Human Food... - Short story by Vu Thi Huyen Trang

In the afternoon, neighbors often go to each other's houses to play. That is when the cows are full of grass, the firewood is carried into the kitchen, and the rice is cooked. Closing the kitchen door, they stop by each other's houses to ask for a handful of Malabar spinach to cook a pot of soup. They conveniently ask what kind of rice they are planting this year? Is the stomach medicine they bought at the fair helping? Do they know anyone who sprays mosquito repellent for hire? For several nights now, they have not been able to sleep because of the mosquitoes, buzzing all over the house, and the mosquito nets are tightly tucked in, but somehow they still manage to get in. After a while of chatting, they inevitably talk about their distant children. Mrs. Lan, while chopping bananas, asked:

- Has your son Ha called home often lately? How is business over there?

- He calls all the time. It's no use. The yen has fallen in value, so I told him not to rush to exchange money and send it home. Wait until the yen goes up to send it. When you have a lot at home, you spend a lot, when you have a little, you spend a little. How is your son Tu?

- Ever since he ran away to work here and there, I haven't had a good night's sleep. Living in hiding, I'm always worried about being caught by the police, and I don't dare go to the doctor when I'm sick. Last year, he called and asked: "How much debt do you owe me now? Let me focus on my business and pay it off so I can save some money to go back home. I've been gone for more than four years." I was both happy and sad. I'm happy that he's more diligent in his work than before, but I feel sorry for him because he's forty years old and has nothing in his hands.

- Well, if you work hard, you will get it. If you are rich for three generations, if you are poor for three generations.

- I don't know why I feel restless these past few nights.

- I'm old and tend to think too much. It's nothing, miss.

The sound of the banana chopping knife was still clumsy on the wooden cutting board. The afternoon was getting dark, the chickens were coming back to the barn. The cows that were left in the yard in front of the house were mooing "o...o" to call their owners. Mrs. Lan suddenly remembered, hurriedly leading the full-bellied cows back to the barn. The herd of cows was the biggest asset of the old couple. She was sick all the time, unable to bear the planting and harvesting. Plus, the fertilizer, the labor for harvesting, and the plowing were expensive, so she had to give up the fields. A few years ago, her husband worked as a construction worker to earn some money. But now he was old, his bones and joints were weak, so he didn't dare climb the scaffolding anymore. The two of them stayed at home every day, one took the grandchildren to school, cut grass for the cows, the other went to the market, cooked, planted vegetables, raised chickens, took care of the cajuput hill so that they could grow quickly and sell some to prepare for illness. They said they were saving for illness, but in fact, they had already borrowed money to spend. So where would I get all the wedding banquets, grave-changing, foundation-digging, funerals, and sick-visiting? After raising cows for a whole year, I asked my son to advertise them all over the internet and everyone who came to buy them would haggle. The price of cows dropped, I felt sorry to sell them, but if I didn't sell them, I would worry about what I would feed them when the grass withered. Holding the money from selling the cows in my hand, excluding the bran, I calculated that the wages for a day of cutting grass was only five thousand dong. Mrs. Lan sighed deeply, thinking how hard life was for farmers. The money hadn't even warmed her hand yet, but there were already hundreds of things she needed to pay for.

The youngest son came home from work, took off his worker's shirt and hung it over his shoulder, sat there and sighed, watching the April sun that refused to cool down. Looking up at the sky, the youngest son said absentmindedly: "I guess I'll have to go abroad to work again. If I stay home and work my ass off, my salary won't be enough to live on. I'll probably die." When the neighbors heard the story, they laughed and said: "Why did he swear he would never go again when he came back from Japan?"

At that time, when the youngest son first came back, he had a dream of getting rich in his motherland. Going to Japan was so hard, only after getting there did he realize that earning money through sweat and tears was not easy. He went to work as a farmer, waking up at 4am, cooking rice and taking it to the field. In the cold season, being drenched in snow all day, he cried and asked himself: "We also farm at home, why did I come all the way here?". To earn money, why did I come all the way here? My parents worked in farming all their lives, at most they had enough to eat, never had any extra money. At night, lying in a foreign land, wringing their hands, the youngest son thought of all the ways to get rich. He would return to open a chicken farm. He would plant a clean grape field, open it for photography and sell the fruit in the garden. Sometimes he even thought of buying some wood pressing machines to work. In his hometown, many people converted agricultural land to forest. The input was there, now he was calculating the output. After calculating for a long time and still not getting it, he thought of going into business. Importing large quantities of goods and then livestreaming to sell, people order thousands of orders a day, I only need one-tenth of that to keep warm. Before returning home, I had so many plans. But after returning home, I found everything difficult. I tried to trade and lost money. When I went to a woodworking shop to learn a trade, I felt unstable. I had to apply to work in an industrial park as a worker. I worked overtime on Saturdays and Sundays, but I had tens of millions of dong in my hand every month before I could spend it. During the feast season, there were always a stack of invitations in the trunk of my car. Children studying, sick, all kinds of money.

These days, occasionally, she hears the sound of military planes practicing in the sky. At those times, Mrs. Lan often looks up to see the shimmering summer sun. She remembers the old days, when she lived in an old house with a tiled roof of Huong Canh. The tiles were broken, and at noon the sun shone into the house, the sound of planes roaring in the sky, and the children skipped their naps to go out and play. She misses her children. She misses the ones who are far away, of course. She also misses the ones right in front of her. Because they are both near and far. When her children grow up, they have all changed, they are no longer the giggling ten-year-olds who ran around their mothers. What they think when they grow up, she sometimes cannot understand. The places they go to, she can only imagine in her mind, worrying about them every sleepless night.

***

The news of her eldest son's arrest made Mrs. Lan's heart ache. It turned out that the time he was arrested was exactly when she was asking for fortunes in the temple. Among those who asked for fortunes for their children working abroad, she was the most successful, the coins rang out on the plate. She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that her son was blessed by the gods and would somehow get through this. A few days ago, her eldest son called to tell her that while he was at work, he was chased by the police, had to run away, and had minor injuries on his arms and legs. Recently, the Japanese police have been cracking down on illegal workers. The younger siblings who went with him were arrested, and they will confess. No wonder her heart has been burning for the past few days. She watched on TV that illegal workers lived in hiding, sometimes being pressed down while eating. Every time she thought about that scene, she burst into tears of pity for her son. At that time, the family was poor, only enough to send him on a one-year contract. For food and clothing, her eldest son had to escape to earn a living from one province to another in Japan. She always tried to live a good life, do good deeds, and at night recite Buddha's name to dedicate merit to her children and grandchildren. But that scary day finally came. Her eldest son was arrested, and his friends there reported it. She put down her bowl, the dry rice grains stuck in her throat.

- I wonder how the boy is living there? Is he being beaten and interrogated?

- Yes, there will be questioning, but no beating. Don't worry, Mom.

How could she not worry? Her son was alone in a foreign land, and being arrested, she could not contact home. A mother's heart could only be at ease when she could still see her son's back. Her eldest son's friend contacted the family a few times. He told them not to worry, that her son would be able to come home in a month or six months. It had been four years since her eldest son had been working in Japan. His wife and children were staying in an industrial park near his maternal grandparents' house, and they only came back home occasionally. Luckily, the youngest son and his wife were still there, otherwise the house would have been very lonely.

Sometimes, after coming home from work, tired, she would sit on the porch and open her phone to call her far away child on messenger. Only the sound of beeping sounded hopelessly. Looking at the shimmering sunlight in the yard, she suddenly saw before her eyes a few children running from her memories. Chattering and fighting to suck on a single ice cream stick that she had just bought with two hundred crumpled dong. When the ice cream was all melted, they regretfully licked the bamboo stick, not wanting to throw it away. In a flash, they were running under the trees in the shady garden, only to hear their giggles echoing near and far. Then, in a flash, the eldest son held a few blue bird eggs in his hand and spread them out in front of her. In a flash, they were sitting around a hot summer meal. The youngest son ate while looking at the pot of rice mixed with cassava, saving his portion. The eldest son ate quickly and followed his friend down to the field to pick up peanuts. In a flash, they were huddled in a house with no door, the wind blowing all night long. Her husband placed a pot of hot coals under the bed, burying the cassava and sweet potatoes in the small dream. In a flash, they grew up on the backs of buffaloes, in the fields where the crippled and the stunted were, on the land where dogs ate stones and chickens ate gravel. They left home one by one to find their own space. Occasionally, they returned with wounds in their hearts and failures etched in their eyes. The distance between parents and children gradually grew. She could not understand what they were thinking. She was confused with longing, worrying, day after day, year after year, age fading within age.

- I heard that Tu was arrested and lost his car and belongings, and lost a lot of money, is that right?

- Yes. I heard that last year's business was good. He went to demolish a rented house, found copper wire and scrap iron to sell, so he had money. This year he plans to do big business, so he pooled money with friends to buy furniture and plan to take soldiers home. He paid in advance, but now his friends don't have any money to pay him back. He also lent a few hundred million to close friends to help with family matters, but I don't know if he'll get it back. Luckily, a few months ago he sent it back to pay off the bank debt.

- What a year of bad luck, you'll lose everything in exchange for your life.

- I can only encourage myself like that, what else can I do? Now I just hope my child can come home soon.

- Soon…

While sitting absent-mindedly on the porch watching the wind blowing the dried mango flowers, Mrs. Lan suddenly woke up. Her eyes lit up, her hands and feet were unusually agile. She put on her boots, put on a sun-protective shirt, put on a hat, and held a sickle in her hand as she walked down to the garden. She quickly cleared away the wild grass that had grown all over the path. While clearing, she was muttering something in her head. Her eldest son had been away from home for several years. She didn't want him to see the garden overgrown when he returned. She told her youngest son to repaint the gate green. Sprinkle some lime to make the yard less slippery with moss. Wait for her eldest son to come back and dredge the pond, improve it, and release some fish. Wait for him to level the garden and plant some fruit trees. Fearing that by the time he returned, the bamboo shoot season would be over, she would go to the forest every few days to cut bamboo shoots, boil them, and dry them. She also prepared a few jars of chili bamboo shoots for her son. Looking at the young, fresh cassava shoots growing outside the fence, she missed them even more. The eldest son's favorite dish is sour cassava soup. The cassava is picked, dried, crushed and pickled to make a delicious dish to cook with anything, pig's feet or some freshwater shrimp all go well with rice. Occasionally, the sound of airplanes still roars in the sky. Mrs. Lan looks up at the sky, wishing there would be a flight to take her eldest son home.

That day, while she was cutting grass for the cows, she received a call from an unknown number. Ever since her eldest son was arrested, she always kept her phone in her pocket for fear of someone calling…

She looked closely at the strange number and saw the word "Tokyo" on the phone screen. Feeling guilty, she quickly picked up the phone.

- Mom. It's me.

- Is that Tu? How are you?

- I'm fine, Mom. I've finished the investigation and I'm at the immigration office. I'll probably be able to go home in a few weeks.

- That's good. Don't worry, Mom.

- They treat me very well. You don't have to worry about anything. It's just that I lost everything and came back empty-handed. The people who borrowed money from me now see that I'm in trouble and none of them want to pay me back.

- Well, what's left is yours.

She encouraged her son like that, but as soon as she turned off the machine, tears welled up in her eyes. Her knees were aching and tired, and she tried to stand up from the muddy field. All her life, she had been covered in mud, never holding a large sum of money in her hands. She patched things up here, covered things up there. Now, thinking about her son losing nearly a billion dong in sweat and tears, living in hiding for years, how could she not feel pain? But she quickly wiped her tears and told herself, "It's good to be back." Quickly using her sickle, she hurriedly cut a basket full of grass before it got dark. The cows were mooing for food. The neighbors' house echoed with her grandmother's voice calling for her grandchildren. Then, only the elderly and children remained to guard the village. The neighbors' house, both boys and girls, both sons and daughters, had eight children working far away. The two old people at home struggled with their six grandchildren, so tired they couldn't breathe. Taking care of them since they were toddlers, now some are as tall as grandparents, but it seems like their parents are still busy working and have no intention of coming back. The old people in the village are passing away one by one, the children will grow up one by one. The village is gradually changing with new houses being built. I don’t know why there is always a hint of sadness…

The eldest son returned home before the sun had set. He put his backpack down on the sidewalk and took a deep breath of the smell of moss and rotten straw. This familiar smell was so pleasant, it evoked nostalgia but pain in the hearts of children far away from home. The eldest son's wife and children had just returned for the first full family meal after several years of separation. Pickled eggplant, sour cassava soup, and braised shrimp with soy sauce were steaming. Tilting his neck to put a piece of burnt rice in his mouth and chewing it crispy, the eldest son said it had been a long time since he had such a leisurely meal. Only after wandering in a foreign land did he realize the saying: "The food of others is so hard, my dear/ It's not like the food that my mother ate while sitting down." The eldest son's voice was watery, lingering in the sound of biting into the crispy pickled eggplant. Mrs. Lan looked at her children and grandchildren gathered around, cleared her throat and told the youngest son: "Or maybe, just stay home and don't go anywhere, my dear...".

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