“Are you pregnant?”
“Yes,” said the wife.
Silence.
“Who were you with?”
“With you, of course,” she replied calmly. “How could I be with anyone else besides you?”
The husband said nothing and crawled quietly out of the mosquito net. He put on his clothes and sat at the kitchen table, smoking for one hour, two hours, probably longer. Then, because there was only one bed in the house, he pulled out a piece of plastic, spread it out on the floor, and lay down.
It all started that night, the night that ended ten long years of longing caused by a cruel war, the night that presented new challenges and the declaration of a new war these two people now had to fight. Unlike the war they had just won, this new war was without weapons.
It was hard to tell if they would be victorious in this new conflict. There were new challenges in peace time that didn’t necessarily require extraordinary endurance or sacrifice, but required something bigger, something more complicated and subtle: compassion and forgiveness.
Dear readers, the scene I described above did not derive from my imagination. It was a true story that happened in my village.
The husband was named Nam, and his wife was Xuyen. They didn’t say anything else to each other that night, though neither of them could fall asleep. The next morning, Nam took a walk around the village. He wanted to ask people about his wife during the time he’d been away. He was surprised, and a little confused, when everyone reported positive things about Xuyen: that she was hardworking, well mannered, and respectful in all her relationships.
Maybe she hid it so cleverly that nobody knows, Nam thought.
And as soon as he got home he asked his wife again, “Who were you with?”
“You,” she replied gently.
“Me? How could that be true?” Nam yelled. “Explain this to me!”
Xuyen looked up at her husband. Her eyes were wet with tears and her face had turned red with embarrassment.
“Go ahead, tell me!” Nam said, getting angrier now.
“Nam, please don’t yell at me like that,” Xuyen said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I love you. I’ve always loved you and been faithful to you. I wish you could know, even just a little, how I’ve lived the past ten years in misery and fear. Why am I pregnant? It’s simple. Every night when you were away I slept with your pillow next to mine. Sometimes I imagined I could feel you sleeping next to me. Then one night, a few months ago, I imagined you came home and got into bed like everything was normal. I could even feel the warmth coming from your body. I felt much closer to you on this night than the nights before. When I woke up, I was still alone, like all the other times. But I knew you had just been with me. I could still feel the warmth from your body on your side of the bed, and the blankets were even crumpled.…”
“Do you expect me to believe you?” Nam said. “Do you actually believe such nonsense?”
“Please don’t talk like that. I didn’t …”
Nam walked out of the house.
He thought about what Xuyen had said. He could certainly empathize with her—he used to dream about lying next to his wife all the time. But how could this actually explain her pregnancy? No! It’s impossible! he said to himself, though he wanted desperately to trust her words. He tried quoting the theory of telepathy that everyone seemed to be talking about recently, but it was no use. He concluded sadly that Xuyen had not been faithful to him and must have slept with another man. He could not bear this fact. It was an obstacle that he failed to overcome, though he’d always loved her. But there was no other way for him—he was the kind of man who could not hold a woman in his arms who had been held by another man.
Nam, Xuyen, and the newborn baby all lived together in the same tiny house. Nobody ever heard them argue. Nam was a strong and healthy man who loved farming. He was able to provide his family with enough food and even had some extra rice left over to sell to the state. Within a short period of time he furnished their house with all the necessities. He didn’t talk much, especially to his wife. He worked hard during the day. When he finished his work, he’d sit quietly, often staring attentively at something in front of him for hours on end. At night he slept by himself, not on the piece of plastic on the floor but on a small, newly purchased bed placed next to the window.
Xuyen was a small woman, and after giving birth she became even smaller. She moved around the house quietly, like a shadow. She wanted desperately to share with Nam the burden of the thoughts that tormented him, but he had such a cold and cruel attitude that her attempts failed. So in general she tried to avoid him and often sat by herself in a corner of the house farthest from her husband.
Strangely, the baby looked just like Nam. For a moment, this fact made Nam reconsider Xuyen’s illogical explanation. The baby was beautiful. Nam harbored no resentment against the child whose existence had become the wall
