The Mountains Sing(83)

“Well, I don’t care,” he said firmly. “People have the right to trade.”

I’d heard no one talk like Tam. During class time, my teachers had been denouncing traders and capitalists, saying that they were c?n b? c?a x? h?i—dregs of society that had to be mopped away.

We walked side by side on the neighborhood lane, he carried the novel and I the two poetry books. The sky had absorbed the sun’s heat and released its stars. A full moon spilled light onto our path.

“Where do you live, Tam?”

“In ??ng ?a Quarter.”

“That’s far away.”

“Not too far, and walking does me good.”

Several kids ran up to us, dashing through the narrow gap between Tam and me. They galloped away, dragging their laughter with them.

I smiled, shaking my head. I used to do the same, making fun of couples.

“I’ve been thinking about your father,” Tam said, “and about the bird he carved for you. He must be a very special person.”

I nodded and told Tam how dear my father was to me. I talked about Uncle ??t’s journey through the war and how he’d brought the S?n ca back to me. I talked about Uncle Thu?n’s death, my mother returning from the war, Grandma’s job, and Uncle Sáng’s strange behavior.

“I’m sorry,” Tam told me. “It’s even more incredible to me now, how good you are at school despite all of that.”

“I’m not that good. I should study harder.”

“Don’t you believe it.” Tam’s shoulder pushed playfully against mine. “The math test yesterday, you’re the only one who got a perfect mark.”

“You didn’t do too badly yourself. You got ninety-eight percent.”

“I wish our teachers would stop reading our marks aloud.” Tam sighed. “They embarrass those who don’t do so well.”

“I know.”

“Want to know something else, H??ng?”

“What?”

“The boys in our class say you intimidate them by your good grades.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say. But I think they’re wrong. You’re not intimidating at all, on the contrary. . .” Tam left his words hanging in mid-air.

We’d turned back, and now I found us standing under the bàng tree. Some minutes of silence passed.

“You should go in,” said Tam. “We don’t want your grandma to worry.”

I nodded and gave him the books. His fingers brushed against mine.

“Good night,” he whispered. “Sweet dreams.”

The look on his face was so tender that I turned and fled.

Grandma asked countless questions about Tam, and when I said he was very good at math, she softened a bit. Still, she told me not to go any place where the two of us could be alone.

“You think I’ll let bad things happen to me, the way they’ve happened to my mother, Grandma?” I fumed.

“Oh H??ng, you’re young and the world is complicated. Just be careful, please.”

“I am careful. And you need to trust me, Grandma.”

“Darling, I trust you, but other people have to earn my trust.”

GRANDMA HAD LEARNED about my mother and Uncle Sáng’s fight. She’d stopped sending food for a while, but as Auntie Hoa’s pregnancy advanced, she didn’t want the baby to go hungry.

Two evenings a week, when my mother was on her night shift, I was on duty, bringing food to Uncle Sáng’s apartment. Though my uncle knew Grandma was sometimes waiting downstairs, he never invited her up. He acted as if it was our responsibility to supply him food. He never asked about Uncle ??t, whom he’d only seen once at a tea stall. Miss Nhung had arranged the meeting, from which Uncle ??t came back seething. He said Uncle Sáng was stuffed with propaganda rubbish.

It seemed that among the siblings, Uncle Sáng was the luckiest. He’d emerged from the war okay. When Grandma escaped from her village, she hadn’t had to leave him behind.

“Mama spoiled Sáng,” Uncle ??t told my mother. “If you think about it, she always had a soft spot for him, her youngest son.”

Uncle ??t was right. Uncle Sáng had had plenty of time to bond with Grandma on her long walk to Hà N?i, and he used that bond to manipulate Grandma.

I disliked seeing Uncle Sáng and felt relieved when Tam started to accompany me on the food-delivery trips. His uncle had bought him an old bicycle, and he overhauled it, fixing a soft cushion onto its back. I got to sit behind him as he rode his bike into the evenings. We chatted along the way, and I learned about his family. His parents were farmers. They worked hard to send him to Hà N?i to live with his uncle so he could prepare himself better for university. Tam had a younger sister who wanted to outdo him in everything. Of his grandparents, only his mother’s father was still around. He was a difficult man, who was ill and preferred to be alone, in his room. Tam wondered whether his grandfather was crazy. Sometimes he’d overheard the old man weeping and mumbling to himself.

“Perhaps something bad happened to him? Did you try to talk to him?” I said, thinking about my mother after her return.

“I did, but he called me by all types of names. He even tried to beat me up.”