Nợ trần gian

Debts on Earth

Nguyễn Bản

Translated by Nguyễn Trọng Long

(Bacninh 29 Oct 2012)

It lasted raining nonstop for a few days. All the lanes were so muddy. No one wanted to go out, even those who usually went to the neighbors’ for watching TV. Despite that, she tramped to Mận’s in the night rain with hat and raincoat. Mận’s son already slept after his homework. She came to Mận for crying. She got on Mận’s bed, to the inner side, curling up in foetal position crying. She must lie curled up because there was a clothes trunk at the end of the bed. She faced to the wall because she did not want to see anywhere. She wanted to see her innermost heart, listening to the rain. She said she missed her son so crazily and tomorrow she would leave in spite of the rain. She said that she came for saying goodbye to Mận because she herself did not know when they would possibly see each other again.  Although she had not gone yet, she felt like missing Mận, other villagers and the village. But she missed her sons much more. She must leave tomorrow, her sister in law made an appointment that she would wait for her in Dong Dang in two days at most, otherwise she would leave. Once she did not wait for her, she did not know where to go. In addition, she knew the Chinese language little, besides it was quite different in each area. Furthermore, she did not have much money. Everyone in her family; her parents, brothers and sisters, each gave her a little money; the total was nearly about five hundred thousand, equal to about three hundred yuan.  Fifty yuan she brought with was just spent nearly twenty on some candy as so-called presents for her parents, nieces and nephews. In China, there were abundantly a variety of commodities, big delicious fruits, and numerous tonics displaying everywhere. But she was poor, very poor and deep in debt. There was only more than one hundred yuan left, equal to nearly one hundred thousand Dong when she was about to return her home country. Her husband said:

    “If you take all the money. What will we live on?”

Therefore, she took only fifty yuan, her sister in law advanced her some money for bus fare and food during the journey. She was from Thai Nguyen, married four times: twice in Guangdong, once in Guangxi, and then became her sister in law. She returned with her in the trip. She had a lot of money. She returned to seduce other women to go to China. Her sister in law instigated her to cajole Mận. She had told her about Mận, she told that Mận had a fair complexion, was beautiful, tall, fleshy and younger than her. Her sister in law told that they could sell Mận for several ten thousand or at least ten thousand if meeting a generous man and being able to find her the partner immediately. And if the deal was successful, she even could pay her debt. At present, her family still had a debt of more than five thousand. Her husband borrowed three thousand to buy her, two thousand contributed to the burial rites for her mother in law. Tị sold her for the three thousand yuan of which three hundred yuan was paid for the matchmaker, five hundred VND was spent on a dutiful present to her parents when she left, other amount on bus fare to China, food for half a month and on fee for her asthma treatment, it made a total of four hundred yuan. The rest of about two thousand belonged to Tị. She did not know that right the time she left, Mận had taken her son back. It was nearly five years ago and her son was in 8^th form now.

Listening to her disordered story in tears, Mận boiled with silent anger and interrupted:

   “Damned it! It’s just like borrowing money to buy yourself for him.”

   “At first, I also thought the five hundred dong could be a little compensation for my parents’ bringing up. And now I had reluctantly received five hundred dong from my relatives. Is it really a shame upon myself?”

She sobbed bitterly.

Her village totally had five women married to Chinese. One induced another. Not only were the village poor but also there were many unfortunate fates. That time, Ti also seduced Mận. She manifested there were no too much riches and honors there but it was surely much better than life in the village. She brought with twenty million VND. No one knew the truth but Ti really presented two millions to her parents, one hundred thousand to brothers and sisters each and fifty thousand to nieces and nephews each.

She said as if a blame to Mận:

 “If you hadn’t left me for Buon Ma Thuot then, I wouldn’t have followed her there.”

“ How blameful you are! I went there with view to getting my son back home”. Mận fed back

Right, Mận went there to get her son back. When her husband took her son there, he lied he took him away for a short while to lessen his longing for his son, and then no information. Two years later, he returned with a divorce proposal. Mận cried bitterly. He said he unexpectedly had a baby with another woman somehow. He added he understood Mận’s manner and character; husband sharing as well as leaving her home country would never be acceptable. He told Mận he would bring the son up as he had better living conditions. And furthermore, it would not bother Mận with getting remarried to a new husband, either. But just one year later, he went bankrupt and was badly off; he agreed to let Mận take the son back. She sighed;

“Same  unfortunate fate. I ever thought you would agree to permanently live there with them after his sweet words and promises.  Life of common husband is rather popular in society nowadays. As my case, I wished I would be a concubine, but I even did not get it. That’s why I went with Ti after you had left.”

Her name was Delicious, tasty named after Sweet’s rhyme - her sister’s name. But she never tasted happiness. Her fate was so severe with her. She not only had dark suntanned complexion but also ugly appearance. In addition, she got squint eyed and asthma as well. But she was meek, kind-hearted and easygoing. Mận had kept close friendship with her from the ages of fourteen or fifteen. They together were ever people’s laborers to serve work of fire-line, pulling up pennywort along the dyke, plucking wild millets off for hunger resistance. Those years, all villagers mainly lived on rice, pennywort and wild millets, Mận ever worked up to four hundred workdays but she was not only paid any kg of rice but also lost forty kilograms. When Mận got married at the age of twenty, their friendship was a bit faded. Seven years later, when Buon Ma Thuot incident happened, night by night, Mận came to her house, lied crying together. The two –compartment house with second -class tiled roof which her father built for her at the corner of the garden that rain was leaked, it was wet all over the bed. They lied next to each other, listening to the sound of worms and crickets, complaining for their lots.

She confided that she just actually needed a child. She could stand poverty and misery but she could not stand being a woman without a child. She told that she only wished to be a mere concubine, but failed. Men gossiped that in Van Linh, many ugly girls on the shelf, if they wanted a child out of wedlock with a man would pay him a ring of gold, though, they could only get a fisherman along the ditches of paddy fields. In fact, one guy proposed her for his concubine. He looked healthy and tidy but he just returned from jail. He stole dogs and chickens many times; he was caught red-handed the last time. Even so, she still agreed, If he were not such a man, he would pay no attention to her. Her also mother agreed, and her brothers and sisters did, too. Her father alone did not agree. He shouted:

“You want your son in law to serve you chicken and dog meat, don’t you?”

Her father worked as half a scrap- brass dealer and half a pot repairer. He came to a nearby village the other day, repairing pots for her mother, who was a widower then. He finished his work at twilight. He had to ask her mother for dinner and helping him buy some wine.

“Why do you give me so much money?”

He held and pushed her hand;

“ Please keep it and buy me really delicious one.”

He drank so much that he could not walk, staggering and falling down on bed. It took him three times to ask her mother for buying wine. The fourth time, he took the widower and her own daughter who was  Sweet to his home. On arrival, she recognized that it turned out to be his concubine. But her mother got pregnant out of contemplation then. It was her now. There was no abortion as easily as today.

Her mother retorted:

“Don’t prove to be of too high dignity. It was just a scrap- brass, not a gem.”

Her father pounded on the table:

“Stuff- brass has its own value. After recycling, scrap-brass can be molded into a brass statue, bells for worship.”

“Prisoners could also become good men after improvement; a lot of prisoners have got social positions and tittles afterwards.”

“Humm, you want to teach your daughter the habit to get soon erotic sensation, don’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right. Because of the habit, we had followed you here to eat scrap-brass of your family.”

The mother sobbed and raised a hullabaloo in complaints of her destiny. The guy slipped away after hearing the story.

Mận frankly asked her.

“ Only to get a child, why didn’t you tell him openly? What the hell scared you?”

“But he is a serious man. He told that being his concubine or wife, a wedding must be held as the custom defined. When I sat with him at the dike some nights, he always kept me a distance. He was not a man with the habit of teasing females in a too familiar way as many others. Therefore, I was afraid he would despise me.”

She told that, a little later on, a retired physician from a nearby province wandered to her village to treat disease for people. He came to treat her asthma. He exposed her buttocks for an injection. Though she has a dark complexion but her buttocks were quite fair. After having injected, he squeezed and rubbed for a long time, to prevent from inflammatory, he said

In the evening, he had dinner at her house and put up for the night. Just before dawn, she woke up cooking mash for pigs in the kitchen; he groped in with reasons to warm himself because it was too cold to sleep. Then he pressed her lay supine on the ground, she allowed him without any reaction. She had been waiting for this for ages but there was no result that time. Besides, he already went home. He sent words to her that she should come to his house if she wanted to completely get over her asthma. She thought of it a lots,  other women had to pay a ring of gold but only for fishermen along the ditches of paddy fields. This man was truly a physician. She made up her mind to come to his village, asking for the way to his home. One villager asked her:

“What the physician?  There isn’t any physician in this village. Oh, that sacked nurse, wasn’t he? His house is at the end of the hamlet.”

She smacked the lips, let it be, still much better than the prisoner. Having passed tens of kilometers to come here, there is no reason to come back with nothing.

But his wife was so sharp. At night, he got up for a pee, his wife did, too. He pretended to get up for smoking; she also pretended to be thirsty. She could get nothing for over a week, she resigned herself to going home.

She told Mận:

  “I am so ugly, if I were similar to you, lots of men must be itching for me.”

It was true that many lusted for Mận. One whose wife gave birth to only daughters, another had sons and daughters but his wife with white eyes and dark lips. Some others groped their way to find her from remote places: A fisher, a motorbike- taxi driver, a tailor, and welder. Mận just smiled and told:

“ Please get divorced with your wife before coming with me.”

“ But I will keep you separately; you can live in your house in your village if you want.

Mận pursed her lips:

“Keep your precious thing for yourself, My family have no tradition of common husband...”

Mận casted out a dozen of men but in her heart, it was not the fact that deep in her heart she did not yearn for it. Visiting any other families, witnessing that husbands and wives caress each other, Mận was so thirsty for it. Mận also wished to find someone. But who and how would he be like? Mận was now in her thirty, and was a woman on the shelf. Mận was also poor just like her. Who would accept to get married to Mận? Mận could not imagine that man. Many times, Mận would like to throw herself where it would like to be, leaving her destiny to any chances. Several times, she acted as a mad woman. The two women lied crying, Mận suddenly sat up and played mad Suy Van – a character of a play: “Suy Van pretended to be mad” before her. Then she imitated a woman bewailing her husband: “my dear, why could you have heart to leave your wife and children behind and go alone that way? Where is your soul wandering now?” Mận really cried bitterly. Then again, the two women cried together. Mận missed her child crazily. Later on, Mận wrote a letter to him. He agreed that Mận could take her child home. After that, Mận went to Buon Ma Thuoc and she went to China with Ti.

Now Mận lived confidently with her son. He was in his 8^th form. He was sleeping so deeply that he could not hear what the two women were talking. She asked:

“ Rumor has it that it costs lots for children to go to school. There are too many kinds of fees, aren’t they?”

“Yes, it costs quite lots. It terrifies me.”

“So how can you manage? How can you afford it with depending on only rice planting?”

“ I have to do all different extra jobs. In winter and spring, go to fish market for trading. In summer, go everywhere for selling bed-planks. In autumn, selling tea. It was so disgraceful of myself in some cases to earn about five or three thousand, even tens of thousands VND.”

Mận told about selling tea. After buying, one guy fondled her cheeks: “what a beautiful woman!” The other held her hand: “don’t forget to come next month”. one blunter guy suddenly grabbed her breast, another made a try with a great amount of tea, then criticized of bad quality and did not buy any. Mận frankly fed back: one hundred gram of tea could make only five or six teapots, your try cost me five hundred VND. He threw back five hundred to save his face.

“ I put it in my pocket bluntly. Damned it, it costs as much as a half of my son’s notebook..

“ Selling bed-plank is much better, isn’t it?”

“ Better but more disgraceful, I sometimes feel like eating myself.”

Mận told, once she cycled nearly seventy kilometers to Dong Trieu coal mine where she could sell only one bed-plank. Luckily, she could put up the night and ate at Mrs. Thinh’ who was from the same home country; otherwise the profit was not enough to put up at an inn for the night and for food . The next day, she left early for Sao Do farm, Chi Linh district, she had to accept the reduced price for the last three pieces there other than bringing them back home. Once, she cycled to a mountainous alley, one baby-faced guy asked to buy, Mận gave a price for fifty thousand VND. He replied: “no more, I only pay thirty five thousand, if ok, give it a try of installing, then we will try lying together”. Mận intended to throw an acrimonious reply: “If try, I will try with your dad, not with you”. But It was a deserted alley, she was afraid of being beaten, she resigned herself to leaving there, cursing in whisper. Another time, one guy just required a ten thousand reduction for two pieces. He took her to his home, cutting them shorter to fit his bed, after complete installation, he asked her to sell him on credit, he would pay next month. Mận intended to remove and roll them back but he tried to pull about and he said he would pay a monthly interest of 5 %. Luckily, an old woman called after the gate, it turned out that the gate was already closed on purpose at some uncertain time. On leaving his house with the old woman, she was told: It’s really lucky for you; otherwise, you will fall it hook, line and sinker. He is the most caddish and cheating one in this village.

“It turns out that you are so miserable.”

“Just for my kid.”

She was just for her children, too. She had two sons. She had met her wish of motherhood. But she was much more miserable than Mận. She told in tears. It took her two days on the coach to arrive Ti’s house. There were only mountains and forests along both sides of the road, some Land and Rocky Mountains here and there. The road was pumpy, sinuous, going up and down. At some points, looking deeply underneath, there appeared the road she had just passed. On arrival, she fell sick, and then had an asthma attack. Ti sent for a physician.

He concluded:

“This disease existed for a long time, it has become chronic. Even if treated, just a temporary recovery.”

Ti yelled with anger:

“You should have told me in advance.”

She looked at her as if asking for mercy:

“How about taking me back?. I will restore all the cost and money you gave me.”

She threw a dirty glance at her:

“Taking you back in order to sell your house and garden to clear your debt? How many months or years should I wait for your selling? In such a case, let him treat your disease. Then I will find a matchmaker for you. Every Jack has his Jill.”

She started looking for a match but every man shook his head and refused for ugly appearance. After all, one guy bought her. He was her husband now. He was fifty four  years old then, twenty  years older than her. For Chinese, over forty five year old, men cannot look for a wife. In addition, he was so poor and lived in remote mountainous area. It took one day to walk from Ti’s house. Therefore, it was so lucky of him to get married to her, even if she were lame. That was what he revealed so after they had the first baby. Her husband had four brothers in total, he was the second, and her sister in law from Thai Nguyen was the third brother’s wife. The other two got married to Chinese women. The four brothers shared a house inherited from their parents, made into four partitions with a shared door
“Was a wedding party held on arrival?” Mận asked:

“Slaughtering a goose, steaming glutinous rice, making ceremonial offerings. His brothers came, drinking, feeling happy, and twittering. I didn’t know what they said. Maybe they jested.”

In order to reduce her sadness, Mận joked:

“And the night?”

“Lie down on bed, bother nothing about whatever he groped.”

“After how long did you get pregnant?”

“ After five months. The eldest boy is three and half years old. The younger one is over a year.”

“Quit? Sterilizing?”

“Sterilized already.”

“Can your child speak any Vietnamese?”

“ I also taught him, but he just remembered calling “Mom”. If he calls “mom” in Chinese, I won’t reply. That’s why he remembered. When I felt sad, I taught him to sing “Duck weed drifting, cloud wandering to a strange land” (Old traditional song). He sang: “Pèo dẹ me chuôi…” then he burst into laughter: “Vietnamese is too hard to learn!” I became furious, slapped him and told: “But your mum is Vietnamese, you must know how to speak Vietnamese, how to sing Vietnamese songs in order that one day you return to Vietnam to visit your grandparents, otherwise, no need to have mother any more”. However, it’s so difficult; I’m too busy working all the day, no time to teach him.”

“Thus, your spoken Chinese has been much better, hasn’t it?”

“There’s no choice, I must learn”

“Have you studied written Chinese?”

“It looks like sticks, canes; some are similar to rakes with hooks, same as fishing hooks. How can I learn? And for what do I learn it?.”

“Have you got a TV?

“How can I have money to buy TV while it’s too hard to afford even two meals of corn soup and one with rice.”

“Why is it said that black and white TV is very cheap there?.”

“Cheap, it’s equal to just over 100 thousands VND but with such a debt, A TV is too far from the reality.”

“Nevertheless, in our village, five or seven families share a TV, and almost are color TVs, of course, most of them are just Japanese domestic color TVs, though second hand”

“It’s a matter of course. Ours is a trade village with large paddy fields. It’s mountainous there. Only corns and maniocs are planted there. My family has only 2 thuoc (equal to 48 m²⁾ of field.”

Mận was stunned as if misheard:

Two thước? Is its area different from our thước?

“ Same, one thước – twenty four m^2.”

“ So how can you live on that?”

She sighed:

“Burn off, clear the mountains to make cultivated land and work for other people to live, and how else?”

She continued after a moment:

“You know, mountainous air emits, and it’s so stiflingly hot. In winter days, it’s so hot that people want to be taken off clothes, but in summer nights it’s so cold that having to boil water for washing. Whenever the sun sets, it becomes dark violet regardless of winter or summer, I feel homesick very much.”

“It’s just like our Dao and Meo peoples.”

      “ It’s really Meo Dao. Choang people also originate from different races.”

“What the hell do you want to go there anymore? That’s enough, stay at home.”

Her mother, brothers and sisters gave her the same advices. Chinese children, not our Vietnamese children. A child could be adopted everywhere here. There were innumerable bastard children left behind in hospitals. TV also showed the news. But her father scolded: “How can you leave the children?” The pot repair man punned, “Motherhood is deepest, don’t prompt your daughter to do immoral things”.

It was right. How could she leave her children behind? They were her own flesh and blood. They  smiled, cried, sulked, and kissed her. They tottered, they babbled. He made her worried, glad and happy. He was her own animation world under that permanent dark violet heaven and earth at any time. How could she? When she started to leave for Vietnam, her husband said:

“How about selling your garden at your home country to bring our children up? And to clear the debt? ”

She threw a tantrum:

“ It’s your debt to buy me, pay it yourself. It’s my own garden. I leave it there in case it’s too hard to live here, I’ll take the children back there to live in Vietnam. I’ll bring them up; they will become engineers, doctors. Do you understand?”

But she became rather pleasant to tell Mận:

     “ Despite that, he wasn’t angry with me. When he took his son to see me off, he showed so sentimental: “don’t forget to have a wash with warm water in the evening, or else you’ll get sick”. Well, do your son still keep Reading Practice textbook Grade 1?  I already begged and got for the ABC textbook. I will teach them. They must know how to speak and write Vietnamese. Next time I return, maybe three or five years later, I will allow my children together with me if they can greet their grandparents, read their mother’s village name, hamlet name in Vietnamese”

Mận knew that no one could prevent her from leaving but it was too sad to say goodbye, so she insisted:

“How about staying for some more days until the pagoda’s festival finishes?”

“That’s all, I miss my children crazily, moreover, there are abounded with Pagodas’ festivals there. The poorer the place is, more festivals there are.”

“But you must be vigilant; otherwise, your sister in law will cheat and sell you to another place. You will lose both your husband and children then. China is so great. How can be found?”

“ Don’t worry; I am so old and ugly. It’s impossible to be sold once more.”

She said with tears brimmed in her eyes.

The next morning, she left early. She said that she would return in three or five years. Until when could she pay all the debt to return? And not only monetary debt but also other much heavier debt. Mận cried in turn.