The Mountains Sing Read online

  “But Hà Nội is a long way, em,” Hùng insisted. “As I said, a teacher at my school has heard stories about Japanese soldiers robbing villages up North, attacking civilians.”

  “Ah, these are just rumors, don’t you think, anh?”

  “It might be true. This crazy war is giving the Japs too much power.”

  “You worry too much.” I pulled the blanket to cover Hùng’s arm. “As I’ve told you many times, Papa knows the roads.” I reminded him that the Northern region rumored to have troubles was near the Chinese border, far from where we’d be traveling.

  “But promise you’ll be careful?” Hùng begged.

  I thought it was unnecessary for him to worry about the trip. The Japanese had said on the radio that Asians ought to love Asians, and they were not here to fight. They said they’d help Việt Nam establish its independence. I’d seen with my own eyes how polite Japanese soldiers were. A group of them had passed by our village. The sight of their brown uniforms, shiny boots, and dangling swords scared me at first. But timidly, they knocked on our house gate, asking my mother if they could use our yard to eat their lunch. They were so young, these soldiers, and friendly, too. They played with my children, kicking featherballs high into the air, laughing just as Vietnamese boys laughed.

  I let a current of sleep pull me away, waking a bit later to the sounds of faint murmurs, hurried footsteps, and the thumping of buffalo feet against the yard’s surface. I fumbled in complete darkness for the bag of clothes I’d kept near the bedroom entrance and sneaked out.

  On the veranda, under the glow of three large kerosene lamps, my parents, Công, his wife Trinh, and Mrs. Tú were piling sacks of potatoes onto a long cart. The cart sat on large wheels, its wooden frame crowned by sheets of woven palm leaves.

  Out in the rain, a pair of water buffaloes were munching fresh grass, their horns’ arcs towering above their heads.

  Rushing toward my family members to lend them a hand, I knocked my knee against the cart’s side and nearly tumbled down into the yard.

  “Hey, watch out.” Công snatched my arms, pulling me to safety.

  “You okay?” Trinh looked up from the sack she was cradling.

  “I’m drunk from sleeping too much,” I said in embarrassment.

  “Come on, Diệu Lan, you were up late last night breast-feeding Đạt.” Mrs. Tú handed a sack to my father, who stood inside the cart.

  “It’s good you’re weaning Đạt by going on this trip.” My mother bent to pick up a sack. “He’s already thirteen months.”

  The thought of feeding Đạt sent a painful sensation to my chest. My breasts started to well up with milk. “He doesn’t want to wean,” I blurted.

  “I know where he got his genes from.” My father chuckled. “I was still drinking from my mother at four years old. She tried different ways to wean me. Nothing worked. Until one day . . .”

  “What happened?” Công asked.

  “She ate a couple of bird’s eye chilies. Picked from our garden, they were ripe red, hot as fire. Her milk was so spicy, I spit it out and never went near it again.”

  Our laughter filled the veranda, mingling with the fragrance of fresh earth stirred up by the rain.

  “Shhh. The neighbors will think we’re crazy, laughing at this hour of the morning.” Mrs. Tú tried to suppress her giggles between her black teeth.

  “I bet they wish they had some of our craziness.” Trinh swept the floor with a large broom.

  I couldn’t agree more.

  The rain had eased into a light drizzle. With all the sacks safely stored inside the cart, my father and Công secured additional palm-leaf sheets around the frame, turning it into a cozy carriage. The ride to Hà Nội would take five days and nights, and we had to be prepared for worse weather. If these potatoes were to sell to the best restaurants there, they had to be top quality. As clever as he was, when my father imported new seedlings from Europe many years earlier, he didn’t know they’d help make our family fortune.

  My father and Công placed a wooden board above the sacks. Trinh and I lowered a thick palm-leaf sheet, which became the cart’s back door. We pushed the cart out to the yard, tethering it to the buffaloes with a yoke.

  Mrs. Tú lugged large hampers of food and water into the cart. My mother pushed a fat envelope into my pocket. “For Master Thịnh’s medicine.”

  Drumbeats from the village temple cut through darkness, their echoes rippling like waves. Time to depart.

  Guava, when I turned to get my bag, someone was holding it. Guess who it was? Your Grandpa Hùng.

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed, anh?” I laughed.

  “Have to see you off,” he whispered into my ear.

  My mother helped my father put on his raincoat, an imported product he’d purchased in Hà Nội. She secured a nón lá on his head.

  “Let’s go.” My father hopped onto the cart’s front.

  My mother clutched my hands. “Take care on the road, won’t you?”

  “I’ll cook Đạt many types of porridge. He’ll eat plenty,” Mrs. Tú said.

  “I’ll send the kids to sleep with fairy tales,” Trinh added.

  As the buffaloes heaved us away, I poked my head out, my words woven into the rain. “I’ll bring home exciting stories about Hà Nội.”

  Soon, we were riding on the bumpy village road. The cart’s wheels clicked noisily against thick mud.

  “Try to get some sleep, children.” My father’s voice boomed through the palm-leaf sheets.

  “Papa, call me when you want to swap places.” Công’s voice turned toward me, “Sleep, Sister.”

  I lay down. As the cart rocked and swayed, I found myself wide awake with thoughts about my father out there in the cold.

  I fumbled for a raincoat. Lifting the layers of sheets, I faced the solid backs of the moving buffaloes. A glow of light in front of the animals’ heads let me know the cart had turned onto a larger road.

  I made out my father’s hand holding two small ropes that ran parallel to the buffaloes’ bodies and connected to their noses. His other hand was clutching a torch that he’d also gotten from Hà Nội. I admired its stable light as I settled down next to him.

  “Can I hold that torch for you, Papa?” I asked as the drizzle slapped its chill onto my face.

  “Want to hold these ropes instead?”

  Surprise bloomed inside my chest. I’d never dared dreaming about driving our buffalo cart. Back then women were considered dirty because we menstruated. Once I saw a man beat his daughter because she’d crossed the driver’s seat of his cart. He believed she’d bring bad luck and cause the cart to tumble.

  “It’s not difficult.” My father thrust the ropes into my hands. “Pull them backward hard if you want the buffaloes to stop. Pull to the left to go left, and vice versa. Relax your hands otherwise.”

  I clutched the ropes tight and gave them a tug. My whole body tingled at the excitement of being in control.

  “Doing great.” My father cast a halo onto the road. “See the puddle there? Pull to one side. Here you go. Good, good.”

  Leaning over, he put his nón lá on my head.

  “No, you wear it, Papa!”

  “If you fall sick, who’ll take care of us on this trip, huh?” He secured the hat’s silk strap under my chin.

  We turned onto a rutted road before merging onto the national highway. My father explained that the road used to be called Đường Cái Quan, built by our emperors and upgraded by the French to serve their colonial needs. At occasional checkpoints we had to stop to show our travel permit. Stationed by the French, the guards there scrutinized our papers, inspecting our cart, looking for weapons we could be transporting for the Việt Minh guerrillas who were rising up against them.

  My father knew how to handle those guards, and soon I relaxed. The highway was almost empty at this hour. For the long while that we traveled, we only passed a cart pulled by a skinny cow and a group of farmers lugging baskets piled high
with vegetables.

  “Just straight ahead and we’ll be in Hà Nội.” My father leaned back beside me.

  From afar, a rooster called out his morning greetings. Daybreak gleamed on the horizon. The rain ceased, leaving a thick mist in the air. Large bushes lined up along the roadside, their silhouettes looking like gigantic animals ready to pounce.

  The cart climbed onto a hilly part of the highway, where I cast my eyes beyond the thick lines of trees, beyond emerald rice fields, toward clusters of houses with wisps of white smoke unfurling above their roofs. Down there, mothers and sisters were preparing breakfast for their families.

  I realized no one was living next to the highway, and for us to buy food or water we’d have to turn into village roads that occasionally cut into our path.

  The buffaloes whipped their tails, chasing away flies that hovered above their fat bottoms. I loosened the ropes, thinking that once I returned home, I needed to take my whole family across this vast countryside.

  “Diệu Lan . . .” my father said just as my eyes widened at the sight of a commotion ahead. Where trees had thinned, I could see a group of houses burning like torches and columns of black smoke funneling into the cloudy sky. I heard the wails of women and children, the screams of men, and shouts in a strange language. I pulled the ropes hard. The buffaloes stopped, craning their necks, listening.

  I turned to my father. Fear had frozen on his face.

  “Japanese. Japanese soldiers,” he mumbled with unblinking eyes. I glanced back at the burning village. Men were marching out of its glow, toward the highway, their bayonets held high.

  “Go back! Go back!” My father snatched the ropes from my hands.

  The cart quickly turned.

  “Look, Papa, look.” I pointed ahead.

  A large shadow was creeping along the road, bayonets gleaming like tigers’ eyes. Sandwiched between two groups of Japanese soldiers, we had nowhere to run, no village road nearby to turn the cart into. I couldn’t see the soldiers clearly yet but knew they were advancing quickly, their footsteps sending tremors onto the road.

  “Công. Get up!” My father reached into the cart, shaking my brother.

  “What’s wrong?” Công sprang up.

  “Hurry. Take your sister. Hide by the roadside. Choose the thickest bush. Whatever happens, don’t come out until I say so.” My father turned to me. “Go.”

  I jumped, fell, and rolled down onto the mud-spattered road, the nón lá crushed beneath me, crackling like hundreds of cockroaches being popped. Crouching down, Công dragged me toward a deep trench that ran along the roadside and pulled me into a bush. I lost my sandals in the trench. Thorns burrowed into my naked feet. Twigs dug into my scalp. I bit my lip, desperate to stay silent.

  Holding our breaths, we watched our father from tiny gaps among the leaves. He’d spun the buffaloes around. At his order, the animals advanced toward Hà Nội. Following Công, I crept from one thick bush to another. We stayed low, letting the sounds of the buffalo footsteps guide us.

  The thumping of the buffalo hooves softened. From our hiding place, I could see that the first group of Japanese soldiers had gathered on the highway, blocking my father’s way, while the second group was coming up from behind.

  My father approached the first group.

  “Stop! What’s in that cart?” a man roared in badly accented Vietnamese. He looked almost like a local except for the way he’d tucked his pants into his high boots. Somebody must have punched him in the eye, for it was swollen and black. He was carrying a rifle, as well as a sword.

  “Potatoes, Sir. I’m taking potatoes to Hà Nội.” My father’s voice was calm and polite.

  “Hasn’t your mother taught you manners?” the black-eyed man shouted. “You Vietnamese must bow down to us. Bow, bow down low!”

  Công held me tightly in his arms. “Don’t make any sound. They’ll kill us.” He cupped his palm against my mouth.

  My father got down from his cart, bent his body low, and bowed to the Japanese.

  My eyes darted toward the second group of soldiers, who were reaching the cart. They were dragging several young women by their hair. The women’s shirts and pants were ripped, exposing pale breasts and upper legs. Blood was running down their inner thighs.

  “Show us what you have in that cart.” Black Eye flicked his fingers.

  My father lifted up the cart’s back door, heaving away the wooden board. Black Eye and several of his comrades inspected the cart’s contents.

  “Sir, these potatoes are for my customers in Hà Nội.”

  “Damn your customers!” Black Eye lifted his rifle and aimed at the inside of the cart. Torrents of bullets deafened my ears. Potatoes jumped from the cart like injured fish. The remaining soldiers threw back their heads, laughing raucously. I tasted blood on my tongue; I’d bitten into my lip.

  Getting Up and Falling Down Again

  Hà Nội, 1973–1975

  The bombings had stopped. I was surprised by how blue the sky was, even when it was raining.

  Grandma and I knelt on the site of our collapsed house, piling broken bricks into a pair of bamboo baskets. Our hands became the color of brick; so did our clothes. Nearby, a bomb crater was half-filled with rainwater. It gazed at me with its single murky eye.

  I thought about the American pilot. Did he drop this bomb? What had happened to him, and did he have a daughter like me?

  The baskets were full. Grandma reached for a bamboo pole, balancing it on her shoulder. She bent, hooking the pole onto thick ropes that held the baskets. I winced as she stood up, hoisting the baskets onto her skinny frame, staggering toward the bomb crater, the toes of her bare feet splaying out. I caught up with her and helped her dump the baskets’ contents into the murky eye. Water splashed up.

  Around us, men, women, and children, with torn clothes and ghostly faces, were doing the same thing, filling the eye from hell with the remains of their homes.

  “Mẹ Diệu Lan ơi, Hương ơi!” A voice called out to us.

  The brick shards fell away from my hands. My mother. She was back.

  I stood up, stumbled, and ran forward. In the afternoon’s failing light, my mother was pushing a bicycle; something perched on its back saddle.

  “Mẹ!” I cried out for her.

  We got closer. My eyes found her face, and my feet stopped. It was my aunt Hạnh, not my mother.

  Auntie Hạnh leaned her bike against a pile of rubble and rushed toward me. She knelt, taking me into her arms. Her tears trickled on my face. “Oh, Little Hương. Hasn’t your Mama come back?”

  I shook my head, burying my face into my aunt’s chest, searching for my mother’s warmth. Auntie Hạnh was Grandma’s fifth child, eight years younger than my mother. She lived far away, in Thanh Hóa Province, in her husband’s hometown.

  “Hạnh.” Grandma arrived, embracing us both.

  “I was insane with worry.” Auntie Hạnh touched Grandma’s face, body, and arms as if to make sure nothing was missing.

  “Ah, you silly girl. It’s not easy to kill this old water buffalo.” Grandma laughed. Her voice leaped upward, free. I felt myself smiling, too.

  Helping Auntie Hạnh push the bike forward, I eyed the brown sack on the back saddle. Hunger gnawed my stomach, but I shouldn’t expect my aunt to bring us food. Her husband, Uncle Tuấn, had gone to war. She taught at a primary school and worked alone in her paddy field; whatever she earned had to stretch thin since her children were young and her parents-in-law sick.

  “How long did it take you to cycle all the way here, Hạnh?” asked Grandma.

  “Just a little over a day and a night, Mama.”

  “Don’t do it again, please. It’s long and dangerous.”

  “You once walked more than three hundred kilometers, remember, Mama?”

  As we approached the bomb crater, our neighbors stopped us, asking Auntie Hạnh many questions.

  I didn’t hear what they said because I lagged behind to study my
aunt from the back. She looked just like my mother then, with velvety hair flowing down to her slender waist. Oh how I longed to run my fingers through my mother’s hair again. We’d always washed our hair together, under the shade of our bàng tree. Those days seemed like a dream away; even our beloved tree was now just a memory.

  “Who’s taking care of your kids, Hạnh? How are little Thanh and Châu?” Grandma asked once we were by ourselves again.

  “They can take care of themselves fine, Mama. You should see how tall they are now.”

  We reached the pile of rubble that had been our home. Auntie Hạnh rested her bike against the broken bàng trunk. Grandma had planted this tree when she built the house. The bàng had decorated our front door each spring with emerald buds, each summer with tangy fruit, each autumn with red leaves of fire, and each winter with a web of slender branches. Now its roots protruded into the air like raised, burned hands.

  “Oh my tree. My home.” Auntie Hạnh caressed the torn bark.

  “Trong cái rủi có cái may,” said Grandma. Good luck hides inside bad luck. “We’ll plant another tree and build another house.”

  Aunt Hạnh dried her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “So, where have you been sleeping?”

  I pointed toward the patch of dirt, our former backyard. Grandma’s friends had cut away some bàng branches, hammering them down into the earth like tent poles. The branches now bore the corners of a plastic sheet, to make the roof of our shelter. A tattered straw mat made the floor, three unbroken bricks our cooking stove, a tin bucket our cooking pot. I’d been gathering dry twigs and leaves for fuel.

  Auntie Hạnh shook her head. She unhooked the rubber cord that tethered the brown sack to her bike. “Just some rice and sweet potatoes.”

  I helped her free the bundle, my mouth watering at the thought of food.

  “You have many mouths to feed, Hạnh,” said Grandma. “Hương and I, we have our food stamps.”