A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (28 page)

Except that I had unconsciously noticed things, so when Th
y spoke to me and then, soon after, the two of them walked away from the hotel together on the eve of Lý’s induction into the Army, I realized something with a shock that I actually had come to understand slowly all along. Like suddenly noticing that you are old. The little things gather for a long time, but one morning you look in the mirror and you understand them in a flash. At the flower market on Nguy
n Hu
I would talk with great spirit of how to arrange the flowers, which ones to put together, how a home would be filled with this or that sort of flower on this or that occasion. But Th
y would be bending into the flowers, her hair falling through the petals, and she would breathe very deeply and rise up and she would be inflated with the smell of flowers and of course her breasts would seem to have grown even larger and more beautiful and Lý would look at them and then he would close his eyes softly in appreciation. And at the bookstalls—I would be the one who asked for the bookstalls—I would be lost in what I thought was the miracle of all these little worlds inviting me in, and I was unaware of the little world near my elbow, Th
y looking at the postcards and talking to Lý about trips to faraway places.

I suppose my two friends were as nice to me as possible at the Continental Palace Hotel, considering what they had to do. Th
y asked me to go to the rest room with her and we were laughing together at something Lý had said. We went to the big double mirror and our two faces were side by side, two girls eighteen years old, and yet beside her I looked much older. Already old. I could see that. And she said, “I am so happy.”

We were certainly having fun on this day, but I couldn’t quite understand her attitude. After all, Lý was going off to fight our long war. But I replied, “I am, too.”

Then she leaned near me and put her hand on my shoulder and she said, “I have a wonderful secret for you. I couldn’t wait to tell it to my dear friend.”

She meant these words without sarcasm. I’m sure of it. And I still did not understand what was coming.

She said, “I am in love.”

I almost asked who it was that she loved. But this was only the briefest final pulse of naïveté. I knew who she loved. And after laying her head on the point of my shoulder and smiling at me in the mirror with such tenderness for her dear friend, she said, “And Lý loves me, too.”

How had this subject not come up before? The answer is that the two of us had always spoken together of what a wonderful boy Lý was. But my own declarations were as vivid and enthusiastic as Th
y’s—rather more vivid, in fact. So if I was to assume that she loved Lý from all that she’d said, then my own declaration of love should have been just as clear. But obviously it wasn’t, and that was just as I should have expected it. Th
y never for a moment had considered me a rival for Lý. In fact, it was unthinkable to her that I should even love him in vain.

She lifted her head from my shoulder and smiled at me as if she expected me to be happy. When I kept silent, she prompted me. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

I had never spoken of my love for Lý and I knew that this was the last chance I would have. But what was there to say? I could look back at all the little signs now and read them clearly. And Th
y was who she was and I was different from that and the feeling between Lý and her was already decided upon. So I said the only reasonable thing that I could. “It is very wonderful.”

This made Th
y even happier. She hugged me. And then she asked me to comb her hair. We had been outside for an hour before coming to the hotel and her long, straight hair was slightly ruffled and she handed me the pearl-handled brush that her mother had given her and she turned her back to me. And I began to brush. The first stroke caught a tangle and Th
y cried out in a pretty, piping voice. I paused briefly and almost threw the brush against the wall and walked out of this place. But then I brushed once again and again, and she was turned away from the mirror so she could not see the terrible pinch of my face when I suggested that she and Lý spend their last hours now alone together. She nearly wept in joy and appreciation at this gesture from her dear friend, and I kept on brushing until her hair was perfect.