became his only memory of his mother, a memory of warmth and a special atmosphere conjured up by his stepfather as he read old love poems he had composed for her when he was young. He took a guitar down from the wall and started singing in a deep voice a song by Van Cao, a song his mother had loved. It was a slow, melancholy song recalling loved ones who were forever gone, decrying life's unhappi-ness yet with a strain of underlying hope:
Don't lament, don't bathe in the sorrows. Look up and live on . . .
After joining the army, Kien had written to his stepfather but had no reply. After the war, ten years after his visit that afternoon, Kien returned again to find him.
But when he arrived neighbors told him his stepfather had died many years earlier. Even the house had gone. It had been destroyed long ago. No one remembered the circumstances of his death, or even how the house had been destroyed.
Such a man, such a story, Kien pondered. But there were so many romantics like him now; some close to him, others from just outside his immediate circle.
Once, at his desk in the editorial office of his magazine, a strange man who wished to remain anonymous approached him, asking for his story to be run in the magazine. It was a love story. The main characters were this man and his wife. "If the names are changed we can then really tell the truth of this very beautiful but tragic story," he told Kien. It was to be an extraordinary present for his sick wife, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of their marriage. Wasn't that great?
Kien thought the story was a load of rubbish and very boring. Yet the courage and determination of the man, and his strong desire to create this unusual present, impressed him, set him thinking.
He could, for example, write a novel about his neighbors above, below, and on the same floor as his own apartment in the one building. It could be a story of symphonies. Not a war story.
Stories, humorous, heartrending, arose every day. Anywhere people were jammed up close together and forced to share their lives. On summer evenings when there were power blackouts and it was too hot inside, everyone came to sit out in front, near the only water tap servicing the whole three-story building.
The tap trickled, as drop by drop every story was told. Nothing remained secret. People said that Mrs. Thuy, the teacher widowed since her twenties, who was about to retire and become a grandmother, had suddenly fallen in love with Mr.Tu, the bookseller living on the corner of the same street.The two old people had tried to hide their love but had failed. It was true love, something that can't be easily hidden.
Or Mr. Cuong, on the third floor, who when drunk once set about his wife with a big stick but by mistake whacked his own mother. The latest gossip was about Mr. Thanh, the retired sea captain, whose family was always having problems. They were so poor they would even squabble over a bowl of rice. Poor Thanh wanted no more of it, so he decided to commit suicide. He tried once with a rope, then with insecticide, but both times he was discovered and rescued.
Thanh was still better off than old Mrs. Sen, blind and lonely, the mother of two sons killed in action. Mrs. Sen's nephew and his wife cheated the poor old lady out of her room by having her sent to a mental hospital to die. The nephew was not only well educated but well-heeled. He had graduated from the University of Finance and Economics, he traveled abroad frequently, spoke two foreign languages, and lived an easy life. On returning each afternoon he would eat a huge meal, then go out onto the balcony to rest, belching repeatedly and yawning. His wife, a boring, tight-lipped, serious woman, worked in the courts. Not once had she ever been seen to smile at her neighbors.
There was Mr. Bao, also on the third floor, living with his parents, Dr. Binh and his wife. He had been released from prison in the recent New Year Amnesty and quickly won the sympathy
Don't lament, don't bathe in the sorrows. Look up and live on . . .
After joining the army, Kien had written to his stepfather but had no reply. After the war, ten years after his visit that afternoon, Kien returned again to find him.
But when he arrived neighbors told him his stepfather had died many years earlier. Even the house had gone. It had been destroyed long ago. No one remembered the circumstances of his death, or even how the house had been destroyed.
Such a man, such a story, Kien pondered. But there were so many romantics like him now; some close to him, others from just outside his immediate circle.
Once, at his desk in the editorial office of his magazine, a strange man who wished to remain anonymous approached him, asking for his story to be run in the magazine. It was a love story. The main characters were this man and his wife. "If the names are changed we can then really tell the truth of this very beautiful but tragic story," he told Kien. It was to be an extraordinary present for his sick wife, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of their marriage. Wasn't that great?
Kien thought the story was a load of rubbish and very boring. Yet the courage and determination of the man, and his strong desire to create this unusual present, impressed him, set him thinking.
He could, for example, write a novel about his neighbors above, below, and on the same floor as his own apartment in the one building. It could be a story of symphonies. Not a war story.
Stories, humorous, heartrending, arose every day. Anywhere people were jammed up close together and forced to share their lives. On summer evenings when there were power blackouts and it was too hot inside, everyone came to sit out in front, near the only water tap servicing the whole three-story building.
The tap trickled, as drop by drop every story was told. Nothing remained secret. People said that Mrs. Thuy, the teacher widowed since her twenties, who was about to retire and become a grandmother, had suddenly fallen in love with Mr.Tu, the bookseller living on the corner of the same street.The two old people had tried to hide their love but had failed. It was true love, something that can't be easily hidden.
Or Mr. Cuong, on the third floor, who when drunk once set about his wife with a big stick but by mistake whacked his own mother. The latest gossip was about Mr. Thanh, the retired sea captain, whose family was always having problems. They were so poor they would even squabble over a bowl of rice. Poor Thanh wanted no more of it, so he decided to commit suicide. He tried once with a rope, then with insecticide, but both times he was discovered and rescued.
Thanh was still better off than old Mrs. Sen, blind and lonely, the mother of two sons killed in action. Mrs. Sen's nephew and his wife cheated the poor old lady out of her room by having her sent to a mental hospital to die. The nephew was not only well educated but well-heeled. He had graduated from the University of Finance and Economics, he traveled abroad frequently, spoke two foreign languages, and lived an easy life. On returning each afternoon he would eat a huge meal, then go out onto the balcony to rest, belching repeatedly and yawning. His wife, a boring, tight-lipped, serious woman, worked in the courts. Not once had she ever been seen to smile at her neighbors.
There was Mr. Bao, also on the third floor, living with his parents, Dr. Binh and his wife. He had been released from prison in the recent New Year Amnesty and quickly won the sympathy
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