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by Do Han Ban tossed about in his sleep – another cobra had crawled away. A few days before, his wife had forgotten to close the door of a snake cage after she had fed the snakes. A couple of venomous reptiles and a king cobra had crept out. Returning home from an artistic performance, villagers screamed when they saw a couple of snakes lying across the rural path. Ban and his father tried to catch them, but the king cobra remained at large.
Tonight, a customer had come to buy some of them, and Ban’s wife was in charge of the deal. Later, when Ban pointed his torch at the cages to check, he found one of their doors left ajar. To his surprise, the king cobra had disappeared. "What a good-for-nothing wife!" he exclaimed. "Each kilo of this kind of reptile costs seven hundred thousand dong at least now," he moaned. The more he thought of the loss, the more he felt his heart rent. Worse still, the injury caused by a recent snake bite was starting to swell up again. So he could not sleep a wink. Pulling a blanket further over his head, he felt all the more uncomfortable. *** This afternoon, passengers were already packed like sardines into the borderland-bound coach. Ban tried to get on it and managed to occupy a spot near the automatic door. Along the entire 100km-stretch of road he could only stand on one foot. He was greatly worried: "Tet’s drawing near! I’m not sure if the cargo will be delivered or not," he said to himself. He looked out of the window. By chance his eyes glanced over the round shoulders of a pretty girl sitting on the first row of seats. Wearing a green blouse, she seemed to mingle with the colour of a pile of goods at the threshold. The young woman tried to coil herself up and cover her big belly with her two hands. All of a sudden, she blushed with shame when she detected Ban’s curious glances. "It seems to me that I’ve met her somewhere before. She looks fairly familiar," he said to himself, racking his brain. She looked down, eyes blinking repeatedly. Meanwhile, he shook his head. "How can I recognize her among hundreds of commuters plying to and fro between this locality and that far-away mountainous region?" he asked himself. Finally, the coach stopped at the end of Vi Xuyen Town. Getting off, he squared his shoulders, stamped his feet and sighed as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The little town had resuscitated like a phoenix from the ashes after the border war. Although it remained in a mess here and there to some extent, many new decent-looking red-tiled houses had mushroomed up. Next to some of them, a few poorly rigged-up tea shops were still standing, tottering at every corner of the street. Putting his haversack onto his back, Ban hurriedly stepped forward. By now, he was making a survey to see if everything would be plain sailing; then he would drive his van full of snakes to deliver them to his customers in the area. "I’ll carry lots of goods back to the lowlands for Tet," he whispered. Lost in thought, he suddenly stopped short: in front of him was the very girl in green he had seen on the coach. She was sitting on the grass by the road side. Curiously enough, she seemed to be convulsing with pain, her travelling bag was lying close to her feet. She appeared very glad to see Ban. "Would you mind taking me to a nearby dispensary or a herb doctor, please? I’m in great pain," she entreated. Immediately, he ran to look for a motorbike taxi. A few minutes later, he found one. With the help of its driver, he placed her on the saddle then sat at the back with his own haversack on one shoulder and her bag on the other. At last they rode away. After consuming a hot bowlful of medicinal herbs she looked like she was in less pain, and in a few seconds she fell asleep. The herbalist called him and talked to him in local dialect: "She’s about to give birth to a child in a month at most. I can’t do anything else for her. You should take her to the town hospital at once to see if she’s all right," she told him. When the girl woke up, he advised her not to move quickly, "You must prepare everything for your childbirth soon." Then he told her something about his job. When she heard him talking about his previous business trips to Tan Dan Village, she was taken aback. "So, you’re likely to know Mrs Thang the snake dealer there?" "Of course, I do know her very well. Half a year ago, when she was still living in that place I often sold snakes to her." "Where is she now?" "I’ve been told that in 1979 she returned to her native town in China as she’s Chinese, you see," he replied. "You know her, do you?" he asked her again. "She’s my mother," she answered, eyes brimming with tears. "Oh, you’re going home alone! Where’s your husband?" Without a word, she rolled up her sleeves to show the bruises on her round lily-white arms. "These might speak volumes for your questions, I hope." All of a sudden, she looked up and said in a resolute voice: "I’d like to ask you for a favour. Are you willing to help me?" "Yes, certainly," Ban nodded his head. Strangely enough, since the first moment he saw her on the coach, he had felt a bit attached to her. Luckily for her, his ordered goods for Tet imported from China could not be delivered for a while. "Could you return to the township and buy me a house? The bigger, the better," she told him. "What for?" "I intended to return home for my childbirth, but Mum left home, you see," she answered. "Now, I’m badly in need of a shelter to live in. I think that’s also Mum’s aspiration," she added. Afterwards, she told him a long account of her previous living conditions. "Mum gave me a lot of money and advised us to move out to a hamlet near the borderland as an agent for her business. However, my husband didn’t abide by her advice. Worse still, he stole all my fortune for gambling. When he’d spent the whole sum, he asked me for more. How could I afford to give him money under these circumstances? As a result, he beat me that brutally, you see," she said to him. She took out of her travelling bag two fairly big parcels. Putting them on the table, she said: "These would be our last financial resource to cover all your expenses, including my would-be house." "Oh dear! You’re an illegal drug dealer, are you?" "Far from that! They’re only pouches of refined snake venom." Picking up one pack, he looked at it carefully. "Yes, it’s the real thing," he remarked. "In my village, snake venom is also collected and refined a little before being stored in bottles for future consumption. In order to get this perfect product, an advanced technology must have been used," he went on. "Mum learned how to do it," she said. "After extracting the venom from snakes, she set them free at the edge of the forest. Hearing that my husband squandered her money away, she sent me these packs with a note saying, ‘Your husband cannot use them for gambling. Keep them for rainy days, my dear.’ Now, at the end of my tether, I’m compelled to sell them to buy a house for me and my child, you see. Anyhow, it might be your rest house during your business trips to this place," she continued. Then giving him a name card full of Chinese words with an address listed on it for Ha Giang Town, she explained: "This is a reliable address for Westerners. When they see it together with such a parcel they believe and accept the parcel without fall." *** This township was in no way strange to him, for during the border war, he had been garrisoned here for nearly five years. Many of the scars of war could be seen in every street and rice field in the region. To his surprise, his deliverance of goods, acceptance of large sums of money and search for a house only took him a short time. Consequently, he found a decently-looking, concrete 2-storey house worthy of a reasonable price with a little orchard standing by the side of a road leading to the town. "This must meet Ngoc Mai’s requirement," he said to himself. That was the first time he had named her. "Brother Ban, you may use the first floor of this house and regard it as your own home, whereas the ground floor belongs to me," she declared resolutely. As for him, he was in great bewilderment for it was beyond his expectations. Unfortunately for him, his snake cargo was confiscated, because he was caught red-handed as an illegall trafficker. Nevertheless, Ngoc Mai’s remaining amount of money, which she lent to him, was quite adequate for him to carry goods to the lowlands for Tet. "For the next trip, you should try to collect all the quantity of condensed snake venom from your locality for us to sell here." Her words made him very happy. That Tet, Ban was getting on well. Moreover, he purchased lots of half-condensed snake venom from the locals. As a result, the small jars of snake venom that had previously lain idle in their cupboards became invaluable. Since then he did not have to carry snakes to the borderland to sell, nor did he need to take Chinese goods to the lowlands. Thanks to this rare and precious godsend from nature, he soon became a wealthy businessman. *** A few months later, Ngoc Mai gave birth to a chubby, pretty baby girl who was the spitting image of her mother. She named her Thuy Tien. During his business trips to the lowlands, she just embraced her little child, waited and waited. Ngoc Mai and Ban’s sentiments toward each other became stronger and stronger with every passing day. However, they never went beyond the limits of a relationship between co-dealers. On the one hand, Ngoc Mai’s glamorous beauty made him extremely timid, and on the other hand Ban’s seriousness and sincerity rendered her rather reserved. For numerous nights, he felt confused at her melodious ditties that she lulled to her little daughter. Lying alone upstairs, he often pulled the blanket over his head and tried to keep silent. Another year was going to pass by and another Tet was drawing near. Ban remained busy doing business for her sake. One day, she told him: "Dear brother Ban, to the best of my knowledge, the amount of condensed snake venom has exceeded its demand. We must look for a new market." "What about our regular customers?" "They’ve kept on buying our product. However, their purchasing power is rather poor in comparison with our possession," she answered. "Perhaps, you’d better go to the USA to make a survey to find a way out for our commodity," she added. "But… but… I’ve never been abroad. What can I do in that far-away land?" "Don’t worry! Just do as I tell you. I’ve got lots of acquaintances and relatives there, and they’d be willing to help you. If you don’t object to my proposal, you can set off next week." Ban hurried back home to arrange his work in the country and say goodbye to his wife and children. Their home was bustling with the visits of their relatives and neighbours. Everybody wished him good luck and success to get more profit not only for his clan but also for the whole village. Their reason was fairly simple: during the past Tet, thanks to his procurement of venom, his co-villagers managed to purchase one hundred and sixteen brand new motorbikes. With this most sought-after journey abroad, they hoped that their snake village would be a wealthy and well-known community in the region. He returned to Ha Giang Province late one evening before Tet. He opened the gate of Ngoc Mai’s dwelling with his own key. In her neat and clean house, she was sleeping soundly beside her little daughter. It was quite cold and dark outside. He turned on the heater. Soon its humming sound also lulled him to sleep. Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide, because he heard something rustling near him. It was Ngoc Mai, who in her thin white night gown, was gracefully moving toward his bed. To his surprise, she lightly slipped her naked soft arms round his back. They clung together in a hoped-for love affair, half real and half illusion. *** In his native place, Ban was sinking into his nightmare. All of a sudden, he felt something soft crawling across his cheeks. At first, he thought that it was Ngoc Mai’s arm, and he caressed it slightly; then he felt as if some creature was breathing close to him. Immediately, he lifted the soft moving thing off his chest. It was a cobra. He grasped its neck and called out to his wife. "Darling! I’ve caught the elusive king cobra!" "Where is it?" she asked. "Here under my blanket! What’s more, it crawled over my chest," he said, smiling secretly. "What a close shave!" The couple put the great snake into its cage. At once it turned its head back and stared at Ban as if it was still craving his warm caress that he had given it a few minutes before. Outside, several residents were going to market. Their laughter resounded merrily. The snake village began a new busy day. Translated by Van Minh Nguồn: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/
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