My father's profession

BAC GIANG - The war ended when I was six years old. At that time, many soldiers had returned. My house was near the train station. Every morning, I saw them getting off the train, carrying backpacks and looking haggard. A few days later, they moved to work at another agency in the district or worked as workers or gardeners, but they still wore the green uniform of a soldier. My father was still missing. The death notice had not been sent, so my mother and I still had a little hope, although we were worried every day. We hoped that the postman would not stop in front of our house.

One early autumn morning, as I was walking through the train station to school, with a leather bag on my hip, a bamboo hat on my head, and a brisk walk, I saw a soldier coming out of the train station. When I saw him, I greeted him loudly: “Hello, soldier.” Unexpectedly, he kept staring at me and asked:

- Why do you have that skeleton?

I calmly replied:

- My grandfather said it was my father's that he forgot when he came home to visit. But I don't know when he will come back!

Illustration photo.

Hearing this, he said nothing and rushed over to hug me and sniffed, making me cry out in fear. Just then, my mother, who was walking behind me, stopped to buy bread at the train station and rushed over, but then the bag in her hand fell to the ground, her knees went limp like noodles, only the tears from her dark eyes from staying up all night flowed out like a stream... My father had returned so suddenly.

That moment seemed like yesterday, a young family reunited after the war, full of deprivation but warmth. From then on, I was pampered by my father. In the morning, my father woke up early to sharpen my half-written pencil so I could take it to school. My mother stayed up late to fix my cousin’s white shirt to fit my skinny body. My childhood was filled with laughter but still left a bit of regret for never being taken to school by my father.

“Dad is still busy at work. Dad has to go all the time.” I heard that explanation from my mother countless times during my childhood. Why didn’t Dad go to work at 7:50 and leave work at 5:00 like the fathers of other classmates, or was it because Dad didn’t love me or Mom? I had thousands of questions like that. One time, when my class was about to end, dark clouds rolled in, the sky was dark and gloomy, thunder rumbled, and it rained heavily. All my classmates had their parents bring umbrellas to pick them up, but I sat huddled in the corner of the classroom. I was both scared and sad, knowing that Mom was going to the commune, at that moment I just prayed that Dad would come to pick me up. Dad would hold up an umbrella to shield me from the wind and rain.

But my father did not come, only I walked home alone in the rain, soaked. That night I had a fever, I cried because I was angry with my father. My mother came home late, touched my forehead, then hurriedly cooked a bowl of hot porridge, placed it in front of me and said: "Father and his colleagues are working in the isolated flood area, we do not know whether they are alive or dead?". From then on, wherever I went, I took care of myself, no longer blaming my father...

* * *

At the end of twelfth grade, my whole class was buzzing about choosing a major and a school. Those who were smart enough to get ahead in their majors found jobs easily, while those with poor academic performance reserved majors with low scores to “prevent failure”. As for me, I was the most naive one, although my academic performance was not too bad, but no one gave me advice or guidance on a direction.

The head teacher asked softly: “What does your father do for a living? I’m sorry, I’m new here.” I remember the day she first came to take over the class. Someone told me that she was injured when she was a youth volunteer and had a long scar on her arm, so she didn’t dare wear short-sleeved shirts. A piece of shrapnel had taken away a woman’s simple happiness. Maybe that’s why she always gave love to young girls like us.

I looked up at her:

- Miss, my father is a journalist in the province.

- So do you want to follow that career?

- Miss, my dad is on the go all the time, he's so tired!

- I see people sitting around still saying they're tired. Tired because of the tedium of life. This life should be looked at for its essence, my dear...

Unexpectedly, the words spoken that March afternoon changed my life. I decided to take the journalism exam to follow my father’s career. Time flew by, and when I received my diploma, my father retired from work. The day I came to work after passing the exam, the Editor-in-Chief led me to a small room at the end of the house and said: “This is your father’s office, if you want, I will assign you to continue his work…”.

From that day on, I continued to do my father’s unfinished work. The countryside I visited was full of sun and wind. It turned out that to earn a living, people had to sweat to cling to the soil, collecting each grain of rice and potato. Their feet were like tree roots clinging to the cliffs, but smiles were always on their lips. They did not care about whether their cars were ugly or beautiful, whether their houses were tall or short, but their doors were always open, their gates unlocked, their bowls of green tea, their packs of tobacco welcoming their neighbors in and out, filled with laughter and neighborly affection…

Once, I went down to the base to write an article about the current situation of the inter-commune road construction, and the brothers here told me that there was a house of Mr. Can who was determined not to move a small stilt house to widen the road. Moreover, that location was a bend. When I went down with the cadres to contact him, the owner of the house was determined not to cooperate. When we were about to leave, I suddenly saw a line of words carved on the beam. I took out my camera to take a picture out of habit. Seeing that, Mr. Can seemed moved and said: “That year, my wife had just passed away before the first anniversary of her death. The storm came and collapsed the house, I was very depressed. I hid in the bushes smoking cigarettes, despite the children bothering me, the pigs squealing in hunger in the pen. A journalist helped me up, giving me the strength to overcome. I followed him to pick up each pillar and piece of wood. He worked barefoot, chiseling and carving, regardless of the sun or rain. He put down his pen, picked up his chisel and saw like a craftsman and gave me a warm home…”.

Having said that, he opened the closet and took out an old backpack, inside of which was only a bucket hat with a bullet hole on the brim:

- Do you see anything? That's a war wound, because of it I can't remember anything...

I saw and felt the bullet wound that kept piercing the soldiers' minds. When I got home, while cooking dinner, my mother and I talked about my father's journalism career. My mother put down the vegetables, wiped the sweat from her forehead and said softly:

- Because of a lingering feeling, father and son decided to pursue that career. I heard that the squad had failed to protect a war correspondent when they withdrew.

That night, when I took out the enlarged photo to look at it again, Dad woke up, got up to make tea, squinted at the computer screen and exclaimed:

- You're here already?

- Yes, father.

My intuition told me: Could it be that my father was the journalist who built the house for Mr. Can? My father put down his teacup and absentmindedly recounted:

- That year, in the dark, my father and his comrades did not see the face of that soldier. They only remembered blood flowing from the back of his neck and not seeing him move. At that time, they were forced to retreat, only having time to take the journalist's notebook with them. Later, when my father saw that scar, he always thought it was that soldier. The wound had caused him to lose part of his memory, so Uncle Can always cherished what belonged to the past.

After meeting my father again, Uncle Can happily agreed to move the small stilt house. Deep in my heart, I believe that whether or not the reporter from that year was lucky enough to survive, the path my father and I have chosen is still very happy and worthy of pride.

Short story by Bui Viet Phuong

Source: https://baobacgiang.vn/nghe-cua-cha-toi-postid420379.bbg