The Mountains Sing(66)

But H??ng must hate me now. She must hate me for being stupid. I’m stupid for telling her the truth about me encouraging her father to go to war. I’m stupid, stupid, stupid!

1/7/1975

Mama came by. Seeing the bones that protruded from her shoulders, I remembered lines from an old folk poem: “My elderly mother is a ripe banana clinging onto the tree, the wind could rattle her to fall, leaving me an orphan.”

Mama is not yet old, just fifty-five this year, but she doesn’t look young. I fear that she could fall anytime, my heavy burden on her back. I’m a terrible daughter, for having been angry at her, for blaming her. I wish I could take back the words I’d flung at her, but words are like water: once they have escaped one’s mouth, they’re spilled onto the floor. Words are like knives, leaving invisible wounds that continue to bleed.

But Mama didn’t visit to talk about our fight. She insisted that I come to town with her. She said she’d asked a well-known healer to help me. Sitting on her bike’s back saddle, I rested my face against her shirt. She smelled so clean, so fresh. Fresh like the rice fields of our village in my faraway childhood. Fresh like the laughter of my brothers and sister. With my eyes closed, I saw the smiling faces of Thu?n, ??t, and Minh. They can’t be dead. They must come back to me.

I lifted my head once we entered the Old Quarter. Our bike passed small lanes. Lanes that were covered with the footsteps of Hoàng and me. Over there, under the curving roof of B?ch M? Temple, Hoàng had told me he wanted to marry me, his kiss still hot on my lips. When will he come back? Will he ever kiss me again?

Will I ever have one single day when I can forgive myself?

When the bike approached Traditional Medicine Street, the smell of herbal plants flooded into my nose. I shuddered. I was back in Tr??ng S?n, in front of my eyes was Mrs. Nin?, brewing jungle medicine in her clay pot. She poured the condensed liquid into a bowl and set it in front of me. She asked if I was sure. Instead of answering her, I looked down at my stomach. A tiny body was nesting inside of me. My flesh and blood, my own child. Tears blinded me as I gulped down the bitter liquid. I was killing my baby. My own baby.

“H??ng, what are you doing?” I started, and looked up to see my mother. She snatched the diary from my hands. “How dare you?”

“Mama . . .”

She brought her diary to her face and screamed so loud that I jumped away from her.

I was thinking of what to say when she picked up her sandals, flinging them at me. I ducked and the sandals hit the wall behind me with a big thump.

“My thoughts are private, for me to keep!” she hollered.

I stared at the woman in front of me, her face red, her hair unkempt. I’d searched for the mother I knew, and I thought I’d seen a glimpse of her in the diary, only to end up confronting a stranger. Only a stranger would want to hit me. Only a stranger would have a child with another man and abort her pregnancy to conceal her sins. “You’re a baby killer,” I heard myself say. “You betrayed Papa! Wait until I tell him.”

“Fine. Go and find him. Tell him. Tell him!”

Slamming the front door behind me, I ran. I didn’t know where to go, but I had to get away from my mother. I no longer wanted to see her face.

Cries choked my breath and I slowed down. I had run all the way to the Long Biên Bridge, its body arching like a skeleton across the Red River. Perhaps my father had died. Perhaps the river could take me to him.

Closing my eyes, I saw Grandma as a young child, being cursed by the fortune-teller, I saw my mother in the jungle, drinking herbal medicine to abort her baby. We had all been cursed, generations of the Tr?n family. I had to end it now. I pushed myself ahead.

The river curled its red in front of me. I looked down at its fast current. Th?y and I had been here, dipping our feet into the water, our laughter still singing in my ears. I had no more friends. No more family who cared about me.

“H??ng.” Someone snatched my hand, pulling me back. “I’m so sorry.”

I shoved my mother away and kept walking. No words could take back what she’d done to me.

She ran, blocking my path. “You’ve discovered the root of my sorrow, yet it’s only half of the truth. Please . . . give me the chance to explain.”

WE SAT IN a corner of a tea shop. My mother had ordered a glass of soybean milk for me, but I left it there, untouched.

“You’ll answer all of my questions?” I asked.

She nodded, glancing around, even though the shop was empty; the owner was out on the street, talking to her neighbors.

“Who’s the father of the baby?”

She squeezed her cup of tea, her knuckles white. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Something that felt like vomit rose to my throat.

My mother bent her head. Her mouth was closed, as tight as a clam.

“See? You said you’d tell me everything, but you can’t. You can’t because you betrayed Pa—”

“Please . . .” My mother raised her hands. “The truth would only hurt you more.”

“Hurt me? Nothing is worse than knowing you had a child with another man.”

My mother’s face scrunched up. She opened her mouth, but instead of words, delirious laughter spilled out from her lips. “Would it be worse if the father of my child is the enemy?”