Nguyen Tri Dung - English version by Danlambao - "When will daddy come home?" - My little sister, Bi, anxiously asked at dinner. I kept on eating without a word, while our mother turned to switch on the TV to listen to the news. I don't know how many times her question has been repeated since the day our father was arrested in April 2008, nor do I remember how many times my mother and I answered her in silence. Our meals among the three people and a dog often exist amid the noise coming from the T.V. set... like tonight.
The days preceding the trial of Sept. 24, the security police continued to pay their visits and sent us their "invitations" with ridiculous contents, demanding more "working sessions" with us. Then "the homeless" (a local term I gave to the police in plain clothes) occupied our front door, watching, eating, sleeping, lying, sitting in their car and on the sidewalk. Any of us who stepped out of the house could immediately hear their shouting, calling on each other to block us, or to follow us on their motocycles. They often followed us so closely that we could smell the foul breath from these heartless machines living off cigarettes. My mother and I could have predicted the unjust sentence that the authorities would give my father at the trial, just from our observation of the facts that the authorities had given a green light allowing their "thugs-for-hire" to beat up my mother in Bac Lieu city, and to chase after me with the intention to stage a traffic accident. The days before the trial, the authorities' threats became more and more overt.
The days preceding the trial of Sept. 24, the security police continued to pay their visits and sent us their "invitations" with ridiculous contents, demanding more "working sessions" with us. Then "the homeless" (a local term I gave to the police in plain clothes) occupied our front door, watching, eating, sleeping, lying, sitting in their car and on the sidewalk. Any of us who stepped out of the house could immediately hear their shouting, calling on each other to block us, or to follow us on their motocycles. They often followed us so closely that we could smell the foul breath from these heartless machines living off cigarettes. My mother and I could have predicted the unjust sentence that the authorities would give my father at the trial, just from our observation of the facts that the authorities had given a green light allowing their "thugs-for-hire" to beat up my mother in Bac Lieu city, and to chase after me with the intention to stage a traffic accident. The days before the trial, the authorities' threats became more and more overt.
