He had last seen Steve two hours ago, when they had separated to attack from two flanks. They had planned to ron de vue at their home at 12.45. In the chaos, Erik had been late.
They waited for Steve until dawn.
Then the police came. Two French officers followed by eight Vietnamese lackeys came strolling down the street, brandishing their weapons and confident in their overwhelming numbers.
"Get in the basement," Erik hissed to Thuy.
'What about you?" she whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
"Get in the damned basement."
She obeyed.
Erik quickly covered the basement trapdoor with a rug and a chair.
Then he drew his revolver.
Thuy heard shots, then shouts in French, Russian and Vietnamese. Then more shots, screams, shouting,more shots... A moment of silence.
Then the stamping of many boots above her, and shouts in Vietnamese only. More stamping.
Finally, silence.
She was alone.
Her heart beat like a drum hammered by a madman.
Silent tears rained down.
The hot, dusty air burnt her throat and lips.
Eventually she recovered herself enough to climb up the ladder and push the trap door open.
Everything was ruined. Everything was covered in blood.
She ran upstairs, fell down on her bed, and cried.
For the next week she did nothing but listen to the radio and read newspapers. Desperate for news of Steven.
Then she finally read about him.
He was to be executed by Guillotine the next day.
Immediately, she searched the basement until she found what she needed.
She could not see his face, as he lay there under the Guillotine. She did not need to... she would always remember it.
She could see the grim faces of the guards and the priest. A French Official read from a paper. Words that would mean nothing to Steven as he waited.
She lit the fuse of the four sticks of dynamite that she had lovingly strapped together.
Without a word, without a war cry, without a sentimental whisper, she threw it at the terrible machine.
It is how he would have wanted to have gone out.
Wiped clean with dynamite.
"That," Thuy's grandmother often said later on, "is what happens when a poor girl is raised without a father in a country full of Frenchmen."
People, Thuy thought, are like the moon. They change every night, but they always returned to their true form.
But some people, she knew, are like the countless stars in the endless sky. Their changes are so subtle and so complex that it would take a life time to understand them.
THE END
