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by Suong Nguyet Minh It was by chance that Hoan made an appearance in my life again. He was a monkey – tamer with the metropolitan circus; I recognised him immediately during the first performance of his company in our little town. His stage-costume included tight indigo shorts with black and white-striped leggings, a loose red shirt with bell-shaped sleeves, pointed shoes, a wide-brimmed hat and a flexible whip in hand. He looked like a cowboy in a Western film of the United States in the early 19th century.
The whole theatre burst out laughing when he entered the arena with ten monkeys. Dressed in small white blouses with short sleeves, black mini-skirts and red scarves, the whole monkey troupe looked odd; especially the one with a small bell around his black neck. Tintinnabulum, as he was called, appeared rather decrepit with his wrinkled-up nose. Despite his apparent advanced age, he still managed to perform his tricks well on the stage. Hoan had been able to train one of the monkeys to dance on a tightrope, others rode tiny bicycles, a few skipped rope and another swung in a hammock. He won over us rural spectators right off the bat, since we were so hungry for entertainment. His face, smile and looks reflected his success and satisfaction on that night; meanwhile, we country-folk were ecstatic as we only experienced such performances a few times a year at most. * * * All of a sudden, I remembered my husband and was filled with self-pity and emotion. He was an ex-serviceman, but he had never gone to the front. When he was a private, he was just an office boy; when he became an officer, he served as an assistant to his superiors. Luckily for him, he was allotted a plot of land to build a house right in the heart of town. Although his pay was not much, it was enough for us to lead an adequate life in the mountains. He worked diligently, like clockwork. At seven he left home; at five in the evening he returned home. After dinner, he went out and gambled until eleven, then he came back home again and went to sleep a few minutes later. As a field officer, he tried to behave properly in society and take care of his wife and children at home. Throughout the year, he was always in uniform, which gave him a serious look incongruous with his young age. That’s the reason why I often jokingly called him an "old man of the lunar calendar." He did not feel offended when I said this to him, he was proud to be teased by me in this way. * * * Now, sitting in the first row of seats under the multi-coloured lights, I found Hoan courageous and exciting. Watching him display his skills, I felt nostalgic about our previous love affair. Past and present seemed to merge, and suddenly the memories of our good times together came back to me. * * * Many summers ago, with my backpack slung over my shoulder, I caught the train to pay a visit to my father, who was in charge of the ranger station in the forest southeast of the Tam Diep mountain range. He had been living alone at the edge of the forest near the Yen Ngua Pass since divorcing my mother, a well-known singer, for her moral sins. He hated my mother and disliked all performers and artists, because of his experience with her. There was an animal-support station located in the region on Monkey Island, led by veterinary surgeon Han. Han was the same age as my father; like my father, he wore a military uniform throughout the year although neither man was still on active duty with the military. Every day, Han paddled from the island to the main land to buy bananas for the monkeys. Time and again, I also followed Dad to visit him on the island, because he was Dad’s close friend. I had been staying with my father for about a week when Hoan showed up to meet my father with a letter of recommendation for the capital’s circus company. He asked to stay at the station to purchase a few monkeys which were not technically wild animals prohibited from being purchased by law and were in the area en masse. Dad agreed to his request to temporarily stay, so that he might choose the best monkeys for his training. "If you discover my favorite monkeys, I’ll give them to you free of charge," my father told him. He called him "the artist guy," because Hoan belonged to the kind of performers he despised. He also warned me not to have any contact with him. "You’re just in your early teens. You’re prone to be seduced by artists. So stay away from his traps," he advised me one morning. The first time I saw Hoan was on Monkey Island. Some of father’s colleagues brought bunches of bananas back to the station, and father told them to bring the whole lot over to Han. When they went over, I went with them. "The station master’s daughter is beautiful but arrogant," remarked Hoan when our boat was going ashore. I turned away without glancing at him. "Am I as fair as your wife, and as haughty as your daughter?" I asked him. "You really are an offensive young woman! Stay in the boat and I’ll ask some islanders to take your bananas ashore," he replied. All of a sudden, he imitated the calls of the monkey. One black male primate with a bell around its neck rushed towards him. At once he jumped down onto our boat, and I squeezed myself into the farthest corner. The black animal picked up one ripe banana and ate it happily like a child. Smelling the ripe fruit, a troop of monkeys descended from the tree tops and jumped onto the boat. The monkey with little bells round his neck stared at me and seemed to grin. "You look very pretty, but not proud any more," Hoan mocked at me, laughing loudly. Han had reached the boat without us noticing. "She’s still very young. Don’t bully her, mate," Han warned him. With this piece of advice Hoan became less aggressive, and we started to chat with each other more naturally. Hoan called his favorite monkey Tintinnabulum. Since that time, wherever Hoan went, the pet followed. That night I had a dream that Tintinnnabulum was sitting on one side of the boat with his legs crossed. Without being afraid of my presence, he tossed bananas ashore, piece by piece, while the others at the water’s edge just stretched out their hands to catch them. They did it very cleverly, and then they peeled off the banana skins and ate the fruit joyfully. Soon after, Hoan and I started becoming friends. "Be careful! Hoan’s already married," Han said to me. "I am just making friends with him. Don’t worry about that, uncle." "I am only giving you advice, my dear niece. It’s your choice," he concluded. Hoan could skillfully imitate the calls of most of the wild animals in the jungle. This made me admire him very much. In general, I found him to be a talented young person; I soon become more interested in him than I should have. As a result, I usually followed him into the thick of the forest without asking for my father’s permission. He completely conquered my naive and pure heart. A few days later, my father asked me to attend a ceremony of the Muong ethnic group to honour the forest god on his behalf. I invited Hoan to go with me without asking for dad’s permission. Accompanying us was Tintinnabulum. The master of ceremony was a shaman. He had a yellow female monkey about as big as a three year-old child. She was very dexterous: she could open her master’s things and pick up after her master. She was like his shadow. About one hundred meters from father’s station in Yen Ngua Pass, offerings were placed on a large grey rock. A symbolic forest door was created with a few green-leaved branches stuck in the stony ground. The shaman opened the forest door by chanting something in the Muong language and cut a chicken’s head off. Frightened at the sight, I pressed my head against Hoan’s chest. He slightly embraced my shoulders. Incense sticks had been lit, and the smoke was going up to evoke the forest god. Everybody present was silent. A sacred and respectful atmosphere pervaded the whole area. Then the green branches were pulled up and placed on the edge of the forest. That was the ceremony for opening the forest door at Yen Ngua Pass. Hoan was very fond of the shaman’s yellow monkey. "If she’s raised properly and tamed well, she might perform tricks far better than human beings," Hoan observed. "I’ll be pleased, if she mates with my Tintinnabulum," he added. Right at that moment Hoan’s pet screamed loudly and pulled hard on his chains, as if he was demanding his freedom. Bending down, Hoan released his animal’s chains and let him run free after saying something to him. "I bet that the shaman’s monkey will run after my Tintinnabulum without any hesitation," he whispered into my ears. I just focused on the ceremony and ignored Tintinnabulum’s act. * * * Three days later, Hoan said to me when he met me again: "I’m extremely sad, my dear Trang." "What’s the matter with you?" "My Tintinnabulum has fallen in love with that yellow female monkey. He refuses to come back to me." "It’s your own fault!" I burst out laughing. In the end, Hoan and I had to go to the mountainous village in order to fetch his Tintinnabulum from the shaman. Once back again on Monkey Island, Hoan set him free. The following day, he sadly told me again: "He escaped again! Strangely enough, last night I heard strange monkey calls." "How can he run away?" "Due to that decayed log washed ashore over there, perhaps," he answered, pointing at the length of a rotten tree trunk. "He might paddle to the shore by means of his own hands," he went on. Once again, Hoan went to the shaman to retrieve his amorous animal. This time he put the animal into a steel cage in the centre of the island. Looking at the poor animal, Han just sighed. When I saw the monkey in chains, I took great pity on him. "Because of love, you have been in trouble," I whispered to the poor monkey. That night I heard lots of monkey calls in a hoarse voice. Early the following morning, I perceived lamentable cries more clearly. "What’s happened to Tintinnabulum?" I asked myself. Anxiously, I paddled to Monkey Island again. What I had imagined came true. A plank lay at the edge of the island. Han and Hoan were standing by the steel cage. To my surprise, Tintinnabulum’s head was stained with blood and his two hands were full of scratches. In the meantime, the shaman’s monkey was applying some patches of medicinal herbs to his wounds. Tears were welling in my eyes. I took pity on them both. One had tried to tear through chains to reach the other, and the other crossed the sea in response to the call of love. By accident, my father knew that I had fallen in love with Hoan. The two old men ordered the circus man to leave Monkey Island and the ranger station at once. Father did not want his beloved daughter to get involved in a love affair too soon. What’s more, Hoan already had a wife and many children! Feeling a deep sense of injustice, I cried and cried. My love for Hoan was unaffected and quite wholesome. I was able to go against my father’s advice and love the artist, and yet I was unable to wed a married man because of my father. Silently, Hoan left the ranger station with his pet animal on his shoulder without saying goodbye to me. The yellow monkey also lost her sweetheart. Since then I had not heard anything about Hoan. * * * Thinking of my husband, my heart stung. Hoan and my spouse were a world apart. While Hoan was elegant and talented, my husband was coarse and boring. Sometimes I asked myself: "If Hoan had been single, what would have happened to me?" Hoan was now having his monkeys perform their tricks in the arena. When their performance was over, he let his monkeys wave their little hands to say goodbye to the spectators. Then all of them took off their hats and showed them to the audience. Women and girls put their banknotes into the hats. Children tossed their gifts down to thank the amiable little animals. In high spirits, Hoan also took off his cap, bent down his head and thanked the viewers. Not until all the primates disappeared behind the curtains did our applause come to an end. Immediately, I rushed into the lounge to wait for Hoan. I wished to congratulate him on his achievements, look at him admiringly and dash into his arms as on that day of opening the forest door. * * * I was taken aback when I found Hoan collecting the banknotes out of the hats of the monkeys to put them into his pockets. "What trick are you doing?" asked one of his colleagues. "Just a human play as usual," Hoan replied. "How much have you earned today?" asked his friend again. "Very little! Country people are in dire poverty, you see. All the banknotes had small face values!" he complained. The images of Hoan and his pet suddenly became blurred in my eyes. Silently, I turned my head round. Outside the circus, I stumbled along, eyes brimming with tears. Translated by Van Minh Nguồn: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/
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