WIND BLEW THROUGH THE CAJUPUT REGION

NGUYEN - THI - TUYET - MAI

  The Lambro ran down right on the road when the sunset was going down behind the dark blue horizon. Passengers on the Lambro packed their luggages then continued walking home. Only I stood there, breathed impatiently, didn’t know what to do with my very big bag. The driver appeared from under the Lambro, being dirty from his head to his feet, looked at me and smiled.

  “I give up, miss! I don’t have the spare parts to change. I’ll find a way to get you to school. Your school is very far from here. How can you walk with a heavy bag like this?”, he said.

  I tried to smile though I died of scare. The road was deserted. The cajuput forests were around me. It was getting dark. How couldn’t I be afraid of this strange place?

  Twenty minutes later, the driver came back with a young man on his motorcycle.

  “I’ll have Bao take you to your school. I must stay here to keep the car,” he said to me. “I actually want to drive you to your school, but my car runs down suddenly,” he continued.

  “Thank you, Bao. Some day you and I will have a booze, right? And at that time, maybe you’ll thank me back,” he laughed “haha” with Bao but his eyes looked at me.

  “I hope you’ ll stay here forever so that our children can learn very well with you,” this time he laughed at me but his eyes looked at Bao.

  I sat behind Bao on his motorcycle, holding my big bag and wishing he took me to school very fast. Having lived in the city for four years made me more suspicious and more alert.

  “Be careful. I’m a bad person,” Bao said.

  “You too. Because I’m a robber, and I usually attack you drivers from behind,” I answered him.

  “Oh, we draw!” he was smiling, I guessed.

  After that day, Bao usually came to our blocks to visit me. That was just my own feelings. Actually, Bao came to chat and play the guitar and play chess with people; only when people were busy, he talked to me. My colleagues teased me that I was a new person but I had just had a big fig-tree. I smiled, denying that was not true but there was something stirring in my heart …

  That morning I got a letter from Huy. His familiar writings with passionate love made me rather sad. “You try to overcome the sufferings until you get the certificate. You remember to practice listening and speaking English because I’m looking for a job as a tour guide in a tourist company for you. I miss you a lot, I expect to have you in my life forever.”

  I held Huy’s letter in my hand, sighing. I lived here happily, and I didn’t feel suffered. After classes, my colleagues, my pupils, and I went to the river to catch fish, to cut water-lilies to cook sour soup, to pick up some shells for an extra meal. I felt comfortable and related to everyone, everything here.

  In my friends’ eyes, Huy was an ideal man. He studied well, knew how to catch opportunites and knew how to make opportunities. We studied in the same high school in our town, then we moved to the city together, then we became best friends of each other. The picture in which Huy was always beside me was familiar to my friends. They said I was lucky if I would marry Huy. Then I would have a happy life forever. But did I love Huy? I didn’t know. Why I didn’t feel happy receiving his letter, didn’t expect his coming, didn’t miss him like before…? Wasn’t there love between Huy and me? Maybe I was the one who thought so. I had made a mistake, or I was making a mistake? Huy had done many meaningful things for me. There was always my name in his future plans. He determined to stay in the city to earn money, build a house. He looked for a better job so that I could quit this job. He always took care of me. But then…

  After meeting Bao, I realized that my heart had never had the feelings I just experienced. In my dream, there was always Bao’s face with his bright, black eyes when ho told me his life and his dream. “Please stay here, and teach the students here, Linh. They are very pitying. When I was a child, I had to walk over ten kilometers, waded two rivulets to arrive at school every day. I wished to build the tarred roads, the nice and clean houses, the large class-rooms for the poor in my countryside, so that the dirty children like me could study very well. I’m an engineer of construction, you’re an engineer of spirit. Both of us try to take care of… the children,” he said.

  I blushed, trying to avoid his meaningful look.

  Whenever Bao came, he brought me a lot of candy. Milk candy, orange candy, coconut candy, peanut candy… so much sweet that my face had to grimace. “Why do you keep giving me candy? You want me to have decayed teeth?” I shouted.

  “No, I want you to know that my countryside has a lot of sweetness. If you have decayed teeth, you won’t smile at at anyone except me,” he said.

  I tried not to smile, tried to keep my heart calm.

  At night, I couldn’t sleep and felt restless. It seemed I had lied to Huy, to Bao. The most terrible thing was I dared not face up to my heart. There were many ways to explain for faithfulness or betrayal. I kept on reminding myself: “Huy was a boyfriend, Bao was just a friend.” But from the bottom of my heart, I knew that two those positions were changed.

  I still learned English hard and still talked to Bao when he came to see me. I had got the graduation certificate but I didn’t let Huy know. I couldn’t leave my class, my school before the school-year finished.

  When I was a child, becoming a teacher was my dream. I imagined myself as a tender teacher, always helped the young pupils write the words. How many teachers I had had since the day I began going to school up to now? “Honey, you come back to me right after you receive the certificate. Your new job is good, high salary, and you can have many opportunities. I bought a lot of land in district four, maybe we will build our house in a couple of years,” Huy wrote to me. And he didn’t do anything wrong.

  After the ceremony at the end of the school-year, Huy came to see me. He collected all of my belongings and pack them for me. I looked at the table, the book shelf, didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t a normal summer vacation but a meaningful farewell. Sitting behind Huy, I kept on looking back. The small road with green cajuputs at both sides was getting narrower then out of my sight.

  I had been working at the tourist company for more than three months. I made a lot of money, communicated to noble customers, wore nice clothes… but I didn’t feel happy. I remembered what my dad always told me. “You are a mature girl now, you must make decisions for yourself. You may do whatever you want as long as your soul is peaceful, your life is happy.” His words made me confused. What I was doing is right or wrong? Why I didn’t feel peaceful? When I passed by an elementary school, listening to the children’s laughters, I could see my old pupils with their sad faces and my heart turned heavy. When I smiled at the customers, I missed Bao like crazy. “You won’t smile at at anyone except me,” he used to say that.

  That day was the Teachers’ Day on 20/11. Looking at the pupils cheerfully bought flowers and chose gifts, I wanted to cry. One year before, I was also in my beautiful ao dai, smiling brightly among my beloved students. Their gifts were water-lilies, lotuses, wild flowers… all were tied by a rubber string.

  I sighed, tried to hold back my sorrow. Where I lived, there were not only I and Huy but also many people stuck to the city after graduating, then forgot our dreams, our passions when we were still at the school.

  I took my motorcycle passing the company gate, tried to smile at the guard. He didn’t say “Hello miss Linh” as usual, but, “wait a minute, teacher,” he waved at me, “until yesterday I knew you were a teacher. He had me give you this and a bunch of roses. I put the flowers into a vase for fear that they would be withered,” he gave me a nice gift.

  Holding the gift, I tried to guess who had sent it to me. Who? Huy had come and given me a gift the night bebore. A set of ao dai made of silk, and a bottle of perfume of Channel. Might it be…? My heart beat hard suddenly. But Bao didn’t know where I worked. I unwrapped the gift. Oh, it was really Bao’s gift. A box in which there were many kinds of candy and a card on which he draw the pictures himself. My heart was full of the sweet miss when I read Bao’s trembling words: “Best wishes to you on The Teachers’ Day 20/11. The pupils miss you a lot. All of them hope you will come back to school. You left without thinking of us just for once?”

  I put a hand on my chest, tried to keep my heart calm down. Suddenly, an idea occurred in my mind. I called my friend to ask her to go on this tour for me. Oh, how happy to do what I wanted, not what other people wanted. I went to the supermarket to buy two big bag of candies for the pupils. And I had a love story book for Bao. Maybe he came to the school to ask for my address. Because only my parents knew my company in the city. But why didn’t he wait to meet me? Then his kind face, his nice smile on the day we firsr met appeared in my mind…

  I didn’t know when Huy stood next to me. I startled, opend my eyes to look at him. He helped me, taking two big bags from my hands. “You call a taxi? Where do you intend to go? Why do you ask Bich Hang go on a tour for you? Are you tired? What’s the matter? Why don’t you tell me?” he asked me a lot of questions.

  Huy touched my forehead to check my temperature. His loving behaviors, his anxious face made me so sad. I turned away to avoid his caring look.

  “Uhm, nothing. I just… want to… visit may old school. I miss them. I feel sad…” I answered him.

  “Oh, yeah, I must have thought about this first. I’m sorry I can’t go with you ‘cause I’m rather busy. I hope you come back soon ‘cause I have good news for you. Next week the Director will fly to America with you. I think… she officially considers you as her assistant. Everything is good for you. Try your best, honey!”

  I didn’t say anything about the trip to America with my boss. Huy helped me to get in the taxi, then carefully covered me with his jacket.

  “You call me after you arrive there, right? Be careful, honey,” he smiled at me lovingly.

  I turned back to see him blending with other people on the strret, felt sorry for him. I hid my face behind my hands, sobbing silently. What can I do to make it right, Huy?

  The sceneries on the way gave me the feelings of a daughter who was returing to her countryside. The taxi stopped in front of the schooll gate just when the ceremony finished. My colleagues and my pupils rushed out of the school to greet me. The cheerful noise was surround me.

  “We bet that Linh never quitted teaching.”

  “All of us look forward to seeing you again.”

  “The poor pupils keep asking about you.”

  “If you don’t come back, someone will be crazy. He comes to the school every day, but he hasn’t been here for two days. It is said that he has been working for a project in Vinh Hung. God! He looks like an Egyptian mummy!”

  It meant I wouldn’t meet him that day. I felt sad and my heart felt hurt. I smiled, going with them into the blocks but my eyes were wet.

  The sun of the afternoon began setting down, made the sky reddish as my heart was bleeding. To farewell to my colleagues, my pupils this time was a big challenge for me. I got in the taxi, dared not to see the children crying overthere.

  “Please, don’t leave us again…”

  “Why don’t you keep on teaching us?”

  “When wil you come back to us?”

  Oh, I didn’t know how to answer them.

  I wondered if I could you do that, if I could leave them forever… I loved every single road and every single tree here. I remembered the first place, the first time I met him. He was my hero to take me to school. “Be careful. I’m a bad person,” he said. Yeah, he was really a thief, and he stole my heart, my smile. My face was wet with tears then I got in the taxi. I wanted to hear a voice calling my name. The taxi set off. I wiped my tears, turning back for the last time. Oh God! Was it real or just a dream? At the end of the road, a small black spot was coming to me very fast. And in the wind, it seemed I heard a voice calling my name…