Mrs. Rossi's Dream by Khanh Ha

Author:Khanh Ha
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781579625832
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Published: 2019-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

The next day the heat comes early, and by sunrise I have to open the window shutters in my room. Ông Ba arrives shortly after sunrise and drives Mrs. Rossi to Old Lung’s where they will go to the forest in Ông Ba’s motorboat.

Before the sun is high and the heat becomes unbearable, I pick up a machete and begin clearing the bushes along the front base of the veranda. In the bushes I find some old moss-covered logs, still damp from yesterday’s rain and ax them to small chunks so rattlesnakes will have no place to nest. With the bushes uncovered, I can see the rocks worn slick by the coming and going of snakes. Under one bush I find a small carton of seeds. It dawns on me that they are watercress seeds the old woman has asked me to sow. Summer heat is so thick now the seeds would sprout in a week. She told me to plant them in the back, next to the lemon tree where the old man buries and reburies his ox bone. The last time he did that, unearthing all the freshly planted seeds of mustard greens, I had to erect a wire-mesh fence around the plot. I try to keep an eye on him.

I pick up the carton and empty the four tin cups half filled with vinegar. We have many cartons of vegetable seeds we plant year-round, and I fit each carton’s bottom with four wooden pegs. Each peg rests on a vinegar-filled cup. Without protection, ants would devour the seeds. Before I came up with this solution, the old woman told me about the disappearing seeds. She said once she saw a patch of watercress sprouting up in the rear land, as though someone had sown the seeds there. I told her the ants did that. They eat the seed caps, which have nutrition for them, and leave the seeds behind. The seeds later sprout where the ants have left them.

I’ve left the carton behind the bush when the Irish couple arrived. I remind myself to plant the seeds today before the old woman asks again. She said most of our guests like watercress among the greens. After leaving the carton on the rear veranda, I go around the inn and empty all the receptacles of standing rainwater. I’ve forgotten to turn those planters and flower pots upside down, and now several of them are filled with rainwater, becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes. After dark those whiners will come out. They can’t fly far, but they breed and multiply where they find water.

Everyone else except Mrs. Rossi is still in bed. It’s quiet in the rear of the inn. The air stands still as I go about sowing the watercress seeds. With this heat, I believe, we could be eating watercress in the next couple of days. When I stop to wipe my face, I see a lone stork flying across the hazy sky. I can see its trailing pink legs and the black stripes underneath its wings.

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