Ty Sun was his regular, "richest" customer. He paid with stacks of banyan leaves he picked up at the corner of the market. His "money" was very beautiful, each "bill" was bright red or speckled with yellow. One day Ty was sad and asked if he could sell on credit? All the beautiful banyan leaves had fallen, only the young ones remained. Those were the days when spring was coming, the banyans were changing leaves. My sister curled her lips, fiercely like an adult, "How would I know where your house is to sell on credit?"
During the years studying at the village school, the bottle cap "stall" was still there, the buyers and sellers silently grew up through each noon market... After the village was bombed, Ty Sun's family drifted away to an unknown place.
When she dropped out of high school in her final year, the times changed and life became difficult. She said she would go into business to help her mother earn money. Mom said yes, telling her not to be afraid of anything, if she did not lose money in business, she would make money, go out and see the sun and the moon. I was stunned, my sister was all grown up, had she not seen the sun and the moon yet that she had to go into business to see them?
Later I understood. Business requires hard work, calculation, traveling here and there to taste the sweet, the bitter, the sour, the bitter, interacting with all kinds of people, broadening one's horizons, accepting to go up and down the fields to know why people say the business world is a battlefield. The result of the business trips is... a small matter: "If there is no loss, there is profit". Mom "nurtured" more, sometimes there is a loss but still... profit. Profit is to "see the sun and the moon" - deep contemplations of human life and existence. The fear of loss was wiped out right from the moment I had some "quan of money" in my back and put the carrying pole on my shoulder.
She sold cigarettes and banh it at a train station. When sales were good, she would tell an acquaintance, and my mother and I would run out to help. One day she was so eager that she grabbed a wooden box of cigarettes, grabbed a handful of banh it, and jumped onto the train. Selling on the train was great fun, it was all gone in a short while. She got off the train at the next station, took a bus back to her home station. My mother praised her for being smart. She said she had been smart since she started selling bottle caps.
The other day she smiled and said, "Do you still remember the boy named Ty Sun who used to buy bottle caps from me when I was little? He's no longer toothless, now he's "turned into a dragon" named Long, a bank officer, handsome and fierce. I met her at the train station, he bought - he paid, his mouth smiled but his voice was sad, "So I can never buy bottle caps from a beauty on credit again". She was startled, thinking to herself, "The leaf money of the past was soaked with dew. Today's paper money is soaked with tears". Then in a moment, the whole time of being a village boy appeared with so many emotions. What wonderful memories. Think about it, if the "drawer" of memories was empty, how poor the soul would be. Knowing that she was about to get married, he "edited" a poem (by Nguyen Binh) and gave it to her: The seller has been bought/The market of life is meeting alone, what do I buy?
Her husband was a high school literature teacher. During the years of poverty, after school he would bake banh it. Many times he brought rice and lemonade to the train station for her. Many times he waited for the last train to take her home on his old bicycle. He said during dinner in the dim light of the oil lamp, "Students greet teachers at school differently than they do at the train station. One is respectful, the other is surprised and confused." She said indifferently, "Saying hello is enough. A straight tree has a round shade. Don't worry about it."
After finishing the lesson plan, he helped his wife make banh it, happily telling some "internal" stories. The poor couple smiled at each other while the pot of banh it for tomorrow was giving off a fragrant aroma...
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/nhan-dam-di-buon-khong-lo-thi-loi-185250308193548291.htm
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