Crying in a Tree ep 4: A Comic For Limpy

That evening, when we arrived back at her house, Turtle suddenly reached inside her shirt and pulled out a comic book to show me.

We had spent the entire afternoon together, yet I hadn’t noticed she had been carrying it with her the whole time.

One glance at the cover was enough.

It was Asterix and the Golden Sickle, one of the books in the Asterix series.

Back in Saigon, I had read almost the entire collection in Vietnamese translation.

“Why did you bring it with you?” I asked, staring at her.

“I was going to read it in the forest.”

She answered as casually as if reading comics in the woods were the most ordinary thing in the world.

And apparently, for her, it was.

“So you really like going into the forest to read?” I teased.

She nodded without a second thought.

“Yes.”

Then she added innocently,

“I’m never reading alone, though.”

“I read it to Limpy.”

By now I was used to the names she invented for all her friends.

I nodded knowingly.

“Limpy must be that monkey who comes to visit you.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Turtle laughed.

“Limpy is a baby deer.”

I had no idea whether a deer could enjoy listening to stories.

But that morning, I had watched Long Neck—the aggressive goose—quietly walk away after Turtle explained that I wasn’t a thief.

Rather than wander further into that mystery, I picked up the comic book and narrowed my eyes at her.

“Have you finished this one?”

She shook her head.

“Read it to me.”

“Why don’t you read it yourself?” I smiled.

“It’s always more fun reading a book on your own.”

“I can’t.”

She answered matter-of-factly.

“I don’t know French.”

Only then did I lower my eyes to the cover.

Every word on it was in French.

I opened the book.

The pages inside were the same.

I laughed.

Half joking.

Half serious.

“I don’t know French either.”

“But you’re a university student.”

That much was true.

But being a university student didn’t magically make me fluent in French.

There was no way I could actually read the book.

Fortunately, I remembered almost the entire Vietnamese edition.

Pretending to translate while simply retelling the story from memory wouldn’t be difficult.

I gently turned the book over in my hands.

“Where did you get this?”

“Someone gave it to my grandfather.”

“When I was little, he used to read it and tell me the story.”

“A little each day.”

She lowered her eyes.

“But he passed away before he could finish it.”

For a moment, I simply looked at her.

I hadn’t expected her grandfather to know French.

Then everything suddenly made sense.

Her grandfather had been the storyteller.

After he died, she had been searching for someone who could take his place and finish the adventure for her.

Now I finally understood why she had been hiding outside my window these past two mornings.

She knew I was a university student.

She had seen me reading books.

She believed I could help.

Unfortunately, that day wasn’t Turtle’s lucky day.

I was just about to ask how far her grandfather had gotten in the story when Thuc’s voice came echoing across the yard.

“Brother Dong!”

“Brother Dong!”

“Where are you?”

“I’m over here!”

Turtle and I were standing beside the miniature rock garden.

The sun had already slipped behind a veil of mist.

The two old immortals carved into the tiny landscape looked as though they had fallen asleep over their stone chessboard.

The pebbles scattered across the damp table looked as if they, too, had been sleeping for years.

Beneath floating duckweed, the goldfish lazily waved their long fins, as though they were about to disappear into the rocks and dream about mosquito larvae.

Thuc poked his head through the thin hedge.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking at the rock garden.”

“What about you?”

“Mom sent me to bring you back for dinner.”

“Tell her I’ll eat at Aunt Ut Hue’s.”

“I’m staying here tonight.”

Thuc absentmindedly plucked a strand of dodder vine from the fence.

He glanced briefly at Turtle.

Yet when he spoke, he acted as though she wasn’t there.

Or perhaps he thought she was no different from one of the trees—unable to understand a word he said.

“There’s nothing interesting up here anyway.”

Before I could answer—before I even knew what to say—he squeezed through the hedge and continued loudly,

“This whole neighborhood is full of boring people.”

This time Turtle didn’t stay silent.

She lifted her chin.

“You looking for a fight, Thuc?”

“I don’t fight girls.”

Thuc curled his lip.

Then he grabbed my hand.

“Come on, Brother.”

I turned back toward Turtle.

Handing her the comic book, I smiled.

“Keep it.”

“I’ll read it to you tomorrow.”

I followed Thuc toward Aunt Ut Hue’s house.

Behind me, Turtle remained standing beside the rock garden.

The absent look on her face as I walked away filled me with a quiet sense of guilt.

I wanted to turn back.

Just once more.

Just to smile at her again.

But Thuc was already pulling me along too quickly.

~~~•••~~~

By the time we reached the doorstep, Thuc was already grilling me, sounding exactly like a parent scolding a child for hanging around with the wrong crowd.

“Why are you spending time with Turtle?”

Already irritated, I snorted. “And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because none of us plays with her.”

The answer grated on me. I didn’t argue. I simply said,

“I’ve seen Loan. She likes Turtle a lot.”

“Only silly little girls are friends with her.”

“Turtle doesn’t even want to play with you!”

Loan’s voice suddenly rang out behind me, and I had to admit I took enormous satisfaction in watching Thuc’s face twist on the spot.

“You… you…”

He stammered helplessly, looking like someone who had just swallowed his own tongue.

Loan marched over and pinched his arm.

“That’s for talking bad about Sister Turtle!”

For some reason, Thuc—despite being four years older—was terrified of the little girl. The pinch clearly hurt, but all he could do was rub his arm with a wounded expression.

That afternoon, I gave Thuc a ride back to the suspension bridge. As he climbed off and took the bicycle from me, I grinned.

“I know why you’re mad at Turtle. You’re still bitter about those bottle caps.”

The moment his hand touched the handlebars, his face turned unexpectedly serious.

“We don’t avoid her because of that.”

“Oh?”

“She’s… she’s…”

“She what?”

“She…” Thuc frowned, rummaging through his vocabulary as though searching for a coin he’d dropped into a fish pond. “She’s… not normal.”

“I still don’t know what not normal is supposed to mean.”

“She isn’t like us. She isn’t like anyone else in the village.”

I shrugged.

“And who told you that?”

“Old Mr. Hai San. He says he often sees her talking to animals for hours.”

I patted Thuc on the shoulder.

“I’ve seen her talking to her goose.”

“See?” Thuc exclaimed triumphantly, sounding like a detective who had finally uncovered the smoking gun. “I wasn’t making it up!”

“But I don’t see anything strange about that. Why don’t you try talking to the goose yourself? Maybe it’ll understand you too.”

I said it jokingly, hoping he’d realize I wasn’t taking his side.

To my surprise, he nodded earnestly.

“I did.”

“You… what?”

“I already tried.”

Now he had my full attention.

“And?”

“It chased me and bit me right on the butt. The bruise lasted for days.”

I burst out laughing.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Thuc muttered, glaring. “I’m serious. You shouldn’t hang around Turtle.”

“I’ll hang around her anyway.”

“Mr. Hai San also says she disappears into the forest every few days to do… suspicious things. Mr. Bon Lai says so too.”

“What suspicious things?”

Thuc lowered his voice as if afraid someone might overhear.

“Maybe she’s meeting bandits.”

“There are bandits in the forest?”

He frowned impatiently.

“Did you forget? Turtle’s father died chasing robbers. Their hideout is in those woods.”

“So Mr. Hai San and Mr. Bon Lai told you all this?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe them?”

“Of course. They’re hunters. If anyone knows what’s happening in the forest, it’s them. Mr. Bon Lai even suggested that Master Dien forbid Turtle from leaving the house.”

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

I nudged the rear wheel of the bicycle with my foot.

“It’s getting dark. You’d better head home before your mother starts worrying.”

I waited until Thuc pedaled onto the suspension bridge before turning back the way I had come.

Of course I didn’t believe the hunters’ stories, though I couldn’t understand why they would invent such tales about Turtle.

Evening settled gently across my shoulders as I walked, filling my lungs with the fragrance of dusk.

Like fruit slowly ripening into night, the afternoon released a scent all its own—a blend of wind, grass, leaves, and some hidden sweetness drifting quietly through the air, making my nostrils flare with every breath.

I found myself thinking of Turtle again as I brushed a clump of sensitive plants by the roadside with my foot, watching their tiny leaves fold shut like her long, shy eyelashes.

~~~•••~~~

That evening, I never made it over to Turtle’s house as I had planned.

We had barely finished dinner when the rain came, lively and insistent. From inside the house, it looked as though someone had draped the world in mosquito netting. Fat drops pounded the yard, splashing back upward in glittering bursts, as if Heaven were scattering handfuls of grain across the earth.

Perhaps these were the raindrops the clouds had held back that afternoon, saving them for another day. But sometime after nightfall, the sleepy clouds must have loosened their grip and let the rain spill by mistake.

After all, unseasonal showers have always come from absentminded clouds.

Loan curled up beside me on the doorstep and nudged my arm.

“Go play in the rain, Brother Dong!”

“It’s pitch dark.”

“That’s the best time!”

“But it’s freezing.”

The words left my mouth, and I immediately felt embarrassed.

When I still lived in the village, I loved bathing in the rain. Cold never bothered me—not during the day, not at night. For country children, rain always arrived hand in hand with joy, excitement, and wild freedom. Running barefoot through the downpour—naked when we were little, clothes on once we were older—was a happiness too simple to explain.

Trying to change the subject, I asked,

“Do you know Old Mr. Hai San and Old Mr. Bon Lai?”

“Yes. I know Old Mr. Bay Thanh and Uncle Ngai too.”

“They’re hunters?”

She nodded.

“They hunt and trap animals.”

“I heard they really dislike Turtle.”

“They do.”

“Why?”

“Because Turtle hates them.”

I remembered how much Turtle loved animals.

Her friends.

The goose. The squirrel. The fawn. The birds. The monkey…

And hunters were the sworn enemies of every one of them.

According to Loan, during kite season the year before, Old Mr. Hai San had caught a baby deer in one of his traps. The steel jaws had crushed one of its legs. It was young and beautiful, so he didn’t want to butcher it. Someone suggested selling it to a zoo in the South instead. But because the leg was still broken, he decided to wait.

Turtle offered to heal it.

She rattled off the names of medicinal herbs and what each one could do so confidently that the old hunter believed her without hesitation.

She carried the fawn home, splinted its leg, wrapped it with herbal medicine, and nursed it until it recovered completely.

Then she quietly released it into the forest.

When Old Mr. Hai San came to collect his deer, Turtle told him it had snapped its tether during the night and fled into the woods. She claimed she had chased after it but couldn’t catch it.

The old hunter was furious.

He complained to anyone who would listen for an entire week.

I had been listening to the story with growing suspense, but by the end I burst into laughter.

Limpy.

The name rang through my memory.

Turtle had once told me she often carried Asterix and the Golden Sickle into the forest to read aloud to Limpy.

Now everything made sense.

Reading comic books to the little deer was only part of it.

More importantly, Turtle was hiding Limpy from the village hunters.

If the fawn had never found its herd again, it must have been living deep in the forest—inside some secret cave that only Turtle knew how to reach.

Thinking about the comic book, I found myself smiling.

I hadn’t realized until then how deeply it moved me.

I didn’t know how many years had passed since Turtle’s grandfather died, but the way she treasured that worn comic, reading the same few pages over and over again, stirred something quiet inside me.

She wasn’t really reading.

She simply studied the pictures, recalling the parts of the story her grandfather had once told her.

Whenever she did that, I imagined she was also replaying his face, his voice, the way he walked—as though winding an old reel of film inside her mind.

Surely those memories filled her heart every time.

That night I fell asleep to the rain as it gradually softened, though every now and then another gentle rustling drifted in from the rock garden outside—the sound of countless raindrops losing their grip on the branches and tumbling into the duckweed-covered pond whenever a playful breeze wandered through.