Another Vulgar Story
By Nguyen Quang Lap
Translated by Nguyen Khac Phuoc
Doan left elementary school when he finished fifth
grade and started learning how to drive tractors. He was my elder brother’s
friend, so he used to let me sit on his tractor several hours a day, and I was very
proud of it.
One day, I asked him whether driving a tractor was
difficult. He said, “Not at all. It needs the knowledge of a first-year school
student, but I have finished my fifth year, so I am wasting my knowledge.” At
noon, he asked me to run home to fetch his lunch food. If I did so, he would
show me a ‘flower’(1). Of course, I did what he told me.
I expected him to show me a true “flower,” but
instead, he only drew an upside-down triangle with a dot in the middle and
said, “This is a flower.” I asked him why he included a dot, and he claimed it
made the picture look like a flower. I disagreed and pressed him for an
explanation about the dot. He burst out laughing and told me to wait for the
answer until he got married. It turned out that, at the age of 21, he had never
actually seen a real “flower” before. He didn’t even know whether it was
horizontal or vertical. He had just lied to me all along.
From that time on I took for granted that a ‘flower’
was an up-side-down triangle.
A year later, likely during the first month of
summer, the militiamen of Dong Duong Village, where I had been evacuated,
captured a foreign woman pilot, who was believed to be Australian. At that
time, a captured pilot was considered more valuable than gold. Upon hearing the
news, the district armed forces promised to reward the militiamen with a cow.
A militiaman was sent to the district armed forces
to report the news, while the woman pilot was taken to a warehouse under close
surveillance. I spent the entire day in the warehouse, watching the woman pilot
attentively, without neglecting my duty or feeling tired.
The militiamen
waited until late afternoon, but the district armed forces never arrived.
Bored, one militiaman remarked, “This woman is big, so her pussy must be big
too. Let’s strip her to see.” The others quickly agreed and tried to force her
to lie down. The pilot, terrified, turned in circles to evade them, likely
fearing for her life. One militiaman aimed his gun at her and shouted, “Stay
still or I’ll kill you. Let me see how dangerous the invaders are.” Although he
spoke Vietnamese, she seemed to understand and lay still as they stripped off
her trousers and scrutinized her closely.
I didn't see anything, not even the upside-down
triangle, just a patch of fair pubic hair up to her navel. A militiaman used a
branch from a casuarina tree to lift the hair patch but found nothing.
From that time until seventh grade, I wondered why
the "flower" I saw was depicted as an upside-down triangle and a dot.
Once again, I discovered they had all lied.
Last night, Su argued with Tra that literature must
reflect reality. I used to believe Su was right, so I did everything he told
me. But now, I remember the old story and realize that Su is wrong.
You have been misleading me, Su. A triangle is a
triangle, and a hair patch is a hair patch. They are not the same. Hoo hoo hoo!
