Date ….

It was late at night. The rain was dripping on the banana leaves out side the window. The watch-announcing tocsin sound was echoing from the hoping storey of District chief’s court, Thuan An region. The District chief Nguyen Duc Nguyen was deep in thought sitting in his library. The candle was lamping its flashing light on the piles of “New letters” in Han script, “The Society Contract” by Mr. Lu Thoa, “Legal documents” by Mr. Manh Duc Tu Cuu. All of them were French so that all the issues were written by French language and were translated into Chinese one by Khang Huu Vi and Luong Khai Sieu who were Chinese people and Shanghai was the place brought out such books.

According to Mr. Lu Thoa, People were free by nature. However, people were in irons everywhere … The main reason for all the heartlessness in the society was in being because of social inequality.

Both of the two mentioned above men’s books were one of the 18^th century thought which was called as Light century in Europe. People had their own political freedom, equality of rights, a right to “their natural human beings …”.

Doctor of letters Nguyen could by his very nature study one but understand ten. He used to learn by heart Four Books and Five Classics, used to comprehend biblical books of Confucius and Mencius and all the matter such as loyal to the king and patriotic, manage his household, govern a country, keep peace on earth … The catechism of Confucius and Mencius seemed to be his blood and flesh. But Mr. Lu Thoa’s book had made an extraordinarily strong impression on him as a new flame had brighten his mind. A female bachelor in the market who used the “exchange books” as her career gave the books to him. Nobody did such a job like her in that area. She made friends with all learned Confucian scholars, teachers, students, high-school graduates, mandarins of ninth rank and on the contrary, they were her “customers”. She hadn’t got married yet although she had a fair complexion, beautiful eyes and eyebrows and she was tall and slender. She was not to be bound to meet as husband and wife. Once a month, she reached the gate of District chief’s court in dark four-panel traditional dress which had fastened two panels in front of her stomach with a shoulder pole weighed down with two black lacquer baskets of books. She followed the body-guard to the living room. Doctor of letters Nguyen specially loved and esteemed her and he often served her litchi in summer and pink green rice flakes in autumn. She read loudly and clearly the names of the books written by Han scripts or Vietnamese language. Both of them sometimes converse the literature about the content of her books.

-       Dear Sir! Today, I bring two precious books with me: “Discuss about what folk think in general situation” written by Nguyen Lo Trach and “Eight urgent and de facto problems” written by Nguyen Truong To - She informed – I am not able to understand what the books mentioned but the mandarin of ninth rank Lan Chau in Doai province and the Doctor of letters Dong Chau in our province were profuse in their compliments so much and forced me to bring them to you. They said that they were old enough to read for nothing because they were retired. They could only enjoy the beautiful landscape while you were different. You would do something for our world if you read them.

She smiled. Her mouth was as nice as a flower. Her career helped all the Confucian scholars including Doctor of letters Nguyen in the region with reading good books. She brought books for changing through out the Dong and Doai provinces. Customer could buy one or some books at the first time and read it or them within a month. She would bring them the new one for exchanging in the next month to keep an appointment. Money would be calculated due to the thin or thick books they had read. If the customer gave her “Three versions of poetry in the Tang style” and take “History records by Tu Ma Thien” for one time, they would change “History records by Tu Ma Thien” to take “all Eastern nations under Chu dynasty” in the other time.

District chief Nguyen had never read “Journey to the west”, “Kim Binh Mai”, “dreams of the people lived in Pink Storey”. He was absorbed in “Thanh Nghi newspapers” and “Tan Dan Tung ones” edited by Luong Khai Sieu. He read “Relate briefly about the traveling to the Palace” and “Journey to eleven countries in Europe” edited by Khang Huu Vi. Those writers were loved and esteemed by him. He half-believed in “argument over the developing process of nature” which was analyzed by Darwin who lived in England. Mankind of monkey-origin, birds of fish-origin and mammals of birds-origin were mentioned in Darwin’s book. He didn’t know whether what he had read was true. Everything was so new and strange. He had to think about it: How was the human being formed? He was not able to explain but he then could not say in brief as previously: Just because of the Creator!

All the chiefs of villages and government officials in Thuan An District were surprisingly observing their young District chief’s “extremely odd actions”. He seemed not to know how to be a mandarin despite of being a very learned scholar. He didn’t allow his body-guards to take any lash whenever he was trying any case in his place. He didn’t speak in support of village chiefs, village mayors or rich men but poor people. He didn’t satisfy with his knowledge. He kept a lamp lit every night like a bookworm. He didn’t play card game using a deck of 120 cards and played by five people and mah-jong. He didn’t like singers thump clack. He didn’t build any storey for seeing the moon and reciting poems.

His main house was named Stone Farming House in But Nam village which took some kilometers to his working place. That was a building with horizontal and vertical block of a vast lotus pond, rocky soils, ancient trees garden. He rarely visited such a house although his horse and cart lowering the short and small bamboo blinds was always ready. He kept staying alone in his working place to read books without concerning to his marriage status. His figure was lonely.

The pinnacle of the other mandarins’ surprise was he one day bought a house to open a shop in the District. He hung the plate: “Tan Thanh country trading”. His wife and some female workers crowd around making a noise get confused sold rice, salt, fish sauce, bamboo sprout, vermicelli made of cassava, fabrics, student papers, pens, pencils, caps, hats, shoes … It meant they sold everything. The strangest thing was that all his products were always cheaper than the ones selling in Chinese Lin-senh’s store. How he could earn profit with such kind of trading. Nevertheless, he taught the buyers to take his goods at wholesale price to sell at his hometown at retail price so that they could earn interest from such activities.

“Tan Thanh country trading” owner assembled rich forces such as high-school graduates, mandarins of ninth rank, village mayors and shared the capital to set up bigger company. They opened more shops under the “teaching” of him. “Tan Thanh country trading” popularized the way of trading to all people so that everyone could be rich. He didn’t make himself but everybody rich as well. The cabinet-makers did the tables, desks, chairs … that were displaying for sell in the wooden store. When the products were sold, several people were assigned to go to mountain area in order to buy wood as raw material. As a result of it, more and more people had job to do. More and more houses had wooden decoration. Everybody had benefit. The most developable product in “Tan Thanh country trading” was fish sauce. Previously, people there used to use fiddler crab paste or soybean jam instead. And then, Tan Thanh let a delegation to sea-land buy fish. Another group would embalm the body of fish to get fish sauce. There was another delegation which usually carried fish sauce to all the villages. A self-contained production line was implemented from the beginning to the end. Everybody had income. Everyone had fish sauce to eat. He and other scholars starved for renovation and broadened industry and commerce in their own region. They were not read the books of Confucian and Mencius, agriculture of non nature only. They no longer looked down trading and assumed trading as dishonest profession.

He added in the explanation of the words “country trading” as follow: That was the respectful way of calling the trading profession given by the scholar who had read “New letter” in order to emphasize the self-strengthening, disinterest so that people could distinguish by Chinese dealers’ traditional “trading” activities which had profit.

Do commercial without “interest” gave a difficulty to understand. However, “Tan Thanh country trading” owner sold the goods cheaper than the ones in Chinese store. It was OK.

“Tan Thanh country trading” owner in those days was different from the District chief’s style. In the District chief’s style, he had to wear badge of a mandarin, body-guards took his casket and parasol, beat the drum thump clack. He sat on his armchair to judge a case in court while the smell of fish sauce pervading the air. He was in fabric shirt and wooden shoes. The high-school graduates, mandarins of ninth rank, village mayors in everywhere including all the laureate in former competition-examinations that didn’t want to be mandarin but gathered there, spontaneously talked and spoke to each other. They didn’t looked like learned scholars or Turkey-cocks with “Ten thousand people of low human dignity can’t bear comparison with one person of great learning”.

“Tan Thanh country trading” was richer and richer. Having money, he opened “Tan Thanh School”. His school was quite different from all the ones of District education officers’ or Provincial education officers’. He primarily taught Vietnamese and French languages. There were many funny school subjects such as the children had to raise their hands, their legs, to twist their bodies, to turn their heads; people had to wash their hands before having meal; people should not each bare vegetable or fruit; people should not drink the water before boiling it …

The teachers were learned high-school graduates, mandarins of ninth rank, village mayors. They didn’t teach “Study to be assigned mandarin. Everywhere works in. Virtuous women should be graceful. Honorable men should wish for developing.”. They composed their own lessons which opened for general use:

… We had to understand our history,

Our Lac Viet race and our ancestors were really Hung Kings

Thousands of years, our land was expanding

We should do fighting, self-strengthening, modernizing

A lot of children studied there. The school fee was cheap and the poor ones had no fee at all. They were able to read and write Vietnamese language within some months only. The French words were the most difficult to study. However, it was easier compared with Han scripts which scholars used to learn. The lessons such as natural science and geography were not only interesting but also strange. The pupils kept their mouth wide open to listen.

Beside the classes for children, “Tan Thanh School” had another more important class for the youth who used to study in the school of District education officers’ or Provincial education officers’ or learned scholars. The District chief Nguyen taught that class at night and on Sunday and out of his working time at a mandarin’s office. Being a teacher of the class, he didn’t wear oriental robe and turban but ivory-colored tussore western clothes. He knit his black tie. He had short glittering hair which was applied glue. He didn’t do up his hair with the onion-shape. He lectured what he had read in the books of Lu Thoa, Manh Duc Tu Cuu, Luong Khai Sieu, Khang Huu Vi, Nguyen Lo Trach, Nguyen Truong To … He was deeply interested in delivering a confidential speech. He handed over the ideal to the youth as follow: The Confucian and Mencius were out of date, our country had to overcome those ideal and study the lessons from Europe, Japan, we had to develop industry and commerce and thus we could renovate our country. He read and analyzed in front of the class “The letter of requiring excruciating pain” written by Phan Boi Chau, Nguyen Quyen’s poems:

“Ranges of mountains and rivers belonged to Vietnam.

Our ancestors’ inheritance had existed through thousands of years

Since the time of surge waves and landslide, my dears!

The solitary country was looking for its soul … it feared creatures”. 

and Luong Van Can’s poems:

Adopted by godsend for years

Loyalty in mind to bear

Endurance will weathered all difficulties

Helped to devote ourselves to the national works and did bear …

His lessons were pour into the reader’s mind:

“Compatriots, pleased! Let’s beat the drums and the bells to wish for freedom and independent. Let’s propagate the Intelligent and New proclamations to our people so that we could bring fame to our country and to make the foreigner admire us. Pleased enlightened, my dear people! Let’s clap your hands and step into the civilized society”.

He had tears welling up when chanting someone’s poem as if he was confiding in them:

We had cried when seeing New Letter the first time.

To the people who thought of our country

(We had two lines of tears when reading New Letter.

To everybody who was contemplating about our country.)

The class kept silent when listening to his saying as though they were swallowing his words while their minds were sobbing to love Vietnamese country and were thirsting for renovation and construction.

At that period, Mr. Nguyen was training a group of ten people who were shavers. They were assigned to come to all the villages in Thuan An District. The images of shavers were so strange to the people’s curiosities. Each of them was bringing his box of instruments on one hand and a crackling scissors on the other hand whereas singing to himself:

Having a haircut to be a monk

Recite the Independent scriptures at modernist class

or saying a heap criticisms upon a call:

Let me give you a hair cut! Let me cut your hair!

Onion-like to do up your hair

Study civilization as mentioned in the books. You looked quick-witted.

Leave the stupid by a stroke of scissors there.

A typical situation was happened as below: A barber reached some more than sixty-year-old high-school graduate or some more than sixty-year-old mandarins of ninth rank of grey head. They had long indulged hairs and they were very precious to them. Teeth and hair are the men’s origins and all the things existed on our bodies were given by Creator. They made their nails long and curved. However, the District chief’s barber dare to aggressively step into the house, strike scissors, sing to himself and make approaches to a high-school graduate to cut his onion-like head of hair. He was beaten and sent out by servants who were taking their bamboo canes. The shaver was running at the top of his speed and was breaking out into abuse: You were an old-fashioned and narrow-minded scholar! You were such a stick-in-the-mud.

The above mentioned cases used to happen. On the contrary, there also had a lot of male youth or elderly of whole hamlets fervently entangling each other in a cutting business. The scissors were beaten causing onomatopoeia of various sounds and hair was incoherently scattering. The sounds of laughing, speaking and joking were very light hearted.

-       Onion-like hair gave me a slight headache. I feel happy with a light heart after cutting it.

-       Well! I look more young and civilized.

-       Nobody knows about cutting hair and has to carry such a heavy lump of hair on the head.

-       Let’s study the European’s civilization in cutting hair, giving our hair a brush and we look more handsome, healthier.

-       The Chinese people are cutting their braids in China as well. Their plaits are very ugly but the king and the mandarins of Thanh dynasty have to hang them behind their back.

-       The onion-like hair is much more beautiful than braids.

The District chief Nguyen caused a stir in the Thuan An town by his activities such as selling fish sauce, opening school, cutting hair … Lots of people were agree and few persons smacked the lips:

-       How crazy he was! How the mandarin – a parent of people or an impressive person – can do such treats.

-       He is a doctor. He is a district chief. What a foolish man!

-       How we can draw a distinction between smart and stupid? Everybody hates the district chief but love the teacher Nguyen.

The District chief Nguyen was “a little off and swaggering”. Everybody should think that he was not to harm a hair of anyone’s head. However, he one day was arrested by the foreigners who drew him out of his district court and tied him up firmly while he was hearing a case on his law-court at his office. He was pushed into the car of “French government” which was stopped in front of Thuan An district court. That made everybody surprised.

How it could be! Mandarin was captured. It was worth nothing at all. What kind of mistake he got. The French was so outrageous when they took a disciple of Jang Jac Rut Xo (Lu Thoa). Who was Jang Jac Rut Xo? He was an “ancestor” of such French. His thought belonged to the Light Century Thought’s orbit. The idea of recent century was the background of the great revolution in 1789 which set up a monarchical regime with the “Freedom – Equality – humanity” motto. That was a monarchy of current Great French state.

And then, the French capture the person who followed the thought of current French monarchy.

-       We don’t understand anything. – Everybody gossiped about his affairs – A group of people left their own country, has arrived Indochinese countries to do “colonialism” and they are impertinent. They have split into the democratic background in their country. They completely do on contrary to their mother’s idea from which they have just received an inheritance. What a contradiction it is!

-       Life is always conflicting by nature!

-       That is the life. They babble about Democracy, Freedom, Equality, Humanity, Civil Rights, Human Rights … But, they and their army forces have reached and defeated other countries, have forced the people to be their slaves. That just like “to heap insults on the father” named Civil Rights, Human Rights, “to heap insults on the father” their “ancestors” and “to heap insults on the father” themselves.

-       For that reason, the most essence universal truth is that: Violence is the king. Anyone who has violence, has the strength can do anything he wants whereas his head is carrying the glorious hat of nice universal truth.

-       No need to discuss with them about the enemy whose weapons, planes, canons are now ready to use. Well! We only have matchlocks.

… Nothing on the earth could make people surprised more than three days. Everybody had calmly analyzed again since the fourth date from the date the district chief was captured:

-       Hey! You! Don’t think that what our district chief did was “to jest casually and nonsensically”. Great France let him be a mandarin to control our people who were silly by nature and followed Confucian and Mencian. We are only “physiocrat and choke with anger the trade” that make us poorer and poorer. The foreigners want to delude us, want to keep carrying out the obscurantism to make the people poor and thus they will easy to control. On the contrary, our District chiefs had found out the way to open our eyes so that we could realize the out of date from Confucian idea and we could look for a new ideology by modernizing our country, broadening the people knowledge and then we can have a firm background to fight for independence in our country.

Our District chief was setting his people a good example: He was a typical Confucian. He was a doctor. He was a mandarin and he also was a “trader”. He did that to be disillusioned feudal intellectuals who were acquainted with “elevation and moral philosophy”, who looked down “ordinary person or boor”, who despised the money, who like to live an unblemished life “farmer by nature”. That was the reason why he composed the following sentences:

“Returning hometown, A District chief

Whose two boxes of fish sauce were considered as if they were dragging on the streets”.

Pleased do not think that the two lines of above verses was “to jest casually and nonsensically” because they had the origin from the below ridiculous and famous folk verses of the old days:

“Returning hometown, A District chief

Whose testicles were considered as if they were dragging on the streets”.

The former verses heaped insults on the father or abused indirectly all the District chief whereas the latter ones were against “physiocrat and choke with anger the trade” which was the basic principle to be rich and get rid of poverty.

-       It was not injustice at all when the French caught him and abolish his title. The situation of our country now is put to fire and gunpowder. In Centre area, the laureate in former competition-examinations are calling upon people to follow “modernist”. Nevertheless, they are fighting against French colonialism, demonstrating for reducing taxes and fees, against arresting the young and adult people to be coolie or to be on fatigue duty. The Doctor of letters Tran Quy Cap had been beheaded. In Ha Noi, there was “poison in Ha capital” event carried out by Hamlet leader. It meant that the poison was used to kill the soldiers and officers. They made a very serious confrontation. The French had dispersed a “School founded by a group of Vietnamese revolutionaries” and its classes established by elderly Luong Van Can, Nguyen Quyen. The “Trading association”, “Trading corporation” were gone into crisis, were disintegrated. And thus, the Doctor of Letters Nguyen’s “Tan Thanh country trading” and “Tan Thanh School” were not able to avoid the same fate …

4

Date …

The range of short hills connected each others looked like waves banks in But Nam countryside. Stone Farming House had surrounded by hills and the brooks were murmuring down in front of it. My grandpa let it be built when he received the title Thuan An District chief. It was nice and convenient position with red earth paths.

Stone Farming House had a large century-old tree garden with many kinds of fruit: jack-fruit, persimmon, custard-apple, mango, longan, guava and they gave their fruit of the wombs according to seasons. The smell of ripened on the trees pervaded the air. The chatter chirps of birds echoed the space. Beside the garden was an end-season peach garden. In spring, peach blossoms were in flower with a blaze of color just like an Elysium on earth. Behind the house was canarium forest. The yellow color of ripened on the canarium looked like the tiny lanterns hanging and overshadowing above our heads. Canarium forest was also called cicada-house. The sound was echoing all the forest whenever cicadas were rolling and we were surrounded by such kind of voice.

There was a vast lotus pond in Stone Farming House with many large rocks in line by stairs for taking a bath, a small boat in an anchorage was setting ready for sailing and we could pick up the lotus at any time. The perfume of flowers pervaded the whole area. There was a tiled schist road staying in Stone Farming House from the main gate to the main residence of mandarin. The whittled carefully at perfectly square shape green body stone were placed as steps inside the house. There were long rocks arranged in the middle of peach garden beside the lotus pond and below ancient tree for people relaxing and drinking tea.

The main boundless moss-grown residence of Stone Farming House was somber and ancient and tiled with Bat Trang bricks which made our feet scalded if we ran over such the yard. The main boundless moss-grown residence was in the middle between two blocks named Eastern House and Western House that were the boisterous brouhaha of normal activities rhythms. Stone Farming House was very cool, endowed with beautiful landscapes of full winds and perfumes. However, it had been on tenterhooks since the date Doctor of Letters arrested and banished to Con Dao.

My grandma had to take care of that great family. All the chains of stores in the District were stopped trading. She gave her mind to improving her 20 hectares of fields “first-class rice fields” with full of cultivators and trans-planters. Thanked to goddess! The storehouse was full of rice and paddy so that nobody cared of ravenous. They could caught fish with a net and dry them on each corner of the yards. That was their dry-food used for all year round. The ranges of coops containing hundreds of chicken and they were able to catch and to kill for meat at any time. The “economy” of “trading development” and in a moment, we lagged behind in the “field” of “self-financing and self-supporting” economy. Fortunately, the French applied “Tan Thanh country trading” embargo but not our “farmer by nature” one.

My grandpa’s first son Nguyen Duc Vinh (Lu’s father) was studying at Hau bo in Ha Noi. It was very vague of the French to trace curriculum vitae of prisoner’s family: The father was being a prisoner of conscience whose son was studying in Hau bo for being a mandarin purpose. It seemed that Mr. Vinh was very intelligent. He was able to write in one column on the newspaper in French language when he was studying in High-school Albert Sarraut. His composition in praise of great metropolis France gave the civilizing mission to Vietnam and Vietnamese people had to thank to Great France in having roads tiled asphalt, bicycles, cars, trains, ships, machineries which were running here and there … Without the appearance of French, Vietnamese people could only use the force of muscles from buffaloes, horses and human beings. The scholars should know that they were out of date, they should drink the Chinese tea and chant Tang poem to please their old age and should not complicate “some matters like modernist” otherwise they would be self-tormenting.

How happy the French was! They took Mr. Vinh as the youth’s “example”. What a smart man he was! The French assigned him to “control” Vietnam dynasty and right after graduating, he was appointed Thuan An District chief – his hometown where his own father used to be the chief and then he was exiling in a far islet. How “highly capable” the French was! They involved the youth intellectuals to turn their back on their daddy and ancestors.

Our family fell into poverty when out grandpa was in the prison. The village mayor, canton chief and village bully in out region had immediately made a U-turn and blocked us. They found fault with our behavior of all things. They were imperious toward us and queen over us to give our grandpa a dose of their own medicine because they were previously obsequious toward their superior Nguyen Duc Nguyen. They were envious of our comfortable lives in Stone Farming House. Nevertheless, they force our grand mother to sell everything to them at the cheap price. On collecting taxes season, they came to our family, shouted and bawled and made a lot of noise, they forced our grandma changed the report by increasing unreasonably the taxes amount. They collect too much an additionally levied tax. We could not do anything against them as we had already been driven into a corner.

The world situation had been unexpectedly changed. Duc Nguyen was still in the prison while his son Duc Vinh took the term for a mandarin in Thuan An Distict. The canton chief and village bully were white with fear and group by group crowded in our house for an absolved favor, bow and scrape.

My grandmother gave them a contemptuous look. Mr. Vinh didn’t have a grudge against them. The superior mandarin had to base himself on his subordinates. He forgave them to use them in future. What a ridiculous way of human life.

Being a mandarin, Uncle Vinh started building and arranging the Stone Farming House more and more beautiful. He kept buying green rocks to tile the edge of the pond and the port. He built a storey with its curved and painted roof in the middle of the lotus pond. A two floors villa follow the European style was specially set up in the middle of canarium forest for his relaxing after working. He used to switch on the sprung gramophone and listened to European songs which had the babble of foreigners. Nobody could understand the meaning of the songs unless the people who used to study in Albert Sarraut school. District chief Nguyen’s horse and cart lowering the short and small bamboo blinds was replaced by the black shiny “backside of the duck-like” car and the driver was in charge of driving it. Everyone said that he was extremely different from his father. The more Doctor of Letters was distinguished, modest and simple, the more his son was presumptuous and magisterial.

He was so young and he was a mandarin. He always wore white suits, put on a black tie, light grey hat and “De color” shoes. I used to see him taking a rattan switch and struck an old canton chief and he kept beating him pop pop despite he repeatedly asked for absolved favor, bow and scrape. I thought the old canton chief deserved beating because he perhaps used to take a rattan switch and struck so many people. Yes, it was not wrong at all when he was flogged.

One day, Stone Farming House was very animated. Many Foreign Officers, Venal mandarins and District chiefs … in other places came there. The Great Uncle Vinh sumptuously held a reception and invited songstresses thump clack over night. A banquet was arranged in the middle of peach garden. A yellow-ripened calf was rotating above a pile of live coals. A cook with the very sharp-pointed white fabric cap on his head was cutting off the calf’s hot meat and placed it on the officers’ dishes. The “modern singers” with setting hairs, Vietnamese dress on which peach blossoms pictures were printed, long soft white neck wearing pearl necklace were smiling and speaking while they were lasciviously making sheep’s eyes at the officers. The exchanging loving glances hadn’t as effective as the dancing-girls who were in short skirts showing their immaculate white thighs and parts of their breasts. They embraced the officers’ backs when dancing the waltz and stepping on the shadows of peach flowers. The peach blossoms loosely shed their petals on the officers’ suits and dancing girls’ bare shoulders when the wind appeared. Vietnamese officers were putting their arms over songstresses whereas the foreign officers were hugging the dancing girls. The front yards filled chock-a-block with their cars. All the But Nam villagers pretended to pass by there in order to take a look at them to see what was happening.

Mr. Vinh was luxurious and had power that made everybody scared. He could do anything he wanted but ask for his father to go out of Con Dao prison and reunited his family.

He explained the reason: Our father had so big fault that Great French government could not release him. Living in Con Dao, they had to hard labor by beating the rocks. However, the “modernist elderly” were still very stubborn. They composed the verses like that:

“The men living in Con Lon

Rockslides were made by celebrations the mountains

Hammered cliffs to piles of ashlars

Set out to break into pieces hundreds of stones”

Well! They acted strangely like that. How the Great French could forgive them.

According to him, The French clearly and definitively did their job. Father was father. Son was son. Father did the mistake and he himself bore the results …

… One day, Mr. Vinh went home with red-eyed from crying. He stepped directly to the main room for worshipping. Everybody assembled and asked. He burst into tears:

-       Our father had already fed the fish.

My grandmother suddenly burst out crying and screaming. Our family was just like the bees which were losing their nest.

He said: Our father was a Con Lon prison-breaker. He and prison-mates reach the forest to cut the trees in order to secretly make a boat when they were doing their hard labor. Tens of their people were crowded on the small boat to cross the ocean. Being on the way, heavy rain and strong wind appeared. The boat was overloaded and prepared to sink. They decided to have some of them killed themselves by jumping into the sea so that the ship would be lighter. Our grandfather was the first volunteer and the others followed his example to jump as well while the waves were screaming. That was a heroic image we had never seen. However, what a painful situation! When he jumped into the sea his will was controlling his action and when he was in the sea with the huge waves and he was choking with water his normal nature as a live creature control his actions. He and his prison-mates had raised their hands to cling on to the alongside of the boat and its oars and made the vessel more and more prepared to sink. A detail which was the most terrible and most painful was that: There was an unfeeling and ferocious person on the boat. He was banished because of willful murder. He was very good in making boat and thus he was accepted in that event. And then, his predator nature was present. He used the paddle to beat on feudal intellectuals without any hesitation. Even so, he used jungle-knife to chop off the fingers of the victims whose hands were tightly clinging on to the boat-sides. The fingers incoherently left their body.

Our Doctor of Letters was sunk in the sea which was his largest grave. That was all. He heroically lived and gloriously died. It had better to die like that than to live with hard labor such as to break the rock in Con Lon for years …

Our grandpa’s quite big funeral was taken place by Mr. Vinh. All of us wore white clothes. People flocked to our house to make offering to our grandfather. Nobody dare to be absent in the funeral of term for a mandarin’s father. They came there not only to scare the big officer but to show their token of affection towards a person lived for other people and for his nation like him as well. However, the strongest thing was that: The Foreign officer from the province also visit the occasion. He said:

-       Everything separately concerns. The Doctor of Letters was strong-willed patriotic and high-principled scholar. He was against the government. He had to be put into prison. But, a strong-willed patriotic and high-principled scholar is always respected by everybody, at anytime and in everywhere.

The funeral longed three days. The front yard crowded with many cars and horse-drawn carriages. People read a lot of interested counter-sentences in praise of the Doctor of Letters’ strong will. However, Uncle Vinh had accepted to hang them for a week only and getting it to be put away.

-       Forget him! Don’t talk about him so much. It’s not good. He reminded everybody …

… A long video clip about crossing the ocean was filmed in Con Dao itself. I insisted on carrying out the shot at the place of event happened although Sam Son had the same studio where we could go on vacation as well.

Finishing the shot, I and Lu conflicted each other about the view.

1.                       Leave the shot of the man used jungle-knife to chop off the fingers of the victims whose hands were tightly clinging on to the boat-sides because of an awful sight. The feudal intellectual had already volunteered to leave the boat. Let their images look like “whales” plunged in to the waves with crests of foams and then disappeared into the sea and thus the beautifulness and the heroic image were completed.

2.                       Follow the “history” process and let the story moved the audiences. The truer to life art was the more valuable.

Those were a matter of sensational controversy. All the shots were temporary pigeon holed to make another long video clip till the film was set. Everything would be decided at that moment.

5

Date …

Lu and I were playing the chasing game around the root of great and old Hyacinth tree beside the tiled rock port of lotus pond in our Stone Farming House. Lu was stronger than me so that I was always annoyed and browbeat. He was audaciously mischievous. He dared to nuthatch the high tree to pick up the bird nest.

-       Put it to the same place, pleased! The birds knit their nest and our garden will be more beautiful. Don’t you like to listen to their chirp?

-       No, I don’t.

The little boy Lu caged the bird and hung the cage on the branch of the tree. The young bird chirped. The parental ones gave onomatopoeia of sounds of cymbals around the cage to look at their offspring without knowing how to protect their child.

-       You are very malicious!

Even so, the lad Lu was crueler. When he was bored of it, he took out the young bird and held its nose, plucked the bird, mixed with lemon leaves and salt before broiling it on the live coals for his eating.

-       Is it delicious? – I asked.

-       Yes, it is very delicious.

I and Lu were nearly the same age. His father was Mr. Vinh – the term for a mandarin so that he always had chance to visit the provincial landscape by car. We – the two bosom friends were inseparable like a body and its shadow. I always used formal address to him in front of the adults and used informal one when there were only I and Lu.

Mr. Vinh always indulged him. My father – Mr. Ham was studying in Ha Noi and I sometimes met him. My mom and Lu’s mother were also the same age. Mr. Vinh’s wife and my mother had nothing to do but took care of the servants cooking the two meals a day for our big family. The two mothers kept giving themselves fine airs by ironing clothes, looking at themselves in a mirror, combing their hair back or to the side … My mom was a better cook than Lu’s one. The whole family would wait for being eaten the meal whenever my mother did cooking to show off. The shrimp was rolled over on the “mochi” before frying. Lotus seeds and trotters were steamed. Unripe green rice flakes were cooked with sugar. Well! Everything was delicious. Mr. Vinh’s better half was Thao scholar’s daughter in the neighbor Gia Binh village. They were rich great aristocratic family as well. He might not have blessing or be intelligent enough to pass any examination whenever he joined the contest. Compensation for it, he had a daughter whose beauty could compared Thuy Kieu’s one. Uncle Vinh loved her so much that he married her.

My mom was mandarin of ninth rank’s daughter in Nam province. She studied at the school named Dong Khanh in Ha Noi. My father Ham was studying at the school named Albert Sarraut. I didn’t know how father and my mom met and fell in love. My mom didn’t study more as a girl who didn’t need to learn so much. She stayed in Stone Farming House in stead of living in Ha Noi. My grandpa had bought a small two storey villa with a Ylang ylang tree in the front gate, Quan Thanh street, Ha Noi for my father and Uncle Vinh living purpose when studying. They could not concentrate in learning if their wives stayed together …

That morning, I was looking at Hung – a man living in my family – who was whittling the bamboo splints to make a kite … The summer holidays was coming and southern wind would give a strong blow and Mr. Hung would fly the big kites whose o o sounds would echo all night. I like that so much.

A call was appeared:

-       Trung? Where are you? Your dad came back!

I ran across the stone bridge and rushed to the gate. My father was lonely walking on feet with a thin bag on his hand. He wore a white shorts and a short sleeves white shirt and his hat was also white. He looked very handsome.

-       Why don’t you telephone to Phu District in order to ask your elder brother assigned his driver to pick up you? – My grandma asked.

-       I like taking a train and coming here on feet from the train station. I could have a sight seeing at the countryside. That makes me feel happy.

My father was always very happy with flashing eyes. However, he looked grieved that dayso that I cared and didn’t dare to approach him for sniveling.

Uncle Vinh came back in late afternoon.

-       Mr. Vinh – My father called.

-       Ah, Ham.

Two of them shook hands when Mr. Vinh touched the three-step staircase in the new villa which had just built in canarium forest. Waiting for everybody had already gone to sleep, my father started his important conversation in late evening:

-       Mr. Vinh! I have just left chool.

A glass of coffee on uncle Vinh’s hand dropped into pieces.

-       What did you say? Tell me again!

-       I have already given up my studies.

Mr. Vinh’s face was getting fale:

-       Don’t you joke?

-       I tell you the truth.

-       How can it be? I don’t understand at all.

-       I am old enough to be aware of what I am doing. Don’t be so concern to me.

-       But I am your elder brother. I have the responsibility with you because our father was passed away. You have to explain everything to me.

-       I don’t want to study anymore. It’s useless. I have my own way of living.

-       Oh! My god! You are a Law higher student yourself in Ha Noi. You had passed the second certificate.  You have received the Law graduate. You have to study only one more year and then you can join in the examination to take Administrative Law certificate. You are going to be District chief like me. If you don’t like the scale of Vietnamese Administrative you can “commis” to work for Governor-general Palace, Resident Superior Building … How you can give up your studies. You nuthatch the areca tree and preparing to reach its bunch of areca-nut. You don’t want to pick up any areca-nut. Are you crazy?

-       I don’t want to be a mandarin.

-       What kind of job you want to be?

-       I will lead a meaningful life and I have my own idea.

-       My God! – Uncle Vinh is preparing to cry – You are stubborn and always opponent the life. That was your characteristic when you were young. That was out father’s comment on you when he still alive. You are not young anymore. You are younger than me some years only. You have your wife and your son. You have well knowledge. How you can have an unintelligent action like that. Please recall our family. It was painful. Our father – a famous Doctor of Letters had a result of imprisonment and losing his dead body in the sea. Pleased recall the period of time when the canton chief bullied our family. I have tried my best to be a District chief so that our family can restore our position in the village. We can advance in our career and to be rich. People have to lie prostrate in front of our feet. I placed my hope on you. You are more intelligent than me. Your French language is better than me. You can go far on your mandarin’s career. High power, respectful title. We have glorious family line. We can was out our father’s insult in another world. How you can give up. Give up everything when you have gone half way.

-       You have the different concept of “glorious life” from me. I asked you: Why did our father attend in Modernist to received imprisonment and the death?

-       People can not build a pillar by spits to prop up the sky. When you didn’t have enough power to turn the wheel of present situation, don’t let it pulverize you. Our father had his own mission. Our daddy had been died and we have no right to judge. We have to give respectful cult to him only. We should find out the way to live a life which is suitable with times. Don’t let it handle roughly to die. I know that I was looked down when I write a column which criticized the modernist and deny our parents and lead a life of no moral standards. However, I ask you: If I didn’t use such a smart way like that the Foreigners didn’t give me the right to study in “Hau bo”. Have I be able to raise our family? Or we are all the “grassroots” and we all carried our bags for begging.

I have to bear filial impiety with our father but deeply in my mind I don’t. I helped our family to stand up. I am the most grateful to our parents. How we can prepare a big funeral like we used to without me. I choose the successful way but didn’t the failure one.

-       I see the officials who were very corruptive. Where our country is going to be. We are the elite of the country. We didn’t worry. Who is going to worry for it?

-       Do you have enough power to do such a big work? You see. The previous King living in Hue didn’t dare to do anything. When they prepared to do anything, they were immediately exiled. The father and the son Thanh Thai did the modernist and were quite stupid. The king position for both but they didn’t want, they want to be imprisonment. They were then living in Reunion like the common people and have to make addle for living otherwise they will starve to death. Duy Tan land Lord managed to study wireless telegraphy. How foolish they were! They have all the things such as royal palace, imperial concubine, emperor position … and they had denied all to be common people and live with “black skin autochthons” in far distance …

-       You didn’t understand the real situation. You know about you own tiny District chief’s court only. You only know your chiefs of villages, your canton mayors that were obsequious towards their superiors. You are pleased with your high title of term for a mandarin … But you know all those things do not stay long. Our lives are standing on the smouldering live crater which is going to boil and explore. A revolution will upset all the things.

-       I know. I know all. I know much more than you. I read French daily newspaper. I know the world situation. The war between Germen, Italy, Japan and Soviet Union, England, France, America. The world was really hotbed. However, we have to live. We have to find out a shadow to live our tiny lives. The Centre, the North and the South of Vietnam are secretly carrying out the revolution against imperialist and feudal and social order still existed. One side is Western civilization with modern industry, weapons, planes, canon and government system of power. Other side is nothing but the stubborn common people …

Each person was born and takes his own mission or cast a role. They have to complete his mission or his role. I play the “mandarin” and I have to fulfill my role. The one you called frying-pan on boiling crater maybe happened but it is very long, quite long to happen. We may die at that time …

For that reason, I force you to go back Ha Noi right away and continue your studying. You have to take Administrative Law certificate and receive the title like me.

-        I can not study anymore, brother Vinh. I was expelled from school. Expelled. Not volunteer to quit. I was prohibited to study. Police inspector Department had recorded my name.

Uncle Vinh was panic-stricken and was in no mood to the news. He felt the catastrophe coming to his house.

-       Why? What did you do? – He shouted.

-       I am working for a group named Intellectual youth whose political program is to struggle for the independence and the democracy. I have written for a column of French newspaper whose owner is Clementy. He is a French person but he has an idea of fighting for the independence of Vietnamese country. He is a member of French Commonwealth block. He has opened this editorial office in Ha Noi based on the Law of Press-freedom announced by French Democracy. The Vietnamese magazines and newspapers that are publishing by Vietnamese people whose country is a French colony is dependent on France’s don’ts. The French newspaper whose owner is a French person is brought out in French colony. He rules the roost to his heart’s content. The principle of French democracy is freedom of expression, freedom of having a difference of opinion with somebody so that Mr. Clementy is in open fight for the independence of Vietnamese country. The rulers and French colony feels a vindictive hatred for him to the marrow. However, they scare of the Law of Press-freedom issued by Metropolitan France and have done nothing with him. Although the French “haven’t scared” of the Law of Press-freedom, they have pretended to ignore and have given him an individual way to do his activity. That shows “a look of democracy”. My column had stirred the intellectual student. The French Police inspectors have investigated and know that I am the writer and some top-notch officials in the colonial regime in Ha Noi had launched an order to expel me from school …

-       To live by the sword and die by the sword. I “live” by writing for the press. You “die” by being a journalist.

-       Nobody knows who will live or who will die and we can not have the same view anyway. Political opinion should be pigeon-holed. You are my elder brother and I am your younger brother. We are living in the same roof. I respect you and you can not disregard me or consider me as a young and inexperienced or a young horse is eager for kicks. You have your own way of living and I am too.

-       How is your way of living?

-       I won’t stay in Stone Farming House anymore. I will live in Ha Noi and work for my own idea.

The District chief Vinh breathes a sigh:

-       Atlas! “Like father, like son”! What happened to our father and can’t you still draw the moral?

6

Date …

To correct cause and strong words, Lu, I and Hai Yen were “three brothers and sister in the same house”. Lu sometime had a “vague” relationship with Hai Yen. She had a very suggestive body. She was tall and brawny like rice ball. Her legs and arms were snow-white and she always performed a strange power. Her face recalled an idea of life: Nothing was important. Let’s be spontaneous. Let’s love. Let’s make the most of the comfort of life like manna from heaven. I also lost my clear-sightedness when I was in front of Yen. Hence, we are “relative” so we must be “relative”. Our business must be straightforward and impartial and serious. And we sometimes had a “vague” relationship with her. Hai Yen was 40 years old and her marriage status was years’ legal separation whereas I was available.

Lu, I and Yen contributed money in an investment to open the Resort and Yen was stood as the “biggest boss”. The business required us to be “close-knit”, “affectionate”. She divided the money among us “easily letting pass any mistakes of her as past things” without faultfinding. Yen had been totally free to decide how much I and Lu had the profit. We didn’t have any particular calculation or doubts. I sometimes wondered whether our “vague” (amateur) love or threesome love was troubled lives or not?  

Such “love” perhaps happened in the end of twenty century and after the Second World War. The world people escape death very narrowly. The life was faint and nothing was important. Latter, existentialism appeared, People “lived hurriedly”, led “gregarious” lives after Hippy movement, after “sexual revolution” in Western Europe countries, after the collapse of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe countries, after the retrogressive art such as unilaterally singing as if our ear was beaten, scribble and passionately fond of paints, the fiction of non plot, the poems of arranging words … That meant disorder. Everything was a disorder. The classical way of exemplary was no longer existed. An advance of “civilization” was a giving way of moral. Connubial life was no longer serious, ceremony of family tradition. Relatively universal truth was spreading on all the books and forum. Nobody talk about the absolutely universal truth …

That was why such a “love”:

Borrowed love

Borrowed romantic with interest

In the friendship they twisted

Pure and unaffected life

in I, Lu and Yen. We knew that it was “not anything” but it was exist. It was funny. It was precarious insecure. The transitory life but nobody could extirpate it to the every-roots. It came and it disappeared. It disappeared and it came. It was sometimes in need. We are closed. It was sometime in love. However, we had our “own way” to go. It was the temporary coalition.

Hai Yen had an onlooker’s attitude towards our film “The family’s chronicle”. She said that it was great cost. We were crazy. We should forget the story of our ancestors. In brief, everything was the past. The more we forgot the better we were. She asked why we had to hire the actors and actresses and play ancestors, grandpa, grandma, father …

Yen sometime concerned despite she had said like above:

-       How is the film going on? Have it got the image of my father Hung?

-       No, it hasn’t yet.

-       Pleased careful! My daddy was not simply “a servant in your family” in the Stone Farming House. He had an important position. The Doctor of Letters loved him as thought he was his own child.

-       We know.

-       Everything changes. – Yen smiled with satisfaction. – The two eldest sons of two eldest sons in the Stone Farming House were my “helps” in Quiet Poplar Garden …

Date …

… Long time ago, the Doctor of Letters Nguyen had to come to Mao Dien village in order to supervise and to speed up the collection of poll-tax. He had to see evidence of his own eyes the scenery of repeated drums, the village watchman capture a series of people who were not able to submit the tax and were tightly roped to the bamboo hedge at the gate of the temple. The scene of people sold their worship things such as ancestral tablets, bronze crowns to have money and submit it for the tax. His heart had throbbing pains. He was a “term for a mandarin”. He was supervising and to speeding up the whole village to pay for the tax. The savage and cruel wheel was turning. The house-owners of any houses that didn’t pay for their taxes had been tied. The village mayors would be bound if he didn’t submit the village tax on time. The District chief had to be careful if he didn’t collect enough money. Taxes were the violent thing …

The man Teo in Mao Dien village was poor. He didn’t manage to pay for the tax. His wife had just died. He had a little five-year-old boy. The father and the son lived on angling for crabs and frogs, hiring labor and being in somebody’s service.

-       You haven’t paid the tax. How I can survive. – The village mayor informed.

-       I didn’t do trading. I didn’t have interest. Why have I to pay for the tax?

-       This is head-money. It means that if you were born on earth, you have “your body”, you are man, you know how to eat, to sleep, to make love with your wife … you certainly would have to pay the amount for the government. The tax paid for your life. You would not pay any money if you were a buffalo or a horse. You have to pay because you are a man.

-       I don’t know how to make love with my wife when she was alive. I shouldn’t pay for the tax. – The guy Teo acclaimed delightedly.

-       Don’t you know? Why did your little boy Hung appear?

The fellow Teo became woozy. He thought that “the secret thing like that” how they could know. So … He had to have run out of argument at last:

-       Ok! However, I didn’t have 2 dimes to pay for the tax now. I have a torn house, a garden for “the dogs making their mess”, no field for farming. What should I sell?

-       Sell your body.

-       Who wants to buy my body? Pleased inform me! I have sold my body for the sun and the rain all year round. I have toiled and moiled. I hired labor and was in somebody’s service. But, I haven’t built up enough 2 dimes.

-       You have one thing to sell.

-       What? – The guy Teo’s eyes brighten.

-       The little boy Hung. He looks handsome and has a bright face. If you sell him you will not only have enough money to pay for the tax but also have extra money to drink alcohol for a year at least.

Teo’s eyes became sad at heart. He was in a voice choked with emotion:

-       I really want to let him be adopted child in some rich house. I can’t effort to care him.

Seeing with District chief Nguyen’s own eyes, he took the child Hung as his adopted son. He let him and Ham – his second son - study Vietnamese language. He and Ham were the two closed friends. He stopped his learning when Ham went Ha Noi for French studying. Hung became a “houseboy”. He had to bring tea, carry casket for District chief. He was as happy as a god despite his servant condition. He ate what the owners ate. He can sit the same place with the owners when having meals. There wasn’t any different between the owners and the help. He wore what Ham wore. The more he grew up the brisker, better he was. He took care of the owner’s house-hold. His father serves as coolie in the plantation of South Vietnam after “selling his son”. Mr. and Mrs. District chief became his own parents. There, he felt comfortable. There weren’t many things to do. He sometimes placed the role of a houseboy to follow and to fuss over Doctor of Letters to go somewhere. Most of his time was doing the job of cleaning the altar, water hyacinths, horizontal lacquered boards on which counter sentences were written. He sometimes tend buffaloes on the field and “managed” or took care of some castrated dogs whose barks were so loud that they could make threats against plunderers from digging the walls or piercing the door-sill …

Hung was a vigorous man when he grew up. His calf of legs and biceps were curl. His face was imposing. He attracted so many girls.

Ploughmen and trans-planters were always in Mr. Nguyen. Many of them were girls and they cast loving glances at him. He commanded the women to make paddy threshing under the moon light. They play singers in replying the songs under Co La rhythm and folk song contest in the countryside between group of men and women. They were chattering:

Some kinds of drums

I didn’t want to marry him but he wanted to marry me

The female farmers shrieked with laughter:

-       If you don’t want to marry me. Who you want to marry?

-       Oh! No! I want!

You were like an apple dropped on the yard of temple

I was like a pregnant woman felt comfortable with sour things

Hung sang to himself:

Took off the hat when passing by the temple

The more tiles were on the roof of the temple the more I loved you

You see! You sing a song by yourselves … - Hung pulled those girls’ cheeks. One time, Hung saw a big breast woman. He slipped his hand underneath her brassiere, gave a hard crush with fingers and the milk was spreading all his hand. She was in lactation. Having only one child, the woman looked more beautiful. After delivering the kid, the woman changed her blood, had milk. Her complexion was soft white, smooth and skin-lift. Hung imagined that she was a nice girl. Other women gave dirty looks:

-       To get your just deserts. You make a pig of yourself. You see a large piece of meat and imagine that it is lean one but it is the fat one.

Hung was very strong. He played with thresh corn. He just dealt some blows on a stone mortar, all paddies were dropped. He was standing in the middle of two girls. When his handful of paddy was throwing on the stone mortar their handfuls of paddy were raising and vice versa. Things went on. They looked as if they were dancing under the moon light. Hung was working without a shirt on showing his hard and solid arms. For the two girls with four soft arms looked as though they were weaving into Hung’s ones. He let the two girls swing on his upper arms and turn some circle at break time. The delegation of harvesters took turn to swing on his upper arms and asked for one circle at least to start with thresh corn.

Hung’s mischievous treats were beyond eye-shot of Lan Vien – the female owner and the youngest daughter of the Doctor of Letters – She was 17 years old. She had graduated the school named Dong Khanh in Ha Noi. She could speak French. She then returned her house for taking care of household arts. Vien was pure, immaculate white and womanish. She looked like a branch of orchid. She was indulged. She was still a “baby” in the eyes of her parents who always gave her a good care.

-       Hung! Remember to take care of Vien whenever she got closed to lotus pond for picking up the flowers otherwise she will take a false step and she will slip and fall! – Doctor of Letters reminded.

How she could slip and fall because she was as long as a rod. She was 17 years old, she could break the buffalo’s horns and even the serpent like monster in the lotus pond could not pull her 17 year-old-leg as well.

-       Miss! The owner asked me to carry you by the boat whenever you want to pick up the flowers. I will bring you to the middle of the pond and you are spoilt for picking the beautiful ones. You should not bend down on the edge of a pond as you can fall head over heels. – Hung informed her.

Vien was very happy. Vien love lotus flowers and her room always have the fresh blossom arranging in the vase. She would be happier if she can pick up the lotus flowers in the middle of the pond, have a sight seeing on the boat. She loved it so much.

The wind in the afternoon was very cool. The perfume of flowers pervaded the air. Hung’s boat was cleaving the lotus forest.

-       Brother Hung … I want this pond to be larger and larger. It is as large as an infinite one. Then, you can carry me. We keep going on. The perfume of flowers pervaded the air forever … - Vien said.

Hung pick up the flowers and load them in the middle of the boat and asked – Miss! Pleased lie down on the flowers, have half-closed eyes, look up at the sky. I will take you around and around the pond and you will see as if it is boundless.

The flowers-mattress behind Vien’s back. The perfume of flowers pervaded the air. A flowers-blanket covered her body. Her white silk clothes were stuck with the yellow stamens. She was closing her eyes. She sometimes has half-closed eyes. The sun in the afternoon darted its beams on her eyelids and made them pink. Hung was working without a shirt on. His hands were rowing lightly. Vien was half opening her eyes to watch him out of the corner of her eyes. Hung’s body was as handsome and full-blooded as a cut status. The smell of male sweat pervaded the air as well. The two colors were mixing.

Hung treated his “sniveling” owner with kindness and consideration. He was cramped all over the hands. The sailing boat made the lotus leaves and flowers broken. The lotus fiber which looked like spider’s thread was hanging flowingly around the paddles. The young lady was lying on her back. She was sometime lying on her side. She trampled down the very fragrant flowers. The District chief had reminded Hung to please Vien. She was the most little and tender in the house. Hung had to follow her want. He must not let her be sad or cry. He must find out the games to play so that she would be pleased …

-       Miss! Do you want to study how to swim? I will teach you. – Hung suggested on one afternoon.

-       Yes, I do …

-       There isn’t any lotus in the western corner. We can swim there. If we swim in the lotus area we will be scratched by its thorns.

The surface of the pond was limpid. Vien was in the white silk clothes and was acting on her own initiative. Hung was helping her rising to the surface by putting his hand against her stomach otherwise she would be sunk. Hung had to move his body to where she was swimming. Her big breasts sometimes weighed down on his hands. They were as firm as a nail. She was not a “baby” anymore. To be absorbed thump thump in acting freely, Vien put her most beautiful thing of a girl on his chest. Hung felt its shape which was a chubby three-cornered. The more Vien swam the more Hung moved his body to support her body. Vien sometimes swam too far that Hung could not keep with her and she was reeking of drinking the water. Her hands were brandishing and embraced tightly his neck …

… One day, Hung went to Phu Lang in order to buy the glazed terra-cotta things by boat. Our family needed a lot of big jar and pot for carrying Indian corns, bean and groundnut – The second son Ham said that brownish jar placed on the roots of areca tree would give the beautiful landscape. It would get the limpid water of the rain. The coconut bucket was placed on the mouth of the jar. Trans-planters and ploughmen could scoop water out of a bucket to drink and have a sweet sensation in the breast.

A couple of the boat owners had a daughter of Lan Vien’s age. Vien wanted to follow Hung as she was Vien’s fellow-traveler. She would “guarantee” Vien’s safety. It was a big flat boat which was set the bat-swing-like sail and forged ahead on the weaves. Vien was sitting on the peak of the boat beside Hung. They were under the sky, above the river. That was a immense and deserted spectacle with two persons.

-       Miss! Sit inside the boat and be careful don’t topple over. – Hung reminded.

Vien kept perching herself high. She rolled up the leg of trousers. Her feet were hanging and touching the surface of the river. Hung had to seize her neck for the “insurance”.

It was giving an airing. It was going to have storm. Raindrops were scattering. The wind made the sails struck the mast with a flapping noise.

-       Brother Hung! Let the boat sail to the end of the river, pleased!

The weaves and the winds made the boat oscillated. Following that trend, Vien sometimes lied down on Hung’s stomach and vice versa. He smelled the fragrance from the bud’s complexion. She smelled the handsome “servant’s” torrid scent.

-       Young lady! Let me act a play – Hung walked some steps and pointed a circle as a “conditioning” for the floor of the boat’s covered hold as a stage. His figure was rather charming. The God had compensated for someone some special abilities. Vien laughed good-humoredly when he played a “student” rolling out verses:

The words on a book said: The autumn bright moon was outlined on the surface of the river.

Cool wind and bright moon made us sad.

The boat was silhouetted on the river-bottom. Sparkle that.

The view was not only refined but also sophisticated.

Lots of silent moments, great deal of autumn moon were excited.

All night! One pond had bright moon

Musical instrument had five tones, a bag of poems and a gourd of moon.

I sang some verses by sudden inspiration.

A basket boat was rowed and it sailed with deliberation.

Who was your actor to wander about ... *(According to Ngu The Vinh’s poem)

Hung’s singing was sticking like a sap. It was vague, passionate. It mingled and mixed with the landscapes of the sky, the water. It gave Vien a strange feeling. Hung was so charming and lovely. He didn’t look like a “servant” who was muscle-bound. He gave Vien a feeling of powerfulness and honesty, a beauty of perfection about the constitution and spirit. He was of the stuff that God was made of. It was the most important thing. The second one was knowledge. Vien studied in Dong Khanh School in Ha Noi. She had observed so many kinds of people. Some of them were rich and high class but they were skinny and they might collapse if the wind blew. Some of them were very pale. There weren’t any people full of vitality. Some of them were always swaggering about and impertinent. Some of them were crazy and caught words. Nobody could make her stirred … Vien liked a harmonious person. The bud’s innocent soul liked an able-bodied conformation beauty, a handsome face. The ugly man could not become a good-looking one. It was very difficult for a very blackguardly or frenzied person to become a well-bred and ethical one. On the contrary, the poor man could become a rich one and an illiterate person was able to be a well knowledge one.

After buying goods, they came back. It was evening. The boat was silently sailing under the sky full of stars. Vien looked up at the sky and read by heart an essay written by An-phong-xo Do-de in his short story named “The stars”. The content was as follow: A female owner brought the meal for male sheep keeper on the top of the mountain. The level of the flood waters rose high and thus she could not come back. The young lady had to stay on the mountain. Both had spent a sleepless night to look up at the sky full of stars. The sheep keeper told her the story about the stars. He pointed at one side and explained that they were a group of stars named “The Saint Jac’s way”. He pointed at one star and said that it was a star named “The man Jang from Milan”. The star over there was star named “Herdsman”. He told her about the wedding between the stars … There was something which was cool and soft weighed down on his shoulder while he was talking the hind legs off a donkey. It turned out to be his owner who was sleeping and pillowing on his shoulder. He sat still. The stars had blurred. The sunrise appeared. He was thinking about the most beautiful star which got lost its way and had perched on his shoulder …

-       What a wonderful story! – Hung made comments – You know. A group of stars named “The Saint Jac’s way” was called the Milky Way. The stars named “Herdsman” which was illuminating so that the sheep keeper can drive his sheep to the mountain in early morning and to the breeding facilities in late evening was called “Morning Star” or “Evening Star” …

-       To the same star, every country called every different name – Vien remarked.

-       Well! Our country had more beautiful stars. You see! Over there! They are called The Heaven Musical Instrument which means the musical instrument placed on the Heaven. Those three stars combine into the handle of it. All the rest ones which are spreading out are the face of it. Do you see? Is such the group of stars similar to the acoustic? The sounds of The Heaven Musical Instrument were echoing. – Hung was doing the voice-over – I’m listening to them. You don’t hear the rhythms, do you? I used to listen to them when I was lying on the stack of straw which was loaded in the middle of the field. I let my face opposite to the vast sky. The earth was immense. I felt the soft and slow melody. The voice was resounded for my listening. If you want to hear, pleased put your back on the floor of the boat’s covered hold, have half-closed eyes, set your face opposite to the sky and let your soul be peaceful and quiet. The sounds will resound faintly towards your ears.

Vien was giggling:

-       I have already felt it without keeping quiet. I have already heard and I am hearing. You see! They are tink tink tank.

-       Hey! A group of stars over there named “The tear-drops of the Moon”. They are dim and were set into two parallel flowing lines. Let’s concentrate! The more we look, the clearer they are. There are three stars on each line. Each star is a tear-drop. The sister Moon was crying. Don’t think that our sister Moon is always happy. But, you know … The saddest and the most beautiful group of stars is the constellation of “the Cowherd and the Spinning Damsel”. Set your eyes follow the direction of my finger. – Hung placed his finger closed to Vien’s eye – The constellation is sparkling its bluer compared with all the others surround it. - The Cowherd was a buffalo keeper on one side of the Milky Way. The Spinning Damsel was the God’s daughter who loved and used to make loved with buffalo keeper. That made the Creator angered. He separated them by the Milky Way. He let them meet once year in the seventh lunar month. They missed each others. They were crying when they met. They were bitterly weeping and sobbing. So, it usually rains continuously in the seventh lunar month. It was called sudden and brief shower. The tear-drops of the Cowherd and the Spinning Damsel.

-       All your stars are tear-drops, aren’t they?

-       Yes, they are. It’s called life. There are more tear-drops than smile …