May 26, 2005

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  BLOODY MOON – Part 3

  
  

   

  
  

  It was drizzling and drizzling at the cemetery. A coach man yelled at me to yield the way for a car which carried brick and mortar to build a new tomb.  This funeral I saw this very morning.  The dead boy was the same age as I.  His mother was wailing.  His father had a stone face.  It seemed that he (the father) sat in the funeral coach and stared at me.  I did not look up but I knew.  As told by Tần,  the boy killed himself because he was frustrated of his parents’ fighting.  Kill himself by his father’s gun.  It was said that the father had status and power.  Of course with the status and power there was many associated worrisomes.  Perhaps I was attracted and fascinated by the man’s misery and his wife’s classy and elegance.  That afternoon, I stood under a peach tree watching a stone worker to work on the tomb and watched the man who had a heart-shattering sadness welled in his eyes.  Occasionally he looked toward my way, his stare was softer but my eyes never blinked.  I observed people the same way I observed objects to forget my sadness.  Because of the rain I had an urge to swim to the island Hống.

  
  

   

  
  

  His wedding day was near,  Huyên had to go away, his reason of going away was to buy a few things he needed for the wedding.  I was sure that it was only an excuse.  Tần still came to our house, very sweet to mom and me.  Suddenly, I felt sorry for her beauty that she had to live in solitude in the midst of a barren place like this.  I feared that someday she would regret.  I never hated her, I was just indifferent.  Without  Huyên, my affection toward her was growing a little.  I had a feeling they planned something privately. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Tomorrow Huyên would be back, Tần ask for mom’s permission to let me go out with her to a party.  I sat for Tần to make up for me.  Tần lowered her voice:  “You would stand out tonight.”  Perhaps because of my limp.  You are going to lend me your golden long skirt to cover my limping leg, aren’t you?  I had to shake my head to turn people down when they asked me to dance.  I compared myself with the little mermaid in a fable.  The little princess loved to live on land so much that she had to exchange her tongue to have the human legs so she could meet her prince.  She had to become mute, losing her wonderful singing voice which made the prince fell in love hopelessly or she would turn into the sea foam.  Perhaps, in the end she lost her chance because the title of the story was The Faithful Sea Foam.  As forever, I stood at my private place – anywhere there was always a private place for me – to observe each person.  This was a place for the grown up.  There was not a single kid who was one of my friends.  But in the way people looked at me, I knew they did not consider me as a kid.  They came in group of two or three people and left.  I liked it that way.  It was comfortable.  The sky was clear and full of stars on the top of the bushes, just the same as the night that Huyên tied me into the trunk of the coconut tree.  The moon just came out, dragged along its pastel matted shadow over the low cluster of leaves.  I had to thank Thể Tần.  First I thought Tần would be the most beautiful girl tonight but finally I realized; graceful and classy above anybody was still the lady, Mrs. Hạo,  the woman who sobbed openly and uncontrollably in the funeral that morning.  I stared at her without blinking and blurted out to a man standing next to me:  “Look at that woman in the black velvet outfit.  Oh, I was so obsessed with her beauty.”  There was a dry laugh:  “She was my wife…”

  
  

   

  
  

  To be continued.

  
  

   

  
  

   

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