Another Vulgar Story - Nguyễn Khắc Phước dịch “Lại Một Chuyện Thô Tục”, truyện ngắn của Nguyễn Quang Lập.

Another Vulgar Story 

By Lap Quang Nguyen

Translated into Vietnamese by  Phuoc Khac Nguyen

Doan left his elementary school when he finished his fifth year 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, and he said, “Not at all. The job 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. If I did so, he would show me a "butterfly" (1). Of course, I did what he told me.  

I thought he would show me a true butterfly, but he only drew an upside-down triangle with a dot in the middle and said, “This is a butterfly”. I asked him why he drew a dot in the middle, and he said the dot made the picture look like a butterfly. I didn't agree and asked him what the dot was about. 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 seen a true butterfly before. He didn't know if it was horizontal or vertical. He just lied to me after all. 

From then on, I took it for granted that a butterfly was an upside-down triangle. 

A year later, probably in the first month of the summer, the militiamen of Dong Duong Village, where I was evacuated, captured a foreign woman pilot whose nationality was unknown. She was said to be an Australian. At that time, a pilot prisoner was much more precious than gold. As soon as the district armed forces heard the news, they promised to award the militiamen a cow. 

While a militiaman was sent to the district armed forces to report the news, the woman pilot was brought to a warehouse and watched carefully. Of course, I hang about the warehouse all day to 'watch' the woman pilot without neglect or tiredness. 

The militiamen waited and waited until late in the afternoon, but the men from the district armed forces didn't turn up. They yawned and yawned. One militiaman said, “This woman is big, so her vulva must be big too. Let's strip her off to see it.” Without hesitation, all the others agreed. They all tried to force her to lie down. The pilot was so frightened that her face went white. She turned around and around to avoid them. She probably thought the natives were going to kill her. One militiaman pointed his gun at her and shouted, “Stay still, or I'll kill you. Let me examine how dangerous the invaders are.” Of course, he spoke in Vietnamese, but I thought she understood, so she lay still. They stripped off her trousers. Then they slowly went around, watching her attentively. 

I didn't see anything or the upside-down triangle. I saw only a patch of fair pubic hair up to her navel. One militiaman took a branch of the 'Catarina' tree to raise the hair patch but found nothing. 

From that time on until I was in the seventh grade, I kept wondering why the butterfly I saw was drawn as an upside-down triangle and a dot.

Once again, I found out that they 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 find out that Su is wrong. 

You have been deceiving me, Su. The triangle is the triangle; the hair patch is the hair patch; they are not the same. Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!

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(1) butterfly: pussy, vulva.