Tam and Cam

On a branch higher than a person's head, one golden fruit hangs alone. In Vietnamese this fruit is called thị, and it smells so sweet that the whole road knows it is there. Late-summer afternoon sun slants through the cool green leaves and lights it like a small lamp. That is the image Vietnamese people never forget when they tell Tấm Cám, the most classic of the fairy tales their grandparents handed down. The story does not begin with the thị fruit. But it finds its way there, a last shelter before the light returns.

This is a fairy tale, an old story told from one generation to the next.

Once upon a time, a girl named Tấm lived with her father. Her mother had died young, and her father had married again. The stepmother had a daughter and named her Cám. Then the father died too, and from then on Tấm lived with her stepmother and Cám. Tấm was gentle and hardworking, and did every job in the house. Cám was the opposite. She was lazy, and her mother spoiled her in every way.

One day, the stepmother gave each girl a basket and sent them out to the fields to catch shrimp. Whoever filled her basket, she promised, would win a red bodice. Tấm waded patiently through the rice paddies from morning until afternoon. Her basket grew heavy, and her arms and legs were caked with pond mud. Cám played instead and caught hardly anything. In the afternoon, when the sisters met on the bank, Cám told Tấm a lie. She said Tấm had mud all over her head, and told her to wade in, duck down deep and wash it clean. Tấm believed her and stepped into the water. At once Cám tipped every shrimp and fish from her sister's basket into her own, and ran home ahead. When Tấm climbed back onto the bank, her basket was empty. She burst into tears, alone beside the deserted field.

Just then, Bụt appeared. In Vietnamese fairy tales, Bụt is a gentle spirit who comes to help. The name is a very old Vietnamese way of saying the Buddha, a gentle strand of faith found only among the Vietnamese. Bụt softly asked Tấm why she was crying. Tấm told the whole story. Bụt told her to look in her basket again. One tiny goby fish was still there, wriggling in a puddle. Bụt told Tấm to take it home and let it go in the well. She was to feed it every day. At every meal, she was to call to it softly: "Little goby, little goby, come up and eat the golden rice and the silver rice of our home."

Tấm went home and did just as Bụt had said. Every day she called at the well, and the goby rose to eat the rice, grain by grain. One on the bank and one in the water, they were like two close sisters.

Then the stepmother grew suspicious and found them out. She sent Tấm to graze the buffalo in a far-off field. Then she went to the well herself and called the goby, imitating the voice of Tấm. The goby trusted the voice and rose. The stepmother caught it, took it home, and cooked it to eat. That afternoon, Tấm came home and called and called. She heard only the wind over the well, and no goby. Tấm cried again, more quietly this time, and with more pain. Bụt appeared once more, speaking very softly and warmly this time, like the wind beside the well. Bụt told Tấm to gather every one of the fish bones. She was to put them in four small jars and bury them under the four legs of her bed. Tấm did so.

Some time later, there was a great festival in the kingdom. The king invited people from every corner of the land. The stepmother wanted to take Cám. But before they left, she mixed a measure of unhusked rice with husked rice and gave it to Tấm. Only when it was sorted, she said, could Tấm go. Sorting grain like that would take forever. Tấm sat down and cried. Bụt appeared again, sounding lighter and happier than the two times before. Bụt called down a flock of sparrows, and in the blink of an eye they had picked out every grain. Tấm opened the four jars under her bed. And how strange! Out came fine embroidered clothes and splendid embroidered slippers, the stitching glowing like the dawn. There was even a horse. Tấm dressed and rode off to the festival.

On the way, Tấm had to cross a small bridge over a clear stream. In the middle of the bridge, one of her slippers suddenly fell into the water. She watched the shimmering embroidery slowly sink. She could not get it back, so she rode on with the one slipper left.

The slipper drifted downstream and into the hands of the king. He gazed at the dainty slipper, embroidered with such unusual care. Then he gave an order to his guards. Whoever could wear this slipper would be brought to the palace as queen. The villagers tried it one after another, and it fit no one. When Tấm tried it, the slipper fit perfectly. Tấm became queen and went with the king to the palace.

Time passed, and Tấm lived happily in the palace. Then came the anniversary of her father's death, and she asked the king for leave to go home and make the offerings. Her stepmother greeted her sweetly. During the ceremony, the stepmother told Tấm to climb the tall areca palm in the garden and pick a fine bunch of areca nuts for the offering tray. Tấm obeyed and climbed. Below, the stepmother swung an axe hard into the trunk. The tree fell. Tấm fell into a deep pond and was gone.

The stepmother brought Cám into the palace in place of Tấm. She told the king a lie: that Tấm had fallen into the pond by accident and was gone. The king was sad at heart, but he said nothing.

But Tấm was not truly gone. There, in the pond, she turned into a golden oriole. Its feathers were yellow as morning sun, its song as fine as a golden thread stretched across the sky. The bird flew straight into the palace garden. It perched beside the king's dragon robe, which hung drying in the sun, and sang softly, like someone calling. The king grew fond of the strange bird. Every day he sat and listened, with a wistful feeling he could not explain. Cám saw, and burned with jealousy. On her mother's advice, Cám trapped the oriole, plucked its feathers, and cooked it to eat.

Still Tấm was not gone. Where the feathers had been thrown into the garden, a green, thriving xoan đào tree grew. Its branches were thick with leaves, and its shade was wide enough for the king to hang a hammock and rest. He lay looking up into the leaves, listening to the wind sigh through every branch. Again his heart felt strangely light, as if someone he knew were beside him. Cám grew jealous again. Again her mother told her what to do. Cám had the tree cut down and its wood made into a loom.

But every time Cám sat at the loom to weave, a strange creaking rose from deep in the wood. It was long and sad, like a sigh, a reminder she could not shut her ears to. Cám was frightened. She burned the loom to ash and dumped the ash far out in the garden.

From that ash, a thị tree quietly grew. It grew fast, flowered, and set fruit. But the whole tree bore only one thị fruit. It was bright gold and fragrant, and it swayed gently on a high branch, as if inviting someone patient enough to notice.

By the road next to that garden lived an old woman who sold drinks. She was kind, and lived alone. One day, passing beneath the thị tree, she saw the golden fruit alone on its high branch, and stopped. Its scent drifted down, sweet and warm like summer sun. She looked up and said softly: "Thị fruit, thị fruit, drop into my bag. I will only smell you. I will not eat you." The fruit fell gently into her bag. She took it home and set it on her table. Every day she bent to smell it once and smiled at its gentle scent. Living alone, she felt warmer for it.

From then on, every morning the old woman went to sell at the market. When she came home, the house was swept and tidy and a meal was cooked. On a small tray lay betel quids folded in the shape of phoenix wings, so skillfully that she stood and looked at them a long time. She could not understand it, and felt both glad and puzzled. One day she set off for the market, then came back very early and hid in a corner to watch. She saw a lovely young girl step out of the thị fruit. The girl began to sweep and cook, her hands deftly folding each betel quid into a phoenix wing. The old woman crept forward and tore the thị skin away. With nowhere to go back into, the girl stayed. It was Tấm. The two took each other in, as grandmother and granddaughter, and lived together from then on.

Not long after, the royal procession passed by on a tour of inspection. The king stopped at the old woman's stall for a drink and a rest. She offered him a plate of betel quids, already folded. The king picked one up and studied it. It was folded in the phoenix-wing style, with rare skill, exactly as Queen Tấm used to fold them. His heart suddenly stirred, and his hand went still. He asked the old woman who had folded this betel. She went inside and called Tấm out. The king knew his wife at once. Tấm was brought back to the palace and became queen again.

When news spread that Tấm had returned, Cám felt ashamed and afraid. She went to Tấm and asked in a low voice how her sister had become so beautiful. Tấm answered calmly. Cám did as Tấm told her. But Cám did not know that this was the unavoidable result of all she had brought about: her greed, her lies, and the wrongs piled up over the years. After that, no one saw Cám again. And the stepmother could no longer harm anyone.

Tấm had come home, after changing form so many times: a golden oriole, a xoan đào tree, a loom, and at last a thị fruit. And ever since, Vietnamese people remember the old woman's soft call whenever they see a golden thị fruit hanging alone on a high branch, just one, its scent filling the whole sky. "Thị fruit, thị fruit, drop into my bag."