" The zither plays loudly - I still love you, you don't have a husband yet".
I don't know what happened, but one day when I was crossing the Vu Gia River, I was so tired that I stopped to rest. A man selling "Saigon bread for three thousand a loaf" passed by. A speaker the size of a drinking cup hung next to the handlebars of his motorbike emitted a traditional folk song, with the above two lines. Oh my, I was instantly transported back to the days of wandering in the West...
A woman who rowed a boat on the Vu Gia River all her life - Photo: LTV
That day, we took a ferry across the Hau River to the northern wharf of Can Tho. On the other side was Binh Minh commune of Vinh Long. Getting off the ferry, the engine was roaring, people and vehicles were bustling. There was an old blind beggar playing the zither. His voice was emotionless but sad. My friend said, I have a younger sister, married far away, she hasn't been back to her hometown for a long time, sometimes I ask her how her business is, she says the same thing. Listening to the old man sing, I remember the story of her getting married. To tell you the truth, people in life are full of illusions so they suffer, but she is not illusioned, yet she is nothing. I know six sentences of her way of speaking.
Back then, he went to school in Saigon and then returned to his hometown to find a job. He passed the exam, but his boyfriend, who later became his husband, advised him to go to Saigon. My hometown has red rubber soil, my dear, my family is very poor. When I went to high school and bought a bicycle, it was an event for the whole neighborhood. But I could barely ride it, I mainly pushed it, rolled up my pants to push it, and dirt stuck from the rim to the saddle, staining my white ao dai.
When he registered for the university entrance exam, my mother said, "What did you study that you can easily find a job after graduation? I don't have the money to run for it." He was pretty, smart, and brave, like a broken machine, sometimes as silent as a clam, with a face as cold as a bomb's butt, sometimes he spoke without stopping, angry, and his voice was sometimes soft, sometimes sharp, fortune tellers said his fate was not good. He passed. My mother and I went to find a place to stay, wandered around Saigon for three days, and then everything was okay.
I don't know what part-time job he does to make a living, he must be like a student from the countryside, studying during the day and working at night, because the money in the countryside is only enough for monthly rent. Every time he comes back for Tet, seeing his friends gather around for a class reunion, asking "Hey, do you have a boyfriend yet?", he said there are plenty of girls, you guys worry about being single, not me! After graduating for a few years, he liked a guy who also studied in Saigon. Got married.
His hometown is far away in the West. My mother brought her daughter to her husband's house with tears in her eyes. She said she had to cross the ferry several times. She wanted to visit her son but couldn't remember the way. It was so far away. Where would she know to find him?
The first time I saw him cry, I found out that he had a boyfriend back home. I don't know if they dated while they were here, but one day he got drunk and stood in front of my house singing "The zither plays loudly on the shaft - I still love you, you don't have a husband yet"...
I was about to cross the river, my friend's words echoed. The story had this ending, after that the younger sister broke up with her husband because they were not compatible. Ask her about her marriage, she said her own personal matters, don't ask. I feel sorry for her but I have to accept it.
Well, I have to give up. Books are like life, there are private joys that cannot be expressed. But now, like this river, the northern wharf of Can Tho, there are no more ferries or ferries.
The boats sank at the dock, literally and figuratively. It ended the life of the sea and river. I imagine that girl, her life is like the monsoon season, the rainy nights. Anyone who goes to the West during the rainy season will see the endless fields.
Whose kitchen fire is warm with the sound of husband, wife and children, the wind or rain all lull them warmly, the rest, the song and the zither beat a rhythm of the waves. I don't know if she is like many others, alone against the wind, unable and not knowing where to lean, sometimes saying that she doesn't need to lean, but I believe that, that is the magic of AQ in this world, a boat without people will sink by itself. The shadow falls at the foot of the lamppost, looking at one's own shadow on the wall, it will blur when one can't stand the sleepiness, but every night is like the other, that shadow will go into the morning.
Life, when we separate ourselves, sometimes we will see that Che Lan Vien is not wrong "The centuries are crowded but humanity is deserted" or like Phu Quang's music "The crowded streets cannot see people's faces". So busy drifting among the people like a waterfall in Saigon, I see that everything is just shadows, illusions. Lonely shadows, no one knows anyone, groping on their own on the journey to somewhere, blessing or tormenting themselves.
Vu Gia River upstream - Photo: LTV
Once, someone asked me “which came first, the shadow or the form?”. I intended to start from the combination of the parents’ DNA, or use the theory of heaven, earth and man to answer, he laughed: “Try walking into a supermarket or an office, and the door opens automatically, because there is a camera, you will know immediately, the machine captures your shadow moving first, then comes the step of identifying who you are, from there you will know what comes first and what comes next”. But life, knowing in advance that old age will be like that, then being young is useless. Knowing that love is bitter, why be infatuated? Knowing that life is a thousand days of sadness, happiness is meaningless now. Alas, if you still love, then wait until you get married, who doesn’t regret the golden days, but if you get involved, the rice will burn, the wine will be bitter, the wind will fall, the clouds will drift, who dares to say no?
Pity the fate of man. He did not know what was going on, so he set out. Life teaches us to be as wise as possible, and we will figure out what will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. We know we are nothing but shadows, but we do not resist. There was a time when it was common to criticize women for drinking, especially in the city, when we saw them sitting, either with men or women, or alone, smoking and drinking like everyone else. The Vietnamese people have a bad habit, that is, whatever they find strange or displeasing today, they bring up old stories to teach morality.
Mr. Li Bai wrote "Lifting a cup and loving the bright moon - Facing the shadow, becoming three people", talking about the lonely swaying of human fate in the face of the moon, himself and his shadow, the drunkenness of immortal wine because he was drunk all his life, but a woman like you, my friend, in this world there must be tens of thousands of people like that, who dares to say that looking at your shadow falling on a glass of sad wine at midnight on a cold attic, does not have the right to be sad, to live with your shadow, you invite yourself, do not need to have nothing and do not need the moon and stars, because it is meaningless? Sometimes the shadow guides them through the stormy life to a far away place, sinking into infinity, or struggling to get through the sun and rain day and night, or they love themselves to live. You wait until you have a husband, sometimes not because of me, because being too busy is being too busy...
Thinking of that, I stopped, looking down at Vu Gia in flood season. The water was muddy, slowly flowing towards the sea. There was no ferry crossing the river. It was afternoon. From the bare bamboo grove on the Dai Lanh side, a crow swooped out, flying towards the mountain, then as if by magic, a small boat like a leaf leisurely rowed upstream, on the boat were a woman and a child. I thought to myself, this season must be after the hour of Dan tomorrow morning, the flood would start. There were two people on the boat, probably mother and child. The river in this stretch was wide, no different from a branch in the West that I missed for years, not being back, drinking a cup of wine watching the water hyacinths drifting, then remembering the day at Phu Dinh wharf on Tran Xuan Soan street in District 7, getting on the boat and sitting with Mr. Bay Huong, a merchant from Vinh Long alley, going to Saigon to sell flowers and fruits. Drunk, his wife said he should go to bed, and his nephew should go home too, then she started singing: "The plover calls for high tide, my dear - The trade is losing money, the rowing is tiring"...
Le Trung Viet's memoir
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