The Zenith

by Duong Thu Huong

  It took over half an hour to walk from the entrance to the complex where the workers lived. On his way over, Quy contemplated how he could chat up the painters, whom, by a bit of bad luck, he didn’t know. Once again, the imposing shadow of his father came down and completely enveloped him. Quy knew he had no skill in persuasion and lacked interpersonal charm. Things that Mr. Quang could have said easily in minutes were difficult for him to think about, much less find words for. As the father enjoyed all the gifts of destiny, the children had to endure bad luck.

  “Heaven gives to one what it takes from the pocket of another!” Quy thought to himself, certain of this truth.

  The rooming house reserved for female workers was noisiest after dinner when the women gathered around for games or chitchat. There was a nice smell of roasted corn; those of middle age ate popcorn and candy while playing cards. The youngest ones put their faces close to a mirror to better trim their eyebrows, the cheapest way to maintain their beauty. Quy had to stop at the door because of the sharp sounds of cards turning, the loud laughter, and the high-pitched and rather unpleasant voices, a new experience for him. Women in Woodcutters’ Hamlet never laughed loudly like that; they didn’t even scream and shout like men caught up in card games. As a matter of fact, the women of Woodcutters’ Hamlet were not even allowed to play cards. They had too much to do around their houses and in their kitchens.

  “No doubt, these are the whores in the construction trade; people are not off the mark calling them just that. They are like female horses running wild outside the paddock,” Quy thought to himself, elated that the “green-shirted whore” had come from this environment, from among these women with no virtue. His father had no reason to be so proud of a young wife like that. While Quy was lost in his thoughts, a young woman who had just finished trimming her brows stepped outside. Seeing the shadow of a man in the dark, she hollered:

  “Oh, oh! Who is it?”

  “It’s me…me…” Quy awkwardly replied: “I am a relative of Miss Ngan…of Ha Tay…I am looking for her.”

  The young woman’s shout drew all the others to the door. They surrounded Quy, some still chewing on popcorn, others still holding cards in their hands, the whole group staring at him, making his legs turn weak as if they wanted to run away from his body.

  “Which Ngan? The one with stinky ears or Ngan Quang?”

  “Ngan…of Ha Tay…of Khoai Hamlet…”

  “Ah, that’s Ngan Quang. She is married; you are a relative and you don’t know?”

  “I was away in Ninh Binh for a few years…” Quy answered.

  The women looked at him curiously from head to toe then one suspiciously inquired: “How are you and she related?”

  “She and I…we are cousins.”

  “Cousins or siblings? Just tell us the truth and we will tell you how to find her.”

  Quy was quiet. His face was suddenly hot and the veins in both his temples pulsed. He did not know how to handle these bossy women, who started laughing, turning left and right as if they were watching a funny comedy. Their mischievous stares at his face were like needles pricking his numb skin. After a moment, he cleared his throat and made an effort to speak slowly and calmly:

  “You girls tease too much; really, I only come to inquire.”

  The older woman with the mostly manly laugh, after wiping her tears with her sleeves and bunching her cards together, said to Quy, “OK, if you are sincere, we will tell you the truth. We’re just having some fun. Whether you are cousins or lovers, it is none of our business. If you are sure it’s Miss Ngan of Khoai Hamlet you are asking about, she has left the complex and gone with her husband to work on a farm. Her husband is Mr. Quang, the managing boss of city workers, not like us, hired hands from elsewhere. If you want more information, go to the A7 or A8 housing units. The workers there are all selected by Mr. Quang. They know more than we do.”

  “Thank you, ladies. So when did Ngan get married?”

  “Sorry, nobody knows.”

  “I thought when workers get married, the site organization is supposed to assist them.”

  “There are workers and then there are workers. We are only dirty-feet country people hired temporarily and not government civil servants. We have no right to make demands. Besides, Ngan’s family situation was rather complicated. They cannot be married normally like others.”

  A young woman next to her added, “I heard she was properly married.”

  Another interrupted immediately, “Properly married my foot!” And she turned to the other impatiently: “If she were married, why was she so hushed-up about it?”

  “She did not invite us to have noodles with roasted pork and sweets on the day she departed.”

  “Leaving is one thing, proper marriage is another. You’re so big yet so dumb!”

  The older woman with the manly laugh scolded the girl. Then she bent over to look at the deck of cards in her hand. Quy knew it was time for him to leave. He nodded to bid farewell to all:

  “I thank you, ladies.”

  “At your service…”

  As soon as he turned his back the peals of laughter rose anew. In the bright door frame, girls passed back and forth, some in white shirts, some in purple, and some in pink.

  “Some horsey whores out of the paddock,” Quy almost blurted out loud, but was able to control himself.

  His eyes stayed glued on the bright rectangular opening; something there pulled him like magnets pull iron. He did not understand. Standing awhile in the darkness, clandestinely looking at those girls, he suddenly felt as if he had just lost something, but could not find words to describe it. He tried to figure out what was going on in his heart but could not, asking himself, “What is this? What did I lose? What do I want?”

  There was no answer.

  Then all of a sudden a bitter anger could be felt in his throat and he said out loud:

  “Just a gang of man-hungry whores; any guy who takes one will fall apart sooner or later. Definitely ‘Coolie Girls.’ A few months ago that other whore was parading just like this.”

  In the night, his voice resonated loudly, bouncing back from the rough and empty buildings. He panicked, fearing the people inside could hear him. He turned and ran. The path in the complex snaked around piles of sand and gravel, scattered heaps of bricks, piles of wooden timbers, of half-wet cement mixture covered with many layers of wet jute bags. In the dark with his soul in flight, Quy stepped on a stone and fell forward into cement that was still soft. The wet mixture covered his face, one shoulder, and an arm. After he was able to stand up, Quy started to realize his situation:

  “How can I show my face in the streets like this? But before I get to the streets I have to pass the guard at the gate.”

  He put down his leather attaché case and looked inside to find some newspaper with which to wipe his smeared face. At that moment, the lye water entered one eye and irritated it. The stinging multiplied, a terrifying development. That physical pain crawled up to the top of his head and mixed with another pain, more devastating—a realization of his inability and humiliation. His tears flowed, mixing with the lye to make the whole area around his eyes and cheekbones burn as if they were cut. The pain caused him to sob and he found that he could not stop his crying. In front of Quy’s eyes there was only a vast space where black water would not stop falling. It seemed as if all the blood in his veins now became black, totally black, inky black. The dark blood spread all over his body. His whole body shook in an insane desire to cut someone’s throat, to crack someone’s skull, to stomp someone under his feet, to relieve the pain he was enduring. While wiping his slush-smeared face, Quy closed his eyes tightly to let tears wash out the lye that clung to his lashes. Then, in his mind, he carried out many scenarios for revenge: he would burn down the majestic house of the provincial Party secretary; he pointed a gun at a gathering crowd like a child who smashes an anthill; he sat on the head of the provincial Party secretary, the guy with a big belly who once scolded him as if
he were a three-year-old child during a provincial conference of cadres; he pointed his penis and squirted urine on the guy’s slippery and fat face; he spat on his beautiful gray hair always straight-parted; he climbed in the Volga car, took the driver’s seat, and made the old man run behind the car to eat dust.

  The final image seen by Quy’s burning eyes was one of himself riding on the white chest of a naked woman. He kneads her breasts, pinches them, bites them. Her small nipples are almost severed, they are dangling and attached to the breasts only by tiny pieces of skin, looking like two lotus seeds. He bends over and pulls them off with his blackened fingers, with the delight of a child who has just pulled the legs off a grasshopper. Then he rapes her, rapes her with all the passion and hatred piled up over so many lives; he rapes as if it were the only way to exist on this earth. He rapes her insistently from moonrise until noon of the next day. He rapes her until her skin, fresh like congealed fat, fresh pink like eggshell, becomes floppy, discolored, and pale, and at the end transparent, like frog eggs. Beautiful like a rose, she is raped until she becomes weak, exhausted; until she barely breathes. When he stands up to button his trousers, she turns totally into mush. What is left on the ground is a pile of some shapeless and torn rags.

  A pile of green rags.

  The season for mushroom gathering passed as if it were a festival. People say that January is the month to have fun, but for Woodcutters’ Hamlet, January is the month of hard work. On the seventh, eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, villagers go to the temple and don’t think about money or food. Otherwise, every day is translated into money:

  “Today, how much did you get?”

  “Five point seven kilos.”

  “Only so-so.”

  “How so-so? It’s less than Minh’s family down in the lower section. They are also only one mother and one child like me and on average she gets seven point five kilos.”

  “Can’t compare with them. Both mother and child are strong like bears. They climb mountains like the San Diu, San Chi people.”

  “You are doing pretty well, too, each day almost ten kilos.”

  “All three of us work without stopping for breath, with sweat running down our backs. At night the thighs are painful. But, thank goodness, it’s worth it. This year’s mushroom harvest is three times better than the cassava one.”

  “You are right, growing cassava brings nothing.”

  Miss Ngan was a newcomer, but she kept up with them all; even though she foraged by herself, every day she collected more or less four kilos of mushrooms. Mrs. Tu boasted to everyone:

  “Auntie Ngan came to live in Woodcutters’ Hamlet, yet without even warming her seat, she already works better than thousands of others.”

  “Thousands of others” here included the three members of Quy’s family and the gaggle of know-nothing women whose tongues itched with envy: “With that little red-and-green blouse, how can she climb the mountain? No doubt, though, that she can climb on top of her husband’s belly!”

  Only Mr. Quang could confirm the point about “climbing on top of her husband’s belly”; but climbing the mountain to pick mushrooms was common knowledge. Every day, the whole village weighed and counted. Each family had a notebook for record keeping; it was a competitive practice among families as well as a way to indirectly encourage effort; but oftentimes it only created jealousy. Thus, at the end of the mushroom season, those who pouted their lips and despised the girl “in the red-and-green shirt looking like a grasshopper” were all embarrassed and hung their heads in silence. The painter from the city had done better than all the local women. Many a time, children playing on village paths sang:

  “Red blouse, green blouse.

  It’s a grasshopper.

  From where, from where,

  Did you fly here?”

  Mr. Quang understood how those old lines were picked to point to someone. His wife never wore a red shirt—the only color she liked being green—but the phrase “red blouse, green blouse” was used by villagers to expose women who paid extreme attention to their looks. By her own labor, his wife had the right to refute any defamer. As Mrs. Tu said: “From now on, to anyone with a loud mouth saying bad things, Auntie Ngan only has to take a stick and throttle their throat…”

  Of course, Mrs. Tu did not say this only once, but over and over, again and again, wherever hearing it would have the most effect. Such tough words were taken as a most official and most acceptable form of warning, the kind that women in Woodcutters’ Village traditionally used to defend their honor.

  By the end of the mushroom season, only a few families—those without any or with lots of children—continued to glean in the far corners of the woods; most villagers were now staying home to undertake the final, laborious task of drying and bagging the mushrooms. All over the village the fragrance of mushrooms made the air sweetly intoxicating. Smoke from the drying ovens rose, delicate and light, spreading up like an unraveling bundle of floating white threads, surrounded by mountain clouds striped white, and the large, infinite white steam rising from rocky cracks—all forming an exquisite painting, where the white colors mixed against the blue background of the expansive, enveloping air. The mushroom season gave safekeeping to many happy memories of working together as well as to hearts warmly indebted to heaven for its gifts.

  In Mr. Quang’s house, after the last bag of mushrooms had been filled and closed, the time came to prepare for celebrating the first anniversary of his wife’s death. Two days before, cousins had erected tents to cover the patio and set up tables and chairs. Probably there would be more than one hundred trays, because guests would eat from noon to evening on three occasions, each time consuming thirty-five trays.

  Always the first anniversary of a death is the most important one for those alive as well as for the deceased. For the deceased, it is the moment for the soul to rest eternally in peace, not wanting to return and disturb loved ones after having received in full measure incense and flowers as well as repayment of past love expended. For the living, it is the moment to display responsibility along with appreciation and love for the departed. It is the opportunity to openly show your attitude toward others and also to prove how strong your moral character is. Given the unusual circumstances in Mr. Quang’s family, these expectations were bound to be examined very carefully from every point of view. The host was clearly aware of this challenge, so preparations were executed to perfection. The responsible party of course was Mr. Quang himself, but it was Mrs. Tu who actually took charge. Miss Ngan did no more than assist her, doing only what was assigned to her like anyone else among those neighbors who came to help. While she had always worn green blouses, from the lighter green of rice plants and banana shoots to the darker green of coconut palm leaves or moss, she wore black on the day of Mrs. Quang’s death anniversary—a clear statement of mourning for the deceased. Next, her voice and speech became demure and light, no longer spontaneous and youthful as was her natural habit, nor as strident as when she had to counter her opponents. Therefore, the most censorious of villagers would have no pretext to open their mouths in criticism.

  As for the physical preparations, Mr. Quang paid very close attention, for there is a saying: “Even in living spiritually, one must eat first.”

  Those who have life are not allowed to forget this basic principle. The banquet for Mrs. Quang on the first anniversary of her death had to be far more sumptuous than any previous wedding celebrations. Though there were plenty of neighbors ready at hand to help him, Mr. Quang still hired three chefs from the city, who brought along a van full of spices and ingredients as well as all sorts of cooking gadgets and supplies that one could not find in the countryside. The banquet thus became as elaborate as a fair or an exposition. Was it to be a five-course or a seven-course banquet? Because the host prepared the banquet according to urban preferences, with big bowls and large plates placed on tables, not on trays, it could not be measured by accustomed criteria. All bystanders agreed that no family had ever p
resented a banquet this classy and tasty, since the founding of the village. The banquet would consume one day; two days were required for preparation and one day afterward to clean up and distribute gifts and food to all the helpers, both relatives and neighbors.

  In all, Mrs. Tu counted about 180 large service trays with each one holding enough food for six people. She said, “Even with this we won’t have enough. To provide for all, we would need easily two hundred such trays.”

  “To provide for all” in her statement pointed to the absence of Quy’s family and his connections. He performed his own anniversary celebration of the death, of course, because his father had disowned him. From the power point of view, he clearly lost out to his father. In his relations with relatives and neighbors and in the way he connected with others, he was far inferior. The only power he held came from the official stamp in his possession, an advantage that people knew was neither a potato nor a piece of dry clay used for forgeries. That was why anyone who might come to the village seeking an official seal for some document was forced to come to Quy’s house to attend the “first anniversary” of Mrs. Quang’s death there. They would have a gift in one hand and a carefully prepared envelope in the other. Besides those who needed a favor, Mr. Quang’s in-laws on his son’s side—the parents, uncles, and aunts of Quy’s wife and her siblings—dared not set foot in Mr. Quang’s house. The core group of village cadres, those who daily sat at the same table with the chairman, including the party secretary, the police chief, the women committee’s head, the heads of the village clinic and stores, also had to come to the son’s house. Miss Vui sought the upper hand—attending neither. The majority of the villagers attended both celebrations because they thought it their business to ignore the divisions and to be anywhere that the spirit of the dead was present. They were at the father’s banquet at midday; in the afternoon either returning to their homes to rest or gathering somewhere to chitchat; and then at the son’s celebration in the evening. “Since I was born I have never gone to an anniversary of the dead twice like this.”