Three men led the two apprehended women. Their trek across fallen leaves and broken tree branches after the rain left everyone exhausted. The men’s shoes and the women’s slippers were stained with mud.

  The men were being paid fairly well to find Vietnamese women who escaped after having been sold and smuggled across the border. The men turned the captured women over to their boss, who sorted them into social classes and then blackmailed their families. Those who had no family were sold to brothels. The traffickers were the ones who profited the most from these women who were tricked into crossing the border for a better life.

  The men were young and rough-looking. Lured by the smell of money, they didn’t mind traipsing through perilous forests. At first, all they wanted was to earn money to ameliorate their lives, believing they were providing an honorable service—finding trafficked women and bringing them back to their families. So they deserved rewards. The police used to recognize and applaud them for their work. Of course, their boss got all the credit and the men received only humble monetary rewards from the victims’ families.

  Then their work changed. If one could bring back “trafficked goods,” one could also export them. Exports brought in huge profits. When a single foreign man across the border was able to find a woman to marry, sometimes both husband and wife were overjoyed. When they had their first child, the couple would inform the men of the good news. Thus, the men thought they were doing humankind a great favor.

  Later, everything changed. The men deceived and tricked women who were even more monetarily rapacious than they were. At first, the men didn’t think they should feel guilty for trafficking these vicious, avaricious women. Maybe after they crossed the border, the women indeed would have finer lives. Holding their commissions in hand, they thought about no longer needing to spend their lives in the vast, dangerous, and mysterious forests filled with traps, wild animals, and ghostly human shadows.

  Two women were rescued while floating in the flooding creek. As for the pretty girl, nobody knew whether she was lost in the woods or had died someplace where no one would know to burn a stick of incense for her.

  Long, the youngest man in the group, hummed a song, What is left inside me will one day be a curling thread of smoke in the air.

  “Bastard! Shut your filthy mouth!” the oldest man shouted. “Are you singing to the forest ghosts? I’m starving.”

  The man’s name was Thìn. His face was full of knife scars and whenever he went to the market, people would turn their heads to stare at his horrifying appearance.

  “Let’s have lunch,” the second youngest man, Nhị, suggested.

  The three men sat on the wet grass, unwrapped rice balls, and split them equally among themselves.

  The forest was wildly beautiful. The rain had washed the dust from the leaves and they now shone bright green. Birds flitted from branch to branch. Every now and then a bee flew past the men’s faces leaving a scented trail of nectar. Up above, the wind howled constantly as if a choir of forest ghosts was singing.

  Suddenly, they heard a wretched moaning sound being carried by the wind.

  “Something’s wrong,” Long said, his ears perked.

  Thin dropped his rice ball when he heard the moans.

  The men carried short guns and quietly approached the mouth of a deep cave. The moaning came from the very bottom, where a troop of monkeys gathered. The monkeys jumped up and down hysterically and uttered heart-rending lamentations as if begging for the humans’ help.

  At that moment, Thìn appeared neither virtuous nor evil.

  “I don’t know if they are humans or monkeys,” he said. “Let’s go down and see. We might get lucky and find ingredients for monkey bone soup.”

  The men climbed down along the rugged edge of the cave, grasping the branches of old trees that grew out of rock crevices. They looked like commandos. Their hands almost slipped a few times because the rocks were slick from the rain. But because they had practiced climbing to deal with situations exactly like this, they were able to reach a ledge above a narrow crack in the split rock face. A small monkey was stuck inside, which was why the troop hadn’t run away when they saw the men.

  The crack was beyond the men’s reach, and the little monkey was stuck so far inside that he could no longer squirm or groan. He looked up desperately and cried out for his mother’s help. The mother sitting on the edge of the cave was despondent. She didn’t hop around frantically like the other monkeys, but instead lowered her head and watched her child attentively. Her eyes were red and teary.

  “Let’s wedge a stake deep into this crevice,” Thìn suggested. “Then, throw down a rope ladder. I’ll climb down, and you guys stay here to make sure the stake remains stable. If we can rescue the child monkey, we can easily catch his mother and a few other monkeys.”

  They secured a spike used for professional mountain climbing. Thìn put on a harness and went down the rope ladder.

  When he came to the crack where the monkey was stuck inside, Thìn patted the monkey’s head, saying, “Stop floundering around or you’ll fall in deeper. If you do, I can’t do a thing to help.”

  The monkey recognized Thìn was trying to rescue him, so he wagged his tail cheerfully. Thìn stabilized himself by placing his foot on the cliff so that the rope ladder wouldn’t swing back and forth. Then, he used a knife to chisel the rock. The sound of him striking the rock made the monkeys stop their groaning. The mother monkey gripped a bush that grew from the rock cavity where the men had positioned a stake. She bent forward as if trying to help these strange saviors.

  After chiseling for a while, Thìn was able to pull the little monkey carefully out of the narrow crack.

  “If we hadn’t been here in these old woods, you would’ve starved to death,” he grumbled. “Your mother probably would’ve jumped down here and died with you. So even if you do end up being thrown into our pot and made into monkey stew, at least you’ll be more useful than you were before.”

  The rope ladder was pulled up, and the troop of monkeys cheered joyfully. The mother monkey murmured while holding her rescued child against her breast. She hugged the baby not knowing that the men didn’t rescue him out of good will.

  Thìn and his companions were speechless when seeing how thrilled the monkeys were. The mother monkey wasn’t afraid of these ugly, filthy men but jumped toward them and rubbed her naked, stinky paws on the men’s feet. She was so thrilled that she emitted a high-pitched squealing noise.

  The men were stunned. When Thìn put his hand on the grip of his gun, Long grabbed it and pleaded, “Please don’t . . .”

  Nhị lowered his head, not wanting to witness the coming tragedy.

  A breeze blew in and the men felt cleansed. It was as if they had returned to the untarnished lives they lived before becoming gangsters.

  What happened next was etched in the men’s memories forever. The troop of monkeys howled with joy and repeatedly bowed to their rescuers.

  Long felt a stinging sensation in his nostrils.

  Nhị said, regretfully, “Let’s go.”

  When they reached the woods, the two women whom they had captured were still waiting for them. Seeing their pallid faces, Thìn was suddenly moved and asked, “Why didn’t they escape? They had their chance.”

  Long sang, A yellow leaf is falling on the roof of someone’s house while there’s no wind.

  The weird lyrics his companion sang no longer irritated Thìn.

  Nhị unzipped his pants and peed on a termite mound. Then he turned back and said, “Why do we have to take these women to our boss? Why don’t we take them back to their families? Even the monkey we rescued got to reunite with his mother.”

  The three men sat down on the grass. It was soft and wet after the rain. The trees in the woods rustled mysteriously.

  In the twilight, the old forest was intensely beautiful.

  The Sound of Lip Lute Behind the Stone Fence:

  Đỗ Bích Thúy

  With some small pots and pans, rice, salt, oil, and a dog, Chúng moved into a hut he built on a farm lot given to him by a friend. When his wife, Mao, asked why he packed so much stuff, he explained that he would need to make frequent trips to the river to do some trading, which was far from their home, and thus he planned to stay occasionally at the simple structure. This was, in fact, just an excuse.

  Staying away from home would mean his house would fall into disrepair and it would be ravaged by pouring rain and wind. Their goats, pigs, and cows had begun to disappear more often. The wooden gate leading to his house had not been replaced since his grandparents’ time and now its latches were simply for show, as it could be easily pried open. This was neither because he was unconcerned with doing housework nor because he enjoyed staying out eating and drinking. It was only because he found his home to be suffocating, akin to a gray sky that precedes a storm.

  Time seemed to move faster when he sat watching his daughter May slice vegetables for the pigs. And his son Trài was growing up very fast, now towering above the machete lying against the wall at the end of the house. Chúng had to take care of his two children for a few more years until they were fully grown and then he wouldn’t need to worry about being alive or dead, rich or poor. Mao might have felt the same way about herself.

  With Chúng having moved to the farm, it felt so empty in their home that Mao kept preparing an extra set of bowls and utensils for each meal. Every night, Mao would move about the house, checking the gate, putting out the fire in the stove, and tying the dog up in the horse stall before lying down beside May. May would hold her tightly and Mao always said her body was as hot as the stove.

  One night May stayed up later than usual. It was partly because the house was empty—Trài took the horse to breed, her mother went to check in on the neighbor’s child—but partly because from behind the stone fence the sound of a lip lute floated in the air. May had heard the instrument being played in the market once in a while. The melody seemed to follow her as she moved about the house—the quicker May walked, the faster the notes followed her. When she slowed her pace, so did the music. Now it was lingering just beyond the fence. Several times May got up and thought about walking to the gate to see who was playing it, but her legs trembled, and she had to sit back down. The melody was so distracting that she pricked her fingers again and again with the needle while embroidering a handkerchief. Eventually, she settled down and was able to ignore the sound of the lip lute, extinguish the fire, and head to her bedroom. The lip lute continued to linger until finally drifting away. The footsteps that accompanied its departure were hesitant, too.

  May tossed and turned in bed. On the roof, a cat was carrying her kittens back and forth, again and again, tussling in a pile of corn. The house was desolate and the wind rushed through, irritating her ears. Closing and opening her eyes, May tried not to look at the wooden chest at the corner of the house that held a glamorous, rainbow-like dress that her mother had embroidered for May’s wedding day. May had seen her mother open the chest to pull out the dress that morning. For what reason was her mother going to wear the dress? The wedding season had just passed, so nobody would be arranging marriages for their children. Where was her mother going? Was she going to the market on March 20th? If so, what could May do? Was it because her father had left for the farm? Or was it the reverse, and her father left because he knew that Mao would go to the upcoming market? May had forgotten that her father used to take rice and salt to the other side of the Nho Quế River to trade and was suddenly worried that something might have happened to him. He was not like the men in other families who built huts to tend their cattle and protect them against the monkeys that emerged from the woods to attack them. The more she mulled it over, the more confused she became. She was unsettled but couldn’t articulate why. In the attic, moisture was falling to the floor, mimicking the sound of rain.

  Winter came late that year, arriving with bone-chilling temperatures. The frosty weather would last a long time, until March or April. And even once the sun rose again, it would still be cold. By January, the cherry blossoms had already bloomed, which was an ominous sign. The Duanwu festival this year would be sad. It was still far off and a capricious god could mean that people would suffer if the harvest was less abundant. The soil had become less and less fertile. On some farms, rocks rose to the surface of the dirt that held seeds awaiting germination. Fertilizer soon would nurture that soil.

  The dog was whimpering outside, thumping his tail against the dirt. Chúng had returned.

  Mao had come home a little earlier and scurried to open the gate, greeting him, “Why are you home so early? Why didn’t you wait for the sun to rise? It’s cold and foggy now.”

  “Yeah,” he said in a husky voice. “That’s what I had been planning to do. But some people from Xín Cái asked to share a boat with me, so we went together. Anything new?”

  “No. But some bars in the horse stable broke. So if you can stay home a little longer and please fix them.”

  “Alright. I’ll fix them shortly.”

  Everything in the home and horse stable was old. Long ago, even before his son was born, Chúng’s father built the ironwood house. Decades had elapsed, Chúng couldn’t remember how many. The house was now in need of renovation. But it was still quite durable, wasn’t it?

  The sun was bright and Chúng wandered around the house and scrutinized the stable before fetching a saw to fix it. Mao followed him to see if she could lend a hand. Chúng worked while talking with her.

  “You know, spring is coming late this year, and people will flock to the market on the 27th. I wonder if you want to brew some corn wine to sell there,” he said.

  “There is still a lot of corn wine available. Before New Year, Sùng asked me to make several jars for his son’s wedding and his relatives also contributed a lot so there are still plenty of leftovers.”

  “So, how about packing it on our horse and taking it to the market to sell?”

  Mao sensed something strange in his voice. Homemade wine was always the best, and the older the better. And between now and the start of next year, there would be several occasions that necessitated it, so why did he want her to sell it at the market? Everyone knew that selling wine in the market on the twenty-seventh brought in no profit because people sat around drinking together. The customers often would get so tipsy that they would forget to pay or just offer whatever pennies they had left in their pockets, which sometimes weren’t even enough for a bag of salt. The New Year was usually on the twenty-seventh, but by the twenty-first or twenty-second, a few people already were coming to the market with wine. People who toiled on their farms growing corn and beans and tending pigs and chickens had barely any leisure time. Without kids to wrangle, people spent their free time during the New Year drinking together. Men forgot about their knives and bows, women their laundry baskets and kitchens. No one could blame them for drinking out of restlessness. She looked at him for a while, but he was concentrating on his work, as if paying no attention to her, as if she probably hadn’t given his comments much thought.

  Unspeakable circumstances put a wedge between Chúng and his wife. They all centered on a woman who would soon come and then leave again before the New Year. It would have been fine if she had left forever the last time, but they knew she would be back.

  She arrived a month before New Year. May and her mother were making a traditional sticky rice cake when Hoa arrived. May recognized her as soon as she opened the gate. Hoa stood still, staring at May as if she didn’t know who May was.

  May turned back to run indoors, leaving Hoa to drag her bulky bags in behind her. May was enraged, her knees shivered. It was as if a foul wind had blown into the house that would bring everyone trouble. Nothing would be left unscathed. Why did Hoa come back? Why wouldn’t she disappear for good? May and her brother had already forgotten the old days, why did they now have to remember them again?

  Hoa entered the house, nodding to Chúng who was sitting at the table drinking tea. He looked at her, saying, “Ah! Home again!”

  “Yes,” Hoa muttered, lowering her head, her fingers fidgeting with the straps of the bags in front of her.

  “Why are you back?” Chúng asked in a way that suggested it wasn’t a question.

  “I came home to check in on everyone, to see how you are.”

  “How are we? We are all fine. We adults are getting older and the kids have grown up,” Chúng said as if talking to no one. He called for May and Trài.

  Only Trài came while May remained in the back room, pretending not to hear her father.

  Mao went out to carry wet logs in from the horse stable to hang over the stove and yelled in May’s ear, “You shouldn’t behave like that, dear. Hoa is not a stranger. She hasn’t been home for a while, but how could you forget her so quickly?”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything, Mom,” May said. “Anything. Not even the buffalo she took.”

  “Well, it is water under the bridge. We remember only what we want to. We need to forget the unpleasant things. When the rain troubles a stream, the water just flows away. So it is with people.”

  Despite what her mother said, May couldn’t force herself to forget. She ran inside then outside, taking all the wet logs from the horse stable into the kitchen and stacking them behind the stove. A log dropped into a boiling washing bucket. Who cares? Sweat streamed down May’s face. Her clothes were muddy. On her last trip into the kitchen, Trài stopped her at the door and looked her up and down.

  “Are you a four-year-old kid?” he asked.

  May pursed her lips. Trài should’ve outgrown such comments. How dare he talk to her like that! May pushed him away, picked up the log that fell into the washing, and stirred the bucket vigorously, making a mess.