The Mountains Sing(58)

We peeled and sliced the ginger. Mrs. Th?o lit a stove, fed the fire with rice straw, and boiled a pot of water, into which she poured some leftover rice. “Porridge . . . H?nh needs it.” She shook her head. “You beggars only care for money.” She lit the second stove for me to roast the ginger.

“Some mothers don’t know how lucky they are.” Mrs. Th?o’s eyes were fixed on the glowing fires. “For years, I’ve traveled to pagodas and temples, even to the famed Perfume Pagoda near Hà N?i. . . . I’m still waiting for my blessing.”

Thoughts swirled in my mind. I knew I couldn’t manage to bring all four children to Hà N?i. Mrs. Th?o seemed kind. But how could I leave another child to another stranger?

The ginger glided back and forth on the frying pan, its intense smell making my eyes weep.

“Sister,” I mumbled, “I left our bag of clothes at the market. No one’s looking out for it. I was in such a hurry—”

“Go get it then.”

It was terrible that I lied to such a kind woman. But how could I tell her the truth? Her husband was an official, after all.

“Sister, please take care of my daughter when I’m gone.”

“You silly woman,” laughed Mrs. Th?o. “H?nh isn’t allowed to go anywhere until she’s drunk my tea and eaten my porridge.”

Out in the front room, H?nh was sleeping. She was my eight-year-old angel. I carved her features into my memory: her beautiful oval face, her long eyelashes, her blushed cheeks. I drew her breath into my lungs. “Good-bye my love, I’ll come back for you.”

The gate banged shut behind me. Standing behind a bush, I studied the house so I could remember it. I had to come back and get my child. I didn’t know when, and that was the hardest part.

Oh, Guava, your mother was sobbing when I got back. She’d managed to put both Sáng and Thu?n to sleep under the shade.

“So you’re really doing this!” she hissed. “You’re throwing us away, one by one.”

The truth in her words cut into me like sharp knives.

“I’ll come back for ??t and H?nh when it’s safer. You saw how sick H?nh was. She needs help. There’s no way she can last until Hà N?i.”

“Where did you abandon her?”

“Abandon?” I shuddered. “She’s in good hands, Ng?c. A teacher with no child—”

“How long did you tell H?nh you’d be gone for?”

I couldn’t answer that question.

“See, you’re throwing us away. You’re giving us to strangers.” Ng?c bent her head, her shoulders quivering. When she looked up at me, anger had filled her eyes.

“I will never forgive you, Mama. I will never forgive you for doing this to us. Never, ever.”

Ng?c didn’t talk to me for days and nights. Now there were only four of us left, but things didn’t get any easier. We ran out of matches and could no longer light a fire. Hunger and exhaustion were our constant companions.

One night, I left the children sleeping and ventured close to a village. The full moon had come out to light my way. The moon witnessed my theft. I found rows of peanut plants and hurried to uproot them.

I woke the children and scurried away at the first sound of a rooster. The sun was high above our heads before I agreed to stop. Thu?n and Ng?c looked stunned when I pulled peanut shells out of my pockets.

“Where did you get these?” Ng?c asked. Her voice was music to the new day.

“Stole them last night.” I smiled.

She turned away, breaking the shells, giving the peanuts to Thu?n.

“Mama, where are Brother ??t and Sister H?nh?” Thu?n asked.

“We’re going to see them soon. They’re staying with my friends.”

“I want to stay with them!” cried Thu?n.

“Hush. We’ll see them soon.” I pulled him forward.

I was becoming a bad mother and a good liar, Guava. I saw the fierceness of your mother’s glance. I absorbed it. I deserved all the blame, for what I was doing to my children. But I had to save them.

We stopped for the night. Ng?c ate her peanuts quietly, sitting away from us. I couldn’t beg for her forgiveness anymore. I knew she wouldn’t change her mind.

At another village I stole some cassava, but without a fire, we had to eat them raw, which made us ill.

From then on, we tried to survive on water and tiny wild fruits that we found occasionally along the way. We ate young rice plants and grass. We could make it together to Hà N?i, I told myself. I was determined as ever, you know.

Everything changed when Thu?n fell sick.

It was not diarrhea this time but some other illness. A blanket of red dots covered him from head to toe.

“Mama, I’m dizzy,” he said. “Sister Ng?c, help me. My legs, oh they hurt!”

I tried to relieve the fever with water. It didn’t help.

I remember sitting there in the middle of nowhere, Thu?n in my arms. He was shivering, his body burning up.

When I asked your mother to look after Sáng and wait for me to come back, she didn’t protest. Instead she came over to me, took Thu?n from my arms, held him close, and told him she loved him. She let me go.

Thu?n was as light as a feather as I carried him, running for the nearest village. Would I be able to find a healer? Would the healer help him in exchange for the two cents I still had?