Following is part 2 of Chapter 10: Rainy days from the children novel "Open the window, eyes closed" by Nguyen Ngoc Thuan presented in both English and Vietnamese only published on Tuoitrenews:
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She then led the way down to the market.
There, in an old wooden stall, lay the old beggar and his son: they were asleep and hugging each other as they slept. Their blanket was next to useless - it was as tattered as a cast-off rag. Opposite it was the stick and covering one end of the stick was one of those typical conical Vietnamese hats made of palm leaves. We stood there quietly and looked at them in wonder for a while. Then we went home. Mom said rainy days always gave us extra reasons to be sad, especially continuously rainy days. Then Mom would sit on the steps of the house combing her hair. She would comb it as if she was looking for some special happiness somewhere, just as I did when I ran around happily in the rain. Every person had his or her own way of finding happiness. In Dad’s case, it was the sight of the fields that made him happy. If he was unable to go to the fields for just one day, he’d start getting miserable and depressed. “It’s my second home out there,” he’d say. I teased him, saying what sort of a house was it that didn’t have either a window or a roof. Dad said it was the finest house in the world. Those who got to know a house like that would never want to go anywhere else. He said my grandfather used to say the same thing. My grandfather loved the fields as he did his house. When he passed away the villagers carried his coffin on a route that wound round all his rice paddies, and only then did they take him to the cemetery. Every year, when the rice ripened, my grandmother knocked on his grave to tell him about the good harvest. My father took pride in the fact that he’d never once left the village. He said he only wanted to visit places that had rice fields. How on earth could he go anywhere else and be sure to still see rice fields? While she sat on the steps combing her hair, Mom said to me, “You’ll be a grown man by the time my hair turns white.” I got rid of the gray hairs for her. Some of her gray hairs were a meter long. I said she had the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. Dad played his flattering game with her; he said every hair on Mom’s head was beautiful. Mom said nothing but her face beamed with happiness. I loved to watch Mom in these moments, on those rainy days. When I buried my head in Mom’s hair I said I couldn’t see anything because it was so dark. It was like when I visited the garden at night. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew my way round anyway. Dad asked, “So what is it you know?”
I said, “That Mom loves jasmine flowers. Mom’s hair’s got that jasmine scent. Do you think Mom’s the jasmine flower that’s arranged in a heap of cow dung?” Dad laughed, “Well then! Do you mean I look like a heap of cow dung?” I said I’d love him even if he was a heap of cow dung. We were all happy in those moments. Of course every person has his or her own happiness, but some happiness is open to everyone. That sort of happiness is like a guitar string - you touch it and the sound fills the whole house with music. One rainy day I caught Mom hiding her gray hair. I didn’t know why Mom was ashamed of it. But I didn’t have the courage to ask her because she looked so sad. Dad would sit with his top off and weave a basket. It was during the rainy days that baskets of all sizes were made in my family. Dad said the secret of beautiful baskets lay in the preparation of the bamboo strips. He made me a birdcage from some ivory-colored bamboo. The cage door was left wide open because I didn’t have a bird yet to go inside it. Dad was afraid I wasn’t skillful enough to look after those delicate little creatures. Just imagine there already was a bird in the cage, Dad said. I said I could see it and it was a red bird with blue wings and bright eyes and a big appetite. Dad said it sounded like a divine bird.
The divine birds would fly into our house on rainy days. They would fight to get inside the cage. But the cage was too small, so they’d fly out again. Their blue wings were spread wide and covered everything. Then later they’d be fluttering outside against the dark blue sky. That year there was a hawk killing the chickens in our village. It would circle and circle, and then come to a halt in the middle of the air, ready to swoop.
Mom was climbing the betel-nut tree when she saw it. She said to me, “Go and get the chickens into their coop.” As I walked around the garden, I thought, “What will happen if the hawk mistakes me for a chicken?” Dad laid all sorts of traps, but he never caught the hawk. Then suddenly it disappeared and never came back. Mom said we’d succeeded in discouraging it. Hawks weren’t very patient creatures, she said. On rainy days I would bury myself in the blankets to find some warmth. I would be on the lookout for dark corners too. I liked the fact that I had to do everything there without the help of my eyes. Nobody could see my face in the dark either. The same applied to the rain. You wouldn’t be able to tell it was raining unless you listened for the pitter-patter on the roof.
Mom said the midnight rains were the most peaceful ones. |
Nó kéo bọn tôi ra chợ.
Mẹ tôi nói ngày mưa, nỗi buồn bao giờ cũng nhiều hơn ngày nắng, nhất là những ngày mưa kéo dài. Mẹ ngồi trên bậc cửa, chải tóc. Mẹ chải như tìm thấy niềm vui trong đó. Cũng như tôi vui khi chạy trong mưa vậy. Mỗi một người có một niềm vui khác nhau. Giống như bố tôi, bố vui khi nhìn thấy cánh đồng. Một ngày không ra đồng, bố thấy buồn quay quắt.
Bố nói:
Mẹ ngồi chải tóc trên bậc cửa, nói với tôi:
Chui đầu vào những sợi tóc của mẹ, tôi hay nói không nhìn thấy gì hết vì tóc mẹ đen quá. Giống như buổi tối mà đi ra khu vườn. Chỉ biết thôi, nhưng không thấy.
Những lúc đó, cả nhà tôi đều vui. Mỗi người đều tìm thấy một niềm vui riêng thuộc về mình, nhưng cũng có những niềm vui chung thuộc về tất cả. Niềm vui đó như một sợi dây đàn, chạm vào thì nó ngân lên cả nhà và thế là ta vui. Có một ngày mưa, tôi nhìn thấy mẹ giấu những sợi tóc rụng. Chẳng biết tại sao mẹ lại xấu hổ vì chuyện đó. nhưng tôi không tiện hỏi vì thấy khuôn mặt mẹ buồn buồn.
Những con chim thần hay ghé vào nhà tôi những hôm mưa. Chúng bay về rồi đậu kín trong lồng. Chiếc lồng quá chật, chúng bay ra. Đôi cánh màu xanh xòe rộng che hết mọi thứ. Rồi chúng bay lên trời, trời xanh ngắt.
Mẹ nói những cơn mưa đêm là những cơn mưa êm đềm nhất. |
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