Episode 41: Duality

After Bill's incident Phuong had instinctively activated his underground network, but already knew deep down that Anh was behind the attack.  Even without corroboration it was plainly obvious that Anh's jealousy had been unleashed with Mai and would not accept someone coming between them.

Phuong often reminisced about the pleasure of his first assignment - tailing Anh and Mai in the ChợĐồg Xuân, but that was before he was sent south to Saigon to infiltrate the bourgeois and corrupt Diem regime and fight the imperialists during the American war.  

He had fought bravely and as a decorated hero was recognized by the revolutionary council for his leadership and courage in the last days of the war.  In late 1975 he was repatriated back to the North, but instead of taking a place of honour on the council he had elected to continue his clandestine activities as an agent of the people and evaporate back into the shadows.

With the opening up of the country to the western powers in 1979 he had been reactivated and assigned to become a translator for the Hanoi desk at the Times newspaper with a dual role of ensuring that important and significant news coming out of the country was portrayed in the best possible light while "assisting" the foreign journalists with translation and opening the right doors at the right time.  Often, especially in the early years his role of feeding good news stories to the west was near on impossible, particularly after the first of the many land reforms had failed so miserably.  

Over the years Phuong had worked with many foreign journalists, but none quite like Bill and to his surprise he had bonded with him almost immediately.  He felt drawn to Bill and had soon become rather protective of this happy-go-lucky and warm hearted Australian. Bill was both sincere and diligent in his journalism but also set out to be become proficient in Vietnamese and thus become a trusted part of the community.  He showed great respect for the history and culture while observing the social mores, which was a first given that most of his predecessors quickly fell into the boredom of living an ex-pat life, showing little interest in either work or the people that surrounded them.  

Generally he felt nothing but disgust and some level of malevolence toward the westerners he encountered but not Bill...no he was different.