Summer in the city bus
Recently I felt an unexpected yearning for the old memories. I used to call myself a memory collector. I wrote down many of my thoughts, exchanged long letters with people I dearly cared, took photos of the streets I loved, created folders and folders on my laptop to seal up each year of my life. The fact that these memories were made tangible gives myself a certain level of safety and comfort. They are evidence that my years passed by not in vain. They were full and interesting and had things for me to play back over and over again in my head. On the evenings I sit down in front of the study desk and reminisce over fragments of memory that are small like candies but glistening like gems, hidden deep down in my inner world.
I wrote “Summer in the city bus” when I was 16 or 17. And then when the final year of high school came, I submitted it to the Kenyon Writing Award. I was applying for the Creative Writing programme at Kenyon college in Ohio. The school rejected me, but I’m happy I took the chance to translate this piece to English. A piece of writing I adore so much, so I want to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it too!
***
What do I see from the Summer light?
"Daydreaming,
but I don't get lost.
Just some moments,
the flow of memories
pause.
The sailor
anchor in the past,
looking for treasures,
going back to the now."
Summer came. There are sun-filled sky and earth, and there are sun-filled souls in this city. On the bus across the highway to the city crowded with people and vehicles, I’m submerging myself in this float of sunshine - one of a kind that only belongs to Summer. The light’s flowing in through the window glass running till the last seat. It’s resting on my shoulders, crawling on the brown hairs of the girl who sits next to me, lying on empty seats, clinging on relentlessly swinging handles. It’s sinking deep into the frowning eyes of the old lady opposite. It’s unwinding on the green handheld fan of an old man sitting by the window like me, frowning under the glaring shine of a cloudless May day.
It’s burning my skin, and his skin. It’s casting a yellowish hue on my hairs’ ends, making his grayish hair gleam as if dusted with silvery glitter. It’s lightening the brown shades in my eyes, yet making his eyes closed tightly to prevent its scorching touch… Perhaps, the old do not enjoy Summer, or just most old folks I know, I’ve met are like that. Like him. Like my granny.
Back to the 2000s, the poor village had power cuts all year. The worst would be during Summer, when the blazing streaks made people bow down and little children like me whine about the heat. In the house dimmed with sunlight, granny was bearing me in one arm with her feet bouncing up and down and the other hand waving the fan restlessly. When the very first memories started blending into my soul at four, those Summer noons without electricity strangely turned into what a peacefully ravishing remembrance. In moments of resting my head on granny’s lap at the front porch’s steps shadowed by mango canopies, I felt the scent of the wind interwoven with the cassava’s in her hands caressing my hair, my face, and even my ears - sounded melodious like the instrument of an old folk song.
The elders disfavor the fierce and harsh look of the Summer sun. As for children like me, Summer is always a treasure in the woods of memory, perhaps because there are such delightful moments built upon what they did for us during the most difficult days, lingering in my mind like the breeze from the handheld fan that soothed my heart amid the rising heat in Summer.
End of the highway, the familiar capture of every morning route to school appears: houses by houses, drivers by drivers, vehicles hustling against vehicles. Till now, I still can not have any sympathy for the jam, but at least, I have accepted these roads full of red lights as an obvious part of my school life.
More than an hour waiting for the bus heavily inching little by little along the flow of people struggling amidst the traffic net of the urbanization time, I quietly find myself some little joys. Just at this moment, the light looks like clustering into drops, flickering on my arms, about to burst and splash out of the floor. It seems windy outside. Just a light breeze that is gentle enough to make the canopies agitate and crystalize into rustle sounds. Foliage is molding the light: the light leaks through those tiny chinks among the leaves then take shapes. Perching on it, my look gets caught by some bunches weighing the whole foliage down with their ivory white or pale green.
The bus has been stopping for quite a while, sparing me some time to slowly reminisce about a fragment of memory that has just tinkled…
They’re dracontomelon flowers.
The old lady sitting opposite has just drawn me out of my wandering thoughts. “Ah” - I exclaim, remembering that my mother once mentioned this flower the other day. Suddenly, my memory floods back. I realize that the first encounter between the flower and I is not the Summer of 2022, but this day 12 years ago when I was still a little child fond of walking barefoot and running under the midday heat of nearly 40°C.
Back then, I had a best friend named Hoai. She was one year older than me, but we called each other as if we were the same age. Her house was only 5 houses away from mine; therefore, we often rendezvoused with each other at the Commune Committee to play climbing over trees and fences. The place was very spacious and planted many Indian almond trees (normally called Bang) for shadows. Once, Hoai incited me to eat a fallen Bang fruit. It tasted both sour and acrid, and she was busy laughing at my face. I was extremely angry that I chased and tried to beat her, yet only being able to catch her up when already running to my grandmother’s front door. Or perhaps, she purposely stopped there as she thought I was afraid of my granny, hence not daring to do anything. But she misjudged! I fiercely rushed into, took her hair and pinched her. But she was not a loser at all, striving to bite my hands until it oozed blood. We still played with each other as usual after the fight. Neither put it in our mind, but those Bang trees suddenly became a big fortress in my memory, which made no void left in my mind for a dracontomelon tree to step in even though it stood there all along in a corner. But today, when I saw those flower bunches here again in the midst of a strange city, nostalgia has gently flown me back to the old trunk that year…
It was a windy Summer night, and I was standing there humming a song when Hoai leaned forward and pulled me toward a dark corner. Afraid of ghosts, I resisted following. Yet, Hoai stubbornly insisted on dragging me along and at the end, pointed to an oddly white seed-like bunch under a tree which was also no less odd.
Pick it, that’s dracontomelon flowers!
I hesitated, remembering the time she incited me to eat Bang fruits. Though, Hoai enthusiastically demonstrated for me this time. She bent down to pick up bunches and bunches of that flower, then rubbed her hands together to create a crispy and funny sound. The flowers were falling off like a cascade of greenish stars. I was so amused and excited, imitating her picking a handful of flowers and throwing it up to make a dracontomelon rain. Hoai was teasing me again for I doubted her “kindness”, but I had no mind to bother her jokes. I was busy enjoying my flowers, not dusted with glitter but still glistering like the aureola of the moon.
After playing quite tiredly, Hoai ate some to show me that they were edible. It looked savory indeed. Yet, when it was my turn to try, I quickly spat it out and wiped my mouth as if I had just eaten something so awful. Magically, to a 5-year-old child, no matter how unpalatable the flower was, that has soon vanished in my memory and now I can not trace it back. I suspect that even the memory can be so wisely selective like that. It has left behind, in the past, the taste of the flowers so that I can preserve that windy Summer night, with Hoai and the old tree, filled with utmost joy and excitement and laughter that seems to be echoing forever from a distant land.
The bus has arrived. It seems like I have just woken up from a long long dream but I know I did not sleep. Those were the most vividly beautiful and poetic reminiscences hidden for many years in the memory woods. They have come back with the Summer shine, suddenly and resolutely, like the way the Summer chorus itself began. Not as timid as the Autumn to wait for the trees to change their leaves’ shade. Not as leisurely as the Spring to wait for drizzles for months. Summer rushed in and poured its blaze over every single tree and branch without any prelude. I step out of the bus and plunge myself in the Summer light as if I was rushing into my childhood. Mantling me is this sunshine, not burning, but warming my heart and making it pound vibrantly while all the memories are streaming out like the very first downpour of the season…
Hanoi, 4th May 2022
“The Summer light has driven me back to my childhood in Bắc Giang of the very old days.”