Love poetry

- Where are you going?

Khoi refused. He wanted to visit the place that kept the national soul of a young woman he had been searching for after a long time of forgetting, but then he got on the back of the motorbike and asked the motorbike taxi driver to take him to a nearby hotel or motel.

The town is small, with the national highway through the busy downtown area, the other roads are shady and deserted. The small hotel probably doesn't welcome many guests because the town doesn't have any tourist attractions and is far from the sea. Hot! Khoi had just finished showering when he felt sweat dripping from his skin, he lay down on the bed and rested absentmindedly. At this point, having arrived in this town, he was still surprised that he had rushed to make such a long trip. What was Khoi looking for here? A business opportunity to sell handmade ceramic decorative arts or was it just an excuse for him to find a silhouette that he had not met many times before disappearing into the mist decades ago? A romantic and wandering feeling that passed through the mist of the cold mornings of his hometown D'Ran, or a call from deep within the sobbing train whistle when the train from Thap Cham station slowly stopped at D'Ran station? Or were both the reasons for him to be here?

Yesterday afternoon, Khoi was arranging the old paintings in his studio when he came across a memory, a memory that had been forgotten for many years: A painting of a Cham girl sitting on the platform of D'Ran station, next to her were several large baskets full of ceramic utensils used in the family's kitchen. She was watching the train belching white smoke on its way to Da Lat station, a few straws that held the ceramic utensils were caught in the wind in her golden hair, shining from the morning sunlight shining across the station's eaves. Khoi had painted the painting for a young girl and had not had the chance to give it to her.

In one corner of the painting, a scribbled line of words urged him to find this place: “For Muna - a young woman from Go village, Phan Ly Cham, Binh Thuan ”. Go village! For a long time, he had been looking for a place to order handmade ceramics, why didn’t he go to Go village? Kill two birds with one stone! Thinking so, he quickly set off the next day.

***

Khoi has a habit of… sleeping in. He stays up late, and in the early morning, he curls up comfortably in a warm blanket. The climate in D'Ran is cool. The early morning sky is covered with mist. When a little weak sunlight sticks to the glass window, he wakes up to clean up and change clothes to go jogging. Khoi has a habit of walking along the road that hugs the town, breathing in the fresh air and stopping at the station, imagining the rows of iron wheels of the Thap Cham - Da Lat train rubbing against the rails going up high and the heavy, groaning sound of the train whistle, along with the white smoke billowing from the engine blowing backwards.

Many times, while walking early in the morning, before arriving at the train station, Khoi stopped in front of a white-painted house, quietly looking at the closed white windows. He imagined a young woman about his age in that white house, turning over, pulling the thick blanket up to her chest, and trying to calm himself down from his dream. The young woman he only watched from afar, then sketched her image on the canvas but did not complete the picture.

Because Khoi was busy focusing on another painting. The painting he had accidentally found yesterday afternoon among the dusty paintings stacked against the wall of the drawing room.

On the platform, Khoi slowly sipped his hot coffee. The coffee was brewed in a cloth bag and placed in a clay pot over a charcoal stove, giving off a fragrant aroma. A few familiar customers sat on low chairs around the charcoal stove, creating a warm and intimate feeling, surrounded by the scent of coffee that slowly dissipated, perhaps because of the cold air. Khoi did not join in the conversation because he was still listening attentively and eagerly waiting for the train whistle. Khoi was impatient because he wanted to see again the girl who had carved an image in his mind that he knew would be reproduced in a beautiful picture.

On the steps of a train, several women in indigo dresses were hurriedly moving bamboo baskets full of pottery down to the platform, finishing just in time when the train whistle sounded to signal the train to continue its journey. Then they clung to the iron bars of the steps and quickly returned to the train, where two people, a woman and a girl, were still on the platform, struggling to carry the baskets to the porch. “This is so hard!” Khoi thought, and he went to the woman to offer his help.

Taking the basket from the woman, he and the girl continued their work. Finished, Khoi sat down… to catch his breath; the girl, without any fatigue, continued to arrange the ceramic items in the baskets. They were pots, pans, ca rang (wood-burning stove), pu (water jar), chum, tray… When the girl leaned over, the morning sunlight passed through her hair, making the golden straw strands clinging to her hair shine brightly - the straw strands used to cushion the ceramic items so they wouldn’t break during transport. Khoi was fascinated by her face framed by the gentle morning sunlight. And he knew he would have a beautiful picture because he was truly moved by the girl’s pure, rustic beauty.

The Cham girl lived in Go village, a craft village that made household items from clay. Go village was in another province and through a new friend, he learned that it was a village with a majority of Cham people living there. They farmed, raised horned cattle and made pottery to sell to many places, especially in rural areas. Every few days, they took the train from Thap Cham station to D'Ran, Da Lat after selling all their goods. The girl and her mother sold the family products made in D'Ran and the surrounding markets; while others brought their goods to Da Lat station and then sold them in distant markets.

Every morning, mother and daughter hire a motorbike to deliver goods to wholesale or retail markets. At night, they sleep under the eaves of the train station, next to the piles of goods.

Khoi spent many afternoons chatting with the girl who came from far away, after the mother and daughter had finished a simple meal of cooking rice in a clay pot, stewing some freshwater fish in a tray placed on a charcoal stove... He curiously watched the mother and daughter busily cooking with rustic utensils, while everyone else used aluminum pots and kerosene stoves. He also enjoyed talking to the innocent girl about a countryside and a profession that was so strange to him.

-My family is very poor! My parents have only a few fields, but farming alone is not enough to eat for a year! My father drives an ox cart to get good clay from a very far away place, it takes three days to get home; and then we have to go get firewood to burn the products. My mother and I clean the soil, knead it, and then incubate it; then we make pots, pans, and trays… Pottery in my village has two special features compared to other places: the craftsman does not use a turntable but has to walk around the table to mold the soft clay into products. My village also does not have a kiln, all the products are brought out to the open field, covered with straw and dry firewood, waiting for the wind to blow, then light a fire and… the products are cooked.

***

Following the hotel owner’s instructions, Khoi took a motorbike taxi to Go village, a few kilometers from where he stayed. Kitchen utensils made of high-grade aluminum, stainless steel, and glass have long replaced rustic utensils in the countryside, but the traditional craft of Go village still exists, and its products still spread to many rural areas.

Khoi visited the oldest pottery family in the village. In the large yard, finished products were lined up in long rows to dry in the sun, waiting to be burned. The sunlight lingered on the products in many shades because of the gentle swaying of the wind, making the areca leaves on the garden border tremble.

The worker walked around the low table, her hands quickly kneading the soft clay. She plucked off the excess clay to fill in the gaps or used a bamboo knife to smooth out the rough spots, all the while chatting with the curious customer.

- My villagers only make money by working, because everything is so expensive now; from clay, dry firewood to labor, and transportation… Recently, goods have been slow to sell because people are using more aluminum and stainless steel products…

Khoi looked attentively at the diligent girl, imagining Muna from decades ago, nimbly breaking the clay, her hands quickly kneading, walking around the table, then happily admiring the finished product. How many Cham women following the matriarchal system, whose mothers taught them the art of pottery, have walked around the table like this for many years, to develop and preserve a traditional craft of their people in an increasingly abundant and redundant industrialized society.

Khoi thought:

- I want to order some decorative items for my home and garden such as vases, flower pots, fish, masks, lampshades... Can you help me?

The girl did not appear surprised:

- Before, people also asked me to make decorative items. He drew the design and gave me the dimensions and I could do it.

Khoi happily:

- I will definitely sign a contract with you, but… do you know how I know about this Go village?

Khoi wanted to express to the girl another reason for his presence.

- Years ago, he met a fifteen or sixteen year old girl, about your age, from this village bringing goods to D'Ran station...

The girl stopped, looked up at the customer's faded hair and asked:

- How old were you that year?

- He is about five or six years older than that girl.

- Then I'll wait for your mother to come back from the market, I'll ask, maybe she'll know...

Khoi did not think he had to find Muna, because if she was still alive and if they met, he would recognize an… old woman, because the girl from back then was almost seventy years old. He was just looking for an extremely beautiful memory of a romantic childhood.

The mother returned from the market and invited Khoi into the house. After hearing him briefly tell the story, the mother's black eyes lit up and she asked in a trembling voice:

- Are you an artist?

An electric current passed through Khoi's body, he was confused:

- I just practice drawing portraits.

The mother looked at Khoi silently, then she pointed to the portrait hanging on the wall.

- The person you met at D'Ran station was my mother. She told me about an artist drawing her sitting on the station platform. She passed away more than ten years ago.

Khoi was still bewildered by the seemingly unreal encounter when his mother opened the cupboard and took out a stack of papers from an iron box that used to be a cake box. She chose from the stack of papers and handed him a sheet of paper as thick as two pages of a notebook. In the light of the light bulb that his mother had just turned on, he saw Muna shyly looking at the pile of ceramics she had just taken out of the large basket, a few strands of straw shimmering in the morning sunlight floating around her, some clinging to her flowing hair.

It was the pencil sketch of Muna on the train platform that Khoi had given her. He had also promised to give her a framed picture, but he had not had the chance, because the Thap Cham-Da Lat cog railway was no longer in operation. The Cham women wore indigo long skirts and Muna no longer brought pottery to sell in the highland markets.

Khoi looked at the Cham mother, looked at the girl working around the pottery table, vaguely saw the figure of Muna in his two descendants; and vaguely heard the sobbing sound of the train whistle in the immense smoke and mist...

Khoi promised Muna’s niece that he would return the next day with sketches of decorative items that he would contract her to produce by hand using Go village pottery. He knew that he would return many times to the space imbued with Muna’s image through his niece who diligently produced not only kitchen utensils, but also fine art ceramic items to beautify life.

Source: https://baobinhthuan.com.vn/tinh-tho-130629.html