Phạm Thanh Nghiêm * Translated by Chấn Minh (Danlambao) - Ngà’s prison term was ending and her release was imminent. And so one afternoon, she haltingly told me:
- I want to tell you something, but I am not sure if I should…
I cut her off and told her as I swiped the drool off the face of Potato whom I was holding in my arms:
She turned coy and flattering:
- I want to thank you. The entire camp wants to thank you. Without you raising hell on Sunday, we all would die of thirst. How cruel could the guards be, forbidding us prisoners to drink water!
I scowled at Ngà:
- What these guards did were wrong. One hundred percent wrong. Every prisoner could and should condemn them. We all should demand that they give us watwer to drink.
Ngà scratched her head. A faint smile crossed her face:
- But no one would dare to do what you did. Not me, for sure. Even the sound of me clearing my throat would make the guards send Potato to the orphanage and cause me to lose my son.
She then extended her arms to take her son back. But baby Potato resisted. He curled and gripped his legs and feet against my arms. He grasped my shirt collar with his hands. And he didn’t let go until we pried him off. Baby Potato did that everyday. He did that whenever his Mom wanted to take off my arms so that she could hold him. It was as if he never wanted to leave me.
I asked Ngà again:
- So now, what do you really want to tell me? Tell me. For God’s sake!
She bargained and pleaded:
- Sure, sure, but please don’t curse me.
I replied:
- Whoa! Why should I?
And so breathlessly she blurted it all out.
- Well, the other day, “mother” Thắng (Author’s note: any female prisoner over 60, 70 was called “mother” by the younger prisoners, they thought that by doing so they would soften prison life and make life in the prison camp feels more like living within a family), the leader of work gang Number 15, said she wanted to buy Baby Potato. But I wanted to ask you first, because if you want him, I will let you have him first. Because I saw that you love him and that he was also very attached to you, perhaps even more attached to you than to me.
I was flabbergasted.
Several days ago, “black” Hằng, a darker skinned female prisoner and thence the nickname, had confided to me that Ngà wanted to sell her son, and that she was torn between two choices. Should she sell the baby boy to “mother” Thắng whose prison term will end soon, or should she consider a “lady” outside of the camp. (Author’s note: Camp prisoners used the the honorific “Lady” or “Bà” in Vietnamese when referring to woman who isn’t a prisoner and who lives outside of the prison camp.) The “lady” in question was someone Ngà met while working in the field. In any case, “Black” Hằng told me, Ngà planned to turn the baby boy over to whoever bought him at the prison’s gate when she walks out.
It was the first time I heard of the words “selling your baby child” since I came to the prison camp. Around noon that day, as I was fetching water at the well, I overheard people gossiping about “selling your baby child.” It was the first time that I heard these terms I was got to the prison camp. It appeared that people were talking about someone who just finished her prison sentence was able to sell her two-year old son for a “very good price” the moment she stepped out of the camp. The gossip so startled me that I drop the water bucket I was holding on my toes and it crushed them bad enough to make blood spurt out.
Later, even when I no longer dropped the water bucket I was holding on my toes, the words “selling your baby child” still sent chills down my spine.
Ngà, her full name is Mai Bích Ngà, was born in 1982. Before going to prison, she lived with her husband and a sister at Thanh Nhàn quarter, Hai Bà Trưng District, Hà Nội. Ngà said: “I don’t really know where I would go when my prison term ends. My sister got married, she has to support our youngest brother also”.
Ngà’s father died when she was young. Ngà, her younger sister and a brother had to look after each other. I didn’t pry out of her the details on how the three of them survived without their parents. I can’t possibly remember the life story of all the prisoners I met in the prison camps.
When she grew up, Ngà got married. Her husband was a drug addict. Eventually, she too became an addict. In 2010, she was arrested. Shw was sentenced to 24 months in prison for “illegal drug possession and storage.” Her husband was also arrested around the same time. When sent to the Hỏa Lò Prison in Hanoi, she was pregnant with her third child, Potato.
Later, in the summer of 2011, Ngà was sent to Prison Camp Number 5 in the province of Thanh Hóa. Baby Potato was just a few months old then.
Ngà bragged to me:
- My son was born on Independence Day, September 2. So I named him “independence Day.” Sister Nghiêm, don’t you think he has a great name?
I replied, with the words just gushing out of my mouth:
- Sure, it is a great name! Yes, it is a great name! But if the damned Independence Day didn’t exist, may be you wouldn’t have to suffer, may be you wouldn’t become an addict, and maybe your son, like the babies now in this prison, would have a happy life, would have someone to care for them and would not go to prison when they were still just fetuses.
Ngà’s face visibly blanched as she heard me vent on and on. She darted her eyes around as if trying to find whoever could have overheard us. She acted as if she were a thief caught red-handed.
She pleaded:
- Hey! Please, don’t say these things! If someone heard us and reported us to the guards, I would be dead! I am so very scared!
I attempted to humor her.
- I will say whatever my mouth wants me to say! You shouldn’t be afraid.
She replied:
- Yes, it is your mouth speaking, but the crime will be mine to carry! I took advantage of baby Potato to be close to you. If not for him, even if I like you very much, I would still run away from you as far as possible. So many have been invited to “have a cup of coffee” (Author’s note: i.e., to invited to have a talk with the guards, to undergo an interogation, or to be subjected to some disciplinary actions) just because they talked to you! I am sure you know that well, so why are you still teasing me?
During the 18 months since I was sent to prison camp, as a rule, I never wrote any letter to the officials or submit a petition. In post-interrogation reports, I never wrote out the full and required headers for a report. When writing these headers, for example, when writing out the acronym CHXHCNVN (Translator’s note: CHXHCNVN stands for “Socialist Republic of Vietnam”) I would place parentheses around it. Similarly, I never wrote out the slogan “Independence – Freedom – Happiness”. Alternatively, I just refused to write both the country name and its slogan and just left the header section of the interrogation report blank. I also never used the proper addressing forms, for example “May I respectfully request...” or “May I respectfully submit…” Instead, I just scrawled “submit” or “request” in my intentionally bad hand-writing. Even though my actions greatly annoyed my interrogators, they couldn’t do a thing about them and had to accept what I wrote for one simple reason: if they don’t they won’t have any reports.
And yet, when I arrived at this prison camp, I broke my own rule. I wrote a petition to the camp’s warden asking him to take some money out of the fund allocated to me and/or sent to me by my family to buy milk for the children. Prior to my petition, several mothers were asked to go “have a cup of coffee” because they accepted help from me, Phạm Thanh Nghiêm. A petition would solve both problems: the children will have milk, and their mothers won’t be harassed. I was of course irritated for having submitted a petition, but I rationalized that the trade-off was acceptable. Beside the donation for milk from my allocation fund, I also supported Baby Potato and his mother secretely. When my own mother heard the story, she send more money to the prison camp to add to the fund allocated to me.
No child ever loved me as much as Baby Potato did, including my own nephews. Every afternoon, I held Baby Potato as his mother bathed him or cooked for him. I thought Baby Potato believed that I was his real mother. He would go into a fit of jalousie whenever I held another child in my arms. If someone pretended to attack me, he would scream and rush to my defense by grabbing the hair or biting the attacker. Few babies could scream as loud as him. And he wasn’t even old enough to walk on his own yet. There are days when I had to hide from Baby Potato just so I could play with the other babies or children.
Ngà and her son were prisoners without any family support. They had no one who would come visit them. And in a prison camp, no one survived just on what the camp provided. So, they must “manage”.
For a female prisoner, to “manage” means to trade, to borrow, to beg for help, to work odd jobs such as fetching water, cleaning the floor, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, massaging someone’s back, whatever…. A female prisoner must learn to “manage” to get paid in fresh food for her child, or to obtain a sanitary napkin for herself. Of course, all of the above “management” activities were forbidden because they were violations of “camp regulations.” These regulations specified that women with very young babies - the so-called members of the “mommy brigade” – can do only one type of field work: planting and tending the vegetables gardens. The guards described such field work as “light and loving.” Once her baby reached the age of 4 months, a female prisoner must leave the “mommy brigade” and return to the general prison population. There, she must participate in regular prison camp works.
Working in the fields outside of the prison camp was hard but could be beneficial. Prisoners sent to the fields could interact with the people who live nearly and ask for help. These people could help them buy fresh food: meat, fish, or milk. At times, they can even help make a phone call to a prisoner’s family. They will do so for a price that obviously will be much higher than market price. If a prisoner was able to buy food, then ways to make a fire and cook the food right in the work field must be found. The worse that could happen then was to be discovered by the guards as the food was being cooked. When that happens, the guards will curse, take away the food, kick the pots and pans to the ground and then confiscate them. The hapless prisoners will have no other resources than to beg and keep begging for mercy. If they have money they will need to bribe the guards to avoid disciplinary actions. Prisoners who were caught cooking but who didn’t beg or offer a bribe will be taken back to camp. There, their transgressions will be written up, they will be disciplined, and no considerations for any future clemency regarding their current prison sentence will be given. And if a prisoner succeeded in cooking the food bought in the field, the next hurdle would be to get the cooked food back into the prison camp and right under the nose of the guards. This could be very hard. Here, I must point out that for for prisoners who were “supported” by the guards – i.e., for those whose family had bribed the guards well - they could bring anything then wanted into the camp. In some cases, the guards themselves were known to bring things to these prisoners themselves.
One afternoon just as I returned to the prison camp after a day of field work, Mỹ Lệ, a woman who was in my cell block, breathlessly announced the news:
- Ngà was sent to detention.
Worried, I asked immediately:
- How come?
She replied, matter-of-factly:
- Ngà took a can of milk and some stewed meat back to the camp with her, but a female guard found it refused to let her take the food back in. Frustrated, Ngà blurted out: “You are so cruel!” Offended, the guard slapped her hard on her face a few times and them got her thrown into her into a warehouse”
Mỹ Lệ then added under her breath a few more curses aimed at the female guard. But she did so just loud enough for me and only me to hear.
Ngà was disciplined for 10 days. With his mother away in detention, Baby Potato must stay in the nursery under the care of other prisoners. He cried the whole time he was there. The disciplinary action against Ngà was a punishment for me, Mỹ Lệ, and “black’ Hằng. Like me, Lệ and Hằng loved Ngà and her son and cared deeply for them. Without Ngà and Baby Potato around, we were driven to distraction by sadness.
Not just Ngà, anyone in the prison camp could be punished for some meaningless crime such as the one she was accused of. The guards used “prison regulations” to make money. Punishable violations included not greeting the guards properly, helping each other, and giving or receiving gifts without authorization. Even the Montagnards, i.e., the people from the Highland, most of whom don’t even speak Vietnamese, they were penalized when they use their own languages to communicate between themselves. However, if you have money and know whom and how to pay up, even if you slashed someone else’s face with a razor blade – a crime that will get you prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law outside - inside the prison the guards will “discipline” you just for a few days, and that’s all.
Two days before Baby Potato and her Mom were due to be released, I gave Ngà 200,000 VND and a plastic bag of fresh milk. To have that 200,000 VND, I had to trade with other prisoners, which is something I really hated to do. As I gave her the money, I kept telling Ngà over and over again to please don’t sell your baby son.
She replied:
- “Do you think I want to do that? I am a homeless person. My husband is in jail. His parents are raising our other two kids now. Potato’s dad is just like me. He is an addict. He is a prisoner. I will suffer immensely, but just once as I hope that Baby Potato will have a future growing up in another home. Go ahead, curse me, curse me! But pray tell me, what else could I do? If I had a few tens of millions to bribe the investigators then, maybe I would be allowed to stay outside, and maybe I would be entitled to a suspended sentence because I was pregnant. But I had nothing. Nothing.
Ngà cried bitterly as she spoke those words. I was overcome with emotions and couldn’t say a word.
Prisoners whose sentence was ending don’t have to work on the day just before their release date. Thus, I was able to play with Potato for an entire day. Ngà gave me a picture of Potato taken when he first know how to sit.
I gave Ngà my home phone number. “Call me, please, anytime, and for any reason!” I told her. “ I will do whatever I can to help. Go back home with your son tomorrow, as I won’t be able to see you out. But Please remember that I too will be out in eight months. And please don’t lose my phone number!”
That morning, I saw Ngà follow a prison guard out of the camp. I saw her walk with an unsteady gait. She looked so skinny. She held her son on her right arm, the good arm, while her left arm, the crooked one that was broken during her time as a prisoner at the Hỏa Lò prison, grasped with difficulty a bag containing all of their belongings: his clothes and hers. All the clothes they had were donated by the other prisoners.
I hid behind a building door to watch her leave for I can’t bear to have her see me. I saw her turn her head. I saw her look backward into the camp as if she was looking for someone. Baby Potato was holding an ear of corn in his hand. Someone probably gave it to him yesterday. He chewed on it and twirled it round and round in his hand as if he were playing with a toy. He didn’t know that the place where he was born, and the place that he was leaving now, was a prison. He didn’t even know where his mother is taking him. He was barely one year old.
Tears streamed and streamed down my cheeks. Images and stories about prison mothers selling their babies flooded my mind and terror gripped and seared my heart.
I became despondent for days. I missed Baby Potato. I missed him so much that the presence of other kids on the prison camp did nothing to relieve the pain burning in my heart.
When I too came out of the prison camp eight months later, I called Ngà. First thing. No answers. And I learned that she never called me. Not once.
Baby Potato, you will be five year old comes September.
June 6, 2015
