Free Anguli Ma by Chi Vu Page A

strangers were staring at them now. Tuyết did not know what was happening, but her grandmother seemed to sink into the wet ground. She bent down to cover Tuyết from the tall old man, and told her that they had to go.

Sinh
    Her landlady had begun to lock up the house and close all the blinds on the windows. There were times when strangers would ring the doorbell, which was left unanswered. And so the visitors would try to come down the side of the house, shout their demands for money and bang on the doors until they had spent their anger.
    Now, when she came home from cleaning houses and motels, she kept her coat on and silently watched the brittleness of Đào’s steps or the old woman’s endless chewing. She would eat her bowls of rice quickly, and then head back to her half of the studio or leave the house. Sinh’s walks became longer and more frequent as troubles seemed to mount at the house.
    The local area included a large expanse of bushland inside the golf course situated in this industrial suburb. She found a walking path that connected her bus stop with the golf course, and then returned to her landlady’s house. From behind the high hurricane fence, Sinh marvelled at the well-dressed men and women swinging their long metal sticks, or the caretaker riding his mower around.
    Along a secluded part of the course, Sinh followed a line in the ground down to where a golf ball had rolled into the middle of a dried puddle. Over time, it had partially sunk into the earth. Her fingers carefully lifted the half-revealed find out from the soil, and she dustedit off to reveal its bright orange colour.
    It was perfectly dimpled and almost brand new – as far as she could tell. Sinh pondered the life of a golf ball. Its world of civilised ritual and intermittent aerial views over beautiful parklands and areas left to grow wild in a golf course. Although, it can also become lost, abandoned or abducted by children, and left in the garage for years.
    Whoever had hit it over the fence had no way of retrieving it, as there were no gates on this side of the golf course. No one was around to claim it, so the girl dropped it into her plastic bag.
    When Sinh returned home, the house was still gloomy. Đào was wearing her old jumper, which meant that she had not been outside all day, again. She moved around the kitchen tentatively as if the floor shifted beneath her, and her breathing was more difficult than before. Đào was engrossed in tying up a slow leaking tap stem with clean strips of fabric, and wiping up the film of water on the benchtops.
    Sinh knew that her landlady liked it very much when she brought home found things – toilet paper for use in public toilets, flimsy umbrellas, takeaway containers, lost hats and scarves. But none of these was as strangely impossible as the immaculate golf ball she’d picked up that day.
    â€œ Cô Æ¡i , I’m back. Look what I found!” she exclaimed to Đào’s dark back.
    Her landlady froze, and in the silence, Đào’s neck lifted from the depths of her grief.
    â€œWhat have you found?”
    â€œHere, turn around and you’ll see how marvellous it is!”
    It was then Sinh realised her grave mistake. Đào spun around hungrily and her skinny fingers grasped for the object in Sinh’s open palm. Then Đào’s fingers recognised its round and mottled shape. Her posture dropped instantly and she snarled, “Why are you showing me this useless thing!”
    ÄÃ o
    In the evening, the women ate in silence. Đào sat in the pool of darkness in the corner of the kitchen. A noise came from the bathroom-outside. The three women looked at each other.
    â€œIt might be the new tenant,” Sinh said.
    â€œWould he return here?” Đào said.
    â€œMaybe he’s forgotten something.”
    â€œPlease, Ancestors. Let me recover everyone’s factory-earned money.”