She looked at me with surprise:
'Why do you have so much luggage?'
'Because I've come home to stay with you until you give birth!'
It had been quite a long time since I had returned to the small house where I had spent a happy and tranquil childhood by her side. I could still see the same fragments of cloth she had given me to make clothes for my dolls. From the doorway, I could see the same small canal gently flowing by, at times carrying bunches of violet water hyacinth in its current.
My aunt had changed a lot since I had last seen her, not with the traces of worry that tend to come with old age, but with the joy of an expectant mother. I rushed over to her and placed my ear against her belly to listen to the baby move around inside. My throat choked up so I ran quickly into the yard, speaking to no one because I was fearful that my aunt would see the tears brimming in my eyes.
I had lived with my aunt when I was very young. At that time Aunt Ut was still very young herself, only about 15. But she raised me as if she was my real mother. I always felt bad for her when I ran wild around the house and ignored her calls for me to stop until she made herself hoarse. One day I crossed the canal to visit my friend without her permission. She rushed out to look for me on her wheelchair, but the bank of the canal was overgrown and she was only able to scream my name in great despair. I quickly crossed back over by crossing the coconut tree bridge with a bunch of ripe strawberries in my hands and she expressed her deep relief. It was the first time she had ever given me a good hiding. After spanking me, she hugged me close and cried:
'I was so frightened. Don't you love me? I can't run after you, what would I do if something happened to you?'
Even though my bottom still ached from her spanking, I did not hold grudge against her. On the contrary, I was the one to be blamed. I felt great pity for her because a high fever when she was young had left her paralysed. But she was beautiful, and I wondered if great beauty was her compensation for being disabled. She was unable to go to school but she still knew how to read and write and she had learnt many fairy tales by heart. I had lived with her in the countryside until my parents brought me to the city to start first grade. I didn't want to go with them and cried a lot. I wanted to stay and live with my aunt. My heart had been more open to my aunt than to my own mother. I'm sure it's because I had lived with her since I was a baby; I felt safe with her. My maternal grandparents had sent her to learn how to use an electric sewing machine so that she could become a tailor and make a living for herself. Unfortunately my grandparents had died before she had learned the skills she needed. So every month, my mother sent money home to help my aunt.
One day I received a long letter from her. I was so surprised when she wrote to me that she was going to have a baby.
Like any other woman, my aunt craved to be married and she desperately wanted to be a mother. I had my first boyfriend when I was seventeen, so I asked her if she had ever been in love. I told her about my boyfriend, about my first kiss, but she only smiled gently. I knew she was controlling the sobs that wrapped around her heart. Once I accidentally discovered some love letters under her pillow. The letters were filled with expressions of boundless love for a man. One afternoon, a man came to the house and asked about her. When he saw her in a wheelchair he sat and talked with her for a just a few moments and then said goodbye. My aunt did not cry, but she was clearly very sad. I never heard her talk about love after that day.
Then one day, out of the clear blue sky, I received news she was going to have a baby. Yes, I was surprised, but I felt great joy. She had the right to be a mother, I thought. After all these years she was finally going to have a child of her own.
I decided to go back home to help her. I had graduated from the Medical University with a high distinction in obstetrics, so I thought I could help her a lot. I hoped she would have a safe delivery.
On the evening I arrived home I was pushing her wheelchair along the canal for fresh air and I saw a man hanging about the house.
'Who's that, aunt?' I asked.
'He's from the next village. He just got out of prison. He has been separated and spurned by everybody. It's such a shame for him!'
'Then he's a bad man, isn't he, aunt?'
'He was put in prison because he broke the leg of a man who had an affair with his wife. Before that he had always been gentle and hardworking. His wife left him, and they had no children. What a shame!'
'How do you know....?'
'He has been here a few times to ask me to mend some of his ragged clothes.'
'His clothes are still ragged, aren't they?' I asked.
'He became an orphan when he was very young. Now he's a lonely man just released from prison. What kind of job could he do?' she asked, her eyes brewing with tears.
My aunt's delivery date was getting closer and each day she looked far better and happier. But I had become more worried because I knew that her age and disability would cause her a difficult delivery. So I took her to the hospital for better treatment. My aunt seemed to have some sense of foreboding, so she took my arms:
'Thu, if anything should happen to me, please save my child.'
'Don't worry, aunt! Everything will be all right,' I said, hugging her.
When I rushed home to get her some things from home, I found the man, the former prisoner, standing in front of the locked house.
'What can I do for you, uncle?'
'Oh, I.... I came to get some clothes mended.'
'I'm sorry, my aunt is at the hospital about to give birth. Can you come back later?'
I grabbed a few things and hurried back to the hospital. I phoned my mother because I knew my aunt was going to deliver soon.
'Yes, I'll come back home immediately,' she said.
When I got back to the hospital I found my aunt very weak in critical condition. The doctor in charge took me to the corner and said:
'If we're lucky, we'll only be able to save one of the two, either the mother or her child.'
I decided that she should have an operation immediately to save them both. I told the doctor that I would take over as her physician and accept all the necessary responsibilities. I don't know where all of this self-confidence came from. It was quite a risk for a recent graduate such as myself.
When the lights in the operating room were switched on I felt a bit dizzy amid all the white cloths and my aunt's light breath. But I thought about angels. Once when I was still young I fell into a deep hole full of water after it had rained. I was struggling for life when my aunt quickly released the brake of her wheelchair to race down the hill to help me. Her hands reached out to me and I thought she was like an angel. I still vaguely remember that a man had shown up and helped to save me. Yes, that manface was familiar to me now.
It was a boy. My aunt had given birth to a son! I slapped him on the bottom several times to make him cry. The moment my aunt had been waiting for had finally come. I heaved a deep sigh of relief. I saw that my mother had arrived. She embraced me and cried. I wondered if she cried out of happiness or something else. At that moment, I also saw the familiar man standing there with a worried face.
'Mother, my aunt has just given birth to a son, you know! Okay, mother, uncle, please do come in to meet him!'
I don't know how I knew, but somehow the man's presence here made everything clear. He looked bewildered and his eyes were laden with tears, which clung to his lashes like early morning dew, but his mouth formed a happy smile.
By Ngo Thi Trang
Translated by Manh Chuong
Illustration by Do Dung
