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A short story in Vietnamese by Trần Băng Khuê
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

1.

That day, the sky was a grey mask. The fog lingered touching everything. The fog hovered as though it was always there. The fog hindered each breath from the soil to high heaven. The main character can only remember that, she can acknowledge nothing else except for the fog, the scale of despicable greyness plagued her to the end of her life. I’m different, I like the fog. But, what I do not like is how vulnerable human beings are when they face a fog, I am adamant that the fog takes its job seriously when it comes to obstructing her vision(or mine). Like darkness. And its eyes included.

What I like people to imagine is exactly that. I can’t be bothered with trying to explain it. Since, it is for the time being the reason for what will soon unravel (or have already unraveled). The not talking wooden bird with a blue beak inside a cage. If only, I could open the cage door and let it go. The filtered light from the outside is just about right to muck around. Since it’s a bird that had never made a sound. The only man in the house not long ago decided to only have the one wooden bird with a blue beak in the house. Not that he is worried about money besides having to open the door to let in enough light for the cage. Light is what he uses to feed his bird. In the past, he had all kinds of birds with skin and feathers. That is, in his youth. After the working hours of a diligent civil servant’s eight hours a day for instance, (or the times he had no patience for the card games, drinking with his friends or colleagues). He takes care of the bird and it is his companion.

His enthusiasm for birds had never been a curiosity of mine. There was a time when the jungle were thriving with all kinds of noise and magnificent bird songs in the fog and even when it was completely lit up. To the point where, the tweeting stop because there were no nest left. And yet, each trip to the jungle, he would bring home a couple of small birds for his cage. The chirpy bouncing little birds, none of them ever stay with him for too long. I have noticed that, since I was small until he had retired, they, all kinds of birds from sparrow, or black-rumped starling, none of them survived beyond a few days, maximum half a month. Talking about it piqued my curiosity. Often, what was strange was that they would disappear inside the cage. No one in the house understand how or why they had disappeared. I would find them sometimes, perched there quietly inside the cage, like a statue. It makes me think of the dead birds knocked out by a slingshot when I was young. My older cousins said, “they are delicious”. Even now, I can still feel the shiver going down my back, each time they mentioned the delectable taste of their sparrows.

Ever since the first time the birds he collected continues to disappear without an explanation from inside its cage. He became more and more introspective more quiet. To the point where I had noticed that he had began to take better care of himself. He spends less time after work drinking and gambling with his friends or work mates. He spends more time in the jungle and in the fields, planting more trees and other crops diligently like a good farmer.

The sunlight was overdue one morning, the mountain , jungle and trees were covered in fog. He was gone very early one morning, he came home with a odd looking brown cage, with the wooden bird with a blue beak. It made me laughed out loud, watching the rays of sunlight grazed over the beak of the wooden bird. A shiny bright blue. The radiating momentary joy invisible to the eye in a glance settled on my cheeks was a thin layer of invigorating fresh dew. A healing omen. But then again, right then, I had to face the truth of that moment, the deliberate dew drops were the stuff of my imagination in the harsh summer light. The wooden bird’s eyes remained unmoving. I’m pretty sure they can not read the meaningful look that my eyes had betrayed. Or maybe I have the fog in my eyes, “The misty dewdrops hidden inside a profound sadness of the jungle”.

Something I have thought about for a long time now. And yet it is still a fog in my mind.

I entertain no such intention in describing a natural phenomenon like dewdrops. I have no time to entertain the colour of the cold and grey dewdrops in my mind. Turning back toward my dark mind, searching for that bit of light. And, it’s shadow. I have been aware of it for a while now, but mostly I would ignore it. It’s presence is certainly no different to any other presence, and that includes people.

It is. A wooden bird with a blue beak. Definitely, it has to be blue. (even though, in the sunlight and fog, sometimes I can discern other strange colours). It’s a shade of blue I have loved for as long as I remember. Hence, the wooden bird with the blue beak he had brought home, had the potential to help clear the fog in my mind. I believed that, all one needs to do is to focus on the thought, the spiritual aspect of such desire and it will come true, guarantee certain satisfaction.

My earliest thoughts about it, compared to the birds with skin and feathers and wings, chirping noisily like the birds he used to catch, then died, then disappeared without leaving anything behind. The wooden bird with the blue beak will come with good news not bad. And yet during the pandemic when the deaths were still piling up, January second, that year, the day when humanity was oblivious and unsuspecting, a dangerous entity appeared in the form of Vlad Dracula ordered the firing, rockets and smoke and debris befallen a peaceful city. I truly did not want to know about what ever it is happening around me, but I could not stop myself from feeling the pain of each invisible thorn that had punctured my skin and pierced my flesh. The world is big, the world is small like a clump of hay rolled into a ball. The man who had birds that had died and now he has a bird that will not die, lucky that he is someone who is the instigator of war inside his home, but he had never like the idea of war outside his front door.

2.

Can I portray it in a way everyone can understand the flutter of anxiousness that I live with about whatever it is behind the closed door of my room. Or what is unseen at the corner of my mind? The question of my existence. How I see myself in a better light in another part of the world for instance. And yet, I could never unlock the mystery of the there or not there presence of the wooden bird with a blue beak. I have deceived myself of my own existence instead of the existence of that wooden bird.

I am no different to the wooden bird with the blue beak, except for the fact that an ornament can not utter the pure sound of a bird in the middle of the jungle on the first light at dawn.

The fog that turned up was on time that following year. The man took care of his wooden bird with the blue beak began to oddly changed. Now and then there was a twinkle in its eyes, it appeared more alive, as though it had a soul. The beak painted blue sometimes moved. Then the tweeting followed. Even though for not more than half a minute, before came the silence. I remember, my mother’s stories about a long house of the Ede people in a dream. Might have been where she was born or where she grew up. Might just be a dream. Dreams and their connections will be forever a way for people to find meaning of some kind in their daily life. My mother was never bothered with the man’s wooden bird with the blue beak. But, she was always puzzled: “where did it came from?”. Clearly, she was asking, where she came from?

I decided to test my theory, see if I can turn my mother’s dream into reality. First on the list was the long long house that plagued my mother’s dream. I googled a couple of key words. The ancient long long houses came in all kinds of colours brown grey, cockroach wings hues, shiny here and there in earthy red bazan clay. I showed my mother some of them. My mother said, “that long long house in the fog will be impossible to find”. “Then where mother?”. (In my mind, I knew I will not give up on this challenge) My mother’s voice continued to grow, ebbs and flow the same as always, ending somewhere far away in a whirlpool of the wind somewhere deep in the jungle. I promised myself that I will continue to coax my mother. The woman who remained silent for so long. A woman who for a long time had turned her heart into stone. A woman born of the trees, the mountains, the springs, and yet had not once remember the location of her long long house. What I need was an expedition with my mother.

“Without fully understanding our roots, we will be forever lost”. This is what I would often hear people say. We need to go. It was an essential exodus. Perhaps it might be a long trip. Perhaps it might only be for a few days. The way more than once, the man, the owner of those birds used to take my mother every where on the back of his motorbike in their youth. They head for the sea, then the jungle, in search of delusions and memories lost.

The pandemic two years ago, I can recall clearly the image of how a mechanical horse took away with it five living souls, both human and canine. An expedition like folklore. An expedition chronicled painfully edged into history. I tried to conjure the images of an expedition during a pandemic like that, to find the motivation for my mother and I to head for the jungle to find the actual bird with the blue beak, the long long house in her dream. A flagile thought, but it gave me a sense of excitement, the joy and laughter of searching for a dream. I hear mother sing. My mother love to sing and dance. Dancing is a part of her nature, sixty, in her tradition garment woven with the black and red colours of the jungle I see her dance to the beat of the copper gongs. My mothers voice is as bright and as clear as the running water in a brook or a stream. What is she singing about? No doom and gloom bouncing around in the world. My mother has no time for such big words. The lyric she sings comes from a dream. Or sometimes she would sing not realising that her life have ceased to move on and she is standing somewhere in the dark, waiting for her home coming to a long long house that had once exist, (or never did). While that man, each morning each night, each time he closes his eyes at night, each morning opening his eyes all he does is stare at the wooden bird with a blue beak as though it is his confidante, his soulmate.

I began to have these dreams about irises. I dreamed about them every night.

Even as my mother’s long long house was yet to be found. Other dreams had turned up, invading what was left of the gaps in my imagination. Because I am young. Because I still have in me the desire for simple dreams, for instant, to lay down on a carpet of green grass large enough to cover my body and the smallness of me. I don’t want anyone to invade or near my world of solitude. If only I had the desire for loud and noisy places, the throbbing green and red traffic lights of another life. My addiction is the watchful, adoration, through my eyes take in what I can of my surrounding. Their fondness for display. No matter how extravagant they might be, boredom is inevitable.

I often think about colours. The colours that had powered my dreams in the oddest manifestations, unfurled light in my consciousness, my body. The colour I dreamed about it is, a flower of the genus Iris. Fleur-de-lis, sounds noble in French. Or diên vỹ, more demure in my language. The colours that had saved me from innumerable despair, the unpredictable modern day disease of anxiety and depression. It’s symptoms, mostly nothing to worry about. Unbeknown to a number of my friends who had to live with it. I am on the other end, I am fully aware of this darkness. I would find myself drowning in the chaos of my thoughts. I want to feel everything and be present at all time to see what is happening around me. The world. Humanity. Major and minor events. Including the constant thoughts on the appearance of the swarms of ants. Where did they came from, why are they here or there? Why are they coming in hoards crawling around back and forth in front of me, from dusk till dawn? Some in fact, crawl around in my clothes, on my skin as though it is where they are meant to be. It’s crazy. If only my thoughts were more disciplined and useful so I can affectively apply them. Instead, I am always sitting in the dark exhausted with these convoluted thoughts about this, and then that, or why people have to die?

And, not once did I stop thinking about it, not once did I stop asking all the questions, not once did I stop connecting with everything that was happening around me. Each time I’m sick off what is in my head, I find myself outside. Sick of the world outside, no matter how difficult I would wiggle my way back into my head, since it’s not easy living with the chaos, undefined between two worlds – dark. I forced my grey matter to work harder. I forced my self down a deep dark pit of illusion. The deeper I am in my head the more I am lost in that expanding universe. There is only one way, I can still be alert enough to know that, I have to find the right hue of the iris. Because in itself, that shade of the sunset had saved me from all the earth moving fear, inside me. Silence is a game. But, it is also a pitiful state between light and darkness. I would close my eyes, conjure a private domain, allow the colours and shades I love to spread and invade all areas of my spirit, allowing me to enter deeper into a constantly shifting, evolving dream. Oddly like magic, that crazy sickness would disappear.

A temporary manifestation is each moment in time.

After sometime, stepping out of a room, wall, or door, the movement outside is as familiar as a friendly ghost. The same sickness makes a joke out of me. I think a lot about things that are locked up in a cage. Not all of them are birds. And yes, most impressive is the wooden bird with the blue beak that can not talk, locked in a cage. With it, is an image of a long long house. These streams of thoughts takes up all the space in my mind. They shift in sections back and forth. I wish, often I would wish that they would completely disappear from my mind. All I need are the hues of the iris, they will help me unravel the knots and sort out the messy thoughts in my mind. I get it, it’s not easy to find, any where in this jungle. It’s beyond the door. A different door. A door where not just anyone could open. It’s beyond this world, a world far beyond geography. Hence, I must dream, I need these dreams to confirm that I am truly alive.

My mother, for the moment suffers depression like me perhaps? Clearly the sickness plaques her. I would often find her hiding in the corner of one room or another busying herself with something or another. while the only man in a women’s world obsessively take care of a wooden bird with a blue beak and talks of wars. He dislike the instigators of war beyond his door. Yet, the other night, the other night. Including all the other nights long gone, he was the one wearing the ashes of a silent war he lit within his own house.

The unmoving wooden bird with the blue beak inside the iron cage oddly disappeared suddenly one day. Overnight it grew wings and flew away? Flooding my mind were the thoughts and images of him. No. It’s best that I shouldn’t name such an undeserving name.

The iris is gorgeous. It has a refreshing liberating hue like the kind of cool light mixed with a dreamlike magical purple the colour of the universe. Yet still, because of a happy memory I find myself talking about him. When I do not want to spare a second on him. Yet again, the same irises, they made me think of him, a kind of self inflicted torture. But, what’s certain, I am always in full control. My problem has nothing to do with him, nor is it the heart break because of a boy in my youth. I just want to highlight the situation of the man and his wooden bird and a woman with her constant search for lost time in a long long house not the one she’s currently living in.

In the poor light, the iris I had dreamed about bloomed.

It’s very obvious. That it did not, bloom for my eyes to see. It is a flower of the imagination. The kind of colour I have dreamed of being a part of, to be fully fully immerse. Or perhaps for instant the other way around, it becoming a part of me. My dreams are often no different to the other two in the house. But, in truth, I know they are very different. My dreams are a lot brighter. My dreams have the possibilities of becoming realities. Because I believe, the man who had a passion for birds, hates those who causes war beyond his front door, what he really wants for his wooden bird with a blue beak is a voice. While the woman obsessed with the long long house, definitely do not know how to find all those lost memories.

Just passed in the dark was the severed prayer in the middle of the night.

What I do know is, beyond that door is war unraveling in real time. The man with the wooden bird did not want to discuss it. He has no positive affinity toward those who instigates war outside of his door. His battle inside his home diminished in time. He prays in secret. (Like his mother, when she was alive).

It was a surprise, catching him pray in secret like that. In the past, he looks down on such acts. “Women are always weak. They are always fearful of the worst, no wonder they pray”, you would find him mumbling something like that now and then. For instance, I remember, his mother, she used to tell war stories in the middle of the night, the chaos. Before praying quietly, she would repeat over and over again the same thing, “the bombs and bullets dear God, husband, for how many decades have they taken you from me” (like the lyric of a song, when she was alive). She would often pray quietly in the early morning light, a rosy pink.

Fallen is blood on the soil. Clearer coming into view slowly were the form and eyes full of darkness of the butcher.

The man who loves birds had made early prediction about the war beyond his door. Hence, when came the fire and explosions, blood falling over the destruction, he was not surprised. The war brewing at the foundation of his home slowly lost its heat. All members, all entity seemed to suddenly learn how to make each other smile, even though it was still rather awkward. Except for my mother who was completely isolated when it came to the exchanges about the war behind doors. All she wants was to find the long long house. It is some thing that has been sustained by a memory that had left a mark in the pad of her palm.

Me and a dark corner stared at each other. My willful nature found various crazy way to play with the dark. But when I do play with the dark often I would choose to sit and imagine other worlds inside the walls. In the dark right now, there is only one living thing I want. It is the iris. An image that could make me truly feel. In the dark, it shimmers, mysteriously. In the dark, it calls upon my childhood, the passions of my formative years. And yet, when I want it to be my childhood, it would turn into something laughable and ridiculous.

Right now, I’m of two minds about what is and what is not; between existence and non-existence. The butcher’s eyes and my visualization of blood spatter in the dark. Find any sign of life. Or may be the gentle whisper of the iris breathing in the dark. The colours not of war. And just like that, times like that, my mind would have enough clarity to continue to give more thought on the man who loves birds who now prays in the middle of the night, or help look for the long long house lost in the memory of the woman living with me. And that includes why for no reason at all, the wooden bird with the blue beak had suddenly disappeared?

3.

Continuing my dream, I imagined the blue iris blooming until the moment the sky is pink with the first light. I am fiddling in the dark, playing with the walls and shadow. Since, after the fights under one roof, the headaches remain. Me residing in stillness, as the air of those around me continues to rise through the blanket of the night, the breath of the imagination. Me, dreaming. The dream of a fresh new world, genteel, tranquil. Me, dreaming. Dreaming of the possibility that the wars behind doors will never happen again.

The early mornings, the sun bursting with light slips in aiming directly at the bed head, it feels as though I’m waking up in Van Gogh’s lonely private space. I am obsessed with this room, and the river reflecting a sky full of twinkling stars. It is a beautiful dream. To the point where, I can no longer recall the iris with its purple hues, a flower that demand my attention, complete immersion in the illusion. If I could only live in reality, immerse myself in the simple colours all around me, then I wouldn’t have the trouble of having to search for what isn’t there. I dream still of other strange flowers in other places even though I know that, dreams are not easily attainable.

The man who likes to take care of birds, detest the beginning of the clear changes in the wars beyond his door.

On face value. Rarely do I give myself permission to entertain incidents with the slightest hint of mystery. In the past, in his eyes were the reflection of the terror of my fears. And I would hide. The others in the house, they too, would run and hide. The moment the bird showed any sign of life death showed up in throes. The moment the bird with the blue beak disappeared. The moment he began to pray like his mother in the pinkish first light. There was a shift in the intensity of the energy in his eyes, the dark clouds has disappeared. When enough light residing in the eyes, the face will be the same. They light up gracefully in contrast to those darker days.

Now there’s only me. A knotted complicated living breathing being, full of contradictions drawn constantly to what isn’t real. My dream remain unresolved. And, that includes my mother’s dream. A woman who had lost her memory of a long long house.

4.

Not a dream, the periods of long rainy days in the mountains.

A home slips through the middle of a valley. The flickering flame of a fire in stove, chasing away the air of thick grey sombre clouds. The woman with her lost memories blows more life into a pile of red coal as the rain seemed to have stopped. It has been a while since, I have heard the humming of a song as her tiny dry and scratched hands worked through one chore after the other until they were all done. Nor did I see her dance again like a jungle fairy. I conjured the images of those dances, sometimes it helped her escape all the pain, but sometimes it would leave behind a deep darkness in her eyes after the dance, darker than before. I have made up my mind, in a moment of clarity, I had to find a way to unravel this ball of knots. I had to find the lost long long house in her mind. It had clearly taken shape. All I have to do is to go and find it. I remember the details of a flame. It is real. A flame that had dried up, had turned into a scar, on the pad of her left palm.

Like I said, I am a complicated living thing full of contradiction. I want to not only reduce the anxiety of the man who was pre-occupied with the wars beyond his door, but also quell the ugly war under this roof. I am eager to find out the origin of the burnt scar on the pad of the hand of the woman in a long long house wherever it might be. It is clearly a nefarious mark. People are not as nice as they might appear to be no matter how much we want to convince ourselves of the fact.

My plan has yet to take shape, and the wooden bird with the blue beak turned up and helped the man who likes to take care of bird see the impermanence of life. To then suddenly disappear. But still, fortunately, its disappearance on the other hand, had opened his eyes. I am now left with only the burden of my mother’s memory. But, between the white spaces of dreams and hallucinations, I like to keep the wonderful ones to myself, my search for the colours of the iris. How long will this iris last, will it wait for me? My instinct crying out urging me to fling the door wide open so the darkness can disappear, and dawn may show itself. I pure light, the healing I am thirsting for, like the iris.

“When power is left in the hands of those not in touch with reality, then continue to pour will be blood and tears”. My mother would mumble to herself in the dark. As far as I remember, my mother’s reaction to anything is never fierce, and that includes the man who had instigated the wars under this roof. More than often I find myself affected by the rain. Not because I find them ugly, or because they lack reflection in my realm of thought. But, the characters in that war without the bloodshed, without the sound of rain had forced me to hide deeper inside my darkness. The thought of finding that woman in the past in the rain in the darks scares me?

I choose to daydream with These rudimentary flowers. Iris, the rise of a dark spirit in my mind. It’s clear that, I have been dreaming very deeply, for a long time now. To this very moment I want to desperately see the iris I have been dreaming about. Since, they, these rudimentary flowers are the most glorious of images that have for the moment. I thought, my mother had chosen the memory of a long long house as her way to face and disregard her pain, in order to continue to hold her words and forgive. But, I dare not think that the fights will never end. And there is nothing surprising about that, it follows the order of the universe. This war will pass by, another war will take its place. War, is perhaps one way the world adjust its stance. The old perish, the new emerge. I start copying my mother’s nonsensical mumbling about things I know nothing about.

“War continues to persist, continues to simmer, appear in moments undefined by the seconds, minutes, but the speed of light.”

5.

Is light tangible or intangible?

I am walking through a door filled with light. Where my foot touch first is not a place I have been trying very hard to find like the long long house for a woman who had misplaced her memory. It’s a city. I find myself often quietly obsessed with these cities, they have a hold on me. (Like the city where I was born for instance, because it conjured a lot of memories I rather forget). But, when I do leave it, I can almost dream of a city prettier, brighter. The city with an arrow on it is an address where I want to get to, so I can feel all the loneliness the universe can offer. Though, the open door filled with light in front of me is a city I often admire from afar. By default, I assumed that the probability that I was still dreaming was very high.

But, there in front of me, in that blinding light, all images of the city that had an arrow pointing at it are very clear. I can smell the soil, sunlight, scent flowers and foreign grass. And including it, my way of saying its name for instance, these rudimentary flowers. Iris. I get it, the allure the iris bestows upon me, not just the colours. It symbolizes the unification of three rivers Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois. It is the power to rule, it is beauty, the purity and virtue of a woman with a name starting with the letter M. To me, it might just be a high note in my exploration of the mysteries of the world. Or when it comes to what I want is to shine a light over the universe, over being, to find out why I am here in my present state, within that vernacular and not in a different state of being, different vernacular. And, Iris is simply a very beautiful name.

Stepping through the second door way full of light, there in front of me is the wooden bird with the blue beak that belongs to the man who likes to take care of birds. It is right there, in the city I have set my foot upon in my dream. A wooden bird with a blue beak, he keeps locked up in a iron cage. Looking at it carefully, I found a lovely surprise, a rudimentary flower. Iris, right on top of its head. Which means, my search, misses only the long long house for the woman who had misplaced her memory. I truly want to know, the origin of the burn scar on the pad of her hand, what really happened?

The third door full of light touches my feet midair is a mountain deep in the jungle. A rather familiar jungle, it feels like the jungle frequently the man who likes birds likes to take me. There the world is as green as a fairy tale. Stepping further into the jungle I found burning torches and bonfires. And in front of me is a long long house becoming clearer and clearer through the fog. As it turns out, it is a long house in a style more strange than familiar. This might be, the long long house that belongs to the woman with the burn scar on the pad of her hand. I am curious, but I want to look for the imagined images that are mine alone in my jungle. Once awake, returning to reality, even though both eyes were always consistently open in the dark searching for other eyes. I am dreaming in a world between what is real and what is not, between the door of my tiny room and the door full of light. My trip into the subconsciousness proves nothing, confirms nothing in terms of my existence. All I want to do is to run and hide. And that is the truth. If only I could leave that door full of darkness behind and disappear into the light of the door in front of me.

6.

Diên. My name appeared in one of my mother’s dream.

Names are often the subject of my ponder. They are the evidence of deterioration of my existence in this form, one vernacular one fate. Every thing in this world have been set in stone by the Creator, still I wonder, try to find myself in one other disposition or another. I will not settled for mediocre names starting with the letters a, b, c in the alphabet. Since I was as small as I can remember I protested against those sentimental names.

Vỹ, the name of the eighteen year old boy I often find in my dreams. His gaze is the hue of rudimentary flowers – Iris, mysteriously alluring, like the back of the sea blue top that had turned away and left the autumn path the year I turned sixteen. Even though, he is not the aim of my exhausting search for my roots and the woman who was born amongst the trees, mountains. One dark night, the rain came pouring into the valley. Streaks of clay down a roof that had housed three generations. The man who hates wars who likes to trap birds and locked them in a cage screams in the dark of night, “bring me my gun, I will kill them, all of them”. In the empty cage in the corner, the wooden bird with the blue beak showed up, mimicking him, “bring me my gun, I will kill them, all of them”.

The woman with the scar on the pad of her left palm didn’t know where I came from, with her eyes firmly closed mumbling eerily, power is darkness, I am darkness, darkness is me. A wisp of farmiliar mist wrapped the suffocating space in the large room. The man who likes to lock birds up, her husband, the guy who hates the wars outside his door, the guy who had turned her life into an indispersible dense fog, sitting motionless on the floor. His daughter resting on a dark grey cloud, exactly like a painting he’s seen in an old dream he had in his careless youth. He remembered, Diên used to be rather curious about the small hunting rifle. He also remembered, he used to take Diên with him hunting, exploring childish fairy tales in the jungle. But, not sure when, to him, the jungle is just a tiny fullstop, small like the eyes of the birds locked up in his cage. The jungle is now resting in Diên’s firmly closed eyes. His lips moving the way his elderly mother used to pray, before he found himself shrieking inside the unconsciousness of a father, I am darkness, darkness is me.

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Trần Băng Khuê, born in Vietnam in 1982, lived for a period in Auckland, New Zealand. A talented writer and an aspiring artist who currently lives and work in Huế, Vietnam.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.