The Distant Stars (Những ngôi sao xa xôi) - Lê Minh Khuê

[3] Nho

 Nho was rather peculiar. She was, on the one hand, affectionate and cheerful and, on the other, very stubborn. Those traits were not contradictory, but, rather, complementary and they caused Nho to have a rather rare personality. She had lived with me ever since I first arrived at this strategic hill. At that time, everything was funny. I was shocked when people first ordered me to go and haul dirt.

-Young volunteers have to do this? Haul dirt? 

(I couldn't have imagined it. I thought that we would be carrying guns, marching in force within a forest so deep that we couldn't even see the moon or the stars. Our speech had to be strong and brief, just like the slogans...)

 But I just hauled dirt. And then I got used to it.

 For many meals, we had no broth, so we girls poured drinking water over our rice.

 We did this in public and we looked so miserable that some of the men cried out in pity. The first time we heard the sound of the bombs, some of us were so scared that we lay down and hugged the earth. But now we'd gotten used to it.

 I joined the unit after Nho. That day, I looked lost as I set my knapsack down on a log behind the barracks. Nho walked up from the stream. Her hair was wet. Drops of water remained on her forehead and her nose. The water in the stream must have been abundant. Maybe people could swim in it, I thought. Nho paused for only a second, then approached me without saying a word, her hands busily wringing her wet washcloth. She tossed her head once, then swept her haughty eyes from the tip of my head to the mud-covered shoes that I was rubbing hard against each other.

-What unit sent you here? Where are you from? What's your name?

 I stopped rubbing my shoes together and stood ready. In my military training classes at school, I had studied martial arts. I set my arms akimbo, taking a guarded position, and deliberated over whether I should punch her. Where should I punch her first? I would just hit lightly at one of her vital points. On her hand.

 But at that moment, Nho turned around and stuck her hands into her trouser pockets, motioning with her chin:

-Go to headquarters - Then, she left before me.

 Of course, we'd paid a lot of attention to each other since then. Gradually, we got to know each other and at some point we became friends. Both of us had just turned seventeen. That a veteran bullied a newcomer a bit wasn't something worth resenting. It turned out that I liked her. She had a remarkable character. The boys had great respect for her, although they sometimes still managed to tease her.

 Like me, Nho liked independence. We would say to each other: "From now until we're old, we'll have romance but we'll never marry. Marriage would mean too much work. Diapers, blankets, mosquito nets, sawdust, fish sauce..., so there would be no time left for fun. In love, he'll take you to the movies and be sweet to you when you sulk. You'll have plenty of time to read books..."

 Nho had a guy who worked as an engineer in a machine shop. He diligently wrote to her and his letters were often so long that reading them wore your eyes out. He justified himself, saying, "In Hanoi, people have more time than at the front line." He kept a photo of Nho when she was two years old. She was wearing baby's pants, with their open rear end, and a wide-brimmed bonnet, and she was holding a bunch of wildflowers at the foot of some tall mustard greens. I had been allowed to read many of the letters he sent to Nho. Once, he wrote, "I'm very well. I've been enjoying playing soccer and have two muscular arms. I look at the picture of you at two years old and I can't imagine you as you are now. I can only think: Here you are, so small, holding flowers in your hands. Do you want me to pick you up? Take you out? Buy you some candy? Where else do you want to go? I'll carry you there...". His ideas were pretty funny, but we didn't laugh when we read the letter. Gravely, we turned in the direction of the north, where Hanoi was located. We had been away for so long. We missed our green city. We treasured its tranquility as a memory. This was the place where we were growing up, but we were always thinking of Hanoi.