Nguyen Ban
Translated
by Nguyễn Trọng Long
The
day Mr. Tu cleared his sale of his house, I was sad but also glad. Glad feeling
because, how lucky, there was a stirred-up guy who bought it, and sad feeling
because from now my friend would be always away from me, an honest friend who
had a clumsy foolish kind heart, it was so few this kind nowadays. But I was
also glad because he may luckily have a less hard time since then.
My
wife and children often imitated Mr.Tu every time when reminding him: “Dammed
it, then I got so angry that I cried!” Then they burst into laughter together.
However, the children adored him so much. Whenever Mr. Tu appeared near the gate,
they called loudly: Dad, Uncle Tu’s coming.
Mr.
Tu was a Cadre of aquiculture Department, he was graduated from an aquatic
product school but he loved literature. He bought literature magazines more regularly
than I though the price had become a luxurious dish in some recent years. He
would bring me the published ones I skipped buying or had not bought yet . He often asked me:
“Have
you read the article by X.. yet?, so decent and the story by Y, so pitiful?”
Or:
“I
don’t like the articles speaking highly of some employers, they’re similar to
advertisements, of course, and they’re more expensive than normal
advertisements.”
He
liked talking about personal qualities and self-esteem. Over nearly twenty years we had known each
other, he still kept doing so though he was needy, experienced so much risk,
except for one time, making me dubious, and this time, he made me dubious, too.
Mr.
Tu often encouraged me to write. He said I wasted so many years without writing
very much. He told me that: “he would have to write anyway in the end of his
life, writing about his hard and unsuccessful time in life, in order to bring
his children up with full education and to have a simple house which is the
family union in Tets, he would write so that his children could read in their spare
time in future for understanding their father’s heart and mind and simply for
relaxation.”. But I could ensure that he could not have heart to think of
writing today. And today, then i would write a little part for him.
Mr.
Tu and I were neither bosom friends nor were classmates, fellow soldiers or
fellow countrymen. We were accidentally assigned by our different jobs and
lived in the same town, we knew each other until we were nearly forty, it meant
about the years of 1970-1971, the years when almost cadres in this town when
coming across they only took care of and gave regards to each other about mash
for pigs and pigs, rarely about health or jobs and businesses. Mash and pigs
were mentioned even in the regard letters, when visiting each other, friends
and relatives were firstly boasted and invited to visit pigs or pig sheds with
newly tiled roof before coming in houses.
That
day we sat together waiting for our turn to take mash for pigs sold on the
exchange mash price. Everyone became impatient still soaking with sweat because
of the dazzling sunlight, sitting in the lobby under the shade of trees.
Luckily, the female head of the store appeared in her soft white T-shirt,
dragging her wooden clogs, she glanced at everyone with an indifferent cold
face, walking along the lobby and then entering the bureau. All the waiting
buyers stood up with excitement looking fixedly at her clogs, approaching the
door. She took out the key to open the closet. Everyone sighed with relief. But
she did not take any notebooks but a big package and a sugar jug. Then, in a
serious and dignified way, she sat down before the desk and clattered the spoon
against the big glass to stir sugar and bean powder, brazen-facedly as if half for boasting and half for challenging. My
eyes caught Mr.Tu’s, we together left for the tree without a word.
We
acquainted each other that way. After talking and sharing each other, we knew
that we were in the same school in the war resistance time. I was several years
older than Mr. Tu and I studied in the upper class. I jointed the army in 1949
and he did in 1951. In the beginning of 1953, Ha Giang had suppressed bandits
Chau Quang Lo, I and some of fellows were assigned to reinforce the public
movement in several communes occupied by those bandits in Hoa Su Phi, it was
the same time Mr. Tu’s unit was hunting the remaining bandits passing over Shi
Kung Linh mountains to run rist the area of Lao Cai.
Then
we took close friendship, I often asked him in joking moments: “In your
thinking, where did we start our friendship? From mash for pigs or bean
powder?”. But from bean powder, his pigs
were ever utterly miserable and so was him. People said that he fed pigs in a
new method from Japanese manners, the method of Samurais. It meant he would
punch at the ones that poked their noses, pushed and spilled the mash out.
Finally, the pigs lost and fled and so did he. He lost because it was so stupid,
it did not know how to sympathize with him, it could not accept austere mash, It
requested the mash muscle as delicious as the bean powder.
Several
months later, he stopped breeding pigs, I asked him to confirm about it, and he
nodded with a smile:
“It’s
right. I sometimes became annoyed with them as my family still had to eat rice
mixed with potato and manioc while the pigs wanted clatter the glass with bean
powder, otherwise they would poke, push and spilled over. But sometimes, their eyes
looked like human eyes, timorous and bewildered, it seemed that they wanted to
ask me why I struck at them, which made me scared. I would rather sell them
all.”
It
was thought that he had quit predestination with pigs but then with big expense
for his children and their school fee while his salary was inconsiderable, he
did not know what to do to get extra income. Once, he boasted when I saw him:
I
switched to breed a sow, people flocked into breeding porkers, breeding pigs
became expensive, and some who bred sows, earned well.
“But
what if it also required eating bean powder?”
He
smiled:
“No,
sows are so gluttonous.”
When
we met each other again, I asked him:
“Things
are right?”
“Quite
ok, already inseminated.”
Next
time.
“Is
it about to cub?”
“It’s
about to, I will sell you the best couple.”
Later
on we met, he invited me cigarettes in contentment.
“Twelve
piglets with dropping ears, over ten days old”
But
only two days later, he came to my house with a bike, with panic in his face:
“Do
you know where to buy, help me buy some bottles of penicillin 1000000.”
“Why
1000 000, for whom?, your wife and children?”
Mr.
Tu said as if he was going to cry:
“It
would not make trouble if it were for my wife or children, but it’s for the
sow, it really troubles, it has refused
the mash.”
It
turned out to be the sow. It kept
refusing the mash for five consecutive days and it was finally butchered and
sold in the marketplace. But after six days of abstaining from food, it was
still sucked by the piglets. The sow remained only skin and very thin flesh
with penicillin smell. None of it could be sold, it wasted his wife’s labor to
carry back and bury it.
I
asked him:
“What
should you do with the piglets now?”
His
wife asked me back as she was crying.
“Is
it possible to manage with milk and rice soup?”
I
deliberated:
“Perhaps,
just try rice soup with sugar, if it works, it’s okay, if it doesn’t, it
doesn’t waste more money on milk.”
He
and his wife took my advice. Within a week, the piglets followed their mother
one after another.
A
year later, he sold the sawing machine to invest in brick production together
with another person with the hope that he could recoup the sawing machine
again, and get a profit of ten thousands of bricks and more than ten thousands
of tiles, enough to build a three space house. The technician showed off that
he had ever controlled in producing numerous brick-kilns successfully in places
no one knew and that Mr. Tu could refer Mr. A and Mr. B. Actually, he was just
an apprentice. Finally, the profit of selling bricks was not enough to pay coal
cost. The assistant leader of agricultural production
team of number nine- hamlet, his coordination stored his hair: “you believed in
me, I believed in the technician, you lost your money, I lost my labor. Now you
should try to borrow more money, I and my son will use more labor; we would win
on the next one” He lost money, and they lost rice, sending the axe
after the helve. When the river was running low, they discussed to mix the
alluvial soil homogeneous and smooth and make soil bricks, then burned the kiln
right at the bank, the alluvial soil, good bricks, and it could reduce the cost
of transporting coal. After making soil brick and coal complete, it remained
only kiln burning. Though there was no rain or wind, the next morning, the
river water overflowed immensely. The assistant was in whining voice: “My God,
has there ever been such flood from river head?
You have robbed my son and father’s rice.”
“Did
he share any of the loss with you?”
“He
has four kids, even out of rice for daily meals; new rice is still green, not yet
ripe. Moreover, almost of his rice died of being waterlogged. Nothing to demand
from him”
Only
one good thing he had was that his wife was so good, she just complained when
she talked about him:
“You
have not been told all of his businesses. Many times I had to say to him: You
should have been a female. No one could not coax him”
He
tried to manage for earnings more several times: Shared capital to raise breed
fish to get eperian, and made fish sauce… but all lost. And in 1977, after
having worked for enough 25 years, he submitted the retirement form and I also
followed him and retired the next year.
He
asked me to go to Saigon with him.
“
Let’s take a trip with twenty kilos of tobacco. we can earn for our train
ticket and meals.”
I
said, our parents were not there, how we could ask for travel permission
papers. He replied, so, falericate it,few had parents or brothers or sisters
there. Seeing that I was timid and hesitant, he made a decision to take a trip
to Saigon alone. After five days, he returned with his pleasant face.
“Why
so fast? By airplane?”
“I
just went to Da nang for test but nearly died there. I don’t dare to go to Sai
Gon”
“Why?
Tobacco was arrested?”
“No,
I could sell right after I arrived in Da Nang. I got a profit fifteen dong for
each kg, total of three hundred dong for twenty kg. I got so glad with money in
my backpack, wandering to see the sights of the city. Suddenly someone tapped
on the backpack: “please let me check your luggage”. I said I had only clothes
and some change. “Please just open it”. Luckily, I already sold all, open, it
was okay to open. He smelled, you know? “Where did you sell your tobacco? This
money was from selling tobacco” He asked me to go to the station to solve. He
refused whatever I explained and even I begged him.
“Then
what happened?”
“Damned
it, then I felt very angry, I cried.”
I
burst into laughter and told him:
“So
from now on, whenever we meet indignant matters, we should cry.”
He
also laughed and made coffee that he brought from Da Nang. The trip to Saigon
was finally unsuccessful. We husked groundnuts for the foreign trade Department
to export, made corn husk carpet and then again husked groundnuts for several
years. The situation, which we waited for receiving groundnuts, weighing with
deceitful weight, checking, finding fault with works, being sharp-tongued,
returned to and fro under the hot sun, was really worse than waiting for pig
mash and weighing pigs previously. Mr. Tu told me:
“Stop
it, please stop, it’s so ashamed like this, nothing different from giving alms
to us.”
It
was in 1982, our gross salary was lower and lower away from the real living
cost each day. Cost for meals and children’s school fee was really a nightmare.
Mr.Tu had not come to us for several months; I came to ask for his information
and knew that he and an engineer of aquatic product who were so angered, then
quitted work. Both went to the south to breed fishes as hired labour.
Two
years later, he returned, so strange to me. In shorts, a check T-shirts, high haircut,
a very fat head, thighs like jars. Guessed he could earn well, I asked:
“Return
for a short time, then went back there?”
“No,
I return for good.”
“Get
well- to –do?”
He
shook his head and told. After going there, each worked in a different place.
That engineer worked in Thu Duc, he worked in Can Tho. He was introduced to
work for a widow of his age. He got enough food and meals, leisure jobs, highly
paid, if it could be saved, he would be able to build a house after three or
four years. But the widow kept all wage and promised to pay him when he went to
the north.
“What’s
wrong with it? Is it better than it is given to you and all spent?”
“You
know, I have to cheat her to escape.”
I
was dazed:
“You
made her fish die, didn’t you?”
Mr.
Tu glowered his eyes:
“I
have so many years of experience, how could the fish die?”
“So
what made you escape?”
He
hummed and hawed for a short while, then bashfully told me:
“She
was so lascivious. I escaped unsuccessfully several times, this time was
successful.”
“Unbelievable! What else could not happen on earth?”
I
held my side with laughter and so did he, then he told me:
“In
addition, I still have to return home, my wife has to work and bring three
children up at the same time. My retirement salary is not enough for one child.
Moreover, Tuong will be in the twelfth form after this summer. It would be
nonsense if I lived there?”
Nevertheless,
Mr.Tu got money, though it was nonsense, but it still had its complete appearance.
He thought of buying more knowledge for his son. So, he asked me to talk with
Master Quang to allow Tuong to study in special math class in extra time. Then
he thought of building a house. He consulted in me about submitting for land
allocation. I advised him not to do it. He had no power, no material, no goods to
exchange, in summary, in land and house war, he only had bullet but no rifle.
“Is
it possible that I would live my whole life in this leaked and tiny tenement?”
He
said as if he had claimed compensation from me, and then he could not accept.
One morning, he told me: “please, have meal with me in the afternoon.” I asked:
“What’s
for?”
“My
father’s death commemoration, I am making several trays of meals. All are close
friends and relatives.”
“I
thought you’re not the eldest.”
He
spoke with hesitation:
“I
would have been going to my eldest brother today. But Rinh told me to slaughter
a dog, he would invite Thuc to attend.”
Well.
It turned out to be that. Thuc was a vice president in charge of industry,
construction and real estate.
In
the afternoon, all the trays of spriced dog meat were ready at 4:pm. The smell of
galingale, sauce and spriced dog meat was so scented. The third round of
incense was changed. Mr. Tu walked out and in waiting for Rinh to come.
“Or
you made an appointment with the wrong date.”
“No,
how can it be wrong? I reminded him again this morning when I was going to buy galingale
and sauce.”
Ngan- Mr. Tu’s neighbor, who used to be a
driver for a high rank official, was now driving for an owner of a lime kiln in
order to unite his family, he shook his head:
“I
could know from experience of driving for officials, it’s not easy to invite
important officials though they often signaled me to open the car boot to put
so many things in before leaving.”
Mr.
Thuan- a retired major who joined the army with Mr. Tu got very angry after
listening to him.
“It’s
nothing worthy to speak highly of such base actions.”
Ngan
smiled to make it up with him:
“You’d
better try one session, then you will understand that it’s difficult for people
to invite you, isn’t it?”
At
the same time, the sound of motorbike was coming, but only Ring came, Thuc was
not behind him. Ring put the motorbike up and hurriedly came in as he was
speaking to Mr. Tu:
“So
boring, suddenly some guests from the central government came, he had to phone
the Hotel to book meal. Well, tonight we will directly come to his house, you
have redundant criterion to be granted a land lot, damned it, even the meal
restaurant female owner and the rice noodle restaurant owner had been granted.
If such French colony resistance war veterans were not granted, would it be in
disorder?”
Thuc
could not come. But the ceremony party became more ebullient. The problem was
that where and who could be asked to grant Mr. Tu a land lot. At Ga lake?. Cost
for land fill, deposit, and foundation was too expensive, it would rather buy a
new one. Along the national road? It was
cultivated land, the local government had not approved it. Or area of Crownded
Official Street? Forgot it! Provincial and town officials had it all lined up
in the name of having not granted but actually lots were divided with owner
names.
Seeing
that it nearly reached an impasse, Ring took it aside:
“Just
understand that the criterion must be granted, to see to obstacles emerged
later. You should know, I approved for him to buy several tons of pig mash a
few years later, a dog today was nothing to compare. A rotted land lot costs
about an ounce of gold, a nicer one may cost several tens. And even several
tens mean nothing. Being disciplined, transfered to other positions, kilograms
of gold could be earned after several years. You don’t work in economy or
material sectors, so you don’t know. The core point is closed relationship. relationship,
yes, that is.
Then
several after then several months later,
the closed relationship sewer became nothing. Ring once whispered close to Mr.
Tu’s ear: “Do you know Mr. Cong? He was transferred to the central government
by Mr. Quay’s side, we will submit to taking his place for the lot in Dong
quan”. Another time Ring told him the province government was approving
hectares by the end of the town, it would be better to wait for the area. Other
times, that area, a bus station would be built nearby, the old market would be
replaced by a new one, “what do you think of it”.
Finally,
I reluctantly told him:
“Ring
has a shrewmouse face with thin lips, how you could believe in him, he was
actually hunting a lot for himself. Don’t waste your time any longer.”
Mr.
Tu sighed:
“Possibly
it will damny come to nothing.”
But
he still could not resign because he still had money. He told me one day.
“Are
you free today?”
“Yes,
but what for?”
“Let’s
go and see a land lot I intend to buy.”
He
took me through the village road, then over a paddy field, turned into a hill
side, and then to a path at the edge of a paddy field and finally to a drawf bead
tree garden at the hill foot. It turned out to be the garden of the assistant
head team who made bricks together with him before. He cut out two hundred
square meters to sell him.
“Was
the purchase done?”
“Already
done. Fifty thousands dong, it was equal to a quart of ounce of gold.”
Seeing
that I was not pleased, he explained to me:
“I
thought very carefully, if not here, where I could buy, I have just that sum of
money. How could I manage?”
“How
could you manage to live here with such roads? Who will come to you?”
“He
said this edge of the paddy field will be widened for several families’ inner
lots to share.”
“Have
you discussed with your wife?”
“Yes,
but I will never be accepted.”
I
asked his wife, she told me:
“I
said let me consider first, the money was already paid to him immediately. It
was this same cursed Rinh who produced pig mash, the previous brick loss was the
same from him. This time it was him again. It seems that this assistant head
team gave him five thousands dong.”
Mr.
Tu had built a two space thatched house of sixteen square meters, exactly equal
to the surface of his room in the tenement. After he could dig a well, the
currency change happened. Tuong passed the university entrance; it cost quite
lots of money for fee. The sum he brought from the South was just spent off.
Out
of money, but with new salary and with breeding some pigs and chicken together
with economical expenditure, his children still felt secure to go to school.
Mr.Tu felt pleased, he asked for pig hair and went to my house to graft a
sapodilla branch, cutting a rose branch to raise, asking for gerberas to plant.
He pointed at the bead tree garden and asked me if the tree could be enough for
building a house after five years later. He was lost in daydreams in making a
premises plan, which showed where the main house was, where the “Depen dances” (*)
was, he spoke French, and the two current spaces would become the
kitchen. He bred pigs again, if not, he did not what to do and he read books.
He borrowed “And a day longer than a century” by Aimatop. “Sleepless” by Kron
to read and then lent me.
He
could live such a poor but honest life if the living price kept sharply increasing.
Life became unstable each day. Mr. Tu sometimes rode his bicycle to my house
and asked me: “if the price was like this, we would die, wouldn’t we?”. He
thought that I could answer that thorny question, and he forgot that my family
was in the same situation.
We
expected, Mrs. Tu also submitted for retirement already, and bought bean, and
groundnut, ordinary and sticky rice from district market to sell in the town
market. I asked:
“Are
there lots of retired cadres in the market?”
“All
, retired and still on the job people. The most crowded were female teachers.
“You don’t have any period today?”, “ I am off from the flag saluting period”,
“I am free from the first periods.”. That was the mash and rice sales. And
there were eggs, bean, bean sprouts, vegetables (frugal fare), salted fish.
Mrs.Deputy Secretary looked at the head of women association. No one sneered at
each other again.
In
the mean time, businessmen spent a great sum of money and gold to repair the
shops, whitewash the stores, built more shop windows, replaced new doors, built
storey house. Wives and children of pedicab drivers, bike repairer, and welder with
make ups, gold necklaces and rings, drove motorbike so fast through streets bringing
incenses and flowers, Hero tobacco to borrow gold and US dollar in the temple
of store godness.
Mr.
Tu’s head shrunk, his white hair became more twinkling each day. He did not
wear shorts any longer, afflicted traits were more engraved on his face each
day. Before, he could punch the pig to subside his anger of the spoon
clattering sound stinging to his ears, but now how he could punch the metal
doors, concrete, motorbikes. He could cry when he got too angry, but now in a
frenetic race to a rich and honored destination, which was supported and
encouraged by both serious people and deceivers, who would stopped in front of
his teardrops?. He sometimes lamented together with me: “Social polarization is
so severe and fast. They indulged in drinking and eating once which can be
equal to our expense of a year. I understand nothing now”
Mrs.
Tu engaged in small trade, she could saved a little each day to buy mash for
the pig which Mr. Tu hoped it could earn him a tael of gold, but at the
between-crop period at the beginning of last year, rice price became unstable and sharply increased,
so all were spent on rice and potatoes. One kilo of meat was equal to two kilos
of rice, even one and a half. Meat could be unsold in the market until the
afternoon, rice was bought everyday, a kilo by a kilo by hungry officials. And this
time his pig did not refuse to eat. It could eat whatever he supplied. I did
not behaved superciliously any more, but it had to do a sacred mission of
hunger support for his family.
All
of Mrs. Tu’s capital was just enough a pair of rice baskets. He thought of
selling house and returned to his country to live there. But to whom could he
sell? People lived in his area were much poorer than him. Well-to-do people did
not want this place. Mrs Tu told that if Tuong visited home, he frowned: “Why
do you come home so often?” How his son could know that he was short of each
helping which he skipped at university. He looked forward to any information of
salary increase. I analyzed the situation, then affirmed that there was no
reason for salary increase. He got angry with me: “Then, I would die of
hunger”. This time he raised a question to himself, he thought that we had
higher salary, we could resist.
Life
became harder and harder, people rushed in earning money much more, his house
became more deserted. Mr Than- a retired major- was also busy working as a
security guard, there was only me left behind, I had to visit him more often
though the paddy field edge was not widened yet, I still had to lift up my bike
and jumped over some irrigating drain. If I was busy, I could not come, he
asked his girl to invite me to visit him again, and otherwise he felt so sad.
Sometimes, it just stopped raining, it was so muddy, I still had to visit him.
This
year beginning, Mr Tu smiled again and blamed me for being less confident
because of salary increase, new salary with the coefficient of one hundred and
two and a half percent. I said that he should recalculate to see how much the
increase was. Then he and i recalculated item by item again and again, Mr Tu
was nonplussed and confessed:
“If
it was like this, my wife and i received two and a half thousands less than the
previous month.”
Mr
and Mrs Tu became harder up re broke
each day. The harder up he was, the more magazines of literature he bought
regularly. He wanted to find some comforting pleasures and similar
considerations in them.
He still commented about the decent
articles.
He became much harder up as the
summer was coming nearer, he did not have money to buy the magazines any longer
and “the literature magazines have been so insipid for recent months”, he said.
He decided that Dao-his daughter would be in an apprentice school or engage in
a small business with her mother or do whatever she could after finishing the
eleventh grade in half a month. Duc- his son- who was in his tenth grade would
leave school to learn to be a carpenter after finishing this school year. And
During the summer vacation, Tuong must work as a mason coolie to earn for
himself and save for the next university year. The family would not give him any
penny anymore.
He continued offering to sell his
house. Mrs Tu said: “Only ghost wants to buy the house, we’re so poor but the
people here still borrowed us every bowl of rice.”
However, Mr. Tu could sell the
house. It was so cheap, only four hundred and fifty thousand. It was less than
Rinh’s five month of letting out his store though the whole building he hired
from the state was only several thousands. Rinh did not submit for land grant,
he asked for replacing the predecessor of this building who had been granted a
land lot in Dong Quan Street to build a bigger and more luxurious house. So
cheap and regretful, it was just enough to build two spaces with thatched roof
and dig a well. Land value lost completely. But it was still lucky, Mr and Mrs
Tu, even Dao and Duc got so merry. I asked whom he could sell to, Mr Tu
whispered at my ear:
“The tailor “Future”, he bought for
his second wife to avoid conflicting with the first one. Rinh introduced him.”
Once again, it was the murk rat
face guy. It was unknown that how much bonus the Future tailor gave him this
time. I just thought so but did not tell Mr. Tu.
The day he moved his house, it was
leaden and rained sparsely. His wife complained:
“What the hell God was, malignant.
It only pointed at the poor to give disaster.”
But Mr. Tu was silent. He was
resigned to cover a plastic sheet over the furniture in disorder on the
tractor. He could do nothing with the rain. He could curse or punch at the
pigs, possibly he could imitate Chi Pheo to curse at the God but he could not
punch at the god.
He wrote me a letter after a week
in his countryside, his family lived in his sister’s house near a market, Mrs
Tu sold groceries and he continued his predestination with pigs. In general, it
temporarily stabilized. He said he missed me so much and would visit me in some
day.
But he had not visited me and I had
no information about him. I felt anxious, so I rode my bike to his countryside
to visit him.
“He did not drop in you, did he?”
Mrs Tu asked me in surprise.
“No, where did he go?”
“I thought he would visit you
anyhow, he went to the South again.”
I got stunned:
“What for?”
“It was still the woman of mud carp
and chub from whom he had to escape.”
I got thunderstruck:
“What! You knew the story, too?”
“Whom could he hide in this world?
And I am not similar to other women, so he did not have to hide.”
“But he wrote me that it
temporarily stabilized. Why did he have to go there? Or…”
Just as I intended to ask about any
disagreement, Mrs Tu burst into tears:
“Tuong borrowed the bike Miffa
which was stolen. And I dreamt that Tuong was hit at his eyes, blood poured off
his face… so terrible.”
She cried more loudly when she told
this detail. Daughter Dao cried after her as she was sitting nearby. I sat
silently without a word. She took her shirt tail to wipe the tear after a while
and continued:
“Thinking about the dream, I felt
so nervous, the compensation was accepted immediately.”
“ How much was the compensation?”
“A half was firstly paid, then the
rest of one hundred and forty thousand, later twenty thousand for every month.
Therefore he discussed with me: “I will come back after two years, I try to
save to build a house. You and the children temporarily live with the sister.
My retirement pension is gradually for the compensation. If you agree, I will
leave”. You know, even though husband
and wife get old, who don’t want conjugal life? But we had nothing to sell this
time, I resigned myself to let him go, actually I don’t dare to think of house
building.”
“But what if the woman….”
Understanding what I meant, Mrs Tu
said:
“She sent words to invite him to
come there every year; she did again just before I sold my house.”
Leaving her house in the late
afternoon, my heart was laden with sadness. The eastern wind was rustling. A
stork was absorbed in flying. Where was it flying to, to its nest or to where?
I felt empty and something far away. I was far away from Mr.Tu from now on, a
friend who had so truthful heart that he became naive and silly, a heart which
encouraged me in my skeptical moments. I felt an endless sadness, sad for his abandoned
situation and family separation. I could imagined that train to the south on
which Mr Tu was, Mr Tu sometimes seized the wall of the train with his sad
eyes, facing North, his countryside, to his stunted wife left behind “goodbye..
goodbye”. But what did he say goodbye to? I could remember what he said to me
one day: “How would it be if we behaved so?”.
Then, I could remember the image of
wearing shorts with a check shirt, he had a shortcut hair with a very plump
head, I asked myself:
“Can he flee this time?” A question
rapidly appeared in my mind: “Is this a goodbye or a forever leave?” It briefly
appeared only but my heart was saddled with a lost feeling just like in
nightmare.
One who went, other who stayed
separation. I faced the draft again after more than twenty years. I would write
about him and for what he often encouraged me. Everything about him was so
clear. When he got indignent, he would cry, he behaved as if he claimed
compensation from me, he brought the literature magazines to lend me, he
commented some articles as “decent”, and he worried about social polarization…. even we together reviewed the memories about resistance
war, the song we resumed lines “for the country, blood and bone could dissolve
into the red river...” , then the guy Future bought his house, making him lose
his land, and then a some thief made his family separated and forced him to
stand by the train wall to look at the corkwing flying… however, at the end of
the trip, I saw that his image became more and more blurred as if it was
swallowed off by the dark night. I should have pity on him or blame him. It’s
difficult to have a pity on someone, but it’s easy to blame.
Why did you drop on in me before
you left? Were you shy before me? I had nothing better than you. We were only
little human being, not the god and because of foolishness, we- human being-
became diminutive? Mr Tu, Could I meet with what you expected in the next
drafts? Or for some reasons, I unintentionally would step on your footprints?
For a long time, I was in two minds
about him, about me, and then I suddenly remembered that possibly, possibly he
changed his mind and got down to Nha Trang station. It was certainly that he
showed me a letter of inviting him to Buon Ma Thuot from a nephew on the last
winter, wasn’t it? The latter said that he was so busy with business and his
family was shorthanded, so he was really pleased if his uncle could come and
help him to take care of his house and garden, he promised he would serve full
and careful meal with drink and pay a few tens thousands per month for incidental
expenses, besides, after three years of works, he would give him a truck of
wood and transport the wood to his house. But he stood on ceremony with him, so
he refused because his father ever worked as a wood cutter in his father’s wood
shop in Gia Lam years ago, only land of which was now worth one thousand ounces
of gold but it was all occupied by common and private houses for a long time,
moreover, the time when he was in the army, his father evacuated from the enemy
for a long time and later died of malaria, no land monuments were found,
possibly all were lost right in the night of 19th Dec 1946, and even
thought all the documents were found, because the land belonged to the whole
people, he could not own it, especially he had no residency in Gia Lam.
But why had I advised him not to go
that time, so I felt so uneasy now, despite the fact that it was the very same
parting, but if only that were so, I would be less heavy-hearted
No comments:
Post a Comment