The Goat Milk Baby

1 The goat is gone “Mummy, the goat is gone”! My seven-year old brother cried out when he opened the door of our rented terrace one morning in February 1946. The cord my father used to tie the goat to the lone jackfruit tree in the tiny front yard was there but the precious animal was nowhere to be seen. Traditionally, our given names take inspiration from flowers, things in nature or desirable qualities. As I was born in autumn 1945, a few days after the end of the war, around the time of moon festival, my parents gave me the name Minh Nguyệt (Bright Moon). When I was two-month old, my mother had no milk left to breast feed her baby daughter. Food was scarce. She gave me the liquid of rice porridge sweetened with a little brown sugar my father bought on the black market. It was a stroke of luck when a kind relative, realising the situation, gave us a goat that had babies not long before that. Another luck was the mature jackfruit tree in the front yard. The goat apparently loved jackfruit leaves. At first, my parents wondered where the baby goats were but did not think much about them soon after. Every morning, for three months, my mother would wash her hands, clean the goat’s nibbles and get enough milk to feed me. Upon the disappearance of the goat, my father went for hours looking in vain for her in the neighbourhood. A few months of goat milk allowed me to move on to rice porridge and other semi solid food. When I was a young adult, everyone said I was a little stronger and taller than my three older sisters at the same age. I often thought of the rich nutrients in the goat milk I had received as a young baby, and thanked the baby goats whose bad fortune gave me a good start in life. Besides the episode linked with the goat, each year, the jackfruit tree gave us several enormous fruits weighing around three kilograms each. The yellow flesh was deliciously fragrant, sweet and crunchy, a special treat for us all. The boiled seeds tasted like chestnuts. Some years, when there were too many fruits, my father had to pluck off some while they were still green and small, double the size of a large grapefruit. Green jackfruits made wonderful dishes, especially appreciated by vegetarians. My mother would gently boil them in a large pot of water for about half an hour, until just tender. After shaving off the outside layer, the inside was sliced thinly, mixed with crushed roasted peanuts or sesame seeds, shredded Vietnamese mint and a dressing of sweet, sour and spicy fish sauce or soy sauce for a vegetarian meal, my favourite salad, virtually free. For a more luxury version, my mother would add a few slices of cooked belly pork and a few cooked school prawns, a truly delicious and healthy dish. She would also make a lovely soup with green jackfruit and prawns topped with shredded coriander leaves and green onions. Sometimes, my mother made an absolutely beautiful vegetarian stew with chunks of green jackfruit and fried tofu seasoned with soy sauce and pepper. What a wonderful tree! When I was in my 20’s, the jackfruit tree died of old age. We truly missed it. Before I was born, my parents had three boys and three girls aged from seven to 17, effectively one or two years between them. When my older brother Khánh (The Bell) was six, my mother found out she was going to have another baby. It was quite unexpected. Then, three years later came my younger brother Thanh (Delicate). We were referred to as the little ones. February 1945, with a relative normality in everyday activities starting again in Saigon, my father, a schoolteacher of government system was summoned to a post in Saigon. My pregnant mother followed my father to his new post. They brought along my six-year old brother Khánh and the two eldest, my 17-year old brother Thạch (Precious Stone) who was quite ill and his younger sister Nga (Swan) aged 16 to help my mother. They left the three middle ones, my older brother Quí (Precious) and his two younger sisters Hương (Fragrance) and Liên (Lotus) in a village in Nha Trang with my maternal grandmother who was in her late 60’s. Nha Trang was a beach town in the centre of Việt Nam, where my father was a schoolteacher before the Second World War. My parents were not sure about the accommodation the government had promised for newly arriving public servants. My father eventually went back for my three older siblings a few months later. My brother Thạch passed away when I was three-month old. My poor mother never completely got over the loss of her first born, a kind hearted, bright, gentle, sportive and handsome young man. My mother used to tell me about him loving to swim along the beach in Nha Trang. One day, my brother caught a cold and never recovered from his pneumonia. When my family moved to Saigon, our cousin who was a doctor found out Thạch had tuberculosis. My poor brother loved so much his new baby sister but refrained from embracing her and instead kissed her heel for fear to infect her. My mother told me years later when I was old enough to understand. Thạch died in his prime age due to the lack of antibiotics. My mother eventually found consolation and peace in the study of Buddhist philosophy, having learned the impermanent nature of all things and the acceptance.