The Mountains Sing(6)

In the middle of the village, you’ll arrive in front of a large estate surrounded by a garden filled with fruit trees. Peeking through the gate, you’ll see a house similar to the one we saw on Silk Street, only more charming and much larger. The people who take you there will ask whether you’re related to the Tr?n family. If you tell them the truth, Guava, they’ll be astonished. The Tr?n family members have either died, been killed, or disappeared. You’ll learn that seven families have occupied this building since 1955, none of them our relatives.

My beloved granddaughter, don’t look so shocked. Do you understand why I’ve decided to tell you about our family? If our stories survive, we will not die, even when our bodies are no longer here on this earth.

The Tr?n family’s house is where I was born, got married, and gave birth to your mother Ng?c, your uncles ??t, Thu?n, Sáng, and your aunt H?nh. You didn’t know this, but I have another son, Minh. He’s my first-born, and I love him very, very much. But I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive. He was taken away from me seventeen years ago, and I haven’t seen him since.

I’ll explain what happened to him later, but first, let me take you back to one particular summer day in May 1930, when I was ten years old.

I WAS STARTLED awake by the sound of thudding, deep in the heart of the night, a rhythmic, hollow clunking. “Who’s making so much noise at this hour?” I complained, turning sideways, to find Mrs. Tú, the housekeeper, snoring next to me. Her name, Tú, means “refined beauty,” but if you met her, you might be frightened at first. A deep scar zigzagged from her mouth to her left eye. On her right cheek, flesh had melted into a mass of wrinkles. Mrs. Tú wasn’t born that way, though. Years ago, before I popped out from my mother’s stomach, a fire had gobbled up most of V?nh Phúc Village, reducing Mrs. Tú’s house to ashes, killing her husband and her two sons, burning her almost to death. My mother brought Mrs. Tú to our home and nursed her back to health. When Mrs. Tú recovered, she decided to stay and work for us. Over the years, she became part of our family.

Years later, Guava, it was Mrs. Tú who risked her life to save mine and your mother’s.

That early morning, though, the sight of our housekeeper calmed the frantic wings inside my stomach. I was thankful she’d agreed to leave her room to keep me company for the last few nights.

“Wake up, Auntie Tú. What’s that noise?” I whispered, but she continued to snore.

The thuds got more urgent. I yawned, hoisting myself up. Fumbling in the dark, I found my wooden clogs. Leaving my bedroom, I clip-clopped into a long corridor that ran past a large room, which stored our fields’ harvests. With my hands, I felt my way forward. Careful as I was, I still bumped my head on the ?àn nh? and was startled at the low hum its two strings made. I cursed my brother for hanging the musical instrument so low, as if the awful wailing sounds he made with those strings weren’t enough. I passed the living room, where a kerosene lamp glowed on a table, spreading light onto a lacquered sofa inlaid with mother-of-pearl. A wooden platform rose up on its four strong legs—the ph?n divan, where my father often sat and entertained his guests. Massive pillars made of precious lim wood ran all the way from the brick floor to the ceiling. High up, another kerosene lamp eyed me from the family altar. Two lacquered panels on the wall bore poetry written exquisitely in N?m—the ancient Vietnamese script.

Following the noise, I emerged into the front yard. There, bathed in moonlight, my father was raising a large wooden pestle, hammering it on a stone mortar. His square face and muscled arms shone with sweat. He was pounding rice, but why hadn’t he asked his workers to help?

Not far from him, my mother squatted on a stool, holding a bamboo tray, tossing pounded rice. Her hands jerked back and forth, forcing the husks to fly out. She looked so graceful in her movements that if it wasn’t for the sheet of rice fluttering in front of her, you would think she was dancing.

Then, I remembered our family tradition: my parents always prepared the first batch of rice from a new harvest by themselves and offered it to our ancestors. They had begun harvesting our fields the day before, piling the fruit of their work under the longan tree.

“Mama. Papa.” I skipped down the five steps that flowed from the front veranda to the brick yard.

“Did we wake you up, Di?u Lan?” My father reached for a towel and swept it across his face. A chorus of insect songs rose from the garden behind his back. Muffled sounds of cows and water buffaloes echoed from stalls that ran deep into the side garden, but the chickens remained quiet inside their bamboo cages.

“Kitten, go back to bed.” Unlike my father, my mother was superstitious and called me by my nickname, to guard me from evil spirits.

“Ah. My lot is ready.” My father scooped his mortar’s contents into a bamboo basket. An aroma of rice perfume blossomed into my lungs as I helped him.

I carried the basket to my mother, who was inspecting the white seeds on her bamboo tray, before pouring them into a ceramic urn.

“How’s Master Th?nh, Di?u Lan?” My father’s voice rose above the pounding rhythms. He’d been so busy, we hadn’t had much time to talk.

“He’s wonderful, Papa.” Master Th?nh was a scholar my parents had just hired to teach my brother C?ng and me. The only school in my entire district was too far away and reserved for boys. C?ng and I had always studied at home with our tutor. My father had recently gone all the way to Hà N?i and brought back Master Th?nh, who appeared at our gate with a buffalo cart full of books. While most girls in my village were taught only how to cook, clean, obey, and work in the fields, here I was, learning how to read and write with a scholar who had traveled far, even to France. I was beginning to enjoy the adventures his books gave me. Master Th?nh lived with us, in the western wing of the house.