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The return of the teals
By Nguyen Quang Thieu
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Lan woke up at midnight.
The wind of the first lunar month warmed up the hilly
area. In his dream, the shotgun sounded like a glass
tumbler breaking on the stone floor. And the teals (wild
ducks) suddenly zoomed up and fell down, their bodies
covered with blood.
It was the same every time he saw the teals in his
dream. He also heard the sounds of the shotgun. But it
had been many years since the birds had come to Dam Lai.
Ten years before when Lan arrived at the farm at the
foot of this hilly area, he would be woken up every day
by the flapping of wings of hundreds of teals flying to
Dam Lai for food. For the first few days, he’d thought
it was raining. Then he would wander along the lake
whenever he had time, looking at the teals foraging food
in the green sedge. It was during his walks that he met
Hanh. The meeting made the whole area romantic for him.
"Have you left your work to take a walk, uncle worker?"
She used to ask him when they first met. Lan did not how
to answer. He just smiled. On fine days, Lan used to
ride his bicycle to the hamlet at the foot of the hill
to her house. On moonlit nights, they would go for walks
along the marsh, and talk about the birds.
"Where do the teals come from, brother?"
"From beyond the mountains."
"Why don’t they seek their food over there?"
"There is no large marsh like this one out there."
"Have you been there?"
"No, not yet."
"But how do you know?"
"The teals told me."
"Why do they go and seek food so early in the morning
?"
"It is their fate."
"You say that as if you were a teal".
"If only we were teals!"
"What for, brother?"
"I don’t know."
Then, one morning, he heard the sounds of continuous
firing. From the sedge along the marsh, the teals flew
up in the air. More shots sounded. Several of the birds
fell. "Someone is shooting at the teals" - the
thought entered his mind belatedly. He rushed towards
the marsh. There were three strange young men picking up
the wounded birds. They put them into an old rucksack
and sat down to smoke. Lan came up to them.
"Why did you shoot the birds?" They were taken
aback for a moment. Then they burst into laughter.
"These are teals, not ducks in your house, sir!"
"You have no right to kill them."
"Who can ban us from killing birds in nature. You’re
too humanitarian. Long live humanism!" They laughed
again. Lan was livid, but did not know what to do. He
had to return to the farm.
In the afternoon, he rode his bicycle to the hamlet
where Hanh was living. He wanted to tell her about what
had happened to the teals. The three men were dressing
the birds in the corner of the yard near the kitchen.
He turned round, and saw Hanh.
"Who are they?"
"They’ve come from Hanoi to hunt teals. They want to
use my kitchen to cook rice."
Hanh actually looked pleased, so Lan went home. A few
days later, when Lan did not visit the hamlet to see
her, Hanh went up the hill.
"Are you angry with me?"
"No."
"Why didn’t you come to see me?"
"I was busy. Have they left your house, those
hunters?"
"They left on that afternoon."
"They killed all the birds."
"How can they kill thousands of birds?"
"Oh, is that so?" Lan was livid with rage and
walked away to the cow shed. But that very afternoon he
pedalled to the hamlet to see Hanh. He missed her.
Then, another morning, the sounds of shotgun filled the
air again. Lan took a stick and ran downhill towards the
marsh. Hanh was there with the three men, looking with
great pleasure at the birds with their wings
outstretched, their chests red with blood. When she saw
him, she said cheerfully:
"Lan, have a look. They are true marksmen. They will
teach me how to shoot!"
A feeling of emptiness and exhaustion engulfed him. He
looked into her eyes for a long time, then left.
The following days, the sounds of shooting continued to
disturb the idyllic, poetic peace of the area. Lan did
not go to see Hanh any more. But in his dream he saw
himself running from the peak of the hill to the hamlet
looking for her. And at the end of the dream, he heard
the repeated sounds of the shotguns and saw the teals
falling down like dry leaves in the wind.
The killing intensified thereafter. Hunters from the
city flocked to Dam Lai in droves on holidays, shooting
down the teals and other birds. Hanh no longer came to
the farm to visit Lan. She had fallen in love with one
of the three young men and was waiting with great
emotion for the promised wedding day.
The teals were getting scarcer and scarcer at Dam Lai.
And one morning the sky around the hills became very
quiet. No longer could one hear the flapping of the
wings of the teals. For Lan, the realisation was
sorrowful. He would wake up very early and hold his
breath, hoping to hear the sounds of flapping wings.
But, almost miraculously, Dam Lai became a desolated
area. And the hunters were no longer to be seen.
The foetus in Hanh was growing with every passing day.
She usually woke up before dawn, not to wait for the
teals, but for the young man. But he never returned. She
did not know where he came from, as she had not known
where the teals came from. Then she gave birth to a
baby. By the time the baby was a year old, she had given
up hope that that the hunter would return. Sometimes,
late in the afternoon, she would come to Dam Lai and sit
on the edge of the marsh by herself. It was thus that
she met Lan again. She cried and said: "He has not
come back. And the teals are not coming either..."
Lan sighed: "Right. He will never come back. But the
teals will return."
"Will they really return, brother?"
"Yes, they will."
"I pray for them to return. I pray," She said
this with great emotion. Lan looked in surprise at her.
"I pray for the teals to return so that you will not
be unhappy." She ran away. Her words revived
memories and feelings in Lan. That night, he dreamed
that the teals were flying all over the sky, and he flew
downhill looking for her. The next day, in the
afternoon, he rode his bicycle to Hanh’s hamlet. As she
saw him, she asked hopefully: "Did you see any teal
returning?"
"No. But they will. I saw them return in my dream."
He felt the old feelings surge, at once strange and
familiar, from the bottom of his heart.
"When they return," he told her as if he was
whispering to himself "I will take you to the marsh
to look at them search for food."
"Don’t say that. I am completely ruined. Nothing of
the past will return to me!"
"The teals will return, surely."
From that day on, Lan rode to see Hanh almost every day,
as in the past. He would tell her about his dream about
the teals returning. He could even smell the odour of
the birds.
"But for me, those days will never return," she
said, eyes reddened from crying. As Lan looked at Hanh,
he felt his whole being fill up with the quiet and
romantic scene around them.
"The teals will return, because they cannot forget
these hills. And everything will return. I ... I wish
so..."
Lan woke up hearing the flapping of wings in his dream.
But the flapping continued. Was it raining? The flapping
got louder and louder. It never rained in the first and
second months of the lunar year. He hurriedly got out of
bed and rushed out. There was no rain. A warm wind was
blowing through the hilly area. He looked up into the
sky. He could hear very clearly the flapping of the
wings and even their cries. His whole body trembling, he
rushed to the marsh. Even before he got there, he heard
the familiar sound of the birds looking for food in the
green sedge. He picked up a stone and threw it into the
sedge. A few teals flapped their wings and flew up into
the sky.
"They have returned. They really have returned!"
He could not restrain himself from shouting. Then, all
of a sudden, he ran to the farm. He put on his shoes and
warm clothes. And road away on his battered bike. He was
looking for Hanh.
Translated by Hoang Tuy
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