Summery kite

Sang led me to the bridge.

The sun was orange and falling. The ground was colored with a fiery shade. Sang was at the front, and I was a bit behind her. Sometimes she intentionally slowed down so that we could walk together. Our blurry shadows stretched out and hobbled. They kept overlapping, then splitting again. I realized I was leaning over so that the left half of my shadow merged into hers. She wore a light blue shirt with long loose pants and a dark blue jacket. Her pair of black sneakers were frayed, and her hair was neatly tied. The pretty tail signaled gracefulness. Her face was tan, I wonder if it was the five-hours exposed to sunlight days in Cu Lao. Grandmother said that her family left Hai Pho three years ago, following their father after the major drought. She dropped a year of school, so that although she was sixteen, a year older than me, she was entering high school.
We reached the bridge, then Sang sped up to where children and kite sellers were standing and slowed down when she saw a seller.
“How much for this?” She pointed at a small kite. It was a triangle, thin, neon kite with a red outline. The other kites are bigger, animal-shaped, and colorfully painted.
“Seventy thousand dong,” The seller said.
“Please give me one,” Sang said. She took out a black purse and gave the man the money. I did not offer to pay.
She held out both hands for the kite, then turned to me “Do you know how to fly a kite?”. “Yes, I do,” I said hesitantly. What about you? The kite was in her hands, opening. She turned toward me and reached out her arms, offering the kite. I took and held it with both hands, then partly opened it. It was not too small, medium-size, and simple. I walked toward where people were flying the kites. My short hair blew, and the wind had dried the sweat behind my back. When I felt that the wind was strong enough, I opened the kite, took the roll, loosened the string, and gave the roll to Sang: “Hold this”. Sang held the core tightly but didn’t touch the string. With the other end of the string, I raised the kite with the left arm and held the string with the other. When the kite started to rise, I let it go, then with my right arm, I repeatedly jerked the string and loosened it. The wind kept getting stronger, and I kept jerking and loosening. I held the string, Sang held the core.
“It started to feel tight,” Sang said. Now it was as small as a hat.
“Hold it tight. Don’t let the wind blow it away” I said. Then I let it go completely.
“It is so…cozy and sunny”. Sang’s voice was higher. She smiled slightly. Her breath was rapid. Her eyes fixed on the kite. She said, “I love flying kites”. Then why don’t you do it yourself? “Do you know how to?” I asked. “No, I don’t. I just let others do it for me," Sang said with intentional carelessness. I laughed, then glanced at her, staring at the kite. I tried to recall a trace of a dull childhood memory that I left in those summers at Hai Pho to seek if the figure of this young girl may match with any of them. Despite the effort, she appeared strangely. None of the summer spent at grandmother vividly marked her image.
“This is my third time,” Sang said.
“Having someone fly a kite for you?” I asked.
“Yes. I don’t have much time or space to fly the kite where I live. I have to go quite far”.
“I like kites too,” I said.
“Why?” Sang asked me.
“It’s fun”.
“Do you know why I like flying kites? Even though I don’t know how to” Sang asked.
“No”. I answered short, as I thought that Sang liked things straightforward.
“I like the sky. I like to watch it”. Sang still looked at the kite while talking to me. “Flying a kite is like watching the sky without needing a reason”.
I laughed. “You can still look at the sky without flying a kite”.
“Yes, sure. But what would you think if you saw me watching the sky without a kite?” Sang asked.
“What? Isn’t it normal?”.
“No. Just imagine seeing a person, in the middle of a bridge, doing nothing but looking at the sky. And in an afternoon, even!” Sang told me, she now no longer raised her eyes towards the kite. She lowered her head but still looked at the sky.
“Is it weird?” I asked.
“Yes, it is. And I know that no one would care. But you would still spend two seconds looking at a person who is doing nothing but raising his head directly at the sky. In the middle of a bridge! And you would think that there is a possibility, this guy is weird, or he is going to do something”. Sang did not look at me.
“Like...jumping?” I asked.
“Like jumping”.
Sang didn’t say that fast or slowly nor with a higher or lower voice. She stopped talking. I was silent. My eyes were directed at the horizon where the sun was going to touch in minutes.
“Yeah “. I replied, “maybe that”. I didn’t say it fast or slowly, nor with a higher or lower voice.
Our breath was quiet. My eyes were toward the fiery sun, and Sang’s were toward the space between the kite and the sun. Sometimes she blinked and softly moved her lips. Her chest slowly inflated then deflated. Her breath was quiet. On the ground, she slowly stomped. Then sometimes she scratched her cheeks, wiped something on her face, not her tears. She didn’t cry during our silence. Then she stopped that too, even the arms which were holding the string. She stopped moving her lips, her feet, her hands, and her cheeks. She stopped showing oscillation in the eyes. The sun, or the horizon, or the kite, was static and so were her eyes.
Our shadows were separated on the ground, and gradually blurring. My eyes gazed at the river below, where the water stream was standing, and the only things that made it oscillate were the wind. Suddenly, Sang turned her head and looked at me. I had to look back. Her eyes were very brown, not dark, or black, and the brown circle didn’t touch the bottom lid. My face was mirrored and surrounded in that brownness. There was nothing clear in that circle except my face, not the people behind me, or the sun, the sky, or the kite. My face was the only object. It was not dark, or black, but cold brown. I couldn’t remember the color of my own eyes. What do they look like? I wondered if Sang saw anything in there, like her face. But she looked at me for five seconds then turned away.
“Oh look. Sunset. It is nicer than usual”. Sang smiled.
“Yes, I noticed it a while ago. Beautiful afternoon. I mean. Really”. Beautiful. I looked down at the water surface again. Now, the wind moved it, my face and body below there were distorted, and so were Sang’s. Her blue jacket and my white shirt curved like how clouds twisted into unclear shapes. Around us was the yellow and orange sky. The wind was stronger, and our reflections were much more distorted. They, half white and half blue, looked like clouds fading into the sky. The river was not wide, the bridge was short and low, but it was big enough for our reflection to be surrounded endlessly by the grey orangish. Nothing glimmered down there. It was seven colors in greyish. The wind was stronger. Our reflections were unrecognizable. My white shirt was in grey and her blue jacket was in grey. The sun has touched the horizon.
I looked around the road. A stone was a meter away. I picked it up, placed it in my hand. Sang saw it: “Can I take it?”. She took it, then dropped it into the river, right at where our reflections were moving. I turned around and laid my back at the rails, this time to watch the other half of the sky. It was blue, then dark blue below, then as purple as a sheet of silk. I took another stone, then dropped it too. The stones didn’t bounce up. They just dived.
Then I picked up two more. The first one, I throw it further. It dived right away, left no trace, like there was a secret golf hole meters away, in the middle of the river, and I was just aiming at it. Sang watched me. I felt the blushes on my cheeks. Her face was cherry, a purple vein appeared near the chin. I held tight the second one in my palm and stepped back. My left hand was on the rail, my right elbow raised. My body formed a small angle with the rail, and my two feet followed the angle. I didn’t move fast, but the shadow tracked every tiny move. It was so lively that staring at it without noticing me could make it seem like I constantly created hundreds of gestures in a second. It took a motion, then exaggerated it. Sang’s shadow was still mild and quiet.
I took a breath, closed my elbow, and threw it with relatively large force. The throw was sharp and flat. Sang smiled, stretched her shoulders, and yawned.
“It is not as windy,” Sang said “I wish the kite could swing faster”.
“You could run,” I said. It was still windy. I wondered if she was sleepy. The rustling of the trees on the riverside did sound like a lullaby, but rather the kind that, like the rain, softly woke me up. Her yawning eased my tension. “Or ride a bike”.
Sang looked at me straight and gave me a big smile without showing her teeth. I had never seen her smile like this. Her eyes sparkled with intentions, the conspiracy that she was deliberately telling me now. They opened wide and blinked. It was a failed evil smile, and she knew that. I laughed at her animated expression.
“You want to run?” I asked. She shook her head.
“I cannot run,” Sang said. “Let’s borrow that bike.” She pointed at an old blue bicycle at the vacant lot behind a stall, where a lady was looking after her arrays of soda and snacks.
“Whose is it?” I asked.
“Aunt Chi’s. She usually leaves it there. She has a stall nearby, but she doesn’t work on Wednesdays”. Sang said. “Do you want to pedal it?”
“Do you know how to ride a bike?” I asked, prepared to be surprised.
“Of course,” Sang laughed, “But I like letting others carry me”.
We took the bike, and she sat at the back, holding the kite with one hand, grasping the back seat with another. Her feet were placed firmly on the footrest.
“Go past the bridge. It is more spacious on the other side.” Sang said.
I rode slowly. We both turned to face the last rays of sunset. Our shadows attached themselves to the bike and faded. I sped up. The blue was peeking out from behind the array of trees passing by. Short and small houses were grouped together like mushrooms in the forest. The two-lane road was just big enough for two cars. We reached the turn. I slowed down, slightly turned the front wheel right, leading us to the great field of guavas on both sides of the road. We gazed further, our sight filling with the half-artificial green of orderly harvested trees and the infinite blue. It was the longest road and the widest scene. Sang was holding the kite. It floated ahead, steadily, and swung while looking down at us. It floated on the wind. No matter how far we rode, it was still ahead.
“The kite is leading us,” I said.
We followed it, past the field, toward the flying hat telling us to keep wandering, until we reached the cemetery. Tombs were placed chaotically, and so were their sizes and colors. I could count more than seven shades spreading evenly. Small ones, which were a meter-square big and usually gray, scattered along the walks, and apart from the carvings, were undistinguishable. Extensive ones belonged to richer families who had their own area for the dead and probably the future ones. They were built with elegant-colored stones, twice as wide as the scatterings, with flowers placed beautifully on. Each of them faced different directions according to their year of fate, grandmother said.
“You know what? I…” Sang started to say something, then stopped in the middle.
“What?” I asked. But she didn’t continue. “Were you going to say something?” I wasn’t sure if she was waiting, or if it was a slip.
“I will tell you when we get back,” Sang said.
“What is it?”
“You will know when we get back”.
We rode along the cemetery, where my grandfather was buried. His tomb was the red and big kind. Heavy stones, dark red, fenced by the classic rectangle style: a meter wide, two meters long, and almost a meter high. At the middle, on the soil, withered marigold seemed nothing different from sere grassed, which were all thirsty under the summer’s drought. But it was at least quiet and friendly with the afternoon summer wind across the remnants of shines. His tomb was a better place than his yesterday death’s remembrance, where crowds of men were sitting at the high tables, and ladies at the back. I always found them noisy and disturbing. There I met Sang. It was just yesterday when she was cutting up a watermelon and clumsily fashioning it into a flower pattern on dishes, preparing to serve the high table for desserts. My grandmother had told her to take me out, she said. When we were sitting at the “children table”, she had asked me to go to Hue Phi river, saying that she liked the sunset, and I agreed. As I passed the cemetery, I started to feel my rapid breath and sweats pouring down from temples. I stopped the bicycle. “It’s time to get back”.
“Let’s get home. It’s quite late,” Sang said.
“Roll the kite. I will ride slow,” I said, then rotated the bicycle, ring back towards the bridge.
Sang sang while rolling in the string. She murmured a fast song. It was not English nor Vietnamese, nor a sad tune. Her face hid away from the mirror as she was looking down, but I could still see the shaking and nodding. She hummed the melody, sang some parts, then came a Vietnamese song. She lowered her voice although there was no one around us, then softly sang:
“When I was a boy
Wandering in summer daydreams”
This song was not as rapid. Sang hummed again and lowered her voice to the extent that I could not distinct lyrics from mutters in her throat. The tune was so much alike to “The boy” that I slipped into in and sang along:
“I want to be a little boy
Wandering in the middle of the sky”
Sang fetched a sigh.
“I missed Hai Pho” She said.
“You’re in Hai Pho” I said.
“I mean…I missed flying kites” She said, followed by a short, sullen laughter. I tried to distinguish any resentment there.
“You can still fly kites in Cu Lao, can’t you?”
“No…. Well, yes, I can” She faced her palm against the direction of the air flow “I mean…I missed the time here. It was more fun in Hai Pho. Cu Lao is not as fun”.
“When do you leave?”
“I have a week left before school” Sang raised her tone, suddenly talking with energy “I like schools in Hai Pho”.
She continues, “There was a while, your grandmother walked me home from school. The secondary school is over the bridge, so we saw people flying kites every afternoon”.
“Did she play kites with you?”
“No, she didn’t. It would be late if we stayed. But I got to watch the sky, and the kites” She said, “We watch the sky”.
It was getting dark when we reached the bridge. The kite seller was gone, and there were few people left. The lady selling sodas and snacked must have packed her things. We parked the bicycle.
“What were you going to say then?” I asked.
“Well…” She tried to contain a burst of laughter. “I don’t know whose bike it is”. Her face turned red, although there was no heat left.
“What if people found out?” I got serious. I spoke loudly, standing akimbo. I was shocked to realize I had just stolen from a stranger.
She stopped laughing but kept her cheeks high. “I am sorry. I really am. I will apologize to the owner”. She said that with a consoling voice, but not regretful at all.
“You should’ve told me. Who is the owner?” I was still angry, but her calmness forced me to behave easily.
“I don’t know. But I will ask the sales lady in the stall”. She gave me a meek look. “It’s okay. People in this town know others well”.
I didn’t say anything.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t know how to handle it. So, take it easy.” She spoke firmly. That was convincing.
I didn’t understand how she calmed me down like soothing a crying child. She didn’t even know how to fly a kite or ride a bike properly.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
“Can you keep the kite?” She asked me.
“But you bought it”
“But I don’t know how to fly it,” She said “Just keep it and bring it next time. I can’t fly it without you anyway”. She shuddered and gave me a slightly begging look. That was convincing, but I was still angry.
“No. Keep it” I said, followed by a sharp and loud breath and a muttering.
Sang was aware of that, as she took back the kite and didn’t say anything else, and neither did I. We didn’t rush to get home. The whispering of our feet rhythmed on the cement road. Sang clasped her hands behind her back as she was holding the kite. My anger faded into the dull color of a coming evening. Fields of papayas and custard apples laid out miles after miles, until they reached the feet of some mountains. The picture of buffaloes after buffaloes popped up and amused me. I chuckled thinking of how we looked like walking: silly and thoughtless buffaloes. I wished that Sang was thinking the same.
Summer had begun to slip away. The sounds of cicadas filled up the silence. The cool summer afternoon couldn’t escape that buzzing.
_ _ _
That evening, I went to sit in the small garden at the back of grandmother’s house. It was small, right behind the main house, but separated by the new fences to keep the cabbage from snakes. I sat at the only stone chair one foot away from the door. It was like stepping into a strange and cramped world behind that door, but still I enjoyed it. It was the end of the month, so the moon was just half filled. Mangos were still unripped, and grapefruits, though looked as big as a full moon, would never be sweet enough for grandmother to serve her guests. I tried to reach one of the lowest grapefruit now that I could do that myself. It was a small one with a smooth, freshly green skin. I peeled it and tried to take out as much as possible the white, soft pulp. The moist and milky thing shone the sour and soothing fragrance, glowing under the silky white air. The sticky oil found its flourish through my lungs, then crept among blurry memories of this afternoon. Cicadas did not stop. Houses and trees are so dwarf that none of them could hide a single summery star. Orion constellation with three glistening dots aligning marked where I started. Down below was Sirius, the brightest. As the Greek myth of constellations unfolded, I told myself to teach Sang this one day, to identify clusters of stars and go into a surrounded garden, so that none could stare at her directing at the night sky. I was reviewing the names of visible constellations in summer, afraid of oblivion like I was standing in front of a school test, when grandmother’s voice intruded. She called my name.
“I’m here” I replied behind the door. It was too soon for sleep.
“Get back here” Her voice didn’t fill with fear, but it was trembling. I left the blossom of summer behind, and returned to the house in a hurry.
“What’s the matter?” I kept my voice steady, as if that would make it turn out to be a simple ask to buy her a sick oil or give her a back rub like some nights before sleep. She was sitting on the wooden sofa, still had her jacket and hat on.
“Sang’s father. He has just passed” Grandmother said. Her eyes were hidden behind wrinkles. It was unable to recognize an emotional sparkle in that dark blue circle, so I could imagine a pity. “Poor that little girl”, She said.
The image of Sang’s sorrowful brown eyes appeared. I imagined that she was crying her eyes out, shaking her whole body, and then when she wore out, her sniff would be interrupted by hiccups. “What happened to him?” I asked.
“He got that tumor in his brain and has been sick for a while. Sang is packing. She is leaving tonight”. Grandmother was calm, and so seemed I. “Poor that little girl”, she sounded hoarse.
The scent of grapefruit crept through the air, but it seemed like cicadas had stopped. I was hesitant to get her house and say goodbye. The idea of talking to one who had just lost her father had never come.
I saw grandmother looking at me, as if she were evaluating the first death experience of a child. I didn’t show my shock, but I didn’t show anything else either. Sang was packing. She was in a rush. I knew I shouldn’t go there or interrupt anything that she was doing. She was preparing for the funeral. Soon, she would get on a car, leave Hai Pho, reach Cu Lao and partake in a funeral which was full of adults, each with an envelope, a speech, a drink in his hand. It would be a noisy and damp place, the funeral of a man.
The rest of the evening went in the odd whir of summer insects and clashes of winds with leaves and grass. I forced myself to sleep in the country-cold. Lying and awake, I separated fragments of daylight’s lives: the silent odor of wood overwhelmed by hundreds of herbal incenses, the shape of a phoenix with its quiet scarlet, thick fogs fumbling the remnants of human’s scent, all sleeping in the dark. I dreamt that Sang met me in the garden, handed me the kite, which I regretfully resisted before. Her hands were so white that the grapefruit’s pulp, which I left forgotten, strangely stared at them. I saw my shadow as clear as day, but when I started looking for Sang’s, she had left the garden.
The sun of the next day woke me up fresh. The heat reminded me of the city that I was getting back to. Grandmother met me at breakfast, holding the kite, the neon kite.
“Sang told me to lend you this” She said.
“Is she gone?” I asked immediately.
“This early morning”
Midday, I got on a train, went back home. I kept the kite. It was placed in a cabinet, next to the collections of poems grandfather gave me. I disassembled the frame, folded the sheet, and rolled the string tightly. I took a cord and fastened all of it into a neat stick then packed it with some other books. I stopped to stare at them for a minute, like I was investigating. What was left was the unstoppable sounds of cicadas, signaling that the summer when I was fifteen had ended.

Cover photo by Nguyên Vũ.