Life's Still Fun

Life's Still Fun
NGUYEN HUY THIEP

Asmall house on the hill, thirty meters from the main road. A solitary, forlorn house. Behind the house are two thorny trees with red leaves, the kind that grows in the wild, useful only for firewoods.
From the bottom of the hill leading up to the house is a small footpath lined with flagstones. After twenty steps is a clearing; a foundation for a new house was going to be laid there. but the plan was later abandoned. From this clearing to the house mentioned above are sixteen more steps.
This house was made to be temporary, with giant bamboo pillars, a thatch roof and mud walls. It was built as a shelter by foresters years ago, when they were digging holes to plant s andalwoods and pines.
There is almost nothing inside the house. The only noteworthy piece of furniture is a beat-up bed made of lumber from a jackfruit tree. Children would carve with a knife onto the side of the bed their wishes and sorrows: the sorrows are sublime and absolute, while the wishes are bodacious. At the end of the bed is a heart pierced by an arrow, carved by a playboy perhaps.
Right in the middle of the house is an altar made from a piece of bent tin hung on the wall. The incense bowl is the kind normally used for eating beanthreads. Right next to the altar, on the left, is a mirror with a film poster of the Hong Kong actress Mai Diem Phuong. On Mai Diem Phuong's pure white bosom, near her neck, is a handwritten poem. The words are mediocre:

There are no heroes in our time.
One goes without a soul mate.
At night, a beauty turns on her pillow,
Wiping silent tears.

An iron cooking tripod is placed in one corner of the house. The charcoals beneath it are cold. Next to it are a water bucket, a pot, a pan and a woven basket for holding dishes.
A boy is sitting on the bed, leaning against the comforter. He's about six. There are no traces of hatred and anguish on his face. Those things will only come later. There are also no traces of generosity or boredom. Those things also will only come later. It is an unharried face.
The boy turns his eyes to the door. His mother has locked it from the outside. His mother has gone to the market to buy books and pens so he can go to school tomorrow. He is in the first grade.
The boy sits up. He is gazing in curiosity at a wasp as it builds its nest. The wasp is fetching little balls of earth from a wet corner near the water bucket back to a spot near the door latch, where he shapes them into a thin vault. It flies back and forth dozens of times, never varying its flight pattern.
The wasp flits by the boy's face. He notices the wasp's narrow waist. On it are curving wrinkles. A female wasp.
In the boy's young mind appears the image of his mother. His mother's belly is flabby, with curving wrinkles also. This morning his mother hitched a ride on Uncle Hao's coal truck.
The boy does not like Uncle Hao. Uncle Hao has a beard. He said: You slut! Your belly is going to burst!
His mother laughed. Uncle Hao then said: A fat girl! A dogface!
His mother laughed again.
The wasp flits by his face again. There are yellowish traces on its two wings. On his mother's cheekbone is an indentation, with a yellowish trace also. He touched it and noticed that his fingertips were wet.
Uncle Hao said: A woman's tears! Cow piss!
His mother again laughed.
You'll leave me also, his mother said, like your father!

A wasp is raising a spider.
When the spider's grown, he'll leave.
The wasp sits by himself, sniffling,
Spider! Spider! Where did you go?

The boy asked his mother: Where did Daddy go?
His mother sighed: Your father was a wolf! The wolf went hunting! Your father ran after women!
The boy has seen a wolf once. The wolf was running at the edge of the woods, nervous, impatient, his tail between his legs, his tongue hanging out. He was afraid. He was alone. The boy was not afraid of him.
Uncle Hao also seems filthy, like a wolf. Uncle Hao said: I'm tired of life . . . I'm very tired of life!
Uncle Hao lay on the bed, his feet propped on the wall.
Uncle Hao sang:

Girl, my lover, with your tender lips,
And your distant, dreamy eyes,
I've been chasing you all my life . . .

The boy feels hungry. He goes to the dish basket to find something to eat. Before leaving, his mother has left a treat for him: cold rice with boiled bananas. The road to town is thirty kilometers. Uncle Hao's truck won't be back until the afternoon.
The boy squats in one corner of the house and peels his bananas. He arranges several bowls, then bites pieces of banana to place into them. This is the holiday dinner set. During New Year's, there was he, his mother and a guest, a stranded traveler. It had rained and the guest had come to his house. His mother cooked for the guest. This man was tall, with a booming voice. When he walked around, the entire house shook.
The guest said: It's all nonsense! There's no gold to be dug . . . I went and watched all these people digging for gold, and I felt sorry for them, and disgust, and I felt like laughing. Everywhere is viciousness, lust, two-facedness, greed . . .
Eat, Sir . . . Have a piece of parson's nose . . . the boy ate a piece of banana. He said: Please eat . . .
The guest laughed: This kid's alright . . . To be a man, and cross an ocean of deceit, an ocean of romance . . . Your life's all smashed up . . . If you have cash or kindness to keep you afloat, then you're lucky, otherwise, you're hurting . . . Fire tests gold. Gold tests women. Women test men. Men test the demons and the angels . . . It turns out there are only demons! Very few angels . . .
The boy remembered the wolf at the edge of the woods, his tail between his legs.
The guest, holding the boy in his lap, clapped in time and sang a song of the gold diggers:

If there's gold, then we can eat, then we can play.
Life's still fun!
If there's gold, then we're dead, then we're done.
Life's still fun!

The boy won't eat anymore. The guest came and then he went.
Goodbye, Miss . . . Goodbye Kuanyin, the Goddess of Mercy . . . Goodbye Bodhisattva . . . I'm leaving now.
My son and I say goodbye to you. You are leaving. Your feet are hard, the rocks are soft . . . But where are you going? To your home village?
Go back there to do what? the guest chuckled. I still have more to travel . . . Life's still fun. Go back to my home village to do what? The human heart is black, the land is barren . . .
The boy knows nothing about his own home village. His mother has promised to take him there many times, but she never has the money. She said they have many acquaintances there: although the boy's grandparents are dead, their graves are still there. She'll go back to light the incense sticks; and then there are uncles and aunts; and friends like Aunt Luot, Aunt Na, Uncle Suu, Uncle Ben . . .
Uncle Hao also talked often about going back to his village.
He's gone back three times, and each time he would return a little sadder.
Uncle Hao said: My home village has this huge communal hall. It was really fun during the festivals. The women would watch the men wrestle each other. When I was small, my friends would dare me to slap a girl on the butt for a penny each. Whenever there was a festival, I would make lots of money, and I could gorge myself on whatever I wanted to eat.
His mother laughed: Three years old and already you were horny.
Uncle Hao argued: It's the ones with money who were horny! Because I was destined to be poor, I had to leave my village in shame.
His mother said: I heard you left your village to chase girls.
Uncle Hao said: Slut! Dogface! Don't bother talking!
Uncle Hao sang:

I leave, I leave, I'm not afraid of hardships.
I surge forward, unleashing my masculinity.
My determination hovers above the clouds.

His mother laughed: Men are no mystery to me! You people are only after gold, and women, that's all!
Uncle Hao said: Slut! Dogface! Don't bother talking!
Uncle Hao sang some more:

March forward, towards the red dawn,
Satisfy your male lust for adventure,
View death as nothing but a red feather,
How many will have their bones covered with horse
hide . . .

The boy stands up and tries to hear the sounds of the truck. He knows it is useless to do that. His mother won't come back for a while yet.
No sound can filter into the house besides the sounds of the wind. The wind blows quietly, in waves, like a man snoring. He can tell by the wattle partitions knocking against each other.
The boy tilts his face to look at the hole in the ceiling. A small hole, only the size of a nickel. Sunlight slipping into the house through the hole creates a light beam filled with miniscule dust particles. The boy opens his hand to receive the light beam. Light fills his hand.
The boy remembers when the guest picked up a clump of earth with his hand. The guest said to his mother: If this clump of earth can be turned into gold then the game's over. That's the wish of every ordinary man on this earth . . . It's all nonsense!
What do you need money for, his mother said, Us women live for love.
Uncle Hao said: Slut! Dogface! Don't bother talking!
The guest shook his head: It takes a lot of effort to gain love . . . You can pay with your whole life and it won't be enough.
His mother cried: Us women are very gullible, always empty inside, always lacking love. Whenever anyone started to talk about love, we just dive right in and lose all our senses.
The guest laughed: That's the pity! But that's what it's like to be a woman!
Uncle Hao said: That's what you get! Slut! Dogface!
The guest said: Women are evil witches, that's why they feel a lack of love! Does a man ever feel a lack of love? Hurrah for men! Hurrah for the old billy goats!
The guest crumbled the clump of earth, then sprinkled it on the ground like he was sowing seeds. He waved his hand: Fly away . . . Fly away, hatred. Fly away, deceit. Fly away, injustice. Fly away, base desires . . .
The guest straightened out his clothes, then stood up. When he walked the whole house shook.
The guest pulled from his bag a bundle of cloth and gave it to his mother: Goodbye Bodhisattva . . . Goodbye, Miss . . . You keep this to feed the child . . . It's not very much, but try to make it through this stretch.
The guest laughed, then waved his hand in an incomprehensible gesture, some sort of symbolism. The rain was coming down steadily. It was the spring rainy season.
The boy goes to the bed. He leans his back against the spot where the arrow pierces the heart. The arrow sticks out of his shoulder.
He is looking around for the wasp, but can't see it anywhere. The nest is only half finished, with its trace of wet earth. The boy sighs. The wasp nest is built right by the door latch. When the door opens, the nest will be destroyed.
There is a faint noise somewhere. Not outside, but inside the house. The boy tries to listen. It sounds like there's an animal trying to sneak into the house. The boy is panicking. He shudders. Beads of sweat are pooling near the roots of his hair. He scans his surroundings. His instinct has not deceived him: he caught a glimpse of a long shadow in the dark corner, where the pots are. But what kind of a shadow?
The boy shakes violently. He curls his legs onto the bed and backs his body up right to the wall. It was clearly a shadow. But what kind of a shadow?
A faint, wet and surreptitious noise. The boy's body shakes violently. He has never heard such a noise before. There was clearly a shadow. The light in the house suddenly darkens, becomes murky, and colder. What kind of a shadow?
The boy feels his heart tightening painfully. He does not dare to breathe. Again, a long something in the corner. He is sensing these things not with his eyes.
Mother . . .
The boy is all bunched up. He yells out, tears streaming out of his eyes, his fists close to his body. He stamps he feet on the mat. Clearly there is something crawling slowly, anxiously, determinedly, coolly beneath the bed.
Bang . . .
There are sounds of glass breaking, of something dragging on the floor, of bones being gnawed. A faint chewing sound, greedy, deliberate. Sounds of marrow being sucked. Of bones being shattered. Also, of lips smacking.
The boy feels dizzy, his chest hurting. He can't breathe. Tears are streaming out of his eyes. His face is plum red.
The boy is screaming out in desperation. He convulses on the bed. There are no more doubts. Clearly there are sounds of bones being chewed. Of marrow being sucked. Of lips being smacked. Of gnawing.
The boy sobs. He lies still with his face buried in the comforter. He is worn out. He fades into unconsciousness.
The house is still. There are only the shrill sounds of winds from the outside. Only much later does he wake up. He peeps around cautiously. Sweat drenches his face.
He listens, the house is oddly quiet. There are no sounds. There is nothing.
The boy pinches his own leg. He feels pain. He gets on his hands and knees, and eyes the steel rod his mother has propped at the end of the bed, a weapon against intruders. He moves stealthily toward the steel rod.
The boy holds his breath. He lifts up the steel rod and holds it firmly. He listens. There is not a single sound. It is oddly quiet.
The boy smacks the steel rod against the bed, then listens some more. It is still quiet.
The boy breathes quietly. He gathers his strength, then crawls stealthily towards the edge of the bed. He looks beneath it: there is nothing there.
The boy puts his feet on the ground, trying not to shake. He pokes the steel rod around beneath the bed. There is nothing. A shapeless anguish fills his chest. He pokes the steel rod into the water bucket, into the pot and the pan. He smashes the mirror. He pokes around all over the houseon the floor, on the walls, on the thatch ceiling. He knocks everything over. There is nothing. Still silent. A frightful silence.
The boy listens. The winds outside have stopped utterly. The boy feels that all the air inside the house is stagnant and weighing down on his body. He is pushed down, compressed. He shakes violently, the metal rod falling from his hand. He collapses onto the floor. All his nerves have turned into mush. He cannot move.
The boy is lying all curled up, his face to the floor, right where there's a puddle. His heart is pounding frantically, chaotically, in panic, at times stopping to beat altogether. He has no strength left. He tries to open his eyes but simply cannot do it.
His lips move silently. He wants to call out to his mother but cannot push out a single sound from inside his chest.
The boy lies still like that for a very long time. It is not clear how much time has passed. The wasp has finished building its nest. The boy's pudgy face has been drained of all liquid, of all blood. It is washed out and dried up.
The solitary, locked house lies on the hill. The rain is coming down steadily. It is the spring rainy season.
It's not until late afternoon that the truck carrying the boy's mother comes back. The driver with a beard opens the door for the boy's mother to get out.
A woman with a pock-marked face, swollen perhaps because of beriberi, smiles coquettishly as she pulls from the cab two filthy reed baskets. The driver closes the cab door then yanks the reed baskets from the woman's hands. He is cranky: Slut! Dogface!
The woman stops and notices a smudge of blood on her pants leg.
Embarrassed, she turns, squats down quickly, and grabs a handful of grass from the edge of the path.
The driver turns his face towards the two trees with their red leaves. He sings softly:

Girl, my lover, with your tender lips,
And your distant, dreamy eyes,
I've been chasing you all my life . . .

The woman, done with cleaning up the trace of blood, gets up and walks hastily towards the house. The driver walks behind her, carrying the bags. It appears he has suddenly remembered something. He says: Listen . . . listen! Slut!
The woman turns around, her face worried, waiting.
The driver sighs: Listen, that man who stayed here that rainy day is kaput.
The woman seems bewildered: How do you know?
The driver shakes his disheveled head and seems baffled: That old man was shafted by the gold diggers. They thought he had money, but it turned out he had nothing on him.
The woman, silent, turns around to resume her walk up the hill. Nine more flag stones and she'll reach her house.
A small house on the hill. A solitary, forlorn house. The spring rain falls steadily on the house. The spring rain falls steadily on the two trees with their red leaves. The spring rain falls steadily on the hill.
The spring rain in this damp weather means there will be lots of worms, and bad for the rice crop. The spring rain from the beginning of March until now has lasted fourteen days.

Translated by Linh Dinh

Qui aime bien châtie bien
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Được sửa chữa bởi - milou on 16/11/2001 05:24

But your story is not fun at all! It makes me chilly in the bones.
Ch?ân ?đ?St m?ắt s?áng

i think it very long . my English is not well , so i can't read all it .

COBRA

Truyện này hình như tôi đọc bản tiếng Việt rồi. Có phải bác Milou lấy bản tiếng Anh trên báo Nhân Dân không ??

I ran into a discussion regarding author Nguyen Huy Thiep and got a chance to read a few of his short stories about a mountainous Vietnamese minority community which sounded very much like fairy tales. I wanted to read more of his stories on the net because it is quite impossible to find his books here where I live. Using the Yahoo search engine I saw that he is famous internationally because his name and other prominent Viet authors appear together on English, French and German sites. I ran into this story and post it here. I did not save the address of the site.
Please remember to write in English in this box.
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.htm

Now that I have time to read this, it's no fairy tale.
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.htm

Nguyen Huy Thiep is great. I first read him when I was very small, at 5th grade I think. That was his "Kiếm Sắc" and "Phẩm Tiết". My first strong impression was the vulgar words that made me horrified.

http://www.nhandan.org.vn/english/shortstories/danhmuc1.html
It's not from http://www.nhandan.org.vn

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