The Mountains Sing(33)

“Uncle Sáng, please,” I told him. “Grandma has been cooking your favorite dishes all week, just in case you came home.”

My uncle walked back and forth a few more times. He checked to see if our door was closed and locked. He put his ear against it, then peered out from a crack as if to make sure no one was spying. He glanced up at our windows.

He walked to the table. “All right,” he whispered, “only this time and only because I don’t want little H??ng to be sad.” He dove into the food. He was silent throughout his meal, but when he finished, he let out a gigantic belch.

Grandma and I were still eating when he stood up, his boots knocking against the chairs’ legs. When he opened his mouth, his words rolled out, as if from a stranger’s tongue, “Mama, if you love me, quit your trading job and go back to teaching. Until you do, I can’t visit you anymore.”

? ? ?

GRANDMA LOOKED DEFEATED after Uncle Sáng left. She put away the food and quietly returned to the market.

What had happened that made Uncle Sáng change so much? He’d always been caring toward Grandma. He’d often folded colored papers into animals for me and my friends. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, he’d slivered bamboo and made different paper lanterns: a cat, a fish, a tiger, a star, a flower. The lanterns he made for me always won a prize at the Light Parade around the Lake of the Returned Sword. He’d learned the skills from the artisan who took care of him when he first got to Hà N?i with Grandma.

I gave Grandma a glass of water when she came home. “You okay? I couldn’t believe how rude Uncle Sáng was.”

“He’s been brainwashed by propaganda.” She sat down on the ph?n. “Given what happened to his father, I’ve warned him about the dangers of politics. Yet he doesn’t want to listen.” She sighed. “People say m?a d?m th?m lau.” Soft and persistent rain penetrates the earth better than a storm. I need to be patient with him.”

She turned the glass in her hands. “As for your mother, H??ng, I’ve been thinking . . . that we need to make more effort. Keep talking to her. Your voice will lead her back to us.”

“She doesn’t care, Grandma. I don’t want to visit her anymore.” I stood up, wanting to walk away from my mother’s problems.

Grandma reached for my hand. “H??ng, if we don’t help her, nobody can. Promise you’ll never give up on her?”

FROM THEN ON, whenever I visited Auntie Duyên’s house, I brought books along to read and homework to do, so as to fill the silence between my mother and me.

A few weeks later, I got a letter. I was so surprised, I kept opening the envelope, pulling out a note, reading it, smiling to myself, returning it to the envelope, only to open it again.

“Whose letter is that?” my mother suddenly asked, sitting a few arm’s lengths away from me as usual.

“I don’t know, Mama.”

She arched her eyebrows.

“Want to know what it says?” I asked, and without waiting for her answer, I cleared my throat.

Dear H??ng, have you noticed that summer has arrived? Ph??ng flowers are lighting up their torches alongside the streets. I dream about the day when I can walk with you under the red sky.

I held up the note. “Found it inside my bag. I don’t know who put it there.”

“You have a secret admirer then.” My mother actually smiled as she said these words.

“Perhaps someone is playing a trick on me?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I also received such letters when I was your age.”

“Really? How many? And who sent them to you?”

The smile on her face vanished. She turned, looking out of the window.

“Don’t you want to come home, Mama?”

Silence.

“Mama, please. Come home. I need you.”

“I can’t. . . . You shouldn’t be around me now. I’m no good.”

“Auntie Duyên said you’re going back to work. But why at her factory? You’re a doctor. You loved your job.”

“I can’t be a doctor anymore.” She twisted her fingers. “It’d bring back too many painful memories.”

“What memories, Mama?”

“Oh H??ng, I can’t tell you. Let’s just say that I went through terrible, terrible things. Things that I don’t wish to happen to anyone.”

“Mama, if you can’t tell me, talk to Grandma. She can help you.”

“No,” whispered my mother. She bent her head, her shoulders quivering. “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring your Papa back to you, H??ng. I made him join the damn Army. He wanted to chop his finger off so he wouldn’t have to enlist. He talked about going into hiding to avoid fighting. But I told him he was a coward, that as a man he had to defend our country and get rid of foreign invaders.”

I stared at my mother. Had she gone mad?

I shook my head. “Grandma told me everyone had to go. Papa didn’t have a choice.”

“Yes, he did have a choice. Damn it, he did!” She clenched her fists.

“Papa will come back. He will—”

“Will he? It’s been three months since the war ended, H??ng.”

Three months. We would’ve heard from him by now if he were still alive; she wanted to tell me that but couldn’t bring herself to say it.