Thanh wandered past a familiar corner where on their Saturday dates he used to buy Thao sour plums with his modest scholarship money. Thao had eaten the sour plums enthusiastically without frowning, to make him happy, Thanh knew.
The fruit vendor was falling asleep, her head resting in her palm.
“Excuse me,” Thanh asked, waking her up. “But do you remember the girl who often wears an old soldier’s uniform? Have you seen her pass by here recently?”
The seller rubbed her eyes. “Well, yes, actually,” she said. “You mean the girl who used to eat sour plums with you, right? She was here just a minute ago.” The seller pointed across the street to the bus station. “I think she went to wait for the bus over there.”
Thanh hurried to the bus station and looked for Thao everywhere, but she wasn’t there.
Seeing no other choice, he returned to his new wife. Later he got a good job in the city, and they eventually started a family. Life went on as usual, but Thanh still thought of the sea bird and how small its wings must be.
Five years later, the alumni gathered at the university’s main meeting hall. They wanted to relive their romantic pasts. At the party for the faculty of literature, Thanh chose a seat by the window, even though it was cold outside.
Maybe a magical thing would happen and Thao would actually show up. But how would she appear in front of him now? With a worn-out, exhausted body, or with dreaming eyes and a willow branch in her hands? Would she be wearing a nun’s brown robes and greet him by placing her palms together and saying, “Amitabha”? Or would she appear as an elegant, wealthy woman wearing valuable jewelry? Would she be a talented journalist fresh off the plane from Saigon?
The party was loud and rambunctious. The wind blew noisily, like heavy footsteps. Pensively Thanh looked out the window, toward the main gate of the university.
“Oh, Laughing Forest! You have swallowed so much blood and tears. Why would you also steal my little sea bird?”
19 / THE SORROW WASN’T ONLY OURS
LUONG LIEM
Luong Liem was born in 1946 in Thai Binh and lives in the coastal northern province of Quang Ninh. As a soldier, he fought in the pivotal Tet Offensive of 1968 and served until the end of the war. He is the chairman of the Quang Yen Association for Victims of Agent Orange and works with the nonprofit organization Marin to search for the missing remains of Vietnamese soldiers who died in the war. He writes both short stories and poetry, and his work often depicts the hardships soldiers faced during and after the war. Like other stories that deal with the effects of dioxin poisoning, “The Sorrow Wasn’t Only Ours” highlights how the war continued to harm and even kill long after 1975. The title of the story suggests the generational nature of the fallout from the war, particularly the lingering effects of dioxin poison, passed from veterans to their children born well after the fighting ended.
Back in elementary school, Dai and I were only friends. We loved each other, but it was innocent and platonic, the kind of love typical of two young water buffalo herders with mud-caked hands and feet. Still, we experienced passionate affection for each other.
Back then, we used to hold hands and run joyfully to a clump of bamboo trees or a corner of the rice paddy to catch grasshoppers to feed to my father’s pet bird. As time went by, our love grew deeper. Years and years of our footprints marked the muddy road we had walked together to school. Everyone said our love was so strong, nothing could destroy it. But actually it ended up falling apart within the blink of an eye.
Who had caused this to happen? Was it Dai or myself? I felt extremely sad. My sadness was like thousands of sharp needles penetrating my young, weak heart. The wonderful dreams that Dai and I had nurtured over the previous ten years suddenly collapsed. There were no more smiles scented with blooming red orchids. What was left for me was just emptiness, which sent chills up my spine. Sorrow had come unexpectedly and left me with an emotional bleeding wound. My tears were everything. It seemed like I had become nothing but tears, endless tears that poured from my face and dissolved into the earth around me.
At university, Dai studied architecture while I studied economics. Although we’d gone to school in the same city, we hardly saw each other. We tried our best to meet at least once or twice a month. But by the last years of university, we were so absorbed in studying that we hardly saw each other at all.
In the last months of school before graduation, I left to do an internship in another province. When I returned to the city, I found out from my friends that Dai had been hospitalized. Hurriedly I ran to the hospital to visit him. I thought, Dai will be excited to see me. I will rest my head against his muscular chest and listen to the beating of his heart. But when I got to Dai’s hospital room there was another girl sitting by his side. Dai looked at me indifferently, like a stranger he didn’t recognize. I tried to talk to him, but Dai refused to respond. He stared blankly at something far away. I got angry and left.
After finals I went to visit Dai again. His body now looked gray and
