A few months before my retirement, my company sent me to Da Lat for a ten-day retreat. I didn't really care much about partying and socializing with friends, but I was still excited about something that had been bothering me for a while. For the past few months, there had been rumors circulating in the press and among the public about elephant tail hair and its miraculous properties.
Last month, a colleague of mine, known for being extremely frugal, surprisingly spent a million dong on a single elephant tail hair during a business trip to the Central Highlands as a protective amulet. He boasted about it, and I knew it, but I also whispered to him, "Even a short piece the size of a toothpick is more precious than gold; it's incredibly hard to find, old man!"
I know that there are only about a few dozen wild elephants left in our country. Meanwhile, several newspapers and online publications are full of information about dozens of domesticated elephants in Lac village whose tail hair has been completely stripped off because of thieves. One cruel individual even tried to cut off a section of the tail and was tragically killed by the elephant.
Having spent my entire life in scientific research, I didn't easily believe that those elephant tail hairs could be a miracle cure. But for generations, my family has suffered many misfortunes, all because of that precious elephant tail hair passed down from my great-great-grandfather five generations ago—this is absolutely true.
Everyone in my village and district knew that for nearly two hundred years, my family had been keeping a piece of white elephant hair, a relic of my great-great-grandfather who was a high-ranking official in the imperial court. When I was young, I did see it a few times. I could only look at it; I was absolutely forbidden to touch it.
It was on the major anniversaries of the death of a deceased person that, before opening the ancestral hall for the descendants to offer the ceremonial meal, my grandfather would take out the ivory tube, slightly larger than a chopstick, that he had secretly kept behind the altar of the late Emperor. Then, he would personally unscrew the stopper and gently pull out a section of white elephant tail hair, stiffer than fishing line and ivory-white in color, that lay inside.
Then, he respectfully placed before the mirror stand a painting of the late Emperor sitting stiff as a log, in his ceremonial robes. Looking at the sparse, meticulously drawn silver hairs beneath his pointed chin, I inexplicably found myself drawn to the old man's mouth with its thin, tightly pressed lips.
And I always wondered: Are there any teeth left inside that solemn mouth? If I knew the truth, I could have concluded the truth behind all the persistent rumors about the miraculous properties of that white elephant tail hair.
I never had the chance to ask the elders in my family before I had to leave and was gone for many years. Even now, I only know the late Imperial Censor's biography through a few brief notes in some tattered pages of the family genealogy that I was fortunate enough to survive. In general, before being appointed Imperial Censor, he had taught at the National Academy for several years.
Among his students, one was appointed to govern the Central Highlands. At that time, the region was still wild and mysterious, like in prehistoric times. Grateful to his teacher, the official gifted him a piece of white elephant tail hair to use as a toothpick daily.
The old man used that precious toothpick until he died. Perhaps its purpose was simply that. The white elephant is the king of elephants. Its tail hair is considered extremely rare and precious. Because it was a daily item used by high-ranking officials, folk tales have been fabricated about it. Some say keeping it on your person prevents you from being bitten by a venomous snake. Others say it can cure all kinds of incurable diseases. Still others say using it to clean your teeth keeps your breath fresh, prevents cavities, allows you to live to a hundred years old with your jaws still intact and strong like a young man's, even if your teeth are dry like a chicken's feet, you can still chew vegetables with gusto…
Because of this preconceived notion, not long after the death of my grandfather, a wealthy landowner begged to exchange his first-class rice paddy for a plot of land, but my paternal grandfather still refused. Even in my paternal grandfather's generation, despite their poverty and being offered even higher prices by two or three other wealthy families, he remained unmoved.
Yet it was still stolen by my uncle's younger brother. He was a clerk at the district office and a gambler. A colleague of his wanted the elephant tail hair toothpick to treat his father's chronic tooth decay. He lured the clerk into a rigged gambling game.
In the end, Mr. Thua lost five hundred Indochinese francs. It was a huge sum, far beyond his ability to repay. He reluctantly gave the family heirloom elephant hair pouch to him without my grandfather's knowledge. When the matter was discovered, my grandfather was furious, pointing at Mr. Thua and shouting, "You've disgraced our family!"
Mr. Thua argued, "It's just an ordinary elephant's tail hair; surely the family's prosperity or decline doesn't depend on it." From then until the end of his life, the brothers never spoke to each other, never having a single day of harmony. Even on the day my grandfather died, hearing the funeral drums echoing in the night, Mr. Thua sat hugging a pillar of his house and wept endlessly. But it was too late.
I don't know if the toothache of that gambling scammer's father was cured by that elephant tail hair. I haven't seen any information about it. Frankly, my family has never tested it to see what its effects were. I think our ancestors were so determined to preserve it, treating it like a treasure, simply to maintain its prestigious reputation.
But in what era was reputation not important? That's why when Mr. Thua did that, the whole family had to keep it completely secret, no one uttered a word. The neighbors still firmly believe that the priceless elephant hair is still kept by my family. The consequences have lasted for generations.
This story takes place during a time when my village was unfortunately under enemy control for several years. That year, my mother died of typhoid fever, and my father was away for good. I was sent by the organization to study at a military cadet school in Nanning, China. At home, only my grandmother and my younger brother, Hau, who was only seven years old, remained. The village temple had been turned into a French military outpost.
The deputy commander of the police station was from the village. That year, his grandfather had a severe case of toothache that caused swelling in both jaws. He immediately thought of the elephant tail hair, a family heirloom, and ordered his nephew to bring my grandmother to the station for questioning. Even then, my grandmother still refused to confess that she had been taken by Mr. Thua to pay off a gambling debt.
First, the deputy station chief threatened to shoot the entire Viet Minh lineage. Then, his grandfather, with a handful of Indochinese currency and the other hand clutching his swollen cheek, with yellow pus oozing from between his teeth, repeated the same thing over and over again:
- Well... well... please, ma'am, do me a favor and let me rent your toothpick to use as a remedy for my ailment. I'm cured now, and I'll reward you handsomely.
My grandmother was always adamant about it. I only heard these stories from her later. In reality, from the age of ten, when the resistance against the French was raging, my father sent someone to take me to Viet Bac, and then to study at the Nanning school complex.
Even after peace was restored to half the country, I still had to stay abroad to finish my studies before I could return home. Then I went for long-term training in the Soviet Union, and I wasn't even home when my grandmother passed away. It's been decades since then, and I never thought about that cursed elephant tail hair, if it weren't for the widespread, fantastical rumors about it in recent years.
On this vacation trip, I really wanted to find out the truth about the ancient elephant land, but I only managed to gather vague and uncertain information. After wandering around Da Lat for several days, I didn't see a single elephant.
But loitering around the hotel where we were staying, there were often people loitering around, vaguely showing off a few short, jet-black hairs, claiming they were definitely elephant tail hairs. When asked, they assured me they were real and not fake. When asked about their uses, they just rattled off things I already knew. When asked about the price, some said five hundred thousand, others quoted one million.
But I suspect those were just strands of cow or horse tail hair. Because their clothing resembled traditional ethnic attire, their accent sounded somewhat broken, but their hands were completely free of calluses, and their teeth were so white you could see your reflection in them.
The teeth of ethnic minorities who have smoked since childhood are all stained black with smoke. How can you trust them? After a few rattling horse-drawn carriage rides along the foothills, when you asked genuine ethnic people about elephant tail hair, the honest ones replied: "We don't know."
He chuckled mysteriously: "Yes, there is, but it's been a long time, it's been lost." Skeptical, I was about to ask the team leader for a few days to go to the elephant-rich region of Dak Lak to investigate thoroughly when I received an urgent call from Hau, who said he had something to tell me.
Back in my hometown, right at the entrance to the alley, I met my younger brother, with his bushy beard and a prosthetic leg up to his hip, limping out onto the main road. Outside, he had a small shack with a rice milling machine. He waved me inside, then went into his daily work. After a few minutes of the machine's deafening roar, he finished his work and hobbled onto the porch, nonchalant as if nothing important had happened, making me want to yell at him for telling me to come home so quickly. But he got straight to the point:
- Do you remember Mr. Hach? He's about to die. I don't know what he was holding back, but he sent people to call me several times, crying and begging me to call you back so he could tell you something, otherwise he wouldn't be able to rest in peace.
Mr. Hach and our father were classmates. Before 1945, both were enlightened by their village teacher and sent to work in the secret movement. My father went away from that day on. After 1954, he only left a message saying he had to be assigned far away, and that the whole family should rest assured and not worry.
As for Mr. Hach, he later worked at the provincial level, but for some unknown reason, he was transferred back to the local area to work as an office staff member at the commune committee until his retirement. His wife passed away a long time ago. His only son, who is a few years younger than me, lives in Hanoi with his wife and children.
He lives alone now. Currently, only his niece, who is around sixty years old and calls him "uncle," lives nearby and comes daily to cook and take care of him. After 1975, she returned from the battlefield at the same time as my younger brother. Each of them received several medals for fighting against the Americans. My brother lost a leg. She, on the other hand, spent her youth in the jungle, never married or having children until now.
Sensing something important was happening, I went to Mr. Hach's house that afternoon. His house, from its tiled roof to its brick walls, was old and covered in moss, like an ancient ancestral temple. Dry bamboo leaves littered the courtyard, dappling it in the faint afternoon sunlight.
The wind blew in gusts, rustling the twisted leaves from one end to the other with a mournful sound. The granddaughter sat chopping in front of a basket of duckweed beside an old fig tree, its bare branches pointing towards the sky like the thin, withered arms of an old person.
I greeted her, she recognized me and called out, "Young man, we have a visitor!" I heard the creaking of a bed creaking. My niece reached out and flipped the light switch. A yellowish electric light shone on a figure stretched out in crumpled, grayish clothes, pressed against a protruding belly that rose and fell irregularly.
That's Mr. Hach. I grasped his swollen, whitish hand, like a few young radishes, as a greeting. It felt as if his whole body was filled with some kind of murky liquid. But his eyes didn't yet show the look of someone about to die; they stared intently at me, then averted, as if wanting to say something difficult to say. Only after a while, believing I was being open and sincere, did he whisper:
- I was disciplined and sent back to my hometown to work as a village official, but I still hadn't reformed. That year, my father fell ill; his teeth kept falling out one by one, causing him excruciating pain, and no cure could be found. Suddenly, I remembered the family heirloom elephant-tail toothpick that your grandmother still kept, and I went to ask her to lend it to me, hoping it might save my father.
Hearing his grandmother insist that he was gone, I didn't believe her, thinking she was malicious and didn't want to save him. That's how I harbored resentment. When his younger brother received his university acceptance letter, I secretly hid it from him, not telling him. Later, fearing that his fiery temper would cause trouble if he found out, I devised a plan to put him on the military service list.
My brother was a young man with ambition, so a few years later he was sent to officer school by his unit. When the paperwork arrived at the commune, I secretly added a note to his personal record stating he was from a feudal official family. Even though I knew his father was secretly working somewhere, I still wrote that his father had been involved in revolutionary activities but disappeared, suspected of defecting to the South with the enemy. My older brother, who studied in the Soviet Union, was infected with revisionist ideology…
I know I'm about to die, my friend! If I can't say these words to you, if I can't bow my head in apology to the spirit of your grandmother, I won't be able to close my eyes. Now that I can say them, I'll forgive you as much as you can. So that I can have the chance to meet your grandmother and your father in the place where everyone must eventually return.
Oh my God! What more can I say to you? Everything is heading towards the end of the road. Since you've realized that, you've already removed the yoke from your neck, sir.
Oh my God! At that time, a background as black as soot, as heavy as a rock, was something even ten of my younger brothers couldn't carry, and they wouldn't be able to hold their heads up.
That evening, I returned to my old house, straight to the room where I was born, where my mother breathed her last, where my grandmother and my younger brother Hau huddled together through so many difficult years. Now, for over twenty years, my younger brother and his wife have been using it to raise their disabled and deformed child.
My grandson was exposed to Agent Orange, a poison passed down from his father. Looking at him, his head as big as a pumpkin, lying in the middle of the bed, his tiny belly, his tiny legs kicking and spinning around his heavy head like a compass leg rotating continuously.
From its mouth, sticky saliva dripped out, wetting its cheeks. Hearing the child's incessant cries, seeing its pale, bulging eyes like half a lemon, I sat holding it, choking back silent sobs. I cried, but no tears came out. My sobs were dry, the tears flowing back into my heart like a knife cutting through me.
That night, I decided not to repeat Mr. Hach's words to my brother. I was afraid of another heartbreaking event, and also worried that his suffering was already too much to bear. Knowing more would only add to his pain. Near dawn, hearing three drumbeats announcing the funeral, I knew Mr. Hach had passed away. I quietly stepped out into the moonlight, and my brother was already sitting there. The two of us sat silently together, each lost in our own thoughts, but unexpectedly, he spoke first:
- I know what Mr. Hach just told you. I already knew about it after the unit announced that I was being sent to officer training but encountered problems. A fellow officer told me the whole truth. But I was given two options: one, go to officer training; two, leave the army and attend a civilian university.
I guess it was thanks to the privilege of having a father stationed somewhere far away. But I chose the path to the front lines. The most beautiful life was the life on the battlefield fighting the Americans. Back then, the spirit of Le Ma Luong truly embodied the Vietnamese courage, truly the conscience of the era, brother. Now my life is very difficult, but I have no regrets whatsoever. I only feel a constant pang of sorrow for my disabled son... But never mind, let's not bring up the past again. What good would it do to be sad?
I stared in astonishment at her sitting like a meditating monk. One healthy leg dangled comfortably from the edge of the pavement to the ground, forming a half-square shape. A short, dark thigh peeked out from the opening of her shorts. Her face was tilted back, pensive. Her upper lip mustache grew haphazardly, and her chin beard was sparse, like that of an old ancestor. Both sets of teeth gleamed with a dark, shimmering light, a breathtakingly beautiful sight.
So you've really grown up more than me, my dear. The things I intended to say to you tonight, I realize they're no longer necessary. With one leg left on the battlefield, and a disabled son whom he and his wife have loved, cared for, and desperately nurtured for decades, he's experienced so much of reality; how could I possibly be wiser than him?
That night, my brother and I quietly leaned against each other, sleeping sitting up, our backs against the wall of the house that had been the home and death spot for generations of my family. Every now and then, we would both wake up startled by the three loud drumbeats announcing the funeral, echoing through the quiet sky.
I have the feeling that my brother and I are dreaming the same peaceful dream, nestled in our mother's arms on nights long past. Those cherished days of ours, it seems, never truly belonged to the distant past. In my ears, I still hear the clear, innocent laughter of children.
But tomorrow morning we have another important matter to attend to: we'll go to Mr. Hach's funeral. It will be the closing of a past nobody wished for.
VTK
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