The Mountains Sing(92)

“I’ll get it,” said Auntie H?nh. She grabbed her handbag and left.

Uncle Minh gave a wrinkled banknote to Uncle ??t. “Ice seller down the lane. Buy some to cool the room?” he wrote.

Uncle ??t pushed the money back. “Pay me later, once you and I have come home to Hà N?i . . . with tickets to a soccer match.”

Uncle Minh smiled and nodded.

I wondered if my eldest uncle had a family. I studied the shack, but the only thing that told me about his past was the altar—a wooden shelf clinging to the rusty wall. On it stood a statue of a man nailed to a cross. My uncle had become a Christian?

I followed Grandma through the back door, which opened into an area shaded by a thatched roof and surrounded by the tin sheets of the neighbors’ homes. A clay stove sat on the earthen floor, next to a pile of firewood. A large, brown jar stood in the corner, half filled with water.

“There’re so many things I want to ask him.” Grandma cried into her palms. “I don’t understand why he hadn’t sent us any news. He could’ve tried to let me know that he was alive. All these years . . .”

“He must have his reasons, Grandma. He’ll be able to tell us soon.”

Scooping water out of the jar, we washed our faces. I soaked my washcloth, using it to cool Grandma’s back. It pained me to see her bones and the scars inflicted by Wicked Ghost.

Grandma filled a bucket with water. Carrying it inside, I saw my mother sitting next to Uncle Minh, going through a stack of papers. As Grandma entered, she quickly put the papers into her knapsack.

“Ready for a sponge bath?” Grandma asked. Uncle Minh smiled. Suddenly his body jumped with bouts of coughing. Glancing at my mother, I read the worry in her eyes.

The coughing eased. The front door opened, but instead of Auntie H?nh, a boy came in, carrying a steaming bowl. I thanked him and fanned the ph?.

Grandma washed Uncle Minh. My mother unpacked parcels of herbs. She weighed different ingredients, pouring them into the clay pot she’d brought along.

Uncle ??t came back with a tray full of ice, which he placed next to Uncle Minh. He took the fan from me, flicking it, sending coolness around the room.

At the back of the shack, I kindled a fire. My mother poured water into the clay pot.

“How is he, Mama?” I fed the fire pieces of wood.

She pulled me to her, her lips against my ear. “Don’t tell Grandma yet. Your uncle Minh is dying. Those papers he showed me . . . cancer. It’s spread to his lungs and liver. He was hospitalized for months, but the doctors sent him home, said they could no longer help.”

“But you, Mama, your medicine can do magic.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late. The cancer is too advanced. The results of his tests . . .” She bit her lip. “I’ll try, but I think I can only help to relieve the pain of his last days.”

My chest hurt for Grandma. How could she cope with such awful news?

I turned to the fire. Human lives were short and fragile. Time and illnesses consumed us, like flames burning away these pieces of wood. But it didn’t matter how long or short we lived. It mattered more how much light we were able to shed on those we loved and how many people we touched with our compassion.

I thought about Tam and how his love had brightened my life. Whenever I felt low from missing my father, he’d been there to make me laugh. I wished he were here now to hold me and tell me everything would be all right.

The medicine bubbled, its thick scent woven into the air. My mother reduced the heat.

Uncle ??t came out, dousing his face in water.

“Is H?nh back?” My mother squinted her eyes against the smoke.

“Not yet,” my uncle whispered. “I saw her chatting out there with the neighbors. She must be asking them about Brother Minh.”

Inside, Uncle Minh was once again Grandma’s child, opening his mouth as she fed him the noodle soup. He chewed with difficulty and winced as he swallowed, but his eyes glowed.

While he ate, Grandma told him briefly about her walk to Hà N?i. We had a wonderful house, she said, and as soon as he was well enough, she’d bring him home.

She talked about Uncle ??t, his happy marriage to Auntie Nhung, and their three-month-old baby who was chubby like the Laughing Buddha. She didn’t tell him how much we’d feared the little boy would have problems. The first thing Grandma did after the baby’s birth was to count his fingers and toes. When the doctors said the baby was perfectly healthy, Grandma brought her forehead to the hospital’s floor, thanking all the Gods she’d prayed to. Uncle ??t and Auntie Nhung named the baby Th?ng Nh?t, which meant “Unification,” a fiery wish of many Vietnamese from North to South throughout the war.

Grandma told Uncle Minh about my mother’s well-respected positions at both the B?ch Mai Hospital and the Institute of Traditional Medicine. She didn’t tell him, though, that my mother had taken Grandma and me on a trip. In front of my baby brother’s grave, she wept as Grandma and I chanted prayers, blessing his soul with peace. It was Grandma’s turn to sob when we arrived at Tr??ng S?n Cemetery, where Uncle Thu?n had been laid to rest with thousands of other soldiers. Rows of graves stretched to the horizon, as far as our eyes could see. Many of those graves were marked “Unknown Soldier.” I’d wondered that day whether one of them held my father’s bones and his love for me, the love that I knew would not stop burning, even when buried under the cold earth.