TRẦU CAU (Folktale)

O

nce upon a time, in a land far across the sea, there lived a rich old man with a beautiful daughter, his only child. When she came of marrying age, he began to think of finding her a suitable husband. Among the young men of the village were two brothers, both of them fine-featured and intelligent. In fact, they were identical twins, known for the love and loyalty they bore for one another, and so alike in every way that not even their mother could tell them apart. The old man decided that he would marry his daughter to the elder brother, and devised a clever little test to find out which was which.

One evening, the old man invited both brothers over to dinner. The maiden, curious to know the faces of her suitors, came softly to the door of the sitting room and peered inside. Both brothers fell instantly in love. It was the smooth black of her hair, the soft, young curve of her form, and the sweet catch of her lower lip in her teeth. She disappeared in a moment, and the men went in to dinner. When they sat down, the twins found to their suprise that, though the table had been set with three bowls of rice, there were but two pairs of chopsticks: a pair for the girl's father, and a pair for the both of them. As was his duty, the younger brother pushed the chopsticks to the older and said, "Here, brother. You use these." "Ah," said the old man, looking at the recipient of his chopsticks. "So you're the elder brother. Well then, my son, if she pleases you, I give you my daughter to be your wife."

The wedding came before they knew it, and it was grand, and joyous, and painful. The younger brother would not have wished his twin a less beautiful, less virtuous wife, but he felt bitterly that someone had done him wrong.

When he came to visit his brother at his house one day, the new husband was absent. The younger brother was greeted instead by his sister-in-law, who mistaking him for the man she'd married, came to him all smiles, carresses, and open invitation. It was too easy not to resist, too easy to play along, and then it was over. He got up, got dressed, and left, suddenly loathing the thought of touching her, seeing her, speaking to her. He ran, and when he became too tired to run he walked, then crawled, then finally stopped.

"Forgive me," he whispered, and there, beside a small, clear brook in the mountains, he died. His body sank into the ground, and in its place appeared a block of limestone, "ñaù voâi".

In the meantime, the older brother had come home to an anxious and bewildered bride.

"Are you alright, beloved? You made me worry. What made you leave without a word?"

Her husband shook his head slowly. "What are you talking about?"

But as she tried to jog his memory, the husband realized what must have passed. Feigning recollection, he first soothed his wife, then left to find his brother, but soon discovered that no one knew where the latter had gone. The husband began to fear that his younger brother might not come back. No matter what had happened, they were still family, and he must bring his brother home.

Telling his wife very little, the husband set out. Although he had no idea which paths his brother had taken, he somehow followed the same blind footsteps to the very spot beside the very brook where his younger brother had died. He too paused there to rest, but sitting there on the ground, leaning against the rock, fell asleep and never rose again. His body turned into a tall, slender areca tree, "caây cau", growing there beside the limestone to give it shade.

The older brother had left his wife with assurances that he would be home soon, but as the time drew on and he did not return, she began to grow concerned, and to have doubts about his well-being. Finally, she could bear the waiting no longer and left to look for him. The young woman, too, found herself unwittingly following that same route that both the brothers had taken before her, and eventually she ended up by the brook as well. Too tired to cross it just yet, she leaned on the areca for a moment to rest, her cheek against the bark, then slipped to her knees, her hands sliding gently down its trunk. She closed her eyes, and her spirit slipped away. The wife became a betel vine, "caây traàu", winding itself delicately around the trunk of the areca.

Ever since, it has been a tradition at Vietnamese weddings to have "traàu cau" ground areca nut, wrapped in a betel leaf smeared with lime. Chewed together, the betel, areca, and limestone yield a juice as red as blood. And the redder the juice, they say, the deeper the love.