Lost Each Other - Short Story by Bui De Yen

- Min!

- Oh! My God! Mien, you… you for real, Mien?

- Huong gave me the address last month, but I'm free today.

- Oh my God! I've been looking for your house for years. When I found it, you weren't there. I heard you were married and that you and your husband were very rich, so I was worried.

Her friend's sudden joy made Mien confused. It had been a long time since she had Man's address, but why was it only today that she had a free day to visit this island commune a few dozen kilometers away from where she lived, less than 2 kilometers from the road she often had to pass by for work.

Man had been her best friend since the time of playing catch and tossing, and was also Mien's best friend during middle school. In high school, she entered class A, the class of good and well-behaved students as selected by the teachers in the school. The reputation of the selective class and the scoring class had gradually diluted the friendship between the two students with the M letter who often sat next to each other during exams. Since when did Mien suddenly find it unnatural to secretly give her test papers to Man to copy without the teacher's permission, nor did she find it interesting to chase each other around the schoolyard with sandals or climb to the top of the banyan tree at the end of the village. A broken button on a shirt or a pair of blue pants with two patches on the buttocks were normal things in middle school, but now suddenly made Mien embarrassed in front of her new friends who were clean and well-behaved and gentle. The world of students had begun to form a harsh rule of ranking, starting from better school bags to preferential treatment from teachers and higher semester final scores. That gap grew even wider when Mien suddenly discovered that Man also liked Tuan.

Tuan is the son of the most famous director of the province, handsome, and good at studying. Mien, Man, and Tuan studied and played together since childhood. Man is agile, beautiful, and simple. Mien is intelligent, charming, and emotional. However, Mien and Tuan studied in the same class, so they were closer. Mien's unrequited love for Tuan followed her for twenty years. Tuan was always a bright spot in the dim color of the past, the image of the countryside that Mien had left. The low-lying plain with the lush green of rice and corn leaves haunted her for many years. There, where the red Tra River encroaches on the other side every year, creating a fertile alluvial land, she had a childhood, friends, acquaintances, and a foolish love that was never reciprocated.

Now, Mien can laugh at her own selfishness and arrogance. But at that time, Mien only felt like a devout believer standing far away, suddenly seeing some unknown, ordinary person approaching, confidently clinging to his arm, touching the hem of his idol's shirt. Mien no longer stopped by Man's house every day after school, nor did she invite Man to wade through the pond to pick white lotus flowers. Like most young girls in the countryside, if she hoped to change her life, it was through marriage, not through studying. At the end of eleventh grade, Man dropped out of school. Their friendship almost fell apart, even though neither of them said goodbye.

After many years of wandering from Da Lat to Saigon, Mien settled in Vung Tau. This half-urban, half-city land is not only 1,500 kilometers away from the green countryside of the past that she still dreamed of many nights, but also far away for dozens of reasons. In this small coastal city with almost all the residents of more than 60 provinces and cities in the country flocking to, Mien is not a successful person but also not a failure. She is a normal specialist in the customs industry. Previously, Mien's job was attached to a sixteen-square-meter room, of which twelve square meters were occupied by machines and office equipment; cold and indifferent colleagues but the good thing was that they did not know how to pry. In the past two years, she transferred to the customs office at the border gate in Phu My. Working hours have decreased but traveling time has increased, making Mien less likely to socialize and meet people. Mien had twelve days off a year and she had enough time to go back to her hometown, but Nghia, her husband, would not let her go back alone, and she did not want to go back with Nghia. Mien often suppressed her burning desire to be free to wander alone in the rice fields and mulberry fields, to sit and watch the sunset at the remote ferry dock by the river by going to the sea. Quietly like a sleepwalker, sitting on the rocky shore, dangling her feet into the sea when the tide came in. If only she could go back to her hometown, back to her eighteen or twenty years old, freely go to her friends' houses. They would definitely call Tuan to come back. He would enter the house with the brightest smile, would pat her head and take her to the places she wanted. She knew he would do that no matter how old she was, no matter how married he was. He would not hesitate to take her to the houses of his friends and acquaintances and introduce her as "My ex!" with a mischievous wink, a kind smile and a heartbreaking naturalness. He was so natural, perhaps simply because his heart was pure, and for other reasons Mien could not guess, because he always hid his true thoughts and feelings under the most carefree and cheerful mask.

Nghia often wondered why she wanted to go back to her hometown alone. He was not a jealous person. However, he was just a man, sometimes selfish, suspicious, and narrow-minded. Mien married Nghia when she was over thirty. Her long teenage years made her have many love affairs with boys who were attracted by her charming face, gentle voice, and attractive personality. She and Nghia knew each other for a long time, but loved and understood each other for a short time. He might mistake Tuan for one of the ghosts lurking in her past. She did not mind Nghia being jealous, she just did not want Nghia to think of Tuan as ordinary. Always in her heart, Tuan was in a higher position for her to aspire to. Nghia knew everything about her other relationships and rarely asked her about the past. He was a practical person, always too busy with lucrative contracts, upcoming projects, comfortable furniture that his friends had bought, and one more thing: he understood his wife or thought he understood his wife. He thought that she did not love anyone enough to give up her freedom, nor was she reckless enough to disregard public opinion to do something that would affect her own honor and the family tradition of a family known for its good education and discipline.

Mien did not like her husband's trust and carefree nature, but sometimes she still thought that Nghia's misunderstanding was a lucky thing. Nghia said that because he did not know anything about Tuan and her unrequited love for him.

As time passed, people changed very quickly. One day they were high-ranking and powerful, the next they were ordinary people. Yesterday they were rich and prosperous, the next day they were poor and penniless. In the blink of an eye, castles and citadels could turn into ruins. She knew that clearly and was not surprised to see that he had become more experienced and stronger when they met again when she went to Hanoi. Her job was fixed. Tuan's job required a lot of traveling. In the past, he went to Saigon a couple of times a year for work, taking the opportunity to go to Vung Tau. However, the short time during those rare meetings was not enough for her to peel off the cheerful, youthful, caring, polite mask to see the torment, worries, sadness, and anxiety that she knew were always in him. She wanted so much to share with him the joys, sorrows, pains, and despairs that he had encountered, but his almost radiant smile and gentle eyes took away all the courage she had when talking about her love life. The only time she expressed her feelings most clearly was when it was just him and her on the pier. In the summer afternoon wind that rolled up in waves, carrying sand and seawater crashing against the shore, unable to control herself, she hugged him tightly, trying to hide her tears of disappointment when she saw that the ship had docked but he still didn't say anything. He patted her back and slowly removed her hand, squeezing her hand tightly as if he understood, but there was still nothing but a passionate look as if he were sorry.

Two months later, she agreed to marry Nghia. Her mood on the wedding night was no different from Scarlett's in Gone with the Wind, except that her tears did not fall in a loud stream but were heavy and quietly flowed back inside.

Nghia is a successful and busy man. He loves her in the way a normal man loves his wife. But she does not feel happy. Perhaps because there is no love between her and Nghia. Sometimes she torments herself with the question of what love is? Is it a luxury that people with normal fates, dreaming of a peaceful life, cannot hope to have? But she also does not hope that between her and Nghia there is only symbiosis. She is very afraid that one day Nghia will casually ask if she loves him? If Nghia asks, she will not know how to answer because every time the word love is mentioned, she also remembers Tuan. "Every night in my dream I see you I feel you, that's how I know you go on…" (*), the song line seems to pop into her mind. Is there ever a day or night when she does not think of him.

Over the past ten years, news of her old friends has become less and less, yet she has not heard from Man for several years. Has the industrial life in the city mechanized human emotions, turning her into a cold, indifferent person like a pre-programmed machine?

- What are you thinking about that makes you look so absent-minded?

Mien was startled and looked out to see Man walking in with a bunch of bags and things.

- Stay here, have a meal with me and my mother, and call Aunt Ba and Uncle Bay who live next door too.

Man changed the way he addressed people at first. Perhaps because he felt Mien's distant politeness. Only the invitation was still intimate, true to the old Northern standards.

- Where is your husband? I haven't seen him for a while. Who is he?

- Mr. Thuong is from my village, of course! Oh, and maybe you don't know. You don't care much about the men and boys from my hometown... We got married, had a son, and then came here. My hometown is small and crowded. My husband's family has four sons. Six or seven people depend on a few acres of contracted land and five acres of land that my father-in-law left behind. We fought and suspected each other... and after a long struggle, I drifted here with my brother. The land here is fertile. Before, I lived in Long Thanh, Dong Nai, but the government planned it to be an industrial park called Long Phuoc or something. More than ten hectares of land, and the compensation was only a few hundred million, so the whole family came back to buy land and build a house here. Growing vegetables and grass to make ends meet. Fortunately, my husband was also diligent in researching. Seeing people raising clams, he also raised clams. Seeing people raising oysters, he also tried to learn how to breed and lead water to raise oysters. These days I heard that people in Nha Trang are doing very well at raising lobsters, so he packed his bags and went there to learn the trade a few days ago.

Now Mien looked closely at the house, it was indeed shabby and makeshift but had some expensive amenities and most importantly, Man's happy and contented smile. And why not? "Tri tuc, tien tuc, dai tuc bat ha thoi tuc - Knowing enough is enough, waiting for enough, knowing when it will be enough". Happiness is the same, it comes when we know how to be content with what we have. Man and her family members as well as her neighbors in this island commune of Long Son, they lived very comfortably and happily. They still ate well, drank well and slept comfortably on the mats on the floor. As for her, she was also born in the countryside but had gradually gotten used to bathing in the tub, sleeping on a soft mattress, applying a face mask every night and could not stand not changing the pillowcases and bed sheets for a whole week along with a thousand other habits associated with other amenities.

Man served Mien dishes that she called "home-grown", including shrimp, grilled oysters, stir-fried clams with squash blossoms, braised fish, and sour soup. Although the cooking techniques and presentation were not as good as those at seafood restaurants, they made up for it with fresh food. The neighbors finished eating, cleaned up quickly, and then invited Man's two sons to go out. Only Man and Mien sat talking about old times, and after a while, the conversation returned to Tuan.

- … When I went to the South, Tuan came to see me off. Tuan said he would remember to see you. But it has been almost ten years since I last saw you and I have not been able to contact Tuan. I wonder if Tuan is married yet? At that time, I thought you two were… Then the incident with Tuan’s father happened…

- Tuan's dad... What happened to Tuan's dad?

- Don't you know anything? The incident of using a blue-plate car to go out drinking and causing an accident led to several violations of land and planning, causing him to be disciplined, lose his job, retire for a while and then die.

- When did he die? - Mien exclaimed in shock.

- A long time ago. Summer 2012, I think it was in the seventh lunar month, when my husband came back to visit his hometown.

Summer 2012… Tuan came here in April of that year. She and Nghia also got married in 2012. Now she understood why Tuan didn’t contact her or call to congratulate her.

Man seemed to understand, she took Mien's hand:

- Life is like that! People get lost easily, my friend!

***

Leaving Man's house, Mien ran nearly thirty kilometers back to the city, the wind whistling in her ears. Tears welled up in her eyes again. Tuan and she had once ridden their motorbikes down this road. She had once wished to sit behind him, press her cheek against his back, close her eyes and fall asleep on his trusty shoulder. But she had long since stopped daring to remember that wish.

The road near Bai Truoc is getting more crowded. It's so hot, everyone wants to go to the beach, breathe in some "vitamin sea" at the coffee shops that are everywhere along the road. Is it to relieve some of the stress and fatigue in the whirlwind of making a living or to avoid the loneliness and emptiness in this ephemeral world that the coffee shops are getting more and more crowded?

Mien slowed down, trying to see the faces of the people walking in the opposite direction. Thousands of faces were all the same, indifferent, neither happy nor sad. Since when had she lived indifferently like that...

Mien returned home late at night, fumbling with all the locks of the large house. Mien threw herself onto the sofa in an empty mood. The suffocating scent of magnolia drifted through the crack in the door into the house, waking her up. Mien jumped up and pushed open the window. The night breeze carried the distant scent, faintly coming closer. Suddenly Mien realized how vast the world out there was.

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(*) Lyrics of the song My Heart Will Go On

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/lac-nhau-truyen-ngan-cua-bui-de-yen-18524122819194758.htm