The Mountains Sing

  “She needs medicine.”

  I walked, Hạnh on my back, my feet stiff with terror as I approached the village. Avoiding the main entrance, I turned into a small lane. Spotting a secluded house, I edged close to its gate. I saw her immediately—a woman around my age. She was washing some kind of vegetable by the bank of her house’s pond. Yellow mướp flowers lit up like a flock of butterflies above her head.

  “Sister, help us,” I called softly.

  The woman looked up, gasping at the sight of Hạnh’s head slouching over my shoulder. Unlatching the gate, she took Hạnh into her arms and scolded me for not seeking help sooner. Inside her cool house, we placed Hạnh down onto a bamboo bed.

  Hạnh opened her mouth to receive water, but her eyes remained shut.

  Using wet cloths, we cooled Hạnh’s fever. The woman sucked her teeth, as if she herself were in pain. She caressed Hạnh’s face. “Where does it hurt, Sweetheart?”

  Hạnh put her hands on her stomach, opened her eyes, and smiled weakly.

  “My daughter has food poisoning, Sister.”

  “Ginger. Ginger tea.” The woman rushed outside.

  “We’re lucky today, and you’ll be fine soon.” I kissed Hạnh’s forehead. The woman could’ve shooed us away, us with our uncombed hair and ragged clothes, us with our hungry eyes and bodies that stank like rotten fish.

  I fed Hạnh some more water. “Sleep, baby.” A lullaby warmed my lips.

  On the wall of the room I noticed a faded wedding photo of the woman and her husband; next to it was a more recent picture of the two of them. Several certificates told me the woman’s name was Thảo, that she was a kindergarten teacher and her husband a government official.

  Mrs. Thảo came back with a handful of fresh ginger. I followed her into a cozy kitchen. Soot-blackened pots and pans dangled on the mud wall, above a pile of rice straw and stoves built of dried mud. Everything said its owner was tidy and knew how to take care of the household.

  We peeled and sliced the ginger. Mrs. Thảo lit a stove, fed the fire with rice straw, and boiled a pot of water, into which she poured some leftover rice. “Porridge . . . Hạnh needs it.” She shook her head. “You beggars only care for money.” She lit the second stove for me to roast the ginger.

  “Some mothers don’t know how lucky they are.” Mrs. Thảo’s eyes were fixed on the glowing fires. “For years, I’ve traveled to pagodas and temples, even to the famed Perfume Pagoda near Hà Nội. . . . I’m still waiting for my blessing.”

  Thoughts swirled in my mind. I knew I couldn’t manage to bring all four children to Hà Nội. Mrs. Thảo seemed kind. But how could I leave another child to another stranger?

  The ginger glided back and forth on the frying pan, its intense smell making my eyes weep.

  “Sister,” I mumbled, “I left our bag of clothes at the market. No one’s looking out for it. I was in such a hurry—”

  “Go get it then.”

  It was terrible that I lied to such a kind woman. But how could I tell her the truth? Her husband was an official, after all.

  “Sister, please take care of my daughter when I’m gone.”

  “You silly woman,” laughed Mrs. Thảo. “Hạnh isn’t allowed to go anywhere until she’s drunk my tea and eaten my porridge.”

  Out in the front room, Hạnh was sleeping. She was my eight-year-old angel. I carved her features into my memory: her beautiful oval face, her long eyelashes, her blushed cheeks. I drew her breath into my lungs. “Good-bye my love, I’ll come back for you.”

  The gate banged shut behind me. Standing behind a bush, I studied the house so I could remember it. I had to come back and get my child. I didn’t know when, and that was the hardest part.

  Oh, Guava, your mother was sobbing when I got back. She’d managed to put both Sáng and Thuận to sleep under the shade.

  “So you’re really doing this!” she hissed. “You’re throwing us away, one by one.”

  The truth in her words cut into me like sharp knives.

  “I’ll come back for Đạt and Hạnh when it’s safer. You saw how sick Hạnh was. She needs help. There’s no way she can last until Hà Nội.”

  “Where did you abandon her?”

  “Abandon?” I shuddered. “She’s in good hands, Ngọc. A teacher with no child—”

  “How long did you tell Hạnh you’d be gone for?”

  I couldn’t answer that question.

  “See, you’re throwing us away. You’re giving us to strangers.” Ngọc bent her head, her shoulders quivering. When she looked up at me, anger had filled her eyes.

  “I will never forgive you, Mama. I will never forgive you for doing this to us. Never, ever.”

  Ngọc didn’t talk to me for days and nights. Now there were only four of us left, but things didn’t get any easier. We ran out of matches and could no longer light a fire. Hunger and exhaustion were our constant companions.

  One night, I left the children sleeping and ventured close to a village. The full moon had come out to light my way. The moon witnessed my theft. I found rows of peanut plants and hurried to uproot them.

  I woke the children and scurried away at the first sound of a rooster. The sun was high above our heads before I agreed to stop. Thuận and Ngọc looked stunned when I pulled peanut shells out of my pockets.

  “Where did you get these?” Ngọc asked. Her voice was music to the new day.

  “Stole them last night.” I smiled.

  She turned away, breaking the shells, giving the peanuts to Thuận.

  “Mama, where are Brother Đạt and Sister Hạnh?” Thuận asked.

  “We’re going to see them soon. They’re staying with my friends.”

  “I want to stay with them!” cried Thuận.

  “Hush. We’ll see them soon.” I pulled him forward.

  I was becoming a bad mother and a good liar, Guava. I saw the fierceness of your mother’s glance. I absorbed it. I deserved all the blame, for what I was doing to my children. But I had to save them.

  We stopped for the night. Ngọc ate her peanuts quietly, sitting away from us. I couldn’t beg for her forgiveness anymore. I knew she wouldn’t change her mind.

  At another village I stole some cassava, but without a fire, we had to eat them raw, which made us ill.

  From then on, we tried to survive on water and tiny wild fruits that we found occasionally along the way. We ate young rice plants and grass. We could make it together to Hà Nội, I told myself. I was determined as ever, you know.

  Everything changed when Thuận fell sick.

  It was not diarrhea this time but some other illness. A blanket of red dots covered him from head to toe.

  “Mama, I’m dizzy,” he said. “Sister Ngọc, help me. My legs, oh they hurt!”

  I tried to relieve the fever with water. It didn’t help.

  I remember sitting there in the middle of nowhere, Thuận in my arms. He was shivering, his body burning up.

  When I asked your mother to look after Sáng and wait for me to come back, she didn’t protest. Instead she came over to me, took Thuận from my arms, held him close, and told him she loved him. She let me go.

  Thuận was as light as a feather as I carried him, running for the nearest village. Would I be able to find a healer? Would the healer help him in exchange for the two cents I still had?

  The village was bare of trees and bushes. Nowhere for me to hide. Entering through a dirt road, I found a chaotic scene packed with loud cheers, drumbeats, and threatening shouts. People were rushing about. The Land Reform was very much alive here.

  I hid my face under the wrecked nón lá, scuttling deeper into the village. My heart pounded when I confronted an approaching crowd. Catching a glimpse of large sticks in their hands, I squatted on the roadside. Letting Thuận lean against me, I opened my palms. “Sir, Madam, take pity on us. We’re hungry.”

  Glancing up from under the rim of my hat, I saw a woman with a large protruding foreh
ead and teeth that looked like those of a rabbit. The butcher-woman! I couldn’t believe that she was still out looking for me. Much later, I found out that our village had been chosen as a model for the Land Reform implementation. Important officials were going to travel all the way from Hà Nội to our village to oversee the tribunal. The local authorities would be in trouble if they couldn’t find Minh and me. So they had sent many groups of people hunting for us.

  Together with angry men and women, the butcher-woman marched, studying the faces of those who passed. She didn’t expect that I—a rich landowner who had sat in cool shadows and eaten from golden bowls—had been reduced to pitiful begging, squatting with a very sick boy, instead of six healthy children.

  As soon as the crowd moved past, I got to my feet. Turning into a lane to avoid flocks of people, I found an old, stooping woman. Her back was so bent that the upper part of her body was parallel to the road. She was inching forward with the help of a bamboo cane.

  “Grandma,” I called. “Please, my son is sick. Would you know a healer?”

  The lady turned her face sideways and looked up at me. “What’s wrong with your boy?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Grandma. Bad fever and terrible rash.”

  I lowered Thuận. The lady’s wrinkled hand stayed awhile on his forehead.

  “He’s really ill.” She grimaced. “But I’m afraid our village no longer has a healer. He was condemned as a rich landlord and executed. Shot in the head. The kind man, poor him.” She sighed and turned back to the road. The cane clicked as she moved forward.

  Sensing sympathy in her voice, I followed her. Finally, she stopped and looked sideways at me again. “Go to the end of this lane, turn left, then right. The village pagoda behind the Bodhi tree . . . The nun there is kind.”

  I thanked her and hurried away.

  The pagoda looked like another old and stooping person. With a roof laden with moss, it stood almost hidden behind the hundreds of roots hanging from a gigantic Bodhi tree. Stepping closer, I was enveloped by a fragrant wreath of incense smoke.

  The chatter of young children met me. Some of them were sitting on the floor, playing with stones and sticks; some were munching on green guavas; others were kicking a featherball high.

  Through the open doorway, I saw a nun kneeling in front of a large Buddha. Her murmurs and the rhythmic sounds of her wooden bell rippled calmness into the air. I gazed at Buddha’s earlobes, so long they touched his shoulders. My mother had told me that with those ears, Buddha could hear our cries of suffering. Perhaps today he would hear mine. With Thuận in my arms, I knelt down.

  The children had dropped whatever they were doing. They stood behind my back, whispering. Inside the pagoda, the nun reached up to clink a metal bell. She bowed to Buddha, her forehead touching the floor.

  “Nun Hiền, someone’s looking for you,” a child called as soon as she stood up.

  The nun made her way to us.

  “Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật,” she said, a Buddhist prayer in place of a greeting.

  “Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật,” I answered as she studied my face and Thuận’s.

  She turned to the children. “Go back to your games, Darlings.”

  “Come, come with me.” She pulled my arm and hurried to the side of the building. Passing a garden filled with vegetables and flowers, she took me into a room. She closed the door and gestured toward a bed. I laid Thuận down. He writhed in pain.

  Nun Hiền listened to what I had to say about how Thuận got ill. She examined him. “It’s dengue fever,” she said. “Dangerous if the patient doesn’t drink enough. Plenty of good rest and good nutrition will do him good.”

  I recalled a dengue outbreak in my village many years before. Some children had died. But I didn’t have any experience with this type of illness. We’d always been careful with mosquitoes.

  “I’ll get him something to drink.” The nun stood up, closing the door behind her.

  I massaged Thuận’s legs and arms, soothing him with my voice.

  Nun Hiền came back, but she wasn’t alone. A boy was with her. She pointed at the bowl of brown liquid he was holding. “Juice made from roasted rice grains,” she told me. “I’ve added some salt. Lộc will feed your boy.”

  As I was mumbling my thanks, Nun Hiền pulled me into the darkest corner of the room. “You are Diệu Lan, aren’t you?” she asked.

  My heart jumped to my mouth.

  “Some people were here looking for you. Said you exploited poor farmers and have to pay for it with your blood.”

  “But Madam . . . how did you know it’s me?” My words tumbled out unbidden.

  “Ha!” The nun’s eyes flickered. “It’s not difficult. Middle-region accent. Long hair. White teeth. Running away with children.”

  Then she said something else that made me even more afraid: “Diệu Lan, where are the rest of your children? Where are they?”

  A voice answered, startling me. “Here I am. I’m her daughter.”

  I turned and saw your mother, Guava. With Sáng in her arms, she was standing in the doorway, her skinny figure silhouetted against the afternoon sun.

  “Ngọc, what’re you doing here?” I stepped toward her.

  “I had to find my brother.” She headed for the bed. “I’m here, Thuận. I won’t abandon you.”

  Sáng cried for me. I reached for him, clutching him to my chest. What was the nun going to do? Would she have us arrested?

  “Lộc, you’re wonderful, thank you,” Nun Hiền told the boy. “Go sit under the Bodhi tree. If those angry people come again, run in here quick and tell me, okay?”

  Lộc bowed and left the room.

  Sáng latched onto my breast. I winced at the sharpness of his new teeth.

  Shutting the door, the nun turned to me. “Listen. I’m sorry, but you have to leave.”

  “Madam, what those people said is a lie. We’ve suffered from injustice, please believe me. My brother and I worked so hard. We gave farmers jobs, well-paid jobs. I don’t understand why we’re being punished.”

  The nun sighed. “Terrible things have happened at this village, too, but I can’t help you. You’d bring harm to the children here.”

  “Yes, Madam, I know. . . .”

  Ngọc had picked up the bowl, feeding Thuận the liquid.

  “Sister,” Thuận said. “Do you have something to eat? I’m hungry.”

  “Sorry, Brother,” Ngọc said.

  The nun stared at me.

  “Madam,” I begged her. “It was twenty-one days ago when the Land Reform hit our family. My brother was killed, my eldest son captured. We had no choice but to escape. We have no money, no food.”

  The nun closed her eyes. She sighed again. “I might have some leftover soup.”

  It turned out Nun Hiền had more than soup. She brought us rice and fish sauce as well. As Ngọc, Thuận, and Sáng devoured the meal, I stood with her watching the road that led to the pagoda, through the door’s crack.

  “Madam, may I ask you something before I leave?” I whispered.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Everything that has happened to me . . . is it fate? I didn’t believe in it, but once a fortune-teller predicted I’d be a beggar wandering in a faraway city.”

  Nun Hiền held up my hands, studying my palms. She nodded. “You need to get to a big city to change your destiny. But the star that predicts your fortune has shifted a little, so you’ll find a way to earn your living. You’ll no longer need to beg but . . . but I don’t know how you can go far with these three.” She looked at the children. “Any big city is a long way from here. Besides, many more challenges still lie ahead of you, Diệu Lan. You need to be careful.”

  “Madam . . . Thuận’s dengue, do you think he’ll be all right?”

  “With good rest and adequate food, he’ll be up on his feet in a few days.”

  I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. My words struggled to come out. “The kids in the front yar
d . . . are you caring for them, Madam?”

  “Yes, they’re orphans or have been abandoned by their parents. Thanks to them, our pagoda has been spared from being burned.”

  “Madam, could Thuận—”

  “Oh no, I already have too many mouths to feed. You should get moving before . . .” The nun bent her head. When she looked up, she had a question for me. “I guess Thuận is younger than ten?”

  “He’s eight this year, Madam.”

  “All right then, he can stay. After all, we Buddhists are here to help the helpless.”

  “Madam, could I stay too?” Ngọc stood up. “I can do anything you ask. I can help you take care of the little ones.”

  “Oh no, you can’t.” Nun Hiền threw her hands into the air. “No helper allowed. No child older than ten. They would close down this place. . . .”

  I came to Thuận. He was opening his eyes wide. Tears were running down his gaunt cheeks.

  “Mama, is that what you did to Brother Đạt and Hạnh? You left them behind?” Finally, he understood.

  I held him against me. “Son, it’s a turbulent world out there. You’ll be safe here. I need to go and find a home for us. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I’ll bring you with me, I promise.”

  “Thuận, be a good boy and let your mama go. You’ll have food and plenty of friends to play with here,” said Nun Hiền.

  “Sister, will you come back for me?” Thuận held on to Ngọc’s hands.

  “Yes, I swear.” She bent down to hug him.

  With Sáng in my arms, I bowed to Nun Hiền. “I owe you my life.”

  “Take good care. Come back when it’s safe.”

  “I will, Madam, I will.”

  We were out on the road again, Sáng asleep in my arms, Ngọc dragging her feet behind me.

  “Go ahead. You don’t need me,” Ngọc said as I stopped to wait for her.

  “Please, Daughter. We can make it to Hà Nội together.”

  “Why should I trust you? You said you wouldn’t let us out of your sight, but you’ve been doing the opposite.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I have no choice.”

  “Yes, you do.” She stomped her feet. “Every mother has a choice. Every mother has to take care of her children.”