By Ma Van Khang

Illustration by Dao Quoc Huy

In a few moments now, the roof would surely blow off! It was like a violent verbal storm was blowing through the house, Quang thought.

Once again, Thoa, the owner of Quang’s boarding house, could be heard stamping up the wooden stairs angrily in her high-heeled shoes. As usual, she was in a rage and shouting: "It’s unbearable for me!" Then she snapped at her 12-year-old daughter, who was learning in her room: "Trang, where’s Hong been all this time?"

Hong was doing poorly in school in every regard. As a ninth-grader now, he still could not have said what the rule of three was and couldn’t even remember the multiplication table. His notebooks were all scribbles. He had been at the bottom of his class from grade 7 through grade 9. Every summer he had been tutored in math and literature, and his mother had gone to his teachers and begged them to give him a second chance.

"It’s unbearable! Trang, be quick! Go and bring him home now!" She yelled, as if she was trying to make sure Quang could hear it.

Quang left his news report unfinished and walked out of the room. He was a kind-hearted man. It had been fifteen years, since he had been a soldier. Now, he was working as a reporter for the city’s newspaper.

He should have lived with his brother in the house left by his parents, but he had been forced to leave the house and rent a room elsewhere. His brother was selfish and egocentric; he just wanted to have the whole house for his own family. They were not poor people. On the contrary, they had two cars. His brother’s five children had been accomplices to their parents in working to oust their uncle. Quang was now completely estranged from the family.

It’s just the way of the world, Quang thought. He had left his family’s house in sadness finding that he could not live any longer in tension and disharmony. In the hopes of finding tranquillity, he had rented a room in Thoa’s house.

It was a four-storey building, which Thoa and her husband had saved for many years to be able to build. Thoa was a chief accountant and her husband worked in the municipal department of planning and investment. Unfortunately, after the house was built, her husband died suddenly. The fourth floor was now reserved for worshipping Thoa’s ancestors and her husband, and the 50sq.m third floor was Quang’s space.

Five years had passed since Quang had moved in; he had transitioned from being a stranger to almost like a member of Thoa’s family, sharing in all the joy and sadness in the house.

Thoa and her two children lived a pretty good life. Her daughter, Trang, was good-looking like her mother. She was also a good student.

Thoa was still fairly young, only 35-years old; if it wasn’t for her unpredictable temperament, she would have been quite beautiful. Sometimes she seemed elegant and somehow innocent, but more often she was rough and vulgar and flew into rages over nothing.

Her poor temperament probably stemmed from her exposure to the world of trade and business at a very young age. She was the kind of difficult, hard-to-please woman that only the most altruistic and patient man could love. She was a perfectionist, and expected everyone around her to be perfect, as well. So, when her son, Hong, didn’t study, she poured out all her anger on him. She thought her son was purposefully trying to ruin her reputation, because all of the children of her friends were much better than her son in every way.

"If you can’t pass the examinations for grade 10 in the senior secondary school, it means you dishonour me, and I’ll break your neck, you get it?"

Having heard Thoa say this, Quang became really worried about the boy, who in his opinion seemed to be seeking trouble for himself. But the boy was facing a lot of challenges, Quang thought. Hong’s ability to learn left much to be desired, and he was being forced to sit for two very difficult examinations – first the grade 9 examination to leave the junior secondary school and then the grade 10 examination to move up to the special senior secondary school reserved for the gifted students.

Today, the situation was becoming really unbearable for everyone. Thoa’s rage was now fully unleashed, because she had been given a stern warning at a meeting with the school’s headmaster in the morning and had been insulted because of her son’s poor results.

Quang was going downstairs when he met Trang running upstairs to meet him.

"Uncle Quang, please help us! Can you persuade my mother not to beat my brother? She is standing in the doorway with a big stick waiting for him to come home! Please save my brother, uncle!"

***

"Oh, God! I won’t tolerate a son like you, Hong! You’ve been given every opportunity, and yet you waste it! Your grades and study habits are much poorer than a boy’s from a destitute family!"

Quang did not like to see Thoa in this state. She looked so terrible and harsh!

Amazingly, Quang had a deeply- imprinted memory of this woman looking sensual and fresh rather than angry. One noon, he had come home from work and walked past the bathroom on the third floor where he accidentally got a view of Thoa that stopped him in his tracks. He was completely mesmerised by the vision of Thoa standing without her shirt on in front of the mirror. Her big breasts with the pink nipples were almost calling to him to touch them. He didn’t know if this was reality or a dream; he couldn’t have told the difference just then. Oh, what a body!

Thoa had thought Quang was not at home. When she noticed him standing dumbstruck before her, she quickly put on her shirt and walked out mumbling an excuse.

Quang felt like he had just stumbled onto a vast and fertile field after hacking his way endlessly through a dense jungle. He started obsessing about this sacred-seeming vision, to the extent that whenever he would go into that bathroom he would stand before the mirror and think about Thoa. It was like he was standing in the Holy Land, and he would begin to tremble.

Spring came and went. Summer arrived with the crimson colour of flamboyant flowers. And the northeasterly wind blew in autumn into the small lanes, bringing with it the pleasant fragrance of fresh-cut straw from the fields. Quang recognised that by that winter, Thoa looked the most beautiful he had ever seen her. She had bought a lot of new clothes, and seemed to have been making a conscious effort to beautify herself. He had noticed that she had become more refined and pleasant in her attitude and words in front of him.

Late in winter, the quiet, sunny afternoons stretched on peacefully. Suddenly, one afternoon Quang heard someone singing on the second floor. He tiptoed downstairs and peered around a half-closed door and saw Thoa sitting there, knitting a woolen pullover. Her profile was so compellingly attractive.

Quang felt inspired to help protect that soft beauty by helping Thoa and easing her life. In the end, he decided the best way to help her was to tutor her son. He started by teaching some literary works and then began to refine Hong’s Vietnamese language pronunciation and his writing skill.

Hong made progress that surprised even Quang. The whole house seemed to be full of joy and happiness. Trang laughed with great delight. Thoa’s joy was also obvious, but she was not as open in showing it.

Quang noticed how happy Thoa was and said: "You’re the most beautiful when you smile. You know, teaching a difficult son is like taming a wild beast!"

Thoa blushed and said quietly: "Do I look so ugly, when I lose my temper?"

***

But the joy and happiness quickly transformed back into anger. Thoa started berating her son constantly again. Her bitter scoldings and her coarse language turned her from someone beautiful into an ugly hag. With that big stick in her hand and her red face, she looked like a monster.

Once again she stood beside the green gate waiting for her son with a stick in hand, preparing to beat him.

"Hong! Where have you been?" she shouted when she finally caught sight of him.

While shouting, she raised the stick high preparing to whack her son’s head. Quang had not been expecting this, and it was completely out of the blue for Hong, as well. He was about to say: "Hi, mum!" when the stick came towards him; luckily he was able to step aside and ward off the brunt of the blow. The stick crashed down on his bicycle seat and overturned it.

"Hong! Have you learned nothing from me?"

The stick was raised again; and Thoa started charging towards her son with it swinging. Quang quickly stood in between her and her son in order to help the boy to run away. Thoa began pouring her anger out on Quang by beating him on the shoulders and even on the head; if Quang had not been quick enough to throw up his arms and protect himself, he could have been seriously injured.

"Thoa, please stop it! Don’t lose your temper any more!"

Quang tried to say this in as gentle a voice as possible, while keeping his arms raised to protect himself from the beating. His left hand seemed to be going numb, but he found a chance to seize the stick and held on tightly. This made Thoa lose her balance. She stopped trying to swing the stick and walked briskly into the house.

Quang stood the bicycle against the wall and then turned to Hong, telling him to go somewhere for a while until his mother’s anger could be subdued. Then Quang walked into the house in silence.

At the end of the staircase, Thoa was crying, her face turned to the wall. She must have remembered what she had said to Quang one day: "Do I look so ugly when I lose my temper?" (VNS)

Translated by Manh Chuong