The Magnificent Seven Chapter 2

(This is the official poster for the The Magnificent Seven)

 

 

November, 1964.  Which day, Noog Xi could not recollect.  But she remembered that it was a festive time—an occasion for families to pay respect to their ancestors, for the young’s to court and the wise to socialize with friends and family.  Most importantly, it was a time to continue practicing the traditions and customs that her ancestors elaborately weaved many millennia ago for their descendants. 

The sound of the rooster’s first crow woke all the siblings up.  Filled with joy and excitement, they scarcely slept through the night and merrily mingled as they quickly washed up and prepared for the New Year’s morning ritual.  The younger ones were incredibly eager to watch their father hold his split ox’s horn to hu plig or call the spirits of the family to return home and impatient to smell the aromatic incense sticks burning away at the tick of each second that they dragged their sleepy father and mother out of bed.  Only when the chipped residues from the incense sticks fell gracefully into the bowl of raw rice were they satisfied. 

The morning ceremony ended after their father offered fresh food to the ancestors to ask for fortune and protection, and glued new rice papers onto the xwm kab wall by using chicken feathers dipped in crimson chicken blood.   Afterward, her family had their meal.  The newly harvested rice and tendered, home-raised chicken boiled with chicken herbs melted tastily in her mouth.  Noog Xi ate until her stomach was plumped like a frog despite her mother’s warning to avoid overstuffing so that she may maintain a slim figure and find a husband.  She simply ignored her mother’s advice.  She hadn’t eaten home-made food for a long time.       

The nebulous mist that shrouded the mountain top had dissipated by late morning when the girl walked outside with a large tin basin filled with used plates and bowls.  She laid the basin on the dirt ground and stretched her body to feel the cool wind brushed past her bared arms.  She closed her eyes and breathed in her ancestors’ presence.  Noog Xi recalled of the time when she asked her grandfather why the Hmong chose to live on the mountain tops.  He told her that there once lived two looj or dragon brothers.  The younger brother, however, arrived from his mother’s womb a little different.  He had a bird’s beak for a mouth and wings on his back.  His elder brother loathed him for his special features.  Wishing to prove that the elder brother was superior, he declared his younger brother to be his nemesis and vowed to dominate him in everything.  The kind-hearted younger looj desired for nothing else but to maintain a peaceful relationship with his brother and to live as only a free being under the sky.  So, every time his malevolent and greedy elder brother chased him, he ran away.  Gradually, everything related to the younger looj began to perish at the hands of his elder brother—kingdoms, knowledge, and history.  To save his kind from extinction, the younger brother retreated to higher and higher altitudes until only his descendants knew that they, the beaked and winged looj were born on the mountain tops while the lowlands were for the pure-breed looj.  That was why the mountainous terrains of Xiengkhouang Province may be inhospitable to many, but it was a safe haven for the descendants of the beaked and winged looj.  At least for the time being.

While the intoxicating incense fragrance from a hundred homes lingered in the air, the chants calling the spirits of the families and the jingles of thin circular metal plates clashing against one another on a circular metal ring had ceased to be heard when Noog Xi finished washing the dishes in soapy water.  As soon as she returned home, chatting sounds and the rattling of happiness of a people echoed throughout the lush hillsides.  She took a peak of the outside through the window of her bedroom and saw a congregation already at the village’s opened field.  She hurried toward the kitchen where the rest of her family remained and told them that it was time.  The lwm qaib ceremony was about to begin. 

Her family left for the event.  When the villagers saw them, the people moved apart as if to make way for royalties.  Some even got down on their knees and lowered their head to show respect. 

In the distance, two bamboo poles were connected together by twisted grass ropes, also wrapped around one another.  A red hemp ribbon was tied onto the grass ropes at the center.  To the right of the pole stood a short shaman who looked weak in his old age as his skin had become pale with blotches of brown—perhaps, remnants of acnes in his younger days.  The shaman held a live chicken in his right hand.  Although he appeared puny and frail, when he began to shout at the crowd, his voice vibrated strong like a young warrior readied for battle.  He asked the crowd to form a line and walk in a circle around the bamboo poles in the direction that he would be instructing. 

Wishing to be blessed in the new year with peace, harmony, and health—the villagers cheerfully followed the shaman’s commands.  Noog Xi smiled as she stepped on the dirt footprints of her father, a childhood habit that she had missed for the last seven years.  Absorbed in the instant of happiness and spiritual enlightenment, the villagers forgot about the turmoil in the country.  “It might not affect us,” they thought.  Then, just as the shaman finished his last lwm qaib verse, gunshots exploded—roaring like the onset of a thunderstorm.  And then the scattered earth-color thatched roof homes began to blaze fiercely in red-orange flames.  The jolly group of people earlier broke into screaming and crying victims of war.  People ran everywhere, trying to escape to preserve their lives. 

Even though everything was in chaos, their motion seemed to have been slowed down to her.  Noog Xi stood bemused in the middle of the frantic scene.  She froze in time, like a being from a parallel universe observing others in this world hastily past through her by. 

During that daunting moment she didn’t know what else to do but to look toward the sky, as if thanking the heavens for at least letting her be with her family.  With the villagers flustering, she looked to her eldest brother.  His delighted glow a moment ago had vanished and she now saw only fear in him—fear that she had yet to see before.  He took a deep breath and mustered all his strength for this one blow.  “Take Youngest Sister to hide now!” he commanded his third brother in a trembling voice.  “If we all perish, she needs to survive to carry on our stories!”  He had aged so much in these few seconds of terror.  His face was overwhelmed with trouble and the flirtatious boy in him was no more.  

Noog Xi’s third brother, vulnerable to everyone except her, suddenly became strong like the bulls used during bull fights every New Year.  He pulled his youngest sister’s right arm and together, they disappeared behind the rugged thick green bushes at the back of the village.  Just as they left, a Red Lao soldier dressed in a forest-green military uniform appeared from nowhere and pointed a gun at her father’s head.  The girl took a big gulp of air.  She was terrified but knew that everything happened because of her father.  It must have been his support of the Westerners that the Red Lao soldiers were after him.

She glanced at my father.  The man who was the hope of so many and who stood equivalent to the sky had at the moment shrunk into an ant.  His body was rigid and he looked fragile and innocent.  With a gun now pointed directly at the side of his head, his gleam appeared troubled and showed fear.  She knew that he knew his family was frightened and scared.  He nodded at them.  They knew the signal so upon seeing it, they all stooped down to the ground—their heads buried between their knees.  At that instant, she heard a gunshot.  Boom!  This time, the thunderous sound felt so close to her that she could feel the vibration of the bullet penetrating right through her heart.  “Did it hit me?” she thought.  She turned her head to look.  It did not hit her.  She was relieved. 

But then she saw her third sister fell onto the ground.  “NO!” Noog Xi screamed. 

The bullet had pierced into her sister’s right shoulder and knocked the girl unconscious.  The beautifully embroidered blouse that Noog Xi’s mother had painstakingly sewn for her for the New Year’s festival was now drenched in crimson blood as she grabbed and held onto her sister.  “Are you okay?” she cried as she shook her sister, her hands stained with her sister’s thread of life. 

The middle sister slightly opened her eyes and smiled faintly at her elder sister.  Then at that moment, Noog Xi felt a blow of pain on the side of her head and darkness overcame her.

***

That was the last time Noog Xi saw any of her family members.  When she regained consciousness, she found herself inside a dark and cold cell.  The only light she received was from an inch circular hole at the top of the ceiling.  With the cell being pitch dark most of the day, time seemed to be passing by so slow.  A day felt like a week, a week like a month, and a month like a year.  After leaning against a faded gray concrete wall gazing at nowhere for many days, she became very thirsty.  Her lips dried up and cracked.  Sometimes, Noog Xi could even taste her own salty blood.

Being thrown into an abyss, she had many times wished not to wake up so that she would not have to face the reality of her troubles.  But then when she thought about her family and everyone dear to her heart, she could not die yet.  She needed to find strength to live on, to fight the injustice done onto her family and people.

“Water…” she mumbled softly.  After many attempts, Noog Xi finally garnered enough energy to get up and walk toward the gate to ask a guard for water.  But as she put all her weight on the metal bars, she realized that the gate was unlocked.  With a slight push, the gate door swung opened and she walked out.  She went through zigzag hallways that have no doors and saw Red Lao soldiers in their military forest-green outfits clutching onto large rifles, staring at her every pace.  Afraid, she dared not make eye contact with the soldiers and kept her attention focus on the path ahead. 

Before she realized it, she had walked upon a dining hall.  The only people present were Lao Loum—lowland Lao.  It seemed like it was lunchtime and she was in a prisoner’s outfit, or rather, a sleepwear that she used to wear.  She took a few steps forward and went to sit at the front of a long dining table.  Then, she saw lines of Laotians walked inside the dining common to grab food trays and a short line of people whom she was definitely sure were Hmong.  Upon seeing them, her heart beat with joy.  It was the first time she had seen any Hmong person in a long time.  She wanted them to sit next to her but perhaps she was invisible, so they went to sit at another table.  The only ones who came near her were Lao Loum.   

In front of her sat a guy.  She stared at him.  He looked to her.  She continued to gaze at him.  He clearly looked like he was Hmong but he seemed to be on good terms with the Lao Loum.  He had more meat to himself than most people.  His hair was short and black, and he wore a clean white t-shirt.  He was not handsome-looking.  He ate his food generously.  There was a Lao Loum girl next to him.  She spoke in Lao to tell him to ask her in Hmong if she was Hmong.  When Noog Xi heard this, she knew that she was not invisible. 

The guy put down his silver fork on the wooden dining table and asked her, “Are you Hmong?”

She nodded.  He then continued to ask her a series of questions and perhaps at the moment, she might have understood what he talked about because she kept nodding or shaking her head in respond.  But in the end, she did not recollect a single thing he asked or said.  Maybe, she was simultaneously daydreaming about how to escape from the prison while listening to him, which was why she could not remember his conversation at all. 

Then, she felt like the Hmong guy began to show interest in her—like that of a guy who had fallen in love with a girl.  But she didn’t like him.  Anytime a guy liked her first, she nervously and hastily retreated. 

All of a sudden, a loud alarm went off inside the prison.  Noog Xi saw the prisoners panicked and some even tried to escape.  She knew that it was a good chance for her to rescue her own life as well. 

She got off her chair and started walking quickly away.  However, she was stopped by a female Red Lao soldier.  The woman held a gun and wore the same type and color uniform as her male counterpart.  Her hair was short and tied into a pony-tail, and she and Noog Xi were about the same height. 

The female Red Lao soldier asked, “Pai nai? (Where are you going?)”

Noog Xi’s eyes appeared trouble but she saw a restroom sign ahead.  “Pai hong nam (I’m going to the restroom),” she quickly answered.

Upon hearing this, the female Red Lao soldier let Noog Xi pass, and she let out a sign of relief at her quick-wit. 

Noog Xi stepped inside the restroom.  She did not need to use it but had to do something to kill time.  So she started to pump soap into her left hand and turned the faucet on.  As she played with the soap and water, she heard a loud creaking sound to her left.  Noog Xi turned to look and the wall adjacent to the sink slowly slid open.  There, she saw her youngest brother.  The young man had to be her brother but he looked different from the way she remembered him. 

Initially, it seemed like he wore a combat camouflage uniform but as she examined him closely, he had on FBI garment instead.  His left arm grabbed a female Red Lao soldier’s waist tightly while his right hand held a knife to her throat.  Noog Xi wasn’t sure what her youngest brother was trying to do but it seemed like he was struggling to seize the woman.  Before her brother came up with a solution, the wall slid closed again.  It was pitch-dark between the two siblings.  Did she hallucinate?  But she really believed that she did see her brother.

Noog Xi glanced once around the restroom that trapped her.  The ambiance of the restroom was creepy and anachronous.  She felt as if a ghost could appear anytime from out of nowhere to haunt her, so she really wanted to escape now.  She walked up to the wall that she thought she had seen opened earlier and pounded on it as hard as she could with her right fist. 

“Youngest Brother!  Help me!  Youngest Brother!  Help me!” Noog Xi screamed at the top of her lungs, not even considering that she might alert the Red Lao soldiers guarding the prison.  She was willing to risk her life in order to escape than spend the rest of her life living like a dead person. 

All of a sudden, the wall that she hit so hard on—turning her fist red, slid opened once more.  Then, the right wall adjacent to that wall opened as well.  Her brother heard.  She was not losing her mind after all. 

When the walls were fully lifted, Noog Xi saw her youngest brother forced the woman he captured to get inside a black twelve-passenger van.  The van was parked parallel to the restroom and to its left was a lush jungle.  It looked like a scene from a Rambo movie.  Then, she noticed that her youngest brother’s colleagues were waving and calling her to hurry up inside the van.  She ran toward them.  When she tried to get her body inside, she noticed that the van was crowded with passengers so the side door could not properly close.  However, the Red Lao soldiers were coming.  There was no time to lose.  As long as her body was partially inside the van, she would be fine.  So, she hung from the van’s side, clutching onto a plastic bar as tight as she could.  The driver started the ignition and began to drive away.  She was finally safe.

But, she thought too fast.  In the distance, Noog Xi saw a tall male silhouette holding a rifle and wearing a long bullet strip over his left shoulder.  As the van drove closer to the man, she suddenly became very afraid and her heart pumped blood faster than before.  She panicked and reckoned that the person blocking them would definitely throw a grenade at the van and it would surely explode.  And she had tried so hard to live, to survive, and to escape the horror of being a captive. 

As the van approached the figure and the silhouette turned into a detailed person, the young woman stared at him carefully.  He looked familiar.  His hair was spiked and he was dressed all in black.  Then she had a flashback.  She had seen him before.  A young man, whose heart was pure like the rainwater, whose voice was sweet like palm sugar, whose handsomeness made heaven smiled, and whose kindness stole her heart and made it jumped a thousand miles every time she fancied about him.  After going to school together and before parting ways, he had promised to meet up with her under the tamarind tree by the brick bridge over the river.  Three whole days showered with pearl rain, she waited for him under the cool mist.  But no creature stirred on those gloomy, unfaithful days. 

The van halted as the young man would not let the vehicle pass.  Her flashback stopped and she stared at the lad blocking the van.  Curiosity overwhelmed her, and she got off the van to confirm her emotions. 

It was him!  It really was him!  The stocky young man whose bravery made this world seemed so harmless and whose gentle smile melted the heart of a young girl. 

Noog Xi smiled faintly at him and breadth in his presence at the moment.  His sweet fragrance still lingered the same.  He had grown much handsomer but had lost so much weight.  His gleam, however, looked like it was no longer friendly or kind.  His face was expressionless, like a robot programmed to act without feelings.  She could not read his mind but was pleased to stumble upon him again.  With him around, she would sure be safe. 

With a heart full of joy, she ran toward him with great alacrity.  Before she embraced him like she did so many times before, she saw it.  A red band around his right arm!  The color band that signified patriotism to communism.  The girl was so shocked that she abruptly halted a few inches from him.  Why did he wear that red band?  It was impossible.  She shook my head doubtfully, and the questions streamed through her head endlessly. 

At that instant, everything she knew about him seemed to have unexpectedly changed.  She did not know him anymore and it felt like her heart stopped beating as well.  Fire blazed in Noog Xi’s eyes and his facial expression showed that he knew she was angry.  She had once told him, “I rarely hold grudges against people.  But when I do, even if the sky and mountains tumbled down and I perish with it, my mind would not be moved.”

“I’m sorry,” his heartbreaking eyes told at that instant.  “I hope one day you’ll understand.”        

But she would never understand and didn’t wish to understand either. 

Furious to furious’ extent, Noog Xi stepped closer to him.  “Go ahead, shoot!” she accosted.  “Shoot!  Shoot me right now!  Shoot me to your heart’s content!”

He lowered his rifle and tried hard to suppress any emotions on his face.  He could not shoot her nor throw the hand grenade at the van.  She could not guess his feelings but knew that he recognized her.  If not, he would have gone ahead with his malice deed.  Still, she abhorred him and was unmoved.  Even if he let her go, in those few seconds, her grudge toward him had rooted too deep—all the way to the core of Earth that she would never absolve his sin.  Never!  Ever! 

Knowing that he would not harm her, the young woman turned around and got back on the van.  She told the driver that it was alright for him to continue driving.  Before the van moved pass the young man in black, he ran up and gave her a card.  She took it with a heavy heart.  She glanced at the pitiful young man.  The pair of eyes that were once filled with happiness now only sparkled faintly like the furthest star from Earth. 

The van drove past him.  Noog Xi turned one last time to look at him, the young man she once knew who could make her heart race.  Then, she saw someone approached him.  They seemed to argue.  He nodded and held his rifle to eye level.  He fired a few shots after the van but nothing happened. 

The girl knew that he purposely missed the shots.  He was trying to save her while obeying his superior’s orders.  Although she pitied him, still, she would never and could never forgive him for betraying her, for betraying their people, for betraying their land, for betraying their hopes… 

As the van drove away, his figure became smaller and fainter and smaller and fainter until she could no longer see him.  The van pulled up to an emptied house and Noog Xi ran upstairs to a room whose walls glittered with the reflection of a pool of water.  She kneeled down and took out the card he gave her.  She opened the card and found a picture of her inside.  It was the first and last thing she gave him as a memento. 

Why did he give it back to her?  Was this his way of erasing all their memories together?  The thoughts, curiosities, and questions ran wildly in her head as she stared at the card.  With so many mixed emotions at the moment she suddenly felt a rage of pain inside my heart.  Her throat became sore and heavy, and she wanted to cry like a small child.  “It’s been seven years,” Noog Xi said.  “If I knew you would turn out like this, I would have gone with you…..” 

And then, she woke up.  Her eyes opened to the bright morning rays.  It was just a dream.  It was really just a dream.  But even in real life, her heart still longed for him.  She still felt the sadness of having to part.