Truyen ngan tieng Anh

SHORT STORY

THE VANISHED MORNING

By Ngo Phan Luu

Ngo Phan Luu was born in 1946 in Thanh phu village, Hoa My Tay commune, in the Tay Hoa district of Phu yen province. He began writing in 1994, and recently received first prize in a short story competition in Van Nghe (Literature and Art) magazine.
Luu works primarily in the agricultural field and writing, though what he loves, is only a secondary job for him.
“I started writing to earn extra money. I have three children and I need to pay for their education, I cannot do this simply by cultivating the land.”
For Luu, “(Literature) is hard work that requires the writer to keep searching and trying despite the risk of suffering and failure.”
“That’s why literature is a formidable passion. And that’s why I want my work to be seen and read by many people,” Luu said.
“Everything is a subject for literature, but I prefer exploring the souls of people in daily life. What can I find there? It is a subject I constantly return to.”
BUOI SANG BIEN MAT (The Vanished Morning) is about my obsession with our present life. It is a forecast of the disintegration of spiritual values in modern life, including filial piety, conjugal affection, and more. This modern life is shaving away our values, and I want people to know what measures to take to prevent it.”

Ao hamlet now has two serious cases. Very serious. To such a degree that Death’s light breath can be felt. The cases are Mr Khieu, Mrs Xanh’s husband, and Mrs Men, Mr Sung’s wife.
They’re the hospital’s footballs. The team doctors have passed the balls between themselves for so long to ensure they’re not netted into Death’s goal. But they are failing the balls are damaged. They’ve been kicked so hard they’re deflating.
Rice fields and cattle have been sold. Their families are on the edge of an abyss. Mr Khieu has liver cancer, Mrs Men lung cancer. Waiting for death.
Such is their plight, such is their tragedy. It was for these reasons that Thuy this morning gave two nylon bags full of oranges and condensed milk to Thuan:
“You’d better go and visit them now. Be quick. You won’t make it in time if you dawdle, you know!”
“They can’t eat anything, so what’s the use of oranges and milk?”
“They can eat them with their eyes.”
Thuan fell silent as he contemplated his wife’s words – “Yes, the dying don’t eat, but they should see the food.”
Thuan carried the two bags out of the house, making up his mind to visit Mr Khieu first. He walked mindlessly fast.
Having arrived at the steps of the house, he began to clear his throat. Mrs Xanh clumsily put down a half woven basket upon seeing Thuan standing at the open doorway, and quickly walked over to take the two bags. She put them on a table on the veranda, speaking like a machine gun spitting fire.
“Your uncle insists on dying, on dying. He can’t eat anything. Why have you bought so much food. He only wants to die, to die. He doesn’t want to live – only wants to die.”
Having finished, she quickly placed the bags on the family altar and then returned to the corner to resume her basket work as if Thuan wasn’t there. She looked strangely calm.
Thuan never had time to sneak in a word and usually kept silent whenever meeting his uncle’s wife.
Mr Khieu lay on a bamboo bed close to a window without shutters, which made the house look hollow from outside. His skin now looked yellowish-blue, like young grapefruit. Some dead leaves blown in by the wind rested on his chest.
Thuan pulled over a square stool and sat by the bed. Having just picked off the leaves, he said some encouraging words.
“Do be more upbeat, uncle. If you insist on dying, you will die. Death does not pardon anyone when it’s angry.”
Mr Khieu made a wry face and said with a broken voice –“It’s a foolish man who insists on dying when he is still strong and living, but it’s even more foolish for a man to insist on living when he’s on his death bed. I am not a foolish man.”
Thuan was dumbfounded. Behind this uncle’s words was an immense space of bitterness, and he was unsure who they were spoken to. It was a block of ice floating toward Mrs Xanh,who was now weaving her basket aimlessly.
He was stirred upon seeing his uncle’s pale, hollow face looking blankly. Those searching eyes were looking back hopelessly on a life destroyed. Those tearless eyes.
Mr Khieu suddenly moved his body with a grimace, his eyes closed tightly, his hands clutching at his stomach. A fit of pain.
Thuan was speechless.
“Uncle was right”, he thought to himself instead.. “ It was quite foolish for a man to insist on living when in great pain. A man has to insist on dying. Outside of immortal realities, there are momentary truths, eternal truths.”
A layer of light mist had just covered Thuan, obscuring his view of Mr Khieu. There in the mist, one’s willingness, enthusiasm, pride, values dare not enter – they seem small and frivolous.
Though he knew that he was telling a lie, Thuan sought ways to sympathize with his uncle.
“How can you say that? Look at old Phiet who was seriously ill, within an inch of his life. His family bought coffins for him on three different occasions. The coffins ended up sitting idle, being eaten by moths. Yet, he’s still here, eating dog meat.”
Mr Khieu turned and looked blankly out the window where some birds were chirping in the leafless pomegranate trees.
“A wise man…buys a coffin in advance. A foolish man…does not. I’m a foolish man. When I die, who will buy my coffin?”
Thuan was forced silent. Again, beneath the words was a layer of bitterness and rancour. All that was Mr Khieu had been broken, except for the flesh and bones.
“Yes, possibly. When truth is no longer private, it is no longer true at all.” Thuan thought to himself. “There are no immortal or momentary truths, there are no eternal realities. There can only be what is true to you, personal truth.”
Again a sad mist descended. Everything he had said to his uncle came to nothing. Thuan felt listless.
A nurse arrived at the house. It was time for uncle’s morphine injection to relieve the pain. Thuan asked vaguely without looking at the nurse, “There’s no light, is there?”
“Pitch dark. A serious liver cancer case.”
The blunt words struck him. Thuan turned away, waving his hands, but the nurse laughed.
“He already knows it. His wife and children have told him the cancer is killing him.”
Thuan felt lost in an immense silence- a nameless void, Death, paralysis.
Thuan was fixed on his uncle. It was like a reflection, their faces expressionless.
“Death has already become his close, dear friend. He’s obviously waiting for his friend,” Thuan thought. “Not only is he waiting, he loves his friend – a silent, dark friend without form who is great and sincere with everyone regardless of age.”
The nurse, finished with the morphine injection, took his kit bag and left without a good-bye. It didn’t seem he wanted to stay any longer than necessary.
The pain was subsiding and Mr Khieu said in a withered voice, “ Can anyone give me a bottle of eucalytus essential oil.”
“Where is it? I can get it for you”, Thuan replied.
Mrs Xanh from the corner stopped weaving, pulled out a bottle of deep green balm oil from her small pocket, and tossed it to Thuan. He could not believe she was tossing it to him, and didn’t react in time, dropping the bottle onto Mr Khieu’s stomach, right where the cancerous liver was.
Mr Khieu’s face was distorted, his eyes closed, his teeth grinding, trying to cope with the pain without heaving.
Thuan looked scared, and picked up the bottle. He was surprised the bottle remained intact. It had not been opened. His throat became dry and the taste biter. He tried to swallow but felt pain in his throat. A glimmer flashed through his mind, possibly sparked by Mr Khieu asking for the bottle or Mrs Xanh tossing it across the room.
Deep within Thuan a house of cards was beeing blown away. There was no longer general or individual, immortal or momentary truth. It was rubbish.
Heavy steps could be heard approaching the house. It was Nam, Mr Khieu’s son. He was carrying a bag of grain on his shoulder, sweat streaming down his face. He had probably travelled far to borrow it. He looked tired. He did not greet Thuan, who arose and asked rather unexpectedly, “What? What has the doctor said?”
Thuan immediately knew his question was out of place. Nam threw down the bag of grain, scattering dust into the air. His voice was hoarse.
“What did you say…Like a sputtering car, put in more petrol and it will roar, or wait to be carried to the dump.”
Nam’s answer carried an extraordinary weight that plunged Thuan deeper into his chair. It hurt. It was crushing, a thorough obliteration of senses.
“Why so? Who forced him to say that?”. Thuan make faces as if someone had just plunged a stake into his chest.
Nam, who had still not looked at anyone, washed off the sweat and then walked to the back yard. Thuan was shocked, looking around at Mr Khieu’s almost empty house.
The calendar on the wall remained untouched. Nobody paid attention to it. The altar looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for months. No incense was burning.
There were only two bags of oranges and condensed milk.
For a moment, Thuan thought he would stretch out to snatch the bags, a heartless, unconscious act. He would rather throw the oranges and milk away, than leave them to Mrs Xanh and her son. But it was too late.
The moment was over. He sat straight up. He snapped back to reality. He remained Thuan – his name was shelter. He turned ang looked at Mr Khieu to see if he was still alive. He was still there.
Thuan’s teeth were clenched. He was trembling, laughing and crying at the same time – the body convulsing like a spring in extreme silence. Not a sound was heard, not even his deep breaths. He seemed to be watching a film on mute. Poverty was shrouding an emanating misfortune.
“Why was it emanating? Because all beauty had been burned,” he thought.
It was a great surprise to him that, like Mr Khieu, he had kept his teeth clamped, his lips compressed.
He suddenly stood up and threw the bottle of green balm oil back to Mrs Xanh and walked out of the house quickly, taking with him a strange, cruel pity.
“Why hadn’t uncle Khieu died so he too could leave that house?”.
He was so troubled by his emotions that the morning vanished and he forgot to visit Mrs Men as planned.

Translated by Manh Chuong (OUTLOOK)