THE GIRL OF

THE YEAR AT DAU  

A s I came home from work one evening, Mother was talking with two strangers inside: an old lady and a man in his forties. The way they dressed was typical of Southerners’ style, which put me in an inevitable train of thoughts: "Who are these people? Mother can’t possibly know anyone in Hanoi; she has just moved in with me a few years ago. Could it be some fellows from back in those village days, those who moved to the South and now come to visit Mother? Or perhaps they are my guests from work?" The old lady had a very kind face, and despite her age, retained very thick, black locks of hair. As I greeted the guests, Mother introduced me in an endearing tone:

- My youngest one! He was born in the year Mau Tuat. Almost forty when he had his first daughter. 

- Then she turned to me: 

- Do you know who this is? This is Little... no, this is Mrs. Little Tinh! The girl missus Truong Tung saved in the forty-five famine.

Only then did I remember her - Mother's childhood neighbor who was put on a cadaver cart with emaciated bodies. The story had been told and retold so many times I even knew all my grandparents' neighbors. Mother was born and raised in Ninh Giang prefecture, Hai Duong province. When the French first took over and carried out administrative divisions, my hometown Ninh Giang was regarded as one of the most important commanderies of the twenty eight provinces in the North. Back then, my grandmother's house was on the river bank of Be street, and dealt in bamboo lath, cot, gau, dam, do and the likes. In 1945, Mother was about sixteen or seventeen. Every day, she would follow my grandmother or her "market colleagues" to her many "workplaces" such as Ha market, Gung market in Vinh Bao district, Gach market in Tu Ky district, or Mua market in Quynh Coi district. 

At the beginning of the year nineteen-forty-five , the starving started to flock to Ninh Giang town. The  port, the car terminal, the train station, Nhong wharf, Tranh wharf and the streets were stocked with starving beggars trailing around. In early February, some deaths from starving were already spotted. 

Near my grandmother's house, there were the Khangs. They were destitute, living on prepaid money from cot, gau bucket knitting orders. They had two daughters, Big Tinh and Little Tinh. The elder girl was around Mother’s age.  In the budding of the famine, the Khangs first fed on a porridge mixed with vegetables, and later banana-on-bran. The adults were more apt to endure hunger than the young. By then, mister and missus Khang were already scraggy, yet they could still stir their stumps. The two daughters, however, were facing enduring hunger in the midst of their growth spurt. Their legs and hands suffered edema, their skins turned sallow, and their bodies writhed. All they could do was to look at each other. There was no more cot, gau order to knit. 

As girls of the same age, Mother used to frequent with Big Tinh and Little Tinh. Since a foreseeable death sent the Khang sisters to complete horror, they would weep softly in self-pity every time Mother came over. Out of love, Mother sometimes sneaked out for her friends a bowl of uncooked rice or a piece of cake. As self-conscious as girls of that age, Big Tinh only wore intermitten patchy, skin-exposed rags, except an old set of clothes Mother also slipped out for her.

One day, after returning from the market auction, Mother learnt that Big Tinh had died. If the dead wore clothes one gave them into the grave, one should go mad, said Mother's market friends. Out of fright, Mother had to beg for the old set of clothes back. As for mister and missus Khang, they could only gather enough strength to carry their oldest daughter to the sidewalk, waiting for the cadaver cart puller to pass their house and take her body away. It was mere luck that she got a new reed mat to be wrapped in with, and tied by a few rounds of reed string. As the cadaver cart passed, mister and missus Khang were already too drained to shed tears for their girl.

With more starving people crowding Ninh Giang, the deaths were also piling up. Shop owners would start a business day with people sitting on their streetstore's porch, their eyes wide open. Those people could not be chased out of the porch: they were already caught by death. Fear of bad luck, streetstore keepers started pouring water out at dusk, making sidewalks too wet and cold for the starved's bedding. Every morning, three-wheeled wagons clattered the streets in its wake to collect corpses. Ranging from one to three trips a day, these carts marched all the way to the graveyard, where joint burial holes had been readily dug. With each day's body dumping, a thin layer of soil and lime powder was poured on top. When one such pit was full, final thick layers of soil acted as the top coat to prevent epidemic spread and to maintain community hygiene. 

As Big Tinh passed away, neighbors started assuming Little Tinh was next. After mister and missus Khang's decease, however, the little girl lingered. As if expecting death, Little Tinh did not go food begging, just like how she had always led her life - worked hard, asked no one. She only labored to crawl out on the street for occasional charity’s food distributions. The once-or-twice weekly porridge only prolonged the wait for death. 

After Big Tinh died, Mother no longer dared to visit or give the Khangs anything, since to dread others only led back to worried thoughts for the self. On the rare occasions that Little Tinh was caught in her glance, Mother reluctantly avoided further interactions. Then, she heard Little Tinh had ventured out to the port and no one had seen her for days. She must have thought she could feed on rice falling out of grain stockings for the Japanese at the loading dock. Sadly, there was no such thing as a free lunch. The moment a starving man even crawled near the air around the grain stocks, the foreman would knock him dead with his bat. The famished crowd, therefore, only risked as much as to stand from afar, staring lifelessly at the ships being loaded. It was only natural that the port became an everyday stop for cart coolies to collect starved corpses.

It was the Brick market’s auction that day, and Mother was the youngest in her dealing group. The budding summer sun was sweltering. As noon drew nigh, the women had approached the prefecture, although Mother and her baskets suspended on, the carrying yoke lagged behind everyone. At the front was missus Truong Tung carrying her clay pot. She was a native from Cay village, a Hai Duong’s region, famous for its specialized clay pots, bowls, plates and porcelain. Leading the life of a childless widow, she was very philanthropic. Every time she went on a dealing trip to the market, she made it a point to save some rice balls for the hungers' lunch. While being caught in the rhythm of the basket yoke dangling around, Mother heard missus Truong Tung's voice:

- The Cart again. Still, at this hour? Well, ladies, let's take a break! We should move up the dyke to make way for The Cart. What with dead people's petids!

- Following missus Truong Tung, everyone started to put down their yoke and baskets and took a spot in the shade. Mother was the only one too worn out to climb up the dyke, so she still lingered at the road. From afar finally emerged a coolie in a shaken effort to pull a cadaver cart. The wheels clattered with every roll on the road. A great amount of emaciated corpses managed to be stacked on the car. Suddenly, Mother heard a gargling moan:

- Please... Please, sir! I ... ho ho…

Such moan. "Such Devil's sound." – Mother thought as a chill was sent through her spine. Before she could react, she was starring at a cart heavily crawling by, the view of which, accompanied by a swarm of flies, left her dumbfounded.

- Ho ho ... Please, sir! I ... ho ho...

- "That's a human voice. How could there be ghost in daylight?" Mother tried to regain composure and shot a peek. The top of the body was upside down, legs pinched, head down. A scrawny, limp arm was swaying to the rhythm of the wheels. On the road, hair was flowing, sweaty, drifting in length. Oh dear, Mother saw with her own eyes, the mouth was still gasping. Indeed, it was really gasping; indeed it was. The moment hit Mother and transcribed to a shout:

- It's Little Tinh! It's Little Tinh, missus Truong Tung! She's still a...l...i...v...e!

On the dyke, the group of women appeared to have heard the moan as well, as they were frozen in fear. It was Mother's cry that set off everyone's bumbling. A bewildered missus Truong Tung galloped down the dyke, accompanied by her tremulous scream:

- Wait, Mister...Mister...! Mister Cart!

- The coolie sluggishly shaked the conical rice hat up with his head and gazed back:

- Wha...at? You called me? Missus Truong Tung and Mother were then approaching. Missus Truong Tung uttered in panic:

- Mister! She's still a...l...i...v...e!

- Oh bother! Big deal. I'm too pooped to pop here, baby mama. This ain't gonna be alive tomorrow. You want a private trip just for this this afternoon?

There, the moan interrupted:

- Ho ho ... Ma'am... ple...ase he...elp! 

- Missus Truong Tung alarmed:

- You see, she IS alive. Please show some kindness! Have kindness!

- You want kindness? Fine, take your kindness out of my cart. Good riddance. At least this got picked up! To hell with my own worms’ food!

- At this words, the coolie resumed pulling his cart even faster. Panic-stricken, Mother looked to missus Truong Tung for help. After brief hesitance, missus Truong Tung ran forward in decisive strokes, her hands hurriedly untied her statue’s intestine around the waistband. When finally having reached the coolie, she pressed some coins into his hand, begging: 

- Please show some kindness! Have kindness!

The money certainly held the cart back. As it stopped, the coolie sluggishly lowered the pulling handles and started to untie the rope clutching the "corpse", while his one leg was still pressing on the cart to keep it from falling over. Missus Truong Tung and Mother jumped in but failed to catch the body, since she had fallen into a pile on the road. The motions set the flies on turbulent buzzes. It has been over fifty years. The two girls met again, both had become grandmas. That night, Little Tinh and her son stayed at my house. After all those years, the old-timers still chatted about the old time late into the night. 

After that fateful day, Little Tinh was adopted by missus Truong Tung and started assisting her to routine market trips. The success of the August Revolution could only yield so much independence fruits, as the return of the French invaders was looming not long after. The streets of Ninh Giang prefecture was under scorched-earth, and so the people were all evacuated. In chaos, death spared no one. At the end of the year nineteen fifty, during a ravage flee, missus Truong Tung was shot by the Westerners. She died in a foreign village. After buring her mother, Little Tinh followed an evacuated group fleeing away from the Westerners' ravaged regions. During that difficult time, her group fleed all the way to Thanh Hoa – a free zone. Several years after nineteen-fifty-four – the year peace was reached, Little Tinh married a Southern soldier who was assembled to the north. The long distance and family circumstances barred her from returning to Ninh Giang. In nineteen-seventy-five, after the country unification, she followed her husband to his homeland Da Nang. Little Tinh's children had all grown up and worked stable jobs along the lines of teachers and doctors. Only until then that she had the chance to visit her hometown and to track down relatives' graves. How could she find her real parents and sister, when all bodies had been buried jointly? She still remembered the obit day and the name of the village missus Truong Tung died. Fortunately, the villagers also remembered the evacuated woman shot dead by Western ravagers. Little Tinh exhumed and relocated missus Truong Tung to Ninh Giang town's cemetery.

When we bade goodbye, Little Tinh's son - a doctor, was so moved he kept gripping Mother's hand and thanking her for saving his own mother's life. This were her words: 

- Listen, son! Kindness wishes no repayment. Those seeking repayment wouldn’t have offered kindness. And no blessings shall they be offered!

NGUYỄN TRỌNG HUÂN