Short story: The Hawthorn Tree
The first time Khe visited her husband's home after the wedding was during Tet (Vietnamese New Year). The apple tree hadn't bloomed yet. Its branches, reaching from the balcony, drooped down to the porch, revealing a mass of jagged thorns. Even after everyone had left the house, the apple tree still hadn't blossomed.
The first time Khe visited her husband's home after the wedding was during Tet (Vietnamese New Year). The apple tree hadn't bloomed yet. Its branches, reaching from the balcony, drooped down to the porch, revealing a mass of jagged thorns. Even after everyone had left the house, the apple tree still hadn't blossomed.
But Thuy was different. She firmly believed that one day the apple tree would bloom. White blossoms, like snowflakes, would appear in mid-May, and clusters of wine-red fruit would ripen in September. “When the apple tree blossoms and bears fruit, good fortune will come, and your wishes will come true.” Forty-four years ago, an old woman from an ethnic minority group, speaking broken Vietnamese, had confidently offered her that promise. Could a wild apple tree really bloom and bear fruit in the middle of the city? But in any case, trusting a stranger was more reassuring than trusting her alcoholic father.
***
The last photos on Thuy's phone were of a cluster of hawthorn blossoms. During the hectic days of handing over the house, while Khe and his wife were busy packing their belongings, Thuy didn't forget to take pictures of every little corner of the house. After decades of enduring the elements, the house was now dilapidated. It was like a sad, silent note in a vibrant symphony. The new owner said they would rebuild the house with at least three floors, from where the 81-story building could be seen from afar. The house was sold, but what was lost was more than just a house. The most frequent photos on her phone were of the hawthorn tree. Thuy took pictures of it at all hours. Or perhaps she believed that some kind of miracle would happen before it and the house shared the same fate?
The dazzling flash of the phone made the "apple blossom cluster" seem to glow. Khe couldn't believe the apple tree could bloom. That photo might be the result of a power outage one evening. Forty-four years, the apple tree had been there, like the loneliest person in the world. It had never bloomed. When the new owner dug it up to build a new house, the apple tree was still full of thorns.
Khe only saw this strange photo on the 49th day after the memorial service for Thuy.
***
That night, a message from the new owner kept Khe and his wife awake. He said he'd seen the apple tree grow back on their doorstep. Strangely, it wasn't growing from the ground. The trunk jutted out from the balcony. He couldn't find the base of the tree. Clusters of apple blossoms burst forth like fireworks, illuminating the night. And he'd seen Thuy. She'd seen him too. But she ignored him. She held the clusters of apple blossoms in her hands. He'd warned her to be careful of the thorny branches. Wild apple trees have branches covered in thorns. The tiny blossoms would have to jostle among the sharp thorns to find a place for themselves.
- What should I do? You know, this is a rented office, and it needs good feng shui.
Khe paused for a moment. The ball of shimmering yellow yarn slipped from her thin hands. Without those balls of yarn, Thuy's life would surely have been nothing more than a cluster of sharp thorns on an apple tree. Khe had repeatedly warned her not to crochet at dusk. After the curtain of clouds, Thuy's eyesight and ability to distinguish colors had deteriorated significantly. But she loved sitting by the hawthorn tree in the fading afternoons with her balls of yarn.
The city was noisier with the honking of cars crisscrossing the winding streets and narrow alleys. But at that moment, she felt like herself. When people are too sad, they often like to watch the sunset. Khe didn't know how many times she had watched the city sunset, perhaps hundreds of thousands of times. But her sadness never faded. Just like the pains that were gnawing at her body and mind day by day, hour by hour. They never intended to stop hurting her.
The little trinkets she made from wool were usually just for display in her glass cabinet. Colorful Russian-style dolls. Calico cats. A few rose branches. The unfinished long-sleeved sweater she'd been knitting for her mother for decades. But that sweater had never been worn. She just left it there. If her mother were in heaven, she'd surely be happy.
Add a few more colorful hats for the baby. She had crocheted those pretty hats before Khe came to live with them as a daughter-in-law. Perhaps she had envisioned how adorable Khe's child would look wearing those hats. Khe had told little Dau about it.
Now, little Dau is like your daughter. Aunt Hai! When she was learning to speak, Khe taught her to call you that. Somewhere, I'm sure you're at peace.
***
When Khê first became a daughter-in-law, she had never seen an alley as depressing as the one near her husband's house. The alley was narrow and long, like a thread winding through the heart of the city. Her husband's house was at the beginning of the alley. Khê had never walked the entire length of it, nor did she feel the need to explore a place that didn't belong to her. Her life consisted of eight hours sitting in an air-conditioned office; there was no reason to endure the stifling heat of the alley. Even though Hoàng, her husband, always encouraged her to "cut through the alley" to save half the commute to work, she always shook her head. Her husband sighed when Khê winked and added, "When you cut down the apple tree, then I'll 'cut through the alley'!"
In the alley, a dozen people had urged him to cut down the apple tree. Khe was the eleventh. A cursed tree is one that bears no fruit. Hoang was the only son in the family. Khe feared bad omens. When Khe whispered to her husband about cutting down the apple tree, she heard her sister-in-law sigh. But Khe didn't dare ask why. Her sister-in-law's eyes were already so sad. The eyes of the woman who was once the most beautiful girl in the small alley always seemed to hold tears. Tears that could burst out like rain at any moment.
"Oh, honey! It's just a tree. This alley is already short of trees, don't you see?" her husband said.
Khe swallowed her resentment. Her husband's family consisted of only two sisters, Thuy the eldest, followed by Hoang. Her husband's parents had passed away early, and Khe came to live with him as his wife, never having experienced the life of a daughter-in-law. Thuy said she treated Khe like a younger sister. She urged Khe to call her "sister," a normal older sister, not "sister-in-law," as it sounded distant and devoid of affection!
***
The tenth person who advised her to cut down the apple tree was an old man who sold clay figurines. He had been selling those sweet, colorful clay toys at the school gate for about fifty years. His beautifully shaped clay figurines had nurtured Thuy's scarred soul.
- She still has several cuts on her left leg. Poor thing, she's a girl...!
He exhaled puffs of cigarette smoke into the dusty afternoon air, his voice hoarse as he remembered Thuy. Hoang's heart sank. That was also why Thuy had never dared to wear clothes shorter than knee-length. He remembered her limping gait, the way she struggled to hold little Dau in her arms. The way she wrapped her arms around the child was no different from the way she had held Hoang when he was little, protecting him from beatings.
That year, if she hadn't caught the blade that fell from the lawnmower, it would have been Hoang who ended up with a crippled leg. She not only saved Hoang from the accident but also from her father's beatings. Her father was incredibly cruel. While eating, he would suddenly strike Thuy on the forehead with his chopsticks. Sometimes, while she was cooking, he would whip her back. He would beat her when he was drunk. When he wasn't drunk, he would scold her. The weak, deranged man's voice roared in his madness. Thuy rarely cried.
Hoang remembered that his stepmother only cried once, when his father tore up the picture of the woman with the beautiful smile that Thuy had tried to hide in her pocket. Similarly, Hoang only cried once, when his mother passed away in Thuy's arms. For generations, stepmothers and stepchildren have loved each other so deeply!
Several times, Thuy sneaked out onto the train tracks to look for the woman in the picture, but he caught him and beat him severely.
- Why are you looking for a woman who abandoned her husband and children, Thuy?
Why did Mother have to leave? Why didn't she take me with her? Where is she now? These questions tormented her life incessantly. The beatings inflicted by her father were nothing compared to the pain of her mother abandoning her. The old man selling clay figurines, despite his repeated attempts to dissuade her, was chased away and beaten by her father. Her father was determined not to leave anyone who had once been close to her in peace. Only the hawthorn tree silently grew. Her father paid no heed to the tree, ugly as a dry twig. He only found the young man lurking at his gate irritating.
- He'll leave you eventually anyway, what's the point of dating someone like that!
Perhaps this time he was right. Forty-four years the apple tree had silently grown thorns, and for forty-four years Thuy had been silent about her lover, without a single reply. Why he hadn't returned, only Hoang knew. He still remembered the young man's turning head and trembling shoulders from all those years ago. The sharp apple thorns hadn't harmed anyone. But the thorns from his father's words had made the heart of a young man in love bleed.
***
That afternoon, the city was shrouded in sadness. Khe and his wife stood for the last time in their old house, now owned by someone else. Khe saw Hoang's tears silently flowing. If he hadn't fallen on hard times, perhaps he could still have kept the house, however dilapidated, and the hawthorn tree. Whether the hawthorn tree could soothe her physical pain was unknown, but it had clearly sheltered her through that sorrowful period of her life, waiting only for a return.
The old man selling clay figurines said that he had seen the man standing on the doorstep for a long time that year.
Now, should we tell her? Will she believe us, just as she has believed for the past forty-four years that one day the hawthorn tree would bloom and bear fruit?
The wind whispered faintly through the city, lost in the long alleyways.