by Trong Bao
Thinking of Nhien’s pale young face with tears streaming down it, surrounded by a gang of cowherds shouting loudly – "Hey thief, shame on you! Shame on you!" – to disgrace her, Hung felt his stomach clench in anger and embarassment.
"How could I have the heart to accuse such a nice kid of stealing my money? Is it because of that stupid money that I’ve lost all the self control I gained in the army?" he asked himself.
He recognized his weakness with a groan. " I used to think I was wise, but now, I see what kind of man I really am!"
***
The trouble began a few days ago. Hung was summoned to the office of the head of the Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Section of the commune People’s Committee. There, he was told to sign his name on a list of welfare recipients. When they handed over his money, he was shocked to find an extra seven million dong in his envelope. He quickly slipped the money into his back pocket, dreaming of everything he could buy with such riches. On the way home, he found himself touching his pocket again and again to make sure it wasn’t a dream, that the money was still there.
"The first thing I’m going to do is buy a plate of fries," he thought, licking his lips. "Then I’ll buy animal feed and a new water pump for my pond."
That evening, he wrapped the money in an old newspaper and carefully placed it under his pillow. He couldn’t sleep all night, tossing and turning. Finally it started pouring rain and he rolled out of bed with a sigh. He opened the door and trudged through the mud to get a shovel from the barn. Then he dashed over to the fish pond and started to shovel mud around the edges to keep the water from overflowing, allowing the fish to escape into the nearby river. Paying no attention to the rain, which soaked his clothes and ran down his face, he worked and worked. Soon the pond’s edges were high enough that the fish, who were leaping out of the stagnant water, merely bounced off the muddy walls back into the pond, thwarted in their break for freedom. Hung sighed in relief, satisfied the embankment was secure.
As the first rays of sun peeked over the hill, the rain began to slow. Hung felt dead tired.
After dragging the shovel to the barn and stripping off his wet clothes, he collapsed on a bundle of fishing net, falling immediately asleep. Hung awoke later to the sound of laughter from the farmers on their way to market. He glanced out the window and saw that the sun was already high in the sky; he must have been asleep for hours. Recalling his plan to buy a pump and fish feed, he stretched his aching body and walked back into his hut to fetch the money. He reached under his pillow, but the money was gone. In it’s place was a sweet potato, still warm from the grill.
"Where’s my money?" he yelled frantically. He ripped the blanket off his bed and kicked his mat against the wall, but still no luck. "Burglary? It’s impossible!" he said to himself. "Only little Nhien, who always leaves a sweet potato under my pillow ever comes into my hut. Maybe this time she discovered the money and stole it out of greed!" Every day, she cut the grass around his hut to feed her cows. When she was done, she always helped him make a fire or cooked his lunch. "How could she do such a thing to me?" he cried.
He burst out the door and ran towards the hill where he knew the cowherds grazed their animals. When he reached the top, his breath was heaving, but he barely noticed in his anger. He saw the cowherds wrestling and play-fighting in one of the fields. When they spotted Hung they stopped and waved. "Good afternoon, Uncle Hung! Will you stay and teach us about unarmed combat again?" they asked eagerly, gathering around him.
"Sorry! Not today," he sputtered. "Have any of you seen little Nhien anywhere?"
"Well, she was cutting grass on the hillside over there," one boy replied, pointing to a nearby field.
Without waiting for Hung’s order, the kids called out, "Nhien, get over here!" Hearing the call, Nhien rushed down the hill, bag of grass in hand. Seeing Hung standing among the kids, she smiled broadly. Thinking he wanted her help cooking or mending clothes, she skipped over. She was always ready to give him a hand, for she liked him the best. But as she came closer she paused, seeing his angry red face and gritted teeth. He snatched the bag of grass out of her hand and turned it upside down, scattering grass everywhere. The grass drifted in the breeze and came to rest on the ground. The kids gathered silently around, curious to see what would happen. Hung yelled at Nhien, accusing her of being a dirty rotten thief as the tears started rolling down her face.
The children helped Hung sift through the grass, searching for the money. Nhien stood in the center of the circle, as unmoving as a statue, staring at the ground.
"I haven’t stolen your money, Uncle Hung," she said quietly.
After the search proved unsucessful, Hung stormed back to his empty hut.
"Damn the thief! Damn the thief," cried the boys, their laughter echoing off the hills.
***
Hung ducked back into the hut, blinking his eyes to adust to the sudden darkness. He picked his pillow up off the ground and put it back on the bed. He looked down at the ground and saw that in his earlier rage he had stepped on the sweet potato, smearing it all over the floor. Still angry, he sat on the floor, his head spinning at the recent turn of events.
He reached over and picked up the mat, which was crumpled in the corner, and saw that one of his bedplanks was broken. He noticed something strange stuck in a crevice in the floor, half hidden by the dark shadows underneath his bed. He lay flat on his stomach and stretched out his hand to pick it up. When his fingers closed around the crinkled paper, he knew it was his package of money. Nhien must have knocked it under the bed when she put the potato under his pillow, he thought with a groan.
He sat motionless for several minutes, unsure of what to do. He put the money back under his pillow and walked out of his hut to find Nhien. The poor little thing was nowhere to be seen. He jogged over to a grove of trees, thinking she might be resting in the cool shade since it was near midday and very hot. All the cowherds had returned home for lunch, so he couldn’t ask them. He squinted, staring into the thick shadows until he spotted Nhien’s palm-leaf hat moving up and down behind some thick bushes. She was cutting grass, her face staring intently at the ground. Usually by now she had already gone home, but thanks to his angry outburst she had to cut another sack of grass to feed her cow.
Hearing the approaching footsteps, she looked up and he saw her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Recognizing Hung, her face went white with fear and she began to back away.
"Uncle Hung, forgive me! I didn’t steal your money," she cried, her voice cracking as she tripped over a fallen log. She spun around and began running away from him.
"Little Nhien, stop running," he shouted.
She didn’t even look over her shoulder in her mad dash to get away. Her bag lay open on the ground, the grass scattered around it. He did not dare run after her for fear that she might hear him pursuing her and have a bad fall.
Returning to his hut, he thought and thought about what to do. He wanted to apologize to her for his terrible mistake. He had always thought of her as his daughter and now he regretted hurting her in his anger. After his wife gave birth to a deformed child, she left him alone. Since then he had led a lonely life with no relatives, until he met Nhien.
***
Nhien’s little clan came from an unknown corner of the country and had drifted into the the mountainous hamlet just a few years ago. The kids started coming by his fishing hut to play, making the place feel cosier and more lively. His stomach sank when he thought of how brutally he had treated her after the sunshine she had brought into his life. Just because of some lost money.
He had waited for Nhien to appear for the last few days, but he hadn’t seen her anywhere. He was determined to go to the hamlet to apologize to Nhien and her mother. After reaching their small hut, he knocked at the door, shuffling his feet in the dirt nervously. A thin woman with a haggard face opened the door, coughing wetly into her hand.
"Please forgive my daughter if she had done anything to you!" She entreated him.
"No, no you have it all wrong. I came here to apologise to her, I made a terrible mistake," he answered. Then he told her the whole story.
"Sadly, she left home some days ago!" she said.
"Where did she go?" he asked her desparately.
"After the death of our calf, she cried and cried," the woman said. "I made up my mind to return its mother to the co-operative, so Nhien didn’t have to cut grass any more. One of my relatives living in Ha Noi advised me to send her there to work at a pho restaurant," she said.
"But she’s still very young! How can she give up her education?"
"She told me she would study on her own. After all, she brought some of her 4th grade text books with her."
"Do you know who she’s been working for?"
"I really don’t know the place at all. Yesterday, she sent me her first paycheck of two hundred thousand dong as an advance from her landlady."
"I’m going to find her and bring her back so she can resume her studies. If she refuses to return home, at the very least I can tell her how sorry I am," he said resolutely. Hung tried to give the woman some money to ease his conscience, but she refused. He left, determined to find the girl.
***
For more than a month, Hung wandered here and there through the winding streets of the capital, searching for the poor girl. He worked odd jobs to support himself: a porter, a house cleaner. At night, he slept anywhere he could find a place to curl up. He spent a few nights under the eaves of the railway station and many more sleeping stretched out on the pavement or, when he could afford it, in a shabby inn by the Red River. But there were countless pho restaurants in Ha Noi. Trying to find Nhien was like searching for a needle in a haystack, until one day he stumbled across her.
Seeing him, Nhien’s eyes opened wide with fright. Her hands shook so hard, she nearly dropped the pile of bowls she was holding. Although her complexion was a bit whiter, she remained rather thin.
"My dear Little Nhien, I want to have a few words to you," he stammered.
"Yes, Uncle. Just a few minutes, please," she said, hurrying inside with the pile of bowls.
Hung waited and waited. At last, when his patience ran out, he approached the restaurant owner.
"You’re her father, aren’t you?" the woman asked him, putting down the knife she had been using to slice beef.
"Yes."
"It’s certain that she left home to make her living in town?"
He was opening his mouth to answer her when a customer sitting nearby said, "Well, nowadays, children are rather naughty. Even when their parents don’t think they should leave home, they’re always running away. In town, they lead a decadent life. Recently, I lived next door to a girl in her late teens who worked odd jobs. She worked as a servant for awhile, but got fed up and strangled her landlady to death over a few taels of gold."
"Don’t be silly! My maid’s very honest," said the restaurant owner. "A few days ago a foreign lady came here to have a bowl of pho. She accidentally left behind her purse, which had thousands of American dollars in it. My girl found it by chance. She picked it up and handed it to me. When the foreign woman came back to my place I returned it to her. She was deeply moved and decided to offer one million dong to my honest maid, but she turned it down point-blank."
After that she opened the drawer and took out four hundred thousand dong and gave it to Hung.
"Take it, please," she told him.
"What for?" he asked.
"Her half month’s pay, Sir. Won’t you take it for her?"
"But, where’s she now?"
"She’s just left."
"Where’s she gone?" he asked in a puzzled voice.
"I’m not sure. Maybe, she was afraid you’d take her home. Her colleagues here just told me she left."
Hung stood up in despair. And then dropped back on the stool, defeated.
"Please take another hundred thousand dong as a reward for her good behaviour," the restaurant owner said to him.
Hung shook his head and walked down the street.
It was late in the evening. The sky was overcast, the temperature began to drop. A strong wind was swept over the road, raising a cloud of dusts. A few birds dashed about the sky, searching for some kind of shelter to avoid the coming storm.
Translated by Van Minh
(from Viet Nam News)
(from Viet Nam News)
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