For several years now, at the end of July in the solar calendar, which is June in our calendar, I and a friend have visited the Vietnamese Heroic Mothers who are still living in the province. Usually, I drive my old car along the beautiful village roads, the nooks and crannies of the peaceful small hamlets to visit the Mothers. The June weather in my country is as hot as fire, but thanks to this meaningful work, I have been to all the fragrant villages, the green fields, the beautiful bridges connecting the two banks...
Illustration: LE NGOC DUY
I drove my motorbike in the midday sun through a village with a green rice field next to a dark red village gate. The motorbike ran smoothly in an excited spirit. In my eyes, this place was beautiful from the green cassava fields under the white sand, the bridges, although they were rustic, but only needed to be hidden under the golden bamboo groves to become poetic...
While I was walking at a fairly fast speed, I suddenly discovered a chair placed on the side of the road. On the chair, a man with long hair, covering most of his face, was looking down dreamily. He was mumbling the lyrics of an old song "Life is still beautiful, love is still beautiful...", then he lifted his rough face with a high and straight nose and long, sad eyes to catch the very hot noon sun. My car passed by, the man was still looking up like that. I stopped my car on the side of the road to ask an old man nearby about the man sunbathing over there.
Here's the thing...
The old man began his story like that. He was slow, but I was impatient. I urged him to speak quickly, but he was slow...
His name is Thach. Mr. Thach is from this village, next to the Thach Han River, which branches out to the sea. His parents were regrouped in the North when he was born. I heard that they lived in Vinh Linh for a while and then moved to Hanoi. That's why he speaks with a sweet and warm Northern accent! In 1972, after finishing high school in the North, he did not go to university but wrote a volunteer application in blood asking to return to fight in his hometown. After four months of training in a midland hill region, Mr. Thach followed the troop to Quang Tri. He had not yet set foot in his village, but just being able to fight in his hometown made him very happy. Later, when he was in good health and mentally alert, he whispered to me like that.
Assigned to C12, Thach was always proud to be a soldier of a unit with illustrious achievements in his homeland. Every time I heard him recount the battles he participated in with his comrades, I seemed to see his youth in his radiant smile.
In that smile there is hope for tomorrow, for an old promise, when he was in high school in Hanoi with a beautiful and studious girl. At the bottom of his backpack there is always a picture and a message from this girl. Indeed, Mr. Thach is a "handsome guy" as the young people nowadays often say. His nose is high and straight, his eyes have long tails, sharp with long eyelashes, his mouth is wide, the corners of his lips are moderately shaped like a heart, every time he speaks or smiles he is very charming.
Thach once told me in high spirits: “My friends always encouraged me to apply to film school because I was handsome and talented, but I wanted to do something like a man in troubled times to be worthy of being a man.” And he did “be worthy of being a man” when he participated in the C12 raid on the night of March 8-9, 1975, in the ML military district. Mr. Thach has been in my hometown and in the same neighborhood as me for twenty years. Even though his mental health is not normal now, just hearing that he is a special forces soldier makes me feel affection for him immediately.
The old man kept talking to me slowly as if he had not had anyone to share with for a long time. And it was true, because sometimes, when Mr. Thach was well, he had someone to confide in, otherwise he would sit and watch Mr. Thach from afar, as he said, "If by chance the chair flips and Mr. Thach falls, someone will still see you!". The old man stopped talking, took a drag of his deeply rolled cigarette. He smiled and told me, "Bug" tobacco is clean and delicious, I don't smoke filters or pipe tobacco! He said he grew a few rows, dried them in the southern sun, and made several bundles, enough to smoke until next season, then winked, "Let me continue...".
Do you remember the part where I told you about Mr. Thach's date with a high school friend? Of course you do, right? On the day of liberation, Thach's parents quickly arranged to return to their hometown. Parents and children met each other with mixed feelings. Thach's parents were happier than finding gold because their only son was still alive and well. Thach had graduated from high school, and was recognized by his superiors for his ability, alertness, and flexibility, so he was sent to study at the special forces officer school. Before leaving, he asked for ten days of leave.
Of the ten days, Thach spent three with his parents. The remaining seven days, he carried his old, worn-out backpack from several years on the battlefield and headed to the North with the intention of meeting his high school girlfriend, even though for more than three years on the battlefield, Thach had resolutely not sent her a single letter! Planning to rekindle their old love and then enroll in school, the soldier who had spent more than three years fighting for his life and death innocently went to meet his ex in a faded, faded military uniform. That girl had graduated from university and had just started working as an engineer at a candy factory.
But the girl did not reject him. When she met him, she cried like rain for a while, touched his whole body to see if he was injured, then brought him home to introduce him to her parents. Her parents loved him very much, and even asked him to marry her immediately. But the two decided not to marry each other and continued to wait.
The day he graduated and went to the border in the army, his girlfriend pursed her lips. He realized that her face had lost its innocence and became much stronger. He suddenly felt guilty, because of him, she had dragged her entire youth away. He left with a confused mind, leaving behind him those eyes that were waiting for him. That year he was twenty-six years old.
***
Six years in the northern border battlefield, Thach was like a local, speaking fluent Tay-Nung language, familiar with the terrain, every tree branch and blade of grass. Along the more than 330 kilometers of Cao Bang border, every district and commune had his footprints. As a reconnaissance battalion commander, he not only showed the way and drew paths for his subordinates to carry out their missions, but also placed his feet on many rocks; his hands grabbed many bushes of grass along the border to grasp the enemy situation, find ways to support friendly units to fight and defeat the enemy. He went to inspect the situation more than the soldiers. But in six years, he only returned to Hanoi five times. And each time he returned was for work, not to be with his lover.
Thach told me: “Because at that time, seeing the soldiers on the other side was so crazy, I just wanted to fight. So many of us died, so much pain, I didn’t feel comfortable going back to get married, so I kept making promises to her.” Normally, Thach didn’t go back to Hanoi with his girlfriend, but every month he wrote her letters. Until the fourth year, an incident happened. Thach was injured during a reconnaissance along the border. When he woke up in the military hospital, the doctor said that his male function was gone! From then on, he was completely silent, not saying a word of goodbye to the girl who had waited for him for more than ten years.
***
Thach left the army in 1986 with a 75% disability rate. When he returned, his parents were already old and weak. He could not tell them that he could not marry. His supple physique and handsome appearance were gone. Thach became thin and withdrawn, his mouth no longer spoke and laughed as charmingly as when he was young. His parents also urged him to get married, but eventually they got bored and stopped talking. Around 1992 or 1993, they decided to "go". And the handsome, intelligent Thach of the past, the talented special forces scout of the past, remained as you can see. The old man stopped talking, looked at me, his eyes filled with sorrow.
I looked at the man sunbathing. His high forehead was stubborn and courageous. The corners of his charming mouth were tightly pursed in endurance. I was sure of one thing, his body and appearance might be in tatters, but his mind was not as “tattered” as it appeared. I made a bold decision, to find the woman from the past for him.
And by many modern methods, I found her, the girl with pigtails and a gentle, kind oval face of his past. She remained single without ever marrying after many times going to the border to find him after the war ended. She thought he had sacrificed himself in a rocky crevice along the border while on a reconnaissance mission and tripped over a mine.
Some of his former comrades unexpectedly met her when they returned to the old battlefield. When they heard her story, they realized that she was the fiancee of their former leader, so they encouraged her to return because he was still alive and had returned to his hometown.
They also told her the reason why he left her. However, she still refused to believe it, stubbornly believing that he had sacrificed himself so she had to stay single to worship him... She said, my name is Thuy - I will stay single and be faithful to him.
I found Mrs. Thuy after more than half a year of thinking about looking for her. She was stunned for a moment when I explained, then cried like rain. The tears of a woman who thought she had dried up from suffering suddenly flowed. She laughed and said: “It’s not that I don’t want to look for him, it’s because I don’t dare believe that he’s still alive.
Because how could he not come back to me while he was still alive? Is he really alive, miss?” As for him, the man from the windy and sandy land who had lived through two wars and seemed to have no feelings for love and youth, the day I took Mrs. Thuy’s hand and put it in his, he was trembling. His lips moved as he called: “Thuy! Thuy!” and he hugged her tightly. Suddenly, I could no longer see on his face the shadow of the man who had sunbathed that day.
***
That day was the beginning of Spring. There was a man about 70 years old leading a woman about his age to the New Year market. The man wore a new military uniform, holding a peach blossom branch with buds; the woman wore a ripe plum-colored ao dai, holding a mai blossom branch with a few petals already blooming. The two of them walked in the pristine spring morning. The sparkling spring light made the two faces that seemed old with age shine.
Khanh Ha
Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/truyen-ngan-nguoi-dan-ong-di-qua-hai-cuoc-chien-191853.htm
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