by Julia Legian
“Daddy’s going to find a safer place for us to live,” he said. “I’ll only be gone for a short while. I promise I’ll be back for you all very soon. Be good to your mother, okay?” Dad hugged all of us and we cried in his arms and then he left.
Weeks, months and a year passed and we heard nothing from Dad, nor received any financial help from him. With the boat, the money and the main breadwinner gone we went to bed hungry once again.
Chapter 12
Erosion finally claimed our house. Grandma found another abandoned house at the edge of my favourite mangrove forest. It had two bedrooms, a separate large kitchen and even a proper toilet. Grandma knew the previous owners and before they escaped from Vietnam they told Grandma to move in as soon as they left, to keep looters away.
With Dad gone and with our family struggling for food, I started going to the jungle again to collect snails, cockles and plastic bags to sell for pocket money. I was only ten years old. The forest quickly became my special getaway place where I could escape from the troubles at home, especially from Mum's constant moaning. The forest spooked most of the village kids. I wasn’t really afraid of much except for spirits. Grandma told me they only came out at night, so I thought I should be okay.
It was nice and sunny. Although the unbearable heat and humidity drenched my clothes, it was a perfect day for searching for treasure.
Halfway along my usual route along the dirt road, I noticed a pretty wooden basket sitting under one of the mangrove trees on the other side of the canal. I couldn’t wait to get to it and worried that someone might spot it and take it before me. I dived into the water, looking to take a shortcut. The tide had gone out and the mud was up to my waist. While the walk was difficult, I thought it would be worth the effort. I strained against the brown muck, dragging my legs as fast as I could, planning what I could spend the money on from my great find.
As I got closer I saw a fine pink cotton sheet in the basket. It was wrapped around a small parcel and I wondered what other potential riches would be hidden within its folds. With my muddy hands I picked up the bundle from the basket, too excited to worry about leaving dirty brown stains on the sheet. The bundle was quite heavy. I opened it.
My heart plummeted and I screamed in fright as the sightless eyes of a dead baby stared back at me. A heartless mother must have abandoned it. The smell of death closed in around me, invading my nostrils and dousing my senses with an odour I would never forget.
I dropped the tiny body and moved as fast as I could through the sludge back towards home, my body heaving with shock. Grandma had instilled in me a fear of dead spirits from an early age. She said if I disturbed a dead body his or her spirit would haunt me, attaching itself to me for the rest of my life.
I tried to force my legs to run, but the mud was too deep and slowed my retreat to a terrifying shuffle. I closed my eyes as often as I could. I kept seeing those poor dead little eyes staring up at me and I thought the baby’s spirit was behind me, following my every movement.
“I’m sorry little baby, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I cried as I laboured along. “Dear God, please forgive me, I didn’t know what was in the basket.”
I apologised over and over again to God and to the infant. By the time I reached the roadside, I was out of breath and terrified. The path was clear and I took off like a rocket, not daring to look behind. I reached the house, still crying and shaking with fear. Mum saw me. She was fuming with anger because I was covered in mud. She demanded to know where I’d been. Her face darkened with anger when I told her. She slapped me across the face.
“You stupid idiot! You deserve it. I told you not to wander around. Get out of my sight!”
I went to Grandma and cried in her arms.
Around this time I met a boy named Xu. He came from a rich family and we immediately became good friends. One day I went to his place and found him eating a honeycomb. I asked him if I could have a tiny bite and he agreed.
“Oh my God, Xu. This tastes so yummy! Where did you get it?”
“My dad stole it from the bees in a wild fruit tree behind my Uncle’s place.”
“Is there any left?” I asked.
“Yes, but my Dad said it’s dangerous. You have to make sure no bees are around, or they’ll sting you to death.”
I grinned. “That’s too easy. All we have to do is throw dirt at them and they will fly away.”
“I don’t know, Loan. What if they don’t fly away and chase us instead? And who’s going to climb the tree to steal the hive?”
I had solutions for everything. “How about we find a long stick and we poke it from the ground? You poke the hive while I distract the bees. I’ll make sure they leave you alone, I’ll make them chase me instead.”
“I don’t know, my Dad said it’s dangerous.”
“Come on, Xu, don’t be a chicken. I overheard a girl talking to her friends about the bees. She said if you were chased by bees and couldn’t run faster than them, all you have to do is stand still and hold your breath. The bees won’t be able to detect you. They were probably planning to steal the same hive.”
“Okay,” Xu replied. “Let’s go, I will do what you say.”
As we walked past my house, Hanh shouted, “Hey, where are you going?”
“We’re going to steal some honeycomb from a tree.”
“Can Tien and I come?”
“Okay,” I shouted back. “But you’ll have to run fast if the bees chase us. And don’t blame me if you get into trouble.”
Tien and Hanh were so excited.
“No problem, we’ll run,” Tien said.
We walked to the house belonging to Xu’s uncle. When we got there, we were happy to see there were only a handful of bees flying around. As planned we started to throw dirt and sticks at the bees, trying to scare them away. Out of nowhere, hundreds of bees swarmed out from the hive.
”Run everyone, run!” I screamed. “Where did all these stupid bees come from?”
We ran as fast as we could with an army of angry bees on our tail.
“Sis, I can’t run any more!” Hanh cried.
“Just stand still and hold your breath then. They’ll leave you alone,” I yelled back.
Xu, Tien and I took off like rockets, leaving Hanh behind. She arrived some time later with her body swollen, both of her eyes barely open.
“Oh, my goodness! Oh, dear God! What happened to you?” Grandma asked while the three of us cracked up with laughter at the sight of her.
“We threw things at a beehive and I couldn’t run fast enough to get away from the bees,” Hanh replied. “Loan told me to stand still and hold my breath. She said the bees would leave me alone but it didn’t work.”
Mum came out of her room with the bamboo stick and whacked Hanh all over for being stupid and for listening to me.
Grandma frantically chewed on her favourite betel leaf and areca nut and spat the juice all over Hanh’s body. This was Grandma’s magic cure for everything. Whenever we got hurt or injured she would heal us in this way. Hanh suffered for days.
As punishment, Grandma banned me from going to the forest. But I could still hang out with Xu. I always thought Grandma’s punishments were kind of silly.
Xu lived in a brick home a few hundred metres from our place. His family had television and radio - all the modern things rich families had in the 80s. I went there every night to watch a Vietnamese folk opera show. My desire to watch the show was very strong - even greater than my fear of ghosts. Night after night Xu’s family loungeroom would be crowded with people who came from all parts of the village to watch. While they had to pay a small fee for the privilege, his family allowed me to watch the show for free and gave me a front row seat, next to Xu. The show usually went for two hours and finished around 10pm.
On one particular night the show did not finish until half past midnight. As I struggled home alone in the dark, I thought I saw a bright orange circle suspended in the air. I rubbed my eyes, thinking some
one was playing tricks on me. But the circle remained. The closer I got to it, the bigger and brighter it became.
“What the heck is that?” I wondered.
I was terrified. I felt my heart thumping as if it was about to jump out of my chest and I felt like I was about to wet my pants. I stood still, frozen with fear. “Nam Mo A Di Da Phat, Nam Mo A Di Da Phat,” I chanted to Buddha then prayed to God hoping that would scare the thing away.
“Run,” I told myself. “Hurry! Run back to Xu’s place!”
I was shaking and talking aloud to myself.
“But I don’t want to turn around. I can feel something behind me, breathing down my neck. Oh, my God, what am I to do?”
I stood there staring at the vision, silently begging it to go away. It didn’t. It came closer and closer. It was aflame and the flame got bigger then turned into a giant ball of fire. I stood and watched the circle spinning clockwise with the flame dancing. Strangely, as it got closer I felt a warmth and calmness settle over me. It was as if it was trying to tell me not to be afraid of it. I felt the fear leave my body and I slowly walked towards the flame. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared into darkness.
I went home and found Grandma waiting for me as usual. I told her about my encounter. She smiled, as she always did, and told me to go to bed. I was disturbed and restless, I couldn’t close my eyes.
“Grandma, Grandma, did you hear that?” I asked.
“No, what is it?” she asked.
“There! There it is!” I listened.
“Hush, my baby, hush. Mummy loves you,” a voice outside the wall said. “Close your eyes and go to sleep.” It sounded like a woman singing, trying to calm her baby.
“Grandma, can’t you hear the lady singing and the baby crying?”
“It must be the neighbour. Be quiet and get some sleep.”
“Grandma, what neighbour? The closest neighbour is far away and besides, she doesn’t have kids,” I said.
“Loan, be quiet. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t, Grandma. The voices are so loud. Can you please go and check?” I begged.
Grandma went out and came back a short time later.
“There’s nobody there.”
“What do you mean there’s no one there? I can hear them. It sounds like they’re just outside the wall.”
I was shivering with fear.
Grandma laughed. “All right, I’ll tell you the truth. The fireball you saw earlier and the voices you’re hearing are from spirits. There’s nobody out there and I can’t hear anything, so obviously somebody is trying to haunt you. That’s what happens when you are naughty! I told you not to go out after dark, but you wouldn’t listen.”
I covered my ears with both hands, desperately trying to block out the noises but to no avail. I lay glued to Grandma for what seemed like an eternity before I finally settled down and fell asleep. From that day I never left our house after dark.
Not too long after that I woke up one day to find my beloved Grandma had left us again without saying where she was going or when she would be back.
Mum decided to take my three younger sisters and go to look for Dad. She left Phuong and me behind.
Chapter 13
Mum took us to another part of the village and told us we would be staying with her Aunty, Grandma’s older sister, for a while. She promised she would come back for us. We walked for some time and as we approached a big house an old lady greeted us.
“Hello, Aunty,” Mum said. “Thank you for letting my girls stay with you. I’ll be back in three months’ time.”
“Wow, Phuong! Look at those wooden beds and the Chinese blankets! Polished wooden display cabinets!” I babbled. “I love those blue and white Chinese ceramic bowls. Oh, my God, look at the fancy colourful wallpaper. They have fairy tale stories of Tam Cam and Son Tinh Thuy Tinh. Woohoo. We struck it rich, Phuong.”
Tam Cam is a story about the Oriental Cinderella and Son Tinh Thuy Tinh is Vietnamese folklore, a story about natural phenomenon of the tropical monsoon.
I jumped and danced around Phuong, not realising that Mum had gone without saying goodbye. The lady turned out to be Grandma’s second eldest sister Ba Tu. This was the first time I had met her. I hadn't even known we had relatives in town. My first impression was of an unfriendly, tough woman who was dreadfully overweight.
I loved Ba Tu’s house. This upper class lady had the luxury of a real metal stove and large containers of water for showering in, instead of throwing buckets of cold water over yourself. She had a constant supply of fresh drinking water. Phuong and I thought we had died and gone to heaven.
Ba Tu also had condensed milk. I imagined this to be nectar from God. Although forbidden to drink it, there were times I snuck into the kitchen to take a sip of the magic liquid.
Ba Tu shared her house with her four adult children and two young boys who were her grandsons, our cousins. The younger grandson Hung was my age while San, the other boy, was three years older. They appeared normal and friendly.
For the first time since leaving Grandma’s house, we had a decent bed to sleep in. Phuong and I shared with Ba Tu’s three daughters. The boys shared a bed with the uncle and Ba Tu slept in a huge bed by herself.
The next morning we went to school with the boys. We dressed in uniform - black pants, white shirts and red scarfs tucked neatly under our collars. The school was in a different town, Ben Nha Tho, a long walk that took over an hour from our place. As we approached the huge gate I was in awe at the size of the building.
“Oh my God, Hung, this school is awesome! Hung, do you think the teachers would let us out of this giant steel gate during our break to play hop skip on those church steps over there?” I asked my cousin.
“No, but we can play after school if you want, but not for too long as we need to get home on time,” he replied.
At first it was wonderful living with Ba Tu. We had decent food to eat, nice cousins to play with and a friendly uncle plus aunties we didn’t know we had. Phuong and I were happy there. However our happiness proved to be short lived.
I enjoyed going back to school. I didn’t like studying but I loved playing with the other kids and had lots of fun on the way to and from school, picking fruit from strangers’ gardens and being chased away by them.
I also loved my teacher Mr Dan. He was from Saigon. He always dressed really well, like a movie star. He walked and talked like a gentle lady. Most kids thought he was a ladies’ man. One day I saw Mr Dan standing in front of our classroom door staring at the ground, refusing to go in.
“Mr Dan, what’s wrong?”
“There’s a caterpillar on the ground and I’m afraid to walk over it,” he replied.
“Don’t worry, Mr Dan, I’ll move it for you.”
I grabbed it and threw it off the steps. The ugly thing made my skin itch like crazy.
“You’re a brave little girl. Thank you very much, my love,” Mr Dan said and patted me on my back.
I walked away with a cheeky smile. After school on the way home I had a brilliant idea.
”Hey Hung guess what?” I said. “Our teacher Mr Dan is afraid of caterpillars.’’
Hung looked puzzled. “So?”
“What do you mean so? Can’t you see? This is our chance to have some fun.”
“How?”
“Let’s get to school before him tomorrow, find the biggest caterpillar and hide it in his drawer.”
I giggled as I imagined the look on Mr Dan’s face when he saw it.
“No, Loan, I won’t do it. If he finds out he’ll cane us to death.”
“Don’t be a chicken, Hung. Mr Dan won’t hit us. Can’t you see how kind and gentle he is? It would break his heart to hit us. He’s not tough enough.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Fine, then I’ll do it.”
When Hung and I arrived the next morning we searched for the biggest fat, black caterpillar we could find. Hung was happy to help me find the caterpillar, but that was a
s far as he’d go. I forced open the window of our classroom, climbed inside and carefully put the caterpillar in Mr Dan’s drawer and shut it.
I went back outside and found Hung discussing my plan with other kids. We couldn’t wait for the bell to ring. By now everyone in my class knew what was about to happen. When Mr Dan arrived, we all stared at him and giggled. Mr Dan was puzzled and had no idea what was happening.
The bell rang and we rushed inside and sat there in great anticipation, waiting for Mr Dan to open the drawer to get his chalk. Finally, he opened it.
“Arrrgggghhhh! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
Mr Dan screamed like a girl and ran outside with his legs and arms flailing everywhere. The kids rolled on the floor with laughter.
I ran after him.
“Mr Dan, sir, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not. There’s a giant caterpillar in my drawer,” he cried.
“No worries, sir. I’ll get rid of it for you.”
I found a small piece of paper and took the ugly thing outside. Mr Dan went back into the classroom and this time his face was as black as thunder.
“I want the person who’s responsible to stand up right now.”
Nobody stood up.
“If this how you want to behave, I’m going to punish the entire class. There will be no lunch and you will all get extra homework and a note will be sent home to all your parents. It will tell them that all of you will be staying after school an extra hour for detention.”
“Sir, that’s not fair!” Bay complained. “We didn’t do anything wrong. It was Loan. She acted alone.”
“Bay, you idiot! Who asked you to talk?” I screamed at him.
Mr Dan grabbed me and dragged me outside.
“Stay there,” he ordered.
He went to the office and brought back two small dried pieces of prickly jackfruit covers.
“Now kneel on them until I say you can go.”
