That night I lay beside Mịch. I couldn’t close my eyes. It wasn’t because I was sleeping in a strange house or because the old bed groaned whenever I tossed and turned. It was because the wooden soldier and the misty river kept flickering in my mind. The wall next to us creaked.

  “They’re termites nibbling my coffin.”

  It turned out that Mịch had prepared everything and was waiting for her last trip. She believed that when she entered the afterlife, she would meet her husband again, would cook for him and make new clothes for him.

  An icy wind tore in through the window.

  The next morning, I left her shabby house nestled in the garden to return to the newsroom. Mịch saw me off at the gate. I took a few steps and looked back. She was still standing there. My heart splintered when we made eye contact. She had the eyes of a wife who had never experienced a true wedding night and longed for it her entire life.

  I held up my camera and captured the moment.

  After the article was published, my colleagues told me that they were impressed with the picture of a stooped old lady, hair braided in a headband, standing in a fading field. Those eyes were indescribable. It couldn’t be staged, could it?

  How could one stage the eyes of a woman who spent her whole life loving a man who had lost his life to fire and bullets?

  I edited some details from the article. Rickety boats no longer slid across the Rạng River after a solid bridge was built to link the two riverbanks. When I crossed the river, rain fell like a curtain. Strangely, I heard the sound of coucals again.

  It was said that coucals cry in the afternoon, but I heard them before the sunrise when crossing the river. Those coucals still missed their partners, didn’t they?

  Spring Buds:

  Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

  Several readers were still waiting for Lan’s autograph. Her hand had grown tired, but she felt extremely happy. Lan smiled as she wrote the word Peace on the first page of her novel. When she handed the autographed copy to a young man with Asian facial features, she wondered if he was a Việt Kiều, a Vietnamese expat, and what he thought about her novel, especially about the American War in Việt Nam—a war that haunted her homeland though it had ended decades ago; a war that still resembled smoldering coals beneath the surface of restored peace.

  “I really enjoyed your talk,” a woman’s voice interrupted Lan’s meandering thoughts. Lan looked up and saw a kind-looking white lady smile at her gently as she placed two copies of Lan’s novel on the desk and said, “My father fought in Việt Nam. I want to read everything you’ve written to understand why he became a completely different person upon his return.”

  “I hope your father has found peace of mind.” Lan stood up and gave the woman a genuine hug.

  After Lan autographed her novel for the last person in line, she put her pen into her handbag and tilted her head to look at the dark foliage above. She loved outdoor events such as this one—Melbourne International Literary Festival. For the past three days, she had talked with hundreds of readers, and their love for her work moved her deeply and made her more excited about her trip back to Việt Nam for Tết, Lunar New Year, after the book event was over. During her phone call with her husband earlier that afternoon, he said that he and their two children had bought a yellow apricot tree laden with flower buds at Gò Vấp Flower Market for their home’s Tết decoration. Very soon, she would join them in their cozy house nestled in a winding alley in Sài Gòn. Her children would rush out to welcome her back and then merrily show her the buds that were opening.

  Janet walked toward her, greeted her with a bright smile, and said, “Congratulations! It was a successful event, even beyond my expectations. Are you hungry? The van is waiting for us.”

  “My heartfelt thanks to you and the organizers! I’m very honored to have participated in the event.”

  When Janet walked toward a group of international authors, Lan looked at the empty rows of seats and took a deep breath. She needed a moment of quietude to luxuriate in the fresh air and the serenity of the evening, because back in Sài Gòn, a city known for its unceasing materialistic competition, it was always crowded and stiflingly hot.

  “Hi, Lan! Do you remember me?” A deep, warm voice startled her. A man in his early forties was standing in front of her. His blond hair fell across his high, broad forehead. His twinkling eyes resembled the lights of a boat. Recollections from twenty years ago rushed through her mind.

  “Anthony?” The name seemed to spurt from her chest and dredged up suppressed memories. For the last twenty years, she had called his name in her nightly dreams.

  “My goodness! I found you at last.” Anthony opened his arms and embraced her affectionately. His warm breath traveled into her scented hair. “You can recognize me because I fortunately haven’t become a decrepit old man,” he joked.

  Lan closed her eyes and wondered where the uncontrollable emotions caused by this serendipitous rendezvous could have come from—her heart or his.

  “Honey, don’t cry.” Anthony’s soft fingers gently wiped off her tears. “You look so beautiful today. I don’t want to ruin your mascara. How can a man land in Heaven if he ruins a woman’s mascara?”

  “You’re funny!” She laughed.

  How long had it been since her husband Chiến last made her laugh and cry at the same time?

  “Lan, are you ready?” Janet’s voice called from afar. “Everyone is waiting for you.”

  “Coming.” She turned around and said to Anthony, a man whom she had missed and often thought about, “Anthony, it’s been ages. How did you find me?”

  “This afternoon, while I was reading a newspaper on my way home from a business trip, I saw your photo and the information about the book event. So I ran here, hoping to see you, of course.” Then he put a piece of paper in her hand and said, “Goodbye for now! You’ve got to go. Call me later tonight when you can. I don’t mind if you call me at midnight.”

  At the dinner reception, Lan was like a sleepwalker despite the lively conversations around her. She had been excited about this reception where she could get to know and talk with some literary luminaries whom she admired greatly, but somehow her excitement died and her mind was occupied with the beauty of Anthony’s twinkling eyes.

  After the appetizer, prawn and mayonnaise salad, she asked the waiter for the location of the restroom, stood up, and left the table. She kept the piece of paper Anthony gave her and her cell phone in her pocket. She wanted to call him and hear his voice, just to reassure herself that he was neither a gust of wind nor a dream.

  St. Kilda Beach stretched vast in front of her. She took off her high heels and buried her bare feet into the soft sand, leaving behind the well-lit restaurant that looked like a huge lantern, and the conversations about literature and creative writing. In the dark night, she stood facing the ocean and listened to the murmuring sounds of the lapping waves. For thousands of years, the ocean emitted ceaseless musical notes and love songs, but humans seemed to live in a hurry and thus failed to appreciate these mellifluous sounds of love.

  When she reached for the phone in her pocket, she thought about her husband, Chiến. It was 6 p.m. in Sài Gòn, and he was probably preparing dinner for their kids. Then they would clean banana leaves, soak sticky rice and mung beans in water, and marinate pork in preparation for the making of bánh chưng and bánh tét, holiday specialties, in the morning.

  She would be back tomorrow afternoon and join her family in cooking a huge cauldron of bánh chưng in the small front yard. As usual, her kids would ask their parents to tell them stories about their childhoods; then they would fall asleep in her arms. Chiến would look at her affectionately while singing and playing the guitar.

  Then, she thought about Anthony, who didn’t live too far from her hotel. If she gave him a call, what would happen to her marriage? She had been married for seventeen years and sometimes her heart trembled when she came across a man whose infatuation with her stirred up indescribable emotions. But she reminded herself that she must return to her family and put her finger on Chiến’s lips to reassure herself that she was his forever. She knew what she had to do, so she wouldn’t go astray when men made her heart beat rambunctiously. She must take a step back and let them pass by her life like a comet, which shined for a while and immediately vanished into the dark sky.

  Chiến remained a tranquil moon, a source of love and comfort for her and her children. He was a quiet and simple man but irreplaceable. He would never let himself become trapped in some lucrative business contract that stripped him of his ethics. Unlike his friends, Chiến rarely frittered time away. He would rather come home and spend time with his children, play soccer with them or teach them computer skills. Although he was an IT person, he was the only man to understand why his wife had to express her emotional pains in writing. He had taken her to the Trường Sơn Mountains and helped her stand up when she collapsed in front of the graves of unidentified soldiers. When the characters in her fiction haunted her sleep, it was he who managed the household and kept her from succumbing to a psychological crisis.

  She asked herself how, if she loved Chiến that much, her heart could tremble as she stood on St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne, where she had spent only a few years of her youth.

  Once, in her junior year in college, she agreed to cook for Huy’s birthday. Huy, her classmate, asked Anthony to drive her to the grocery store. She recalled that the distance from the dormitory to the grocery store was short.

  To her, Anthony was like an abstruse novel. He was born and raised in Australia, but he was fluent in Japanese, and before he attended college, he had been a globetrotter. He was confident and humorous—traits that she found quite attractive.

  Her face turned red when she compared Anthony to her first boyfriend, whom she had broken up with over a year before. She regretted nothing. The end of their romance left no emotional scar because he thought she was too smart to pursue a worthless subject like creative writing. He said writing was not a career and thus she would gain nothing from it but trouble.

  Instead of dialing Anthony’s number, she held up the piece of paper. She had read and reread his note before sitting down for dinner. Standing on the beach and under the twinkling stars in the sky, she couldn’t free herself from his words: Lan, I have been looking for you for several years. I’m sorry for not realizing sooner how much you mean to me. Please give me a call at this number. I miss you.

  Anthony’s words were like the kiss he had given her twenty years ago, when they went shopping for groceries for Huy’s birthday at various Vietnamese shops in Footscray Market Center. She had never laughed and talked so cheerfully in public until she went shopping with him. When Anthony helped her prepare food for the party, she watched his long, slender fingers struggle with wrapping the Vietnamese spring rolls. She had never thought she would fall in love with a Westerner.

  While driving her back to her dormitory so that she could take a shower and get dressed for the party, Huy told her about Tracy, Anthony’s Australian girlfriend. They were both in their senior year, finishing their degrees in business administration, and had been dating for more than two years. That night, she couldn’t enjoy the food she had cooked. Everything tasted bitter, although Anthony sat next to her and told her stories that made her burst into laughter. The smile on Anthony’s face vanished only when she asked him about his girlfriend. After a few moments of hesitation, he said Tracy was working the night shift. She was a sales assistant at a duty-free store and he hoped he would have a chance to introduce them to each other.

  That night, back in her dorm room, she threw herself onto the bed without changing her clothes. Someone knocked on the door. It was Anthony. He stood in the empty hallway. She rushed to him. Her lips found his. Their first kiss was also their last.

  She held up the hem of her dress as she walked closer to the ocean. The waves crawled up her feet and splashed against her knees.

  “Lan, are you alright?” Janet’s concerned voice echoed behind her.

  She turned around and smiled gently. “I’m OK. I just really miss the waves. I used to come here to swim when I was a student.”

  “My goodness.” Janet shook her head; the locks of her hair dangled in the wind. “Writers like you find everything inspirational. Let’s eat. We don’t want to let the food get cold. Then we’ll take a walk together along the beach.”

  Lan followed Janet, letting her feet sink deep into the sand. She wished that Australians, instead of preparing seafood with mayonnaise or cream, would give her the chance to enjoy its original taste without additional spices or ingredients. In Sài Gòn, when she buried herself in her manuscript, and they had guests coming over for dinner, Chiến often bought fresh seafood and then steamed or grilled it. The aroma of cooked seafood was like an arrow piercing her heart. If she met Anthony tonight, she wouldn’t be able to resist him, and Chiến’s heart would be shattered if he found out about her infidelity.

  The evening dragged on. It was the first time Lan found stories offered by other writers around the table tedious. During dinner, she sat quietly and kept thinking about Anthony’s words. She glanced at the face of each writer around her and asked herself, who among them has committed adultery in order to find inspiration for their fiction?

  Back at her hotel, Lan read Anthony’s words again and placed his note next to her laptop on the desk. Was she ready to enter his life, a cryptic novel, and become a chapter in his book?

  While drying her hair after a shower, the phone in her room rang. It was midnight. Who would be calling her this late? It must be her husband calling about an emergency. Maybe something had happened to her kids.

  She ran to the phone and answered, “Hello!”

  “I’m the receptionist. So sorry to call you this late but an Anthony Clark is waiting for you in the lobby. He said it was an emergency.”

  She held her breath and realized that his last name was Clark. Anthony Clark—a beautiful name. She glanced at the clean white sheet on her bed and pictured a romantic scene. Sài Gòn was too far away, and besides Anthony and herself, nobody would know what happened. She felt both excited and nervous, as though an electric charge had run through her body.

  “How could you find where I am staying?” she asked and sat down on the couch. Anthony sat across from her and looked at her attentively as if he were afraid of losing her. His face hadn’t changed much in the past decades, though he looked more mature and confident.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, you once told me that.” Anthony smiled. “I have never waited for a phone call so desperately. Didn’t you want to call me?”

  “Waiting is joy. You used to say so.”

  Anthony laughed. “Incredible! You haven’t changed a bit.”

  She looked at his attractive lips. After their passionate kiss twenty years ago, she had held his hand and led him into her dorm room, which had only a bookshelf and a single bed, but he whispered to her to stop. She trembled when he said he was in love with Tracy and didn’t want to hurt her.

  He called Lan the following day and they talked for several hours in the evening. He said he had told Tracy about her, and Tracy had said it was up to him to continue or end their relationship. He had special feelings for Lan but needed to know more about the girl that came from another culture—someone born and raised on the other side of the ocean, someone who had endured unimaginable sorrows.

  After two sleepless nights, she realized she couldn’t date Anthony. Her student visa would expire in a few weeks. She had found a job in Sài Gòn, where her lonely mother was waiting for her. She decided not to meet Anthony again and returned to Việt Nam, carrying with her emotional scars caused by this separation.

  From the other side of the table, Anthony looked at her without blinking. She returned his gaze with a smile.

  “I’ve changed a lot. I’m married with two children. How about you?”

  “Tracy and I got divorced five years ago. It’s a pity that we didn’t have any children. But I’m doing fine. I lost contact with Huy a long time ago, so I couldn’t ask him about you. I regret not having known your full name. I searched for your name on Google but millions of people have the same name, Lan.”

  “I also tried to look for you, with the same results.”

  He stood up and came closer to her. Her small hand was buried inside his.

  “Lan, I apologize for coming here without letting you know first. But I was a fool to have let you go back to Việt Nam. How long are you here?”

  “My last night here, actually. I have to be at the airport at 8:00 in the morning.”

  “Oh, so soon?” He grasped her shoulders with his strong hands and said, “Lan, we’ve never had time for each other. I’ve learned that I should never let someone or something precious go. I would never want to dishonor you and your husband, but will you please stay for a few more days? We’ll go to Lorne, where I have my condo by the sea. We won’t do anything that makes you feel guilty or uncomfortable. I only need you by my side. We’ll cook together and take walks on the beach.”

  She looked at the clock on the wall behind the reception desk. Chiến already must have read bedtime stories to their kids. It was the hot and dry season in Sài Gòn. The alley leading to her house was covered in dust from new home construction. Tall buildings quickly replaced trees in the city. An excursion with Anthony in Lorne, only a two-hour drive from Melbourne, would give her an opportunity to breathe some fresh air coming in from the tropical woods, and to swim in the ocean. The sound of the waves would ease her mind.

  “Thank you for still thinking of me!” She looked deeply into Anthony’s eyes. “Please wait until tomorrow morning. I need some time to think about it.”