The Mountains Sing

  21/5/1975

  Last night Duyên shook me awake. The night was cool, but my whole body was soaked with sweat. My throat burned. Duyên told me that I’d been screaming. I nodded, saying that it was only a nightmare. When she fell asleep again, I sat there, curled against darkness. I feared sleep. I feared darkness. Whenever sleep or darkness approached, they rushed at me. They pinned me to the jungle floor, their hands choking my throat. Other pairs of hands pressed me against the earth, against rocks and tree roots. Their mouths were red as fire as they laughed. Pain, hot as burning coals, pierced my body. I was being torn into a million pieces. Where are they now, those monsters? I hope that they rot in jungles and valleys, that their souls will never be able to come home.

  I read the entry again. What was that all about? Who were they?

  30/5/1975

  I shouldn’t have ventured out, but Duyên said a walk would do me good, fresh air from the river would make me feel better. We hadn’t gone far from Duyên’s house when a hut came into view. Unlike other homes, its roof was covered with leaves and twigs, just like our medical stations in the jungle. Without thinking, I crouched down low. Next to me was no longer Duyên, nor Hà Nội, nor the peaceful Red River. I was back inside my hut in Trường Sơn, a young soldier, his head white with bandages, moaning under my hands. Distant sounds of gunfire, sounds of hand grenades exploding. Nurse Hòa ran in. “Sister, the enemy is coming!” she said. Hòa and I hurried to carry the soldiers out of the hut’s back entrance, into the jungle, and down into the secret shelter. Those who could walk helped us. We ran, panted, and ran. Explosions drew closer, forcing us to cover our tracks. I returned to the hut to see injured soldiers still stuck on the bamboo slats that served as their beds.

  “Into fighting position,” I screamed at Hòa, then ran to a corner of the hut, picking up my rifle. An explosion shook the ground. Hollers from the hut next door. Shouts in the Southern Vietnamese dialect.

  A man darted past our open door, throwing something inside. I don’t remember pulling the trigger, just the butt of my AK slamming repeatedly against my shoulder. The man stopped running. He clutched his chest, sank to his knees, collapsing to the ground. The hand grenade he’d thrown was rolling on the dirt floor. I ducked. A powerful blast. My world became blank.

  Duyên’s voice called me. I blinked to see myself on the Red River’s bank, surrounded by men, women, children. They were staring at me, whispering. I wanted to disappear, crawl into a crack of dirt. In people’s eyes, I’ve become mad, possessed by ghosts. One of the women was telling Duyên she should seek a shaman and make an offering, to chase away the dead spirits who’d stolen my soul.

  3/6/1975

  These days I spend my time indoors, not daring to come out. This morning a young man passed by my window. He’d lost both arms. Such a handsome man. The men I’d journeyed south with were handsome, too. They had hope in their eyes, songs on their lips, laughter in their hearts. But at the clinics where I was stationed, the men who came to me were no longer singing. Some had their insides spilling out from torn stomachs, some had dangling arms or legs, others had half of their faces blown off. Did they hate me when I had to operate on them without the help of anesthesia? As they were tied down onto makeshift operating tables, I cut into them. Should I have tried harder to keep their limbs?

  And the two men who’d been roasted alive by napalm, my tears couldn’t extinguish the smoke rising from their flesh. Could I have done more to save them?

  15/6/1975

  I was cooking when terrifying noises came from a neighbor’s house. A man was kicking and screaming at his dog. I heard the dog’s howls and saw myself lying on the jungle floor, my hands tied behind my back. Pain sprang up from my legs, which were bleeding.

  “Fuck your mother!” A man kicked me hard in the stomach. “You killed my friend.”

  I curled into a ball after the kick, telling myself not to bawl. If I did, I’d give the enemy satisfaction. I glanced around. The hut of my clinic was a short distance away, columns of dark smoke twisting above its roof. My stomach wrenched. What had happened to those who remained in the hut?

  Another man grabbed me by the hair. “Show us the place where you hid your comrades!” He pulled my head up and around so I could see in all directions. “Where the hell is it?” he screamed. “Point it out to us and we’ll spare your life.”

  I closed my eyes, not believing in the enemy’s promise. I’d be a fool to trust them. The shelter, luckily, was far away, on the other side of the hut. Among the patients in hiding was a high-ranking officer whom the enemy must be after. His personal guard was in charge of protecting the shelter, but if the enemy found it, the guard’s fighting would be an egg thrown against boulders.

  “Tell us now, you Communist bitch with your thick cunt!” A kick landed on my ribs. Another on my face. I couldn’t help but howl.

  Duyên’s children came, asking me what was wrong. Everything is wrong with me. Perhaps it’s true that the ghosts have possessed me. Perhaps they’ve taken my soul, so that I’m just an empty shell.

  I pressed the diary against my chest, every cell of my body aching for my mother. I’d tried to imagine the horror she’d had to face, but it was even worse than that. How lucky that my mother had slipped through the grasp of death to come back to me. How courageous of her to have stood up for her comrades. I couldn’t wait to tell her how proud I was to be her daughter.

  I cocked my head. No noise at the door. I eyed the clock once more. Time was running away from me. I lifted the diary with both hands, flipping the page as gently as I could.

  17/6/1975

  Last night, enemy planes roared into my dreams. Explosions shook the jungle. Smoke burned my eyes. The air stank of burnt flesh. A pillar of our clinic had collapsed onto Dương’s stomach, the stomach that I’d sewn up the day before. Next to Dương were the scattered body parts of Nurse Sánh. I knew I should be rushing patients down to our shelter, but I found myself running out of the clinic, into the open air. I held my face to the sky, yelling at the coward enemy who sat high in those airplanes.

  I woke up again with my cries choking my throat. Every night this happens. My head throbbed. I needed some water, but couldn’t get up. My hands were sticky, as sticky as Nurse Sánh’s blood.

  I want to meet the pilot who launched the rocket that killed Sánh. I want to rub her blood onto his face, so he could taste her suffering.

  20/6/1975

  Duyên told me there was a job opening at her factory and that she’d talked to her supervisor about me. I could take the job if I wanted to. Not much skill is required, she said. I would need to iron newly made clothes, fold them, and put them into boxes. First I shook my head, but she said manual work would be good for me; it’d stop my mind from running wild. “Besides, you can’t live on your mother’s labor forever,” she said. I let those words sink deep into me. She was right. I had become a burden for Mama, for Hương, for her, for everyone.

  I asked if I could think about it for a couple of days. I know I must work. But I fear meeting people. I fear their questions. At least Duyên hasn’t questioned me much. I’d told her everything about my trip South, but not the fact that my body had been soiled. Not about the baby.

  She can’t know, otherwise she’ll tell Hoàng when he comes back. And if he knows, he won’t touch me anymore. Who would want to touch a woman who had been trampled by other men?

  Today I rubbed my body until it bled. I want to wash the filth from my skin, but it’s too late.

  21/6/1975

  Hương visited me. She’s taller than me now, more beautiful than I could ever imagine my daughter to be. Her skin glows its youthfulness, her eyes lit up with the light of innocence. Watching her, I saw the best of Hoàng and me. I saw determination and love for life.

  She seemed very happy today. I took in her gentle voice as she read the letter from her admirer to me. I wish I could tell her that I am her admirer, too, that I love her so much. How come I can�
�t tell her that I love her, my own daughter? In our family, love is something that we show, not something we speak about. Mama has never said that she loves me, but she shows it by caring and cooking for me. Now that I’m incapable of taking care of Hương and cooking for her, I wish I had the courage to tell her how much I love her.

  But Hương must hate me now. She must hate me for being stupid. I’m stupid for telling her the truth about me encouraging her father to go to war. I’m stupid, stupid, stupid!

  1/7/1975

  Mama came by. Seeing the bones that protruded from her shoulders, I remembered lines from an old folk poem: “My elderly mother is a ripe banana clinging onto the tree, the wind could rattle her to fall, leaving me an orphan.”

  Mama is not yet old, just fifty-five this year, but she doesn’t look young. I fear that she could fall anytime, my heavy burden on her back. I’m a terrible daughter, for having been angry at her, for blaming her. I wish I could take back the words I’d flung at her, but words are like water: once they have escaped one’s mouth, they’re spilled onto the floor. Words are like knives, leaving invisible wounds that continue to bleed.

  But Mama didn’t visit to talk about our fight. She insisted that I come to town with her. She said she’d asked a well-known healer to help me. Sitting on her bike’s back saddle, I rested my face against her shirt. She smelled so clean, so fresh. Fresh like the rice fields of our village in my faraway childhood. Fresh like the laughter of my brothers and sister. With my eyes closed, I saw the smiling faces of Thuận, Đạt, and Minh. They can’t be dead. They must come back to me.

  I lifted my head once we entered the Old Quarter. Our bike passed small lanes. Lanes that were covered with the footsteps of Hoàng and me. Over there, under the curving roof of Bạch Mã Temple, Hoàng had told me he wanted to marry me, his kiss still hot on my lips. When will he come back? Will he ever kiss me again?

  Will I ever have one single day when I can forgive myself?

  When the bike approached Traditional Medicine Street, the smell of herbal plants flooded into my nose. I shuddered. I was back in Trường Sơn, in front of my eyes was Mrs. Ninô, brewing jungle medicine in her clay pot. She poured the condensed liquid into a bowl and set it in front of me. She asked if I was sure. Instead of answering her, I looked down at my stomach. A tiny body was nesting inside of me. My flesh and blood, my own child. Tears blinded me as I gulped down the bitter liquid. I was killing my baby. My own baby.

  “Hương, what are you doing?” I started, and looked up to see my mother. She snatched the diary from my hands. “How dare you?”

  “Mama . . .”

  She brought her diary to her face and screamed so loud that I jumped away from her.

  I was thinking of what to say when she picked up her sandals, flinging them at me. I ducked and the sandals hit the wall behind me with a big thump.

  “My thoughts are private, for me to keep!” she hollered.

  I stared at the woman in front of me, her face red, her hair unkempt. I’d searched for the mother I knew, and I thought I’d seen a glimpse of her in the diary, only to end up confronting a stranger. Only a stranger would want to hit me. Only a stranger would have a child with another man and abort her pregnancy to conceal her sins. “You’re a baby killer,” I heard myself say. “You betrayed Papa! Wait until I tell him.”

  “Fine. Go and find him. Tell him. Tell him!”

  Slamming the front door behind me, I ran. I didn’t know where to go, but I had to get away from my mother. I no longer wanted to see her face.

  Cries choked my breath and I slowed down. I had run all the way to the Long Biên Bridge, its body arching like a skeleton across the Red River. Perhaps my father had died. Perhaps the river could take me to him.

  Closing my eyes, I saw Grandma as a young child, being cursed by the fortune-teller, I saw my mother in the jungle, drinking herbal medicine to abort her baby. We had all been cursed, generations of the Trần family. I had to end it now. I pushed myself ahead.

  The river curled its red in front of me. I looked down at its fast current. Thủy and I had been here, dipping our feet into the water, our laughter still singing in my ears. I had no more friends. No more family who cared about me.

  “Hương.” Someone snatched my hand, pulling me back. “I’m so sorry.”

  I shoved my mother away and kept walking. No words could take back what she’d done to me.

  She ran, blocking my path. “You’ve discovered the root of my sorrow, yet it’s only half of the truth. Please . . . give me the chance to explain.”

  We sat in a corner of a tea shop. My mother had ordered a glass of soybean milk for me, but I left it there, untouched.

  “You’ll answer all of my questions?” I asked.

  She nodded, glancing around, even though the shop was empty; the owner was out on the street, talking to her neighbors.

  “Who’s the father of the baby?”

  She squeezed her cup of tea, her knuckles white. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Something that felt like vomit rose to my throat.

  My mother bent her head. Her mouth was closed, as tight as a clam.

  “See? You said you’d tell me everything, but you can’t. You can’t because you betrayed Pa—”

  “Please . . .” My mother raised her hands. “The truth would only hurt you more.”

  “Hurt me? Nothing is worse than knowing you had a child with another man.”

  My mother’s face scrunched up. She opened her mouth, but instead of words, delirious laughter spilled out from her lips. “Would it be worse if the father of my child is the enemy?”

  I stared at her. She couldn’t be sane.

  “You’re right.” She nodded. “I betrayed your father since I wasn’t strong enough to fight them.”

  “What do you mean? Who are they?”

  Clutching my shirt’s collar, she pulled me to her. “The enemy . . . a group of men . . . they captured me . . . they did horrible things to me. One of them . . . fathered the baby.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t accept what she’d just said.

  My mother released me. She covered her face with her hands. “If you must know, the men were Vietnamese. They spoke the Southern dialect.”

  I shut my eyes. I wanted everything to turn dark, get smaller, and disappear. Disappear and take me with it.

  To this very day, I still wish I could go back to the moment my mother found me with her diary. I should have been able to figure out her reasons for aborting the baby from what I’d read. On the other hand, I was just a fifteen-year-old girl who hadn’t experienced her first kiss, who had had no idea, really, how babies were made.

  “Hương, I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” whispered my mother.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry, Mama. I’m terrible . . . for doubting you. . . .” I gripped her hand. “Mama, in your diary, you said that you love me. I love you, too. And I need you.”

  “Oh, my darling. You are my everything.”

  We hugged each other, our tears flowing onto each other’s face.

  “Mama, I need to understand. I want you to get better, so that we can be a family again. How long were you captured? And how did you escape?”

  “Those monsters . . . they had me for a couple of days. I thought they’d kill me, but a soldier on their side took pity on me and helped me get away.”

  “A soldier on their side?”

  “Yes . . . a Southern Vietnamese soldier. During the night, he unbound me and led me into the jungle. He said he’d seen my diary, with your picture among the pages. He had a daughter of the same age.”

  “What happened after he let you go?”

  “I wandered among the trees, lost. I wanted to take my own life, but your voice and Grandma’s held me back. I don’t remember where I fainted, but when I came to, I was in a cave, surrounded by local people, who’d abandoned their village for the cave because of the bombings. One of them
was a traditional healer. She cured my injuries with medicinal plants. During the month that I was there, she taught me many things about jungle medicine. When my physical injuries had been healed, I left the cave to join another medical unit.”

  “Your pregnancy . . . when did you find out?”

  “When I’d spent a few weeks at a new clinic. . . . At first I didn’t think about it when my bleeding didn’t come. When I noticed the changes in my body . . .”

  I twirled the glass in my hand.

  “When I was sure I was pregnant, I had to find my way back to the healer. I couldn’t bring the baby here. I couldn’t raise the child of our enemy. I didn’t want you, your father, or Grandma to find out.”

  I bent my head, the baby’s blue face filling my vision, his faint cries throbbing in my chest. What would it feel like to hold him?

  My mother swallowed hard. “The decision to terminate the pregnancy . . . it was the hardest I’d ever made. When I staggered out of the cave, I wanted to continue my mission, to find your father, Hương . . . but I no longer had any strength. I realized that I’d been a fool, for thinking that I could brave the war and find him. During my long walk to return to Hà Nội, I wasn’t afraid of the bombs, but I was fearful that he would discover about my body being soiled, and that I’d killed an innocent soul. . . .”

  I hugged my mother’s shoulders, unable to find a single word to console her.

  “Sometimes I think your father doesn’t come back because he knows,” she sighed.

  Arriving home, we found a crowd of people in our living room. Grandma was wailing. She’d returned from work to see the front door wide open and chairs strewn across the floor.

  Seeing Mama and me, she laughed and cried. She hugged me so tight, I struggled to breathe.

  The next evening, I made Grandma and my mother go out with each other. They came back, their faces red, their eyes swollen. Grandma held a large oil lamp, which she’d just bought. She filled the lamp with oil, lit it, and placed it on a chair next to my mother’s bed. That night, and during years later, my mother would sleep with the lamp burning bright next to her.