網誌
2008年6月1日 下午5點36分27秒THE CHILD IN THE RIVER
Dedicated to my friends V., S., Jz., and Einstein.
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My old familial house, which my grandfather established after his retirement from the mandarin post of
Tri Phu (a kind of Chief of Province), was situated in a large area including gardens and rice fields, with
three sides surrounded by rivers, and the other side was a chain of mountains and forests. My mother
used to tell us that when she came to that house as a new bride, the desolate site scared her a little,
but as she got acquainted, she loved it a lot. Retired, my grandfather became the local medecin, so our
house was most of the time crowded with patients, some ones from far-away places, among them there
were even French people. Years after, when they returned to VN, these foreigners still came to pay visit
to the old rural medecin and thank him.
At that time, wild animals sometimes came down from the mountains. Even in my childhood, one night
an hungry tiger had come down and been shot dead by the local troops at the foot of a hill. Early in the
next morning, one of my cousin and I had run up to see it. I was very disappointed, because it was an old
tiger, so thin that it looked pitiful and miserable. My mom told us that in those past times, one day when
both my grandpa and father were absent, and she was preparing some herbal medicine, a wild boar had
run into our courtyard, and the women and the children had been shouting and fleeing in all directions.
Suddenly, an uncle of mine, my mom's cousin, a six year-old boy, had picked up a broom and ran after
the boar to beat it, and the wild boar, terrified by that terrible kid with his piercing shouts, had fled out.
I really had a hell of an uncle!
My father liked the chase, and he used to go into the forest to chase with one of his best friend, a dead
shot of the village, with the funny name of Giam Xeu. This gentleman was eventually killed by a big wild
boar. That fateful afternoon, they both spotted a big wild boar, and Mr. Xeu shot it down with just a single
shot. As the boar lied motionless on the ground, he came up near it, gun in hand. Suddenly, the boar
rose up and tried to thrust. Very camly, Mr. Xeu stepped back and cocked his gun. But he tripped over
a branch on the ground and fell. The wild boar thrusted against him, tearing up his side with a horrible cut.
He died right at the moment my father carried him back home.
My father was a good marksman, I dont know why members in my family were all good in shooting. My
elder brother was an excellent marksman, I am not bad either, but the best one was my younger brother.
He could shoot with an terrifying accuracy, and one of his favorite game was to put a bullet at the center
of a target, then fired at some distance of fifteen meters, and his shot would blow up that bullet and the
target altogether. My youngest sister had once asked him how could he shoot like that, he smile and told
her jokingly that there were 8 principles of shooting for all marksmen, but he had nine.
When he didn't go for the chase in his free time, my father went for the fishing. He rented a small roofed
boat, carried along a number of his fishing rods and stuffs, plus his inseparable 12-caliber shotgun, and
rowed upstream about some five or six kilometers from our house to fish, right in the middle of the river.
What happened in that scarry night was told to me when I was some ten years old, but I remember it
well.
It was the time when one of his friends came from the city to see him and stayed some days with him.
They had gone for the chase, but they didn't get much, so they returned and took the boat. For a man
from the city, these activities were a real treat. They rowed the boat far upstream, anchored the boat
and began fishing. At the end of the day, they got a lot of fishes that my father put in a bamboo basket
dipped in the water at the boat's bottom. It had been raining some while in the afternoon, the river was
tranquil and very cold. They got some food, then went to sleep, for they were tired. My father did have
a sound sleep, for he only woke up when someone shook him strongly by his shoulders.
"H.! (my father's name)...H.! Wake up!" a strange voice hissed imperceptibly by his ear, "Ghost!..."
My father sat up. In the silence of the night, he heard a light thudding sound of something falling into
the water. Then he looked at the one talking and saw that was Mr.Th. his friend, with a voice out of tune
and a face turned pale from fear.
"What's the matter Th.?" my father asked.
"A ghost, H.! A ghost!...Hush!... Don't move. It will come!"
The man showed outside the boat with his finger. It was not a full-moon night, but there was enough
light to see the white river water flowing downstream and the vague dark trees on the riverbanks. They
stayed silent for a while, Mr. Th. kept on showing the direction with his shaking finger. Then my father
sensed a slight shudder in the boat, and the boat tilted almost imperceptibly at one side, as if something
was clinging to the boat-side to climb up on.
Then a face slowly appeared over the boat-side, raising bit by bit from the river. My father looked and
looked. It was the face of a child. In the dim light, he saw that the child was clutching the boat-side with
his hands and looked into the inside of the boat where they were sitting, overwhelmingly thunderstruck.
It was a very small child, like a new-born. And now he was looking at my father with his rounded eyes
- and a hideous grin on his face, baring his white teeth. A new-born child, with teeth!
In the dark under the boat roof, my father seized his shotgun. But at the slightest sound he made, the
child jumped down into the river with a flopping sound and disappeared.
My father never believed in ghosts. But now he felt cold. And the night was really cold in fact. No one
could soak oneself in this glacial water in the middle of the night, much less a new-born child. So they
both sat silently, completely aghast and doubtful, for a long time. My father took his gun, loaded and
cocked it, awaiting. Time passed. No one spoke.
Then the boat had a slight trembling again, and the boat inclined very lightly, almost imperceptible. The
weird child seized the boat-side with both hands, raising up his face and looking inside the boat, always
with his white teeth and his hideous grin. My father aimed and fired. The explosion broke the silence of
the night. The boat had a tremor as the monstrous child was thrown up in the air and fell flopping down
on the water.
My father and his friend rushed out and looked. The corpse lied there, floating on the river. It was a big
otter. The otter, that water-rat which dived so well and fed on fishes, that night had sensed the smell of
the fishes in the boat and come up to catch them.
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2008年6月1日 上午2點57分41秒TIME OF FURY
Dedicated to Lady Veronica
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