“The Party and all the people with one heart carry out the mission of building a new people, a people of socialism.”
Following that criterion, a wedding could only have green tea to drink and cakes and candies to eat. To economize, clapping hands replaced firecrackers. As for funerals, it was absolutely forbidden to play drums and horns and there could be no banquet, no funeral cortege, no flags or banners. Most of all no monks could be invited to pray for the dead. All those traditional customs were counterrevolutionary, corrupting people’s minds and causing damage to socialist morality.
Time passes; life goes on. Bit by bit, sad affection for those departed encourages people to no longer fear the government so much. Everyone asks:
“No socialist government in the other world? If no one worships our ancestors, they will become roving hungry ghosts. If those buried below become hungry ghosts, how can living people prosper?”
“No drums, no horns, no songs to send off dead souls: How can the dead find the way to heaven? If they cannot get to heaven, their only option is to go to hell and become food for the devils. Thus children and grandchildren turn against fathers and grandfathers, shoving such close kin into the tiger’s den and snake’s mouth.”
“Alas, the revolution is only a few decades old, but our ancestors have lived maybe thousands of years. Who knows the right path, the wrong one? To be safe and sure, we should do as our elders did for years.”
Such clandestine discussions began within the confines of each home, hidden behind walls and closed doors. But slowly they began to spread to gatherings around a pot of tea, a tray of wine. Then finally they followed the peasants to the fields, into the gardens, and stoked a hot fire in the heart of the hamlet.
As ever, what is to happen, will happen. Villagers exploded in violent protest when the secret police came to seize the first family who dared call the musicians back to their old ways. The host had paid a special insurance fee far beyond the musicians’ wildest dreams, which gave them the courage to risk their comforts. Besides, he hadn’t dared challenge the government all by himself. Even when his old father was still struggling on his deathbed, he had gone to each house and appealed to everyone to rise up together. Because every house had an old father or a weak mother, and because funerals held up the sky over each family, everyone wholeheartedly joined him. The protest occurred quietly in the dark. The local officials were totally unaware, thus they grabbed the family of the deceased in a rude and cocky manner, not knowing that the people had prepared to resist. As soon as they saw the chairman and the policeman cross the door into the funeral home, sounds of drums exploded loudly. Hearing the alarm, elders came over and surrounded the courtyard—close to four hundred salt-and-pepper and white-haired heads. In addition, women and children stood in an outer circle like an army of shields. The unusual situation unsteadied the officials’ legs. They more humbly asked:
“If you want to return to the old ways, you must answer to the law. We are here just to remind everyone.”
“We do not consider funeral rites to be old ways. We consider them as filial piety. You said they are ‘old ways,’ meaning that for thousands of years now, our ancestors were all a bunch of idiots who did stupid things.”
“We didn’t mean that.”
“Old customs? So, what do you mean? Please explain clearly in front of all the people. Here, sooner or later, whether we like it or not, each family has to arrange this filial responsibility, this reassurance. No one can avoid what is necessary to be human.”
“Orders from higher authority state clearly: horn and drum music is an old custom of the past. Our duty is to enforce, not to explain.”
“If tomorrow the district commissar orders you to dig up all the ancestors’ graves, you will close your eyes and do it, without thinking whether it’s right or wrong?”
“You go too far; the Party would never order such an irrational or inhuman thing.”
“They sure do!…You forget but we don’t: the year of the rooster, your superiors ordered the Lan Vu temple to be destroyed and used two temples farther down the mountain for people’s education classes. The village elders had to remonstrate with the province commissar, to beg Mr. Loi Den, before the temples were spared. Fortunately, during the dark years Mr. Loi Den needed our donated shelter and food, eating cold rice and salty cabbage brine from our homes.”
At that, the head of the village police lowered his voice:
“OK; if you ladies and gentlemen want to follow the old customs, please do it quietly. We will stay out of it.”
After saying that, he signaled the village chairman to leave. As soon as the two stepped beyond the door, the drums and horns burst out loudly, partially as an order, partially as a taunting.
The village police chief whispered in the ear of the village chairman:
“Don’t play around. There was an old saying: ‘When they speak with one voice, even the monk will die.’”
The village chairman was at a loss, not knowing what to say, seeing this guy reputed to be so tough and mean suddenly submitting so easily to a crowd. Three months later, the village chairman’s father died and the drum and horn musicians were immediately summoned. He personally brought the musicians offers of betel nut, cigarettes, and envelopes with cash.
From that day until now, there had been many new village chairmen and heads of the village police. But none of them ever brought up funerals and weddings in Woodcutters’ Hamlet. All followed ancestral customs as if they were the natural order of things. Higher officials pretended not to hear or see.
Thanks to this political evolution, Mrs. Quang’s death brought on every formality: drums and horns, hearse, banners and flags, flowers and incense, and not meagerly either. The compound was squeaky clean after two seasons of the hunger illness eating its way through provisions, but Mr. Quang borrowed three cows and three hundredweight of pork for his wife’s funeral. Local opinion worried:
“That debt: when will he ever pay it all back?”
One with a fouler mouth said, “Really, she is a hungry devil: dead already but still demanding stacked trays full of food. Perhaps the husband has to comply in full, fearing her coming back to haunt him.”
In any case, everyone on the mountain could not help but bow their heads in respect before such a husband.
For seven full weeks Mr. Quang stayed at home. He asked monks to come and pray for her on the day her soul returned, otherwise commonly known as the forty-ninth day after death. Then, instead of music, chanting and the ringing of wooden gongs were heard throughout the night. He presented thirty trays of food to serve relatives and neighbors. Then, early the next morning when the sky was still black as ink, he took the horse cart down to the town. The neighbors heard the clip-clopping of horseshoes on the patio and saw the storm lantern dangling on the carriage frame, spilling light through the fog:
“He is a foreman on a construction site, why is he taking a horse cart? He must be building houses and selling goods, too, no?”
“Only heaven knows. Someone with as many friends as he has can do anything. Now he is indebted up to his neck. He’s got to find ways of making money.”
“True, talent comes with bad luck. Heaven gives a way to make money, then it sabotages you with a wife transformed into a hungry devil.”
“That’s nonsense, as if when a hungry devil afflicts a family, the only way out is to bury it alive.”
“What you say, sir, is frightening to the ears. But pity us, it is really terrifying. Since my birth until today, I have never seen such a thing. Just thinking about it is enough to give me goose bumps.”
The neighbors gossiped, and every time they did, they felt pleasure about their own situation, whatever small happiness they had was in their own hands according to whatever their fates had allotted them. The cold spring of that year hit like a nightmare. It was followed by an unexpectedly muggy and hot summer filled with thunderstorms. Pouring rains in June and July made the streams overflow, breaking up many
sections of road. The cleanup from the storms and the road repairs cost much money and labor. Cicadas popped out in swarms in the late summer. Their singing all day and all night prevented the elderly from sleeping. Children went through epidemics of first flu and then white fever. Their crying sounded like ripping cloth and made the air more oppressive and suffocating. Just as the weather can suddenly change, so, too, can life. Old worries return to the anxious and puzzled minds of the people, relentlessly vibrating like the sound of cicadas. Ignoring the meetings and warnings from the government, the villagers resolved to bring, during the summer festival, the monks from Lan Vu temple down to the two temples at the foot of the mountain to chant prayers and dissipate the bad weather. Usually the summer festival is given only one day, but that year, because of all the many unusual occurrences in heaven and earth as in their daily lives, the villagers celebrated for three consecutive days with flags and banners hung all over the temple courtyard. From old to young, villagers sat cross-legged and respectfully chanted prayers, hoping that the anger of the spirits and deities would disappear.
Mr. Quang returned to the village on the last day of the summer festivities. His horse cart was the only one in Woodcutters’ Hamlet to have a top, therefore villagers could recognize it right away. He seemed thinner than before. Wrinkles now framed his eyes but his jovial laugh had not changed. In half a spring and one full summer, he had paid his debts, both capital and interest, and had given each creditor ten meters of cloth as a gift. Neighbors looked at him as if he were a lost soul fallen from the moon. They whispered and speculated among themselves about all the ways he could have made so much money. But the speculations were just that: unanswered questions. No one guided or found the path of this particular person. He lived beyond the imaginations of rural people. Not only did he direct people from Woodcutters’ Hamlet but he also recruited people from neighboring districts to work in wood and cement in district public projects. After arranging tasks for a work crew, he would turn responsibilities over to his trusted partners and disappear in his horse carriage. A few weeks later, he would return to check the quality of the work, to discuss and reach agreement with superiors as well as with the lower-level staff assigned to the project, and then after a dinner with wine for the workers, he would raise and empty his cup along with everyone, laugh loudly at all the funny jokes, and disappear like a magician. No one could ever follow him, but he had a special way of checking up on everyone, even when away. One couldn’t expect to fool him. Of course he had never cheated or lied to anyone, and the group of villagers that followed him down to work in the city knew the rules of the game, so no one ventured to cross this successful personage.
After paying all his debts and sharing a meal with his children and grandchildren, his horse carriage again clip-clopped down the road one early morning. This time music from the Suong Mao radio he carried by his side could be heard. This machine that looked like a black brick but could produce all kinds of songs, even high-pitched singing, was nonetheless a mysterious object in the eyes of the villagers. Even the district officials were unable to possess such a strange thing. The neighbors opened the doors, looked at the horse carriage, and listened to the music, which was fading away.
“He is very with it!”
People would comment:
“If you are not with it, you are not the man Quang. Who else could dare to order a banquet of thirty full trays for the forty-ninth-day memorial of a wife? Even after a hungry devil had consumed his wealth.”
“If she were a normal, sweet person up until the very minute she jumped into her coffin, he would have ordered three hundred full trays for the banquet!”
“You would have to say so!”
“How old is he to look as firm as a female crab?”
“She was sixty, he is sixty-one. They married according to the rule: a girl is older by two, a boy by one.”
“Ah! Already sixty; then he doesn’t need to think about remarriage. From now on, his only remaining task is to collect money to put into his pockets!”
That was the point of view among the people of Woodcutters’ Hamlet. They wanted a loyal and dedicated husband like Mr. Quang to stay a widower until the end of his life so as to live up to their ideal of a completely moral person. Just so do people need to lean toward a moral ideal, as long as that ideal doesn’t apply to them. Then, at the end of that winter—to be more accurate, on the twenty-fifth day of December—Mr. Quang abruptly brought back a young bride. A young woman with good skin and good form, her eyes shining sharply like a knife, her eyebrows long across her temples to the roots of the hair. That first day, she sat on the bar of the cart as it passed along the village road, chatting with him while shaking her legs and laughing out loud. Many mistook her for Quy’s daughter:
“What? The girl Mo suddenly fills out so quickly?”
“Your eyes must have a cyst, how could Mo be that big? She weighs no more than a handbag at the most.”
“Could it be Man, who is only fifteen? Her laugh is very different and is hard as nails. I am sure it’s not her.”
They did not have to wait long. Right that evening, his patio courtyard bustled with neighbors. The storm lamp was hung in the middle of the patio and shone out to the front and back gardens. People drank tea, ate all sorts of cakes and candies, and listened to him make a brief introduction:
“This is my new wife. Her name is Ngan.”
Nobody had time to say a word before the girl stepped up and smiled broadly:
“I greet all of you as my elders. Thank you for coming to congratulate us. In a day or two we will become neighbors.”
The villagers stood mute. The dream of the ideal husband collapsed, dissolving like the lime-plastered walls of a house buried under a fallen mountain. Besides, the bride was too young and too beautiful, to the point that everyone lost their breath. She wore a green silk, short-sleeve blouse; her breasts were full and alive, as appetizing as two bowls of sticky rice firmly pressed. Her buttocks were curved, a nice sight under her shiny, black sateen pants. Just like her legs, bulging every time she walked, and creating excitement among the men each time the wind would blow against them. Her eyes were also black like sateen, shooting out rays of fire that made hearts beat wildly.
Clearly, Mr. Quang understood thoroughly the hidden thought of the men as he said half joking, half serious, “The district town is full of women as beautiful as my wife and more so. For whoever wants it, I can make an immediate introduction.”
As if someone pulled on their tongues, the men said:
“Of course we want one, but with no money in our pockets, what girl would take us?”
“A patched heart is no different than a healthy one; I’d take a beauty. If you can find one who is half as beautiful as your wife, I will be your assistant, looking after your fields and gardens without pay until your death.”
“Don’t believe that guy, he’s well known for fraud. Those who lent him money have yet to get a penny back. If you want to help, help me here.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, did you hear that? We are old friends, but when it comes to women, friendship is for nothing.”
The chattering continued while Miss Ngan withdrew to the kitchen to boil water for tea and bring more cakes and candies to offer the guests. People sat around past midnight. It had been two years that his spacious house had been dark. Now it regained the once familiar warm atmosphere. Even though conversations were bursting like firecrackers, the neighbors’ eyes searched around for his sons. Quy was not there, neither was the youngest, Quynh. If it had been someone else, there would be some snide questions put, such as:
“Where did the oldest and the youngest masters go? Not back yet?”
“The family adds a new mouth, so where did everyone go?”
“Today is the day to welcome the stepmother; it’s proper for the sons to make tea, open cigarettes, and invite the neighbors over.”
Villagers do not lack oblique and twisted ways. But because Mr. Quang had
high status and because poor people in the community were indebted to him in more than a hundred ways, not just twenty or thirty, all kept in their throats any word pickled in vinegar and hot peppers.
That night, on their way home, people blurted out:
“The older son doesn’t bother to attend; the youngest fled. This family will soon be a mess.”
“A mess around Mr. Quang—impossible. One look at his face tells you all you need to know. One like that wouldn’t even blink if his house were on fire.”
“Baloney! Even with a steel heart one can’t eat when children revolt!”
“Let’s see who’s right! You won’t have to wait long. Either today or tomorrow, what is good will emerge. Who’ll take my bet?”
There was no need to bet, for on the next day, everyone saw Chairman Quy come to visit his father. He loudly knocked on the door. Annoyed, Mr. Quang asked:
“Who makes such a ruckus?”
“Your son.”
“Go away, I’m still sleeping.”
“Dad, open the door. I have something important to say.”
“Nothing needs to be said this early. I’m just back from far away, I want to lie down and rest my back.”
“Dad, wake up. I have—”
“This is my house, I can sleep as long as I wish.”
“But I have to go to work in the village office.”
“Going to work is your business, sleep is mine.”
Chairman Quy stood for a while in front of the closed wooden door, his face intensely red. Then he had to give up and leave.
The Zenith Page 18