The Mountains Sing(93)

Grandma told Uncle Minh about Uncle Sáng steadily climbing the Party ladder, that he was now an important official in the Central Propaganda Department. And about Auntie H?nh and her family doing so well in Sài Gòn.

Uncle ??t went out to get more ph? for all of us, which I ate, sitting on a straw mat spread on the floor while listening to Grandma. She now went on and on about the good marks I’d gotten from my first year at university, and that local newspapers had published some of my poems. She talked about Tam, who was working toward a degree in agriculture and had been my boyfriend for three years.

“I gave him a hard time at first, but he earned my trust,” she told Uncle Minh. “You’ll like him, surely. He comes from the middle region, like us.”

Uncle Minh looked truly happy for me. Some color had returned to his face. He scribbled in the notebook.

“About me?” Grandma laughed and said she was doing fine, that she liked her job trading in the Old Quarter. She’d made many friends and had many more regular customers.

My uncle raised his arm, smoothing the wrinkles on Grandma’s face. The hard work had made her look much older than her fifty-nine years of age, though she was still a graceful woman. Through the years, I’d seen men coming to our home. Grandma had sent all of them away with her indifference. I knew the river of her love for my grandpa had never stopped flowing, and I saw how I’d turn out like her and my mother, loyal to one man.

“I’m perfectly happy now, having found you.” Grandma rested her face against her son’s hand. She tilted the bowl, pouring the rest of the soup into the spoon. “Well done, my child. Finished.”

Uncle ??t and I insisted that Grandma eat. She joined us on the straw mat. I went to the bed, picking up the fan. My mother came out of the cooking area, asking Uncle Minh to take a nap. He shook his head and held up the pen. “Ng?c, tell me about H??ng’s father?”

My mother sat down and massaged Uncle Minh’s legs. It was a story I had asked to hear many times. “I met Hoàng when I was eighteen, at the Mid-Autumn Festival,” she began.

It was a magical night, the sky adorned by the full moon. Around the Lake of the Returned Sword, thousands of paper lanterns lit by candles gathered for a parade, their lights bobbing like scales of a dragon to the rhythms of songs and drumbeats. My mother, too old to carry a lantern, chased her friends, racing past the lit-up figures of stars, animals, flowers. As her friends disappeared from her sight, she ran faster and tripped on a sharp rock. She fell, blood gushing from her foot.

She cried out in pain, but her voice was swallowed by the songs and drums. No one seemed to notice her. As she grew desperate, a young man emerged from the mass of people. He knelt down, took off his outer shirt, tore it up, and bandaged her foot. He brought her home and on the way, he made her laugh so hard, she forgot about the pain. They’d been inseparable from then until the man—my father—joined the Army.

I showed Uncle Minh the S?n ca. “My father carved this for me.”

My uncle studied the bird. “It’s beautiful. Where did your father fight?” he wrote.

“I don’t know. We never got a letter from him.”

“I gave up looking for Hoàng,” said my mother, “but recently there was this story in the newspaper. A soldier had been injured in an explosion and lost his memory. At the beginning of this year, he listened to the radio and heard a poem about the river that runs through his village. The poem evoked such powerful emotions that he remembered his way home. His family had no news from him for nine years, and then he turned up. Can you imagine how happy they were?”

I thought about the work I’d published. I longed for my father to read it and find his way back to us.

Auntie H?nh appeared. Uncle ??t met her at the door. She told him something and he frowned. I was desperate to know what was going on, but didn’t want Uncle Minh to see us whispering.

Grandma returned to the bed. “Get some sleep, Son. We’ll talk more later.”

Uncle Minh nodded, but the pen scribbled across the page, “Mama, how are Grandma Tú, Mr. H?i, and his son?”

“Mr. H?i and his family are fine. They can’t wait to see you. As for my beloved Auntie Tú . . . I’m sorry, Son . . . she died by the time I could return to our village. People said she’d committed suicide, but I don’t believe it.”

Uncle Minh gripped the pen tight. “You think someone killed her?”

“Yes, to take over our land. She was defending it so fiercely.”

“Those evil people, they’ll rot in hell.” The pen trembled in my uncle’s hand.

“What about Brother Thu?n, Mama?”

Grandma was distraught. As my mother held her, I talked about the bombings and the two soldiers who’d brought the news of my youngest uncle.

“Thu?n, oh my little brother . . . ,” Uncle Minh howled. He thumped himself in the chest. He reached for Grandma’s hand, tears flowing down his cheeks. “Mama, I’m sorry. You’ve suffered so.”

“But my life is filled with blessings, too,” Grandma choked. “It was a great blessing when I received your telegram. How did you have my address, Son? And why didn’t you contact me any sooner?”

Uncle ??t and Auntie H?nh stood beside me, anxious for the answers. Uncle Minh wrote something, only to blacken it with the ink. He flipped to a new page, only to hold the pen with his eyes closed.