Having looked at the sky, mother called Anh Thuy back when she saw Anh Thuy and her husband going out in their raincoats. Yes, her daughter was married, but mother had still regarded her as a little girl, asking her to take a warm shawl.

“Look, it is so harsh the weather here, you know. Don’t neglect to get sick!” – mother said, calling after her son-in-law who was driving the motorbike in the rain – “What a pity! There has never been such a persistent rain. It was cold last year with little rain, but not so cold as this with such a downpour”

“Yes, it’s no wonder that there are not so many beautiful flowers at the flower market, mom!” – Anh Thuy said to her mother – “You’d better stay home in this rain. There are still some small articles and we will buy them when we drop in Hom market on the way home, mom!” 

*  *  * 

It was the nightfall on the 28th of Lunar December. Thuy and mother were tending the ancestor’s altar.

“Mom, peach blossoms look so denuded this year, only leaves and buds are found more than flowers. Roses are seen everywhere in the market, yet they are covered with paper”

“Yes, these flowers are found fading soon before the day fades away if you want to arrange these flowers in the house” – mother chimed in.

“But kumquats seem getting a bumper crop, mom. The fruits look so brightly yellow and round”

She was about to let the cat out of the bag to her mother when she wanted to keep in the dark until the 30th night, the Eve of Tet. She took the photo of her father in the frame, cleaned the glass and placed it carefully behind the joss-stick censer on the altar. The man in the photo looked young with a cap on the head, in a military officer uniform with some medals and orders on the breast. The photo seemed smiling at Anh Thuy. She looked fixedly at it. Her father died when her mother was at the same age as she was now and yet, mother remained a widow since then.

“Dad, we’ve come home to enjoy Tet with mother. Dad, will you come home and enjoy it with us? I have never forgotten the last Tet when you and mother were together that year” – Thuy thought, her eyes seemed being welled up in tears. She turned away just for fear that mother could see it. Yes, Thuy had never stopped missing her father, loving her mother when she was in Russia for so many years. She remembered that enjoying Tet with her parents in Hanoi or anywhere, flowers were always the much-needed thing of her mother, a foreign language teacher. She had dreamt so many times about this Tet. She would together with mother to wrap ‘banh chung’ (square sticky rice cake, a speciality of Vietnamese food during Tet). She would decorate the house, even the room where she, her husband and little daughter Xim stayed would be decorated in the Russian style. However all what she had dreamt of doing had been already completed. The ‘banh chung’ had been wrapped in her uncle’s house some days before, the house had been repaired in two months. Mother had also bought peach blossoms. Only the living room was still left without a vase of violet flowers which father had always bought for mother when Tet came. So she wanted to give a surprise to mother when she had returned home to enjoy Tet for the first time after so many years living far from home. For so many years since her father’s death, mother had lived alone and enjoyed Tet alone. Mother was a beautiful Hanoi girl, yet she had lived without remarrying any man. She had stayed widowed to bring up her daughter. Every Tet came, mother had followed the tradition of the Hanoians to prepare the Tet days in a careful and meticulous way. She had cooked the best green bean compote and prepared the lotus-scented tea for father. Since Anh Thuy left for Russia and stayed there seemingly for good, mother had a simplier Tet, but she had still kept the traditional Tet intact, as she had written to her “This Tet, apart from the peach blossoms for the living room and lily flowers to worship the ancestor, I only bought some brightly yellow chrysanthemums that could stay fresh for several days. But I did not buy the violet flowers. Passing by the market and seeing the violet made me miss father so much…” That last Tet had never faded in her memory and those violet flowers father had offered to mother.

…. The military jeep pulled up in front of the house and father hopped out of it in a wet raincoat. The bunch of violet flowers in his hands was laden with those crystal rain drops. Yes, it was around 30 years that had gone by. Right on the first day of the Lunar New Year, father had been asked to be present in a border area and he had never returned. The vase of the violet had stayed fresh for quite a long time. Those violets had stayed bluish-purple almost for good in the living room. Mother had not changed the position in the living room as if father had still been alive there until the last petals of the violet had fallen, dyeing the purplish blue all over the floor.

How could Anh Thuy forget it?

 * * * 

It was the night time, around 12 o’clock.

It was incessantly raining. The light in the small room occupied by Anh Thuy and her husband had been off. Only a conversation was heard.

“Tomorrow afternoon, will we have to drop in the market again?”

“Do try! Or, let me go to Nhat Tan market, but you should pass by Hang Luoc Street. There are still a lot of work to prepare for Tet, so we’d better to divide the workload”

“But why do you insist on having only the violet? I think Da Lat roses are so beautiful. They are as big and beautiful as those in Europe”

“You can’t understand it. This is the Tet after so many year of our absence from home. I want to please mother. I want to give mother a bunch of violets like in that year….”

The room was in dead silence. The drip drop of the rain was heard clearly. A moment later, the room was lighted again. Anh Thuy was working on a computer. She wrote on the blog wall:

“Whoever knows where the violet flowers are on sale?”

Only a few seconds later, a line of words appeared:

“Oh, God, I also like this flower for Tet, but when I was in Hang Luoc Street, I could not buy it because they had only a few, even though the prices is very expensive”

“Do try to buy it in Nghi Tàm flower garden!”

“I did try and I intend to be there again tomorrow”

“It rains a lot this year, you know, and all the flower fields around Hanoi have been damaged”

“O.K. Don’t buy it, AT (Anh Thuy for short). You can buy a mixed bunch of flowers. Overhere, it snows and everywhere is all white. Anh Thuy has now been in the home country, so the whole group in Moscow have not had anyone who can help cut paper to make peach blossoms. A weeping….”

Early tomorrow morning there would be more message about the flowers, she smiled. We have the right to hope, she thought. As soon as she intended to switch the machine off when some one wanted to talk with her in the chat window. It was the nickname of a writer, her friend, an older friend.

“Ciao, AT! Have you taken a stroll on all the streets, haven’t you? I did read the lines in your blog”

“Oh, yes. I did go to the streets for some times. It is said that the violet flowers are rare and expensive!

“This year, it is water logged. My uncle when alive had also liked it very much. So I bought about 5 branches of violet flower and placed them on his altar every Tet”

“I’ll go and look for it tomorrow. If there is, I’ll buy it and divide it with you!”

“Oh, it would be much better. Thank you before hand….” – Anh Thuy switched off the machine.

The lap top of her older friend in a house by the Red River was also turned off. The old writer walked to the window. The fine rain was incessantly raining. Looking down from here, the river was flowing swiftly. He was a man of movement. One ten years he had spent on the battle field and 20 years in Germany, he could be able to understand the girl’s psychology, a reader he loved. As for those who had lived far from their home country, there were a lot of things to remember, but the Tet festival in Vietnam is most remembered and expected. As for this young girl, it was certain that she was imagining the Tet she was about to enjoy with her mother for the first time after so many years of separation. Actually, having the violet flowers or nor was not so important for him. But he loved that young girl with a warmhearted smile. Their friendship was set up through the Internet when they were still living abroad. She seemed to like his short war stories very much. Once from Russia, she commented on the Nguoibanduong online paper: Thank you, the writer, for helping to understand better about the war.

“It is the time of ours!” – He sent it to her mail box and knew something more about the girl through her reply:

“My father was also a soldier and he died when I was still very small!”

Oh, that was what he could know. That was why she had read all the stories he had written in a systematic way.

 * * *

 It was on the Eve of the Tet.

The road leading to the four gates of the capital city of Hanoi was seen crisscrossed with vehicles and people. It was still raining without let-up. For over two hours, in the rain, the old writer had gone to and fro to the two flowers selling centers in Hanoi without getting even one branch of violet flowers. Out of a sudden, he thought he’d better go to the flower farms in Đong Anh and Soc Son and he hit the road.

When he arrived near Thanh Tuoc, he almost jumped for joy upon seeing a huge flower market that stretched to several kilometers along the road where on either side of it flower beds were seen running as far as the eyes could see. He dug his way through the crowd in the middle of the market without feeling tired, but hopelessly, he could not find even one branch of violet flowers.

It was still raining, ever harder when it was getting dark.

The old writer was still patient to walk for some more distance along the flower field. Out of the blue sky, at the crossroad, he opened his eyes wide when he saw a girl who was carrying behind on the Honda motorbike a bunch of large violet flowers. She was trying to lead the machine across the road onto a stone-paved road.

“Let me help you!” – the writer said, putting his motorcycle by the roadside and walked to push the machine for the girl – “Are you selling the flowers? In want to buy it”

“Oh, no. It is the flowers grown by my uncle and I have gone here from Hanoi to take them”

“Has your uncle still got some more?” – he heaved a sigh.

“Yes, there are still over ten branches, but I think he will not sell it”

The writer heaved a deep sigh again. The girl could not start her machine. The writer helped her to start it smoothly. The girl thanked him and felt sorry for the stranger.

“You are not the local, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m a Hanoian. I only want to have some branches of violet flowers for my friend”

“You’re a very good man. Now please walk one more kilometer, turn left and then walk straight on…. My name is Thuong. You ask the way to the house of Mr Ki and then tell him that you are a friend of mine. If I am not in a hurry, I….”

Fifteen minutes later, the writer had found the house told by the girl. He took the motorcycle into the open gate. There appeared several dozen branches of large violet flowers, making him so happy and excited. He met an old man wearing a long white beard sitting on the verandah.

“Who do you want to meet?” – the house owner asked.

“I am a friend of Miss Thuong and met her on the road. I am looking for some violet flowers, so she showed me the way here”

“It is the flowers of my son. He has grown only one bed for his friends and does not sell it! These flowers will be cut in the evening by some one” – the old man began coughing.

“What a pity for me! Can you tell your son to help me? I only need some branches”

“The flowers have lost this season. The whole violet flower field had failed. I’m told that one branch is sold at VND 30,000 in the market”

“Yes, VND 30,000 for one branch will do for me!”

“No, I only said it, but my son does not want to sell the flowers. But why do you need it so much? What for? You can buy other kinds of flowers”

“To tell you the truth, I have a girl friend who is away from home for so long a time. She wants to have a vase of violet flowers in memory of her father who had laid down his life in a border area” – the writer said slowly.

The house owner turned sharply and until then the writer could be able to see clearly his face. He was really of the same age, but his white beard had made him look much older.

“Please, it is all right if I don’t have these flowers, but my friend needs them and I have promised her, a daughter of a soldier like me”

“You’re also a soldier?” – the house owner stood up – “How long? On what battle field?”

“Eleven years! I had fought in three battle fields until 1975 I entered Saigon….”

“Did you fight in Quang Tri battle field?”

“Oh, yes, I did. At that time I was in the 12.7 mm machine guns unit to defend the other side of the Thach Han river”

“Oh, God! We are the comrades-in-arms!” – the house owner seemed to get up from the chair. The old blanket fell down, revealing his crippled legs. The writer walked and took the warm hands of the house owner….

** *

The writer got home when it was already 6 o’clock in the afternoon. He divided 17 branches of violet flowers into two bunches. The bunch with 8 branches was placed onto the altar worshipping his father. It was pitch dark on the Eve of the New Year. The other bunch he reserved for Anh Thuy. Fifteen minutes later, he was seen in the girl friend’s house.

“Oh, please do come in! You’ve gone a long way in this rain to see me. Why didn’t you call me?”

Anh Thuy’s husband quickly took the writer’s motorcycle into the house. Anh Thuy stood dumbfounded when the writer was opening the paper that wrapped the bunch of violet flowers. Words had failed her for some moment before she could speak:

“Oh, thank you so much! How could you fetch these beautiful flowers on the Eve of the New Year?” – Then Anh Thuy kneeled down the floor and looked at those flowers. Out of a sudden, she embraced the old writer in spite of his raincoat wet with rainwater and then she asked her husband to get her the crystal vase and invite mother to the living room – “I will arrange these flowers in the same way as my father had done it” – she said to the old writer.

* * *

It was the Eve of the New Year. Anh Thuy’s mother has burned another incense and the scent of burning sandalwood was felt spreading all over the room. The air seemed so pure and clean. The white-haired mother was standing in front of the altar, in front of her husband’s photo, with her two palms pressed together, she kowtowed and prayed:

“If you are sacred enough, please come home and give all of us your blessings. Your daughter’s friend has fetched the violet flowers for us”

The war had gone by for years with a lot of sacrifices. However, tonight she had enjoyed the Tet with great joy. Her dry eyes had suddenly been wet with tears

Hanoi was still silent to infinity.

Out of a sudden, up there in the sky, when the clock struck twelve, it was brightly lit by fireworks. The New Year starts!

It was still raining in silence and the cold was felt everywhere outside. But in Anh Thuy’s living room, those violet flowers were seen in silence there, spreading its scent and opening its petal, showing the purplish blue all over the room.

As for Anh Thuy’s mother, this color was no match for any other kinds of flowers in that night…

By Nguyen Van Tho

Translated by Manh Chuong