Short story: The Rooftop

( Quang Ngai Newspaper) - Sim laboriously carried the hammock up to the rooftop. Her eight-month pregnant belly bulged. Sim lay swinging, enjoying the breeze, her eyes watching her three-year-old daughter riding her bicycle around the rooftop. Lately, besides cooking and doing chores around the house, Sim often comes up here to enjoy the breeze.

Initially, Sim just wanted to unwind after stressful work days or when frustrated with her husband. Later, she came up with the idea of ​​turning the rooftop into a workspace to avoid seeing her husband constantly pacing back and forth. She moved her desk to a power outlet for convenient charging of her laptop and phone. She also brought in a small fan for use on calm days. So, some days Sim would spend the whole day on the rooftop except for mealtimes. She added one item today and another tomorrow, adding more things as needed. Before long, the rooftop was practically a small room.

When Sim brought in her mini gas stove, a few packets of instant noodles, and some old pots and pans, she was startled to realize it resembled a rented room. It was messy and makeshift, just like all the rented rooms Sim had lived in during her ten years of youth. And Sim had only escaped the life of renting less than a year ago when she built her dream house.

MH: VO VAN

Sim couldn't remember all the small alleys in Hanoi where she'd stayed since she first came to the city with her backpack. The cramped rooms, no more than ten square meters, housed three or four poor students who scrimped and saved every penny. The low-ceilinged, tin-roofed rooms were like ovens throughout the summer, sometimes reaching 40 degrees Celsius. At night, Sim and her friends would pour water on the floor to lie on, and even with the fan pointed directly at their faces, they still couldn't feel cool. Some rooms were nestled in the middle of the street, like a basin. During the rainy season, water would rush down from above, flooding up to the foot of the bed. Others were right next to the landlord's house. The shared walkway was only about a meter wide, with vehicles parked on either side, requiring constant maneuvering. Whoever arrived first parked their vehicle furthest inside, and retrieving it felt like crossing a border.

Sim lived there for four years, earning a "master parking" certificate from the boarding house, yet she was almost late for work every morning. The landlord loved animals, so they kept dogs and bantam chickens. Sim's room faced the animal enclosure, and on hot days, the smell of dog urine and chicken droppings was enough to give you a heart attack. At night, rats scurried noisily across the roof. She thought getting married would free her from renting, but it turned out to be just another migration from city to city, from one boarding house to another. Looking back now, Sim doesn't understand why she chose to live such a life. She could have easily earned her own money and had a better life. It was all for the dream of owning her own home.

Sim and her husband left the city and returned to their hometown, buying a plot of land on the outskirts of town. They had to borrow heavily to afford building their two-story house with an attic. The spacious house seemed to promise a more comfortable life. However, financial difficulties led to frequent arguments between Sim and her husband. In truth, they were both ill-tempered and, being the same age, neither was willing to compromise. Sim, a lover of literature and beauty, desperately sought a man who would embrace her and accept her mistakes. This led Sim to experience the shock of a woman entering marriage only to have her dreams shattered.

Sim's husband is like a woman; he doesn't worry about big things, instead he's always nagging about trivial matters. Why is the fried fish too dry? Why is the stir-fried meat too salty? If you wash the clothes like that, the electricity and water bills will be sky-high at the end of the month. Sim hates the smell of garlic, but her husband always puts garlic in the dipping sauce at every meal. Sim hates the vegetable garden full of buffalo dung, but her husband still brings it home to fertilize every day. Sim hates his habit of leaving everything in a mess, even making her wash a single bowl after eating. Sim's husband asks unnecessary questions, talks about everything under the sun, knows more about other people's affairs than his own. He doesn't worry about running out of rice tomorrow, but he's constantly preoccupied with petty fights. At the end of the month, there's no money for bank interest, the children's school fees, or even just a roll of toilet paper, yet he's already planning to secretly pay off other people's debts.

Sim was pregnant with her second child, and every time she went for an ultrasound, her husband never once asked if the baby was healthy. Sim handed him the ultrasound images, but he didn't even bother to look at them. His eyes were glued to his phone, checking on the situation on the other side of the world. Sim worked tirelessly all day, and even when her husband came home from work, he still nitpicked about every little thing around the house. When she complained, he glared at her and said, "What the hell are you doing that you're so tired?" What good is having a husband like that?

For a long time, there was little conversation in Sim's house. Her eldest daughter was at school, the youngest was still in her womb, and Sim and her husband only spoke to each other when necessary. Every time she heard her husband close the door and leave for work, Sim would breathe a sigh of relief. When her husband was home, Sim would often go up to the rooftop. Lately, her husband's company had less work, and he occasionally took 70% pay leave. As a result, Sim spent more time on the rooftop than in the house itself – the house she had saved up her entire youth to build. The house had a small kitchen where Sim had meticulously chosen every porcelain bowl, every floral plate, every pair of chopsticks. The house had a bedroom beautiful down to every pillow and blanket. The house had embroidered curtains and a window overlooking the rice fields, where the rice was beginning to ripen, heavy with fragrant grains.

But now, Sim considered the rooftop her world . She looked around where she was sitting; the 120-square-meter rooftop was divided in two. One side was covered with corrugated iron for drying clothes. This side was only partially covered, the rest left open with a metal frame for growing flowers. The sun still shone directly, the rain still lashed down, and there was no way to stop the fierce wind. Last night, her child went to her grandparents' house, so Sim had brought her mosquito net up here to sleep. Waking up in the middle of the night and looking at the moon peeking out from behind the dark clouds, she suddenly wondered if this was really her home.

Why aren't you sleeping in your bed? You'll get sick if you come up here when the dew comes down at night.
- It's safer here.
- Nobody's doing anything to me that would cause me any trouble?
The husband tossed the pillow right next to Sim and lay down. His heavy sigh mingled with the sound of the wind.
- I remember when we first got married, the summer was so hot we spread out mats in the courtyard of our rented room to enjoy the breeze. One night we fell asleep and were bitten almost to death by mosquitoes. The sea breeze was salty on our tongues. You used to say that the sound of the ship's horn at night was the sound of loneliness searching for a companion in the vast ocean. Remember?
- Um... I remember.
- I was pregnant with baby Na at the time. It was so hot; one day, I came home from work and bought a huge bag of ice to wrap around myself. We both longed to go back to our hometown and build a house. Remember?
- Um... I remember.

That memory moved Sim. She looked out at the night-blooming roses, their fragrance so strong. There were all kinds of climbing roses, all bought and cared for by her husband. Occasionally, she'd hear him boast, "I just found a really cheap rose bush, the only downside is I had to travel far to get one. But I'm sure you'll like it." He said he would turn the rooftop into a garden, with flowers blooming every day, grapes hanging in clusters, and gourds and pumpkins bearing fruit in every season. "So you and the kids can come up and play in the cool evenings." Surely Sim's husband didn't want to turn the rooftop into a small room in their house. Sim turned to say something, but saw that her husband seemed to have fallen asleep...

VU THI HUYEN TRANG

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Source: https://baoquangngai.vn/van-hoa/van-hoc/202412/truyen-ngan-san-thuong-9ab42e0/