mother stopped seeing him because of her growing business. My sisters and I

stopped seeing him because it was too dangerous. Even when we spent a few days with

him, we saw him only a few hours at the end of the day. I tried to recall all the good

things that my father and I did together to start the conversation, but I could not because

I was too young and time had faded lots of those memories. It took me several weeks

before I could feel a little bit more comfortable around my father. As months went by, we

still lived by ourselves in loneliness. Although we lived with our father, there was still a

big void between us. My father was busy day and night. My sister had her own friends

and activities. For me, I lived in my imaginary world where I could be with all the heros

and all the super heros that I chose to create. Most of my created characters were the

drifters and the loners. They were on their own against the world. They had difficult

times throughout their journeys, but at the end they survived.

A few days after I first arrived in the town, I finished registering in school on

Friday. On Saturday, my father wanted to take me to the soccer game. After we all

changed our clothes and were about ready to go, my father pulled me aside and gave me

some tips before we left the mansion. He told me that at the stadium, we would see

people gathered and soldiers would line up to welcome us. He taught me to walk with

an upright posture and a hand put on my forehead to salute people. He told me to

remember to look straight into the soldiers' eyes with confidence and not to display

nervousness. He said that when people saw my confidence and my coolness, they would

respect me more. I nodded my head with full agreement. Then we all got into the car. As

we pulled away from the mansion, there were two more military jeeps loaded with guns

and ammunition trailing behind us to protect us. After passing a couple of roads and

turns, we reached the gate of the soccer stadium. As we stopped, one soldier walked up

and opened the door for us. Soon we entered the gate. There were two lines of soldiers

with M-16 guns at their sides and hands on their hats to salute us. There was a military

band playing a welcome tune as we walked toward the center of the stadium. I was kind

of nervous when I walked between the lines of soldiers. I did like my father told me. I

tried not to show my nervous feelings. I started to look straight into the soldiers' eyes and

tried to see if there was any respect shown in their eyes, but I could not detect anything

in their eyes at all. After we were shown to our seats, my father was asked to give the

opening speech. After he finished his speech, he had to toss the ball to start the game. A

few minutes after the game started, I began to feel bored because I did not know enough

about the game to enjoy it, and I was not comfortable to be in the center of the focus of

hundreds of people. I asked my father to let me go back to the mansion because I was not

enjoying the game. He sent the same group of soldiers to escort me back to the mansion.

 To be continued...