After the semester was over, Thao visited her hometown during the break. When she returned to Hanoi, she told Thanh that they needed to have a serious talk about the fact that they were not a good match. She told him that she’d found a new boyfriend and that he should stop thinking about her. Thanh listened attentively to what Thao said, but he seemed indifferent. He assumed she was lying to him. But then Thao started receiving letters delivered to the Literature Department’s office every week; the letters arrived in a thick envelope with the words “To my beloved Mac Thi Thao” elegantly written on the outside.
Eventually, Thanh started to reconsider what Thao had said. He wondered now if maybe she was telling the truth. On the one hand, he felt angry at her betrayal; but on the other hand, he also felt a sense of a relief, as if he’d been relieved of a heavy burden. A month later he proposed to his classmate, and they got married that summer, right before graduation.
On the night of Thanh’s wedding, Thao lay down on her bunk and lit a small oil lamp. She shielded the dim light with her hands, afraid that it might wake her sleeping roommates. They had started alienating Thao lately; it was as if they considered her diseased and therefore kept their distance, shunning her so she was left by herself in an isolated quarantine zone.
Thao spread the letters out on her bed and counted them. There were sixteen total, all unopened. Everyone in the Literature Department had condemned Thao for betraying Thanh. How could she betray such a handsome, faithful man?
Thao opened the first letter, carefully peeling back the sealed top of the envelope. She thought of Thanh. At this very moment he was probably comfortable and happy in the arms of his new wife. When Thao had been stationed at the depot in the Laughing Woods, she’d longed for a similar night with Thanh. It had once been the fire of desire that motivated her to make it out of the Laughing Woods.
The light from the oil lamp grew dim. It reminded Thao suddenly of a ripe, heart-shaped tomato. She cupped the lamp in her palms, squeezing the dying flame tighter and tighter, imagining the juices from the tomato running in waves of warmth over her hands and arms. She had the sensation suddenly that someone was tickling her. She began to laugh. Then it seized her whole body. As she convulsed with laughter, she flung her arms wildly, scattering the letters all over the room.
One by one, the other girls in the room started to wake up. They were scared and sat up in their beds. They listened to the laughter and, in the dim light from the oil lamp, saw the image of Thao writhing in a fit on her bed.
“She’s hysterical,” one of them said.
“She’s gone insane,” concluded another.
“We must take her to the doctor,” another suggested.
But when they tried to urge Thao to come with them to the emergency infirmary, she refused to go. The roommates held her legs and arms and called to some male students down the hall to help them carry Thao to the infirmary, where she was forced to take a handful of white pills. Finally she fell asleep.
The roommates returned to their room and noticed the letters scattered all over the bed. One of the letters was opened and contained only a few lines:
I’ll write to myself every Thursday night. Then on Friday I’ll go to the Nga Tu So post office on my bicycle to mail it so I can receive my letter by Saturday afternoon.
I know this is silly, but it’s what I must do so that Thanh will forget about me.
Oh Tham, my sister, I’m the only person left now in the Laughing Woods. There is no happiness for me anywhere.
Dear comrade sisters, rest in peace in the Laughing Woods! I will keep my promise to you all. I will make Thanh our faithful prince.
Girls in the Literature Department tended to be sensitive; Thao’s roommates were able to figure out what had happened. They began to cry as they remembered that in the past few months they had alienated Thao and made her feel so alone.
At the first sign of dawn, the girls ran to the top floor of the dormitory, where Thanh had a room, and knocked eagerly on the door. Thanh seemed annoyed when he opened the door and saw them standing there. But the girls didn’t say anything. They simply took him by the hand and led him to Thao’s bed and the scattered letters. Silently Thanh read one letter, then the next and the next until he had opened and looked at all sixteen of them. Two-thirds of the letters were blank. Thanh’s face was white; he looked as if he might collapse.
Hurriedly Thanh ran to the infirmary, but Thao had already left. The door to the room where she’d been sleeping was left ajar. The white sheet on the bed showed the imprint from where her small body had lain the night before after she’d been forced to take the sedative pills. The inevitable thought gave Thanh the sensation of choking: while Thao had been restrained here, treated like an out-of-control crazy person, he had been luxuriating in the happiness of being with his new woman.
Thanh walked to the hallway, then out onto the street. There was a strong, cold wind blowing across the city from the north. Yellow leaves floated in the air like butterflies caught up in a storm. As he walked, he couldn’t escape the image in his mind’s eye of a girl crushed by the cruelty of life, writing letters to herself at
