Kitchen annex

(Baonghean) - When I was born, this annex was already very old. It was just a porch connecting the side house and the kitchen. Late at night, when everyone was fast asleep and the doors were tightly closed, the annex remained quietly unchanged, just as it was during the day.

It had no doors to offer privacy, no warm light like in the side house, and certainly no treasures like rice, oil, or grease from the kitchen. It lay there, exposed to the fierce winds blowing from the front garden to the back garden, and from the back garden to the front garden. On moonlit nights, the kitchen annex might seem a little magical, thanks to the moonlight illuminating even the cracks in the floor and shining onto the tattered, unused straw bags that my mother and grandmother hung on the roof.

But every early morning, the kitchen annex was the busiest place. Father would roll a banana tree trunk, still wet with sap, from the garden into the annex to prepare breakfast for the restless pigs in the sty. Mother would sit peeling shallots and a few cloves of garlic, so that in a little while, the aroma of fried rice, fragrant with onions and lard, would waft out to the hibiscus hedge. My older brother would sit in the annex, reciting his memorized reading lesson, and my older sister would also sit there mending her fishing nets, preparing to catch some small shrimp in the afternoon... And then, when my parents went to work and my siblings went to school, the house would become quiet, and my grandmother and I would bring chairs out to the annex to sit. A gentle breeze would blow, and I would sit at my grandmother's feet, watching the bees and butterflies fluttering in the garden, watching the newly erected gourd vines dotted with yellow flowers, watching the toad hiding by the wall, its eyes darting around searching for prey, watching the ants leisurely making their way along the cracks in the steps carrying food back to their nest…

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I sat leaning against her legs and looked around until the gentle breeze made my eyes droop. Then she stood up and led me upstairs. I fell into a deep sleep as soon as she returned to the kitchen. I slept, but I knew she was sitting in the kitchen, reciting the Tale of Kieu while watching the little chickens and ducks, making sure they didn't damage my mother's vegetable garden.

In winter, the kitchen shed became gloomy and quiet. Because it lacked shelter, my mother wouldn't let my sisters and me sit there for fear of catching a cold, and we were very restricted from going there. Only my mother and my eldest sister, busy with many tasks in the kitchen, were allowed to go there frequently. My father herded the chickens and ducks into the shed, covering them with tar paper to protect them from the rain and wind. On winter mornings, my father would quickly slip on his coarse woolen coat and rush down to the shed to chop bananas for the always hungry pigs, while my mother and sister hurriedly prepared breakfast with hot rice and fried shrimp seasoned with fish sauce…

Now, after so many years, life has changed a lot. The tiled-roof house has been replaced by a larger, more spacious one, and the kitchen is hardly used anymore; it's now a storage room. But the peaceful annex remains. Now, my family doesn't raise pigs, chickens, or ducks. Where my father used to prop up the half-sliced ​​banana tree, the cutting board, and the knives for chopping and slicing, he now has a pedestal on which sits a valuable four-season apricot tree. The steps that marked the boundary between the annex and the kitchen, where my mother used to sit peeling onions and garlic every morning, are now covered in dust year-round. The toad hiding in the corner with its shifty eyes searching for food has probably also passed away...

Fortunately for my family, my grandmother is still lucid. She still longs for her grandchildren, who are struggling with city life every day. She still sits in the kitchen annex waiting for us to come home, regardless of the changes around her, regardless of the bees and butterflies that have flown far away, regardless of the faded yellow of the gourd vines. I know this, so every time I return from the city, I eagerly look at the garden, the trees, the flowers, and the grass. I don't turn back to look at her, but my heart swells with an indescribable happiness, because I know that in that old kitchen annex, my grandmother and my childhood are vividly present, in flesh and blood, not just in dreams.

Phuong Ngoc