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

[9] Hail

 A cloud floated by outside the cave. Then another. They were going by faster and faster. The open sky in front of the cave's entrance grew dark. A storm was coming. The sand filled the air. The wind lifted then tossed down the dry branches of the trees. Leaves flew in all directions. It was as sudden as a change in the human heart. In the forest, it was normal for this kind of weather in this season. Rain. But now it was hailing. At first, I didn't notice. But after that, I heard a tapping against the overhang of the cave. Something very sharp was pulverizing the air, tearing it into tiny fragments. The wind. I felt pain and at the same time, my cheeks became wet.

-It's hailing. Oh my gosh! It's hailing!

 I ran inside and put a few small hailstones into Nho's opening palm. Then, I ran back outside, extremely excited.

 The year I finished the tenth grade, we had also had hail. During the night, the hail had hit the walls with that same tapping sound. I had flung open the door, run into the hallway, and pounded on every single door, shouting at the top of my lungs as if I had gone crazy:

-Heavens! Get up quick! It's hailing! 

 Then, I muttered to myself:

-Only fools would stay in bed at a time like this.

 The doctor was not a fool at all, but he proclaimed gravely:

-If you continue with this noise, we will be forced to take the necessary measures... 

 And the woman teacher next door sighed inconsolably:

-Jeez, can't you let my child sleep?

 Only the driver who lived downstairs stayed up with me throughout that miraculous night. After that, he joined the army and became a hero at destroying enemy vehicles. He wrote to me and often mentioned those hailstones of long ago as one of his "memories of the past"...

 Here, on this bomb-covered hill, we also got hail and my childish joy had bloomed again, profoundly and wholly. Here there was no one to reproach me. Thao was busy scooping up something from the ground. Maybe it was hailstones. As for Nho, she sat up, her lips parting:

-Hey, give me some more of those hailstones.

 But it had stopped already. It's over as quickly as it had begun. Why so fast? I suddenly became dazed, filled with an unspeakable regret. I couldn't have regretted the hailstones. The storm just came and ended. But I missed something, maybe it was my mother, or the window, or the big stars in the city's sky. Right, maybe it was those things... Or maybe it was the trees, or the dome of the opera house, or the ice cream woman pushing her cart filled with ice-cream tins, surrounded by expectant children. The asphalt road at night after a summer rain seemed wider, longer, reflecting the lights, looking like a river of black water. The electric lights over the square glowed like the stars in the stories about fairylands. The flowers in the park. The soccer balls were carelessly kicked by children from street corners. The hawking of the woman who sold sticky rice in the morning, carrying a small bamboo basket on her head...

 Oh, maybe it was all those things. They were so far away and then, because of a hailstorm, they came in waves to flood my mind. People asked whether we, the girl from Hanoi, could bear three days away from home. But here we were, living on this strategic hill for three years already. The drivers and artillerymen called each of us in our unit by name, without ever making a mistake. As for us, we knew who, among those men, was in love, who had a first-born daughter, who was courageous, and who was irritable. During the night, while we were repairing the road, those men would toss us Ngoc Lan toothpaste, perfume-scented lettering papers, and lemon candies. Often, we didn't even know who was throwing them because the trucks had to go by very quickly. But we spread the news among ourselves:

-There were trucks from Hanoi! Only Hanoi had those things.

 In Hanoi, we had never even paid attention to such things. But here we felt so happy to hold one thin sheet of fragrant paper, put it into an envelope, and send it to someone further toward the frontline.