By Ta Duy Anh

I was born and raised in a small isolated village surrounded by water. My Trai Village was very poor. There were those who, from the time when I first met them to the time they died, had worked their fingers to the bone in silence. Then one day they just disappeared as if they had never existed at all.

In my entire childhood, I always believed that each man owned one star in the sky. A bright star would shine in recognition of an intelligent, kind-hearted person. When that person left us for the other world, their star would extinguish. Whether it was true or not, when Miss Thu had left this world, all of Trai was lit up by one big flaming star. Before it disappeared, the star dragged its long tail across the sky, making even those people who always looked down lift up their heads in awe of the awesome sight.

Once the light faded, Trai Village’s usual smell of burning straw was replaced with the sweet aroma of sandalwood incense. We, the village children at the time, were certain that it was Miss Thu’s soul. Miss Thu must have continued to love us after her death. This story is about this fascinating woman.

None of us knew how she spent her childhood. We only knew that she was very beautiful and that as an adult she lived in a run-down house at the head of the village. Her greatest joy was being around children. Whenever she saw us playing or catching butterflies, she would try and coax us:

"Come and be my child!"

No sooner had any of us answered would we find ourselves lying in her lotus rhizome-like white arms. She would hold us tight into her chest, speaking in her soothing voice:

"Oh, my gold and silver child! Eat more, sleep more, then grow up into a fine young man, not a goblin like me!"

Hot tears would roll down her face as she made her sad plea. None of us feared her, although many adults had given her awful names, bad enough to make you shudder. They would call her crack-brained or haunted, saying she would eat children, but they didn’t deter us. We all looked upon her as the Holy Mother. Any child who fell ill would be cured upon pressing his or her face onto her breasts. She often made us beautiful dolls from maize leaves. Whenever the village had a festival, and the adults were immersed in eating or gambling, she became our Great Mother as we played by the pond or in the banana groves.

We lived our lives in relative peace until one day a misfortune fell upon the village. It all started with the butcher. A rich man, he stood out among the townsfolk, passing by many blushing country girls. The parents of these girls tried to find ways to lure him in. But all that interested the butcher was to get even richer. He wanted to be left alone to build his fortune. When the moment came to kill a pig for his next pay, a dark and mad cloud would descend upon his face as if he could have swallowed children. He took the hook and dug it into the pig’s head, then slaughtered the fleshy animal as easily as someone killed a chicken. He later hired someone to work for him and he became the owner of several pork-selling stalls along the district’s street. He visited the temples to pray for his thriving business and he contributed a lot of money to these institutions.

One day he came home from the market earlier than usual, dressed in his best. He carried a tray full of food to the temple of Tutelary God and upon kneeling down he put the tray on his head. For the first time, he prayed not for wealth, but for support to marry Miss Thu. Immediately afterwards, the news spread all over the village. Many of the villagers didn’t believe it, thinking that it was only a rumour. Never had a rich man like him paid attention to a woman considered a half-wit. If it was true, it would be earth-shattering! The rumour spread all over the village. Miss Thu was jeered and mocked. Particularly the village women and girls directed their venomous words at her. Strangely, Miss Thu did not pay any attention to the rumours.

And so the only person who knew the rumour was true was the butcher, and he had faith that his prayers would soon be answered. He kept busy preparing everything for a family that would include Miss Thu. He changed his way of life. He stopped drinking beer and blasting music. Instead, he took a bath every day and put on his best dress to stand at the foot of an old terminalia tree, where Miss Thu had often played with us and would teach us how to sing songs.

One day when he came to the tree, he watched us playing. His expression had changed. He wore a gentle a face, not like how we were used to seeing the butcher. He couldn’t say his proposal so he handed Miss Thu a letter. Upon reading the letter, she only stared at him, wide-eyed, without saying a word.

So many afternoons passed like that and Miss Thu was indifferent. She never paid attention to the butcher’s desire to marry her. Then one day, something unexpectedly happened to her. Miss Thu became pale and thin. At first the butcher could not believe his eyes, so he boldly walked towards her and raising her chin, he asked:

"Are you pregnant?"

As usual, Miss Thu stared at him with her wide eyes and said nothing. Then she looked down at her belly and nodded. The butcher let out a terrifying scream that scared us all. Nothing, not even the sky falling down, could have garnered such a reaction. He rushed to throw away the incense burner in the corner of the temple, then he kicked and punched the air, looking so ferociously at us that Miss Thu had to stand in front of us. He was breathing hard, looking at her like a wounded animal. Anger shook every inch of his body. He roared, then laughed hysterically, running away for a moment just to return immediately. He took the pile of money he had been saving for their marriage and threw it in front of Miss Thu as if it were nothing but a pile of dried leaves.

"Ah, oh!" The butcher roared as he raised his face skyward and laughed crazily, his face wet with tears. "I’ve been working like a buffalo so that I could take you home one day. And now... you... ah, oh!"

Miss Thu said nothing. She just looked at him with sadness. The villagers said that night that the butcher had cried until daybreak by the temple. When the sun appeared, he was nowhere to be seen, never to be heard from again. On rainy nights, some said that one young man in rags was seen sitting by the old terminalia tree, speaking something inaudible. Possibly the butcher had tried to kill himself out of misery, and the incomprehensible stranger was him coming back to lament about his loneliness in hell.

We will never know the truth. But we did find out that Miss Thu’s pregnancy was real. With no father in sight, the villages pronounced her a demon. We the village children were prohibited from playing with her, and Miss Thu was left playing with the dolls she made herself.

Miss Thu’s belly grew until she gave birth to a girl she named Thuc. Little Thuc’s beauty developed as she grew up, and she resembled more and more one man in the village, causing a commotion in the small town.

Everywhere the villagers showed their surprise, wondering why this man had gotten involved with that mad woman when there were plenty of eligible women in the village. No, there was never so eccentric a thing!

Yet each time the young man Hoan appeared, the villagers murmured to each other, "Look, that nose, that mouth, those eyes... you can’t deny the resemblance." Was it possible that Mr Hoan, considered a model of all virtues, had done it? He had led an exemplary life, the image of the future of Trai Village, who could not easily be seduced. It was well known that Mr Hoan was going to marry a daughter of the provincial official. His whole clan was expecting this important date to happen soon. The rumour was considered by many as slanderous. For this reason, all the villagers were waiting for Miss Thu to speak and set the record straight. But Miss Thu didn’t say a word. If she was pressed, she would reply, "God took pity on my loneliness, so I was blessed with this child. It has nothing to do with anyone else."

Mr Hoan was lucky for Miss Thu’s explanation. Soon he became the son-in-law of the provincial head. He quickly climbed the social ladder, first from the commune to the district and then to the province. All the people who had gossiped about him became so anxious that they turned on Miss Thu who had always kept silent.

Her health failed her and she finally died when her daughter Thuc was three. As death approached, she made one final plea, "Please take pity for my daughter and the children here." Miss Thu left the world on the night of that star burning so brightly in the sky. The next night, we all ran out of the house, and when the morning came Miss Thu’s body was covered with roses the children had picked in the village.

After Miss Thu’s death, Mr Hoan came back to the village. It was rumoured that he had been unhappily married in the provincial capital, having produced no children after many years of marriage.

Miss Thu seemed long forgotten when the village was shaken once again by the return of the butcher. He came back as a monk, but after his return he quickly gave up the frock and declared that the little girl Thuc was his daughter. He took Thuc to the provincial capital where he owned a house. He worked hard to raise Thuc. He spent his spare time playing with the little girl, taking her up the mountain where she could enjoy catching butterflies while he took in all the happiness of the child. The people around loved them so much. They opened their doors to welcome them in, but he only smiled gently and thanked these people for their hospitality. When asked why he had not remarried, he only shook his head, saying, "My wife has never died. She will be back home sooner or later!" He was greatly admired for these words and he was considered a rare man in this world.

What nobody knew at the time was that a man was coming regularly to the area where the butcher and his daughter was living. He often sat in a hidden tea shop, and when the night fell he heaved a deep sigh before leaving. He would come and leave never loosing his sombre expression. One day the owner of the shop asked him:

"It seems that you’re waiting for someone?"

The man dropped his face into his two hands and sobbed bitterly. After that instance, the owner of the tea shop stopped asking him. When people came and asked about the man, the owner of the tea shop said, "You know, when he stood up, only a moment later a whirlwind rose and dust flew into the air."

"Then?"

"I could not see him any more, I could only hear the pagoda bell ringing. It seemed in sorrow. That’s all I can remember!"

"Do you know who that man was?"

"No."

Hoan’s wife heard that her husband had remarried as she had long expected. Years later, whenever I came back to visit my village, I sat at the foot of that old terminalia tree and remembered all that had happened in my childhood. While most images faded in time, I could always make out Miss Thu’s face. I looked up at the blue sky, anxiously waiting for the appearance of a brightly lit star.

Translated by Manh Chuong