by Nguyen Dinh Sinh

About twenty years ago, after graduating from the provincial Teacher’s Training College, I went straight to Na Bon, one of the remote mountainous villages of the Thai Den (Black Thai) minority people at the foot of the Ngam Kha Pass, to open a primary class for local kids. The number of schoolchildren amounted to nearly thirty; most of them were boys aged between eleven and thirteen. For the first few weeks, my class was silently watched by villagers who by curiosity arrived at the place to see what I was teaching their children. Everything went plain sailing.

Soon, the number of onlookers got smaller and smaller, until only one little girl of eight or nine, clothes in tatters and face smeared with dirt, was left standing patiently at the window, observing my lesson. Day after day, after the break, I always found her standing by the window with a basket of vegetables and bamboo shoots picked up from the forest.

"Do you want to attend my class?" I asked her one day.

She nodded her head at first, then with a nervous look she said, "Actually, I’m unable to do so, sir," she added.

"Why not?"

I led her in although she lost hold of my hands in bewilderment. I told her to sit on the first table for fear that she might not see clearly what I wrote on the blackboard.

"What’s your name?" I asked her.

"I’m Son, sir."

"Tomorrow, I’ll give you a new copybook. For now you can use this old notebook of mine."

The whole class became tumultuous. When I pointed at the words written on the board, Son read them distinctly with confidence. The class fell into silence again. What’s more, I was greatly surprised at her clear handwriting. I realised that during the previous classes, she learnt by heart what I had taught the children. After that, they started doing better in class.

One week later, the girl who sat next to Son disappeared from class. Soon after, many others gave up learning without good reasons, until nobody attended my classes. One morning while I was at home the village chief came to see me.

"Why did you admit the daughter of the vampire in our locality into your class?" he asked me.

"Oh dear! Who’s the vampire’s daughter?"

He stared at me in despair. "It’s Son. She’s the local vampire’s kid. Two of your children have fallen ill due to the vampire’s wicked magic. If they die, you’d be to blame. Villagers would drive you out of this place."

"What’s a vampire?" I asked, confused. "Son’s pretty and nice like so many other ordinary kids in my class. How can she be that dangerous?" I went on.

"Well…you can’t understand the matter, sir. Son’s mother’s is a vampire. She’s blamed for many deaths. You should dismiss Son, or else no one will come to your class any longer and you’d be fined."

That evening, by the fire, village chief Lo, together with some other old men in the neighbourhood, let me know who really was the vampire and what she had done to several co-villagers.

"The vampire usually hands down her magic to her daughters," Lo concluded in his explanation. I did not believe in ghosts; however, I felt a bit nervous. I thought about the times I visited Son’s home. It was a dilapidated hut that was slightly shaken after each footstep. Son’s mother was approximately forty years old. She looked very sad. Years in hard time could not disfigure the fine features on her face. Son’s father died young when his daughter was only two. Rumour had it that the man’s blood was sucked up totally. Villagers intended to expel the poor little clan into the forest at first, but with the mother’s entreaty, they were compelled to let her settle down at the edge of the forest nearby, away from the village. She was quite indifferent to my remarks when I told her how bright her daughter was in school.

"It’s of no use for her to learn further, because sooner or later we’ll be chased away from this place, sir. But where shall we go — I don’t know?" she worried.

That evening, when the village chief left my house, I went to the end of the village and looked at Son’s hut standing dimly in the mist. In addition to the chirrup of insects in the grass, the murmur of the brook, the flickers of the fireflies in the air and the distant calls of deer, I could not hear or see anything.

What would I say to Son during the next class? Glancing at her brilliant face, I felt bitter. Which should I choose to expel from the classroom: Son or the rest? Would she forgive me when she grew up? Should I go back on everything I believe and tell her to drop out to help her poor mother? Maybe she could not understand my innuendoes, and attend class as usual. Maybe she would stand by the window, and learn the three R’s after my children. Her presence outside would make me grieve even more. How could she know that she had been taken in because I was defeated by the injustice done to her family?

"Son, do you want to learn further?" I asked her one day.

"Yes, I do, very much."

"I’ll send you to the boarding school for mountainous children in the district. Would you like it?"

She nodded her head.

That afternoon, I arrived at Son’s place. Not until late in the evening did her mother return home. I expressed my intention to let her daughter go to the provincial primary and secondary boarding school situated in the district centre, free of charge. Her beautiful countenance turned pale.

"If you can change her fate by virtue of schooling, I’ll agree. Frankly speaking, I don’t want to be away from her. Nevertheless, keeping her at home with me would ruin her future," she told me sincerely after a long silence.

By November of that year, after telling villagers that because of Son’s contagious disease I had to take her to the provincial hospital in the midlands so that it might not spread widely, I recommended her to my ex-classmate, the then headmaster of the boarding school for mountainous children.

***

After two years of teaching in Na Bon Village, I was transferred to different institutions, both primary and secondary, in various localities, one after another. The image of Son, the bright kid that I had taken to the district boarding school about sixty kilometres away that day, faded from my mind.

One afternoon while I was preparing my new syllabus, a pretty girl in her late teens appeared behind me. It was Son. She knelt down at my feet, tears in her eyes. After pulling herself together, she told me the story of her life over the past ten years. Soon after Son’s absence from home more than ten villagers died of epidemic malaria. The locals accused her mother of the tremendous loss caused to the village. They expeled her from the locality. She had to settle down at a far-away corner of the forest, and finally died in solitude and grief. The day that Son returned to her native village of Na Bon, nobody could recognise her.

"What are you going to do now? Return to Na Bon or resume your study?" I asked her when she had wiped away her tears.

"I’ve enrolled in the provincial medical college. I think that with my future profession I may justify my mother’s behaviour and personality," she explained to me.

"Right! I wish you lots of success!"

That was the last time I met her.

Later, I knew that after graduating from college as a general practitioner, Son went back to her native village to practise her profession. Over the past years, she had saved many people’s lives. Gradually, superstition among locals gave way to practical education. Illiteracy became the enemy.

In the rainy season of that year, early one morning, Son crossed the Na Bon stream to offer her expertise to the locals as usual. On her way back home, she was swept away by a sudden turbulent spate, and drowned. Villagers of Na Bon and the surroundings grieved of her death for many days.

Afterwards, I changed my career to become a journalist to satisfy my dream, travelling far and wide across the country to get a wide and better knowledge about the homeland and people.

At the end of last year, I revisited Na Bon. Lots of my former schoolchildren could not recognise me. When I dealt with the fate of Son, one of them told me a long and sad story about her life like a tale with numerous exaggerated details. I did not doubt anything about it on the grounds that her name had actually been handed down in the treasure of legends of Na Bon Village since her fateful day.