Love was as clear as a mirror

Love was as clear as a mirror
» Tác giả: Đoàn Thị Diễm Thuyên
» Dịch giả: Nguyễn Thị Bích Nga
» Thể lọai: English
» Số lần xem: 1647
1. Love was as clear as a mirror
I told her that she was very clear.
“Well, so you shouldn’t make me turbid even though by a dust,
right?”
She talked and laughed innocently. Her innocence like a sharp
knife cut my flesh softly but it would be bleeding a lot. Yeah, I
really didn’t want to make her clearness turbid, I just wanted to
be dissolved in it, but she said that it was too late. What did
“late” mean? I met her too late, or I found out what I needed too
late?
She said I was a rather ideal man – experienced, intellectual,
successful and virtue… – but if I were younger, about over
thirty, and I hadn’t got married, hadn’t any children ‘cause she
was over twenty years old.
“But you’re very cruel. You’re clear but not silly. You made me
love you and then you left me like this… What do I do now?”
“I don’t know, either. ‘Cause I love myself very much. You have
many things but I have only my youth. I want to find out
everything belong to my youth.”
It seemed there was a transparent mirror between us. We stood
there, looking at each other, smiling at each other, understanding
each other, but we couldn’t touch each other. When I raised my
hand, waved at her, she turned around… When I walked away
sadly, she laughed out loud behind me…
Time went very fast, and when I realized it, we had been
knowing each other for three years. At that time, there were forty

female students of all fifty students in my Press class, and she
was the most mischievous student. Forty female students were
forty firecrackers, ready to blow up if my mistake was a beam of
fire. But she wasn’t only a firecracker but also a string of them,
and that was very terrible! I remembered the day she put my
name in the live broadcast program of hers. She cleverly
introduced her article with four sentences of a folk song:
“You just smile or you smile at love,
Smile at moon, smile at wind, or you smile at me.
You just smile or you smile at flowers,
Smile at moon, smile at wind, or I smile at you.”
Her voice was clear, sweet and very powerful, being broadcasted
within the radius of 50 meters. Suddenly, an over-forty-year-old
teacher like me was blush, feeling uncomfortable. I had missed
her since that day. And she was getting friendlier with me. Once
I overheard her friends be jealous of her because of me. Oh that
was true, ‘cause I was a handsome teacher and I talked to people
nicely. But then, I realized that the truth wasn’t like that. In one
period, I randomly asked the students’ opinions about me.
“You’re more handsome than we!”, the male students said.
“I admitted that you’re handsome…”, a female continued.
“Rather old, but better than our boys.”
“You have a skill of talking.”
“You have amorous, brown eyes.”
“You’re very excellent…”
I was overwhelmed with their compliments, then I received a can
of cold water.
“But you’re so much talkative!”
Oh mygod! That sentence was from a girl whom I missed
everyday, whom I considered as a small flower. Being surprised,

I tried to keep my mouth as a fresh smile.
“You think I’m so much talkative, don’t you?”, I asked them.
“Maybe, sir…”
That was it. Just one minute before they praised me then one
minute after they said I was talkative!
“But how is my talking? Is it charmless?”
“No… you’re talkative, but you’re handsome and nice…”
After that, they bursted out gigling like they didn’t remember
that I was old enough to be their uncle. Angry, but I really loved
them from the bottom of my heart. They were naughty but
innocent. They studied for their future without any calculation.
They were different from the students who tried to be closed to
the professors, the famous journalists and pleased them. But if
they wanted to climb the ladder of fame, they should did it with
their efforts…
But the relationship between she and I was different. My feelings
to her was completely clear, non-self-seeking. She said she could
love me and admire me in a distance and never came near me. If
not, she would be shy like a mimosa, folding up her leaves, and
showing her sharp thorns.
Then coming the day she graduated from school and began
mature. I was present in her class on the last day. Their fare-well
party was hold in a romantic place in a big park. They ate food,
drank beer, sang songs, took pictures and… cried. I had never
seen the strangest class like this, both males and females cried
with together making me touched. She wasn’t an exception, but
she kept crying and smiling. Then we sat near a big tree,
chatting.
“I may be very sad when I don’t meet you naughty students,” I
said.

“If you want to see us, just give your hand to us. Somehow we
can’t have our jobs right now.”
“But I can give my hand to only one of you.”
“So you give your hand to me.”
“You’re too heavy for me to do that.”
“You just try it.”
“Ok, I’ll try. But if I think it’s beyond my strength, I’ll give up.”
To tell the truth, I wanted to help all of them within my ability. It
was simply ‘cause I was their teacher and they had given me
their true, innocent emotion. About her, I was waiting for her
voice “Sir?” and her lovely hand, I would take her to everywhere
she wanted.
“Sir?”
Oh it was her voice. And it was her hand to me. But it wasn’t
like I thought it was.
“Let’s shake hands.”
There we said goodbye. I kept her hand in my hand, looking at
her face, her smiling mouth and her sad eyes. I knew that she
was sad but not because me, just because of the unsure future.
After that, the fate took action and it tied both of us with an
invisible rope. I had some chances to help her finish the first
articles. Lucky me, she was a very serious person in her work. I
showed her the way to go ahead, but I made her have a sense of
responsibility. Her steps was akward at first, but then she could
walk by her own. So, not only I loved but also I felt proud of her.
We often met each other in garden coffee shop where the air was
very quiet, where we could enjoy the sunlight, listen to the birds,
looked at the red paper-flowers and the pink broken-hearted-
flowers…
One day I saw her crying… If she cried out, maybe she would

borrow my shoulders, but she just sobbed with her tears rolling
down, made my heart softer…
“I’m bored with my poverty,” she said.
Hearing that, I understood the reason why she sried. People
could cry for their poorness, and they could cry more for their
unluck due to their poverty.
“You’re bored with having a bicycle?”, I joked so that she could
feel better, it was my experience!
“Yeah, that’s right. When I ride that old bicycle, I write only one
article while other people can write four articles.”