The Bitter Honey:
Niê Thanh Mai

Tomorrow you come beneath my longhouse, when the rooster has yet to crow, you stomp your right foot, I know, you stomp your left foot, I see.

You and I go down the hill together; my eyes in yours.

Dung couldn’t stand the way her sister-in-law Phen’s singing floated in the mountain air. She sang incessantly from dawn to dusk. When in the fields, her trilling voice pierced her thoughts. It wove itself into the branches of the coffee plants laden with fragrant, white flowers. Phen’s eyes sparkled and she smiled to herself when she was alone. Only a person who is in love smiles like that.

The fire that raged in Dung’s heart revealed itself when she performed quotidian tasks. For example, when she went to make rice, she burned it three or four times in a row. It was so inedible that her mother no longer asked her to do it.

But Dung couldn’t stay still. She had to do something. She swept the house, and then brought out the loom to weave a brocade. The sound of shuttles flowing back and forth all night left her mother sleepless, but Dung feared that if she stayed idle, her head would burst.

“Is something wrong?” asked her mother the night before.

“Nothing, Mom.”

“You know how to lie, but your behavior gives you away. You’ve done nothing well recently. You mess everything up. You’re an adult now and you don’t have a boyfriend, so what could possibly be making you so upset?”

Dung’s mother looked deeply into her daughter’s eyes. Dung’s heart felt like an uneven thread in the loom. Alas, how could Dung confide her heart in someone, while withholding it makes her life unbearable?

Until the previous day, it had been quite some time since it last rained in Jin village. Under her blanket, Dung could hear the heavy rain furiously pelting the metal roof. It rumbled all night long. Dung tossed and turned sleeplessly until the rooster crowed. When she closed her eyes, the images reappeared vividly. Dung pictured again and again Phen’s wet body seen through the bamboo screen. And the suppressed moaning, heavy breathing . . .

The sun hadn’t risen yet, but Dung was sitting up, holding her knees against her chest on the mat. She sat like that until the day began.

“Didn’t you sleep last night? You have dark circles around your eyes. What’s going on?”

Phen was tightening her sarong as she spoke. Dung said nothing in return and simply stared into her eyes. Dung noticed a flicker of embarrassment in them, but her sister-in-law looked away and said, “I’ll head to the farm early today. Despite the recent storm, it hasn’t rained much this year and our coffee plants will wilt if they don’t get some water.”

Dung was left to sit next to the window alone. The morning breeze blew in carrying her sister-in-law’s voice.

In Dung’s village, nobody wanted to live with the husband’s family. Yet Phen came to stay with Dung’s family after marrying Dung’s brother. Êđê girls proposed to their husbands and after they married, the husband would move in with her family. The arrangement would last for three years, seven years, maybe even their entire lives. A husband could die, become a ghost and stay there forever. But Dung’s brother was different; he wanted his wife to come to live with his family. She agreed and moved into their home.

But Dung knew that she came to stay with her family because she was like an orphan. Her impoverished family couldn’t even build a bamboo screen as Dung’s family could. In the summer and winter, wind tore through cracks in their home’s wall, leaving it frigid every night.

When Phen arrived at Dung’s house, she gave gifts to her in-laws. She presented a blanket to Dung’s mother, a sarong to Dung, a scarf to Dung’s uncle. Dung’s mother said she didn’t have to give anything else, but to simply have a congenial life with her son. Dung saw how emotional Phen became at that moment. Tears filling her eyes as she gripped her new mother-in-law’s hands.

Dung’s mother was so ecstatic to have Phen around. She was more elated than Dung’s brother even. Whenever Dung’s mother went to the woods to collect bamboo shoots, she woke Phen up to make rice balls for their lunch and they went together. When rattan shoots peeked out of the soil, she took Phen to the woods and picked some to make broth for the family. Dung’s mother and Phen gossiped together all day long. Dung’s brother acted upset at being abandoned like that, but Dung thought he actually liked it.

Phen didn’t want her husband to go into the forest to collect honey. She said that her heart jolted when she saw him scale an enormous tree and dangle out on its far branches toward beehives. Besides, bees were just like humans, so how could we take their homes without feeling guilty?

Dung’s brother laughed loudly, saying, “If we don’t get them, others will. Beehives are lucrative. One season of collecting wild honey is worth a year of farming. Besides, we take just enough for you to buy threads and weave new clothes for next year.”

Dung used to follow her brother into the woods to look for beehives, so she agreed with her sister-in-law as to the peril of such an enterprise. As she watched her brother climb a towering tree, her pulse raced. Upon reaching a branch with a beehive, he would burn grass or dry leaves. He had to be careful not to start a fire but still to make enough smoke to drive the bees from their nest. The smoke made his eyes sting but once the bees flew out, he could grab the hive and put it in his basket. Some were so filled with honeycombs that he had to make numerous trips up and down to get it all.

He would give all the money he made from selling the honey to his wife, telling her to buy more thread for weaving brocades and to get some pork to make soup with the bitter eggplant for the rest of the family.

“Don’t eat dried fish all the time,” her brother said.

Phen said nothing, but quietly took the money and put it in a wooden box in her room.

One day in March, Dung’s brother fell from the fork of an old tree while attempting to get honey. Perhaps the bees were especially aggressive and stung him repeatedly, so he lost his grip and fell to his death. He was dead before the villagers found him, crumpled on the earth in torn clothes, his hands still grasping the dripping honeycomb. The villagers informed his family and Dung dashed to look for her mother and Phen. When they arrived, Phen held his body tight, sobbing. Her face grew paler and paler until she fainted.

After her husband died, Phen paced back and forth like a shadow and neglected her meals. In the first few days after his funeral, she sat at the steps by the gate, her face constantly wet with tears. Dung’s mother also wept from morning until night. Dung lay in the living room, wailing her eyes out as well. The house was in mourning. On the fourth day after the funeral, Phen went to the farm and got some vegetables for dinner. She prepared four bowls, and her voice was clear when she said, “Mom, my husband has passed away, but we have to live well. Mourning him forever would trouble him, and he won’t be able to reincarnate. Please eat, Mom, and drink some wine to live the life that my husband expects.”

Dung, Dung’s mother, and Phen all sat around the dinner table. Each one held a bowl. They couldn’t swallow the bitter eggplant in their bowls. Finally, Dung’s mother started weeping and said she needed one more day to mourn before she could begin living the life her son would’ve wanted for them.

Dung’s mother loved Phen like a daughter and never once yelled at her. When Phen’s husband was still alive, the other villagers asked Phen why she hadn’t gotten pregnant yet, as they had already been married for three harvests. They talked among themselves, “Why did her belly look as flat as a crepe myrtle tree in the forest?”

They then visited Dung’s mother and warned, “Poisoned trees can’t bear fruits, and cursed women can’t conceive children. You should find another wife for your son.”

“If you keep talking like that, get out of here, and don’t ever come back,” Dung’s mother, out of frustration, yelled back at them.

After her husband’s decease, the villagers spread the rumor that Phen must’ve been possessed by a ghost that brought misfortune to the family. If not, how could Dung’s brother die from falling from a tree?

The rumor made Phen miserable. Every early morning, she would wake up before the rooster crowed and go to the farm and stay until well after dark. She didn’t talk or laugh like she used to. She was a mere shadow drifting through the world.

Once, at dinner, Dung’s mother told Phen, “We can’t stop people from spreading rumors, but we don’t have to take what they say to heart. Why must we let them disturb our lives? If a tree wants to survive in a dense forest, it has to grow higher and snatch the sunlight. We’ll have to strive to grow above the gossip and grasp our happiness.”

Phen burst into tears. She hadn’t wept in two weeks but now she couldn’t suppress her agony any longer and cried endlessly. Dung thought Phen had become emotional because her mother didn’t truly understand what was in her mind. But Dung’s mother loved her dearly. Dung loved Phen, too, and wished she had a good man whose shoulders she could lean on when exhausted, and someone to have children with and build a family together.

But when Phen did find that man, Dung was tormented. If it had been someone other than Y’Thôn, Dung wouldn’t have been so bitter. Dung had loved Y’Thôn and his thick muscles and kind smile since her breasts were first starting to develop. She would blush and run to hide behind her friends whenever he came around.

Did Y’Thôn know Dung had had a crush on him? Dung had no idea. By chance, when it rained the previous day, Dung’s mother asked her to take a raincoat to Phen as she was staying in a temporary hut to watch the family’s farm during the cultivation season. When looking through the bamboo screen, Dung shuddered when seeing Y’Thôn and Phen so lost in each other’s bodies that they didn’t mind the torrential downpour outside, nor did they know that Dung was standing out there in the thunderstorm.

Dung sprinted through the field. She didn’t go home. She didn’t know where she was going. Running through thorn grass and spiky weeds she reached the top of a hill and dropped down to the ground beneath an imposing knia tree. The rain stopped and her body shivered but Dung still didn’t go home. How could she? How could she fight back tears when she saw Phen?

After that day, Dung said nothing to Phen, and only replied to her questions with curt statements. After Phen went to the farm, Dung’s mother held her hands with her bony fingers.

“Is there something wrong between you two? Bowls and dishes in the same basket can clash; it’s the same with sisters. If you can, why don’t you just let those troubles flow away with the stream in the forest?”

“How can I forget them, Mom? Don’t you know Phen is seeing another man?”

“Your brother passed away a long time ago. And your sister-in-law is still young.”

“I’m your daughter but you don’t feel sorry for me. Why do you love a stranger more? Only a stranger would steal your daughter’s man like that.” Dung burst into tears, dashed down the stairs, and ran to the entrance of the village. She went far away from everyone so she could cry alone.

Alas, Y’Thôn never smiled and chatted with Dung because of her sister-in-law. If Dung happened to meet him at a festival, his eyes were always longing for Phen’s, even though Dung was younger and more beautiful. How could he love a widow but not a single girl like Dung?

Her heart was shattered.

Dung’s mother sat quietly at the door and let Dung sob inside without saying a word. Perhaps her mother thought that if she let Dung cry till her tears ran dry, her agony eventually would flow out.

Three days went on this way until Dung’s mother woke Dung up.

“How much longer would you stay in there? Are you going to die a spinster in that dark room?”

“What can I do now, Mom? I don’t want to see Phen’s face again. My heart is broken.”

Dung wept. Her heart pounded but her body was frail. Dung and Phen never hid anything from each other. But this time she didn’t tell Phen about the cause of her anguish.

Dung’s mother rose to her feet and turned on the light.

“In this village men are like leaves in a forest. If one doesn’t love you, look for another. You’ll find someone who loves you more than he loves himself. But you have only one sister.”

“Mom, it’s not that easy. Love isn’t so simple. My heart is disobedient; it can’t be forced to do anything.”

Dung was so aggravated that she couldn’t sleep that night, rolling side to side until the rooster crowed. Dung didn’t know that on the other side of the divider, her sister-in-law was also awake. And across the house, in a small room, Dung’s mother was also sleepless. Their home was frigid, even with a burning fireplace.

Y’Thôn’s family ferreted out his affair with Phen. Early one morning, just as the sun had emerged from behind a bamboo ridge, Y’Thôn’s mother rushed into Dung’s house, yelling like crazy at Dung’s mother, “Did you know your daughter-in-law is having an affair with my son?”

The two women faced each other, but looked like they were in different worlds. One was seething, the other sober.

“So what? My daughter-in-law is still young and has no kids. I consider her my daughter. Your son is an adult. If you approve, I’ll take him into my family.”

“Impossible.”

Dung had never heard such a loud voice in her house. Y’Thôn’s mother stood straight up, her hands shook frantically, her head jerking.

“I would never allow her to live with my son. Sleeping with a woman like her will make him a ghost the next morning. Don’t forget how your son died. Please tell her to stop seducing my son. Otherwise, don’t blame me for what will happen.”

Dung’s mother collapsed, enraged. Dung came to hold her. On Y’Thôn’s mother’s way out she passed Phen at the door and stared her down without saying a word. Phen was petrified; her face took on a sickly pale hue. Tears streamed down her face. Suddenly, Dung felt sorry for Phen and all her earlier resentment vanished in an instant.

Dung’s mother skipped lunch and then dinner. So did Phen. The house was somber. Meals were prepared but no one bothered to eat them. Dung’s tongue tasted bitter and she put the food away without being able to eat a single bite. She fed the pigs and sprinkled rice in the yard for the chickens, but her dolor lingered. Time and again, she would hear Y’Thôn’s mother’s shrieking voice reverberating in her head.

After Dung’s brother died under a tree, the villagers spread a rumor that Phen had bad karma and whoever became her husband would die, sooner rather than later. Men in the village had been climbing trees for honey for generations and there had been only a few accidents that caused broken limbs but they got healed in a couple of months. Only Dung’s brother had died. The villagers spread other rumors, but Dung’s mother ignored them. She loved her son as much as she felt sorry for Phen’s loneliness. When Y’Thôn’s mother yelled at her that morning, she, however, was shaken, confused, and unsure how to talk to her daughter-in-law. Did she need to tell Phen to stop seeing Y’Thôn, or did she need to tell her to ignore what people said, since the villagers would soon find something else to gossip about?

She mulled it over that night but came to no conclusion about what to say.

It all made Dung love Phen more, especially when Y’Thôn called Phen softly from below the house one night. With a bamboo stick, he poked open the window above where Phen was lying. Dung was sleeping with Phen so the stick hit Dung’s arm. Dung nudged Phen but she refused to sit up. Her face simply turned away toward the divider. She pretended to be in a deep sleep, but an occasional gentle sigh revealed that she was awake the entire night.

At dawn, Dung shook her sister-in-law, whispering, “Phen, do you genuinely love Y’Thôn?”

“I don’t know. Come on! Please forget what you have learned. I enjoy living with you and Mom like this.”

Phen’s voice was neither gleeful nor sad. She sat up and tied her hair into a bun. Then she sat with her arms around her knees, staring blankly ahead.

“How about you and Y’Thôn leaving this village for somewhere far away?” Dung suggested softly. “Live together for a few years, have kids, then come back. Nobody will blame you for anything.”

“I don’t want to leave our house. Must I leave this village to live a contented life? I love Mom. I can live without men, but my life would mean nothing without you and Mom.”

Then she turned to touch Dung’s face gently. Dung loved her sister-in-law’s warm gesture. Just days ago, Dung didn’t want to see Phen’s face ever again and had wished she would vanish forever.

Phen went downstairs and Dung opened her sister-in-law’s small window. Y’Thôn was standing below the window. Perhaps he had been there all night. His hair was soaked with dew. His eyes were deep and filled with sorrow. Dung felt a surge of adrenaline, but it wasn’t the same as when she saw him and Phen entangled. She just felt sorry for the couple.

What could Dung do to help the man hold her sister-in-law’s hand again? She couldn’t do anything. Every day, Y’Thôn stood below the window where Phen sat weaving a brocade. Her lover was waiting, but she never opened the window.

One week. Ten days. Then one month.

She never went to the farm; she just stayed indoors and wove brocades. She said if she stayed inside like this, the thread of love would be broken; such a thread was fragile. One morning Dung didn’t notice Y’Thôn at first when she opened the window, but then saw him standing right before her. Y’Thôn was bony, his hair fell across his forehead, and his beard was wild. He looked like someone who had spent months in the deep forest. His eyes were even sadder than the last time she had seen them.

“Phen doesn’t want to see me anymore, does she?” he asked Dung.

“Please go home. How can you live like this, Y’Thôn?”

It was agonizing to see. Y’Thôn had stood for so long outside Phen’s room. Why didn’t he go home and persuade his mother and his family that Phen was a good girl? It was simple. Phen was only an in-law, but her husband’s family loved her just like one of their own. Phen was talented, taking care of the housework and the farm work without complaint. And although Dung’s brother had passed away a long time ago, Dung’s family still lived a comfortable life—they had a motorbike, a TV, and everything else they wanted. Who could compare with Phen? Only a few could match up to her. He should’ve told his family about this, and if they still rejected her, he should’ve kept trying to convince them. But Y’Thôn only stood there and watched. He waited so long that the leaves outside the house turned brown and fell.

Early one morning Phen opened the window above the loom. Y’Thôn was nowhere to be seen. She told her mother that she would go to the market to sell the brocade that she had just finished weaving. While she was disassembling the loom to remove the fabric, Dung sat down next to her and spoke in a light voice, “Sister, I’ve heard that some girl in the village came to ask Y’Thôn for his hand in marriage.”

“Uhm.”

“Why uhm? Are you sad?”

“Dung, do you think this brocade is pretty?”

“Why do you ask? I’m talking about love.”

“This morning, I’ll take it to the market. If people don’t like it, I’ll bring it home and reweave it. If I work diligently enough, I’ll have a worthy brocade to sell.”

Dung didn’t know if her sister was disconsolate at the news that another girl had come to marry Y’Thôn because she showed no emotion. In a few days, Y’Thôn would become someone’s husband. After that, if Phen and Y’Thôn ever passed each other in the village, they would gaze at each other like strangers.

What does it look like when a lover becomes a stranger?

The thread of love, once broken, can never be mended.

Why not seek another thread? If it can’t be found in the woods, it can be found in the mountains where birds sing and streams babble. Would there be men there? Very likely. Men always go to the woods to collect honey.