Short story: Reunion

One morning, at Ben Con, there was a middle-aged man with a haggard appearance, holding a sedge bag in his hand, looking for a boat to return to the island village. He started talking to a woman who was washing fish in a bamboo basket by the water's edge. She was slightly surprised and pointed towards the sea gate.

Fishing boats are no longer allowed to take people to the island village. You have to go to the pier up there…

Hesitating for a moment, the man quietly turned on his heel. He seemed to be a stranger coming to this place for the first time.

No! He is not a stranger but a man who has returned after many years away.

Two huge, black iron ships stood guard at the sea. At the wharf, people were busy loading goods onto the ships. A passenger looking for a ship stopped in front of the departure notice board and mumbled: The ship to Tuna Island will weigh anchor at 2 p.m. today.

The passenger found a cafe to rest while waiting for the train. He had traveled hundreds of kilometers on an old, dilapidated bus for nearly two days, from a corner of the forest in the Central Highlands to this corner of the sea, but still had to drift dozens of nautical miles to return to the place he had been away from for a long time. During those years away, the island village and his loved ones often disappeared without a trace in his memory; sometimes they suddenly disappeared, suddenly appeared very dimly or just flashed for a moment and then disappeared into the mist. He remembered, forgot. He often stared blankly into the distance as if listening intently to a vague call echoing from somewhere, not paying attention to what was happening around him even though he still communicated normally with everyone.

He was not a villager of that corner of the Central Highlands forest. He suddenly appeared without knowing who he was, why he was in a strange place, without any relatives; just as no one in this mountainous village knew anything about him.

The villagers loved him as a wandering amnesiac, but some called him a crazy old man, a psychopath, or a child called him a crazy old man. Whatever people said, he didn't care, just smiled stupidly. People pitied him and gave him food and cakes. Over time, seeing that he was gentle and harmless, they considered him an unfortunate son of the village. An old couple let him stay in a hut in the field to help them chase away birds, squirrels, and rats that destroyed crops. In return, he didn't have to worry about food and clothing.

He was diligent in farming. After several seasons, corn, squash, beans, and potatoes gave him enough money to support his frugal life. He enjoyed selling his crops at the village market to meet many people, to chat even with random words, to recall in his mind fragmented images, fragmented memories. He lived quietly, alone, trying to find himself again in the days before he came to this corner of the forest.

Until one day…

The sunny weather suddenly turned dark. Thick black clouds rolled in, covering the sky. Then the wind seemed to be gathered from everywhere, rubbing against the forests and fields, making the stilt houses tremble... The rain poured down violent columns of water on everything... And the ferocious streams overflowed their banks, sweeping away rocks, soil, and trees...

At this time, he was leading the benefactor couple's old cow from the stream to the hut but it was too late; the boiling stream swept people and animals into the whirlpool.

After the wrath of heaven and earth had subsided, the villagers found him lying hugging an old cow beside an uprooted ancient tree; the ancient tree trunk across the stream on the edge of the village had kept the two bodies motionless, not being swept away towards the abyss. But he was still breathing faintly despite being unconscious…

The villagers took care of him wholeheartedly and treated him. One night, in a hut in the fields, on a bamboo mat covered with a thin blanket, he heard a buzzing sound in his ears that kept repeating itself over and over again. For several nights in a row, he listened quietly, not knowing why that sound kept ringing in his ears in the quiet of the night, when there was no longer the sound of nocturnal birds flapping their wings. Then one early morning, when he was half awake, he suddenly saw a brown canvas sail of a small boat pressing its bow against the sandbank, surrounded by many figures as if waiting. The buzzing sound in his ears suddenly became clearer and he realized it was the sound of gentle ocean waves...

After that near-death experience, his memory gradually recovered, albeit slowly, and although some memories were still as blurry as an old film reel that was not clear when replayed, he still remembered his hometown and his identity. Yet, it was not until half a year later that the film of his past life was completely recreated in his foggy memory.

While fishing for sharks, he and a few of his crewmates were captured and locked in the hold of a naval ship, then taken to the mainland. Afterwards, they made records and sent them all to military school. After a few months of training, he was sent to a fierce war zone in the Central Highlands near the end of the war. And the rookie soldier in his first battle of his military career was crushed by the pressure of an artillery shell, although he was not injured, he suffered temporary amnesia. One day, he left the treatment facility, wandered around and got lost in a corner of the forest where kind-hearted people took him in.

As his memory gradually recovered, he realized that he had a family, so one day he asked permission from the old couple and the villagers to go back to his loved ones in his hometown, a fishing village in the middle of the ocean. The people who took care of him prepared a warm farewell meal for him. Before the cart took him to the inter-provincial bus station, the only nurse in the village who had been monitoring his condition for a long time, comforted him:

He suffered a severe concussion that temporarily caused him to lose his memory, but his brain was not damaged, so after a while his memory gradually returned. This is not unusual because it has happened before. Don't worry... When you are fully recovered, remember to come visit your relatives!

From afar, O saw many people gathered around the water's edge, waving their arms and pointing. Muc was jumping around and shouting something that O couldn't hear clearly. Before the fishing boat touched the sandbank, Muc climbed onto the boat and shouted loudly into his friend's ear.

Your dad is home! Your dad is home!

Everyone on the boat returned, chatting and rejoicing as their father's son returned after many years of exile.

O was shocked because his father, who had been missing for many years, suddenly appeared in his life, right on his hometown island village. He was confused and didn't know what to do. As usual, he opened the boat's hold, took out a few baskets of fresh squid that his fellow boatmen had caught the night before, brought them ashore, then used a ladle to scoop seawater to scrub the boat's stalls as usual, despite Muc's urging.

Go home! Go see your dad and then wash the boat this afternoon...

Muc held his friend’s hand and ran. The winding sandy road from the beach to O’s house had to go through several steep slopes, but Muc held his friend’s hand and ran like the wind. Before long, they saw two eucalyptus trees that served as the gate to the house. The two of them stopped, each hugging a eucalyptus tree… to catch their breath. Someone had placed a table and many chairs in the front yard for visitors to sit and chat.

Muc pushed his friend's back. The road from the gate to the familiar house was only a few dozen steps, but O hesitated as if he were walking on an unfamiliar road. Many people sitting on the doorstep and pointing on the porch made him even more confused.

Old Cut beckoned him and called out repeatedly:

Oh! Come in, son! It's your dad!

As O stepped onto the steps, a middle-aged man jumped out of the house, hugged him by the shoulders, and shook him.

My son! My son!

Then he burst into tears.

O stood still. He had not yet seen his father's face clearly. He stood up to his chest, his face pressed against his thin chest and clearly heard the rapid beating of the heart of a father who had found his son after many years apart. He looked up at him, 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 had a round face, fleshy cheeks, sparse eyebrows, and curly hair in front of his forehead. He did not resemble his father at all? Oh! Maybe he resembled him in his high nose, with a slightly pointed tip?

Why didn’t his father come back home when his grandmother was still alive? O kept asking himself, so that his grandmother could rest assured that he still had a father to raise and educate him. “With my grandmother gone, who will I live with?” Her sigh, like a gentle breeze, lingered in his ears in the small, low, and dark house of the two of them. He planned to ask his father for the reason, why he didn’t come home sooner, and ask for his grandmother and mother as well. He cried bitterly because he knew that his grandmother was worried and anxious until she passed away because of her worries and concerns for his orphaned status.

The house was warmer because many people came to visit O's father and son, burning incense on the altar of his grandmother. The neighbor, Aunt Tu, thoughtfully made tea for everyone. O sat quietly on the porch, attentively watching his father talk to everyone. He saw that he had a gentle appearance, smiling more than talking; a warm feeling filled his heart for the man who was a stranger a few hours ago.

Everyone left one by one, with Old Cut being the last to leave. He affectionately put his arm around O's father's shoulders, repeating the invitation to come to his house every morning when they were free to drink coffee or tea and chat. O saw that his father seemed to really like Old Cut, which reminded him of his mother and Old Cut's feelings for her before he was born. He planned to ask his father about the sensitive story that happened between the two men.

Aunt Tu prepared the first common meal for O and his father. His father enjoyed some fresh fish cooked in sour soup and some steamed squid. For many years living in the mountains, he had never eaten fresh fish still curling their bodies in nostalgia for the ocean or fresh squid still shining. He remembered the old couple with haggard faces who had taken care of him, shared meals with him rich in bamboo shoots and wild vegetables; secretly promised that one day he would invite them to visit the island village and treat them to the specialties of the ocean. O looked at him, ate sparingly because he wanted to prolong the happy moment of scooping a bowl of rice and offering it to his father; he had rarely sat at the table, but only mixed all the food into a large bowl of rice and swallowed it quickly to finish the meal, or chewed the meal slowly on the boat swaying because of the wind and waves. Aunt Tu happily looked at the two neighbors, whispered:

Tomorrow morning, I will prepare a meal for the two of us to worship our grandparents to celebrate their reunion.

Source: https://baolamdong.vn/truyen-ngan-sum-hop-386205.html