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.He sees that the monk has not moved at all.“This monk must have some secret power,” the brown man curses to himself.He tries being still once more, with his eyes closed.Soon enough, a tingle begins in his right leg, and then his anger rises.First, it is directed at the monk who does not seem to have anything better to do than sit around all day challenging people to do silly tricks.Then the anger directs itself at his own leg and its greater sensitivity – perhaps these stupid monks do not feel itchiness and tingling as intensely as he feels them – he who has seen so much of life.Another few seconds pass, and the man opens his eyes just a little to see if anything wondrously magical is happening around him; he sees nothing special, just the river, the prickly grass before them, the reeds swaying by the river.ĐàoWednesday passed, and then Thursday, and then Friday and Saturday, and still Anguli Ma hadn’t paid what he’d owed her.At first she had knocked on the garage door politely, but then day by day as he did not answer, her door-knocks got louder and the landlady grew more and more indignant.When she heard sounds in the kitchen, Đào ran in and found Anguli Ma scooping some rice and chicken into a large bowl.“Stuffing your mouth until you’re sated are you? Where’s the money you owe me for the food you’re eating and your lodgings?”Anguli Ma slowly looked up at her, dug his grimy hand into his pocket and pulled out three twenty-dollar notes.He waved them in front of her.His black eyes were trained on her.His lips, sensual and reddish brown, parted and his voice became sing-song and thick like gravy, “Here, now you can spend it on makeup and expensive shampoo.”“You must be deranged, I wouldn’t spend it on anything silly!”“Women living away from their đại gia đình, in a foreign country, become lost, even the older women.” He sneered at her.“Without obligation or direction, they become like wild beasts…”The phone rang…Đào glared at Anguli and ran to the hallway to pick it up.“Allo?” She heard silence, then a dead tone.“Allo?” The caller had hung up.Đào could see Anguli’s dark form in the kitchen.He turned around, smiled at her and then left.“Those who are dog-born!” Đào swore aloud.She hung up and went back into the kitchen, but she was too late.Scattered on the table were oily grains of rice.His three twenty-dollar notes lay on the table next to the unfinished bowl of food.She took the wrinkled notes and scraped the wasted food into the bin, cursing his sinfulness.Lying in bed afterwards, Đào told herself that perhaps her new tenant’s stubborn behaviour was due to his pride: those who had a higher position in the old society must now feel their decline more keenly.Men lost more status than women, whose status could only be elevated upwards from the strict old ways of Confucianism, when a woman belonged first to her father, then to her husband, and then to her son.Đào hoped getting money from Anguli Ma next month would be easier, and exhaled a long, serious breath.She flattened the crumpled money and placed it with her neat bundle in the bottom of an old vase.Anguli MaAlone in the kitchen, Anguli ate his rice without ceremony or companionship.His sneer collapsed and was replaced by the dead countenance of a man severed from history.It is a form of liberation, he thought, from your own conscience, from all your expectations of life.Anguli turned around to grin at Đào, who was down the hallway answering the telephone.All the feelings he had once thought of as beneath him, he now swallowed rapaciously.ĐàoTiệm Bà Sáu was busy.Đào told the girl at the cash register she had money for the boss lady.The girl yelled to the back of the shop and Bà Sáu appeared shortly.Đào took out her cash and told Bà Sáu to count it in front of her, which Bà Sáu had already begun to do.“You didn’t have all the money at the hụi meeting,” Bà Sáu said, without looking up from her unerring hands.“I told your son that the shortfall was a one-off…”The boss lady cut her off.“Don’t do it again [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]