Love was as clear as a mirror

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<b>Love was as clear as a mirror</b>

<b>» Tác giả: Đoàn Thị Diễm Thuyên </b>
<b>» Dịch giả: Nguyễn Thị Bích Nga </b>

<b>» Thể lọai: English</b>
» Số lần xem: 1647

<b>1. Love was as clear as a mirror</b>

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.”

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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…”

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“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.

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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.”

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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.”

“But later, you will receive something more valuable than one
article, so don’t be sad!”

“I wish I could be more beautiful.”

“Hey, beautiful and clever women will become goblins easily.”
“If my soul is clear, I’ll be an angel.”

“Ah, well, you want to become an angel…”

Maybe I felt sorry for her with her very old bicycle, so from
that day, I received the royalty on her behalf and brought it to
her myself. “Feeling sorry” was a symbol of emotion; it looked
like a green sprout, the more it was taken care of, the better it
was; no one could destroy it or lose it. I valued my love to her
and I was dissolved in it. Everyday she was present in my life
like a new habbit, lovely but scared.

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me “a man plus a bottle of wine can turn something impossible
into possible.” One rainy afternoon, I was drunk and I didn’t
know why I came to her room when she had some room-mates
there.

“We run out of rice, don’t we?”
“Yeah. We run out of everything…”
“Have you received your royalty yet?”

“Not yet… Oh I’m waiting my teacher like the baby-bird
waiting its mother!”

“Haha… Fantastic! There he comes!”

A man with his dark brown raincoat was standing outside the
window, bursting out laughing and looking at his student. She
opened the door happily. My sentimental look made her
embarrassed. Ohmygod, I had never dared to look at her like
that!

“You still come here in spite of the rain. ‘Cause you were
drunk, weren’t you?”, she asked me cleverly.

“Aren’t you all waiting for me? Well, go with me and we drink
some coffee, ok?”

How could she refuse the invitation of her teacher, who was
standing in the rain? I didn’t know that it was the rain of the
FATE for our relationship which was very nice but very
scaring.

We went into a coffee shop, and I was sure people around us
would think that we were a couple. She was quiet in front of the
newspapers and an envelop of her royalty. I couldn’t help
myself, began talking a lot of thing about love, about the
paradise where there were only me and her. It seemed I was
flying in my dream for her.

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love. Whenever I’m beside you, I’ll think of your wife and your
children. It’s a feeling of guilty!”

It seemed the storm was coming outside, my heart was hurt.

Suddenly I turned into myself in front of her face, her soul. I
realized that she didn’t love me like I loved her!

From that day, she fleed away from my hands, she didn’t need
my guide any more. She moved to another place, avoided
meeting me for a long time. She still did her work, still lived
happily, still enjoyed the life without me. I used to be silly
thinking that she was young and she could make many
mistakes like a lot of provincial youth. Sometimes she called
me, gave me some compliments with her innocent and naughty
way.

The day I met her again, she was more mature with her stable
job. Her face and her way of speaking didn’t change.

“You look still handsome. Maybe the girls whom you’re
teaching now love you much!”

“But no one for me to love back.”

“If you have loved someone, keep loving her.”
“One way love?”

“I love you, too. But just… love. Forever.”

She told me to love her like that. She said her love to me was as
clear as a mirror, and it was very fragile, just to look at it, not to
touch it, not to break it, ‘cause it would make both of us hurt…
I promised that I still loved her, forever… But oh so sad, ‘cause
now she got married already!

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Love was as clear as a mirror

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