I just returned to my maternal home this afternoon. It was May, and by just past ten o'clock, the sun was already scorching hot. The hot Lao wind added to the heat, making it even more intense and uncomfortable. On the village road, there were buffalo carts and tractors loaded with rice. People were going back and forth. Everyone was in a hurry, as if they wanted to finish their work quickly to get home as soon as possible, as if to escape the heat. From my uncle's kitchen, I could smell the aroma of new rice, the smell of pepper and onion fried in fat, and the smell of mussels cooked in vegetable soup, a rustic dish that I will never forget.
Illustration: NGOC DUY
I don’t remember exactly how many times I have visited my maternal hometown, Mai village. Every time I return, I get to enjoy the familiar cuisine, rich in the flavor of my hometown. From the first time I returned until now, several decades have passed. Even though I live far away from my maternal hometown, my thoughts are always there.
In my childhood, when I was only nine or ten years old, I vaguely knew about my maternal hometown through my parents' stories. Although I was young, I remembered every story about my maternal hometown very clearly. I also remembered the place names such as Cua Tung, Cua Viet, Con Tien, Doc Mieu... especially the two words "Mai village" that I knew by heart since I was little. And every time I mentioned those two words, I felt them vibrate deep in my heart. I wished to visit my maternal hometown one day. To see with my own eyes the Hien Luong bridge and the river with clear, gentle blue water, flowing quietly all year round. To run and jump freely on the village road.
And the best thing is to go to the river to rake mussels, to scoop up the mussels in the palm of your hand, and then every morning, to join the village children in building a stove and lighting a fire, playing the game of “cooking mussel soup” and carrying it out to sell on the street with the clear call: “Here is mussel soup, who wants mussel soup!”, like my mother and her friends used to play together when they were little! One time, my mother pointed at the map I was studying, and sadly said to me: “Your maternal hometown is right on the other side of the Ben Hai River, but to cross this river, we still have to wait until the day the country is reunified, my child!”. From then on, I understood that my maternal hometown was being occupied by the American invaders. And, I had to wait until the day the country was reunified before I could visit my maternal hometown.
At that time, my father was a soldier fighting in the Southern battlefield. My mother was a teacher, a female guerilla in Mai village. My parents met and got married, and after a week, my mother followed my father to the North. From then on, my mother stayed in my father's hometown. My father went back to the battlefield. The two of them were separated for a long time, without letters or news. It was not until nearly ten years later that my father returned to the North for the first time. I remember that time was probably after the Tet Offensive, when we had just fought a big battle in the South.
That year I was just ten years old. My father came back very quickly and left very quickly. It seemed that he was in a hurry, perhaps the situation did not allow him to stay longer. Then six or seven years later, until the South was completely liberated, my father only came back once more, around the time the Paris Agreement was signed. Usually, the times my father came back, even though the time was very short, sometimes only one or two days, it was enough for my small family to gather together, to be filled with joy and happiness.
I was very much loved by my father. Every time the family reunited, he often had the habit of picking me up, kissing me on the cheek, then placing me neatly in his lap. He stroked my hair and comforted me. I put my arms around his neck, my small hands gently rubbing his stubbled chin. My mother sat opposite, smiling happily at the two of us.
Mom's face showed joy and emotion. Looking at her, I knew how happy she was when Dad came back. Listening to my parents talk to each other, I learned many things, including things that a child like me should not have to care about. But somehow, every story my dad told my mom, I listened attentively and remembered very well. Like the war situation in the South, where we fought, where we won. And also the hardships and sacrifices we are enduring.
Through the stories my father told my mother, I also learned something very interesting. That is, my father and his unit participated in many battles on the Quang Tri battlefield. My father was once present in the army that captured Cua Viet military port, broke down the electronic fence of Macnamara in Con Tien, Doc Mieu. And once my father visited Mai village, which had just been liberated, and met my grandparents. My mother was very happy to hear my father tell the story! Her eyes were filled with tears but her smile was still sparkling.
Then mother sadly asked father: "Dear brother, the war was so brutal, surely our village is now desolate and desolate. Even the clam raking profession of our village is probably gone, right?" Father smiled brightly and told mother that although Mai village was devastated by bombs and bullets, rice and potatoes were still green on every field. The people there did two jobs at the same time, fighting the enemy and producing enthusiastically! Not only were they diligent in farming to produce rice to feed the soldiers fighting the enemy, but they also preserved the traditional profession from many generations ago.
Then my father said that when he visited the village, his grandparents fed him rice with vegetable soup cooked with mussels. He said that it had been a long time since he had eaten a bowl of mussel soup cooked by his mother-in-law, and he felt cool all the way to his heart. My mother sat listening, as if she was absorbing every word. Her lips moved, moved, and her neck moved slightly, I thought she was also eating something delicious.
On the last evening before leaving tomorrow, my father said to my mother: “Our homeland has been liberated, I also intend to take you and the children back to visit, but I think the whole South will be liberated soon. Please wait patiently until the day of total victory, then we will all return to visit our homeland. It probably won’t be long now...”. Then my father returned to his unit to fight. Two years later, my father and his unit quickly advanced to liberate Saigon. Right in the middle of the days when victory was approaching, my mother and I received the news that my father had died. So the promise to visit my mother’s homeland with my mother and me was gone forever with my father.
The first time I visited my mother's village of Mai was on a summer day not long after the liberation of the South. That year I was an eighteen-year-old girl. The trip was just the two of us. We took the train to Vinh and from there by car. It was not a very long journey but it took several days. Although it was tiring, it was fun. It was my first time visiting my hometown so I was very excited.
As for my mother, I could read on her face a mixture of sadness, joy, and emotion. After all, it had been twenty years since she followed her father to the North, and today she was finally able to return to her birthplace. Twenty long years of waiting. Twenty years of suffering the grievances and pain of war and the hope for peace.
My emotions suddenly burst out when I set foot on the village road. It was still the old village road winding through the bamboo groves. And in the distance was the river flowing slowly. The familiar thatched roofs shaped like banh it, one room and two lean-tos. Nothing had changed except the scenery, the bare village with many bomb craters and artillery craters.
I ran happily to the riverbank. The afternoon sun was deep yellow on the sand. A crowd was diving on the silvery white water in the distance. They were pulling fragile bamboo boats. I realized that they were people from my village who were raking clams. Suddenly, I followed the water's edge towards them. A group of children were herding buffaloes and flying kites right next to the riverbank. They were running, playing, and singing happily. A boy suddenly shouted loudly: "I dare you! I dare you!" Then he sang: "What is so small in the river? For women to sell, for men to rake?" As soon as he finished speaking, his friends all answered in unison: "Just a little bit of two cents. Buy cold rice from the cupboard and pour it over!" Then they chased each other, laughing and talking loudly along the river.
Saying goodbye to the children, I intended to turn back, but then I thought about it and continued on. Behind me, the sun had completely set at the foot of the mountain. In front of me, the space had turned dark. The river was still, without a ripple. In the river, the clam diggers were still diving as if no one noticed the time. Suddenly, the sky became cloudy, the river changed color, and a gust of wind blew.
I felt dazed and bewildered, but I could see in the pale twilight, a man in black running forward. He stumbled several times, then got up and continued running.
A very young face, tall and thin, flashed before my eyes. A very familiar face, very close as if I had seen it somewhere before. When he reached the riverbank, he stopped to look around for a moment, then parted the water and rushed into the middle of the stream. Soon his figure blended in with the figures of people raking clams in the river. At the same time, I heard gunshots, shouts, and a group of people running aggressively. In the group, there were both French and Vietnamese soldiers. Every face looked fierce and fierce. They had guns in their hands, shouting loudly: "Viet Minh! Viet Minh! We must capture the Viet Minh alive!" Then they rushed toward the people raking clams. The black muzzles of their guns were pointed straight at them.
A traitor shouted: “Whoever is Viet Minh, come out. If not, I will shoot!” Immediately, from the crowd, a girl’s voice answered: “There is no Viet Minh here. We are all Mai villagers who work as clam rakers. If you don’t believe me, come down here and check.” The group of soldiers hesitated for a moment and then quietly left.
The strong wind woke me up as if I had just woken up from a dream, looking around but seeing nothing. It turned out that it was just a story that happened more than twenty years ago that my mother had told me. Today, standing in front of the river in my hometown, in the twilight, I recalled everything. It felt like that old story had happened only recently. I remember every time my mother finished telling the story, she told me that it was the first time she and my father met. It was she and the people of Mai village who saved my father from danger during a siege by the enemy. Then, after a while, my mother fell in love with the young man from the North, that soldier of the National Guard.
I sat down on the grass, scooped up water from my palms and blew it over my face. The cool drops of water penetrated every cell of my body. A feeling of both excitement and nostalgia filled me with excitement as I walked home.
Short story: Nguyen Ngoc Chien
Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/canh-dong-chieu-cua-me-187449.htm
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