Free Anguli Ma by Chi Vu

You must pay us. If you kill off the hụi , your life will be much more…complicated.”

    It was as though her shame was suddenly contagious. People in her community began avoiding her, perhaps they thought she would try to borrow money from them. Đào’s footsteps became uncertain, her breath tentative. Her feet slipped while walking on normal ground. Her head felt like it was spinning, and this vertigo made her forget the new words she had learnt. She mixed words around and that made her sentences run backwards.
    She needed to buy fruit and cakes for the Moon Festival, so Đào asked Sinh to go with her to Bà Sáu’s store. She asked Sinh to come with her, so that she did not have to face the stares of her community.
    â€œLet’s tell Trung – you can borrow money off him,” Sinh said.
    â€œNo! I’m not going to borrow money from my son – he doesn’t even have his own home, renting when he’s got a child because he’s too lazy to buy a house. Not a man.”
    â€œYou can’t carry this burden all by yourself,” Sinh crossed her thin arms.
    â€œThere is no choice!” Then Đào lowered her voice, “Please don’t tell him, I would be so ashamed I’d die.” Đào found that she could hardly breathe.
    The girl’s eyes remained fixed on the ground.
    â€œPromise me you won’t,” Đào begged.
    â€œI’ll come with you, but it can’t be like this forever,” Sinh said quietly. “We didn’t come over here to live in a prison.”
    Tuyết
    The young woman who lived out the back of grandma’s house came into the kitchen in a new dress. She wore her long, black hair down and it flowed like the folds on the pink and black dress. Her stockings were also a brownish-pink colour. Then, Tuyết listened as Sinh told grandma that she’d bought the dress from a charity shop.
    â€œUnlike most of the other clothes, this one was brand-new – it still had the maker’s label dangling on it. Originally was twenty-five dollars, but I only paid two for it, can you believe it?”
    Tuyết had not seen her grandma, or Bác or even Sinh wear such a lovely dress before. She decided that when she grew up, she would wear nice dresses and grow her hair long as well, rather than wear it like a boy.
    Sinh bent down and asked Tuyết if she was going to the Festival. Tuyết did not answer, so Đào told them that they were not this year. Sinh politely told Tuyết not to be silly, everyone was going to the Festival.
    â€œIf you have things to do, then Bác and I could take the little girl instead.”
    ÄÃ o grew pale and said, “We will go later,” in such a weak voice that Tuyết barely heard her.
    Rain fell gently as the women who lived out the back left, taking the bus into town. Tuyết sat all that afternoon on the couch, holding the sateen cushions around her and refusing to eat.
    At the Festival, grandma bought Tuyết some moon cake from the stall behind the outdoor stage. She held Tuyết’s tiny hand too tight. The ground was wet from the recent rain, puddles were scattered like shards of gloomy sky fallen to earth. Tuyết began to eat the cake, but her mouth could no longer taste it. She watched the trodden rubbish and the blinking garish lights reflected in a puddle of mud.
    Her eyes widened as a tall old man hurried over. He pushed past Tuyết, and his lit cigarette almost stabbed her in the face. He leaned forward and yelled “Slut your-mother” and “Dog-born” and “Horseslut”, and a quick mixture of other words Tuyết had never heard before. She looked about, and realised that he was shouting those words at her grandmother. The man drew hard on his cigarette, then pointed its red glow at her grandma’s face, telling her they were going to send some Cowboys over.
    Even complete