The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam

As Kien walks around Hanoi at night, he sees scenes that remind him of wartime. He sees silks that recall Khmer girls who served as scouts. He tries to imagine how pedestrians would react to him. He remembers trivia about Hanoi that he learned in the jungle. He says Hanoi suffers from the same postwar sorrow he does. 

In the Balcony café, he describes postwar soldiers, like clumsy Vuong, whose memories of war cause him to drink himself to unconsciousness. He remembers fighting with a street tough who called Phuong a tramp. Leaving the café, he takes a tram driven by Huynh, whose son Kien saw die. Kien remembers Toan dying, and that he was once in love with Phuong. Thinking of the tram and Phuong reminds Kien of coming home to Hanoi after three months of training. After looking for her at his home, a friend says she is at the rail station, being evacuated from the city in fear of American bombing raids. All the lights are blacked out, and the city seems deserted. He finds Phuong at the rail station, and they travel back into town, until an air raid siren sounds and they head back for the rail station to catch Kien’s train to the front.