House of Grass

The sun was rising in the wild garden. It had been a long time since I had come to live here in seclusion, and the garden had been without my grandmother’s hand. In the past, it seemed that my grandmother only spent time tending to the fruit trees in the garden. Lemons, star fruit, and all kinds of vegetables, each row was neat and tidy, lush green.

I keep imagining the time when Mr. Hoan sat silently looking at his grandmother's bent back, patiently picking wild grass in the garden, regretting the day he had to leave and wrote the burning poem: Sister Tu is lonely and alone (poem by Che Lan Vien) . If I were allowed to confide something about the deceased, I would say: The time Mr. Hoan stayed at his sister Tu's house was the time when he felt the heaviest for his blood relatives.

Grandma said that in the past, there was famine, but Mr. Hoan only cared about writing poems. When he had enough for a collection, he had to ask for money to print it. Printing... lost money. As for Grandma, he still quietly took care of the vegetables and fruits, and every morning he quietly carried them to the market to exchange for each coin. But now, grass has grown all over the garden, with only a small path less than half a meter wide left for the soil to breathe every night. Moreover, since Grandma and her uncle and aunt moved to the agency's apartment complex to live together, the garden has become the neighborhood's garbage dump. Looking at the piles of garbage, I can only bow and ask for a moment of silence for all of Grandma's efforts. I remember every time I visited, Grandma would eagerly ask me for what was left: from the star fruit tree that the neighborhood children came to ask for every day to cook soup, to the areca tree in front of the window; every season I asked myself: why don't you pick some for Grandma to chew betel? The most pitiful thing is the stunted lemon tree, trying to survive among the overgrown weeds and my withering indifference...

The house was even more gloomy. More than half of the rafters were eaten by termites, and it had to support two layers of extremely heavy tiles. And if it weren’t for the kitchen, the house’s end wall would have collapsed long ago. The day I decided to move here, I carried a machete that was still clearing the ground for a whole day before I could get into this house, which was littered with old trash and household items that had been a breeding ground for rats and snakes for decades. My father was extremely surprised by the vast grassy garden.

Grass, oh grass. Grass still grows at the joints of the wooden planks that make up the small yard that runs along the length of the house, as if it were piercing the planks to prove its inertness. From the two rusty iron gates to the porch, it is only a leisurely twenty steps, the grass on both sides also covers the path.

The first night I slept in the quiet house in the middle of the vast wilderness, the creepy feeling lasted until one night my old lover came to visit but couldn't find him... The year the 99 flood raged into the house, I let my life be left to fate without knowing that there were even souls still living through the hard days with me. I felt like the house was enduring the pain of gratitude...

“You were so daring, staying there alone year after year. I remember…” - My grandmother smiled, her teeth shining black. I always saw her smile like that; and the first time I saw someone shed tears while smiling - it was my grandmother. Those mornings sitting at the window looking out at the garden full of butterflies, I couldn’t bear to pull out the weeds as my uncle suggested. My heart ached for my grandmother! Her life left its mark on every inch of this garden.

The distance I cycled from home to my uncle and aunt’s shabby pre-liberation apartment complex now seemed endless. Then one afternoon, on that same short distance, I went to my grandmother’s house and noticed something strange. My grandmother’s extraordinary lucidity reminded me of a light about to go out. Like a shooting star falling into the silence…

The wish to visit the old garden has forever followed my grandmother to the other world !

And now, every day around the old house, all kinds of wild flowers still bloom innocently as if no sadness had ever fallen on the vast garden. However, the birds' chirping has gradually decreased because the village children still sneak into the garden to set traps every time I'm away. And then last night a venomous snake followed the trail and lay down in the empty corner of the house, still safe...

I couldn't help but wonder: should I renovate the garden so that the snakes could find another place to live, or let the countless blades of grass grow back every season? I loved my grandfather's garden so much; the place where Mr. Hoan once stayed, not for long but long enough for the poet to condense his heartfelt feelings into the dewdrops, into the rocks ...

Nhuy Nguyen (Literature and Arts Newspaper)

House of Grass