"There were three of us. Three girls. We lived in a cavern at the foot of a strategic hill."
⭐This is the full English-translated Version of "Những ngôi sao xa xôi"-a short story written by Lê Minh Khuê. She's one of the most famous female authors i...
In Hanoi, I had a small room on the second floor. My house was ancient and deep within an alleyway where many green trees grew. Those trees were so old that creeping mistletoe now covered them. At night, I would perch on the edge of the windowsill looking out over the uneven lines of the black roofs, and I would sing. I sang with passion, loudly. Next door lived a doctor who had trouble sleeping. He would switch on his light and politely tap three times against the wall. Twenty nights out of every month would be like that. I sat waiting for sleep to come back to the doctor, justifying myself by thinking, "Only I can know the vastness and freshness of the city night. How can the doctor experience anything like this in his disruptible dreams?". It was also because of my passionate singing that once I almost fell off the windowsill. Frantically grabbing the shutter, I dizzily glanced down into the bottomless abyss. Somewhere down there was a hose that ran all night to fill a cistern. The gushing of the water gave me the feeling that it was about to rise to the windowsill. I pulled myself up and carefully drew my legs inside. I resumed singing, but I sang more softly and listened to the sound of the tapping on the wall.
In the corner of the room sat a desk that my mother had made for me throughout two afternoons. Every time I did anything that required paper and ink, I would pull all my books and notebooks out of my drawers and my satchel, and spread them out across the desk and bed, although all of those things weren't necessary for what I was about to do. For a long time, I searched endlessly among those papers, unable to do anything and also unable to put them in order. So impatient that I could cry, I shouted for my mother. She left her sewing machine and ran in, and, while lightly rumbling, arranged all the papers. She scolded me, but without determination. "What kind of girl areyou?", she asked. "Your husband will beat you. Beat you!" Therefore, even when I was still at home, I swore to myself that I would never get married...
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