Suddenly, we heard a rumor about her and Liền. Night came. A boat. Clumps of bushes. A creek. A small, remote riverside neighborhood abandoned by those fleeing the war. Bombed roads. Moments of deep feelings. Liền was a young single, and although she was a married woman with two daughters, her life had been empty for years. Their affair became a great scandal ushering in judgmental opinions. The male superiors in my subcommittee were tactful and said nothing. However, her husband started to talk more, about all kinds of topics. When he talked, he looked clumsy and didn’t know what he was talking about or what role he was trying to fill. There seemed to be a wall between him and his colleagues, and an invisible Buddha seemed to be whispering to us: “Don’t discuss it. Don’t exacerbate things. It’s a normal human affair.”

  Of course, Liền had to transfer elsewhere. She must remain a dignified woman to maintain the respect of others, and her husband must remain a hero, despite his horrific wound, and play the role of a perfect husband of a woman whose reputation had been slightly tarnished. Her friendship with me ended abruptly, simply because she no longer came to my subcommittee to visit her husband. And he only went to visit her at dusk and came back late at night. I saw him a few times at correction training events or at year-end parties that united all the subcommittees. I was surprised to watch him from afar as she sat quietly and inconspicuously in a corner. She only left her seat when he walked at her side. He wanted her to be brave like him in front of others. Despite their efforts, they appeared more desolate—they both had salt-and-pepper hair, they couldn’t even smile; gloomy like a water-damaged painting in a golden frame. The campaigns in the spring of 1975 involved everyone. People ran and panted heavily, and boat trips ceased, and no happy life seemed to lie ahead.

  After the war ended, each person was given a personal dwelling based on new criteria. Important bosses were offered large houses facing main streets; lower-ranking bosses were offered confiscated houses in narrow alleys. The pair moved into a townhouse in the former Army Republic of Việt Nam housing quarter for married couples. I was nobody and single, so I temporarily slept on a folding bed in my company’s kitchen. When my company threw a party or welcomed a special guest, she acted as a top-notch chef. Sometimes I visited the military housing quarter, crossing the small yard full of various flowers, to see how stuck they were in their lives together. I saw that he was still very caring, but his wife’s hair had turned miserably gray.

  During the ten years following 1975, her twin daughters were in school. She shared a room with them next to the living room, which had ventilation gaps. He occupied a room at the house’s interior that smelled of old food stored in the kitchen, because the odor traveled in through his room’s ventilation gaps. He didn’t mind it at all. After ten years, their daughters had grown up and needed to share a room of their own, so he reluctantly moved his bed into his wife’s room.

  She had a queen-size bed with a bunch of white pillows. She often cried out, “You see, if I don’t hug a pillow, what will I hug?” In his single bed, there was a lone pillow, a small blanket, a backscratcher made from coconut wood, a few books, some mothballs, and tiger balm. In the next ten years, their daughters married and moved out. The room adjacent to the kitchen became a playroom for their grandchildren; toys were everywhere. Their shared room remained unchanged—the big bed was full of white pillows; there was a small shelf at the head of his single bed. On the shelf sat all the kinds of pills that one sees in a hospital room.

  I wander through life, but I always miss them and want to see them again. Fifty years have passed since he crawled on his back into the entrance of the shelter and was hit by bomb shrapnel. There are more flowers in his garden: mums; pompons; chrysanthemums; yellow, white, and red peonies; roses; orchids, etc. He looks as calm as a Buddhist monk although he doesn’t wear a brown robe. Her hair is as white as kite strings. She pulls her hair back into a charming bun and wears white silk clothes. Knowing that I am curious about her room, she gently pulls me to the entrance and turns on the light. The small bed has become a place to store pillows. The nightstands on either side of the big bed have reading lamps, piles of books, and various other items. I immediately notice two pillows and two bolster pillows—white and fluffy. I know which side of the bed he often sleeps on because one nightstand has the bottles, tubes, and pills that he needs.

  My thanks to the pillows for helping my friend become extraordinary. And my dear sister, you’re so pure and shouldn’t be concerned about morality. You are like a kapok pod dangling in the wind and then falling to the ground. You have offered life a marvelous white gift.

  The Red Cushion:

  An Thư

  During Lam’s first visit to Thành’s house, she saw an ancient grave located in the middle of a quiet garden surrounded by verdant champak trees. The large stone grave was reminiscent of a mausoleum. Inside stood a small stupa pointing upward, engraved with a dragon holding a round, flame-covered pearl in its mouth.

  “Whoever burns incense at this grave will become a member of the Hoàng family,” Thành gently said to Lam.

  Lam shuddered at his words. She had been in love with Thành for three years and had talked with his parents over the phone several times, but this was the first time he had introduced her to his parents in person. His words, which evaporated and merged with the gray and tranquil smoke coming from the burning incense, along with the sudden fragrance of champak leaves, sent a chill up her spine.

  Thành’s house looked different from the many ancient houses that Lam had seen. The main wooden house was quite long, painted red, and had green glazed roof tiles. On its sides were two separate additional houses facing each other and lanterns dangled in the verandas. Thành once told Lam that three centuries ago his eighth-great-grandfather was an affluent man, and that was why he was able to build such an opulent mansion in the desolate, hilly area. Thành always talked about the house and the ancient grave with the deepest respect and utmost pride.

  During Lam’s first night at her fiancé’s house, Thành’s mother took her to the last room located on the right side of the main house. The room looked rather usual but had no furniture except for a large rectangular wooden bed big enough to accommodate five or six people. An old red pillow lay at the center of the bed. Despite its age, the pillow had been meticulously preserved and its striking red color immediately caught her attention.

  Lam’s future mother-in-law helped her hang her coat on the wall and then said, “Please sit on the red cushion.”

  Realizing that it was not a pillow but a cushion, Lam felt awkward but obeyed anyway, taking off her shoes and climbing onto the wooden bed. A cold air hovered over the bed that made her cower. She clumsily sat on the cushion with her legs crossed in a meditative pose. Thành’s mother stood behind Lam and breathed a sigh of relief when seeing the red cushion fit her future daughter-in-law perfectly.

  Lam spent the night all by herself in that empty, unfamiliar room. Thành’s mother said that she often prayed to Buddha around midnight, so if they shared a bed, Lam wouldn’t be able to get any sleep. She turned off the light and lay alone in the dark. The cold air rising from the wooden bed made Lam uneasy—she felt as though some distant history was rushing into the room. She stared into the darkness. Through the cracks of the door a dim light from the lanterns flickered across the floor. The ticking sound of a clock lulled her into a deep sleep.

  Around midnight she was half awakened by someone praying. A layer of mist unfurled in front of her but she couldn’t tell if it was a candlelight or an electric light she saw. She said to herself, So strange! I turned off the lights before going to bed. She then got startled by the shadow of a woman wearing a silk blouse with her hair tied up into a ponytail, her teeth blackened and shiny. The woman opened her eyes wide and stared at Lam as if wanting to tell her something.

  Frightened, Lam was about to call out to Thành, but her lips froze, and her entire body was paralyzed. She couldn’t utter a word.

  A howling dog woke her. Her back was soaked with sweat although it was cold outside. She realized she had had a dream. In the adjacent room, Thành’s mother was praying while striking a wooden bell at regular intervals.

  A few months later Lam and Thành got married. Upon arriving at the gate of the house, the wedding procession immediately went to the ancient grave in the garden for a formal ritual. Lam heard people whispering but they were soon silenced when her oldest uncle turned his head around and glared at the crowd.

  A clutch of burning incense sticks placed on the grave emitted straight spools of smoke that dissipated and permeated the entire garden. Lam recalled Thành’s words when he first took her to the grave. A shiver went down her spine. But her feeling of discomfort vanished when the joyful music started to play.

  That night, after the guests had left, Lam walked out of the bathroom and her mother-in-law appeared and whispered into her ear for a long time. Lam’s face turned red and then pallid. The newlywed couple didn’t sleep in their connubial chamber but in the room that had the large mahogany bed with the red cushion. As they opened the door, an herbal scent filled the air. Lam reluctantly thought about her mother-in-law’s words earlier—she had to sit on the cushion before consummation.

  The cushion was warm. Unlike other cushions it was round. Her mother-in-law had stuffed all kinds of desiccated herbs into it. Sitting atop it, Lam’s seat felt warm, and the warm feeling seemed to crawl up her spine, neck, and the roots of her hair as if someone’s soft hand were caressing and massaging her body to relax her muscles. Lam closed her eyes tightly and felt elevated until Thành’s cold hands on her neck startled her.

  “You must be exhausted. My family practices odd customs. Don’t worry,” Thành said affectionately. “You’ll get used to them eventually.”

  His hands then gently unbuttoned her shirt. The night was tranquil. Plants, trees, and grass seemed to whisper to each other. Darkness. Thành breathed heavily.

  That night, the shadow reappeared.

  The mysterious woman looked the same and gazed at Lam neutrally. Lam wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. The shadow then gradually vanished in the dim light. Lam wanted to reach out her hand to pull the shadow toward her, but she couldn’t. When her feet were about to slip, she woke up. It was completely dark; Thành, lying next to her, was snoring. She felt a pain in her lower body after they had consummated their marriage and couldn’t go back to sleep. Thành’s mother was praying in the adjacent room. The cushion was no longer warm but the sweet scent it emitted still filled the room.

  In the morning, Lam told Thành about her strange dream, to which he simply responded, “You had a weird dream because you struggled to sleep in a strange bed.”

  Lam wanted to share the bizzare dream with her mother-in-law. But when seeing her lost in meditation and wearing a brown Buddhist gown, Lam decided not to. Her mother-in-law was distant. She looked neither intimidating nor friendly. Her black eyes were as deep as the water at the bottom of a well.

  The furniture in the main house’s seven rooms was neatly arranged, unlike any house in the countryside that Lam knew. The first room contained the large wooden bed and the red cushion. Next to it was the room devoted to Buddha where her mother-in-law prayed every night. The third room was Thành’s parents’ bedroom. The fourth room was the living room that held the ancestors’ altar at the center. The altar, with its large bowls of incense, tall flower vases, and brass incense burners, stood behind an antique, hand-carved wooden table and chairs. The fifth room was a library filled with all kinds of texts, including valuable antique Chinese books and carefully rolled-up landscape scrolls kept in wooden boxes. When Thành secretly opened a box for his wife to take a look, he said, “These antique books and paintings are worth the cost of a house in the city.”

  Next to the family library was Thành and Lam’s comfortable, fully furnished bedroom, but they weren’t allowed to sleep in there until an opportune time.

  The last room of the main house was always locked. “You may not enter that room,” Thành warned Lam several times. “It’s a family rule.”

  After the honeymoon, Thành and Lam returned to the city, but every two months they got on a train and visited his parents for a few days. During each visit, the first thing they did was go to the garden and burn incense at the ancient grave. They knelt in front of the grave a little longer. The champak garden was heavy with the smell of incense.

  Even on hot days, Thành’s mother, as a habit, dried herbal leaves in a frying pan and stuffed them into the red cushion. Sitting on it felt like sitting on hot coals. Drops of sweat covered Lam’s forehead and fell onto her short-sleeve silk blouse, staining it.

  Lam’s nuptial joy was soon replaced by the haunting image of the red cushion. After having sex on hot summer nights teeming with buzzing mosquitoes, Thành sighed as he inhaled the unpleasant odor of herbal leaves and human sweat. In the other room, his mother’s chanting mingled with the repetitive sound of the wooden bell.

  In Lam’s exhausted sleep, she sometimes saw the shadow of the woman with a sweaty face, her hair tied into a ponytail.

  More than a year had passed, but there was no sign of Lam’s pregnancy. Her belly remained flat. Her mother-in-law became upset and told Lam to go to a Buddhist temple to ask for blessings. Her father-in-law always looked reticent and became more taciturn. No good news for Lam, even after she prayed to Lord Buddha at several temples. At mealtimes, the atmosphere was tense, and Thành got irritated whenever the word pregnancy was mentioned.

  When they returned to the city after a visit to Thành’s parents, Lam asked, “Why do we always have to burn incense at that ancient grave? Why do I have to sit on that disgusting cushion?”

  Her questions ignited an intense argument.

  “Because we must have a son. Don’t you understand? For the last seven generations, each has had only one son. And I must not be the last one in the family’s bloodline!” Thành replied.

  “What if we can’t?”

  “Shut up!” Thành yelled at his wife. “That ancient grave is so sacred that it would be impossible for us not to have a son.”

  Looking into his furious red eyes, Lam realized that he had become a different person. But their argument gave her access to his family’s secret.

  The ancient grave belonged to the Hoàngs’ eighth-great-grandfather, Hoàng Dục Vĩ. In China, the Hoàng clan had been opulent and was known for their excellent martial arts prowess, which led them to become official border security guards who protected envoys that carried valuable items such as elephant tusks, rhino horns, and peacock feathers across the border. Three centuries ago, a member of the Hoàng family was charged with being disloyal to the King. Vĩ was afraid that three generations of the family could be wiped out in a single night, so along with his relatives, he collected his valuables and fled south. A local landlord who knew Vĩ through business dealings welcomed the escapees. The Hoàngs bribed corrupt mandarins, bought several lots of land, and seized the property of many local villagers. The local landlord was a dignified man and tried to help the peasants get their land back but was unable. Thus, Vĩ and the landlord became adversaries. During a hunting trip, the landlord was mortally wounded by an arrow. Before he took his last breath, he gave his family his last words: “I should’ve been more cautious, but I know who caused this. May my adversary be cursed for the rest of his life!”

  Nobody knew if the curse was real or not, but a few years later, the Hoàng clan became worried because they had no male to carry on the family’s bloodline. Vĩ had three sons, but two of them died at a very young age. His third son, Dục Đạt, had several wives and mistresses but they only gave birth to girls. So Vĩ invited a soothsayer from China to help solve the problem. The soothsayer counted his fingers and suddenly the color of his face changed. Before leaving, the soothsayer said a few words to Vĩ in private. A few years later, Vĩ died, and on his deathbed, he told his family to put his corpse in a sitting position in a large clay jar—which would nullify the curse. Three years after his death, Dục Đạt married a sixteen-year-old virgin who later gave birth to a son. Since then, each generation had had only a single son.

  After Thành told Lam the story, he was soaked with sweat.

  “Now you understand everything,” he said. “Although the Hoàngs have been cursed, the sacred spirit of my ancestor in the ancient grave will bless us. We’ll definitely have a son.”

  Lam stared at her husband. She was an engineer and didn’t believe in superstitions or the supernatural. She was skeptical about the ancient grave but realized how important it was for her to give birth to a son. She thought about the shadow of the woman who sometimes appeared in her dreams.

  “What about the scented red cushion? Why do I have to sit on it every night?” she shuddered and asked.

  “It’s a family secret. The cushion helps you get pregnant. It’s a family tradition and you can’t violate it.”

  Lam quietly approached her husband and hugged him from behind. Her arms reached up and held his muscular chest.