Truyện Tiếng Anh

THAI BA TAN

SHORT STORIES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

                                        _____________________

A ROSE FOR LE TRINH

It was ten to eight and the curtain bell was ringing inside the Municipal Theatre. The latecomers were coming by in a rush, climbing the stone steps to the iron door where a fat lady usher stood, urging everyone to go inside. At eight sharp, the iron door slammed shut. The usher stepped aside and cast a faraway vacant look into the night.

There were only a few people left in front of the theatre: some peddlers, a young man in military uniform straddling his bicycle with his feet lightly touching the ground, a young girl in a bright pink jacket walking back and forth, and me.

I wasn’t walking back and forth because I wasn’t nervous. And I wasn’t nervous because I wasn’t waiting for anybody. I was just unhappy because I couldn’t afford a ticket to hear a famous Russian pianist, an artist I greatly admired.

It was late February, just after Tet, and it was cold and drizzling. The streets were filled with yellow lights. The young man left on his bicycle. The girl lingered, waiting for the man who was supposed to come. I stood by the iron door, hoping for an angel in the form of a music lover to give me one of his extra tickets.

The girl didn’t have a hat on, and the ends of her curly hair were marked by dew-like raindrops, reflecting all different colours in the lights. I didn’t look at her long. I didn’t want to make my interest so obvious. But when she walked past me I saw a pretty, thin white and graceful form. A straight nose and deep eyes. I was absolutely sure she kept two tickets in the handbag she carried by her side, and I asked her for one.

But she said something I wasn’t expecting.

“Do you want to take a walk with me?”

I was twenty-eight, an amateur writer and an amateur romantic, and I was in love with an amateur singer who was becoming more and more well-known after a string of competitions and concerts. She was pretty too, but there was one thing we did not share. She didn’t like classical music. And so I always went to the Municipal Theatre alone, even though I had to go to all those concerts of hers that I hated.

The girl in the pink jacket was a little confused when I had a hard time giving her an answer. But in a few minutes, we were walking side-by-side down Trang Tien Street and around Hoan Kiem Lake.

The city was beautiful and quiet. After some moments of silence, I said, “You’re waiting for somebody, but he hasn’t shown up, no?”

“I’m waiting for my husband,” she said. “This happens all the time. It’s no problem. I’m used to this sort of thing.”

“And to get even with your husband, you’ve decided to go for a walk with me, a total stranger.”

She didn’t say anything. I felt awful for what I had just said and I didn’t say anything either. She was strange, like something out of a work of fiction. She wasn’t easygoing or adventurous. There was something very pure about her, and very serious. Why did this married woman ask me to take a walk with her? Did she want something? Who was she and what did she need from me?

The truth was I was very happy just to be with her, a beautiful Ha Noi girl. I didn’t spend too much time agonising over any of these questions.

We dropped by Thuy Ta coffee shop and had ice cream. It was 10.30 when we got back to the theatre. I offered to take her home, but she refused.

Then she held out her hand and I touched it. So small and soft and warm. It was the first time I had touched anything like it.

“You’re lovely. All this time together and you haven’t asked me one stupid question. I like people like that. And I like you. If you come to the theatre again, I’m sure we’ll meet. So goodbye and thank you.”

She went and stood at the corner of the theatre and a moment later, a black sedan came by and took her home. She was a strange girl without a name. And I was just a strange man without a name as well.

We did talk about some things. She told me her husband was an important government official, twenty-five years her senior. Her parents forced her to marry him. The fact that she didn’t love him didn’t bother her so much as the fact that he made her feel so low. She came from a well-educated family, but her husband didn’t understand her. He didn’t respect her or her work. (I asked her about her job, but she didn’t answer). When we said goodbye, I felt completely in love, even though we hardly knew that much about each other.

A week later, I saw a production of Giselle staged by a French director at the Municipal Theatre. And there she was, not in front of the theatre but right on stage, Giselle, a woman who had to suffer so much before she could find happiness. The playbill said her name was Le Trinh. She had graduated from the Soviet Union’s most famous ballet school in the very city I had studied in years before. I was amazed and moved and I kept my eyes close on that magnificent goddess throughout the evening. This woman had actually asked me to go for a walk with her just a few days before and I had actually touched her hand.

After the performance, I stood out of sight in front of the theatre and I saw her, in the same overcoat, with the same tall man in a black suit taking her to the same black sedan. I could only sigh.

I walked down the street, following the same path we had walked the other day. The night sky was clear and marked with stars. I stood forever by the The Huc Bridge on Hoan Kiem Lake, feeling the vague sense of love. This love was quite different from the love I felt for the amateur singer. It was a transcendental love, touched with a feeling of guilt. She was, after all, a married woman.

A few days later, I went to the theatre for a Beethoven concert, which included the first and sixth symphonies and the Coriolan. This time I had a ticket.

As I was entering the theatre, I saw her in jeans, leather shoes and a large woolen pullover. She had run here apparently. Her face was badly-lined and she was panting.

“Good evening, Le Trinh,” I said, trying to hide my emotions. “You’re not with your husband tonight?”

We walked along the street and stopped by Thuy Ta again for some coffee instead of ice cream. We talked about our days in the Soviet Union and this made us feel closer. But we didn’t say anything about our private lives. I took her back to the theatre only a few minutes before her husband showed up to take her home.

In the following months, we had many walks together. She let me hold her hand, but that was it. Sometimes she asked me about my girlfriend and we talked about my relationship as casually as we could.

Did she love me? Or was this just some rich beautiful lady’s game? Sometimes, it was awful to be with her. But I contained myself. She was married, and that was that. I kept a rose with me, but I never had the courage to give it to her.

Then for a long time, she wasn’t around, either on stage or in front of the theatre. Something strange was happening. I found out her husband had been arrested (God knows why) and was in some Central Highlands prison. She had gone to look after him.

I didn’t hear anything more about Le Trinh afterwards. Everything was gone, including my love for her. I got married and had a child. My life was smooth and I had nothing to complain about. I went to the Municipal Theatre on a regular basis and enjoyed any number of concerts and ballets. But I missed Le Trinh. I felt sorry for what had happened to her. I wondered where she was now and how she was doing.

One day, I got a letter from America.

I’m sure you don’t remember me. I’m Le Trinh, the woman who walked with you so many times around Hoan Kiem Lake some years ago.

Her style was natural and honest.

Now that I am so far away from you, it’s a little easier for me to tell you these things. I loved you! I loved you so much on those days we went for walks together and on those days we didn’t meet. I didn’t want to let you know these things, because I was married and you were still in love. Though I loved you, I couldn’t forget that I was married and that I had a duty to the idea of marriage. Besides, I couldn’t rob you from the girl who loved you and whom you loved. Those days we had together were some of the happiest in my life.

Even though I didn’t love him, I devoted my life to my husband until he died after three years in prison. I went to America afterwards as a refugee with some friends. I have a husband and a child, almost everything, except love. You’re my only love. If I had any courage to fight the prison of society’s social principles, I would have come to you.

Now that I’ve written this, I have no other wish to disclose my secret feelings. I didn’t want to and I tried not to write about these things, but I’ve failed.

Please forgive me,

Le Trinh

P.S: Please don’t write. There is no need. It will only make me suffer more.

That letter was dated 1989, fifteen years since I last saw her.

In May 2000, I visited the States with my wife. Going by the address on the envelope, I went to Le Trinh’s house. I went alone, of course. I didn’t want to meet her or talk to her. I simply wanted to see the house where she lived, from afar. It was a small house, as normal as any of the suburban houses in North Carolina. It was completely shuttered, but for two windows covered with thin white blinds. I walked in front of the house. I sat on a tree stump on the front lawn, and smoked a cigarette. Then I went back to my hotel.

I got a letter from America last month. Only a few lines in a man’s handwriting.

According to the deceased’s wishes, I would like to inform you that my wife, Mrs Le Trinh, died on ... of a heart attack. She asked me to tell you that she did see you sitting in front of our house, smoking, two years ago.

John Nguyen Van Bach

This is the whole story of Le Trinh, which I am sure I would never have written if her husband had not sent me that letter. I have nothing more to say, other than if I am ever in the States again, I will find her grave and place a rose on it, the rose I had never had the courage to give to her.

 (Translated by Manh Chuong)

NHA TRANG SEA

"I’ve just seen my old husband, miss.”

Busy preparing some water morning glory for dinner, the young woman sitting by her side didn't respond.

Through the narrow door feeble sun rays cast an ochre light on the first-floor room and its walls of half-peeled paint. And she, with her poor eyesight, mistook the green leaves for yellow ones.

The young woman was fed up with the repeated sentence and no longer wanted to hear it: “It’s nonsense! If he is dead, it’s better to say that he is dead, why say you just saw him? You aren't a pair of young love birds, are you?"

“If not, then what are you?" she would answer to herself. "You’ve certainly enjoyed the night, haven’t you?”

In the end, facetiousness was the fall-back lifeline.

The child of poor schooling, she was coarse and greedy, but never cruel. Circumstances forced her to be that way: She sold vegetables in the adjacent street. She had a drug addict son and an alcoholic for a husband.

Here she was now looking after a woman of more than seventy who was ill and just waiting for death to finish her off. The woman's family said that she was suffering from cancer and had been hospitalised for two months, living on all kinds of oral and injected drugs.

Seeing that it was so costly (the in-patient fees already totalled VNÑ200,000), the family decided to bring her home. They had thought that without the maze of bottles and wires, she would die immediately.

But she continued to live, lying motionless, eating and drinking and relieving her bladder in one place. She would occasionally come to and mutter some nonsense.

At home, people had prepared everything for the funeral. Everyone was given a job. But the patient's body didn't seem to agree with them, inflicting more suffering on herself and onto others. Certainly she also hoped to die, but the Heavens wouldn't allow it.

At first, people would visit frequently, but the visitors tapered off, and ultimately only this young woman looked after her.

A widower for 30 years, the old woman had one son – who, too, was heartbroken after his wife abandoned him and took their son.

The son stayed at home to care for his mother for a week before heading back to work. He was tired of waiting around, cramped in the fetid room with his mum. Soon he moved in with a friend, leaving her alone and just popping in twice a day for a few minutes.

Everything was left in the hands of vegetable seller. But she had little to do.

The cleaning was quick and the patient's diet needs null. The most important thing was that she had to be there round the clock – save a few hours to herself – so to inform the son of his mother’s death.

At first she was paid VNÑ25,000 a day, but had it bumped to VNÑ40,000. She was happy to find a lucrative job, and was not being beaten by her alcoholic husband provided she gave him booze money.

Basically, she was the only person who wished the patient longevity. And that wasn't for altruistic reasons.

"I’ve just seen my husband, miss," the old woman repeated those words, directing them more to space than her interlocutor.

"Just keep silent to save your strength,” the vegetable vendor answered grotesquely. ”He died a very long time ago, how could you see him? You're imagining things.”

"No, I‘ve really seen him. Just like the time when we first really got acquainted with each other.”

"So what did he tell you?”

"He said nothing. He only quietly pulled off my clothes... ”

"How shameful!” the vegetables vendor lashed out. ”You are next to death and have only obscene thoughts."

She couldn't understand why she got so angry with the patient to whom she should have shown gratitude. She was still young, stout and still in life's fast lane.

"And what happened later?" she asked almost apologetically. "You must be very pleased, aren’t you?”

The old patient said nothing. Perhaps she was displeased. Or perhaps she was unconscious or back in the remote past again, that moment when her husband first did what the vegetable vendor dubbed "obscene".

*

Peace had just been restored, and a military unit from the south – but that had re-grouped in the north – was stationed for about a month at the quiet village of Phuùc Nhaïn, near the King Leâ canal.

Then one night came an eruption. A village girl and a soldier were caught red-handed were caught sitting together at Goø Chuøa at almost midnight.

What happened to the young man nobody knew. As for the girl, she was chastised and ripped apart by the youth and women’s unions two nights running.

"We love each other and didn't do anything wrong!” the girl said, feebly defending herself in their firing squad of questions.

"The why didn’t you ask permission from the associations to go out if you love each other? If you did nothing wrong, then why did you go as far as Goø Chuøa? And at such a late hour? This all sounds fishy."

Her defence was futile, no one would believe her.

But the truth was that they did love each other, and in fact “didn't do anything wrong” that night.

They didn't dare to even hold hands. And that “obscene" act only happened later, on the eve of the unit‘s departure, also at Goø Chuøa, but luckily far from any witnesses.

That night only he spoke, while she timidly sat by his side and listened. He told her about his village in Nha Trang with a white sand beach.

“As for the water, it is crystal-clear, so limpid that you can see every pebble tens of metres deep underwater," he said. Of course, she took every word at face value and imagined a beach more beautiful than the picture she had pasted on the wall in her room.

"In two years I will take you, as a bride, to my village and we’ll bathe at that beach. We won’t go in our clothes like here, but we’ll wear bathing suits. Sound good?”

“Yes! But it could be very shameful!”

Her village, too, was only a few kilometres from the coast. The water was clear but not blue, though, and the beach was filthy, full of garbage, buffalo dung and even human excrement.

She had never bathed in the sea, much less pranced around in bathers. She was a shy country bumpkin who'd never left her district, and she ached to one day bathe with him on that fairytale Nha Trang beach.

In her head it was lined with coconut trees as tall as the sky that cast shadows on the blue water as vivid as ink. And there was a splendid rainbow with seven colours like in children's books.

No one was there, save the two lovers and the schools of colourful fish swimming around them. Fleshed out with repetition, the dream became a close, tangible reality in her mind. And she believed that she would soon become the princess living at the side of her prince on Nha Trang beach.

But while awaiting paradise, she had to endure hell on earth.

A few months after her lover's departure, she went before a village-wide meeting for being pregnant out of wedlock – a situation that, at the time, meant life-long disgrace for her and her parents.

Stationed far away in the northwest, when her lover learnt the news he immediately wrote a letter to the commune People’s Committee, affirming that they really loved each other and that he would be on furlough soon to hold a wedding.

The villagers weren't convinced and continued to castigate her for not "conforming to revolutionary ethics and the new socialist ideal”. But they slapped her with a petty fine of 100 kilos of sticky rice and a 60kg pig.

It benign punishment for what earlier would have earned her a beating, a shaved head painted with lime and a placard with "Pregnant out of wedlock” hung from her neck.

"You are really in luck! Without the revolution you would have endured an ordeal!” they told her.

She regretted bringing disgrace to her mother, but remained indifferent to their words.

She deliberately paraded her belly in front of everyone, angering villagers who demanded her punishment be doubled. But she believed in her Nha Trang dream.

Her child came and went, a victim of illness. And it wasn't until a year later that her lover took her away as his wife, though to Ñieän Bieân, where she worked as a cook in his unit. They lived there until 1970, when he was transferred to Haø Noäi and given a 18sq.m room in the city's old quarter.

Her fantasy of bathing in Nha Trang sea never came true. They would have to wait until re-unification, but he didn't live to see the day, dying of an infection before he could bring his wife to his native village.

The son she had given birth to in Ñieän Bieân was growing up quickly, and she entertained the idea of him taking her there. But she couldn't go there by herself, it would be meaningless. In her dream there were two people.

Now that one was no longer, she no longer lived in reality. She became indifferent to everything. Perhaps that was why she didn't raise her son in a proper way. She loved her son, of course. But that love could not compare with her marital love and their dream of the Nha Trang waters.

*

"I’ve seen my husband again, miss,” the old woman said, slightly shifting her weight. She didn't know, and didn't want to know, anything about her interlocutor.

The vegetable vendor was in midst of drinking the patient's milk on the sly. Startled by the old woman's abrupt announcement, she wiped her mouth and gingerly put the tin of condensed milk in its place.

"Why do you see him so much?" she said, ill at ease. "And you took off your clothes again?"

"No, he and I flew on the Nha Trang sea... "

"You also went there to fly together? What a story! Are you happy?" she smiled ironically, trying to picture the emaciated skeleton of a woman flying.

"Delighted. The sea was beautiful. It was all blue and pink. Even the schools of fish flew with us. We flew and flew, and finally he helped me take a seat on the rainbow on the horizon. I was afraid, but was very pleased. So beautiful... "

"This old woman is crazy," the vegetable vendor mumbled and quietly began sucking on the tin of milk again.

The sun was far from setting, but the small room with one window didn't have enough light. The weak voice of a vendor advertising his phôù was both silly and pathetic. The nurse turned on the light. As she was on her way out the patient called her back

"Eh, miss!”

"What do you need? Have you wet your trousers? I’ll get a change of clothes ready now,” she said rudely.

"No, I want to ask you for a favour.”

"What is it?”

"Please bring me the vase on the altar!”

"The black porcelain urn with a lid?”

She had no clue what the old woman was on about, but out of curiosity she went off to find the urn, which turned out to be as big and heavy as a watermelon. Thinking something valuable must be inside, she took off the lid and stuck her hand in, but just some votive papers and coarse ashes were inside.

"What on earth is this?” she asked as she handed it to the patient.

The old woman clutched the urn to her chest, two teardrops appearing on her wrinkled cheeks. Stroking the vase with her two hands, her lips moved as if she intended to say something but couldn't get the words out. She then opened the urn and sprinkled the corners of her mouth with the ashes.

The heavy urn seemed to choke her, and instinctively the nurse seized the porcelain container and returned it to its place on the altar.

"Now, you can take off for wherever," the dazed patient said feebly, her face in ecstasy.

It had been a debacle keeping her husband’s ashes around. When her husband died in 1972 she insisted on having him cremated, which meant pouring petrol on his body and burning it. What wouldn't burn was ground to powder. She demanded the ashes be kept in an urn, placed on the family altar.

Everyone opposed it, particularly her son, who believed it would bring misfortune to the family. But she called the shots. And for the last few decades every day she burnt joss sticks and chatted with her husband, never forgetting to rub her fingers on the urn.

A friend visiting once stepped into the house and spun round, saying: "I feel that the presence of a dead person in this house."

She quietly pointed her finger to the urn on the altar. He understood and advised her to put it in a grave. Her son took the opportunity to pressure her to get rid of the urn, but she refused.

People said it was because of the urn's contents that her family fell into ruin. The son wasn't a bad guy, but he was no paragon either. His work was befuddled with drama, and he had no wife or children. As for her, she constantly fell ill.

But she never blamed the urn, insisting it be kept in the house until now.

*

That evening her son came for a visit. The hired nurse was still out, making him lose his temper.

He turned to his mother and asked her with an unnatural eagerness: "Are you better? Have you eaten anything? How are you feeling now?”

The old woman lay quiet, eyes opened wide, and nodded slightly. Uncomfortable in the rancid quarters, her son let out a series of sneezes as he paced the room on the tenterhooks.

"What do you want me to do for you, mum?”

The old woman wanted to sit up, but couldn't gather the strength, then she motioned for another pillow to be propped underneath her.

"Take a chair and sit down. I have something to tell you."

"Yes, please tell me what you want.”

"Perhaps I’m going to pass away. I want you to promise to do something for me. Please. Do you promise?”

"Yes. I promise to do anything and everything you tell me," he quickly answered, this time sincerely, as he knew this would be her last breath.

"Over there is the urn with your father's ashes. After I die I want you to cremate me and mix his ashes with mine. Then take the urn to your father’s native village. Take a boat far into the open sea and drop the contents of the vase into the water," she instructed him.

"All my life, your father and I dreamt of bathing together in the sea off Nha Trang. It never happened while our flesh was alive, but I've kept his ashes here for this reason alone.

"That’s all. Please help me. Otherwise I won't be able to close my eyes when I die," she said.

The son raised his mother’s emaciated hand and put it on his cheek, her faint pulse igniting the sincere love he felt for her.

"Please, mum, relax a bit. Of course I'll do what you ask."

"If so, I have no other wish. Now go home, leave me alone. It doesn’t matter.”

"No, I'm staying on with you all night,” he said, choked up.

The old woman turned, closed her eyes and slipped back into her own world. When the vegetable vendor finally returned, the son gave her a perfunctory reprimanding. He stayed on for a while before going out for dinner. Promising he'd return, as absent-minded as he was, he stepped out of the house for good.

*

That night the old woman died.

No one knew precisely at what time, because as a rule the nurse went to bed and slept until five o’clock in the morning. When she woke, she noticed her patient wasn't breathing and ran to the telephone.

The woman’s body was cremated as she had asked. But as for mixing the ashes and scattering them across the blue waters of Nha Trang, he couldn't do it.

Ten years ago, without her mother knowing, he had buried his father's remains in a grave at Baùt Baït. The ashes in the urn were false ones. So instead he buried his mother's ashes in a grave near her husband's.

Building two beautiful graves with photo, flowers, stele and all, he was satisfied and considered himself a pious son marching onward with tradition. But then, sometimes he felt some pangs of guilt about deceiving her and not carrying out her wishes.

"My parents were old and were still romantic! If I drop the ashes into the sea, the fish will eat them, won’t they?" he took comfort telling himself. "And in the future how can the grandchildren know the place to burn joss sticks?"

          But the guilt never subsided.

(Translated by HOANG TUY)

RAINBOW

It had just finished raining and the air was humid and cool. Old Nhat Lon stopped at the Dong Chua well late in the afternoon on his way home from Xuan Tinh Village, when he was hit by a brilliant light. Tiny water drops suffused with blue, red, violet and yellow danced in the air. He looked at his hands coated with dirt. They too seemed painted by those colours. He looked up and in the sky, he saw an enormous bow, half blue and half red.

Nhat Lon was well into his seventies with a face heavily lined with wrinkles and an awful case of asthma. His was a lonely life, without a wife or children or any close relatives. For at least the past two or three decades he had been getting by on a rather odd job: raising boars to hire them out for breeding, and that was how the word Lon (pig) became a part of his name. He was eccentric and superstitious, but in no ways religious. In his house – if we could call the hut he lived in a house – there was no place for an altar.

This winter, particularly for the last two weeks, his health had taken a bad turn. His bones were falling apart, his entire body was in pain and he kept himself covered in a blanket for most of his waking hours. He got up twice a day to cook meals for himself and the boar, but his nights were restless. When he finally got to sleep he was met with extraordinary dreams.

In one, a fairy drove him in a cart drawn by three fire-breathing dragons through colourful spongy clouds. And he sat on his cart wearing clothes weaved in gold and silver threads and covered in jade, as radiant and handsome as the old fairy by his side. When he started getting really excited, he felt something scratching his feet. He looked down and found his ugly boar, which opened its dirty mouth and bit the cuffs of his trousers to pull him back. He tried to hold on to the cart, but it was useless.

And now he found himself in front of an old woman, a former grocer. Everyday, she’d carry her baskets to Hom Market to sell her goods. Her health had been failing for the past ten years and now she made a living off her sows and her garden. She lived a lonely life like Nhat Lon, without children or relatives. There was a time when the two were deeply in love with each other, but they had never gotten married. Why, after all these years, did they not think to return to each other, if for no other reason than to hold each other during their bouts with illness? That was a secret no one but the two of them knew.

She was chewing betel.

“How many piglets have you given birth to recently?” he said.

She stopped chewing. “I don’t give birth to piglets,” she said. “My sow does that. She’s given birth to ten piglets. Are you teasing me?”

“I was talking about your sow,” he said. “Do you think my semen tasted good?”

The old woman frowned, unable to speak. “If you only knew what it was like to be hurt by someone,” she said. “Instead your boar has to deal with you.”

On the way home from Xuan Tinh, when he got to the Làng Chua well, Old Nhat Lon had felt a brilliant light, a wonderful light. Tiny water drops dancing in all those colours. He saw those colours in his wrinkled dirty hands. And then he looked up and saw an enormous bow, half red and half blue. One end of the bow led from a peak, where a temple to the Genie of the Mountain stood. The bow climbed over Dien An and Dien Trung villages, and his own home in Xuan Nho until it disappeared into the horizon.

It had been a rainbow! And it was right in front of him, Old Nhat, a miserable old man. It was time for him to pray and to enjoy the last few days of his life. Before meals, now, before he picked up his chopsticks, he put his hands together and murmured a few words no one could understand. “It doesn’t matter,” he’d say when everyone made fun of him. “Every life has an ending. Mine will be a happy one.”

For many years he tried to make sure he was the only boar man not only in his commune but in the nearby communes as well, though there were a few fierce competitors. There was no real honour in being the most recognised boar man, especially for him, an elderly bachelor. Quite a few people made fun of him, and though he was never angry with anyone, he was furious with his own boar. He fed it and bathed it, for he depended on it for his own survival. And yet he hated it a little, called it his “scoundrel”, especially on the days when he had to do some “low chore”.

On those days he fed the “scoundrel” a special diet before they set off. The boar was tall and long, with depressed buttocks and crisp black hair. It walked ahead, its eyes fixed on the ground as if it were looking for something, and its large testicles beating from side to side to the rhythm of its steady pace. Old Nhat held a long polished black stick, and now and then he yelled at the boar and beat it. The boar was more than used to his master’s rage and so it would just make a few sounds and go on. The boar was only three or five years old, but with its heavy bearing, deep wrinkles and sagging cheeks, it looked as old as its master.

On those scorching summer days or grey winter afternoons, there was nothing more depressing than the sight of Old Nhat and his boar walking side-by-side from one village to another on a lonely rocky road.

For years, he had never gotten sick. He didn’t understand why when he got off his cart with the dragons he’d find himself in his own bed. At times he dreamed he was married, but his wife was a miserable pig. Those dreams depressed him. He had nothing but his solitude and his helplessness, and he could think of nothing else but the cold death he saw in front of him, where no one would be there to close his eyes, or cry by his side. Was a happy death just a desperate hope?

It was getting warmer now and the yard was sunny. Though he was still very weak, Old Nhat managed to get out of bed to warm himself up. In the afternoon, he decided to go to work. Mme Ba had asked him to take his boar to her home in Xuan Tinh.

Once he arrived, he led “the scoundrel” off to the pigsty to do his job, and then he walked quietly to the house. Mme Ba was sitting on a bamboo bed with two bowls of green tea and some betel. “Are you sick?” she said.

“A little.”

He downed the bowl of tea she offered him in one gulp and then the two fell into silence.

Mme Ba was a small old woman, with full silver hair and clean clothes. She constantly chewed betel. “Are you ashamed of your job?” she said.

“Why should I be ashamed?” His voice reached a high pitch. “If I were ashamed, who would bring you a boar?” The hostess gave him a stern look, as if to tell him to be more careful with his words. “It’s a trade. But it doesn’t matter. The only thing important in a man’s life is the way he leaves it, but you already know about that.”

They chatted for awhile, and when “the scoundrel” finished its job, Old Nhat put on his hat and started out.

“Wait a moment,” Mme Ba said. “A storm’s coming.”

Old Nhat walked into the yard and looked up. The sky which had been completely clear a moment ago was now filled with black clouds. There were ripples of thunder and a few raindrops had marked the yard with coin-sized black spots.

“It’s a bit early in the year for a storm like that,” Old Nhat said. He turned around and sat on the bed. Mme Ba gave him another bowl of tea which he again emptied in one gulp.

In less than twenty minutes, Old Nhat and his boar were back on the village road. The storm was over, though there were still a few tattered clouds left in the sky, drifting off to Bung Bridge. The sun felt a little cooler once they got to the low hills at Dien Loi Commune. The boar moved slowly and Old Nhat gave it a more severe beating than usual. The boar understood. He always got a good beating after he finished his job. Old Nhat was quiet for some moments. He didn’t know what to do.

Then he thought of something wild. He stripped off his clothes, and danced naked in that wonderful brilliant light. His body changed from one colour to another as tiny water drops of blue, red violet and yellow stuck to his body. A riot of colour. He scratched his head and his arms and his legs. And then he lay down on the roadway covered with sharp stones and stinging sand. He’d cover his face with his hands and cry and then he’d laugh as insanely as he could, his mouth uttering something about the rainbow, Buddha or death.

Old Nhat came down with a serious cold that night. When Mme Ba came to his house the next day to pay him (he’d forgotten to take the money the day before), she found him dead, laid out straight in his bed, his eyes closed like a person sound asleep. She bent down and gently smoothed his eyelids with her hands. Then she gave him a bath and changed him into the few clean clothes she could find. And when she has finished, she sat down on the bed and cried.

Old Nhat lay there, quiet and clean. His face had turned a fantastic shade of pink, but she didn’t realise that. Maybe she was too moved. Maybe she thought it had something to do with the sunlight leaking through the crack in the roof.

(Translated by Hoang Tuy)

WHITE BUTTERFLY

“If you don’t want to get married with my daughter, you’ll end up with a ghost!”

The old man spat out the words through yellowed teeth, one of which protruded outside his lips and made him look like a witch. Xuan Sinh was speechless. The man was the father of a neighbourhood girl, a friend of his. They had played together since childhood. It wasn't that he didn't want to “get married with her" as the man had so quaintly put it, just that they were young and he didn't think much about marriage.

After Xuan Sinh categorically refused to marry the girl, her father was so livid and ashamed that he unleashed his strange curse on Sinh, then took his family somewhere else where nobody knew them.

Of course, Xuan Sinh was sad to lose a friend so suddenly. But as happens so often with young people, before long he had forgotten all about it.

Xuan Sinh was preparing to go to Ha Noi to study literature at university when the war broke out. Like the other young men in his village, he went to the front line as a lorry driver after a crash training course. In 1968 he went to the south for the Tet Mau Than offensive. His unit was in charge of transporting supplies over a perilously high mountain road which the drivers dubbed “Gate of Heaven”. The slightest error could send the lorry plunging into a deep abyss. There had been many accidents here.

The war was becoming increasingly fierce at the Gate of Heaven, and a unit of female volunteers was sent there to help guide the drivers. There were already white cement columns along the cliff edge, but at night young women in white shirts were stationed there to guide the drivers. Xuan Sinh got to know one of them well. Everybody called her Bach Diep, or White Butterfly. She had fair complexion and lovely like a pretty white butterfly. Night after night, as she guided him through the pass with her white parachute nylon on, Xuan Sinh thought that she really did look like a beautiful huge butterfly.

The lorries were not allowed to stay long at the Gate of Heaven, so they met only every seven or ten days. While the lorry was rolling, he was in the cabin and she was standing on the road waving her hand, and they could speak only a few words to each other. But gradually, almost without knowing it, they fell in love, a war-time love with no words exchanged. Whenever Sinh’s lorry came, White Butterfly would guide him, even if it wasn't her shift.

One night, Xuan Sinh’s unit crossed the Gate of Heaven as usual, carrying ammunition to the south. White Butterfly walked ahead. But as they arrived at the most dangerous point of the road, two enemy planes swooped down, engulfing the area in fire and smoke. A section of the road was blown away, but the drivers knew they had to continue because the planes were certain to return. Sinh was overcome with relief when White Butterfly re-appeared in front of the lorry and led them to safety.

A few days later, White Butterfly was not waiting for him as usual. Sinh inquired after her and they told him she had died during the raid.

“But that's impossible," he said, unable to comprehend what he had just heard. "She guided us over the Gate of Heaven safely! I saw her with my own eyes. A few minutes after the Americans flew away, she stood up and guided us.“

“You must be mistaken. A rocket hit her and her body was torn away. We were amazed that you could cross the road without a guide.”

Sinh drove his lorry to the Gate to Heaven. It was true. They showed him a simple grave on the rift of the mountain, not far from where she had died. There was also a small board where her name and date of death were inscribed. But how could he have seen her? There were no other guides there at the time, so he could not have mistaken her for someone else. And how could he have safely crossed the Gate to Heaven without a guide, especially when the road was so badly damaged? All of her gestures were burnt into his memory. He asked the other drivers, and they confirmed that she had helped them safely over the mountain pass.

The speed and ferocity of the war did not allow people to dwell on these things. A month later, he was transferred further south. Rumours spread among the drivers about strange things happening at the Gate of Heaven. It was said that after another bombing raid in which many girls died, a girl in white appeared and guided the drivers through the most dangerous places and then vanished. One driver jumped out of his truck to thank her, but when he knelt down in front of her all he saw was a pillar painted white. It became a rule that if they did not see the girl, they dared not go on.

Xuan Sinh didn't know what to think. He didn't believe in ghosts, but couldn't shake the thought that the girl might be White Butterfly. Perhaps her soul had come back to help others as she had helped him. Perhaps she hadn't died at all.

Six months after the war ended, Xuan Sinh returned to the Gate of Heaven. It took him a day to find her grave, which had been transferred to a small cemetery on top of a nearby hill where many drivers and guides were buried.

It was late afternoon. Sheets of mist fell softly from the brimming grey clouds. He stood in front of her new stone grave and the stele where her name was engraved.

“Bach Diep, I love you!“ he said quietly, acknowledging his love for the first time. “Do you hear me, Bach Diep? I love you!”

Night fell. Tiny drops of mist clung to his hands and face. Suddenly, a large white butterfly flew up from the stone grave and hovered near him in the darkness. He looked closely and saw that its wings were badly torn.

“Bach Diep?” he said without thinking.

The butterfly circled closer, then flew towards a nearby grove of trees, its ripped wings flapping wearily. He stared in confusion. It returned for a little while, then flew away again. Xuan Sinh followed it like a soulless man.

Under the heavy foliage there was a small cave. He followed the butterfly inside. It flew lower and lower until he could not see it anymore. But something white was approaching him from the depths of the earth.

“Bach Diep!"

Bach Diep was standing in front of him. Her body looked as fragile and transient as a broken cloud. Her face was as pale as her torn coat. Only her eyes were black, deep and sad.

“Yes, here I am, Sinh,” she said as faintly as a breath.

“But... you're dead?“

“Yes, I’m dead. I lie under the grave over there. It's a cement grave, so I have to turn myself into a butterfly to get through it. It was very hard for me to meet you."

"Why is your coat so torn?“ Xuan Sinh asked, curiosity and affection replacing his initial fear.

"Because I was hit by a rocket. All my body was torn."

"On that night... ?"

"Yes, I was killed instantly."

"And you did come back to guide me and the other drivers through the Gate of Heaven?"

"Yes. It was so painful. But I had to. There was no-one else."

"And there were rumours that you kept coming back?"

Bach Diep just nodded slightly. Xuan Sinh moved closer. He placed his hand on her shoulder. It felt like a soft, humid piece of cotton.

"I love you, Bach Diep."

"I love you too. You were the first man I loved," she said gently, lowering her head. "And you are the first man to put his hand on my shoulder like this. But now I am just a ghost. Your hand is too heavy, I’m going to collapse."

She tried to smile. With panic, he realised that her smile was torn too.

"Are you in pain?"

"Yes. You see, my body was torn into so many pieces. I found it hard to put them together to come here."

"Can it be fixed?"

Bach Diep was silent for a long time.

"Yes," she answered in an undertone.

"So I will mend your body for you. Just tell me what to do," Sinh said.

"It can be done, but it requires a lot of time and will be very painful. Not just for me, but for you too."

"I don’t understand."

"You don't have to do it."

"No, for you I will do anything. You know, it's peace time now. We will be married and be happy for ever. There will be no bombs and missiles to tear you away again. Tell me what I have to do!"

Bach Diep put her light hands on Sinh’s shoulders and looked into his eyes.

"I love you and want to be your wife."

He placed his lips on hers. An intense chill shot through his body.

"You know, now I feel a little warmer," she said. "I can be resurrected when you, little by little, transfer your warmth to me, and little by little, piece my torn body together."

"I can do that," Sinh said. He leaned forward to kiss her again, but Bach Diep stopped him.

"It will be very painful for you. And it will take a long time."

"It doesn’t matter."

They kissed again, holding each other. A long kiss between a ghost and a man, death and life, war and peace.

    *

It took a whole year for Xuan Sinh to transfer enough life to Bach Diep, mending the pieces of her body torn away by war with red strings of blood from his heart. He was like a man patiently weaving a carpet, day after day, month after month. His complexion turned pale to make hers pinker. His body grew weaker to give hers strength. He had to suffer the pain Bach Diep  suffered every time she put together the pieces of her body to guide the convoy of lorries over the Gate of Heaven.

Finally, one day Xuan Sinh took her to his native village, where they were married. Only at that moment did he remember the words of the old man who had told him that he would be married to a ghost.

Sinh just smiled. In his heart of hearts he sympathised with the old man. He didn't want to hide anything, but he never told people about what he did at the Gate of Heaven after the war. The people in his village didn't seem to care. Everyone liked his wife, the small, frail woman with waxen skin and a Hue accent. But they never had children. Every time she was pregnant, she gave birth to clouds of beautiful white butterflies with perfectly-formed wings.

As for Xuan Sinh, he turned back to what he liked most - composing poems. Only of flowers and butterflies. Not a word about war and sufferings.

(Translated by Hoang Tuy)

  

THE OLD MAN AND THE PIANO

The atmosphere was cosy and homely. Like the old woman in the large-size reproduction of Young girl at the piano by Paul Cezanne that adorned the wall, she quietly sat in the deep soft-leather armchair and played the piano. A lazy grey cat was sleeping at her feet, its head on her feet covered by woollen socks. From time to time, it stretched itself, opened its mouth in a wide yawn, and went back to sleep, cuddled up.

It was early spring and a bit cold. Though she was at home, she wore, as usual, a long dark old-fashioned silk robe. Her appearance was striking – a fine nose and small thick lips framed by an oval face. A large beauty spot enhanced her gracefulness. Her small round spectacles (also old-fashioned) were suspended on her nose. She usually looked over the lenses, rather than through them. Despite the rather deep wrinkles on her face and the silver curled hair, it was obvious that she must have been a beautiful woman from a well-to-do traditional family. If one had to choose an original Hanoian, typical of the old intelligentsia, both refined and conservative, it would be her. It seemed that the new, pragmatic and bustling life outside did not affect her and the small room in which she had lived for almost seventy years in the least. The room and its furniture were ancient and quiet, like their owner. She was one of the very few pianists who stayed on with the revolution after the liberation of the capital city; she was the first teacher at the Hanoi Conservatory. She had taught many generations of artists. Some had won prizes at international contests. She had retired from work a few years ago with the title of "People’s Teacher" and "Emeritus Artist." Her husband was an army officer who had laid down his life at Khe Sanh. They had no children.

She’d been living for a long time with her cat and her piano, an old and aristocratic Bekker like her. Few visitors called on her. She liked that. Twice every week, on Tuesday and Saturday, she gave piano lessons to her sister’s granddaughter, a ten-year-old girl with a great aptitude for music. She wished to train her and make her talent blossom. But the girl like to chew gum while learning. And she preferred jazz to Mozart or Schubert. The old woman did not utter a word, but she felt sad. She was sad because many of her students went every night to hotels or bars to play the piano for gruff eaters. She also received former students who occasionally came to see her, especially on March 8 or November 20 (Vietnamese Teacher’s Day). Then it was the old man who was playing the piano in front of her at this moment. Not an invited guest. He came in the 15th of every lunar month. Why on the 15^th? She did not know or ask. He did not either, it had just happened that way a few times and then became a habit which had lasted for 20 years or so now.

He was a worker (some called him an artist) who tuned piano strings. And he was the best in Hanoi. He came to fix her piano regularly, despite the fact that she seldom played the piano these days, and the strings did not need to be adjusted. But he continued to come, and it did not vex her one bit. They were friends since their youth. And the piano was the bridge linking them. He would make many adjustments before deciding the tone was just right. Then, slowly, he would place his tools in his box, and at the same pace, begin to play For Elise by Beethoven, a sad piece of music that the celebrated musician had written for Elise in a hopeless declaration of love. Then came a piece by Chopin, Sadness. Only those two pieces. She did not know why, and never asked. After he finished playing the two pieces, carefully put the lid on the piano, and with a duster wiped it until it shone. Then he sat near her and drank tea, exchanged a few pleasantries, and left for home. He was very courteous, taking off his old felt hat and bowing low.

But today seemed to be an exception. After the two immutable pieces of music, he played Nocturne by Chopin, and then Farewell No 26 by Beethoven. She was very surprised, but continued listening silently, not raising her eyes from the knitting needles. He did not play very well. It was not amateurish, but it was not professional either. Born to a bourgeois family under the French, he had learned piano in Paris with her. She was a talented student and steadily advanced, while he, after many ups and downs, accepted that he would not become a great artist, and chose the career of a piano tuner, although very few people consented to do this and job did not bring in much money. He did it simply because he could not live without the piano. If he could not play himself, he could take care of it for others to play. And he was happy with it. And now, playing a long and difficult piece like Farewell, he felt a bit embarrassed. The old Bekker, a grand piano, which occupied nearly half of her room, groaned under his old fingers. The white keys which had turned a yellowish ivory, danced reluctantly. Their notes were not clear and distinct. By force of habit, she stopped knitting, knocked the side of the chair with the needles, and then spoke out aloud as if to a student who’d not learnt his lesson: "Forte! Forte!" or "More sentiment! Slow down! Slow down!" He obediently followed her instructions, stumbled a few times, and finally stopped playing. He turned towards her.

"Your piano is too old!" He gave a long sigh. It was a good piano that her parents had bought for her from France. As she was an old lecturer at the Conservatory, she had been many times offered a new one, but she’d refused. "And you are not old, are you?" she reacted, half derisively, half critically. As if the piano had been wronged. "I’m old. And you, too. What must happen will happen." He sighed again. "You have stopped giving lessons for a few years. Now it is my turn. Today is the last day I come to tune the piano. Do you know for how many years you and I have been attached to it?"

Surprised, she stopped knitting and answered: "Nearly fifty years. For the last time? Why?" "Because I am finished. That ‘s right. Because of my age. It seems that it had gone wrong long ago. But out of pity, out of deference for me, they did not say anything. Last month, the Opera House did not ask me to tune the Steinway for a Dutch pianist. I guessed that something had gone wrong. Only yesterday did I hear by chance that my ears were no longer sharp, and I had tuned the strings wrongly. It turns out that they asked young Ha to fix the strings again at the Opera, the Musicians’ Association, the Voice of Vietnam studio, and the concert room of the Conservatory. (Ha used to be his apprentice who’d been sent to the Czech Republic for a one-year refresher course, and had replaced him to take care of pianos in the Conservatory. However it was his responsibility to tune the pianos for special occasions.) You know I have to depend totally on my ears. And as they are failing now, I am out of work. Deaf Beethoven could compose music because he could hear it in his head. I need to hear the actual sounds distinctly. Maybe, it is also true that you also kept silent after I tuned this piano wrongly the last time I came here out of pity. Isn’t that so?

She kept silent for a while, then answered in an undertone: "No. I found it correct."

She looked at the old man with sorrow. She did not have the courage to tell the truth. She knew, not only last month, but long before, that his very sensible ears had begun to fail. However, she did not want anyone else to touch her beloved piano. She understood the pride he took in doing this, and the love he had for his work. It was his happiness and raison d’etre for living. For more than 50 years his passion for the piano had been undiminished. Besides, he did not do anything else to earn a living. Society needed him just like he needed those pianos to live. For all these years, people saw him ride on a battered bicycle to the Conservatory at O Cho Dua, to the gymnasium of the Dancing school at Mai Dich, and at concert halls in the city. Many times he was taken by car or by plane to a distant city to tune a piano. Usually, after the work was done, he stayed on for a few days to enjoy the achievements of his labour. He would proudly and happily listen to the artists’ performance, or gaze at ballerinas dancing on their toes to the sounds of the piano that he had tuned to perfection. He would be surprised and guilty at the slightest fault that his sharp ears could detect.

Over the past ten years, as the country opened to the outside world, many bars and hotels vied with one another to buy expensive pianos and hire students from the Conservatory. Those pianos needed regular maintenance. And as a rule, they invited him to do it. But he usually asked Ha or his friends to do it for him, though the fee was much higher. For them, it was some nonsensical work to be done by old and retired people. To do them justice, few outsiders could understand the value of his work. But this was not the case with true artists. They set great store by him, and regarded him a master. After a performance many world famous pianists had sought him out, shaken hands and thanked him. The small gifts that they gave was a prized collection that was given pride of place in his house.

Like her, he lived alone. In fact, he had lived by himself all his life. Nobody knew why, and he never explained. Rumour had it that he loved her, very deeply. But as she was a success and a beauty, she was rich, and he.... He knew his fate and never declared his love. People asked both of them whether it was true, but they always smiled instead of replying. They never raised the question themselves. For so many years they were want to treat each other as friends and it seemed they were content thus.

"And what do you intend to do. Without fixing the pianos, what will you do?"

"I don’t know. Perhaps I cannot live in Hanoi. The pianos here sadden me.

I have a relative in the midlands of Phu Tho. I intend to spend the rest of my life there, enjoying gardening and breeding hens. That’s all right, isn’t it? What do you think?"

"I think you suffer from some mental disorder. Not only is there a problem with your ears, but also with your brain." She was smiling, but her heart was not fully in it. "Do you think that it will be easy to live in the countryside after living all these years in the capital?

"You will see".

"It is up to you. But is this why you just played Farewell?"

"Yes."

"But you played badly and stopped mid-way."

"That right." He answered sadly. "Because I did not play it for a long time, I’d forgotten. And it is so difficult."

"When are you leaving?"

"Next week. I have made all the arrangements. Today I come here to bid you farewell."

They sat in silence.

"I want to ask you this. All these years you’ve only played the For Elise and Sadness. Why?"

"Haven’t you ever guessed?" He asked softly, not looking up at her.

"Never." She answered. "And why should I? One should tell openly what one thinks, isn’t it better?"

They fell into silence again. The silence lasted longer than before. Finally, he spoke, hesitatingly.

"Could you play any piece of music for me? You’ve never played something special for me."

She raised her eyebrows, but did not say anything. She stood up, walked to the piano and sat down, every movement carrying aristocratic grace. It was as though in front of her was not her old friend, but the knowledgeable audience of the Opera. She placed her wrinkled but fine hands on the keys of the piano that had turned from white to ivory, her head proudly tilted back. The ancient piano vibrated with strong and distinct notes. It was amazing that such a small and old woman could produce such strong and wonderful sounds. She played with passion, her eyes half closed, swept away by that grand, melodious and attractive music.

He recognised it immediately. Prelude and Fugue No 29 by Bach. It was a piece of music difficult to perform, both technically and emotionally. It was this that he had failed during the exam at the Paris Conservatory that chilly winter. All connoisseurs loved this piece of music. For him, it was the apogee not only of Bach’s music, but also of piano music itself.

She had finished the grand Prelude and shifted to the lyrical Fugue, the best part of the piece. The music was intertwined, and responded to each other like unfinished messages of love. The pure and sacred notes enchanted him, and his eyes were filled with tears, from when he did not know. He started, wishing she had not seen his tears, lost in the music she was creating.

***

A month later, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month, he returned from Phu Tho and came to see her.

"How is your business over there?" She asked did not seem to be surprised at his return.

"It is as usual. Everything is all right. What about you?"

"What change can I have? Didn’t you bring your tools with you?"

"No. I missed Hanoi so much, I missed the piano so much. But I intend to stay here for one day then I must go back there."

"It would be regrettable."

"Why so? What is wrong with your piano?" He sighed. "I’m sorry that I can no longer lend you a hand. My ears have gone wrong, as you know. Let me tell young Ha... "

"No, your ears are as good as before," she cut in. "Moreover, my piano has got used to your hands. It is too old and weak. It should be given regular care. Without you, it seems it is not itself. Haven’t you ever thought of that?"

He was at a loss. She stepped forward and looked straight into his eyes. Her voice was very serious as she spoke. "I have a suggestion. If you think it all right you can accept it, and if not, you can reject it. It is up to you. My piano needs fixing every day. To save time, you could stay here to do that. What do you think?"

He understood. It was a great surprise, he kept silent for a while, then said hesitatingly: "But your piano and I are old. I think that it will not be proper to do so... "

"Nonsense again! Although your ears are good, your brain is sometimes out of order."

And as if to spare him the embarrassment, she sat down at the piano, as aristocratic as ever.

"What did you play just now? I have never heard it before." He asked when she finished.

"That was the The old man and the piano. I have composed it for you. It was an impulse. This is the first time I have composed music. It’s amateurish and is composed under force of circumstances. The old man is you, a mentally disturbed but pleasant old man. And the piano is: you can guess. The old man and the piano is an interesting name, isn’t it ?"

 (Translated by HOANG TUY)

THE YOUNG SPINSTER

Every couple of years, Huan travelled away from home for several days to visit faraway rural areas to research folklore. These journeys relaxed him. He had done a lot in his career: a co-author of some treatises on proverbs, folk-lore, tales and even folk-songs – although he knew nothing about music.

This time, he was travelling for personal reasons. Of course, he had performed some administrative procedures as usual – asking his boss for a recommendation letter in which he was called a folklorist because he did not want to pay the expenses for the trip with his own money.

One day, one of his colleagues read an anonymous 4-line poem:

From battlefield she came home one day

Only to find house damaged and youth withered.

Soon be over the rain or sunshine may,

But her sorrows will for- ever and ever stay.

Hearing the stanza, he kept silent for a moment.

"Very very interesting. With only four sentences, how can it fully express the plight of a heroic but ill-fated girl? How are such young women now?" he asked.

"Surely, neither husbands nor children. Such girls are numerous in our country," said another. "I feel like I have to assume responsibility for their celibacy. Do you think so?" he asked another man.

"Yes, that’s right."

"But we can’t help. I’m told that there are many agricultural production teams whose members are all women. All have stayed single. Previously, they were young and pretty," remarked another one.

"Really?" exclaimed Huan. A few moments later, he decided that he would visit those unlucky women some day.

***

He was an honest and credulous man. He was a Hanoian, born and bred. As an elegant and delicate man, he always weighed things very carefully before taking action. Getting divorced five years ago and now at the age of nearly fifty, he remained single and handsome. However, he had no intention of remarrying. His friends said that he was utterly wise: having freedom of sex without binding himself to anyone. His experiences with his ex made him a bit frightened when he thought of marriage. Those whom he had sex with had no reasons to reproach him, although most of them wished to be his wife. They lived with him in his decent-looking house facing Hang Chuoi Street. Another weak point of his was his sissy nature: he was easy to weep. The short poem about that young spinster moved him to tears.

The place he reached first was a mountainous commune in the province of Hoa Binh. It was formed from the dissolution of several State farms nearby whose members were mostly women. This commune was composed of three hamlets not far away from Highway 6. In these hamlets, he found neither houses on stilts nor men – except for little boys – and many water buffaloes and cows grazing on the hillsides or by the roadsides. The sun had sunk behind the mountain in the west.

Huan was in low spirits when he met the leader of the commune, a pretty and strong-built woman in between thirty and forty years old, in her office. After inviting him for a cup of tea, she perused his letter of recommendation. She had a bun of hair on her lily-white round nape drenched a bit with sweat. Her lips were thick and looked quite inviting.

"What can we do to help you?" she asked Huan.

He was at a loss. "Err... I belong to a research institute in Ha Noi where we’re carrying out a programme of study about the aftermath of the war – socially, not economically. Precisely speaking, it’s about human beings, especially about the young women who sacrificed their youth for the sake of the nation’s independence," he said at last.

Finally, she knew what he meant. He was glad that such a poorly educated young woman she could grasp the gist of the matter so quickly.

"Another person should have been dispatched to this place instead of you," she remarked jokingly.

"I think so, too. However, our organisation was poorly staffed. As for its female members, they don’t want be away from home for a long time," he confessed.

The whole afternoon, she let him know the real situation in her community. He was attracted to her. He took notes on three full pages. This commune of Kim La turned out to be rather special and was a locality indispensable for his study. Formerly, it had been part of the adjacent commune of Kim Anh. In the late 80’s of the previous century, both of the State farms in the region had been dissolved. Their land was classified into two types: one for the farmers’ residence and the other for cultivation. Consequently, a new commune was formed. That was an ordinary issue. Oddly enough, most of the farmers were female. They belonged to the units of young volunteers coming from the newly liberated areas in the South. The fact that the women were single was the talk of the town among the press. A symposium was conducted to find a way out for them to be married. But it all seemed to be in vain. Few of them were eligible for marriage.

"Why didn’t they return home after the war?" Huan asked her.

"Many did come home, but they were ineligible for marriage due to their age. What’s more, becoming a State employee was then a great attraction to them," she replied.

"So, all their efforts have come to nothing!"

"Right. How can we solve it? Nevertheless, everything has been smooth sailing here, you see. We have obtained the title of Cultural Commune. Moreover, half of us are either married or unlawful wives or have children out of wedlock without being criticised," she went on.

"Were you a volunteer too?" he asked her.

"Quite right. In our commune, 85 per cent of households were previously the members of different volunteer groups, of which females made up 70 per cent. As for me, don’t take pity on me, for I’m married with a husband and children and we’ve been leading a happy life," she concluded.

It was getting darker and darker. She reluctantly invited him to come to her house for a rest. He willingly accepted her proposal.

At dinner, there were only four people: her mother of about 80, a 12-year-old girl, the chairwoman and Huan, of course.

"The kid’s my niece, who came here to help us with our housework. My husband’s a serviceman whose unit has been stationed very far from here. We haven’t got any children because we’re a newly married couple," she told him.

***

In the mountainous region, nightfall came early. Here it was darker and was in no way cooler than in the lowlands. Bringing a stool with him to the courtyard, he sat down and observed the sky with countless stars, which looked like a cobweb at dawn in a foggy day. All of a sudden, melancholy surged up in him when he remembered that sad stanza. The chairwoman’s bungalow was fairly strong, with a flat roof and a veranda jutting out a bit, typical of the dwelling-house in the plain of Ha Bac Province. He felt rather sorry, although his trip was going much better than he had expected.

What he would do the next day would be to reach the other two hamlets to visit a few more clans and talk to some of their residents. After that, his fit of excitement would soon be over; so would his romantic idea and that stanza would soon be forgotten. That meant that everything would be over, like the rain or the sunshine. For him, he would resume his tedious and monotonous work in the capital city.

He slept on the wooden sofa covered with a spongy mattress in the drawing room, although the hostess insisted on his passing the night in her bedroom. Meanwhile, the old woman and the little girl slept in the inner bay. At first he thought that he would soon sleep soundly after a weary working day, but in fact he stayed up late, tossing and turning on the sofa and listening to the sound of her fidgets in her bedroom for hours. Then finally, thanks to the tranquillity of the night, he soon fell asleep. In his dream, he saw a bevy of pretty girls swimming in the stream after taking off their military uniforms. Then suddenly they wept silently and rushed out of the water into the forest with nothing on. They both ran and cried wildly like mad people. Eventually, they all entered his small house in Ha Noi, surrounding him to ask for something. They all wept, and so did Huan.

***

At 3 o’clock the next day, after saying goodbye to all the helpers in the commune, he was taken to the district capital, by order of the chairwoman of course, so that he could catch the coach back to Ha Noi.

This young local, with a shirt of the Tay ethnic minority’s style, an inhabitant of the Son Tay-Ba Vi area perhaps, was cheerful and open-hearted.

"Thank you for coming to our commune," he said with a broad smile. "This time the population of our commune might be increased a bit," he added.

"What do you mean? I don’t get you!" Huan said.

"Last night you slept with the chairwoman, didn’t you?"

"What an idiot! She’s already married."

"Who told you that?"

"The chairwoman, of course! Her husband’s been away from home to do his military service."

"What a pity for you!" he observed in a low voice, laughing. "And for her as well! She’s superb. She stays single because she can’t find a suitable candidate. As a haughty young woman, she’s turned down all proposals in marriage. "Nevertheless, when she saw you, she surely fell in love with you. If worst comes to worst, she’ll have a baby of urban stock, without marriage of course," he added.

Huan reprimanded the boy severely.

***

Less than a month later, he went back to Kim La Commune again for his own business, not as a sociological researcher at all. This time he went straight into the chairwoman’s compound with a little hesitation. He had thought and thought a lot about this ill-fated but attractive young woman. Sometimes, he had asked himself if he, at the age of nearly fifty, had fallen in love with her. As an experienced man, he did not want to shoulder a familial burden. "Out of selfishness? No, far from it," he had said to himself. "Why am I unable to love her and take her as a wife? She’s still young, good-looking, intelligent and delicate too. What else would I expect from her?" he often asked himself. "Am I really incompetent? How can she, a semi-illiterate, live with me in the metropolis under the eyes of my friends and my small circle of intelligentsia? Can she be my girlfriend, or more than that – would she bear me a love child? No, no, she’s not that kind of girl. What’ll I do for her?" A lot of questions appeared in his mind.

How they had met and what they had talked to each other about during that rendezvous, God knew! What was certain was that within half a year he visited Kim La four more times. Consequently, she was now preparing for her trip to the capital, partly on business and partly to visit him.

Over the past week, she had busied herself with the upcoming journey. Although this was by no means the first time she had ever been to Ha Noi, she was very eager.

She would only drop in on him for a short while, then she would return to her native place. So far, she had shown great respect for urban intellectuals, well-educated and elegant. Now such a respectful person had been available to her. He was divorced and lived alone. What’s more, he loved and honoured her. She would have a husband and a baby, a legitimate child of course, and live in one of the major urban centres of the country. She would take care of them devotedly and enjoy a happy life.

After numerous reckonings, she went to Doc Village of the minority people, about twenty kilometres away, in order to get a large piece of cloth with bright colour for his shirt and a brocade piece for his spectacles.

***

When her coach reached the coach terminal in the capital, she found him already present in the lounge waiting for her. Sitting behind him on his expensive motorbike, she felt rather clumsy with her palm-leaf conical hat in one hand, a bulky cage containing two fat hens in the other and a handbag on her shoulder. He took her through many high streets in the metropolis and finally reached the destination: his small house on Hang Chuoi Street.

An afternoon passed by peacefully. While she was preparing dinner in the kitchen, she felt very glad for having made it much tidier, although it was well-furnished with modern kitchen utensils.

At dinner, he opened a bottle of red wine and poured it into two long-stemmed glasses.

"Let’s drink for our fraternity, your happiness and mine as well," he said to her.

They drank lots of wine together. Her face and neck turned rosy due to the wine and happiness. In soft voices, they timidly exchanged small talk and amorous looks. She felt as if an electric current was running all over her body when he kissed her on the lips. Then he lifted up her trembling body and carried it to the bed, where he clumsily unbuttoned her blouse.

"What’s that?" She asked surprisingly when she saw him taking a small and thin plastic thing out of the pillow-case.

"The condom. It’s for safe sex," he answered.

"No, no! Don’t use it, dear."

Suddenly, she burst out sobbing. After hesitating for a few seconds, he cast it down onto the floor. He lay supine on the bed, totally naked as she was. Profusely crying, she turned her face towards the wall.

"Forgive me! I do love you very much. I only…" he stammered, caressing her body lovingly and slowly.

***

She insisted on leaving. Reluctantly, he took her to the coach station by motorbike. "Forgive me." he reiterated. Nevertheless, she did not hear his apology partly because of the traffic noise and partly due to the fact that her dream of having a baby did not come true. On her side hung the brocade handbag recently bought at her district capital in the mountainous region, inside which lay the piece of cloth and the well-embroidered holder for a pair of spectacles.

The next morning, with a weary countenance due to a sleepless night, he went to Kim La again. The chairwoman was not at home. He waited and waited, but she had not returned yet.

The stanza returned to his mind again. It sounded rather sad. The house that he was sitting in seemed sad too, and so did the cold wind in the mountainous region. She did not know that short poem, perhaps; but surely, she frequently felt sorry for her unlucky destiny. He took pity on her and on himself as well. "I’ll stay here until she returns," he said to himself. In his heart of hearts, he knew that she would come home to him. The fact was that she was temporarily hiding somewhere, very close to her dwelling-place, to test his power of endurance and patience.

 (Translated by VAN MINH)

 

                                        INSOMNIA

Like many other old people, Mr Dung became an insomniac after he retired. He had worked for several decades with the city’s mother and child care committee – work that wasn’t overwhelming, but not terribly interesting either.

On one such sleepless night, at around midnight, he suddenly heard his black dog barking. Yes, the dog often barked aimlessly, but this time, its warning told him that there was something very wrong. After fifteen or twenty minutes the dog barked again. He heard the animal charging against the gate door as if it was defending the house. In response, Mr Ban’s shepherd dog also started barking fiercely.

Mr Dung went out onto the balcony and looked down to see two young guys riding bicycles toward Mr Hoach’s house. Since the road stopped there, they turned around and started riding back. The dogs continued barking for some time before losing interest. Lights were on in some houses, but he couldn’t see anyone out in the lane. Mr Dung looked around once more and found no more movements, so he retreated into his house.

A moment later, the dogs started up again. ‘Probably those two guys returning. Let it be, my house has nothing for them, and besides, my dog will not let them in,’ he thought. His dog began charging against the iron gate. He intended to get up to inspect, but didn’t do so until he heard the cries of a girl. It seemed to be the voice of Mr and Mrs Chau’s daughter, Hong, who lived in between him and Mr Hoach.

"Thief! Stop thief!" he heard his neighbors scream. Everyone slowly opened their gates and walked out to the narrow street with their dogs.

By then the perpetrators had disappeared. Mr Chau’s house gate was opened wide and his daughter Hong, about thirteen or fourteen, was lying on the steps, wet with blood. She was stabbed in the belly. She had been home alone for three days now, while her parents who work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were on holiday at Cua Lo resort. She could not go with them because she had to take part in the city’s contest for excellent students of computer science.

Guilt settled on the community like a wet blanket. When the culprits were arrested, the neighbours found out Hong had been crying for help for a long time with no rescuer. Her life ended trying to defend the laptop her father just gave her. Even though the criminals were found and sentenced, it gave the neighbourhood no relief.

***

Mr Dung felt it the worst. Like other people, when the police asked him why he did not cut in on what was happening, he said it was quite normal to hear the dogs barking. He knew that he was lying shamelessly. He could have gone to the balcony for a second time – even a third time – when he heard the dog barking, and when he saw those two thugs, he should have threatened them or woken up all the neighbours. Maybe then Hong would still be alive.

His neighbour Mr Ban said: "If I had released my dog, those two thugs would have had a short ride to hell!" But this man didn’t act either. No one had.

The more he thought about it, the sadder Mr Dung had become. He was surely in part to blame for the death of the little girl. He even made up his mind to go and confess at the police office that he himself and his neighbours had to be held responsible for the girl’s death because they were the criminals as well. But no laws condemn those people who had not saved others out of cowardice – no laws but one’s own conscience. His mind gnawed at him. He even worked for decades in the mother and child care agency! After all his time there, he had not protected anyone. His name was Huu Dung, meaning usefulness, but in reality he felt anything but useful.

After being struck so badly by their daughter’s death, Mr Chau and his wife were allowed to work at the Vietnamese Embassy in an African country, leaving their empty house and his neighbours behind.

***

Mr Dung’s insomnia had become more serious. He started to visit the doctor and took assorted medicines his wife bought for him.

Even though the criminals had been caught (a hopeful deterrence against other criminals), the dogs continued their noises, this time with light howls instead of vicious barks, almost as if they were the ones scared. Mr Hoach’s Japanese lapdog next door also howled. He went outside every time it happened, but saw nothing.

Now his black dog was barking again, or to be more exact, it was whining. He looked at the watch. Three o’clock in the morning. It was dark and cold outside. No sound was heard around. He got up and tiptoed, but not to the balcony, this time only to the window to look outside. Not a soul was seen out there on the lane. He had no idea what his black dog continued to whine about.

He put on some more clothes and walked in silence downstairs. After quietly opening the door and the gate, he walked out onto the lane with a stick in his hand just in case. His dog, watching intently, was waging its tail non stop while walking in front of him. Its ears drooped and its head lowered close to the ground. He felt more reassured with the animal by his side. It was pitch dark and humid outside. It was strangely silent all around.

All of a sudden, he saw a dim silhouette in front of him. He intended to shout to wake up the neighbourhood, but he thought he possibly saw it by mistake, so he waited. The small white silhouette was standing before Mr Chau’s house, only about 10 metres away from where he was standing. Was it a thief? He cleared his throat to attempt to scare the person away, but that person didn’t move. It couldn’t be a thief then, so who was it?

"Who’s there?" he asked loudly and then walked closer. His black dog was following him and letting out some intimidating barks. The shadow was still standing firm. When he was close to it, he saw it was the teenager. She was standing against the fence, her two arms embracing something.

"Oh, God! Are you Hong?" he asked softly, forgetting that the little girl had died two months ago.

The shadow nodded and said nothing. Mr Dung looked carefully at it and saw that it was Hong. In the dim light he saw tears coming out of her two large eyes as they peered at him.

"Oh, God!" he cried again in panic upon seeing the girl with her own intestines in her hands. She was silent, looking down at her opened stomach and then at him with an imploring look. The black dog stopped whining. It was running frantically around him and around the ghost. Mr Dung stood motionless and confused for a long time. In the end he sat down and gently took the little girl’s intestines wet with blood and put them back into her belly. He did it slowly and cautiously like a doctor and with a strange calmness. His hands didn’t tremble at all.

"Do try to bear it, dear little girl! I’m going to finish now. You’re a good girl! Yes, very good!" he said, trying to soothe her as he had done with his granddaughter when he coaxed her to take vitamins.

The little girl shivered in pain as he finished patching up her wound. He pulled her trousers on and buttoned her shirt and then he raised his eyes as if asking: "How do you feel now? Better?" The little girl nodded her head, looking at him and at the black dog as she slowly vanished into the humid morning mist.

Mr Dung tried to understand what just happened. Was it true or only a dream? He dreamt about such awful things lately that he had to consider the possibility that the whole night may not be real.

Ever since that mysterious night, when the early morning broke, his black dog was silent. The old man would get up and walk around the neighbourhood to see if everything was all right. But Hong’s ghost no longer appeared in the lane, and he could finally get a good night of sleep.

 (Translated by MANH CHUONG)

COLD SNOW

 (Written in English)

                                                  1

‘Going this time to America’, you should try hard to see her!’ my mother said again and again. ‘Poor old woman’.

‘But how can I do that? America is very large. You think it is as small as our Vinh Loc village?’ I replied, and not for the first time. I felt both annoyed and funny as my mother wouldn’t understand that simple thing. ‘She is there with her own son. That is good for them and I don’t see any reasons you should be sorry for her so much’

My mother made a deep sigh, slowly spit into a brass spittoon a red betel residue that she had been chewing maybe for more than one hour now.

‘You, young and modern people living in town, how can you know what old folks feel?’

That ‘poor old woman’ is  Old Mat, or Old Honey, seventy four years of age and a close friend of my mother since they were still young girls. They had been next-door neighbors for decades, and now one is far away. Little wonder why my mother was missing Old Honey so badly. I did understand her feeling and wanted to meet Old Honey so that later I could have something to tell her about her friend. But it wasn’t easy at all, in deed. Just before going to my home country, I was told I would be a member of a Vietnamese writers’ group to visit the US soon. But exactly what places we would go to and how long – I wasn’t sure yet. However, knowing well the oddities of old people’s character, I reluctantly took an envelope with Old Honey son’s address on it that he once sent to his relatives in our village. I promised my mother I would ‘try hard’ to find Old Honey for her, if possible. But I decisively refused to bring her a small bag of dried areca and green betel leaves as I know the chance of meeting her somewhere in that vast and faraway America was very slim, if not to say none at all.

                                                  2

The story of Old Honey going to America once stirred up our quiet village. It happened like this. All of a sudden, her son, together with his American wife, whose skin was very white and hair very fair, and their four-year-old son, came home to visit Old Honey, saying this time he would take her to America and live there forever! Since then, day and night villagers kept on coming to her house, mostly out of curiosity, that is, just to see what Americans are. They were not only surprised to see Hoa (Old Honey son’s name,) a once dark skinned, bony young lad of a poor fishing village, rarely had any clothes on, now has become a quite respectable man in well tailored suit and necktie, very healthy, even with rosy cheeks and a thin moustache.They were also pleasantly surprised to hear his wife, ‘the western lady’ speak Vietnamese and even cited by heart a few lines from KIEU (The greatest poetic work of Vietnamese literature, by Nguyen Du, 19^th century). In addition, the lady turned out to be simple, very sociable, smiled a lot, and, what is more, she said hello almost to anyone she met. Their son, a half-Vietnamese, half-American boy, the next day was seen playing glass balls with bare footed children of poor villagers. Americans, they found, were as easy-going as they themselves were. And Hoa didn’t seem to put much on air like many other overseas Vietnamese when they came back to see their homes. Apart from new appearance, Hoa remained what he was long before – open hearted, attentive, dutiful, a loving son, and always showed due respect to the elderly.

‘How lucky you are!’ the villagers told Old Honey. ‘Just imagine! Go and live in America!’

Old Honey didn’t say anything. She even showed no reaction to these exciting words. Her husband died shortly after Hoa was born, and she remained single since to raised her only child. Like others in the village, she did the farm work. When there was nothing more to do in the fields, she and my mother went to the Hom market a few miles away to sell their homegrown things, such as betel leaves, areca, vegetables, chicken eggs and other worthless stuffs. She managed to send her son to school. An illiterate widow, she couldn’t help him in learning, but he did well and finished his high school with good results. He tried to enter a university twice but failed. As the only son to support an ailing mother, Hoa was not called to the regular army, but instead, stayed at home as a member of a coast patrolling militia group on duty only at night. In the daytime he went fishing in the sea with his fishing co-operative fellows. When the co-operative was disbanded for inefficiency, he and two other young men like him saved money and bought a small boat of their own.

Once, in 1979, when nearly 30 and still unmarried Hoa and his two fellow fishers went to the sea as usual, but their boat was capsized by a sudden storm and none of them ever came back. They were all believed to have died. Old Honey cried bitterly for months fell very sick, but by wonder she survived the tragedy. After that, a distant niece from the paternal side, who was slightly dotty, unmarried in her mid thirties, moved to live with Old Honey. Though mentally underdeveloped, this niece of her was a good girl and loved to work, and they managed to make ends meet. Old Honey still took from the agricultural co-operative one and a half sao (one sao is about 490 square meters) of land to grow rice on a contract basis. She always had a lot of chickens wandering around the house and a couple of pigs in the stable. On free days she kept on going to the Hom market with her best friend, my mother.

And yet, one year later, she received a letter from her son, from America but not somewhere else! It turned out that in that terrible day Hoa was lucky enough to find and keep hold of a plank from the wrecked boat. He was carried away by stormy waves far into the open sea for two days and nights until he was picked up by a pass by foreign ship, nearly fainted because of hunger and thirst, and taken to refugee camp on some island of Malaysia. He stayed there for a few months and was resettled in the United States like many others. His letter was laconic, first asking whether his two fellow fishers survived, then telling his mother he had received social benefits from the American government and earned some extra money by washing dishes  for a Vietnamese owned restaurant in the daytime and learning both English and knowledge in the evening in hope of entering a big university there, whose scholarship he thought he would be given soon. Since then he sent her regular letters, sometimes with money. Six years later he told her he had finished that big university, found a good job, and a few years more – got married, had a child, bought a car and even a small house... And now, twelve years after his boat was broken into pieces in the high sea, he returned home for the first time to see his mother and, as villagers rumored, ‘take her there to live with his family’...

‘And how about Sau?’ Old Honey asked. Sau was the name of the niece who had been living with her so long a time.

‘Well, she will return to where she came from, or, if she wants, she may stay here, in this house. I will send money to help her from time to time’.

‘And the two pigs and chickens?’

‘Are you going to take them to America, mother?’ the son laughed.

The American boy, then playing something nearby, cried cheerfully in a heavily accented Vietnamese: ‘Take them there! Take them there!’

‘How about one and a half sao of land. And the pond of water ferns?’

‘Take it together with us! Take it!’ the boy cried again.  Old Honey kept silent for a long time. She couldn’t say anything because she didn’t know what to think and what to do. Sure, she was glad she could finally see her son safe and sound again. She was also glad for her daughter-in-law and grandson, though they seemed somehow strange to her and she was even a little afraid of them. She would like to live with her own son, to have a look at that country of America people talked of so much. But on the other hand, she did know well she could never leave behind this land, this poor village she had been tied to for the whole of her long and hard life. What would happen to Sau without her, when she falls into a fit of epilepsy again? Who knows better than herself how to take care of the pigs, the chickens, and when to pick up the water ferns that she knows every plant of them? Furthermore, how would she live there? Is it possible she will die somewhere so faraway and will not be buried next to her husband’ grave?

Old Honey shared all these worries with my mother and asked her what she should do.

‘You may asked your son and his wife to stay here’, my mother said.’ Then you all can live together and go on farming, raising your animals. You and I can go to the market together again’.

Old Honey said nothing, probably thinking her old friend was right. That night she sounded her son out about that, though she knew it would be difficult for him to accept.

‘Oh, mother! How can I stay here? Even if I want, the government, the Vietnamese government wouldn’t allow me to’.

She didn’t think the government would refuse her son the right to live with his mother in his own country. That was only an excuse for him not to live with her. So, she kept silent and never touched this subject again. Since then, she purposelessly wandered around the house, from the kitchen to the animals stable, from there to the garden and back. She sometimes even went far to the rice fields, not knowing exactly what she wanted to do. She looked puzzled and very sad, with loose black trousers, a worn out brown shirt and a shawl of the same color on the head. Her skin was wrinkled up and as dark as the soil she was treading on. In the twilight she seemed to have disappeared into the surrounding landscape.

A few weeks later, however, she left her native village for America with her son, taking with her only some old clothes and the brass pot to keep betel and areca. Her niece remained to live in her house to take care of the animals and one and a half sao of newly planted autumn-winter paddy rice. The whole village was happy for her except a few, my mother included, who didn’t say anything but felt sorry, even worried for her.

Yes, that is the story of our Old Honey going to live in America five years ago. And now my mother assigned me the almost impossible task to find her old friend ‘there’, a place I have never been to and know very little about through the official media.

3

During my month-long stay in the US, visiting six of its greatest cities, I had a chance to be in Chicago, where Old Honey had been living with her son’s family. On an old envelope my mother gave me back in Vietnam, I could read: ‘Chicago 2180, Lakeside drive 375-20, state of Illinois, USA’. But this address was five years old, on the letter Hoa sent his mother informing his intention to take her to America. People here are said to change their homes quite often, so I wasn’t very sure that I could find them.

A few days were left till Christmas. It was very cold then in Chicago. Strong wind was blowing all the time from the Michigan Lake side. This modern and huge industrial center of the United States looked just like a jungle of concrete and glass skyscrapers. Sitting in a taxi on the way to the place mentioned on the envelope, I unsuccessfully tried to imagine how an old poor peasant from our village could live here, leave alone mingling with this cold and gray stone jungle.

Now I was standing at the door of the apartment I had been looking for. It was on the 25^th floor of a residential high-rise. In the US, this alone is enough to know its tenants are not well off, if not to say poor, because richer people would live in one or two story houses further from the downtown. At least I was told so.

I pressed the button and began to wait. No one answered the ring. I intentionally stood opposite the small eye on the door so that people inside could see me. Another attempt – nothing happened. Experiences have taught me to be patient. A few years ago poet Pham Ho an I made hundreds of miles from Athens to Thessaloniki, Greece, to see an old friend, who was a Greek serving in the French Legions and then defected to the revolutionary resistance ranks. We then also pressed the doorbell like this, waited for a while and left, quite sure the host wasn’t at home. But one year later when we met again in Hanoi, the Greek friend told us that at that time he was sleeping, and as he was old to get ready quickly, when he came out to answer the door, he could see no one, but his neighbor, who told him two Vietnamese men had just been there. However, this time I had waited long enough to be sure there was nobody inside. The possibility of wrong address was excluded as the metal plate on the door clearly said this was the apartment of the Nguyen, Robert and Mary. Robert Nguyen is Nguyen Van Hoa from our fishing village. He once told me he had to change his name to be common and more convenient for communication here.

As I was about to leave, very much disappointed, the next door opened and an old lady with a huge brown bulldog went out. Probably now it was the time for her to take the favorite pet for the regular daily walk. We smiled at each other. I said hello to her, introduced myself and told her what I wanted.

‘She is at home!’ the old lady said.

‘But nobody answered the door’

‘It is natural. She never answered the door. She doesn’t know the language. And she doesn’t have the key either’

Seeing I was a little puzzled, the good-natured neighbor went on: ‘The boy is at school now. Robert and Mary at work at this time of the day, and they always take the key with them, simply because she doesn’t need and doesn’t know how to use them. So, actually she is locked in all the day. Poor old woman. Come again in the evening. You are sure to meet them all’.

The old lady seemed to be helpful and open- hearted. I joined her walk for a while to know more about Old Honey to tell my mother later. She told me Hoa now worked for a small online company while his wife, with a decent knowledge of Vietnamese and Eastern cultures, worked at a university of Chicago. Financially, they are OK, like many others in the building. The apartment was not rented but bought on installment payment. So were their two cars. Their son, Tom, a third grade student stayed at school till his parents came and picked him up after work.

‘How does the old Vietnamese woman feel like living here?’ I inquired.

‘We are good neighbors with the Nguyen, but only come to each other’s home on special occasions, so in deed I don’t know much to tell you. Robert’s mother doesn’t seem to leave her own room very often. I saw her only a few times in recent years, when she was brought out to introduce to us.. And no one has ever seen her out in the street. Anyway, I should say both Nguyen and his wife love and take good care of her.

I thanked again the kind lady, said a few words more about the city, the weather, praised her fearsome dog and parted with her, very much pleased that now I had enough necessary information about Old Honey. I thought the difficult task my mother had entrusted me was basically fulfilled, and even if I couldn’t come back here, there would be no reasons for me to blame myself.

                                                  4

But I came back that evening though rather late, at nine o’clock or so, as we had to attend a meeting with students organized for us at a Chicago university.

Almost immediately after the doorbell rang, Hoa, or Robert Nguyen as he was called here, came out. He recognized me at once and heartedly took me to a sitting room covered with a thick carpet. He wouldn’t allow me to take of my shoes, still wet and dirty with snow. We used to be good friends since the two led water buffaloes to graze grass in the rice fields till we grew up and I went away to do my studies. After that we met a few times more before and even after he was ‘missing’. Hoa hurriedly called his wife out to greet the unexpected guest. Of course we talked in Vietnamese. To my surprise, he still spoke with the heavy local accent, sometimes using the dialect typical only for our native district of Dien Chau. His wife spoke with he southern accent – apparently her Vietnamese teachers were people from the Mekong river Delta. But their son’s language was a mixture of his parents’. He politely said hello to me and went back to his room to go on with the homework.

After a while, Mary stood up, saying she should prepare something for us to drink and eat, leaving Hoa and me alone. We recalled our childhood, told each other about ourselves. I briefly informed him about changes in our village and the country as well.

‘Coming home from work this afternoon, our neighbor said a gentleman from Hanoi was here and wanted to see my mother. I tried hard to guess who he may be, but couldn’t. It turned out to be you. Who would think some day we could meet like this, eh?’ Hoa said and made a gesture of surprise.

‘Where is you mother, Old Honey?’ I asked, wondering why he didn’t mention her so far.

‘Here, she is here with us and in good health!’ He said hurriedly. ‘She is in her room now. But recently she began to be in her dotage, possibly the result of the old age. She hardly says anything, and even she wants, there won’t be many for her to talk with. I am very busy, you know, and out of home most of the time. So, from day to day, she is sitting in the same place, nearly motionless, looking out at something invisible and thinking about only God knows what. Please come in and see her. Sure, she will be very glad to meet you. Tell her everything you know about our village. She seems to miss it badly’.

I followed Hoa to the next room.

It was a rather big one. Everything in it was white. The walls, the ceiling, the curtains, the neatly covered huge bed with a thick blanket and a big pillow, the wardrobe and even the lamp cover – all were very clean and as white as snow that was falling outside. The large, deep sofa where a small old woman was sitting was white too. When we came in, she didn’t seem to notice us and was absentmindedly looking through a window not covered by curtains. Big flakes of wet falling snow were clearly seen under the bright light of street lamps.

‘Mother, here is Mr. Tan, who came from Vietnam to see you’, Hoa said loudly. ‘Mr Tan, the eldest son of old Mrs Hoat in our village. She used to go to the Hom market with you. Do you remember now?’

Old Honey turned her blank eyes to me. She was apparently still deep in her thoughts and hadn’t recognized me yet. Even if she had, she couldn’t believe it was true.

Hoa put a stool next to his mother for me and lowered his voice: ‘She is always like this, with her mind somewhere far, far away. Now I leave two alone, OK?’

I sat down, took her bony, dark-skinned hands into mine.

‘Old Honey, how are you? Don’t you remember me? I am the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Hoat. You know, I was your son’s friend when we were small. But then I was sent to study in the Soviet Union... Do you remember once you beat me hard when I stole guava in your garden? My mother asked me to come and see you...’

Old Honey stared at me. Her small hands were slightly trembling. Tears were welling in her eyes, but she said nothing.

‘Are you in good health? My mother often talked about you’

‘Your mother still remembers me? Our villagers still remember me, so you said?’ finally she said, very slowly.

‘Yes, yes, they do. Everyone remembers you and is glad that you now live here happily with your son. You know, our village is quite different now. Much better and no longer so poor. Lots of new things...’

I began to tell her about great changes in the village: people began to enjoy electricity supply from the national grid three years ago; many households now have tivi, motorbikes, and the commune leadership even has a telephone, which, if needed, can help our villagers talk directly to anyone anywhere in the world, and to you, Old Honey, too! In addition, an asphalt road was built, running across the village, as big and smooth as those in the district township. There are a lot of cars on it, not just carts or small tractors. I also informed her who of the old villagers had died, whose children got married and so on.

‘You said all people in the village now have enough food to eat?’ Old Honey unbelievingly asked.

‘Yes. Absolutely no one now has to go to bed with empty stomach as before’ I said proudly.  ‘You know, people now eat only rice, white rice, and no longer mixed with sweat potato or cassava’.

‘And three times a day?’

‘Yes, three times’.

Old Honey kept silent, visibly not believing what she had heard.

‘The people of Mr. Thiu’s family too? And those of Old Chuyen?’

‘Yes, that is right. Dung, the second eldest son of Mr. Thiu even managed to buy a small tractor, and now he is hired to turn up the rice field soil for the whole village. As for Old Chuyen, he died last year, at 99, but the commune’s leadership reported to the higher levels that he had reached 100 years. Just to boast having the oldest man in the area, you know. So, the commune people’s committee chairman himself took all the responsibility of holding the burial rituals and gave money for them. It is said even a representative sent by the district authorities attended the ceremony and also left an envelope with five hundred thousand dongs... Do you know, Old Honey, Ru Than hill now has been leveled down and turned into a common cemetery for the whole village with each family tree having a separate lot. They are now trying to overwhelm each other by building beautiful stone walls around their lots, as well as ancestors’ altars and concrete graves in them. All the graves of the clan are gathered here and arranged in a strict order in accordance to the deceased seniority and merits. A good thing to do, isn’t it? Both convenient and pleasant to look at...’

‘How about Sau now? Does she often fall into fits of elepsy as before?’

‘I live in Hanoi and come home only occasionally. I don’t know much about that, but my mother said she is quite OK’.

‘And the couple of pigs?’

I didn’t know what to answer.

Again, Old Honey was absorbed in herself, pensively looking through the window. Outside, big flakes of snow kept on falling unhurriedly and slowly as the thoughts wandering in her mind.

‘My niece, Sau, is just a good-for-nothing girl. I wonder if she still knows that the tailless pig like taro most of all. There are lots of them in the pond. She may not know this and wastes money by buying sweat potato leaves in the market ...’ Old Honey said quietly, more to herself than to me.

Then, she slowly took from under the sofa a brass pot for beetles and a spittoon, also made of brass and looked dirty. Both are brought here from Vietnam. Unhurriedly, she picked up a betel leave from the pot, put some white, wet lime on it, and she put it into her mouth together with a piece of dried areca. She started chewing slowly and patiently.

‘My mother asked me to bring you some fresh betel and areca from our village but I didn’t take them, because I thought maybe I could not find you’, I said.

‘Thank you and your mother. No need. Here we have everything just like in Vietnam’.

Only by now did I notice that Old Honey still wore the black silk trousers, the faded brown shirt and the old velvet shawl she used to wear years before, just the same as old folks do now in our village. But for the whiteness of this clean room, the cold bliss of this multi-storey building and the white heavy snow of Chicago in these last days of the year, it was hard to imagine this old woman was thousands of miles away from her native land, in a country that may be affluent but sad and alien at the same time. A strange thought struck my mind, as if Old Honey had just come home from her rice planting work, and while she was chewing her betel and chatting with my mother as usual, an invisible powerful hand suddenly lifted her up as she was, and took her away from the greenness of her land, her own people and habits that had existed for generations, and forcibly, that hand brought her to this huge, gray and cold city with all the strange people around. She is like a taro, uprooted from a Vietnamese muddy pond and planted in a snow- covered field of a completely new country. And though well cared of, kept in a warm greenhouse, it is getting withered from day to day. Simply it is put in a wrong place.

‘America is a large and beautiful country. I suppose you often go here and there to see things that you can’t in our village’, I said.

‘No, for fives years now I have never been out from this apartment’.

When Hoa drove me back to hotel, I asked him why, he said maybe she was afraid- of what, he had no idea. When she first came here, to show her what America is, he took her to the roof of Sears Tower, the world’s tallest building. She looked down and nearly fainted. When getting down, as the elevator moved very fast, she even vomited into her hands. Since then she resolutely refused whenever her son offered to take her somewhere to see something.

‘Do you often miss your homeland?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to see our village again?’

She said nothing for a long time. Her eyes once more were welling with tears, blankly looking at the snowflakes that went on falling noiselessly and sadly outside. Again she was deep in her melancholic, endless thoughts. I was waiting patiently and asked no more questions.

Finally, very slowly and with great efforts, she got up from her big sofa. I made a gesture of helping her but she shook her head. Then, with the same slowness and efforts, she took off the faded brown shirt from her, put two already folded betel leaves with areca into its pockets, one in each. She slowly smoothed both the front and back parts of the shirt, as well as its two long sleeves, and carefully, very carefully wrapped it in an old newspaper. After that, she stopped for a while, as people stopped for rest after hard work, and tied it with a thick, quadruple, red woolen thread, making it look like a squarish sticky rice cake covered with white banana leaves. She did all that with a serious face, with every movement well considered as if dictated by a strict ritual. Finally, with both hands, she solemnly put the wrapped shirt into my hands. Now she couldn’t help crying, though silently. Big, rare drops of tears fell down on her old face until they entirely smudged in the deep wrinkles of her dark skin. I was very moved too, and waited what she would do next.

‘Please, tell your mother I love her and miss her badly. I love and miss everyone, the whole village. Now, after meeting you here, I think my mind can be at peace, and I can die without regretting anything. I know my life is being calculated day by day, and want it or not, I will have to die in this cold and strange place. I do beg you to take this thing home and bury it next to my husband’s grave in the new Ru Than cemetery as you said. Ask people to make me a grave, a real one, and as big as my husband’s. He will feel less lonely then, and...and me too...’

                                                            5

Snow was still falling and falling. It was already very late. Wide streets of Chicago seemed to be wider. Hoa silently sat behind the steering wheel and drove slowly as the roads were wet. I was in the back seat, holding tight Old Honey’s shirt in my arms. Both physically and mentally I felt it weighed hard on me, as if I were carrying the old woman through thousands of miles to fulfill her last wish to be buried in her native land.