The door creaked heavily. The humid afternoon rushed into the house. Tiny drops of water burst onto the reddish-brown brick floor. Time seemed to stop in the space, thick with a dark color, filled with the smell of traditional medicine. An old man sat in a wheelchair, his head tilted to one side, the corners of his mouth drooling with slimy saliva. His lifeless eyes stared into space. An old woman stood at the edge of the door, her cloudy eyes raised, blinking at us. Her figure was like a sad question mark mixed in with the dark brown of the old house. She smiled, but it was crooked on her old mouth. The wrinkles were pushed together, undulating.
We entered the house.
The door is closed.
Outside was a hill of purple xoan flowers, painful in the endless afternoon light.
***
In my young memories, the old house precariously perched halfway up the mountain was just as gloomy. Withered in the gloomy afternoon sun, the last rays of sunlight mixed with the gray smoke. Then one night, a flash flood suddenly came, and our house was swept away by the water. Only a mournful white remained in my memory, submerged in the surrounding tears and mist, rushing towards the end of the source.
Mom took me and my bags and set off. The steps were bumpy, leaving behind emptiness and distance. The steps took us wandering into the city. Confused by the hustle and bustle...
Lying in a strange house at night, I could smell the warm scent of purple xoan flowers like my mother and I’s sleepless eyes. The night was bustling with vague sounds. The sound of the wind, or the sound of falling dew, or the sound of newly bloomed petals, the night birds sleepwalking, flying back lost. I was dreaming, seeing myself as a bird, flying over the immense purple flower hills, flying forever towards the late afternoon sun. Dispersing in the gray sunset. An arrow flew from somewhere and pierced my chest. I fell down in a dream of injury, blood dripping down the purple afternoon. Then I collapsed on the cement floor of my old rented room.
That is my second home in life.
My mother and I wandered around the alleys and lanes looking for a place to stay. Hunger and thirst made me faint. Then we met that man. He gave me a piece of stale bread and a bottle of water. We followed him into a small, narrow alley... At the end of the alley was a shabby boarding house with about seven or eight rooms. He led us into a room and told my mother and I to stay there temporarily. The room was small, the walls were peeling, and patches of wallpaper were scattered. A line of black ants crawled from the main door, across the window cracks, then circled back to the main door.
This place was a boarding house for construction workers from all over the country. Thanks to that, my mother was able to help them with their work and cook for them. So we no longer had to beg for food on the streets.
***
Mr. Boc is a construction contractor. He has an older wife with a wrinkled face and three short, chubby daughters. All four of them are mean and mean and often quarrel with the workers. This boarding house belongs to Mr. Boc's wife, so at the beginning of every month, when Mr. Boc has just paid the workers, she comes to collect the rent, electricity, water and sanitation fees. There are also a few families with young children in the boarding house, the rest are three young men and one middle-aged man. The middle-aged man who brought us here is Lam. He is the main worker.
Every day my mother went to the construction site. She worked as a construction worker, carrying mortar, lifting bricks, and then cooked for the workers. The construction workers all came from far away places, some even lived on the top of the mountain, not halfway down like us. The only thing they had in common was that they were all poor, uneducated, and had to leave their hometowns to find food.
Mr. Lam was not often with our group. When the work at the construction site was stable, Mr. Boc transferred him to other places. Every now and then, when he returned to the boarding house, he would buy some dog meat and ask my mother to cook it for the whole neighborhood to eat. The aroma of galangal and shrimp paste wafted up, making the men feel warm and fuzzy over bottles of wine corked with dried banana leaves.
One time, Mr. Lam asked me how old I was and if I wanted to go to school. At that time, I hesitated and didn’t know how to answer. I had never been to school before so I didn’t know if I wanted to or not. I had only seen children in the city wearing pure white shirts going to school together. But I didn’t have a white shirt as beautiful as that. So I both wanted to go and didn’t.
***
One night, when my mother and I were preparing dinner, Mr. Boc's wife and a tattooed man suddenly rushed in. As soon as we reached the gate, she screamed and dragged us out to curse. People whispered and pointed, and when she entered the door, she immediately rushed in to slap and pull my mother's hair. It was so unexpected that my mother didn't have time to react, and I could only cry, intending to rush in to help my mother, but was pushed away by the man. Just like that, my mother was beaten by the aggressive woman. When she was too tired and let go, my mother fell to the ground. I ran to hug my mother in a panic. I was completely bewildered because I didn't understand what was happening. My mother just bowed her head silently, tears streaming down her face. They threw my mother and I's belongings and clothes out the door, pushed us away, and locked the door of the rented room.
It happened very quickly. In a flash, the woman and the tattooed man had disappeared. No one in the boarding house asked us a single question, they all avoided us and looked at us with suspicious eyes. I asked my mother what was going on but she kept her head down and kept silent. All we could do was cry and gather our things and walk away.
Darkness filled the alley. Rats were foraging for food, and when they heard the noise, they ran into the sewer. My mother and I staggered along the bumpy road. Every house had its lights on. The smell of rice and laughter during meals filled the air. We quietly blended into the darkness, swallowing each pain.
Our aimless steps took us under the bridge. I gently wiped the tears from my mother’s bruised face. Then I untied her hair, each curl tangled like a tangled knot of wild plants. I didn’t dare ask her anything more, but in fact I didn’t want to. Because that wouldn’t help us at this moment. My mother fumbled in her pockets to see if there was a piece of bread or something edible to feed me. But there was nothing. The rumbling of my stomach grew louder and louder. There was silence all around. There was only the sound of crickets and worms scurrying and the old beggar’s sleepy tossing and turning. I tried to swallow my saliva to fall asleep. The cold wind whistled. My mother hugged me tightly as if hugging a formless silence.
In my daze, I heard a man's voice. Waking up, rubbing my eyes a few times, I recognized Mr. Lam. He broke the bread in half, gave half to my mother and me, patiently watched us finish eating, then gave us water to drink. Lately, Mr. Lam had moved to another construction site quite far away, so he hadn't seen us. Now he was at the bus station, preparing to go home, but unexpectedly he met my mother and me here.
“You two come back to my hometown with me!” He said softly but firmly.
So once again we followed the footsteps of the man. The same man who had saved us while we were wandering hungry with a piece of stale bread.
***
The night was almost dawn. I was daydreaming among the purple flower hills. So I stayed in this house. It was the third house in my life. There, there was an old man sitting in a wheelchair, an old woman with hunched eyes who often told ghost stories and there was my stepfather - Mr. Lam.
I had no idea what happened to us the night we were chased away, until my grandparents were overjoyed when my stepfather told me that my mother was sick and had a big belly. And in my mother's secret conversation with Father Lam, I understood that the contractor made my mother pregnant in order to find a son to lean on. When his wife found out, she came to threaten us and chased us away.
Father Lam was twelve years older than my mother. He had been married before, but after ten years of marriage, they still had no children, so the woman left. He also left the village to go to the city to find work to forget everything. Then, after days of wandering around the city, he returned to his hometown, to his old parents, to the old house and the hill of purple xoan flowers. And to his new family, when he accepted the child in my mother's womb as his own to reassure his parents.
***
Many years later.
I returned to visit the house of xoan flowers.
The old brown house is lost in the midst of purple flowers.
My grandparents have long since returned to the earth. The grass on my mother's grave has also turned green with the passing of time. These days, xoan flowers cover the entire place like the purple petals that once sprinkled on my mother's shoulders when we first set foot here in amazement.
Only Father Lam was left sitting under the faded mahogany tree. When he saw me coming back, his voice trembled with joy. I asked excitedly, where is Xoan, Dad? Oh, he went to see old Boc's funeral. Well, a son must die with all his heart, after all, blood flows and intestines soften.
Source: https://baophapluat.vn/ngoi-nha-hoa-tim-post553286.html
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