The Mountains Sing(26)

“Madam Tr?n. Help us!” A desperate call rang out from a pile of corpses. A woman with bleeding lips stretched out her palm. On her bare chest lay a boy—a skeleton of skin and bones.

“I have no food left.” My mother bent down, tears trickling down her face.

“So hungry,” the woman whimpered, pulling herself and her son closer to us.

“We only have water.” I lifted the bamboo pipe. The woman swallowed in big gulps.

As I nursed water into the boy’s mouth, my children’s faces flickered in my mind. We needed to hurry and get back to them.

My mother had squatted down, howling. In front of her was the body of Mr. Ti?n, who’d worked for us for many years. His wife and son were next to him, their heads on his chest. They died a horrific death, pain still spilling from their gaping mouths.

I pulled my mother up and away. There were people everywhere, lying by the roadside, dying, begging. A few tried to snatch our legs as we wobbled past them, but they were too weak to hold on.

Except for the feeble sounds of humans, the village was quiet. There were no animals left to make a noise. Everything was brown and bleached. Even the landscape was dying.

“Don’t stop anymore, Mama.” I pulled her away as a woman tried to hold on to her feet.

“Give her some water.”

“We don’t have much, Mama.”

“Damn it. Give it to her!”

I eased the liquid into the woman’s mouth. She nodded her thanks, closing her eyes, resting her face on the sun-scorched soil.

We tried to walk faster, passing huts filled with murmurs of children, passing piles of rotting bodies, passing hands that reached out to us, trembling in their calling. We swallowed our tears and walked as if we were blind, as if we had hearts of stone.

Holding on to each other, we wobbled together toward Nam ?àn forest. Thoughts about Minh, ??t, and Ng?c gave me strength. But the farther we walked, the weaker I felt. My mother was slower and slower with each step. The sun beat down on us, blanching the surroundings into a blur.

Yet we walked. We walked, leaning on each other. We walked, muttering to each other that we had to make it, to bring food back for the children.

Exhausted, I led my mother over to a large tree, barren of leaves. We took off our hats, letting the brown trunk receive our tired backs.

Using the knife, I dug. The earth was as hard as rock. All I could find were some grass roots. I handed them to my mother, who wiped them clean. She ate a few and gave me the rest. With the bitterness of the roots between my jaws, I eyed the horizon, where trees layered into a velvet of green. Hidden inside that greenness could be our saviors: grasshoppers, crickets, sim berries, and mountain guavas.

“Mama, wait for me here. I’ll come back with something to eat.”

My mother shook her head. “Since your father’s death, I can’t be the one who stays behind. If death comes, it’ll have to take me first.”

“It was not your fault, Mama! It was mine. If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have encountered those murderers. I slowed us down by driving the cart.”

“No, Di?u Lan. Your father wouldn’t want you to think that way. He loved you more than his life.”

“You’re more than life to him, too, Mama. Stop blaming yourself, please.”

My mother bent her head. “I have something to show you.” Her hands trembled as she unhooked the safety pin that closed her pocket.

I blinked, thinking that hunger must be making me hallucinate. In my mother’s palm was the Tr?n’s family treasure—a large ruby framed by solid gold and fixed to a gold chain.

“I managed to hide it from the Japanese.” My mother handed it to me.

I cupped the precious item of jewelry to my face, hearing my ancestors’ lullabies echoing from it. My father had received the necklace from his parents. He’d proudly shown it to C?ng and me. Guava, the necklace had enchanted me so much that I had named your mother—my first daughter—Ng?c, which means ruby.

“Di?u Lan.” My mother swallowed hard. “I’d promised your father I’d safeguard this, to be able to pass it on to you and your brother. But now . . . if somebody offers some food. . . .”

I nodded, returning the necklace to my mother, who carefully put it back into her pocket, securing it with the safety pin.

Holding on to each other, we dragged our aching bones toward the forest. It looked close but was an ocean away from us. We’d left our wooden clogs somewhere along the road, for they’d become too heavy, and now sharp stones dug into our naked feet.

Just when I thought I’d collapse and die, swaying trees welcomed me into their arms.

I broke away from my mother, rushing onto a worn path that zigzagged through the forest. But instead of finding joy, I found more corpses, of children, women, and men. All around them, fruit trees had been cut down or uprooted. No sight of birds, fruit, flowers, or butterflies. No sound except flies’ buzzing.

My mother pulled my arm, leading me deeper into the forest. In front of a large, thorny bush, she bent down, pushing away low branches.

A narrow opening.

“A path, created by your father.” My mother’s lips curled into a rare smile. In his final years, my father used to take my mother here for a walk, just the two of them. They’d come home with nuts and mushrooms, wild hens, and once, a wild pig.