He walked once all around the middle hamlet, greeting others by mechanically nodding his head without really knowing who it was he was greeting. His restlessness was burning inside him. At this hour, all his official responsibilities were done and all the rest of the New Year’s chores and family offerings were tasks for his wife. Quy’s mind was transfixed on only one image, one name, one green blouse, one shy smile, and they all belonged to a whore named Ngan!
“A whore named Ngan, a whore named Ngan, a whore named Ngan!”
He quietly cursed.
Then, while so cursing to himself, he realized that he was cursing someone without having any proof. So, now the main thing for him remained how to prove that the whore named Ngan was “indeed a whore, one hundred percent a whore.”
But, sad to say, to prove this point, he needed Vui’s help — that old maid who was unpredictable and irreverent. She was the one who could provide the proof. Just as a hungry cat must find a way to scratch the throat of a well-fed cat, so too with women. Forcing this old maid to scramble for clues about this well-bosomed whore would be the best plan. But even the best plans have flaws: Vui deserved her reputation for being capable but she was more conceited and disagreeable than anyone else. These thoughts took Quy to the familiar path returning to the upper section. Suddenly he realized that he was getting close to home. The cold wind during his walk had cooled his rage. At the end, he consoled himself:
“Even if I am enraged to the point of bursting inside, I can’t do anything. Vui knows all the ins and outs of the story, not me. And this old maid will not listen. Well, if earth won’t give in to heaven, then heaven will have to give in to earth. I have to be flexible with her.”
He crossed the entrance just as his two daughters carried the kumquat plant from the garden to the inside patio. Back in the kitchen, a pot of rice cakes boiled briskly, the appetizing smell spreading through the air. Here and there, the sounds of small firecrackers were heard around the hamlet. The feeling of the New Year approaching was starting to spread. Quy went inside the house, threw his leather jacket on the table, and lay down on the settee, stretching his legs. He closed his eyes and visualized what would happen tomorrow night: New Year’s Eve, the last night of this unfortunate year. The district opera troupe will arrive here to perform Thi Mau Will Go to the Temple. For sure, Mr. Quang and the whore Ngan would stay home and not attend. Their absence would be the best excuse for the villagers to gossip, and, at that moment, Vui would do her thing. Her trip must bring success to him. Tomorrow night would be the night of victory. He stroked his belly, inhaled deeply, and screamed:
“Someone boil me a pot of cilantro water. I have not bathed for the whole week!”
The district Public Works Committee always had three work teams on duty, under the supervision of three general contractors, usually known by the cute name of Managing Cadre Outside the District Organization. Mr. Quang was in charge of the masons and carpenters for the city. The second gentleman had a contingent from Ha Tay province. The third was in charge of the team from Phu Tho. Except for Mr. Quang’s team, the two others included many women and girls. These were adventuresome proletarians who had to seek food for themselves far away from their parents.
If you are born in a city, you already know the difference between living in a city and living in the countryside. Such a difference can never be eliminated:
“Being wealthy in the village does not equal being a squatter in the city.”
Getting a bowl of rice in a village is extremely difficult; besides rice stalks, what is there that can turn into income? In half mountain and half paddy villages like Woodcutters’ Hamlet, cows, water buffalo, bees, and poultry can be raised. But in the lowlands, houses are small, the population is dense. Grass patches are narrow like a panel of a shirt, not large enough to feed buffalo to work the fields, let alone raise cattle. Life depends on the rice stalks, and such skinny stalks will not support many expenses, such as for salt and fish sauce, oil for lamps, gifts for New Year’s, funerals and weddings, taxes, clothing and jewelry, education and medicines for the children. Because of these realities, Mr. Quang’s work team had not a single woman, while the other two teams had many. These women were given a spiteful name: “Coolie Girls.”
More concretely: “Nai Shop Guys and Coolie Girls.”
Nai shops were found at the intersection where drivers coming and going from all over the Red River basin stopped to eat, bathe, or seek other needs in the dark. When there is demand, there must be supply, though the government intervenes in all manner of useless ways, even tearing them down sometimes. In the end the government had to permit the residents of the Nai street to erect a row of eateries, noodle shops, cheap boardinghouses, tea shops, fruit and cake stands, and other miscellaneous establishments. Nai Shop Guys were skilled in buying and selling. For a long while used to having money, they enjoyed taking pleasure with women and gambling. Anywhere a game of chance is found, there too are cheating, trickery, deals, and paybacks. In the eyes of ordinary people who lived lives of lawful order, those escapades of Nai Shop Guys that flounted heaven and pissed on earth, along with their bloody killings and stabbings, appeared as an epidemic, a terrifying pox pandemic that must be avoided at all costs.
Second to the Nai Shop Guys were Coolie Girls from construction sites, peasants who had flown their cages, nicknamed “aspiring peasants” by sharp tongues in the city, or “crazies” by rural villagers who gave them suspicious stares. From those two unfriendly vantage points, those who yesterday had dirty legs and muddy hands from rice paddies or dry fields, but today bent their necks and shoulders to carry timber and bricks in construction sites, were grotesque and unrestrained.
In the minds of villagers who are tied down to one home and one paddy field and who, for generations, have hidden behind one temple roof and a bamboo hedge a thousand years old, the lifestyle of men and women living together, the hustle and bustle of construction work, as well as constant moving from one place to another, deservedly places suspicion on their moral character:
“Taking food from others, temporary quarters…vagabonds like traveling opera actors.”
An unusual lifestyle, without repose, makes others half envious and half terrified. As things go, whatever differs from us, we first spit on. If you can’t remove it, you just throw stones to keep it away.
Given these emotional responses, once they decide to leave, women from the countryside — with one shoulder burdened by heavy family debts and the other with shame thrown at them by villagers — do grow adventurous. They intentionally taunt society, take on a careless air, respond in your face, believing that such reactions give them energy to stay strong.
And so, Mr. Quang’s young wife had been one of those women — laying bricks, whitewashing, building — women who undertake the heavy labors that, usually, only men have the strength to accomplish.
One morning Mr. Quang had been crossing a bare patch of land where a temporary fence made of wooden poles had been erected to create a barrier between two work teams — his and that from Ha Tay province. Suddenly he heard the striking laughter of girls. Surprised, he turned around. Seeing no one familiar, he continued walking straight ahead. At that instant, three or four girls called out repeatedly in the Ha Tay accent, which cannot be mistaken for any other:
“Hey, mister…hey, you there!”
“Hey, you — Mr. Good-looking Old Man — turn around, someone is calling you.”