One morning, at Ben Con, there was a middle-aged man with a haggard appearance, holding a sedge bag in his hand, looking for a boat to return to the island village. He started talking to a woman who was washing fish in a bamboo basket by the water's edge. She was slightly surprised and pointed towards the sea gate.
Fishing boats are no longer allowed to take people to the island village. You have to go to the pier up there…
Hesitating for a moment, the man turned silently on his heel. He seemed to be a stranger here for the first time.
No! He is not a stranger but someone who has returned after many years away.
Two huge, black iron ships stood guard at the sea. At the pier, people were busy loading goods onto the ships. A passenger stopped in front of the departure notice board and mumbled: The ship to Tuna Island will weigh anchor at 2 p.m. today.
The traveler found a cafe to rest and wait for the train. He had traveled hundreds of kilometers on an old, dilapidated bus for nearly two days, from a corner of the forest in the Central Highlands to this corner of the sea, but still had to drift dozens of nautical miles to return to the place he had been away from for a long time. During those years away, the island village and his loved ones often disappeared without a trace in his memory; sometimes they suddenly disappeared, suddenly appeared very dimly or just flashed for a moment and then disappeared into the mist. He remembered, forgot. He often stared blankly into the distance as if listening attentively to a vague call echoing from somewhere, not paying attention to what was happening around him even though he still communicated normally with everyone.
He was not a villager from that corner of the Central Highlands forest. He suddenly appeared and did not know who he was, why he was in a strange place, without any relatives; just as no one in this mountainous village knew anything about him.
The villagers loved him as a wandering amnesiac, but some called him a lunatic, a psychopath, or a child called him a crazy old man. Whatever people said, he didn't care, just smiled stupidly. People pitied him and gave him food and cakes. Over time, seeing that he was gentle and harmless, they considered him an unfortunate son of the village. An old couple let him stay in a hut in the field to help them chase away birds, squirrels, and rats that were destroying crops. In return, he didn't have to worry about food and clothing.
He was diligent in farming. After several seasons, corn, squash, beans, and potatoes gave him enough money to live a frugal life. He enjoyed selling his crops at the village market to meet many people, to chat, even if it was just random words, to recall in his mind fragmented images, fragmented memories. He lived quietly, alone, trying to find himself again in the days before he came to this corner of the forest.
Until one day…
The sunny weather suddenly turned dark. Dark clouds rolled in and covered the sky. Then the wind seemed to be gathered from everywhere and rubbed against the forests and fields, making the stilt houses tremble... The rain poured down violent columns of water on everything... And the ferocious streams overflowed their banks, sweeping away rocks, soil, and trees...
At this time, he was helping the benefactor couple's old cow from the stream to the hut but it was too late; the boiling stream swept people and animals into the whirlpool.
After the wrath of heaven and earth had subsided, the villagers found him lying hugging an old cow next to an uprooted ancient tree; the ancient tree trunk across the stream on the edge of the village had kept the two bodies motionless, not being swept away towards the abyss. But he was still breathing faintly despite being unconscious…
The villagers took care of him wholeheartedly and treated him. One night, in a hut in the fields, on a bamboo mat with a thin blanket, he heard a buzzing sound in his ears that kept repeating itself over and over again. For several nights in a row, he listened quietly, not knowing why that sound kept ringing in his ears in the quiet of the night, when there was no longer the sound of nocturnal birds flapping their wings. Then one early morning, when he was half awake, he suddenly saw before his eyes a brown canvas sail of a small boat pressing its bow against the sandbank, with many figures surrounding it as if waiting. The buzzing sound in his ears suddenly became clearer and he realized it was the sound of gentle ocean waves…
After that near-death experience, his memory gradually recovered, albeit slowly, and although some memories were still as blurry as an old film reel that was not clear when replayed, he still remembered his hometown and his identity. Yet it was not until half a year later that the film of his past life was completely recreated in his once foggy memory.
While fishing for sharks, he and a few other crew members were arrested and locked in the hold of a navy ship, then taken to the mainland. Afterwards, they made records and sent them all to military school. After a few months of training, he was sent to a fierce war zone in the Central Highlands near the end of the war. And the rookie soldier in his first battle was crushed by the force of an artillery shell, although he was not injured, he suffered temporary amnesia. One day, he left the treatment facility, wandered around and got lost in a corner of the forest where kind-hearted people took him in.
As his memory gradually recovered, he realized that he had a family, so one day he asked permission from the old couple and the villagers to go back to his loved ones in his hometown, a fishing village in the middle of the ocean. The people who took care of him prepared a warm meal to send him off. Before the cart took him to the inter-provincial bus station, the only nurse in the village who had been monitoring his condition for a long time, comforted him:
He suffered a severe concussion that temporarily caused him to lose his memory, but his brain was not damaged, so after a while his memory gradually recovered. This is not unusual because it has happened before. Don't worry... When you have fully recovered, remember to visit your relatives!
*
From afar, O saw many people gathered around the water's edge, waving their arms and pointing. Muc was jumping around and shouting something that O couldn't hear clearly. Before the fishing boat touched the sandbank, Muc climbed onto the boat and shouted loudly into his friend's ear.
Your dad is home! Your dad is home!
Everyone on the boat returned, chatting and rejoicing as their father's son returned after many years of exile.
O was shocked because his father, who had been missing for many years, suddenly appeared in his life, right on his hometown island village. He was confused and didn't know what to do. Out of habit, he opened the boat's hold, took out a few baskets of fresh squid that his crew had caught the night before, brought them ashore, then used a ladle to scoop up seawater to scrub the boat's stalls as usual, despite Muc's urging.
Go home! Go see your dad and then wash the boat this afternoon...
Muc held his friend’s hand and ran. The winding sandy road from the beach to O’s house had to go through several steep slopes, but Muc held his friend’s hand and ran like the wind. Before long, they saw two eucalyptus trees that served as the gate to the house. The two of them stopped, each hugging a eucalyptus tree… to catch their breath. Someone had placed a table and many chairs in the front yard for visitors to sit and chat.
Muc pushed his friend's back, the path from the gate to the familiar house was only a few dozen steps, but why was O hesitant as if he was walking on an unfamiliar path? Many people sitting on the doorstep, pointing on the porch made him even more confused.
The old man beckoned him and called out repeatedly:
Oh! Come in, son! It's your dad!
As O stepped onto the steps, a middle-aged man jumped out of the house, hugged him by the shoulders, and shook him.
My son! My son!
Then he burst into tears.
O stood still. He could not see his father's face clearly. He stood up to his father's chest, his face pressed against his thin chest and clearly heard the rapid beating of his father's heart finding his son after many years apart. He looked up at him, to see if his face was somewhat similar to the face he had imagined. His father had a bony face, sunken cheeks, a high nose and thick eyebrows. He had a round face, fleshy cheeks, sparse eyebrows, and curly hair in front of his forehead. He did not resemble his father at all? Oh! Maybe he resembled him in his high nose, with a slightly pointed tip?
Why didn't his father come back home when his grandmother was still alive? O kept asking himself, so that his grandmother could rest assured that he still had his father to raise and educate him. "With my grandmother gone, who will I live with?". Her sigh like a gentle breeze rippled in his ears, still lingering in the small, low, dark house of the two of them. He planned to ask his father why he didn't come home sooner, and ask for his grandmother and mother as well. He cried bitterly because he knew that his grandmother was worried and anxious until she passed away because of her worries and concerns for his orphan status.
The house was warmer because many people came to visit O's father and son, burning incense on the altar of his grandmother. The neighbor, Aunt Tu, thoughtfully made tea for everyone. O sat quietly on the porch, attentively watching his father talk to everyone. He saw that he had a gentle appearance, smiling more than talking; a warm feeling filled his heart for the man who was a stranger a few hours ago.
Everyone left one by one, with Old Cut being the last to leave. He affectionately put his arm around the shoulders of the three boys, repeating the invitation that every free morning they could come to his house to drink coffee or tea and chat. The boy saw that his father seemed to really like Old Cut, which reminded him of his mother and the feelings that Old Cut had for her before he was born. He planned to ask his father about the sensitive story that had happened between the two men.
Aunt Tu prepared the first meal for O and his father. His father ate deliciously some fresh fish cooked in sour soup, some steamed squid. For many years living in the mountains, he had never eaten fresh fish that still curled their bodies in nostalgia for the ocean or fresh squid that still shone brightly. He remembered the old couple with haggard faces who had taken care of him, shared with him meals with lots of bamboo shoots and wild vegetables; secretly promised that one day he would invite them to visit the island village, treat them to the specialties of the ocean. O looked at him, ate sparingly because he wanted to prolong the happy moment of serving his father a bowl of rice; he rarely sat at the table, but only mixed all the food into a huge bowl of rice and swallowed it quickly to finish the meal, or chewed the meal slowly on the boat that was rocking because of the waves and wind. Aunt Tu happily looked at the two neighbors, whispered:
Tomorrow morning, I will prepare a meal for the two of us to offer to our grandparents to celebrate their reunion.
Source: https://baolamdong.vn/truyen-ngan-sum-hop-386205.html
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