Please read the following passage and answer the questions at

the end. 

Where the Ashes Are – pt 2

In the somber light I could make out dark foliage swaying by the riverbank as a
coat of morning mist rose above the water. Nature paints winter scenes in Flue in
shades of gray, but this morning I could see rapid bursts of orange and red fire
coming from behind the bushes. A flare shot out from the far distance. Exploding
with a thud, it hung from a small parachute and cast a brilliant midday light over a
large area of the river as it floated down. Rockets exploded across the burning
sky and fell to the ground in rapid succession. Deafened, Dieu-Ha and I dove
behind au antique cabinet at the end of the room. My father had been nowhere in
sight.

That night he had stayed up late to read a French book that contrasted two
warriors: North Vietnam’s famed general Vo Nguyen Giap and William
Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. ground troops in South Vietnam. Just
before four o’clock Cha (father in Vietnamese) had left his bed and gone up to
the rooftop terrace, where he marveled at the red and green tracers flying across
the sky like shooting stars. Despite his interest in the generals, he had little
understanding of the role of flares and tracers as tools of warfare. They were
simply a beautiful sight as they burst over the night sky.

“Your father’s still up there. Been on that roof an hour! He’ll get killed!” Ma wailed
as she came down the staircase. Seeing the open windows, she took us into a
chamber behind the reception room. “Where’s Dieu-Quynh?” she exclaimed.
“She was just on the stairs with me!”

In the midst of the gunfire and explosions, my sister had gone back to bed—a
mad thing to, since bullets were now flying indoors. By 1968, however, most of
what Dieu-Quynh did was irrational. For four years she had been showing signs
of mental illness. Ordering Dieu-Ha and me to sit still, my mother dashed back
upstairs. A bullet came through Dieu-Quynh’s room, hitting the lamp on her bed
stand. Sparks flew in all directions. Ma grabbed my older sister by the wrist and
led her downstairs, calling out to my father all the while.

“We shouldn’t worry too much,” he said in his usual unruffled tone when he
entered the room a few minutes later, When he had finally left the roof, he went
downstairs to look for the butler, then into an office off the living room. “I called
the provincial office; they say the fighting is far away.”
“Look out the windows!” my mother shot back.
“I did,’ Cha replied, still calm and composed. Our soldiers are still at their
posts.” From the rooftop he had been able to see men in green surrounding the
guesthouse.

We gathered together, crouching on the floor, No one spoke. My father glanced

at the spacious desk and heavy armchairs, hoping to hide behind the furniture
until the gunfire died down.
Between explosions came the sound of someone knocking at the front door. My
parents put out their arms. We sat still. The pounding grew louder. After a
moment of hesitation, Ma stood up. “It’s our soldiers,” she declared. “Come on!”
My sisters followed her through the reception area to the vestibule. As my father
and I reached the door to the reception room, we heard her scream.

My father led me back to the office in the back, locking the door behind him as
quietly as possible. We went to the desk, and I held his hand as we lowered
ourselves behind it. My father didn’t know what else to do. Spotting a steel safe
in the corner of the room, he went over to open it, then without a word dosed it
again. Not even a nine-year-old boy could fit inside.

“I have a young son in the house,” my mother was explaining to the intruders in
the vestibule, Viet Cong soldiers in olive green uniforms. They wore no insignia
or badges that showed affiliation or rank. Whether because of the darkness or
distance, his poor eyesight or his unfamiliarity with military matters, my father had
mistaken them for our own Southern Republican Army troops.

One of the soldiers now threatened to shoot anyone still hiding in the house. “Tell
us where everyone is and you’ll be safe, sister,” he assured my mother. Please
don’t hurt us, please!” she begged. “Just let me go find my son.”

Cha groped behind the heavy dark green drapes along the office wall, where a
set of double doors opened onto a hallway. We tiptoed through the hall to the
doors that led outside. My father motioned me out first, then carefully dosed the
doors behind him. I ran down the steps and turned toward the hedges that
separated the guesthouse grounds from the riverbank. “Hey, boy!” someone
cried. I turned. A Viet Cong soldier sitting cross-legged pointed his rifle at me. I
ran back to my father.

Back in the hallway inside the house, Cha quietly approached each door to the
offices surrounding the reception area. A gun muzzle protruded from one, and we
backed off. The doorway to yet another office also had a gun muzzle poking out
from it. There was no escape.
Out in the courtyard it was still dark. Dozens of people in nightclothes shivered in
the early morning dampness. Slowly the soldiers separated families from one
another. The guesthouse was to be used as a temporary holding center. More
people were brought into the courtyard. A disheveled Frenchman of about thirty
entered the area barefooted, a trench coat thrown on over his pajamas. Hands
clasped together, he tried to explain his situation to two Viet Cong soldiers. “De
Gaulle, Ho Chi Minh, amis,” he kept saying. “Friends.”

The two Viet Cong waved him away. One of them shouted, “Khong biet tieng
dtiu!” They did net speak any foreign languages.

“They’re regular soldiers,” my father whispered to a man next to him, whose crisp
white shirt was lucked into pajama trousers. “Such a strong northern accent!’

“You’re right,” the mart whispered back. “The way they call everybody ‘Sister’ and
‘Brother’ is strange.” The men and women before us were not part of the so-
called National Liberation Front within South Viet Niam. Ho Chi Minh was now
sending in troops from the North for an outright offensive, a full invasion.

In the confusion our family took refuge in a small temple just off the grounds of
the guesthouse. Searching through his wallet, my father took out all his business
cards and hid them under a mat. “Just say you’re a teacher,” whispered my
mother.

He never had the chance. When a Viet Cong woman found us in the temple a
little more than an hour later, she jabbed her index finger into his chest. “You,
Brother, I know who you are,” she said, ‘The Party and the Revolution will be
generous to all those willing to confess their crimes against the People."

"The Party" could only be the Communist party headquartered in Ha Noi. The
enemy's arm had now reached into the heart of Hue. "Don't lie!" the woman
continued. Putting her finger up to my father's nose, she said, "Brother, we know-
you're the general staying in this house. Such opulence." Well take care of you.

Please answer the questions below. If you don’t know the answer, just
write, “I don’t know.”

1. What is this segment of the story mostly about?

2. Describe how the river looked in the early morning light.

3. What was the content of the book that the father was reading late at night?

4. What was the father watching on the roof?

5. What evidence does the author present that tells us that the father doesn’t
know much about war?

6. Describe Cha’s personality.

7. Who do you now think is the author of the story?

8. What did Cha try to do with his son?

9. What happened to prevent their escape?

10. Why did the Viet Cong soldier think that Cha was a general?

 Please save and email back to Mrs. Rice.

