The Zenith

by Duong Thu Huong

  There was no lack of theories or shortage of analysis. The war of chattering mouths dragged on for days, for months. But everyone shared one sentiment: fear of a devastating reality, a reality that shook the hearts of all parents. They tried to find the truth.

  One day, Mr. Quang’s younger brother mustered enough courage to ask him:

  “How long will Quy be incarcerated after the judgment?”

  “Four years and six months.”

  “So now Vui sits firmly in his chair.”

  “That is up to the authorities, not us.”

  “But he is your son and my nephew.”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “Why don’t you find a way to reduce his sentence?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I want to say is that, with arms as long as yours, you can keep him in the seat of village chairman.”

  “You regret the loss? I am his natural father and look how he harassed me; how would he treat those outside the family?”

  The brother dared say no more.

  A few days later, he came to Quy’s house and scolded his niece-in-law:

  “Your husband is more stupid than a dog. He doesn’t even know when he is lucky. Since you two married, the big house, all of it, was yours thanks to his father. You two had children but all their food and their clothes and shoes came from their grandfather. Even the village chairmanship: How could your husband have got that without him? With him, not only your whole brood but all our relatives benefited from the shadow of a tall tree. Your mother-in-law passed away; whomever he then married was his own business. How was it your business to stir things up? You’re a pig-headed bunch. Now your husband is in prison; you, the wife, are at home. Worrying over two meals a day will use up all your spirit and stretch your neck out like that of a goose. Do you think this is happiness?”

  This awakened thoughtfulness as well as a moral conscience. Was it not a lesson reasoned from old teachings? In studying for entrance exams, moral conscience is the slow learner. Always, virtue finishes last.

  Chairman Quy was sentenced to four years and six months in prison.

  Everyone knew that fact. But in a year he returned for all to see. Those who were not in the fields or who were working at home that morning heard the clanging of horseshoes on the country road by Mr. Quang’s house. It was the clacketing tempo of a purebred with a smooth, velvety, reddish brown coat, with a long mane like one of those horses in an antique Chinese painting. The clanging of his hooves in time with the bells tinkling on his neck brought a familiar music to the residents of Woodcutters’ Hamlet, reminding them of the busy life in a city. Hearing those sounds, they would always peek through the gate or the fence to admire the horse and greet the owner. That early morning they saw Mr. Quang sitting in front, his face sad and his hands absentmindedly holding the whip. Behind were Quy and his wife, sitting like two rag bags, silent like mounds of dirt facing each other. That strange silence prompted people not to offer normal greetings. They pretended not to see anyone or to hear anything. But on the evening of that day, they whispered with one another, passing on the news from hamlet to hamlet. “The father stretched his arms to take his son out of prison. Well, good luck indeed.”

  “This development will surely make the son open his eyes wide on the outside to better understand life and on the inside to better understand himself. From now on maybe he will find the road to redemption.”

  “I heard he had to bow down before Mr. Quang right at the prison gate, just as the police read out the order to release him before the end of his term.”

  One talks, the other remains silent, or looks up at the sky, or over toward the hedges, the tree line, with eyes half attentive, half absentminded. After a silence deepened with concern, people sighed with relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted.

  “Life does not change over thousands of years: blood flows and the heart softens. Even a tiger would not eat its cub.”

  Perhaps it really was a solace, a kind of spiritual and protective wall, a defense against all the storminess that might come from a distant and foreign ocean to pulverize their soft hearts.

  Quy’s return passed in silence. For one week he stayed at home, not even taking a step beyond the gate. One morning the following week he and his two daughters carried baskets to the cassava field. From being the most powerful person in the village he became an ordinary citizen. This alone was an extraordinary personal challenge, yet he was also a convict rescued by his father’s personal intervention. The neighbors had predicted just as much. Given this, in a kind of virtue that has been handed down for thousands of years in the community, the people of Woodcutters’ Hamlet pretended that nothing had happened, as if Quy had only returned from a trip and no more. All conversations proceeded calmly just as vegetation grows:

  “Hello! Today you and the girls also pick cassava.”

  “Yes.”

  “Cassava here is twice as good as the ones by my home.”

  “No; only so-so; thank heaven anyway.”

  “Miss Dao and Miss Man work hard in weeding cassava. Next year will see good starch. At New Year we can make plenty of sweets.”

  “Yes, my kids love sweets. Their mother is unskilled in many things but she knows a few tricks in that regard.”

  “Do you plan on reviving the bee harvest?”

  “No plans yet. Just waiting to see.”

  “So are we. Last year we had a bad season for pollen, the bees were reduced by half.”

  “Farming is gambling. We have to accept setbacks.”

  “There’s this saying: ‘A harvest is lost, that must be due to some natural calamity; a bumper crop, now that must be thanks to the Party’s ability.’”

  “If you were still chairman, I would not say it even if my teeth were pried open. But now that you are a regular citizen like us, we do not have to be so restrained.”

  “Really?”

  “Now, everybody is bold-mouthed and speaks frankly to you about life.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes!”

  “Only now do I know. That quip is really good. Whoever thought of it is a genius.”

  “Kid: Are you serious or joking?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Well, all these years sitting in the chairman’s seat, you only heard orders from the Party and the government. Those silly songs never reach the ears of those who hold the scales and ink.”

  “That’s true. But time in prison opened my eyes to the truth of life. In there are so many who are so much more intelligent and bright than those district cadres sitting above me.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Why shouldn’t it be so?”

  “I’m just chatting.”

  From that day on Quy’s “prison story” suddenly became double-edged. No one felt embarrassment, no one was shy, in touching someone’s pain. With bravado Quy spoke freely about his “cell mates,” taking pride as if meeting them had been a boon and as if they had been the first ever to teach him life’s magnificent lessons. Villagers found Quy to have turned into a totally different person. He didn’t hide it. Not once but many times Quy would loudly say for people to hear:

  “Before I thought the graveside statue was large, but now I find the rock by the pond bridge where we clean our feet is a thousand times larger.”

  “You speak in riddles, kid; only those with a belly full of words could understand you. Those like us who plow have dull wits.”

  “Let me explain. Before, the whole village, the whole hamlet, competed and fought. Adults competed in work, in increasing productivity, in surpassing the goal; children competed in collecting manure, in picking up leftover rice; in school they competed in learning, to be on the honors list, to receive awards—to get a red cloth flower for their chest was the ultimate happiness. So many years living like that—now I realize that was all frivolous. Actually, our lives center around three holes: a mouth high up and two others in the crotch of our pants. If we
fill up those three holes, it makes for a full life in this world.”

  “But there is…”

  “There is nothing more. If there were, we would only be dupes. There are a lot of delusions. Let me explain to you all: we’re all impotent. Men have had their tubes tied or use condoms to avoid pregnancy. Women have IUDs inserted—from the one like a worm to the round one like a top. Their complexion goes green like a frog’s behind, their faces get so pale it’s as if they had caught a toxic breeze, but they still wear the coil to carry out the family planning policy and get recognition badges from the district and province. Meanwhile, do those who order us to become impotent practice what they preach? In prison I learned the truth. In prison, too, I learned that while most people eat only cassava and sweet potatoes, others have a monthly meat ration from seven to sixteen ounces. The mighty official who has a Ton Dan ration book can stuff whatever he likes into his mouth. Saturday, Sunday, the masses labor for the socialist regime while wives and children of the cadres dance or beckon for male prostitutes to come to their rooms and serve them. Every New Year, the government asks the people to be frugal while its officials have plenty of expensive herbs and cinnamon and their kitchens are full of the most rare and delicious dishes. If this is not being swindled, then what is?”

  “Well…for sure, we do not know.”

  “That is why I understand that that gang standing on our heads and stepping on our necks only cares about filling their three holes. Why don’t we get smart and flush our own holes?”

  The neighbors all fell dead silent at this, partly because of embarrassment, partly because what Quy had just said was so new to them they had no idea how to react. Some said he was irreverent to draw attention to his “lessons from prison” while forgetting all the low things he had done. Some thought that Quy intentionally exaggerated the truth to show that he no longer cared about living, that he had not an inch of conscience, that his time in jail had been only a lark and a frolic.

  It turned out that the neighbors were wrong. Several weeks later, crying, Quy’s wife ran to the village committee to ask that Miss Vui sign an order to remove her IUD, for the reason that the husband wanted lots of kids, because, after a thousand years, people still thought that a family with many children has “lots of good fortune.” She said that if she resisted his wish, Quy could chase her out the door immediately and bring home a city girl, young and pretty—a thousand times better than “that whore Ngan.” The new chairwoman understood that she was dealing with a real jerk, that “even a king gives way to the insane,” so she took up her pen and signed off on the order as requested. The next week, Quy’s wife went to the hamlet clinic to have her IUD removed. That same afternoon, Quy sat drinking in the middle of his patio, wobbling like an old man of seventy. Halfway through the carafe, he raised his voice to curse:

  “The old maid knows her fate, bows her head to sign the order. If not, I would show her the martial arts of a ‘hero from the jail.’”

  Then Quy ordered his wife to bring him more alcohol. Half drunk and half sober, he told his two daughters and son, “Now, me—I have no Party membership nor committee responsibilities; nothing ties me down. I and your mother have the freedom to make babies, until we no longer have eggs. Now it is your turn, too; paternal and maternal grandchildren, they are all gifts. From antiquity, the elders have taught us: “to have bodies is to have wealth.” If our family is large, we can fart all together and blow their house down.”

  “Their” here referred to Mr. Quang, his wife, and their recently born son—Que. While Quy was in prison, Miss Ngan became pregnant. Most pregnant mothers are sick for several months, but she threw up not even once, even though she ate such unsettling things as green guava, fresh limes and chili peppers, and bitter eggplant. Mr. Quang’s wife grew even more beautiful during this time; like spring flowers her complexion and skin were smooth and her cheeks pinkish red. When her tummy grew to the size of a drum she still ran around briskly, still went out to the burrows and fields, laughing merrily like popping New Year firecrackers and with not a hint of weariness. Mrs. Tu took her down to the district to give birth, and boasted that the baby boy was born with rings of flowers around his neck. As soon as the rings were removed, he started crying so loudly as to be heard throughout several rooms. Even though he was a first child, he weighed nine pounds and was over twenty-three inches long; with those numbers, he was indeed the largest newborn in the region, not only in Woodcutters’ Hamlet but in the whole district.

  Mr. Quang waited for his wife in the halls of the clinic. When all was done, he stepped in and placed around her neck a necklace with a stone carving of the Guan Yin Boddhisattva. All women giving birth in that region would envy such a gift. When the child reached one month, Mrs. Tu prepared a thirty-tray banquet and invited relatives from near and far. The father instead of the mother held the child when greeting arriving relatives, something he had never done with the children by his first wife.

  The relatives from both sides—paternal and maternal, close and distant—almost had to admit that they had never seen a child as beautiful as Que; that he deserved the pride felt by the entire family; and that, if, in this life, an old and lonely father like Mr. Quang could have such a child, then millions of people could dream about such happiness for themselves.

  All that happened under his father’s roof reached Quy’s ears, giving pain to his vengeful heart. His words—half sober, half inebriated—could not hide his toxic bitterness. People understood that imprisonment had not brought an awakening to the son, but, on the contrary, had exacerbated bitterness toward the father.

  The nightmare of the “father-son war” lingered; it haunted the people continually. In the dark night, the residents of Woodcutters’ Hamlet would look up to the dark cloud-covered skies, and worriedly sigh.

  That next New Year, Quy gave away in marriage both his daughters at one time. The wedding ceremony took place just when Quy’s wife was packing her clothes to go to the district to have a baby. Her small belly was in the eighth month. And their fourth child came just as the “presentation” ceremony of the daughters ended. It was a boy and they named him Chien, or “Fighter”—a word that embodied the father’s wish as well as his determination. Chien was just nine months when Quy’s wife again became pregnant. The following year she gave birth to another son, named Thang, or “Victorious,” also a name full of implication. That same year, the two daughters gave life to two little girls, the older sister one month, the younger sister the next. The two granddaughters were just weaned and barely a year old when the girls again became pregnant, their faces as green as leaves. The babies drank bad milk, constantly coming down with diarrhea. So this family became a reproductive assembly line, ignoring all neighbors’ opinions. With two weak-willed sons-in-law, even though the father had lost his position, he was still intimidating, so Quy’s dream that “our family is big, we can fart all together and collapse the roof of their house” became a reality.

  Nevertheless—because reality always kicks in with the word “nevertheless”—nevertheless, while working to put his crazy dream into action, Quy did not plan the logistics necessary for such a large army. The sons-in-laws’ families were poor, classified among those that regularly received assistance from the village. Very poor, yet they had the carefree habits of those who might live or who might not, as the elders said in the old days: “If my meat is raw, I’ll eat it raw; if it’s well cooked, I’ll eat it, too.”

  The new in-laws had not even a penny to their name. From the betrothal to the “new age banquet,” there were only cookies, candies, and tea, and still they had to borrow from neighbors, and after the day of “presentation,” Quy’s wife had to slip envelopes to her daughters so that they could cover the debts. After each “presentation” ceremony, the young couples returned to stay with the in-laws because they could not afford their own private room. On the wedding night, the parents-in-law had to relinquish their only bed to the newlyweds, taking a bamboo settee out to th
e veranda to sleep. Thus Miss Mo’s and Miss Man’s families shared the five-room house of their parents. Each family had two rooms, while the fifth was for storage of all their farm products as well as farming equipment. With such an outstanding record of procreation, Quy’s family suddenly fell straight down, from the kind that lives on wealth to the kind that struggles to move forward while mired in the mud of poverty. The money saved vanished like dry leaves blown away in a winter’s tornado. Quy’s stamina was not that robust; nor was his business acumen. For the previous three years Quy tried only to stabilize his family’s economic situation. Under his dominion, the two sons-in-law were docile; they listened to him. But the head of this family had no experience in production and the sons-in-law, born and raised in indigent families, were hopeless. Many people lived in the “big” house. One would think that the circumstance could have brought warmth, vitality, ample rice paddies, and much cash flowing in as well. But fate did not smile on Quy; the genie of good fortune was grinding its teeth and throwing cold water in his face.

  For several years in a row, even though the cassava was planted separately for family appropriation and the earned labor points were sufficient, whatever might have brought Quy some cash totally failed. During the mushroom season, only the three men went up into the woods to scavenge, as the women in the family were either expecting or had just had a baby. With one child on the hip and another on the back, caring for the children exhausted them. That no women were available to dry and bag the mushrooms left Quy and his two sons-in-law in charge, and a significant part of the harvest was ruined. The endeavor that should have brought in the most money—beekeeping—was also a disaster. First, Quy’s bees had diarrhea. Then they had green fungi growing on their backs, and in only one day the infection had spread all the way to the base of the wings, causing them to fall off. The hive died out.