by Quynh Van
Late one evening, while tidying up her desk, Chau was startled by the ringing of the telephone. Hurriedly, she lifted the receiver. "Hello, Chau here," she answered.
In response, there was only silence. After waiting a few moments and getting no response, she set the phone back down. Just as she was leaving the office, the ringing sounded again. Opening the door, she rushed in, and with the phone at her ear, she heard a choked female voice.
"Chau. In my next life, I hope I'm not a woman."
"Hello…" Chau responded, but there was only a dial tone.
As a social worker for many years, things like this were commonplace in Chau's life. She was used to quarrels between husbands and wives, jealousy between courting couples and ruined marriages between ill-matched pairs. She dealt with them all, but never had she hear anything quite so despairing as that one statement. She couldn't help but think of the women she knew.
***
Only three young women had worked in her section for long: Hien, Sam and herself. After work, Hien often rushed downstairs to play badminton amid merry peals of laughter on the cement court. Hien led a simple life with her husband, a high-ranking official, and her two attractive sons. With her husband's high salary and surplus income from their rental properties, they lived very comfortably. She was a giving person both emotionally and financially and, in short, her life was what many might see as a dream.
Unlike Hien, Chau's other friend Sam had to work very hard. In the morning, when other women still slept soundly in their bedrooms, she had to leave home early so she could make it to the office on time despite the commute. In the afternoon, when her work day was over, she hurried home to do housework. Her husband, a self-employed man, only ever had irregular work and they had two children to support, one of whom suffered from a serious and costly disease. The combination of all these factors left Sam frequently drained and melancholy. Rarely did she smile. She wore plain but decent clothes and was always very clean. Among her friends, she was well-liked, and yet, at the same time, she had never invited them to her place, perhaps due to insecurity over where she lived. Rumor had it that her husband was nothing to be proud of. He'd hurt her feelings on occasion but would always beg forgiveness afterward. Her other daughter was affected by this, and by the age of ten had become sullen and acted like someone much older than her few years suggested.
As for Chau, her life seemed relatively average in relation to her two colleagues. At one time, Chau had been quite happy and comfortable, much like Hie. Her husband was liberal and attractive in his youth. Moreover, he showed great promise in his work. Understandably, Chau thought herself very lucky. But it did not last long. When she gave birth to her second child, he grew unfaithful, and out of respect for herself she left him. That was in the early 1980s. Since then, her meagre wages barely sustained her. She was forced to do extra work, small things like running errands for a nearby restaurant, or fetching water for her neighbours, making work gloves the garment factory or typing documents for another company. Meanwhile, she took continuing education classes.
Sometimes, even with all her work, she thought that she was a woman without aspirations or hopes. Now that her two children had grown up to find stable and well-paid jobs, she was more relaxed. Her eldest married a foreigner and went abroad; her younger girl worked abroad as well, and as a result, her house seemed empty. She was lonely. There was no one to hurry for, no one waiting for her at the end of the day.
When work ended, she lingered around the office, playing badminton or tennis or chatting with her friends.
She took solace in long business trips and in meetings with clients, often playing the role of mediator for married couples in crisis. She used her personal experiences as examples in her work. In her mind, happiness was something that required hard personal work. It didn't just appear. To get it was hard enough, but to maintain it was more difficult still.
In this respect, Hien's life was an excellent example. Her living conditions were what every woman in her neighbourhood dreamed of; yet, she had her own sufferings that she kept to herself. Recently, she suffered a serious illness that put her in hospital. She went alone for the operation, afraid to let others know, especially her husband who was already irked about finances. He was a bigwig in the central administration and was too busy to pay attention to her.
So even though Hien's life may have seemed ideal, it was not.
In contrast, Sam's husband, who was said to be a good-for-nothing guy, took great care of his wife and children. His haggard, troubled countenance was enough to provoke love and sympathy in Sam. And in his care for her, she felt quite satisfied.
Another friend, Phuong, who had only just married at the age of twenty, had another view about money. She asserted how important it was, that it was what made a marriage work.
Chau considered Phuong’s opinion. "Am I old-fashioned?" she wondered for not feeling the same way.
***
Chau roused herself from this reverie and wearily, closed the door. "Who could that have been on the phone? Where is she now? Why would should say something so hopeless?" she asked herself repeatedly. And yet she felt an understanding with girl.
Not so far away on the bank of the Red River was Nhien, the girl who had just phoned, standing alone and in despair. In just a few years, Nhien had felt her life change rapidly and for the worse. In the innocence of her youth she abandoned everything to become the wife of a soldier named Tien, a man she loved dearly. But once she became pregnant, her husband became an entirely different man: brutal and disloyal. Now with her face wet with tears, her body bruised and broken, she considered throwing herself into the turbulent river. She could put an end to her sufferings. The child inside her stirred.
Nhien's house was situated near the Military College where Tien was a cadet. She was a good singer and was often invited to perform at his institution, which is how they fell in love and eventually got married. Later, he was dispatched to the Nha Trang military committee, and Nhien continued work at the Military College.
Whatever happiness there had been faded awway and distance led to Tien to take a new girl. Occasionally he would come back and beg Nhien's forgiveness only to beat her later, claiming the child she carried was not his. Finally, she went to the district court and divorced him. She said goodbye and hoped she would heal and find happiness raising the child alone.
When the child turned one, Tien returned to Nhien once again. He kneeled, wept, reminded her of what they once had. He touched her, caressed her, and having been so long alone, she submitted, finding her anger only after the fact. She tried to comfort herself with the reminder that he was indeed her child's father, tried to forgive him.
It did not last. Soon he was gone, along with all her savings and jewellery. Worse still, and though she did not know it right away, he had left her another mouth to feed. With no money and no husband, how could she get by? She cursed her femininity and thought if she had it to do over, she'd have been born a man.
***
When Sam turned off her light, it was already quite late. Her place remained messy and she was tired. How quiet it was! And yet she knew she wouldn't be able sleep, tossing and turning for hours, worrying obsessively about one thing after another. This was the month both of her parents had died. She needed to get a wedding gift for her German cousin and had to pay off her first child's medical bills. "The operation will cost a hundred million dong," the surgeon had told her. But where would she get the money? Spreading her veined hands wide, she took a deep breath, waiting for her husband to return home. He had gone one district over to borrow money for the operation, and if he couldn't get enough, their house would soon become a motorbike repair shop.
Unable to relax, she wandered in to her daughter's room. "What are you up to?" she asked finding the girl still up at her desk. "It's already late now. Go to bed."
"Yes, Mum," the girl replied.
If Sam had money, she'd buy her a bicycle. She relied on friends' help to get the girl to school every day since they lived so far away.
More and more Sam found herself to be exhausted from overwork at the office combined with lack of sleep at home and struggled to keep going. The other day, when her company had a periodical health examination for its staff, she refused to attend, afraid they might find an ulcer or worse.
Amid the quiet, the clock sounded its tick tock, and Sam could tell a light was still on in the house.
"You're up late. And ignoring your mother I see?" Sam fussed when she found her daughter still at her desk.
"I'm about to finish my work, Mum."
Half an hour had elapsed, and yet the table lamp remained on. Angry at being disobeyed, Sam went to her daughter and smacked her cheek, nearly knocking the girl over. On the desk sat a brand new white handkerchief with the embroidered words: "In celebration of Mother's day."
"Oh my love! I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Forgive me," Sam said.
She kissed her daughter's cheek and felt dreadful when she saw there was blood.
"I couldn't get anything nicer," the little girl said to her mother.
How could she have placed so much weight upon her child! How could she have struck her. They embraced and fell asleep together.
The next day, Sam told Chau what had happened, and Chau shared a similar story.
"When my daughter was in her fifth year of primary school in Ha Noi, her school organised a trip to look at historical sites around the city," Chau said. "She was excited and asked if she could go. I agreed and made sure she had everything she needed, but before going to bed, she asked me for twenty thousand dong.
"I balked and asked her why she needed the money as I'd already given her everything she needed and they'd be back in time for lunch. I told her I was disappointed by how little she valued money and how quickly she'd learned to waste it. I told her the amount would cost me three days of hard work.
"That night, she was up late studying and I could hear her crying. But when I woke the next day I saw an entry in her diary. It read:
Mum yelled at me today because I asked for twenty thousand dong for my class trip. She told me I was being selfish, but it isn't true. On the last trip everyone bought gifts for their parents, but I didn't have the money, so I had to wait outside the shop. This time I asked her but it just made her upset"
Chau finished her story, saddened by the memory. Suddenly, she turned to Sam and said.
"We've got a lot to learn from our daughters. Certainly we've been in the wrong before. And you know even though I felt bad all those years ago, I never apologised. When we fail at such small things, how can we be expected to set a good example for our children?"
***
That night Chau could not sleep again.
The story about Sam's family and all of the thoughts of the past few days left her anxious. Over time, many women had put great confidence in her, and now she realised she had failed them. Her own lack of happiness lingered as a reminder. She was angry with herself, that she'd been too selfish to forgive her husband. Too proud. Had she ever once thought of her children? And how much she had suffered living alone and shouldering all that responsibility! It had never been about her children. It had been about her. And yet they wanted their father's care. They needed a home.
Usually, Chau taught them to be gentle and kind, but she had been strict, severe, allowing happiness for neither her children nor herself. In those moments she recalled a letter her son had sent from abroad, urging her to do something before things got too bad - for his sake and hers. The note said:
Dear Mum,
I'm including some money and I hope you'll persuade Dad to build a decent-looking house for us to live in. When it's finished, I'll come home and you'll have a perfect daughter-in-law to keep you company. We need no longer live so far apart.
Chau thought of the letter and felt that maybe, somewhere far away, a kind of happiness awaited.
Translated by Van Minh
(from Viet Nam News)
(from Viet Nam News)
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