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