The Mountains Sing

With only Sáng left, Diệu Lan proceeds toward Hanoi. Realizing she is still wearing an expensive silk blouse her brother gave her beneath her raggedy clothes, she trades it to a woman for her carrying pole, baskets, and fruit and begins selling produce to make money. Thanks to Sáng’s cuteness, business is good.

In December 1955, they arrive in Hanoi. Diệu Lan approaches a group huddled around a fire, but these men attack and rob her. A group of women come to her aid and help her find Silver Street, where Thịnh lives. Though she learns he has long since died, she finds his family’s home and meets his nephew Toàn and begs him to employ her in the family shop. Toàn’s wife Châu is highly suspicious of Diệu Lan, but Toàn is moved by her story and her former intimacy with his uncle. After a night spent in the care of Master Văn, a nearby healer, recuperating from a neck wound the robbers inflicted, Diệu Lan leaves Sáng with Mrs. Thứ, a friendly neighbor, and returns to Toàn and Châu, who hire her as housekeeper.

Though Diệu Lan laments her paltry wage and stresses over the fate of her other children, she remains as productive as she can, teaching Sáng the locations of his siblings and taking self-defense classes with Văn (knowledge that she later passes on to