The General

Excerpt

He had woken up at seven, walked the two kilometers from his villa on Phan Đình Phùng Street to West Lake to do his daily t’ai chi exercises, then around ten, after breakfast, sat down to work on his memoir for several hours until it was time for lunch and a nap, which would normally be followed by a late afternoon of TV and relaxation. But not long after he had settled comfortably on the sofa, a bottle of Hennessy open on the coffee table, the doorbell rang. He ignored it. His rule for the past two years, since his wife passed away, was not to welcome visitors on weekends. He did not think it could be his second son and his family. They normally dropped by on Saturday afternoons, though not as habitually in the six months since he had retired. Mrs. Lan would have answered the door but she was off for the weekend. He felt tired and groggy, as he always did on a quiet Sunday like this.

“Who’s that?” he said through the intercom when the doorbell rang for the fifth time.

A woman’s voice came over the speaker: “Hello, Uncle. I’m the daughter of Mr. Lê Huy Hoàng, one of your former soldiers.”

Phuong Anh Le

Born and raised in Hanoi, Phuong Anh Le came to the United States at the age of twenty-one to work as a translator for the Robert McNamara Oral History Project on the Vietnam War. She received her MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College, her MPA from Princeton University, and her JD from Columbia Law School. A former litigator in New York, she currently lives with her husband and daughter in the Boston area. Her fiction has also appeared in Southern Indiana Review.

Patrick Ryan on “The General”

Our new issue opens on a retired Vietnamese General in his comfortable villa, about to sit down for an afternoon of television and cognac when his doorbell rings. The visitor is a young woman who says her father was one of the General’s soldiers in the war. She has a favor to ask. The General scoffs but invites the young woman in, and he sees that she’s brought with her a hand-sewn notebook. Her father’s poems, she explains—written during the war, about his experiences. It was his dying with that she publish the book of poems, she says. Would the General, who used to be in charge of the Ministry of Culture, help her accomplish this?

The General is amused, even charmed, but has no real ability or desire to help the young woman with her quest. But her name, Hao, coincidentally touches on one of his most guarded secrets, and she has a secret of her own that she’s carrying around. As rain batters the leaves outside the windows, these two unlikely companions open up to each other in ways neither of them expect. But are there ulterior motives at work? A retired General always has to wonder…

When I first read Phuong Anh Le’s “The General,” I was most impressed by its calm, steady tone. The General is a cautious, reserved person, and, it seems, so is his unexpected visitor. The tone of the story—from its play-like setting to its sensory detail, its pacing, and the way the characters interact—is all in keeping with this sense of cautious reservation. The result is a story that feels organically of itself: character, substance, and atmosphere all resulting from the same creative spark. One Story invites you to take a seat on the General’s sofa, listen to the rain, taste the wine, and witness a meeting that will crack the exteriors of two strong-willed characters and—just maybe—open the door to new possibility.