The house of grass

The sun has risen in the wild garden. It's been a long time since I came to this secluded retreat; the garden has been without my grandmother's touch. In the past, it seemed that she devoted all her time to the fruit trees in the garden. Lemons, starfruit, various vegetables, each row meticulously arranged, lush and green.

I keep picturing the moment when Mr. Hoan sat silently, gazing at his grandmother's hunched back as she patiently weeded the garden, regretting the day she had to leave, and writing the poem burning with human emotion: "Sister Tư is all alone" (a poem by Chế Lan Viên) . If I were allowed to share one thing about the deceased, I would say: The time Mr. Hoan spent in his sister Tư's house was the time when he felt the heaviest affection for his blood relatives.

My grandmother recounted how, in the past, times were tough, but Mr. Hoan only cared about writing poetry. When he had enough for a collection, he pestered my grandmother to give him money to print it. The printing... resulted in a loss. My grandmother, meanwhile, quietly tended to the vegetables and fruits, silently carrying them to the market every morning to earn a few pennies. But now, weeds have overgrown the garden, leaving only a small path less than half a meter wide for the earth to breathe each night. Moreover, since my grandmother and her family moved to the apartment complex of her workplace, the garden has become a garbage dump for the neighbors. Looking at the towering piles of garbage, I can only bow my head and pray for a moment of silence for all of my grandmother's hard work. I remember every time I visited, my grandmother would eagerly ask me what was left: from the starfruit tree that the neighborhood children would ask for to cook in soup, to the betel nut tree outside her window; every season I would think to myself: why didn't you pick some for her to chew? What I felt most sorry for was the stunted lemon tree, struggling to survive amidst the overgrown weeds and under my withering indifference...

The house was incredibly dreary. More than half of the rafters and beams had been eaten away by termites, and it had to bear the weight of two layers of heavy roof tiles. And if it weren't for the kitchen connecting to it, the gable wall would have collapsed long ago. On the day I decided to move in, I spent the whole afternoon clearing the area with my machete before I could finally squeeze into this cluttered house filled with old belongings and household items that had been a breeding ground for rats and snakes for decades. My father was utterly astonished by the vast, overgrown garden.

Oh, the grass! Grass even grows at the joints where the planks of wood are joined to form the small courtyard running lengthwise along the house, as if it were piercing through the planks to prove its stubbornness. From the two rusty iron gates to the porch, it's only about twenty leisurely steps, and the grass on either side has completely covered the path.

The first night I slept in that silent house amidst the vast wilderness, the eerie feeling lingered until one night my elderly lover came to visit but didn't find me... When the furious flood of '99 struck the house, I surrendered to fate without realizing that there were also souls living through those arduous days with me. I felt as if the house was bearing the pain of gratitude entrusted to it...

“You were so brave, clinging to life down there year after year all alone. I remember…” My grandmother smiled, her teeth gleaming black. I always saw her smile like that; and for the first time, I saw someone shed tears while laughing – it was her. On mornings sitting by the window looking out at the butterfly-filled garden, I couldn’t bring myself to pull out the weeds as my uncle suggested. My heart ached with pity for my grandmother! Her life left its mark on every inch of this garden.

The distance I cycled from my house to my uncle and aunt's dilapidated, pre-liberation apartment complex now seemed endless. Then one afternoon, along that same short stretch, I arrived at my grandmother's house and noticed something unusual. Her remarkable lucidity reminded me of a lamp about to go out, like a shooting star plunging into silence...

My wish is to revisit the old garden that my grandmother passed away with me !

But now, day after day, around the old house, countless wildflowers still bloom innocently as if no sadness had ever fallen upon the vast garden. However, the birds are singing less and less because the village children still sneak into the garden to set traps whenever I'm away. And then last night, a venomous snake followed the tracks and nestled comfortably in the empty corner of the house, unharmed...

I couldn't help but wonder: should I renovate the garden so the snakes could find another place to live, or just let the countless blades of grass sprout up again season after season? How much I cherish my grandmother's garden; the place where Mr. Hoan once stayed, not for long, but long enough for the poet to condense his deep affection into the dewdrops, into the stones ...

Nhuy Nguyen (Literature and Arts Newspaper)

The house of grass