( Quang Ngai Newspaper) - On an early spring day, a small magnolia tree was planted in front of two houses. They were two wooden houses with red tile roofs located on a row of streets that had been built not long ago. In the past, the land was vast, the houses were dilapidated, scattered along the trails. People from all over came here to live in different ways. Every day, there was only the sound of bicycles of workers returning from the mine. They talked to each other about a broken steam engine, old spare parts to be reprocessed... Soil, sand and wind filled the ground, on tables and chairs. Children went to school with their feet in sandals covered with traces of the battlefield. The country had just gone through two wars that lasted three centuries, people started planting trees. Every sprout and blade of grass was gently reviving. People looked at the trees and dreamed of shade for a day not far away...
The young man had just finished planting the tree and was standing there admiring his work. In fact, he did not know that behind the shutter frame with a broken slat, the neighbor girl's eyes were sparkling like drops of autumn rain. Lan was eleven years old that year, her hair was braided in a pigtail, her oval face had begun to show delicate features. Lan was very intelligent and innocent. Her grandmother often braided her hair every morning, and then her grandmother said: "A girl with a dimple on one cheek is... passionate." Lan often asked what "deeply passionate" was, but her grandmother only smiled, her lips red with betel. When will children understand such profound things?
Then, one day at the beginning of the year, gunshots rang out from the border. Peace had just taken root, the whitewashed schools were newly painted, and teachers were handing over their lesson plans and leaving for the army. Old soldiers and new recruits were marching off to war together. On this street, many people had joined the army, even the young man who had just planted a tree had put his name on the list of soldiers of that spring. That day, Lan watched her neighbor until his figure disappeared at the end of the street. She thought that on a beautiful sunny day, a day when the magnolia leaves rustled gently in the wind, she would see his footsteps return. Although they were neighbors, they had never once met face to face to talk. She was shy and timid, and he was hesitant. That person had gone forever and never returned when the border battlefield had stopped echoing with gunfire. Had he sacrificed himself, had he gone missing, or did he not want to return to this makeshift, scattered neighborhood anymore?
Over time, the road ahead was dug, filled, leveled, and raised to a meter high. Thatched houses and wooden houses gradually disappeared, and high-rise buildings lined up side by side in the city. The market economy opened, people chiseled walls and opened windows to sell goods. Afternoon naps also gradually disappeared because of the sound of car horns, the sound of people buying and selling, and arguing. The scenery kept changing, people with green hair turned to gray. People with gray hair became people of the past. The sound of children crying at the beginning of the street joined the cries of relatives of the deceased at the end of the street. Only the magnolia tree continued to grow, its leaves covered with dust, its roots scarred by the carvings of children. The night quietly gave off its fragrance. Over the years, it was like a guard standing guard over the changes in this neighborhood.
Soon, Mrs. Lan will move to that high-rise apartment building with her daughter. I wonder if she will still be able to see this neighborhood. Her daughter keeps reminding her: “Remember to pack everything you need, it has all the furniture and equipment. The car will come to pick you up the day after tomorrow.”
This afternoon the wind started to get stronger, I heard the storm was changing direction here. It was a storm that Mrs. Lan had never seen since she was a child, even though it had just swept across the islands in the ocean. Her daughter texted to urge her: “Mom, let’s go, come up here for safety, after all, a storm can’t do anything to a whole block of houses. You’ll be out in ten minutes.”
“Bang”, as if a naughty child had kicked the door. The lim door shook and twisted the old hinges. At nearly sixty years old, her bones and joints no longer flexible, Mrs. Lan must have carefully stepped onto the chair to close the vents, but suddenly she stopped and stood there for a long time, as if hypnotized by someone.
There was no one on the street at this time, only the corrugated iron roofs were flying, everything on the ground was being blown away by the wind like in a horror movie. The wind, the tornado and the doors were "fighting". Outside the magnolia tree was still struggling with the storm alone. It seemed that at this time, other than it, there was nothing else that could protect Mrs. Lan's house. The tree was not big, its canopy was not wide because of the barren ground, but it always tried to stretch forward, because that was the east direction. But today the wind was blowing from that direction.
The phone kept ringing with the worried voice of her daughter. There were only the two of them at home, she had traveled all over Europe and America, bringing her many things, but the house was always empty. In that empty space, there was only the scent of magnolia flowers that lulled her to sleep every night, but this season the tree had not yet bloomed.
She heard her daughter crying on the phone, then heard a “thud”, her heart jumped out of her chest, but the tree was still there. A water jug on the second floor of someone’s house was rolling down the street. It was changing direction, rolling to the base of the magnolia tree, then stopping. It seemed that in the chaos of the storm, there was still some kind of luck for all the inanimate things.
The second tornado blew away the corrugated iron roofs, there was the sound of broken glass, women and children screaming. The fear was like a balloon bursting in succession, following a psychological effect. Mrs. Lan used to be a teacher at the ward's junior high school. Many young couples in this neighborhood were her students. Which ones were naughty, which ones were careful, even the ones who were taciturn but smart... she remembered them all clearly. She told them that a tall and beautiful house was good, but they had to have an emergency exit. The windows and main doors, although beautiful, should not be too wide, because they would be difficult to withstand during a storm.
Each of them had their own reasons for listening to her or ignoring her, but now they were all scared. Her house was the tallest, isolated and rough, but quite safe from the waves of water coming in from the street. Her daughter once came home from a business trip, leaned her suitcase against a magnolia tree and said:
-No one in the neighborhood is as old as mom. She built her house like a watchtower, and added the stunted tree that mom still keeps.
He also asked why his mother didn't ask someone to dig up the big tree, after a few years the shade would be nice again. Mrs. Lan didn't say anything, the Hoang family here only had her left, her uncles and brothers had all died in the battles. Many times she thought, that tree and she had a destiny, having the same name, and having stuck together here through so much hardship. The fragrance of the flower season and the sound of her violin blended together like a sweet, intoxicating honey...
The water that had gathered from somewhere had turned muddy on the road, waking Mrs. Lan up. Through the small window, she saw that the road had turned into a stream. The wind was still blowing relentlessly above, as if challenging human survival. The electricity was off, her phone had only one battery left, she tried to make one last call to her daughter but couldn't connect. A stretch of road in front of her house had just been swept away by floodwaters, creating an extremely dangerous whirlpool, if her daughter and everyone else came here, it would be difficult to reach.
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The magnolia tree whirled like a warrior charging into battle, but its strength was limited, unable to fight against too many enemies. The tree's roots were eroded, its canopy was whipped by the wind, the tree leaned towards the house, Mrs. Lan panicked thinking that the window would break, her legs were numb and unable to move. But no, the tree tried its best and then fell towards the yard as the best choice to end its life.
The rescue team was trying to reach the old one-story house. They were hesitant because of the whirlpool that made the boat sway. But then a brave person wearing a life jacket climbed up the tree branches to reach the house. Mrs. Lan was saved by that very risky path, by the very branches of the magnolia tree that were lying on the ground. On the rescue boat, she turned back once more to look towards the old house, towards that tree of love.
The brave young man wearing a life jacket said:
- I heard that my father planted this magnolia tree long ago...
- Oh, where is your dad now?
- Yes, not far from here, rescue teams are also taking people to my house, it's high and safe there...
Mrs. Lan felt her eyes blurred in the rain...
BUI VIET PHUONG
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Source: https://baoquangngai.vn/van-hoa/van-hoc/202411/truyen-ngan-cay-hoang-lan-dung-gac-c7b13eb/
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