My Pretty Cousin

 

My Pretty Cousin

40 years have passed and I still remember the pretty face of my cousin.  She was beautiful, sang well, was skillful, and spoke cheerfully. That is why she had so many guys following her every time she went out. I remember one time I walked to church with her. Suddenly she told me, “Wait a minute!” She turned around and told a “tail”, “Please don’t follow me anymore. Okay?” I was like a fool and thought to myself, “How did she know someone was following her? And why was that guy following her?” I didn’t know she was known as a beautiful girl in my town. Back then, I only knew that everything she made was beautiful. She tied ong choy with sugarcane leaves to sell. Her bundle looked big and green. She made delicious cakes and jams with cheap things like sweet potatoes, coconuts, pineapples, and kumquats. She altered her mother’s áo dài into a cute dress. She cut her hair loosely on her forehead and used chopsticks to make the curls fall down to her shoulders and that made her look so cute.

 

Knowing that her family background is ranked at the bottom of Vietnam government’s list because her father was imprisoned by the communists, she skipped all four-year universities but applied to a second rated college. However, she was not allowed to go to school even though she passed the entrance exam. She stayed home to help her mother sell sticky rice for a year. Then she got deep in depression. I remember the last time I saw her lying quietly on the tiled floor in a dark but cool room. Her mother said she was sleeping. Graduated from high school, I left my town, Tam Ky for the sunny and hot weather land in the South of Vietnam to find opportunities to go to college.

 

My dad bought a house in a middle of a jungle located in a small town Mỹ xuân about 100 km from Saigon.  Our house was a hut with a coconut leaves roof, dirt floor and dried mud wall.  We had no electricity. Every night we lit a tiny oil lamp for a few hours and I read over and over farewell messages that my friends wrote for me at the end of my high school year. I woke up before dawn to help my dad water our vegetable beds.  Then worked on our rice field, planted corn and potatoes, or picked cashews... Even though we worked hard, we barely had enough food on our table. I missed Tam Ky badly.  I quietly cried every night.  A few months later, a friend came to visit. Before leaving, she told me that my cousin had committed suicide. That year my pretty cousin was only 19 years old…