The Mountains Sing(13)

Getting Up and Falling Down Again

Hà N?i, 1973–1975

The bombings had stopped. I was surprised by how blue the sky was, even when it was raining.

Grandma and I knelt on the site of our collapsed house, piling broken bricks into a pair of bamboo baskets. Our hands became the color of brick; so did our clothes. Nearby, a bomb crater was half-filled with rainwater. It gazed at me with its single murky eye.

I thought about the American pilot. Did he drop this bomb? What had happened to him, and did he have a daughter like me?

The baskets were full. Grandma reached for a bamboo pole, balancing it on her shoulder. She bent, hooking the pole onto thick ropes that held the baskets. I winced as she stood up, hoisting the baskets onto her skinny frame, staggering toward the bomb crater, the toes of her bare feet splaying out. I caught up with her and helped her dump the baskets’ contents into the murky eye. Water splashed up.

Around us, men, women, and children, with torn clothes and ghostly faces, were doing the same thing, filling the eye from hell with the remains of their homes.

“M? Di?u Lan ?i, H??ng ?i!” A voice called out to us.

The brick shards fell away from my hands. My mother. She was back.

I stood up, stumbled, and ran forward. In the afternoon’s failing light, my mother was pushing a bicycle; something perched on its back saddle.

“M?!” I cried out for her.

We got closer. My eyes found her face, and my feet stopped. It was my aunt H?nh, not my mother.

Auntie H?nh leaned her bike against a pile of rubble and rushed toward me. She knelt, taking me into her arms. Her tears trickled on my face. “Oh, Little H??ng. Hasn’t your Mama come back?”

I shook my head, burying my face into my aunt’s chest, searching for my mother’s warmth. Auntie H?nh was Grandma’s fifth child, eight years younger than my mother. She lived far away, in Thanh Hóa Province, in her husband’s hometown.

“H?nh.” Grandma arrived, embracing us both.

“I was insane with worry.” Auntie H?nh touched Grandma’s face, body, and arms as if to make sure nothing was missing.

“Ah, you silly girl. It’s not easy to kill this old water buffalo.” Grandma laughed. Her voice leaped upward, free. I felt myself smiling, too.

Helping Auntie H?nh push the bike forward, I eyed the brown sack on the back saddle. Hunger gnawed my stomach, but I shouldn’t expect my aunt to bring us food. Her husband, Uncle Tu?n, had gone to war. She taught at a primary school and worked alone in her paddy field; whatever she earned had to stretch thin since her children were young and her parents-in-law sick.

“How long did it take you to cycle all the way here, H?nh?” asked Grandma.

“Just a little over a day and a night, Mama.”

“Don’t do it again, please. It’s long and dangerous.”

“You once walked more than three hundred kilometers, remember, Mama?”

As we approached the bomb crater, our neighbors stopped us, asking Auntie H?nh many questions.

I didn’t hear what they said because I lagged behind to study my aunt from the back. She looked just like my mother then, with velvety hair flowing down to her slender waist. Oh how I longed to run my fingers through my mother’s hair again. We’d always washed our hair together, under the shade of our bàng tree. Those days seemed like a dream away; even our beloved tree was now just a memory.

“Who’s taking care of your kids, H?nh? How are little Thanh and Chau?” Grandma asked once we were by ourselves again.

“They can take care of themselves fine, Mama. You should see how tall they are now.”

We reached the pile of rubble that had been our home. Auntie H?nh rested her bike against the broken bàng trunk. Grandma had planted this tree when she built the house. The bàng had decorated our front door each spring with emerald buds, each summer with tangy fruit, each autumn with red leaves of fire, and each winter with a web of slender branches. Now its roots protruded into the air like raised, burned hands.

“Oh my tree. My home.” Auntie H?nh caressed the torn bark.

“Trong cái r?i có cái may,” said Grandma. Good luck hides inside bad luck. “We’ll plant another tree and build another house.”

Aunt H?nh dried her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “So, where have you been sleeping?”

I pointed toward the patch of dirt, our former backyard. Grandma’s friends had cut away some bàng branches, hammering them down into the earth like tent poles. The branches now bore the corners of a plastic sheet, to make the roof of our shelter. A tattered straw mat made the floor, three unbroken bricks our cooking stove, a tin bucket our cooking pot. I’d been gathering dry twigs and leaves for fuel.

Auntie H?nh shook her head. She unhooked the rubber cord that tethered the brown sack to her bike. “Just some rice and sweet potatoes.”

I helped her free the bundle, my mouth watering at the thought of food.

“You have many mouths to feed, H?nh,” said Grandma. “H??ng and I, we have our food stamps.”

“But Mama, people say many government stores have been destroyed, that there isn’t much food left to buy.’’

“Well, you have your children and parents-in-law to feed. Don’t bring anything next time.”