(BGDT) - Phien pushed the gate into the yard. The moonlight shone through the canopy of the Barringtonia acutangula tree, casting a wide beam of light onto the yard. At home, the father and son must be tired from drying this huge pile of rice. Luckily, Khanh had finished his exams so he could help his father.
Khanh finished cleaning the table for her mother and then immediately buried her head in the computer. She was probably chatting with friends or surfing the web. After the exam, she was free to relax, and she didn't stop her from having fun. During the school year, Phien always reminded her husband to care for and pay attention to her. If she was negligent and too busy playing in her final year, it would be difficult to pass. This year, there were more candidates than usual, and the door to grade 10 seemed narrow. She was a good girl, but nothing could be predicted.
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Illustration: THE SAGE. |
- Someday, grind a few dozen kilos of sticky rice to make sticky rice for breakfast, okay? Mom bought a few kilos of peanuts and left them on the kitchen shelf. Tomorrow morning, take them out and peel them for Mom!
Phien turned the doorknob, looked into the room and told the little girl. Hearing her mother's voice, Khanh turned around, startled, looking confused.
- Why are you looking at me like you see a tiger? Don't have any love affairs.
- Oh mom, I don't know anything about love or dating. I have my own plans!
- You're not old enough. Mom, I'm just reminding you. It's not unnecessary.
Phien glared at her son with an important look, as if reminding him that this was a serious matter, not a joke. She had heard stories at the company, where colleagues often gossiped during breaks. People were whispering about how children now ate well, were plump, reached puberty early, and that the internet made it easy for them to make friends, and that the influence of the internet also made them fall in love early.
Many couples wore their uniforms and carried each other on the street, hugging each other's waists, affectionately. There were some bold couples who even invited each other to a motel after school. She felt guilty when she heard that. Khanh had entered her teenage years, starting to have a young woman's figure, her butt was fuller than before, her breasts were budding like areca nuts, her eyes were sparkling, her face was round and plump. She also kept telling her not to wear thin, short clothes when going out. Who knows, the perverts might be among her acquaintances. Looking at her now, she looked like her eighteen or twenty years ago!
After days of anxiety and worry, joy burst out when her daughter passed the 10th grade high school entrance exam. She sat in the workshop and received her daughter's text message, wanting to cheer loudly. That day, she did not work overtime and came home earlier than usual. She stopped by Mrs. Do's house at the end of the village to catch a duck to boil, and stopped by Ms. Nhan's shop to buy a kilo of bamboo shoots to cook water for the party. In her joy, she did not forget to remind her daughter that she needed to try hard from the beginning when she entered high school, otherwise she would not be able to make it to grade 12 because many universities consider transcripts and scores right from grade 10.
That afternoon, the sun was softer. On the trees along the road, drops of sunlight fell through the canopy of leaves, creating a gentle light. The sky was as clear as a child's eyes... |
The summer days are as golden as honey, the fruits of this season are abundant and sweet. Her hometown has a good harvest of lychees, which are in full bloom. The bright red ripe lychees stand out against the green canopy, and the heavy bunches of fruit hang down from the branches to the ground. Traders come to buy in large numbers, and trucks with boxes full of lychees are moving in a long line to transport them to the purchasing points. Early in the morning, Khanh quickly puts on a sun-protective jacket to pick lychees for hire at Uncle Hai and Aunt Sau's house from early morning until late afternoon. When she comes home from work, she stops by the room and sees that the lights are off and quiet.
***
He seemed to have been waiting for her for a long time. After finishing his meal, he went to the table to drink some water, and while sipping his tea, he said enthusiastically:
- Khanh wants to work in the city, where the work is easy. What do you think?
- He's a student, he doesn't have any qualifications yet, how can he expect to find an easy job? It's not that easy!
The girl's face was bright, hearing her mother say that she didn't seem to believe she could find a job, so she quickly boasted:
- I have an acquaintance to introduce me. Don't worry, Mom. I've been working for two months and I've earned more than ten million. Enough to buy an electric motorbike. You don't have to worry about money for me anymore.
Phien hummed and hawed. Actually, Khanh had been whining for the past few days. She asked me to go to work because staying at home for the summer months was boring. I said, if I wanted to get a job, I should apply for a seasonal job at the company. I thought she would agree, but she complained that the place I worked was dusty, hard, and time-consuming. Working at a restaurant was only in shifts, so I had free time to rest and regain my strength. If things went as smoothly as she said, I wouldn't have to worry about buying a car, I just needed to prepare for tuition and other expenses at the beginning of the next school year. Khanh went through puberty and looked much bigger. Seeing her mother looking at her, she happily shouted:
- Mom smiled and probably agreed.
ok
She carefully asked the child again.
- But who asked for the job for you?
- Your friend's relative, mom.
Phien took out a couple of 500,000 VND bills from her wallet. This money was for the child's travel and pocket money. The restaurant would cover her food and accommodation. She would go out and work to gain more life experience, so that when she went to university, she wouldn't be as clueless as a factory chicken, easily bullied. She comforted herself with these thoughts.
When Khanh texted to say she had arrived in the city, she felt somewhat reassured. She only had time to glance at the message and then hurried back to work. She had only a short lunch break of only 1 hour and then had to go back to work in the afternoon, so she wanted to take the opportunity to call her to ask about her accommodation. The girl spoke briefly and hung up. She told him she would call every two or three days. She didn't have to call her again.
Work swept away, and the weekend came quickly. It had been five days and she had not received any text messages or phone calls from her daughter. Phien was getting impatient. She topped up her phone with the intention of calling her daughter to talk at length, to ask her about the situation specifically, to see if she had gotten used to the job. She searched for her daughter's number and dialed. The long beeping sound made her impatient. She looked at the number again. It was Khanh's number, there was no mistake. She went out to the hallway for some fresh air and dialed again. It was still the same lifeless beeping sound. Was she still working? Maybe the restaurant was crowded on weekends? She had to wait until after 10 o'clock, feeling extremely anxious. Still unable to contact her. Something was making her restless.
Until late the next night, she persisted in calling her son, but it was still the operator's monotonous voice: "The number you have called is currently unavailable...", she felt like a withered leaf drooping down, her steps were no longer steady. He neglected the garden and anxiously called this person and that person. Everyone advised the couple to report to the police soon, maybe they could find someone to save them. There are so many scammers nowadays!
***
Phien opened her phone and looked at her daughter's pictures over and over again. There was a picture of Khanh with her family on Tet holiday, her face radiant and beautiful. There was a picture of her posing playfully in the garden with a basket of jute that she had just picked, her two fingers forming a heart, her expression extremely cute. I wonder where she is now. Yet it has been two days since the report, the police still haven't found any more clues.
Through the camera footage, the girl got off the bus and walked into a nearby supermarket. About ten minutes later, a black car came to pick her up. She gave the restaurant address and street name, and the police confirmed that there was no restaurant at the address as written on the paper she gave. It turned out that the girl had been tricked. The couple both believed that their child was being helped, so they didn't suspect anything. She took a day off from work, her eyes were dark from staying up all night. Every time the phone rang, she and her husband's hearts jumped.
Little Hien greeted her sister shyly. Hien and Khanh were quite close friends. She took out her phone and showed her sister the Facebook of a person nicknamed Kim Duyen. The little girl couldn’t believe her eyes. The messages had been taken back by the other person, making her startled. “Miss Kim Duyen texted me and my friend Khanh to come to the city to work at the restaurant. But my parents didn’t let me go, so Khanh went alone.” She took the little girl to meet Captain Thuan. The captain spoke to her in a sympathetic voice:
- I had already predicted that things would turn out this way. Don't worry. We will do our best to bring her back to her family.
On the way home, the scorching heat from the road made Phien dizzy. Her head kept ringing with the policeman’s words: “Currently, there are many cases of fraud, of tricking young people into selling them to prostitution dens disguised as karaoke bars or trafficking them across the border to casinos to work for free, where they are exploited for their labor. Criminals often use tricks to lure them by promising them easy jobs with high salaries, so gullible children often fall into the trap.”
Khanh was as fragile as a flower in the morning. If she was pushed into those dirty places, what would her life be like? Phien choked. As soon as she entered the house, a phone call came in. She answered the phone with a trembling voice. This person said he was in Cambodia. He said that if she transferred 100 million to his account, Khanh would be able to come home. But where would she get 100 million? And if she could get help, would her daughter be released? Those thoughts made her panic. He said that if there was any news, she had to report it to the police immediately so that they could find an effective solution. She hesitated. By the time it was resolved, Khanh might have been pushed into a cave to serve the devils. So when he went to tell her the news, she struggled to gather enough money.
Suddenly, the police informed that a few hours ago, the border guard station of a certain province had received a phone call from a pho restaurant owner. The kind-hearted owner, after receiving Khanh's distress signal when they stopped to eat on the side of the road, secretly called the border guard. That pho restaurant was about 60 km from the Cambodian border. So the man who called to blackmail her family earlier was a scammer? Khanh was still in Vietnam. She was nervous, her heart felt like it was about to burst, her heart filled with hope.
“Mom, I miss you so much. Please forgive me!”. She had just been transferred by the police officer, and before she could say anything, she heard Khanh’s sobbing voice on the other end of the phone. The police officer next to her comforted her: “Come on, don’t cry anymore, little girl. You’ll be reunited with your family soon.” She was both happy and sad, unable to hold back her tears, but tried to hold them back to comfort her: “It’s safe. Luckily the police officers rescued her. It was partly because of your parents’ negligence. Don’t worry about anything anymore. There’s a schedule for you to go to the training camp in two weeks and register for classes!”
That afternoon, the sun was softer. On the trees along the road, drops of sunlight fell through the canopy of leaves, creating a gentle light. The sky was as clear as a child's eyes...
Short story by Vu Thi Thanh Hoa
(BGDT) - It was almost 11pm and her daughter-in-law had not returned yet. Mrs. Minh had pulled down the curtain and gone to bed a long time ago but could not sleep. She lay there calculating, it had probably been a whole month since Huong had come home late and the reasons she gave were all very superficial.
(BGDT) - Thinh sat down on the ground, grabbed his conical hat and fanned himself. Sweat was dripping down his bronze face. The curly hair on his forehead was stuck together in the shape of a question mark.
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