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About two
years later, when I’d all but forgotten my damn fated
foe, he appeared. Of course, I did not show any sign of
fear. I was not chicken-hearted. Nor was I the kind who
took advantage of another person’s misfortune. During
the 18 months that he was in prison, I had sold to his
mother a cupboard and two hundred kilos of sawdust and
wood shavings on credit. So when he appeared in front of
my shop, I welcomed him. "Hello, Nam. When did you
come home? Please come in for a cup of tea."
"I’ve just returned. I’ve got something to tell you".
I cleverly shooed some customers out of the shop and
then made tea for him. Fortunately, my wife and her
child were now visiting her sister in Hai Phong. He
refused the Vinataba cigarette I offered. Instead he lit
a Du Lich which was badly burnt. His tone was
threatening: "Stop your hypocrisy towards my mother,
do you hear? You know, a dog stinks more when it wags
its tail".
"What the hell are you saying?" - I tried to
control my anger and speak calmly. "I always think
good of you....".
".... your thinking good! You arranged to put me into
prison, and you dare to speak of ‘thinking good’?".
"I....I...."
"You think I don’t know anything, don’t you? Listen.
You’ve often seen me hiding the watering-can in the
corner of the co-operative’s pond, so you and your
brother poured insecticide into the lake and informed
the co-operative, didn’t you?"
"What, I don’t understand what you are saying. I
thought the fish died of some disease as soon as they
were released into the pond".
"Don’t pretend. Before the day when the fish died,
five bottles of insecticide in the co-operative were
stolen. No other field in the village used it except the
one by the dyke watch’s hut. If I did not do it, who
else but you and your brother?"
I opened my mouth wide. Oh God, that day Lan had been so
greedy at the low price of the stolen insecticide, and
he had bought it and sprayed the field. Now it could
land me in trouble with my unavoidable foe. And as
always, I could not explain and argue with him. I had to
change my tune.
"If it’s true, please sympathise with us. Probably my
brother, still a bit wet behind his ears...."
"Either of you, it doesn’t matter. And I don’t mind.
I’ve already got the bad name. Actually I did it because
I wanted to calm down Nu and make her accept your
proposal, don’t you understand?"
A thunderbolt struck me again. So had my wife really
loved him? I was the latecomer? Was that why she’d
cold-shouldered me at first and then did a sudden
turnabout and married me quickly? But why? Why would my
unavoidable foe want to leave Nu, the most beautiful
girl in the village? And why did Nu keep that cat in the
bag, when she was already married to me? Then I thought
of the two conditions she’d imposed on me that day. Why
did I have give up farming? Why did my first child have
to take its mother’s family name? Or was it....
The thought that the child could have been conceived
before she became my wife made me dizzy. Unable to
contain my bitterness, I said: "So did you eat the
snails and asked me to throw away the shells? Oh, that
mischievous hog...."
"Good, good. It would have been much better if you’d
realised that previously" - He pulled and bade me
sit down - "O.K. Be calm. You have not understood
anything at all. Listen." I could read the disdain
in his words as if it was passed down from a previous
existence. Highly vigilant about avoiding a mistake that
I was likely to make, I shrugged and listened.
"When Mr. Nguyen left for the South to fight the
enemy, he had only one daughter - Nu’s sister. Do you
know that? In 1976, he was demobbed, and the clan wanted
to have a son to carry on the line. Unfortunately,
during his years on the battlefield, he was contaminated
with the toxic chemicals sprayed by the US, effectively
sterilising him. He did not know that, but my father
did. He was in the same army unit as Mr. Nguyen. When
father was on R&R, he passed on the information to Mrs.
Nguyen because the three were very close friends. Then
they discussed if they could give birth to a son for Mr.
Nguyen. However, father was killed as he pursued fleeing
Pol Pot troops, and it was another daughter -Nu - who
was born next. Mrs. Nguyen was disappointed. One day she
felt into a slaked lime pit and I was the one who took
her to the hospital. She told me the story then. It was
fortunate that the fish died that day, or else I would
be in big trouble with Nu."
Dumbstruck again, I thought: Was he cheating me? But
what was the use of doing that? Indeed, now that I
thought of it, my wife’s did resemble his - two thin
faces with slanting eyes, drooping mouths which Nu’s
sister did not have. So Nu was his sister. My mind was
still in a fog, however. But why did he have harbour
such a hatred for me, making me constantly fearful. He
seemed to understand my doubts. He lit the third or
fourth cigarette and fanned the smoke away with his
hand.
"I don’t mind you and your brother. But I hated your
chicken-hearted character. What kind of a man are you
when you always go around with your eyes looking down on
the ground, even if you’d supported the enemy. I’d
provoked you many times so that you would get angry and
become a man, but you were always as dumb as an oyster.
Why? Who on earth did you hear saying that I was fated
to be your foe? Could we eat each other up? So why have
you always fawned over me? This will make you despised
by women, didn’t you know that?"
I was silent as he reprimanded and cursed me. He was my
wife’s brother. Besides, the old habit of fearing him
had not yet died. It was not easy to forget that he’d
been an unavoidable foe for years. Yet, I should
recognize that I’d been too yielding, and I was
determined to show at least some pretended anger: "No,
don’t rely on your position as my brother-in-law to
sling curses at me. I sold things on credit to your
mother because I felt pity that she had to be lonely at
her age. Not because I was afraid of you. OK?"
"Yes, your pity for my mother was nothing compared to
your wife. She really ordered you to do it, didn’t she?
Did she force you to stop farming. Do you know why?"
My mouth was agape again. I had never ventured to ask
her. Now my brother-in-law and unavoidable foe was
telling me everything.
"Sweet potatoes and rice grains are the fruit of
human love for the land. You don’t belong. On the other
hand, you always manure the field with fresh dung,
making filthy my father’s grave at that corner of the
field. Nu bore a grudge against that, you know. But she
could not say anything clearer just for fear that you
would doubt it."
"So why did my wife ask me to put her family name to
my child, brother?" I did not know that I would
address him so obediently and call him "brother".
"You can’t understand that, can you? You know that
our forefathers always consider the first child in the
family very sacred, and you were not held in great
regard by Nu. When I tried to evade her, you were
patient, so she could not but settle for you."
He stopped and stood up.
"What I’ve said is aimed at helping you know how to
behave, but don’t divulge this to anyone, particularly
Mr. Nguyen and Nu. She is my sister, and also my friend."
I saw him to the lane, but then another thought struck
me. "But why do you know that Nu prohibited me from
doing farm work, if you have just come home?"
He made a face. "You’re really a stupid man. Do you
think I was actually in prison? I only let the police
take me to make Nu see it so that she would no longer
look out for me. I was easily able to prove my
innocence. Then I went to work in the provincial capital
city as a helping hand for a mason, and sometimes I
visited my mother. The last time I was home, I saw Nu
going to have a pre-natal examination, and offered her
some money, but she refused it."
"So why don’t you marry someone?" - I found it
difficult to be polite.
He smiled. "You could ask your brother Lan about it."
He had slack-jawed me again. Why didn’t I pay enough
attention to my pig-headed brother? Was it possible that
he had some relation with my brother-in-law?
That afternoon, I got burns on two fingers from the
cigarette as I listened dumbfounded to Lan’s story. My
brother had been involved in a love affair with Hoa and
she was pregnant. They were now in a quandary about
settling the situation. Hoa was the niece of cross-eyed
Tieu at the crossroads. She had loved my brother-in-law,
for quite a long time. However Nam had been away for a
long time working on the construction site, so she had
let herself be wooed and seduced by Lan, after he
treated her several times with pho at the foot of the
Teup bridge. I asked Lan if he intended to marry her,
and he said: "She looks quite inviting, but she
always mistakes me for Nam and calls me by that name,
and it annoys me...."
At the time I am telling you this story, Mr. Nguyen and
Mrs. Nguyen had departed from this world. Only then did
I have the guts to write about what my brother-in-law
told me. However, there was no relief. In the afternoon,
Nu - my wife - came home crying. "Hoa has fallen down
from her bicycle and given birth prematurely. Brother
Lan had been pushed down into the river by Nam, forcing
him to agree to marry her."
I sprang up to my feet. "Where is brother Nam now?"
Nu handed me a bunch of keys and a piece of paper.
Nam had written: "I am taking a boat up the river to
the mountains. Both of you should organise the wedding
for Hoa and Lan, and sometimes go to my house and burn
some incense for my mother. When I am better off, I’ll
come back and tell you something. Thank you"
Even in his letter, his voice still sounded high-handed.
Anyway I still felt completely in his power that seemed
to be exerted from a previous life, impossible to
oppose. Even if our present relationship did not warrant
his description as an unavoidable foe, it was still
impossible for me to explain his power and authority.
I went to the wharf and looked down at the river. I saw
thousands of twinkling waves, some of them rushing in
from nowhere, raising their crest and plunging down.
Sometimes they bounced in rhythm around some bunches of
duckweed with their violet flowers. Still drifting with
my thoughts, I could see the strong waves no longer.
Where were the rapid waves? Where was the furious
unavoidable foe of a man like me?
Translated by
Manh Chuong |
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