"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...
Murmurs were carried in from outside. It's time for fun. Must go outside. I put my feet against the wall and, with my hands behind me, gave one hard push. As I jumped up, pain shot through my thigh. My head and my joints ached, but I managed to stand up anyway. The liaison officer helped me:
-Are you crazy? If you're tired, then you should sleep.-I'm going out now.-Going out! - He smiled. He had thin lips, even teeth, and thick eyebrows. - You're not going anywhere. First of all, you've got to sleep.
-That's silly. No way!
I mumbled and went toward the entrance to the cave, groping my way like a blind person. I wasn't the only one who was "crazy" because Nho had already disappeared. Thao was even more "crazy", I could hear her laughing upon the strategic hill.
I saw Nho among a group of military construction workers. She told me that it was nearly midnight and the trucks were about to leave. While I was sleeping, many more bombs had exploded on the hill. But everything was alright because of the assault troopers.
The top of the hill reverberated with the sounds of bulldozers, hoes, and talking and laughing. Sometimes, a mine would explode. Those explosions were even bigger than the sounds of the bombs. The stars seemed to move overhead. They were very far away, as clear as drops of blue water, and they were scattered all across the sky. How vast was the sky! Suddenly, I remembered a poem written by an artillery soldier who tossed it to us when his group went by. He called us "the distant stars above the strategic hill". They were bright stars but I didn't understand why he thought of them as "far away". We debated with each other and guessed. Maybe he just wanted it to sound literary because if we were stars, we would be so far away... I very wanted to meet that artillery soldier. But his group was long gone... The trucks got on their way at midnight. The engines roared. The road became alive with noise. The driver in the cabin of the fifth truck saw us:
-Hey, Hanoi girls! You must have missed your mothers!
-I think that's Thang from the Quang Trung group. Nho whispered. The bandage on her arm glowed white. She was quiet, with a round face and straight nose, and leaned against me, looking light and fresh as a white ice cream bar.
-They said that I should go to the military hospital. That's so naive. Being injected every day, pills, also meat porridge, and please eat a lot... Yuck! That's just like a spoiled brat lying in bed. It's naive of them to think that they can force me to go. How annoying! - She hissed as if I were preparing to drag her onto the medical truck myself. She had turned around to discuss the phenomenon of shooting stars with one of the construction workers when she saw at the edge of the forest a star fall, disappearing midway through its course.
I folded my arms across my chest, walked some distance away, not looking at that soldier but at one of the trucks approaching us. I had struck a pose and that was all. How could I help it? There was no way that I could, right at this moment, run up and hold the hand of every soldier on this hill, bursting into tears because of one youthful joy that was rising inside of me. I loved everyone, a passionate love, a love beyond words, that only someone who had stood on that hill in those moments, as I did, could understand fully...
The trucks followed each other without lights, forming a single mass on the road. The leaves that were used as camouflage made every truck seem to double its size. To me, those convoys always looked limitless and countless. Long. Numerous. Gigantic.
-Probably the Hanoi guys will come tonight! Nho still whispered. She was in the same state of mind as me: loving everyone. That was the love of the people in smoke and fire, the people of war. It was a selfless, passionate, and carefree love, which could only be found in the hearts of soldiers. I put my arm around Nho. We said nothing to each other. I squeezed her small, soft shoulder with my arm. She was here, brave, gentle, from the same city as me and standing with me on this night on a hill covered by bomb craters near the frontline.
We understood each other and felt completely happy.
1971
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
