The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam

On another night when he can’t sleep, Kien thinks of Phuong playing the piano. Her mother raised her to be a pianist, but Phuong quit playing. Kien says the war would have taken her music from her anyway. After listening to her play, he feels a harsh and cruel wind blow across their world, and this takes him back to the night on the train. When he finds Phuong again on the train, she has been raped multiple times. A big sailor, one of the men who raped her, tries to keep her with him so he can rape her again. Kien fights with the man, eventually finding an iron pipe and brutally murdering the man. As American planes attack, he takes Phuong away with him. They run from the exploding bombs as the fighters strafe the trains. Phuong is bleeding and unresponsive, in shock from the rape and murder. After stealing a bicycle which they later sell for food, Kien and Phuong take shelter in an abandoned school. Phuong turns angry and sarcastic, no longer seeming pure and innocent, accepting her new role as rape survivor. Kien gets her to sleep, but when he wakes up hours later, she is gone.