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The Road Home--A story from East Asia回家的路
There have been so many wars, in every country of the world.
When the wars finish, the soldiers have to return home.
But they are different men, and they return to a different world.
War changes people.
This story is about a soldier from East Asia.
War has changed him greatly.
It is a sad story, but in a strange way, also a happy one.
The long war was over, and the soldier was going home.
His road home was long and hard.
In the beginning, the soldier was not alone on the road.
Many other soldiers were going home too,
and for a long time they walked together, not speaking, just thinking about their homes at the end of the long road.
They walked across rice fields, past banana farms, along empty roads, through silent villages.
No lights showed in the windows of the dark houses.
Nothing moved, only the soldiers and the wind in the trees.
After a while, each man took his own road home.
One turned right and went up into the mountains.
Another turned left, down to the sea and the fishing boats.
Some soldiers followed the road to far cities;
others followed the small roads into the hills.
One by one, they went their different ways.
The soldier walked on alone, taking his own road home.
He did not think about the other soldiers, or about the war.
He thought only about the long road back to his home.
‘Home,’ thought the soldier. ‘I know my home is at the end of this road. I just need to go on walking.’
The road felt hard under his boots, and the only sound was the noise of his boots on the road- tramp, tramp, tramp.
He was tired and thirsty, and his mouth was dry as dust.
‘There's no water,’ he thought. ‘Just dust. Dust in my mouth. Dust everywhere.’
Tramp, tramp, tramp went his boots. ‘Don't stop walking,’ he told himself.
‘I can't stop. I mustn't stop. I'll rest when I get home. Mother will make tea, and then I can rest.’
He tried to walk faster, but he felt so tired, so tired.
His feet felt heavier and heavier, and he walked more and more slowly.
He wanted to lie down by the side of the road, in the dark, and stay there.
‘If I lie down,’ he thought, ‘I'll never get up again.’
So he went on walking, one foot in front of the other, tramp, tramp, tramp.
‘The war is finished,’ he told himself. ‘Forget the war. Just think about home. I must get home. I promised.’
The road began to go up into the hills.
There were trees on each side, and their dark leaves in the night made the road dark too.
The road climbed up and up into the hills.
He knew his home was somewhere on the other side of the hills.
‘I can see it now,’ he thought. ‘Our little house, so small, but always clean and quiet.
‘I can see the lamp on the table... I can see Mother, with her long black hair.
‘She's sitting in her chair, singing my little sister to sleep.
‘My little sister... She was just a baby when I left. How old is she now? Three? Four? Can she talk yet?’
He felt sad, because he could not remember his little sister's face.
‘But I remember Mother at the door when I went away to the war,’ he thought.
‘I remember her words, every one of them. Go safely, and be sure to come back to me.
‘And I promised her. I will come home. Those were my words, and I must keep my promise to her.’
Now the road began to turn downhill, and the land beside the road fell away into fields and woods.
‘I know those fields down there,’ he thought. ‘I know these woods. I can't remember their names,
‘but I know my village is down in this valley. Mother's waiting, down there, at home.’
The soldier walked on, along the dark road under the trees.
He was so tired. His feet felt so heavy and his mouth was so dry.
He wanted to lie down in the dark and never move again.
But his boots went on hitting the road- tramp, tramp, tramp.
‘If I stop now,’ he told himself, ‘I'll never see Mother again.
‘And I promised her, so I must go on walking. Rest. When I get home, I can rest.
‘Mother will make tea. We'll sit in her quiet room and drink tea together, and then my mouth will not be so dry.’
The soldier's village looked different in the dark.
There were fewer trees and gardens. There were more houses, and they looked bigger than he remembered.
But the soldier knew that this was his village at last, at the end of his road.
He was nearly home, and home is home.
The soldier went through his village like the wind.
In no time at all, he stood outside his mother's little house.
It was the smallest house in the village, and the only one that still looked the same.
But the soldier did not care about the other houses.
He stood outside his mother's door. He touched the door with his hand, and it opened.
Inside he saw the little clean room, the table, the lamp... Across the room his mother was lying in her bed.
‘Of course,’ he thought, ‘It's the middle of the night. She's sleeping, of course. She works so hard. She needs to rest, like me.’
Then, for a second, the soldier thought he was in the wrong house,
because the body lying in the bed was an old, old woman with white hair.
But at that moment, the body moved.
His mother's eyes opened, and she looked at him and smiled.
She got up and came across the room to the open door, and took his hand.
Something was still lying in the bed behind her, but the soldier looked only at his mother.
Still young, with her long dark hair falling around her face.
‘I knew you would come back,’ she said, ‘I waited for you.’
‘I came as fast as I could,’ said the soldier, ‘but it was a long road home.’
‘Yes,’ said his mother, ‘I've waited a long time. But you are home now, at last. Sit down and rest. I will make tea.’
The soldier sat down. His mother lit the lamp and made tea, moving quietly around the room.
The soldier forgot about the war, and the long road home.
He felt quiet and peaceful. His mother put the tea on the table, and they both drank.
The soldier finished his tea. He said, ‘I'm sorry it took so long to come home.’
‘The important thing is that you have come,’ said his mother. ‘I've waited a long time for you. So long! But I knew you would come back in the end.’
‘I promised you that I would come home,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said his mother. ‘I knew you would keep your promise,
‘and so I waited for you. Now you have come, we can leave together.’
They stood up. The soldier did not feel tired any more.
He felt light, like a bird, like a drop of rain.
He looked around his mother's room for the last time, then took his mother's hand.
Behind them, on the other side of the room, there was something lying in the bed.
It was the body of an old, old woman, lying very still.
But the soldier did not look at it. He saw only the kind and loving face of his mother, with her long dark hair falling around her face.
The soldier and his mother moved quickly to the door, holding hands.
They went outside into the bright starlight, and were gone.
The soldier's little sister visited her mother every day.
The sister was now a woman of sixty-eight years, with three adult children of her own, and five grandchildren.
Her oldest granddaughter, who was fifteen, was with her today.
The sister lived in a new, modern house just outside the city.
She wanted her old mother to come and live with her, in her comfortable modern house,
but the mother always said no, she would not leave her little old house. She wanted to stay in her own home.
‘Why won't she come and live with us, Grandma?’ asked the sister's granddaughter.
‘It's because of my brother,’ said the sister. ‘Years ago, when I was only a baby, there was a war.
‘My brother was a soldier. He went away to the war, and he never came home again.’
‘What happened to him?’ asked the granddaughter. ‘Did he die?’
‘I don't know,’ said the sister. ‘My mother never heard what happened to him.
‘I can't remember him at all, but my mother has never forgotten him.
‘I don't think that a day goes past when she doesn't think about him.’
So many young men went away to that war. So many did not come back.
The ones who did come back were now old men, but the soldier's mother went on waiting.
She would not move to a new house. Even now, when she was so old herself, she would not leave.
For the last few years, she could not get out of bed.
She was not ill, but she was very tired, and she could not walk.
So the sister came every day to visit her mother and to sit with her in the little house.
A nurse came every day too, because the mother was so old.
Today, the sister was taking her granddaughter with her.
‘It'll be good for you,’ she told her granddaughter, ‘to spend some time with my mother.’
‘What will we have to do for her, Grandma?’ asked the granddaughter.
‘We'll help her sit up in bed,’ said the sister. ‘We'll wash her face and tidy her hair.
‘And we'll make tea for her. When the nurse comes, we can leave.’
They were driving to the mother's house along the new road.
This was a fast road that went from the city around the hills to the villages in the valley on the other side.
The old road went over the hills.
‘You never use the old road, do you. Grandma?’ the granddaughter said.
‘No, it takes too long that way,’ said the sister.
‘Good,’ said the granddaughter. ‘I don't like that road.
‘There are lots of trees along it, and they make the road very dark.
‘Girls at school say that if you walk there at night, you can hear a ghost.’
The sister laughed. ‘A ghost!’ she said.
‘It's true. Grandma!’ said the granddaughter. ‘That's what they say.
‘No one's ever seen the ghost, but people have heard it.
‘It's someone in heavy boots walking along the road- tramp, tramp, tramp.’
‘Ah yes, I remember now,’ said the sister. ‘There is a story about the road over the hills.
‘When I was a girl at school, years ago, people were telling the same story even then.
‘Some ghost stories go on for ever, don't they?’
When they arrived in the village, the sister stopped the car outside her mother's little house.
She opened the front door and looked inside. She was not surprised by what she saw.
‘Wait outside,’ she told her granddaughter quickly. ‘Use your mobile phone to call an ambulance. Then wait in the car.’
She did not say that a doctor was no longer necessary.
The sister shut the door and sat down next to her mother's bed. She held her mother's cold hand.
Her mother looked peaceful, the sister thought. She looked happy.
There was only one thing that the sister did not understand.
On the little table, on the other side of the room, there were two empty tea cups.
