Strike a Match
Joseph Cover
Originally published Moon City Review 5.1 This version has some editing.
Unlike most of his fellow countrymen Thich Nguyen Khiet had not slept during the warm June night but had sat up with the elderly monk who desired to spend his last hours on earth in the Thien Mu Pagoda burning incense and offering prayers for his people, their lives, and his death. As the sun rose, Nguyen accompanied the venerable one onto the streets of Saigon so the elder could view for the last time the red sunrise that crept slowly across the China Sea, spread onto the rice paddies of the delta, and struck the city, blanketing an orange tinted glow upon the Saigon River where the captains of small boats pointed their vessels, eyes painted on the bows so they could see their journey better, into the river to begin the daily task of harvesting fish from the bountiful waters.
As the sun’s first rays bathed the streets of Saigon, the monks paid mute witness to merchants headed for the markets hauling carcasses of dead hogs, or cages filled with various fowls, strapped to the backs of bicycles. Nguyen noted to himself that the Asian dress and chatter, combined with the smells of spices, raw meats, and fish being sold in the open air kiosks lining European style boulevards created a surrealistic foreground to the modern structures built, and abandoned, by the French. On this morning, for the first time in his fifteen years since joining the monastery, he was aware of the delicate flow by which the metropolis erected by European intruders streamed seamlessly into the elements of the old city. Away from the centers of commerce were the homes and markets, unchanged from the ancient days, and scattered among these neighborhoods were buildings resembling Western-style multi-layered wedding cakes. These were the pagodas, places of worship for the Buddhists, whose monks lived in quarters built behind these elegant structures.
Along with the fishermen and merchants the sunrise silently filtered onto the streets of Saigon, with nuns and monks arriving from the delta, from the jungle, from Cambodia and Thailand, nuns and monks who serenely followed the sun’s rays to the grounds of Thien Mu Pagoda.
Nguyen observed how many of them approached not only his elderly charge with grace and dignity, but reverently acknowledged him also, as if his presence with the older monk somehow made Nguyen holier, as if it made him a part of this day’s transfiguration. He refused to accept any aura of the blessed being cast upon him simply because he was so close to one who was within mere hours of martyrdom. He knew it was not because of any spirit of mindfulness that he had been chosen as the monk to escort the sainted one during his final night. Nguyen’s nature was far less spiritual than any of the others. During the daily chores, while the others stayed mindful of the duties at hand, his focus would often drift far away to his past life as a scholar at European universities.
But it was this ignoble character, this ability to dream away the present, that enabled him to stay detached enough to lend support to the venerable one as the saint engaged in his own self struggle during the preparations for this day.
Nguyen also knew his European education, coupled with a fluency in both French and English, would make him a valuable resource in dealing with the foreign press, among whom the flames of rumor concerning the immolation had been spread.
* * *
Allen Blair awakened to the sunlight streaking through his dirty hotel window. He rose and looked out at the French city and noted that it seemed almost as if the streets of Paris had been invaded by the entire population of Vietnam. As he did every morning since his arrival in this city, Blair meditated on how only six months after taking a position with Reuters he had either managed to impress, or anger, management enough to earn a post as the correspondent to Southeast Asia. Eight days in Saigon and he was still attempting to adjust to this new home that seemed so foreign to him. The reality was subtly beginning to settle on the twenty-three year old that, in spite of Saigon’s European trappings, he was the foreigner here. He was the guest. A guest with a duty to supply news from this lost corner of the globe. News that held no interest for the rest of the world.
Blair made his way down the three flights of stairs from his room to the alcove that passed for the hotel’s restaurant and found the photographer, along with the AP reporter, Carlson, already engaged in breakfast.
The photographer stopped in mid-sentence and turning toward Blair said, “I’ve heard something big is going down this morning.”
Carlson, cut in, “He says the bloody Buddhist monkeys are going to put on a show. I say they are going to march down the street today like they did yesterday and have done every day for weeks.”
Blair took a seat on a wicker stool, and the photographer broke in before Carlson could continue his rant, “This might be your big break. If the rumors are true, we will witness an event newsworthy enough to get you a byline.”
Carlson interjected, “If he wants a byline from this hole, he’ll have to change his name to
Reuters. Still, we might as well follow you on your expedition. Better to swelter on the street doing our jobs than to sit here under the fan sipping the unpalatable beverages they serve in this place.”
Blair spoke, “I’m in. The story can’t be any worse than reporting rumors the Americans are increasing their military advisors.”
Blair began sipping the thick tepid liquid this hotel called American style coffee, as the photographer, rising to leave the table, said, “There is a pagoda on Phan Dinh Phung street where the monks are gathering. We’re leaving here at seven-thirty this morning so be in front of the hotel by then if you want a ride.”
When the reporters arrived on Phan Dinh Phung, the street was already colored with the traditional pale orange robes of the Vietnamese monks, and the smoky gray of the nun’s. Salted throughout the crowd were the white robes of the Cambodian and Tai brethren. Blair understood Buddhist monks to be placid panhandlers who went about Saigon with bowls, equal in size to the cupped hands that encircled them, begging for their daily bread.
Here there was no begging rice. And no placid monks.
The pagoda was besieged by a battalion of priests. Their weapons were banners. Their ammunition slogans proclaiming their cause. The staging area hazed with smoke from pounds of smoldering incense mingled with the sounds of hundreds of chants creating a thick, humid, intoxicating atmosphere that flowed over the journalist. His head grew feverish, and his breathing grew labored. Anxiety grew within him.
He wrote; he wrote violently. Consumed with the need to translate the scene that had overtaken him he had to write. For the first time since stepping onto the tarmac in Southeast Asia, he felt a sense of purpose, a sense of place. Obsessed to fulfill his destiny, he lathered words onto his notebook.
Carlson chuckled and shook his head, advising the younger reporter, "Wait until you see them start to climb trees before you waste ink on this bunch."
Blair paused. As if his whole purpose for existing had suddenly become one with the swirling drift of incense, he folded his notebook, returned it to his pocket, and allowed himself to be engulfed by the rhythmic chanting and smoky heat that permeated the narrow avenue in old Saigon.
Shortly before nine a gray sedan rolled to a rest in front of the pagoda. Blair watched five Buddhists in orange robes leave the building and enter the vehicle. Just under three hundred monks, nuns, and faithful followers formed two erratic lines behind the sedan. As the car slowly pulled away, the procession began moving down the street towards the heart of Saigon’s business district. The photographer ran ahead of the group, and Blair, trusting this man's journalistic instincts, held close to his heels. They maintained a position to one side of the parade, remaining between the police escort clearing the street and the car carrying the monks. After twenty minutes the sedan came to a halt in the busy intersection of Phan Dinh Phung and Le Van Duyet. Two monks got out of the vehicle, went to the front, and lifted the hood as if examining the engine. Carlson scurried to join Blair, who was on the front line of a crowd witnessing three more monks emerge from the vehicle. Two of the Buddhists aided the third one, who placed a brown pillow on the street, rested himself upon it, and crossed his legs in the lotus position.
"What’s the bloody monkey going to do, pray the car into good health?" Carlson whispered to the others.
"How old do you think he is?" quizzed Blair.
Both veteran newsmen looked at him. Carlson replied, "What?"
"How old do you think he is? He looks old to me."
"What difference does it make?"
"I don't know. He just looks old and tired," Blair answered.
"Who knows?" Carlson snapped the words, scolding a child for asking silly questions. "They shave their heads, starve themselves and wear bed sheets. They all look the same to me."
Carlson continued to ramble, but Blair had ceased listening. His attention turned to one of the monks, who had gone to the vehicle, opened the trunk, and returned carrying an opaque five gallon container to the man seated in the street. Blair whispered under his breath, "What on earth?" as he witnessed the man pouring an orange liquid over the monk sitting on the pillow. The journalist heard the photographer say, "Gasoline," but before his mind had time to process the word, the venerable one, in a movement that went almost unnoticed, with one hand gently sliding across the other, struck a match, and his physical presence erupted into flames.
The gasoline burned in an orange flame, rushing up his torso, engulfing his body with a crackling sound. For a moment his head was totally consumed by fire, then a breeze whipped the flames back, exposing the burnt, tortured features of what was slowly ceasing to be a man’s face.
Blair‘s existence was suspended in shock. His mind instructed his hands to write. Not a muscle of a finger twitched. His right hand held the pencil poised on the pad resting in his left, yet no movement crossed his paralyzed fingers. His heart raced. Blood sank from his face to his knees then sprung upwards through his veins, filling his head with a throbbing ache. Every breath was filled with the smell of incense, intermingled with the pungent black smoke pouring off the pyre in the middle of the intersection.
A slow mournful chant rising from the assembly of the faithful was punctuated with the steady rhythm of somebody in the distance crying over and over, "Oh my God. Oh my God." The realization the constantly repeated words were emanating from his throat caused Blair to break the trance by shifting his eyes from the fiery spectacle and toward his companions. The photographer had taken refuge behind his camera and was firing shot after shot after shot, never removing his eye from the viewfinder. Carlson had a notebook out and was sketching the scene, punctuating art with shorthand. This was the first time in the eight days Blair had been in this country that he had seen either a notepad in Carlson's hand, or a serious look on his face.
Blair glanced at his own pad and realized that he had, without awareness, been writing, "Almost as if on cue the monks lowered themselves into the same lotus position as the man in the street, and some rubbing beads, others chanting, they began to offer up prayers which were carried to the heavens by the incense of the burning sacrifice in the middle of a busy Saigon intersection on this humid June morning," and wondered what Reuters' copy editors would do with that line.
The monk’s face was visibly contorted in pain through the orange flames and black smoke, causing Blair to wonder at how the man could remain seated on the pillow.
The reporter knew if he were in flames he would have instinctively reacted to the intense heat. He assured himself he could never have sat there. Legs crossed. And burned. Blair marveled at what it would be like to contain the inner power that would enable an individual to sacrifice ones self.
* * *
Before the flames faded, the burnt carcass tumbled over into the street and slowly, respectfully, monks came forward and prostrated themselves before their newest saint. Nguyen remained what he considered a respectful distance from the body. He noted that the police, who were normally very aggressive, also remained a distance from the scene. He knew they had no respect for the martyrdom of a monk but held out hope their reluctance to attack the crowd might be a sign the Diem government would receive this message with dignity and honor. The chances of that were slim, yet he hated to consider this sacrifice would be in vain.
Grateful that the pungent black smoke was dying, Nguyen viewed the scene and understood that he had barely known this monk, even though they were in the same pagoda. They had always been pleasant with one another and had on several occasions spoken, but the conversations were limited to topics such as gardening or preparations for the next celebration. Following a strict interpretation of mindfulness these, as all topics, were paths to spiritual fulfillment, but Nguyen had never troubled himself with strict interpretations. He always focused more on the physical aspects of daily life. Until he witnessed the flames, until he witnessed the pain on the dying mans face, he had not considered the doubts this event would throw on his own commitment. Silently he prayed that he never find out if his convictions ran as deeply as the venerable one’s.
Nguyen’s meditations were broken by the crowd’s moans turning to shrieks as the police presence had grown and they were dispersing the gathering. As the assembly began to fall away from the police truncheons, the fleeing crowd funneled into a narrow street bringing Nguyen close enough to Blair for the European to grab the monk’s robe.
He clung to Nguyen’s arm, and, pulling him along, they managed to move towards the left side of the crowd until they found refuge down a side street. They turned onto a small lane, where the two men walked quickly past two intersections before Blair stopped and captured the monk’s eyes with his stare. "How could he do it?"
This man was seeking a truth that Nguyen was not certain he had an answer for.
He attempted to avoid the question, "Why ask me?"
"I was directed to you by other monks," he said, his voice now going softer and his eyes averting as he continued, "they said you were with him during his final hours. How could he do it?"
The monk turned away, took a few careful steps, stopped, and gazed back at the man standing in place, looking expectant. As simply as he could, Nguyen stated, "He struck a match."
Unlike most of his fellow countrymen Thich Nguyen Khiet had not slept during the warm June night but had sat up with the elderly monk who desired to spend his last hours on earth in the Thien Mu Pagoda burning incense and offering prayers for his people, their lives, and his death. As the sun rose, Nguyen accompanied the venerable one onto the streets of Saigon so the elder could view for the last time the red sunrise that crept slowly across the China Sea, spread onto the rice paddies of the delta, and struck the city, blanketing an orange tinted glow upon the Saigon River where the captains of small boats pointed their vessels, eyes painted on the bows so they could see their journey better, into the river to begin the daily task of harvesting fish from the bountiful waters.
As the sun’s first rays bathed the streets of Saigon, the monks paid mute witness to merchants headed for the markets hauling carcasses of dead hogs, or cages filled with various fowls, strapped to the backs of bicycles. Nguyen noted to himself that the Asian dress and chatter, combined with the smells of spices, raw meats, and fish being sold in the open air kiosks lining European style boulevards created a surrealistic foreground to the modern structures built, and abandoned, by the French. On this morning, for the first time in his fifteen years since joining the monastery, he was aware of the delicate flow by which the metropolis erected by European intruders streamed seamlessly into the elements of the old city. Away from the centers of commerce were the homes and markets, unchanged from the ancient days, and scattered among these neighborhoods were buildings resembling Western-style multi-layered wedding cakes. These were the pagodas, places of worship for the Buddhists, whose monks lived in quarters built behind these elegant structures.
Along with the fishermen and merchants the sunrise silently filtered onto the streets of Saigon, with nuns and monks arriving from the delta, from the jungle, from Cambodia and Thailand, nuns and monks who serenely followed the sun’s rays to the grounds of Thien Mu Pagoda.
Nguyen observed how many of them approached not only his elderly charge with grace and dignity, but reverently acknowledged him also, as if his presence with the older monk somehow made Nguyen holier, as if it made him a part of this day’s transfiguration. He refused to accept any aura of the blessed being cast upon him simply because he was so close to one who was within mere hours of martyrdom. He knew it was not because of any spirit of mindfulness that he had been chosen as the monk to escort the sainted one during his final night. Nguyen’s nature was far less spiritual than any of the others. During the daily chores, while the others stayed mindful of the duties at hand, his focus would often drift far away to his past life as a scholar at European universities.
But it was this ignoble character, this ability to dream away the present, that enabled him to stay detached enough to lend support to the venerable one as the saint engaged in his own self struggle during the preparations for this day.
Nguyen also knew his European education, coupled with a fluency in both French and English, would make him a valuable resource in dealing with the foreign press, among whom the flames of rumor concerning the immolation had been spread.
* * *
Allen Blair awakened to the sunlight streaking through his dirty hotel window. He rose and looked out at the French city and noted that it seemed almost as if the streets of Paris had been invaded by the entire population of Vietnam. As he did every morning since his arrival in this city, Blair meditated on how only six months after taking a position with Reuters he had either managed to impress, or anger, management enough to earn a post as the correspondent to Southeast Asia. Eight days in Saigon and he was still attempting to adjust to this new home that seemed so foreign to him. The reality was subtly beginning to settle on the twenty-three year old that, in spite of Saigon’s European trappings, he was the foreigner here. He was the guest. A guest with a duty to supply news from this lost corner of the globe. News that held no interest for the rest of the world.
Blair made his way down the three flights of stairs from his room to the alcove that passed for the hotel’s restaurant and found the photographer, along with the AP reporter, Carlson, already engaged in breakfast.
The photographer stopped in mid-sentence and turning toward Blair said, “I’ve heard something big is going down this morning.”
Carlson, cut in, “He says the bloody Buddhist monkeys are going to put on a show. I say they are going to march down the street today like they did yesterday and have done every day for weeks.”
Blair took a seat on a wicker stool, and the photographer broke in before Carlson could continue his rant, “This might be your big break. If the rumors are true, we will witness an event newsworthy enough to get you a byline.”
Carlson interjected, “If he wants a byline from this hole, he’ll have to change his name to
Reuters. Still, we might as well follow you on your expedition. Better to swelter on the street doing our jobs than to sit here under the fan sipping the unpalatable beverages they serve in this place.”
Blair spoke, “I’m in. The story can’t be any worse than reporting rumors the Americans are increasing their military advisors.”
Blair began sipping the thick tepid liquid this hotel called American style coffee, as the photographer, rising to leave the table, said, “There is a pagoda on Phan Dinh Phung street where the monks are gathering. We’re leaving here at seven-thirty this morning so be in front of the hotel by then if you want a ride.”
When the reporters arrived on Phan Dinh Phung, the street was already colored with the traditional pale orange robes of the Vietnamese monks, and the smoky gray of the nun’s. Salted throughout the crowd were the white robes of the Cambodian and Tai brethren. Blair understood Buddhist monks to be placid panhandlers who went about Saigon with bowls, equal in size to the cupped hands that encircled them, begging for their daily bread.
Here there was no begging rice. And no placid monks.
The pagoda was besieged by a battalion of priests. Their weapons were banners. Their ammunition slogans proclaiming their cause. The staging area hazed with smoke from pounds of smoldering incense mingled with the sounds of hundreds of chants creating a thick, humid, intoxicating atmosphere that flowed over the journalist. His head grew feverish, and his breathing grew labored. Anxiety grew within him.
He wrote; he wrote violently. Consumed with the need to translate the scene that had overtaken him he had to write. For the first time since stepping onto the tarmac in Southeast Asia, he felt a sense of purpose, a sense of place. Obsessed to fulfill his destiny, he lathered words onto his notebook.
Carlson chuckled and shook his head, advising the younger reporter, "Wait until you see them start to climb trees before you waste ink on this bunch."
Blair paused. As if his whole purpose for existing had suddenly become one with the swirling drift of incense, he folded his notebook, returned it to his pocket, and allowed himself to be engulfed by the rhythmic chanting and smoky heat that permeated the narrow avenue in old Saigon.
Shortly before nine a gray sedan rolled to a rest in front of the pagoda. Blair watched five Buddhists in orange robes leave the building and enter the vehicle. Just under three hundred monks, nuns, and faithful followers formed two erratic lines behind the sedan. As the car slowly pulled away, the procession began moving down the street towards the heart of Saigon’s business district. The photographer ran ahead of the group, and Blair, trusting this man's journalistic instincts, held close to his heels. They maintained a position to one side of the parade, remaining between the police escort clearing the street and the car carrying the monks. After twenty minutes the sedan came to a halt in the busy intersection of Phan Dinh Phung and Le Van Duyet. Two monks got out of the vehicle, went to the front, and lifted the hood as if examining the engine. Carlson scurried to join Blair, who was on the front line of a crowd witnessing three more monks emerge from the vehicle. Two of the Buddhists aided the third one, who placed a brown pillow on the street, rested himself upon it, and crossed his legs in the lotus position.
"What’s the bloody monkey going to do, pray the car into good health?" Carlson whispered to the others.
"How old do you think he is?" quizzed Blair.
Both veteran newsmen looked at him. Carlson replied, "What?"
"How old do you think he is? He looks old to me."
"What difference does it make?"
"I don't know. He just looks old and tired," Blair answered.
"Who knows?" Carlson snapped the words, scolding a child for asking silly questions. "They shave their heads, starve themselves and wear bed sheets. They all look the same to me."
Carlson continued to ramble, but Blair had ceased listening. His attention turned to one of the monks, who had gone to the vehicle, opened the trunk, and returned carrying an opaque five gallon container to the man seated in the street. Blair whispered under his breath, "What on earth?" as he witnessed the man pouring an orange liquid over the monk sitting on the pillow. The journalist heard the photographer say, "Gasoline," but before his mind had time to process the word, the venerable one, in a movement that went almost unnoticed, with one hand gently sliding across the other, struck a match, and his physical presence erupted into flames.
The gasoline burned in an orange flame, rushing up his torso, engulfing his body with a crackling sound. For a moment his head was totally consumed by fire, then a breeze whipped the flames back, exposing the burnt, tortured features of what was slowly ceasing to be a man’s face.
Blair‘s existence was suspended in shock. His mind instructed his hands to write. Not a muscle of a finger twitched. His right hand held the pencil poised on the pad resting in his left, yet no movement crossed his paralyzed fingers. His heart raced. Blood sank from his face to his knees then sprung upwards through his veins, filling his head with a throbbing ache. Every breath was filled with the smell of incense, intermingled with the pungent black smoke pouring off the pyre in the middle of the intersection.
A slow mournful chant rising from the assembly of the faithful was punctuated with the steady rhythm of somebody in the distance crying over and over, "Oh my God. Oh my God." The realization the constantly repeated words were emanating from his throat caused Blair to break the trance by shifting his eyes from the fiery spectacle and toward his companions. The photographer had taken refuge behind his camera and was firing shot after shot after shot, never removing his eye from the viewfinder. Carlson had a notebook out and was sketching the scene, punctuating art with shorthand. This was the first time in the eight days Blair had been in this country that he had seen either a notepad in Carlson's hand, or a serious look on his face.
Blair glanced at his own pad and realized that he had, without awareness, been writing, "Almost as if on cue the monks lowered themselves into the same lotus position as the man in the street, and some rubbing beads, others chanting, they began to offer up prayers which were carried to the heavens by the incense of the burning sacrifice in the middle of a busy Saigon intersection on this humid June morning," and wondered what Reuters' copy editors would do with that line.
The monk’s face was visibly contorted in pain through the orange flames and black smoke, causing Blair to wonder at how the man could remain seated on the pillow.
The reporter knew if he were in flames he would have instinctively reacted to the intense heat. He assured himself he could never have sat there. Legs crossed. And burned. Blair marveled at what it would be like to contain the inner power that would enable an individual to sacrifice ones self.
* * *
Before the flames faded, the burnt carcass tumbled over into the street and slowly, respectfully, monks came forward and prostrated themselves before their newest saint. Nguyen remained what he considered a respectful distance from the body. He noted that the police, who were normally very aggressive, also remained a distance from the scene. He knew they had no respect for the martyrdom of a monk but held out hope their reluctance to attack the crowd might be a sign the Diem government would receive this message with dignity and honor. The chances of that were slim, yet he hated to consider this sacrifice would be in vain.
Grateful that the pungent black smoke was dying, Nguyen viewed the scene and understood that he had barely known this monk, even though they were in the same pagoda. They had always been pleasant with one another and had on several occasions spoken, but the conversations were limited to topics such as gardening or preparations for the next celebration. Following a strict interpretation of mindfulness these, as all topics, were paths to spiritual fulfillment, but Nguyen had never troubled himself with strict interpretations. He always focused more on the physical aspects of daily life. Until he witnessed the flames, until he witnessed the pain on the dying mans face, he had not considered the doubts this event would throw on his own commitment. Silently he prayed that he never find out if his convictions ran as deeply as the venerable one’s.
Nguyen’s meditations were broken by the crowd’s moans turning to shrieks as the police presence had grown and they were dispersing the gathering. As the assembly began to fall away from the police truncheons, the fleeing crowd funneled into a narrow street bringing Nguyen close enough to Blair for the European to grab the monk’s robe.
He clung to Nguyen’s arm, and, pulling him along, they managed to move towards the left side of the crowd until they found refuge down a side street. They turned onto a small lane, where the two men walked quickly past two intersections before Blair stopped and captured the monk’s eyes with his stare. "How could he do it?"
This man was seeking a truth that Nguyen was not certain he had an answer for.
He attempted to avoid the question, "Why ask me?"
"I was directed to you by other monks," he said, his voice now going softer and his eyes averting as he continued, "they said you were with him during his final hours. How could he do it?"
The monk turned away, took a few careful steps, stopped, and gazed back at the man standing in place, looking expectant. As simply as he could, Nguyen stated, "He struck a match."