“One thing: women like you lack practical brains. No beauty can survive over time. What lasts the longest and is best in a person is love and moral integrity.”
“Moral integrity?” She starts a taunting laugh. Her face suddenly burns like fire: “The most moral person in this world is your mother. Why don’t you sleep with her?”
“Oh…oh…oh…”
He opens his mouth wide, an unconscious gesture. He cannot control himself. Is he trying to scream or say something? But a black and dark wave, high like a wall, suddenly stands in front of him like the waves of Quang Ninh Sea in the old days when there was a big typhoon coming ashore. The angry wave falls on his head and pushes him into an abyss of rocks.
3
When Vu wakes, he is lying in the Viet-Russian hospital.
It is lunchtime, patients are sitting up in their beds waiting for their families to bring their food rations. His cupboard is full of all kinds of fruit and cakes, all starting to wilt because nobody has touched them. Vu feels his head heavy as if a stone is pressing on it. He tries to turn it to both sides to stretch his neck muscles. These movements give him a sharp pain.
“I am old…This painful episode just whips me down,” he thinks to himself but patiently continues the exercise.
The patient opposite him looks on and inquires, “Are you all awake now? Congratulations.”
“Thank you…I have been unconscious for how many days?”
“Three and a half. Ah, yes…altogether four days. You were brought to the room noon last Saturday. Today is Wednesday, eleven thirty Wednesday.”
“Here you count each hour?”
“A hospital is similar to a prison; a day is longer than a century. You have not had a long stay, therefore you don’t know.”
“True. Visiting people, I have. But myself, it is the first time.”
“I heard that.” He starts laughing: “Just stay here a few weeks and you will see clearly. Before you heard people threaten: ‘Staying in here a few days is longer than a century, don’t believe it.’ Once in here the truth becomes evident.”
“Is that so?”
He also laughs. Even the laugh makes his face painful and stiff. However, he is awake. His body cannot be destroyed so quickly. This is a reward from a life of healthy living, with moderation, and with so many chi gong classes. He rubs his cold stiff hands together, waiting for them to warm up, then he uses them to rub his neck.
“I will not submit to failure before I fight back. Old age: I accept thee but in the spirit of competition. I won’t be your servant.”
The doctor in charge steps into the room. A man in his forties, calm and weary. He approaches the bed and smiles: “Greetings.”
“Greetings to you, too,” Vu cheerfully replies. “I live thanks to you, therefore I welcome you. That’s more accurate.”
“Not quite. You have a strong constitution, which is why you recuperated so quickly. If it had been another, it…”
“Another person would have died?”
“I didn’t mean that. But if it had been another, it could have had long-lasting consequences.”
“Because the side effects of a brain aneurism can be total body or organ paralysis or at least a twisted neck, crooked mouth, and so on…Is that right?”
“You know the prognosis like a professional.”
“I read medical books. Not much but enough to have simple knowledge. When I opened my eyes I know that I was lucky. As our elders said: ‘Meet the right doctor and you get the right medication.’ If I say more, people will say I am pompous, but, whatever, I still have to say thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Don’t mention it. It is our duty.”
The doctor seems embarrassed. He quickly says good-bye then leaves the room. Later, a nurse comes in.
“Today you drink milk. Tomorrow, too. From Friday on your diet will change given your health situation. The doctor said you might want to eat rice porridge today but that would not be helpful.”
“Thank you. I will follow the order. No need for you all to be concerned.”
“Should I mix you some milk now?”
“No need. I am not hungry yet. Later, I will help myself.”
The nurse walks away. He continues to rub and shake his neck. He figures that during his days lying unconscious, people had continuously fed him with IV fluids, sugar and minerals, which explains why he does not feel depleted. There is only a feeling of stiffness all over his body. Twenty minutes later, he sinks into sleep. He sleeps straight until nine o’clock before waking up, feeling hungry. He scratches his stomach. He sits up. There is a moment of unsteadiness but later all his movements become accurate and sure. He stands up, mixes some milk, and drinks it. While drinking, he listens to his body slowly coming alive, the warmth spreading from his chest out to his limbs, feeling his blood moving in the veins — all in all a brand-new feeling he has never had before: revival!
“I am your neighbor. Do you remember me?”
He hears someone talking at his ear. He turns over to see a meticulously dressed man leaning against the wall, looking at him with a pair of warm eyes, smiling.
“Maybe…” he replies with embarrassment, trying to recall this stylish look, the fashion of the 1940s, the hair wavy and a light-colored shirt collar turned out to cover the dark jacket:
“The truth? I kind of remember…It is old age…” he replies, one more time trying to conjure the identity of this hefty man with hair à la Yves Montand, the eyes in parallel, the nose bridge regular and the mouth bright pink, lips turned up, definitely the kind of man who is talkative and…
“I am Tran Phu, not the Tran Phu who was general secretary of the Party during the First Uprising, but the one who was a classmate in 1947, during training at Nam Mai Hamlet. Do you remember now?”
“Ah, ah…now I remember,” Vu answers. “Because you said you were a neighbor, I kept searching among my acquaintances in the old hamlet, my birthplace.”
“Lying next to each other for two months, hammock to hammock, foot touching foot. We were more than neighbors. It’s lucky that we were of different dispositions, or else things might have happened.”
“True,” Vu confirms and bursts into laughter.
Tran Phu asks, “Are you still tired?”
“It’s better.”
“Sit up to straighten out your back then try to get off the bed and take a few steps. After the first few steps, you will want to go down the hall and back at a speed just enough to carry you forward. That’s the best way to get your blood flowing. You will recuperate very quickly; I believe that.”
“Thank you. I also hope so.”
Casting his eyes in curiosity to watch the other, Vu says, “And you, what is your secret that time seems not to have touched you at all? It has been more than twenty years. After the first few minutes of surprise, I find you keep most of your old demeanor.”
“I have changed quite a bit. Twenty years is not a moment. You do not see my tummy?”
At that moment Tran Phu pulls the lapels of his blouson to let Vu look. Vu finds his stomach to be quite ordinary. Very normal even for a man of forty.
Vu says, “I see nothing. At the most the waist is eighty centimeters. Compared with others, that is an ideal number.”
“Oh, no…I cannot accept it. Do you remember in the old days I was famous in the front as ‘Tran Phu with the frog’s waist’? My waist was sixty, not a millimeter more. My stomach was smaller and firmer than those of the ladies.”