One morning, at Ben Con, a middle-aged man with a haggard appearance, carrying a woven straw bag, was looking for a boat to return to his island village. He struck up a conversation with a woman washing fish in a bamboo basket by the water's edge. She looked surprised and pointed towards the sea.
Fishing boats are no longer allowed to carry people to the island village. You have to go to the dock further up there…
After a brief hesitation, the man quietly turned and left. He appeared to be a stranger visiting this place for the first time.
No! He's not a stranger; he's someone who's been away for many years and has returned.
Two massive, dark iron ships stood guard at sea. At the dock, people were busy loading goods onto the ships. A passenger looking for a ship stopped in front of the departure time board, muttering: "The ship to Ngu Island will set sail at 2 PM today."
The traveler sought a rest stop to wait for his ferry. He had traveled hundreds of kilometers on a rickety old bus for nearly two days, from a remote forest in the Central Highlands to this coastal area, but he still had dozens more nautical miles to go before returning to the place he had been away from for so long. During those years of separation, his island village and loved ones often vanished without a trace from his memory; sometimes they would appear and disappear vaguely, or flash briefly before disappearing into the mist. He remembered some things and forgot others. He often gazed blankly into the distance, as if intently listening to a vague, echoing call from some unknown realm, oblivious to what was happening around him, even though he was communicating normally with everyone.
He wasn't from that remote corner of the Central Highlands either. He appeared suddenly, not knowing who he was, why he was in such a strange place, with no relatives; and no one in that mountain village knew anything about him.
The villagers pitied him, a wandering man suffering from amnesia, but some called him a madman, a lunatic, or even a child called him crazy. He ignored them all, just smiling foolishly. People took pity on him and gave him food and bread. Over time, seeing his gentle and harmless nature, they came to regard him as an unfortunate son of the village. An elderly couple gave him shelter in a field hut to help them chase away birds and squirrels and rats that were destroying their crops. In return, he didn't have to worry about food or clothing.
He diligently cultivated his crops. Over several seasons, the corn, pumpkins, beans, and potatoes provided him with a small income, enough to support his modest life. He enjoyed selling his produce at the makeshift market at the edge of the village, meeting many people, engaging in casual conversations, and recalling fragmented images and scattered memories. He lived quietly and solitarily, searching for the person he was before arriving at this corner of the forest.
Until one day…
The sunny day suddenly turned dark. Thick, black clouds rolled in, covering the sky. Then, wind, as if gathered from everywhere, swept through the forests and fields, making the stilt houses tremble… Rain poured down in violent columns upon everything… And fierce streams surged, overflowing their banks, sweeping away soil, rocks, and trees…
At that moment, he was guiding the old cow belonging to his benefactors from the stream back to their hut, but it was too late; the raging stream swept both man and animal into a whirlpool.
After the fury of nature subsided, the villagers found him lying with his old cow beside an uprooted ancient tree; the trunk, spanning the stream on the edge of the village, had held the two bodies still, preventing them from being swept into the abyss. But he was still breathing faintly, though unconscious…
The villagers lovingly cared for and treated him. One night, in his field hut, on a thin blanket laid on a bamboo mat, he heard a murmuring sound in his ear that repeated itself regularly and incessantly. For several nights in a row, he listened silently, wondering why that sound echoed in his ears every quiet night, when the flapping wings of nocturnal birds had ceased. Then, one early morning, when he was half-awake, a small boat with a brown canvas sail suddenly appeared before him, its bow touching the sandy shore, surrounded by figures seemingly waiting. The murmuring sound in his ear suddenly became clearer, and he realized it was the gentle lapping of the waves…
After that near-death experience, his memory gradually recovered, albeit slowly, and some fragments were hazy, like an old, indistinct film reel playing back. However, connecting the dots, he was able to remember his village and his identity. Yet, it took six months for the film of his past life to be fully recreated in his previously hazy memory.
While working as a shark fisherman, he and several fellow fishermen were captured and imprisoned in the hold of a naval vessel before being taken ashore. Afterward, they were all sent to military school. After several months of training, he was deployed to the fiercely contested war zone in the Central Highlands near the end of the war. In his first combat, the inexperienced soldier was buried alive by the blast of an artillery shell. Although unharmed, he suffered temporary amnesia. One day, he left his treatment facility, wandered aimlessly, and ended up in a secluded corner of the forest where kind-hearted locals took him in.
His memory gradually recovered, and he realized he once had a family. One day, he asked permission from the elderly couple and the villagers to set off to find his loved ones back home, a fishing village in the middle of the sea. Those who had taken him in held a warm farewell meal. Before the cart carrying him arrived at the intercity bus station, the village's only nurse, who had been monitoring his condition for a long time, comforted him:
He suffered a severe concussion that caused temporary amnesia, but his brain wasn't damaged, so his memory gradually recovered over time. This isn't unusual; it's happened before. Don't worry... When you're fully recovered, remember to visit your relatives!
*
From a distance, O saw many people crowded around the water's edge, gesticulating wildly. Muc was jumping around and shouting something that O couldn't quite hear. Before the fishing boat even touched the sandbar, Muc had climbed aboard and yelled loudly into his friend's ear.
Your dad's home! Your dad's home!
Everyone greeted the boat with excited chatter, sharing in the joy of the child of the father who had been lost for many years finally returning.
Ô was stunned because his father, who had been missing for so many years, had suddenly reappeared in his life, right on his hometown island village. He was at a loss for what to do. Following his usual habit, he opened the boat's hold, took out several baskets of fresh squid that his fellow fishermen had caught the night before, and then used a bucket to scoop seawater and scrub the boat's deck clean, as he always did, despite Mực's urging.
Go home! Go see your father, and then you can wash the boat this afternoon…
Mực grabbed his friend's hand and pulled him along. The winding sandy path from the beach to Ô's house had several steep slopes, but Mực pulled his friend's hand and ran like the wind. Before long, they saw two eucalyptus trees forming a gate to the house. The two of them stopped, each hugging one of the eucalyptus trees…to catch their breath. Someone had placed a table and several chairs in the front yard for visitors to sit and chat.
Mực nudged his friend's back. The familiar path from the gate to the house was only a few dozen steps away, yet Ô hesitated as if walking on a strange road. Many people sitting on the doorstep and on the porch pointing only added to his confusion.
Old Man Cụt beckoned to him, calling out frantically:
Oh dear! Come inside, child! Your dad's here!
As O stepped onto the porch, a middle-aged man rushed out of the house, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him.
My child! My child!
Then he burst into tears.
The boy stood still. He hadn't clearly seen his father's face. He stood up to his father's chest, his face pressed against his thin, frail chest, and he could clearly hear the rapid beating of a father's heart finding his son after many years of separation. He looked up at his father, trying to see if his face resembled the face he had imagined. His father had a bony face, sunken cheeks, a high nose, and thick eyebrows. He, on the other hand, had a round face, fleshy cheeks, sparse eyebrows, and curly hair that fell across his forehead. He didn't resemble his father at all. Hmm! Perhaps he resembled him in his high nose, with its slightly pointed tip?
Why didn't his father come home while his grandmother was still alive? Ô kept wondering to himself, so that his grandmother could rest in peace knowing he had a father to raise and educate him. "With Grandma gone, who will I live with?" His grandmother's sigh, like a gentle breeze, lingered in his ears, echoing in the small, low, and dark house where the two of them lived. He intended to ask his father for an explanation, to find out why he hadn't returned home sooner, and to ask for both his grandmother and his mother. He wept bitterly, knowing that his grandmother's burden, even until her death, was weighed down by worry and anxiety about his orphaned status.
The house felt warmer as many people came to visit, lighting incense at his grandmother's altar. Aunt Tư, the neighbor, thoughtfully brewed tea for everyone. Ô sat quietly on the porch, watching his father chat with the visitors. He saw that his father had a gentle demeanor, smiling more than he spoke; a warm feeling filled his heart for the man who had been a stranger just hours before.
Everyone left one by one, Old Man Cụt being the last. He affectionately put his arm around Ô's father's shoulder, repeating his invitation to come to his house for coffee or tea and a chat whenever he had free time in the morning. Ô noticed that his father seemed to really like Old Man Cụt, which reminded him of his mother and the affection Old Man Cụt had for her before he was born. He intended to ask his father about the delicate matter that had occurred between the two men.
Aunt Tư prepared the first communal meal for Ô and his father. His father happily ate the fresh fish in sour soup and the steamed squid. For years living in the mountains, he had never tasted fresh fish still curled up, clinging to the open sea, or squid still glistening. He remembered the elderly couple with weathered faces who had sheltered him, sharing meals of bamboo shoots and wild vegetables; he secretly promised himself that one day he would invite them to visit the island village and treat them to the ocean's delicacies. Ô looked at his father, eating sparingly, wanting to prolong the happy moment of serving his father a bowl of rice; he rarely sat at a table, instead mixing all the food into a large bowl of rice and quickly swallowing it, or chewing noisily on the boat swaying precariously in the wind and waves. Aunt Tư happily watched her two neighbors, and whispered:
Tomorrow morning, I will prepare a meal for the two of us to offer to our ancestors to celebrate our reunion.
Source: https://baolamdong.vn/truyen-ngan-sum-hop-386205.html
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