The Beauty of Humanity Movement (79 page)

Is this why Ph
ng can’t commit to any girl? Is this why he’s been depressed? Whatever Ph
ng’s reason for telling him this story, T
finds himself pausing in the doorway of his own family’s kitchen when he gets home, watching his parents play dominoes on the floor.

They defy astrology; whatever the planets are doing, his parents remain at peace with each other. It’s both comforting and frustrating. T
knows marital relations are not always so smooth. He doesn’t find his parents’ example particularly instructive. Divide the chores, show respect to each other, spend time together playing dominoes and drinking tea. His father cooks as much as his mother does; they both have full-time jobs and they see themselves as equals.

T
cannot imagine romance between them, but his father once told him that his mother was the only girl at the factory who did not giggle and turn her head away when she spoke to him. She neither covered her mouth nor fluttered her eyelashes in obedience. “It was very rare for a girl to look you in the eyes back then,” he said. “Very rare and very powerful.”

T
was mortified to hear this. Her direct gaze meant his mother felt passionately toward his father—and who wants to think of one’s mother in this way? But he is grateful that his parents chose each other, when so many marriages of their generation were forged by arrangement or circumstance. He is particularly grateful after hearing Ph
ng’s sad story.

T
s parents have had their struggles, but these are ordinary struggles. A difficult life was normal in the dark days before Ð
i m
i, when all they could afford was a room in the Old Quarter separated by a curtain from a family in the next room. T
s father pointed out that room to him once because T
didn’t believe it when his father said that all the people in the rooms of four adjacent buildings had had to share a pit latrine and an outdoor kitchen. Their water even had to be carried from a communal pump three streets away.

Sometimes their old neighbours from those days come to visit, and T
listens to them reminisce, making light of hard times, laughing when they say things like: Can you believe sixteen of us shared that one small pot of rice? And
ôi z’ôi ôi
, the rats, do you remember? How did the vermin get so fat when we were all so hungry? Remember the time Anh wove a hammock for the colicky babies? It cured them all completely. And then when my wife had the liver pains, Anh managed to find liquorice root.