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A love nest on the mountain
By Quang Bach
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Then U' has got married! The
news spread like a squirrel running all over Lung Thang
Hamlet. It was unheard in this hamlet of the Thai people
that a girl got married after she was 20. So Then U'’s
marriage at 27 was more than strange. Shaman Then Sa put
on his robe in a hurry and made offerings to Sua, the
mountain god, to pray for peace in the hamlet.
For the last two months, a group of people digging for
gemstones had turned up from nowhere and pitched a tent
in the area. During the day, they were at the digging
site, leaving behind a sick-looking boy in rags to keep
an eye on the tent. Every morning, as she went to the
field, Then U' saw the boy standing by the door, his
face gloomy, eyes fixed on the Nam Bo Stream.
On Tet xap xi day, or the festival of the Thai that
falls on 15 of the seventh lunar month, Then U' did not
go to the field. She took newly ground sticky rice flour
and mixed it with water to make cakes. Then she took a
bowl of ant eggs she had collected the day before to
make the filling. Although she lived alone, she made the
cakes every Tet xap xi to offer the mountain god. The
cakes steamed fragrant all over the house. She would use
boiling water from the pot to kill the chicken when the
cakes were well done. The young hen had been caged for
over a month and fed with only rice to fatten it for the
occasion. She wondered if down under the stone tomb, her
mother was welcoming Tet xap xi as well. Then U'
continued to observe the festival exactly as her mother
had taught her before she died. The only difference was
that Then U' killed just one young hen and made only
five cakes, the custom being that the number of hens
killed depended on the number of family members — one
chicken and five cakes per person being the norm. When
the food was cooked, half of the chicken dish and three
ant-egg cakes were placed on a small banana raft to be
floated down the Nam Bo Stream. Mother said that this
was reserved for the person she loved best. The
remaining portions were placed in the middle of the yard
and offered to Sua Mountain God.
That day, Then U' heard the boy crying out for his
father. Thinking he was in some kind of danger and alone
at home, she rushed down and saw two men carrying the
father back to the tent. One of the men told her in
Thai, "A snake has bitten him, and we do not know
what to do. Please help him if you can." Then U'
nodded and ran home, took three chicken eggs, hurried to
the stream to pick five mulberry leaves and five grass
buds which she chewed and mixed with egg yolk. She
wrapped the mixture around the wound after removing all
the clotted blood. She had learnt this from her mother.
Many people who’d been bitten by the green snake, the
most poisonous of all, had been cured this way. The
gemstone diggers ran back to site when they knew that
there was somebody taking care of the boy’s father. Left
alone with the crying boy, Then U' was touched with
pity. She consoled him, "Your father will recover, so
don’t worry. But he should stop digging stones for quite
a long time, you know. This snake is very poisonous."
The boy took to calling her aunt, and it seemed that he
had not had anybody to talk to for quite a long time. He
spoke to her at length about his family. His house was
in Ta Ao Hamlet. His mother had gone missing in a flash
flood the year before. The bereaved father and son had
nothing to eat, so they left the house and had come up
here to earn a living by digging stones. His father was
ailing, so they had gone a few days without food. He
wished his father would recover soon, and have a large
pot full of steamed rice like the days when his mother
was still alive.
Then U' told him, "My house is just over there. Come
and get some rice to cook for your father." The
boy’s eyes opened wide. It was the first time somebody
had made an offer like this, and he followed her without
hesitation. From that day, he tailed Then U' all the
time. With her treatment and care, the wound healed
gradually. She fed him with good food, so he recovered
fast. The father was moved when his son told him about
what Then U' had done for them.
One evening, father and son went to see Then U'. He told
her that his father was a Thai from Bong Hamlet and that
he had strayed to this area during the French
occupation. His father had told him that if the mountain
god had not become angry one year and rained stones in
an avalanche that had destroyed several hamlets at the
foot of the mountain because the offerings made that
year were not pure, he would have been married to a girl
in this hamlet — Lung Thang. That night, Thin U' offered
him the half-bottle of alcohol she had got for Tet xap
xi, and he told her his father’s story.
***
During
the time the French occupied the Luc Yen area, his
father lived in dire poverty, and had to slave under one
local master after another. Having no clothes for the
winter, he had to use the bark of the sui tree (an elm
variety) after fetching it from the forest. At the
urging of a friend, who also worked for the same master
and could not bear the hardship, he left the area and
came to Lung Ma Hamlet, near Lung Thang, to work as
porters carrying logs for a French boss.
Once, as he pulled a log down from the top of the
mountain, it was raining hard, and the ground was
slippery. He lost his footing and fell down, and the log
fell on him, breaking his legs. The boss had no more use
for him. He lay motionless in the corner of a hut. A
Thai woman took him to a quack who could heal the
fractures. When he recovered, she adopted him. She had a
rather good looking daughter named Paong, whose father
was a leper who’d been tied to a bamboo raft and floated
down Nam Bo Stream. The girl was given a wide berth by
the people of the hamlet including the boys. She
developed tender feelings for him, seeing that he was
hard working and good-natured. He responded and they
decided to get married. Her mother was very happy about
it. She planned an offering ceremony to Sua Mountain
God, to pray for their marriage after the harvest of the
next crop. Without warning, the wrath of the mountain
god triggered the avalanche of stones, and they came
rolling right into their home. He heard Paong scream as
he himself was thrown up, landing on a stone slab as
large as a bed that slid quite a distance before it
stopped. He looked back, and there were stones all over
the area. There was no way Paong and her mother could
have survived. Stricken by grief and panic, he went down
to the Bong Hamlet and lived on the assistance of the
people there.
It was in this hamlet that the stone worker’s parents
met. His mother was an immigrant from the delta who
worked as a hired hand. When he was two years old, his
mother died. Later, after he himself had been married
for just two months, his father died unexpectedly.
The voice of the stone worker died out, his eyes turning
glassy as if the alcohol was taking effect. Then U' let
him lean back on the kitchen wall and nod. She did not
pay any heed to the boy tapping on her hand, pointing at
his father, laughing, two front teeth missing. She was
thinking about her mother. Her mother, whose name was
also Paong, had told her about the terrible avalanche of
stones that had thrown both her grandmother and mother
far away. They had lain unconscious until noon. Was it
the same avalanche? Mother also told Then U' that her
father who was from the Giauy people living in the
distant Tuuc Min Hamlet in Phuu Yeon province. He had
joined the colonial military garrisoned in Lung Ma
Hamlet. One day, as he pursued the Viet Minh, the Viet
Nam Independence League which was waging a resistance
war against the French, he passed through Lung Thang and
saw Then U'’s mother catching snails in the stream, then
wooed her. At first her mother did not respond, but
later, when she found out that the village boys were
trying to avoid her, the daughter of a leper, she became
afraid of loneliness, and gave in. She had given herself
to the soldier, certain that he would return to marry
her after being demobilised. Her wait was in vain. She
had brought up Then U' alone. Mother died when her
daughter just turned 21.
When her mother was still alive, she had floated the
cakes down the stream every Tet xap xi, saying that it
was for the person she loved best. Then U' had not known
who this person was, but she continued her mother’s
practice after her death, hoping that the person her
mother loved most would recognise it.
The arrival of the stone worker and his son has changed
her life. In the past, whenever she went to work in the
fields, she would lower the bamboo fence to protect the
door and pull down some tree branches to show the
entrance to the house. She did not do this anymore
because the boy was there to guard the house for her.
She cooked meals for both father and son. After the
meal, the stone worker would sometimes chat with Then U'
until late in the night. She felt strange feelings
kindled in her heart. One night, a storm struck
suddenly, raising strong winds. The house creaked, and
branches of trees snapped of noisily. Then it was
raining hard, a torrential downpour that was the
heaviest ever. Then U'’s house was leaking. The house
was like an open yard. The three persons huddled
together, trembling until daybreak. The next day,
everything had been flattened, and the gemstone diggers’
tent was nowhere to be seen. The stone worker and his
son moved into Then U'’s house, and they became a
couple, but it was not known exactly when this had
happened. Her sudden marriage was the talk of the Lung
Thang Hamlet for quite a long time. But it gradually
died down, and the villagers called them the Then U'
couple.
***
That
would have been the end of the story if it were not for
the vision that the shaman had when he was once praying
to Sua. He suddenly saw white clouds gathering around
the mountain top in the form of a huge bear, its mouth
wide open, tongue sticking out, two front legs pointing
to the Lung Thang Hamlet. The priest took this as an
ill-omen, and the people in the hamlet were greatly
afraid. They offered chicken, alcohol, sticky rice and
even opium to appease Sua.
Bach A Thao lived at the foot of the mountain. He told
hamlet elder Ly A Chau and priest Then Sa that he had
dreamt that the mountain god had returned to the hamlet
to blame the villagers for permitting the gemstone
diggers to come and dig up the god’s fairy garden. Sua
had told him in the dream that if the Then U' couple
were not driven out of the place, he would have another
avalanche of stones raze the entire hamlet to the
ground.
One winter morning, just after Tet xap xi, Then U' had
got up early to prepare breakfast for the family before
they left for the fields to sow maize, when the hamlet
elder, the voodoo priest and a group of young men
entered the house. Ly A Chau stood in the middle of the
house and shouted, "You must leave here immediately!
Because of you, Sua has threatened an avalanche of
stones that will kill all of us. We will dismantle your
house and return the ‘fairy garden’ to our mountain god
right now."
As soon as he finished the speech, without letting the
couple say anything, priest Then Sa placed a tray of
steamed sticky rice and a boiled chicken in the middle
of the yard and burnt incense. The young men then
started to dismantle the house. Minutes later, the house
had become a desolate place. The family went up to the
stone field strewn with logs and craters, vestiges of
the gemstone digging site. They set up a temporary hut.
Every day, husband and wife took turns to go into the
forest to fetch fruits, or to the terrace field for some
manioc or maize. With the assistance of some good
people, they were able to borrow some food and pigs and
chickens to start a life again.
By sheer dint of hard work day in day out, the Then U'
couple were able to overcome their plight of dire
poverty. Their maize and rice fields gave them bumper
crops. The boy, so thin in the past, was now a strapping
young man who could help his parents with a lot of heavy
work. The Tet xap xi that year saw the family sitting
around a heaped food tray after the cakes had been
floated down the Nam Bo Stream to the best-loved person
and offerings made to Sua. Just then, Ly A Chau, now
head of the Lung Thang Hamlet, and two forest rangers
called on them. It was the Thai custom that when a guest
dropped in after dinner, he or she should be invited to
partake of the meal. The cup of alcohol should be filled
to the brim, and the guest had to drain it before talks
began.
Ly A Chau informed the family about the government’s
policy on reforestation of the upstream area of Nam Bo
which had been destroyed by the gemstone diggers. He
introduced the two forest rangers, saying, "Mr. Tuu
and Mr. Sinh here will supply you with tree strains and
guide you on tending them. The state will lend you money
for food and other expenses. When the trees are big
enough, the state will pay you the rest of the money for
cultivating and tending the trees."
Then U' looked at her husband and son, not really
understanding what was being said. Tuu then explained
that the state would pay them to regreen the forest. At
first, an advance would be given, and the remaining sum
after the trees were big enough for the forestry
department to take away for planting. The family
understood. More alcohol was drunk and a cordial
atmosphere prevailed. Two weeks after the Tet xap xi,
they started digging holes to plant the trees.
Five festivals had passed, and the whole area upstream
Nam Bo was green again with the efforts of the Then U'
family and other households. The gemstone digging sites
were now covered with trees. During the last Tet xap xi,
Chau made offerings to Sua on behalf of all the people
in the hamlet. That night Sua came to him in a dream, a
green hat on his head and a silver beard floating down
like the Nam Bo Stream. His stick was as straight as the
forest trees, and a shining halo surrounded him. The
god’s voice was as gentle as a lullaby permeating the
deep forest in spring, "O sons of the mountain, you
have understood my desire and fulfilled it. The forest
is now green again as in the past. I will not open the
gate and let the stones roll down any more. Heed my
words. From now on, never let the forest bleed. Never
let strangers come and dig up treasures right under your
feet."
The next morning when the Cac Ca bird had just started
its song on the hill which was now dressed in a soft
green coat sequined with dew drops that shone like
divine eyes of gemstones lying deep under the ground for
years, hamlet head Chau went to visit the Then U'
family. Then U' was feeding sows in the yard. She
cordially invited the guest into the house. The stone
worker was now nearly 60, but still looked fit. He bade
the guest to sit by the fire. Sipping a cup of hot tea,
Chau told his host about the dream. The erstwhile stone
worker sat motionless, so silent that the cracking of
firewood could be heard all over the house. After the
story, he suddenly seemed to awake from a dream, letting
out a cry that made Then U' and the boy run towards him.
"The stone flood has gone away! No more avalanches
from now on! Where is the mother of eau (stone) (he had
named his son eau because stone had been a lifelong
wound that had been impossible to heal)? Please bring me
the jar of snake-alcohol."
The alcohol was brought, and the hamlet head invited to
drink. Two cups for them and one cup for the owner of
the forest. The liquor jar was full of green snakes, the
most poisonous in the Sua mountain area, but now it was
a tonic. The liquor level in the jar dropped
gradually....
Out on the newly planted hills, the canopy of trees
loomed large, and flocks of birds sang merrily, praising
the immense green of the forest and the mountain.
Translated by Manh Chuong |
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