Back to the old wharf - Long An Online Newspaper

My mother often talked about the small river wharf located next to the straight river. I asked her what was so fun about that river wharf that she kept remembering it for the rest of her life, until we no longer lived in that dreary hamlet surrounded by deep forests, where morning and evening we only heard the howling of gibbons and the chirping of birds. My mother smiled gently. She herself found it strange, not remembering anything, but missing the lifeless river wharf that must have collapsed a little under the waves and changed shape. Only later did I know that it wasn't that my mother missed the old river wharf, but that she missed the memories she had on that gentle hometown river wharf.

Missing the person on the dock.

* *

Mom had gathered dry firewood and stacked it on the kitchen stove to prepare for a long rainy season. “Chicken fat, if you have a house, you have to keep it” - my grandmother used to say. Looking at the sky in the afternoons of the countryside, the color of chicken fat, my mother was worried. In this country, every late summer, it often rained heavily from early morning until late afternoon. Sometimes the dry firewood was completely wet, and my mother had to light a fire for a long time before it caught fire. I sat on the porch waiting for my mother to cook rice, my stomach was growling with hunger. My mother poured rice water into a bowl, added a little sugar, and gave it to me. I took it, slurped it up. Mom asked if the rice water mixed with sugar was so delicious that I had to slurp it down until the bowl was empty. I nodded repeatedly. When you are hungry, everything you put in your mouth becomes a delicacy. Mom smiled, took crushed pepper and sprinkled it on the braised fish that was gradually drying out.

Every time we served dinner, my mother meticulously divided the food into two parts. She placed one part on the table, and my mother and I sat facing each other to eat. She covered the other part with a food basket. The tabby cat was spoiled, and occasionally knocked the food basket to the ground, scattering rice and soup everywhere. My mother was so angry that she beat it with a whip and ran out to the banana grove, crying indignantly. When the food and soup spilled, my mother reheated it until it was piping hot, then covered it again with a food basket, carefully pressing it down with a cutting board. I coldly said:

- Mom, if you leave it like that, it will get cold. Dad won't come home to eat.

That’s because every afternoon I saw my mother reheat the leftover food from breakfast and then we ate together. As for the food my mother saved for my father in the afternoon, at night he didn’t come home to eat, in the morning it was cold and moldy, and my mother threw it away. What a pity! My mother looked at me and then looked away to the back of the house, through the wooden bars, a few wisps of smoke drifted out to the distant fields. At that moment, I saw my mother’s eyes welling up with tears. Suddenly I felt regretful, if I hadn’t said that to my mother, she would have temporarily forgotten her own worries.

The meal passed quietly. Each moment was like a weight pressing down on my heart, pressing down on the austere figure of the gentle mother sitting in front of me, quickly finishing each bite of rice.

* *

So the first days of a period of heavy rain passed. My father did not return. At night, it rained steadily, tiny drops of water fell on the thatched roof, fell on the corrugated iron sheet placed on the mouth of the jar to act as a water channel. The riverbank was desolate. On the other side of the river, the other houses had all closed their doors, the few flickering lights in the house gave off a weak light, it seemed like the darkness was about to swallow them all. The hamlet by the forest still had no electricity, every afternoon, my mother and I had to row a boat to the other hamlet to buy kerosene to light up. My mother heard the dogs barking outside the hamlet, anxiously carrying the lantern out to see. Passing by my room, my mother tried to tiptoe as quietly as possible because she thought I was asleep. Actually, I was still awake. My heart was pounding in my chest. My mother waited for my father to return, but I was half waiting, half not. I waited for my father to return because he was my mother's greatest hope at that time. But I was also afraid of my father coming home, because every time he came home, the atmosphere in the house became tense. My father had never hit my mother, nor had he ever spoken harshly. But my father was cold. To my mother, his coldness was a hundred times more painful than a slap or a curse.

Lying in my room, I knew that my father would return that night. However, he did not stay at home but left with a bag of clothes. My mother followed my father to the riverbank. In the darkness, my mother walked up and took my father's hand. I heard her say, "Dad, don't go, stay home with me and my mother." My father mumbled. It rained again. The sad, heart-wrenching rainy nights. I didn't dare get out of bed but my heart kept fluttering out to the riverbank. The rain soaked my mother. My father left. His shadow blended into the darkness, disappearing into the cold, late night forest. My mother stood hesitantly outside the riverbank for a while then went back into the house. She still walked slowly, afraid that I would wake her.

But I couldn't sleep! I had gotten out of bed a while ago and was standing close to the wall, watching my mother's every move. When she walked through the door, she saw me with dry eyes and pursed lips because she loved her so much. My mother was speechless. I sobbed, my voice mixed with the sound of the rain:

- Mom! Why do you keep missing someone who never loved you?

After a moment of silence, my mother hugged me. Then she pushed me away, using her hand to wipe away the tears that were flowing down the face of the daughter she loved with all her heart:

- Purple, don't say that! Don't blame your father, Purple!

At that moment, I found myself boiling with anger. Mom tried her best to defend Dad, while Dad never considered Mom as his bed partner. I knew Mom loved Dad. And Mom’s love was as immense as the river flowing in front of the house, cutting the forest in two, dividing into two banks connected by shaky bridges. I didn’t understand why, I just felt so angry with Dad! For me, life is only happy when Mom is with me.

- Dad left. If he loved me and Mom, he wouldn't have left on this cold, rainy night!

Mom took my hand and walked over to sit on the bed. The warm blanket suddenly became as cold as my father's heart. Mom lit another oil lamp. Only then did I see that my mother's face had turned pale from the cold, her lips quivering, her hair matted and disheveled. Mom's youth had withered away in this small house on the edge of the cold, desolate forest. Mom's life was filled with days of keeping the fire burning in the kitchen, keeping the hot meals in the food basket, keeping love for the house, and days of waiting for someone who had not returned. I continued to ask my mother, with the eagerness of a fifteen or sixteen year old girl who did not understand much, only knowing how to love her mother with endless love:

- Mom! Does dad not need you, doesn't need me... Is that right, Mom?

Mom looked at me, her eyes seemed to penetrate deep into mine. Mom slowly said:

- No, son! It's not dad's fault. It's mom's fault.

I stared at my mother. Questions filled my head.

- Purple, I was planning to tell you something when you grow up that I've kept secret for sixteen years, only your father and I know. But...

- What, tell me, mom! - I pleaded.

- Purple, you are not… not your father's biological child.

- Oh my god, mom! - I was stunned, my heart felt like it was being poured down by rain, stinging - What does that mean, mom?

Mom looked at the rain falling obliquely outside the porch. Mom slowly told me about the things she kept in her heart. It turned out that before coming to Dad, she had carried me in her womb. I was the result of a rape by someone who only loved Mom but did not love her back. Mom only loved Dad. Mom came to Dad, using deep love to cover up her mistakes. Dad still believed that the little girl named Tim that he carried on his back to the fields every afternoon to fly kites, wade across the small river full of purple water lilies... was his biological child. Until one day my Mom told the truth... Because of the remorse in her heart...

Dad didn’t hate Mom. Dad didn’t abandon Mom right away when he found out she had lied to him. But Dad grew colder and colder every day; Mom’s love for Dad grew deeper and deeper. It helped Mom overcome Dad’s coldness, waiting for the day Dad would return to warm up the house, to reconnect the broken love.

But will dad come back? - I think so. The rainy season is almost over. The rain has stopped and in the sky, colorful clouds often appear, flying across the thousand-mile forest. I often sit outside the riverbank braiding my hair. Mom sits and unties her hair, occasionally looking out at the distant river. In the freshwater season, the river is muddy, with green grass growing on both sides. At this riverbank, Mom used to wait for Dad to come back and see him off somewhere, sometimes for two or three days, sometimes for ten days, half a month,... The riverbank imprinted with Dad's image, reminding Mom of the image of the person she loved but could not keep.

* *

We decided to leave.

Leaving this riverbank. Leaving the dilapidated thatched house that has endured many seasons of sunshine and rain, still standing firmly on the riverbank of the old year.

The day she left, I saw that my mother was very sad. She just stood there, absent-mindedly looking at the house, at the familiar riverbank, at the gutter, the cracked jar,... She looked far away, towards the deep forest. I know that tomorrow my mother will miss the old place and the old people very much. But perhaps leaving is the only way for my mother to ease the sadness of the past, and also to ease the longing for someone who will never return to her.

This year's rainy season has been three rainy seasons. Every rainy season is exactly the same, but my mother can still distinguish it clearly and keeps reminiscing about the rainy seasons that passed by the thatched house by the river. I take my mother out, I bring up funny stories or cook this or that dish to distract her from remembering the past. But no matter what I do, I accidentally bring it up again. When I cook sour soup, my mother remembers the afternoon when she picked water lilies to cook sour soup with perch and waited for my father to come home... My mother looks back at the past.

Mom often goes back in time to find the old house. Maybe my father has now stayed in the house, or has built a solid wooden or brick house to replace the thatched house by the river that kept the sad memories. Mom guesses so.

One day at the end of the rainy season, my mother told me to go visit a friend in the city. I didn't pay much attention. When my mother went to meet her friends, I was even happier because she had found joy in this precarious place where no one seemed familiar. But my mother left early in the morning and stayed until late at night, still not back. I was panicked. I called my mother's friend, but only received a shake of the head. In the confusion, I suddenly remembered the old place, the old wharf. I vaguely realized that a few days ago my mother had nostalgically mentioned the old river wharf.

I returned to the old river wharf. The old house was still there. The thatched house was tall and clean, just like when we lived there. The smoke from the kitchen drifted up to the thatched roof and disappeared into the air. My heart was pounding in my chest. I walked closer. Oh my god, who else but my mother, her hair tied in a bun at the nape of her neck, was busily blowing on the fire to cook rice in the old kitchen that had raised me? There she is! Mom - I was about to say, but my throat choked when I saw my father sitting on the porch drinking tea, looking at my mother, smiling gently. His voice was deep and warm:

- Mom, come live with me. I know your love is as long as a river, never running out.

My tears are flowing…/.

Hoang Khanh Duy

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