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by Doan Le This shrimp season, our boat was the only one to use small nets to catch shrimp and small fishes, while other fishermen in our region used large nets to catch lobsters and salmon, even though sea creatures near the shore were getting more and more scarce.
On the orders of Mr Kham, our captain, I put a wild pineapple leaf into the net as a prayer for plentiful fish, then Doi and I took it to the seashore before dawn. A few hours later, when the rest of the crew arrived, I burnt a joss stick and put it in the incense burner on the altar of the Con Temple, a sacred shrine for built on the beach long ago so fishermen can ask for safe sailing. In our captain’s opinion, it was rather foggy, so we would sail to the Dau Islet, where there were largest fish shoals were, to cast our net. The five already on the boat were ready, and we assumed Doi wouldn’t turn up since he was still on his honeymoon. We were all surprised when he came strolling up to the boat, a smile plastered on his face. He seemed like he was in seventh heaven. "Hm. You appear to be the first man among us to enjoy sex," remarked Uncle Kham with a wry smile. Doi just grinned. Then the well-seasoned sailor turned his glance on me. "How silly to stay single for ever, my dear nephew Song!" he teased. "You’ll have to learn everything interesting from Doi," he said. Unexpectedly, his words stung my heart. During my childhood, I always felt tortured by my inferiority to Doi. We were the same age and lived close, on the same alley. While Doi was gentle, good-looking and robust, I was small, but a bit more clever. During primary school, I did better than him, but he was always chosen as the monitor of my classes. Once my mother said, "Doi looks more dignified than you, my dear Song. After school is over, he will certainly become a somebody here, unlike you. What will you do with your gloomy face?" "Let him be, Mum," I replied. "How can you compare him with me? As a dull-witted schoolboy, he means nothing to me." I bore hatred against him so strong that time and again I intentionally solved his maths homework incorrectly. Despite my feelings, I needed him because he was willing to fight the strong neighbourhood bullies, to champion me at any cost. He bears many scars from the brave actions he took for my sake. In return, I had to carry his satchel and a bottle of boiled water. Once my uncle made me a beautiful kite, but at Doi’s request I had to give it up without a word. Frankly speaking, there were no serious problems between us. However, the girls in our class often mocked me, saying that I was still tied to my mother’s apron strings. For a while, I tried not to associate with him, but all my efforts were in vain. As we grew up, we clung to each other even more. I had to help him with his school assignments so he wouldn’t drop out, especially during the end-of-the-year exams, which decided whether we would be able to move up a class. To make matters even worse, we lived far from our secondary school and had to ride on the same bicycle to school. And then, when his parents went to Taiwan to earn a living, he was placed under my mother’s care for more than two years. People called us inseparable, like a body and its shadow, during our summer holiday. I seemed happy enough, but somewhere, deep within my heart, I still believed in my own inferiority. After we received our General Certificate of Secondary Education, we followed the trade of our forefathers – fishermen – and said goodbye to our textbooks. *** Not long after we finished school, I began thinking of marriage and my Dulcinea was none other than Dang, the girl of my dreams. She was one of my younger sister’s classmates and she lived in the hamlet next to my native village. She had been to our place several times, but I was too shy to ask for her hand in marriage. Once I asked my sister Thi to invite her to spend Sunday on Dau Island with us. Thanks to a recent good catch, I could afford the trip for the three of us. Sitting on the beach of the small island, we enjoyed lot of seafood. In high spirits, I recited a lyrical verse that I had found by chance in an anthology of poems. In one line, there was a word that happened to match her given name. I did not know whether she was impressed by my enthusiasm and boldness or not. She remained silent, even after I had finished reading. I could see the blush rise in her cheeks as she avoided my curious glance. "Now Dang, let’s applaud his emotional recitation," said my sister. "We’d be regarded as rough and poorly – educated girls, if we just ate our food, drank rice wine and were indifferent to such beautiful poetry. Isn’t that right?" she asked her friend. "Of course, poetry isn’t always a simple thing to enjoy. I understand if she’s still too shy to comment," I said. Her velvet eyes stared at me and I felt myself start to blush embarrassment. At once I rushed to the light-house to take a minute to put my mind at ease. Anyhow, I would have to wait until she finished secondary school. She still had another year to go and I didn’t want to interfere with her studies. All my careful plans proved to be meaningless. Doi had already fallen in love with Dang without my knowledge. After both of us had become fishermen at the age of twenty-two, she graduated with first-class honours and soon became an administrator of the provincial boarding school. Only when everything was already planned did the happy couple let me know the truth. I felt bitter, but I didn’t dare utter a word. Not until that moment, did I realise how much I loved her. While I was still in despair, Doi married her in hurry. What could I do? I sent the couple a wedding gift and then went to the northern province of Lang Son to hide during the occasion. Three days later, I came home. Unable to avoid them, I arrived at their home to celebrate with some of my former classmates. Seeing Dang’s slim body in her light purple dress, I thought of a fragile, beautiful and sweet-smelling rose that has just been plucked from its stem. One month elapsed and Doi stayed at home to revel in his happiness. Meanwhile, I looked haggard from lack of sleep. The image of a fair girl with a lily-white neck, rosy cheeks and velvet eyes seemed to flicker in front of me. *** Our boat reached the spot which was supposed to be teeming with fish, while it was still early in the morning. There wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere. The only thing in sight was two gigantic white ships on the horizon, waiting for native navigators to lead them into the harbour. The five of us – Uncle Kham, Doi, brothers He and Ngu and myself – fished naked, as usual. On the water, clothes were not only unnecessary but uncomfortable. In the open sea, nudity was a matter of course. Nobody paid any attention to nude bodies. But today, Doi took off his clothes clumsily. What’s more, he was wearing shorts and seemed to evade everyone’s gaze. "The ebbs are halting. Let’s start working right now or else we’ll be swept away by the strong wind!" shouted Uncle Kham. Five tanned bodies with muscular arms and legs started rushing about the boat, preparing the net. The eastern wind was quite pleasant. Only Uncle Kham stayed on deck, while the four of us plunged into the blue water. Closing my eyes, I let my body dive deep for a few seconds, then caught hold of a big net pillar deeply planted in the seabed. Brothers He and Ngu grabbed one side of the net, while Doi and I were on the other. A series of pillars with hooks had been planted there previously. Our task was to tie the net tightly to the hooks. After we finished anchoring the net, I began diving down. I saw bubbles coming out of Doi’s mouth below me, but my chest felt tight and I rose up to the surface. Seizing the side of the boat, I stared down at Doi’s black head below. Climbing inside the hull, I found a beam leaning against the side of the boat. That morning, Doi and I had brought it onboard. I glanced at its pointed end. "If that falls on my head, I’ll surely breathe my last," I said. He and Ngu emerged from the water first, followed by Doi. The water dripped down over our bodies. "Tea’s ready," said Uncle Kham. "We also have delicious wafers that Doi brought with him in honour of his wedding day," he said. Drying our heads with large towels, we came sat around the tea set with cakes for a humble party. "Song, what’s the matter with you?" Uncle Kham asked with a smile. He handed me a bar of peanut candy and I was immediately lost in thought. Holding the sweet in my hand, I looked at the immense sea stretching in front of me. That deserted and vast space made me feel at ease. Without looking at him, I spoke with Uncle Kham distractedly. "What’s the weather today, Uncle?" I asked him. "High seas and strong wind!" he replied. "Doi’s lucky to have an abundant catch on his first day of fishing," he said. Doi just smiled. "Esteemed Uncle, before going out early this morning, I was urged to hurry up by my grandfather when he observed the night sky," I said. "I also predicted this bad situation yesterday while I was on the way to attend a party at my relative’s in Kien Thuy District," said Uncle. "Hey, Ngu, prepare our banner," he told the young seaman. "We’ve only caught a few shrimps and fish in our net! What’s the use of hurrying?" said Ngu. The practice of hanging a banner to tell the wharf when a boat was fully loaded was abandoned long ago, but the old man tried to keep up the tradition. On the quay, many of our relatives stood around congratulate us on our safe homecoming. I contemplated the sea attentively, as if I had never seen it. The sky lay as far as the eye could see. On my left, the island stretched wide in the bright sunshine. I imagined stony roads meandering among the valleys of the mountains with clusters old trees casting their shade on the paths. "What belongs to the island must be kept intact," says an omen handed down from generation to generation. Therefore, on this small island, nothing, not even a pebble, can be taken away, for fear that evil spirits will avenge themselves. Behind me, Uncle Kham was telling the crew a story of a voyage he took long ago. "You’ve asked me to tell the story. However, don’t recite it to anyone else. In my lifetime, I’ve seen over thirty years of hard conditions, but I’ve never been frightened as I was that time," he said. "I heard about this from Mr Tac, but nobody believes him since he always exaggerates," said one of the brothers. "He’s lying, he’s never been to sea," said the old sailor. "So, please tell us at once, from beginning to end, Uncle." *** "That day, the tides also halted like this. It was late in the evening and the sun started to sink behind Mt Mau Son, I plunged into the water to drag the net. Suddenly, I felt something slippery gliding over my face. I opened my eyes wide and saw a rosy thing rushing into the net. ‘Surely, it must be a great sole,’ I said to myself. Coming to the surface, I declared, ‘I’ve seen a sole swimming into our net. It must be mine.’ After a fishing trip, it would be an exploit if I could have taken home such a big fish for my wife…’. "When the net was pulled into the boat, that rosy thing turned out to be a sealed plastic bag. ‘Well, there’s your sole, Brother Kham,’ said one of my mates sarcastically. ‘Pick it up to see what lies inside,’ he said. Hardly had I opened the bag when I smelled a horrible stench and I found a decomposed hand. ‘If the rotten hand had had a bracelet on it, you’d have been given a great fortune,’ said another mate, laughing." "What happened next, Uncle?" asked Ngu impatiently. "I tossed it into the water, of course! A few days later, I had a fake hand made as an offering together with flowers and joss-sticks and I solemnly put them into the waves." "How terrible!" "Sailors must behave properly. Don’t think that in the open sea, without any souls around, you can do anything you want," he said. The lunch on the boat was torturous for me. All the food seemed tasteless. Doi enthusiastically raised his cup with He and Ngu in response to their cheers. I joined in so madly that Uncle Kham had to restrain both of us. Of course, spirits made us cheerful and eased our sufferings to some extent. By the end of the meal, I would have lay my head on anyone’s shoulder, even Doi’s, to cry to my heart’s content. I remembered last year when I had to hold Dang’s soft childlike hand when a cactus thorn from my garden stabbed into her little finger so deep that both my sister and Dang did not dare pull it out. They finally asked me to help. Finding her blood oozing out in drops, I hurriedly sucked her lily-white finger. She did not resist. Taking advantage of the fact that there was nobody else at home, I embraced her tightly and kissed her on the lips. *** Now I imagine Dang among the crew’s relatives at the dock to welcome us back. Her hands, like flower buds, would be busy digging up her husband’s share of fish. She would look up at him and smile broadly and Doi would smile back. Of course, they wouldn’t even spare a glance for me. Then I saw her slender body walking beside him, hand in hand. These images still stung my heart. "How has that dull-headed guy always got everything I wanted? Are his arms so much stronger than mine that he can hug you more tightly than I do? Are his words so much sweeter than mine that you are completely conquered? Is his chest so much broader than mine that your head can rest on it while you sleep?" My mind teemed with unanswerable questions. When lunch was over, Uncle Kham was the first to plunge into the water. A few minutes later, he got on the boat. "The current runs very deep here. Small creatures have to swim near the bottom of the sea. We can only catch fish and shrimps if we lower our net close to the seabed," he said. The four of us plunged into the water at the same time. Deep below the surface, I opened my eyes wide and found shrimps darting around in the current. It was more difficult for us to tie the net to the pillar. While my feet hung onto the pillar, my hands gripped the net tightly. If my hands slipped, I would be swept to the bottom of the net and die there like an ill-fated fish. Death is the only reward for the clumsy fisherman. Above me, Doi dived deeply, his legs out straight. Even his knife seemed to be provoking me, just within reach. Now a burning revenge suddenly came to me: to drag him down so that both of us would follow the current into the bottom of the net. I would clench my teeth. Madly, I would seize the pillar with one hand while the other groped for the legs swaying in front of me. Then I would hang onto them tightly. Because he would not take any precautions, I would easily pull him down. Perhaps, nobody would know why he would have been swept into the bottom of the net. Maybe I would disentangle a net hook. Maybe everybody would think that the metal flew towards his face and he had released his hand to protect himself and was then swept away by the strong current. Maybe everybody would think that he got a cramp…or drank too much to resist the current… Suddenly, it all became clear to me. Dang was just the latest pretext for all my hatred and sufferings towards Doi. *** Nevertheless, I could not even succeed in this simple act. I reached out for one of his legs and found one of his strong hands grab me in the armpit, holding my body tightly, while the other unloosed his legs from the grip of my exhausted hands. I freed my hand from the pillar and let him take me up to the surface. How warm I felt when his body hugged mine tightly! "Oh, if only you left me to drown at the bottom of the sea!" I said to myself. He dragged us to a buoy floating nearby and, luckily for us, Uncle Kham steered his boat to come to our rescue. Doi pushed me up onto the boat. I breathed heavily and soon fell asleep to the sound of their talking. "Possibly, he drank too much and then caught cold. Anyhow, he was lucky to grab your leg," said the old man. "Thank Heavens! However, fortune will hardly smile on us a second time," said Doi. I got the impression that I had escaped death by inches. "You shouldn’t go to sea when your mind is not sane," said our forefathers. I hold that this maxim is always true, for the sea is purer than the thoughts that are often in our heads. After that day, I told myself that this would be my last voyage. Perhaps I would give up fishing to become a worker in the Quang Ninh coal mine or I would settle down in a far-away quarry to eke out my living and lead a normal married life. However, like a fish, if I stayed away from that water, I might die. In that case, would I still be brave enough to say farewell to the blue? Translated by Van Minh Nguồn: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/
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