Trinh Cong Son's love letters (Part 2)
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Following is the second part of love letters from Vietnam’s legendary composer Trinh Cong Son in English only published on Tuoitrenews:
Blao, Saturday night 20/2/1965
Dear Anh,
A solitary Saturday afternoon disconnected from everything. I spent the early part of the afternoon in bed, trying to read Porte étroite but halfway through, the melancholy singing and dry quietness of the afternoon has sat me up. Now here is Come back to Sorriento, Beau Danube bleu, Secret love and many other melodies welling up, welling up inside like a rising tide overflowing the desolate beach – that – is – my – body.
Writing too much to give voice to our sorrows is a weakness. Maybe you will get bored with these laments of mine. May be I will diminish to an ordinary level in your eyes. But I don’t need anyone’s generosity. I just feel an earnest urge to have a conversation with the one I love; therefore I have to scribble some lines in this very sad this afternoon, something I have kept harping on to you about. A Saturday afternoon cuddling under a blanket is unimaginable. The radio is still blaring out news of the coup. Yet this place remains sound asleep without any sign of disruption over such drastic changes. It seems I no longer have any connection to the pains of this country.
Dear Anh,
I can’t lie to you by saying I don’t miss you much. Maybe I will slowly get used to it, but at present I miss you so much, so much that I just can’t seem to be able to restrain myself. I can’t compromise myself with the desolation here. Maybe you won’t believe it but there is not much time left to lie to each other.
Saturday and Sunday afternoons always fill me with greater sadness and I miss you all the more, because I know everyone is free on those days. Idleness will bring everyone closer to each other. The grass this season has gotten dry and bushes of the tournesol are left with only scorched black buds. Each morning I wake up to a sight of dense fog descending on vast lands. The mist only makes me miss you more. Please do not make fun of my feelings, Anh.
The afternoon sunlight has gone. What are you doing there? Tomorrow perhaps Trang will visit you, won’t she? The wind blowing through my hands makes them cold. If you were here, you hands must be frozen.
I don’t remember how many cigarettes I have lit. It is getting dark; do you feel sleepy sitting alone? Your eyes are always sad. Nothingness seems to have resided in there forever.
What a yellowish grey afternoon. The birds returning home to their nests are crying over the scorched clumps of dry grass. I am quietly listening to the turbulent feelings dying down inside. How can I tell you about all of these longings I have and how can anyone believe me? It is not that I am being pessimistic but let me just try walking you through those things you may be already hating much.
We don’t need to be pessimistic as life will sustain us all. What I want to say is why people do not have the courage to pull down the old social conventions to live more humanly, more humanely, and more freely. In the little land that is our country, people never tire with formulas, norms, sophistry and artificiality. They can only become good measurers and satisfied with that talent. Then they get complacent – this kind of life has gone on for thousands of years on this land.
Such is life. Do you think I am cursing? What do I curse for anyway? This life has been like a dialect carved into an old slab of stone. With or without me, it remains what it is.
The night is thickening. The wind is getting colder.
I have been sitting in this chair, in front of the window, from 3 pm till now, 10.15 pm, except for an hour or so for dinner, just to think about you and write to you. Does that bother you at all? Anyway, you don’t even need to believe that.
I have just gone outside and stood on the yard. Such a pity you are not here to see this foggy night. The neon lights far away and on top of the church spire have dimmed and blurred into a round patch of wavering light that looks so strange and mystical.
Please send my regards to your friends Trang, Diem, and Hoa. All the girls grow up and pass through life, like the clouds scudding across the sky, like some lost beautiful afternoons, like the traces of migrating birds on the sea. People like me are the only ones left to praise that evanescent beauty. With your intelligence, you should have no difficulty grasping all this. The betrayal act is never ours. Except for some shameless artists. You can doubt everybody, but not us. Don’t create a hostile atmosphere in which we live besides each other like a pack of ferocious animals. Let us be more humane. Let us place our hearts on our hands to talk to each other. The night has fallen. Before my eyes are the blue and black of sky and earth.
A Saturday afternoon has been lost forever. Do you feel sadder because of it? If one day you will be gone forever like that, only then can I believe I used to have you for thousands of years -- though pains and sufferings will make my life more miserable than ever. But that will never happen and I hope it will never happen. Selfishness is as infinite as generosity. Be generous with our own fate.
One day you will give me back those Destiny, Destiny words to highlight them in bold. And always there will be only us left to keep writing those words. There will never be a day when our country can break free from the rut of old social conventions and routines.
Grey clouds moving back have brought some drops of fine rain on the hill and then vanished. Maybe tonight it will pour down and I will lie in bed, with all doors and windows tightly shut, listening to wind howling outside like a pack of jungle wolves lulling me to sleep every night.
The dry season here is like that, there is a lot of fog and rain pouring down on the hill, which looks so sad to me.
Do you still remember the lyrics to the song you copied for me:
…J’attendrai l’orage et la pluie pour pleurer
Je t’aime encore mais tu dois ignorer le chagrin de ma vie.
Et j’irai pleurer sous la pluie
I want to hear that singing soaring again this afternoon but I cannot. In Porte étroite there is this word I find interesting: je t’idolâtre. Idolized – love, you can see the word has been around since Gide. The book was first published in 1909, meaning the word is many times older than me.
In Porte étroite, who do you want to be? I have just finished half of it but I feel so sorry for Juliette. The letters by Alissa, too, are so sad. I will resume reading it tonight.
The evening is getting darker. The birds are singing with a deeper tone. The church bells are tolling from afar. Why can’t you give me a photo of you, even if a small one, to keep it here? You can cut it from some photo. But if you are uncomfortable, that is fine.
Tonight, you will light the white candles and keep them burning until what time?
The summer’s fog is not very cold. There are only two seasons here and summer is one of them. A cold one has passed. The same is true of Da Lat.
In this city few are still awake after 10pm. Sleep comes easily because of all the quietness around. You can rest assured that even if I were to sing what I am writing you now to a tune, there would be no one around to hear it. Tomorrow morning you can get up later than usual because it is a day off. I guess you must be very pleased with this.
I have smoked too much today, that is why I am not feeling sleepy at all although I didn’t take any nap at noon.
I am going to light the candles, roll under my blanket and read the rest of Porte étroite now. Tomorrow morning, I still have plenty of time to write to you. No worry. Bonne nuit, bien chère.
Lend me those five fingers of spring.
