The Zenith

by Duong Thu Huong

  How could it be that the idealism of his youth and the idealism of so many others who had sacrificed for the revolution had come to this miserable end? How could it be that the blood of so many people had been spilled, so much gold and wealth contributed by so many generous people spent, to produce a filthy and inhuman government like this? That filth and inhumanity were well known to him, but still he wants to believe that only a few in the machine of dominance are contaminated. Such power struggles are the curse of humanity; they strip away all good attributes and leave only corrupting greed, conniving plotting, and perpetration of cruelty. However, he does not want to admit that the entire society, in which he had placed so much hope, is immoral and sneaky. Nevertheless, it had been a gamble for which he and so many others of the same generation had pawned their whole lives. It was a joint undertaking, a communal pregnancy. What mother would acknowledge that she has given birth to a monster?

  In hearing these stories, this troubling doubt from the mouths of total strangers, Vu understands that what he has suspected with fear during many sleepless nights is seen by the public as a visible and present truth. But he, like someone confined in a quarantined palace, can see only rebels as the walls collapse and fire breaks out on all four sides.

  Bending his head to look thoughtlessly at his fingers, Vu sees that his nails are long and untrimmed; he clicks one with another.

  Le Phuong looks at the gesture, smiles, and continues: “Now you understand why we choose to be playboys, satisfied with a small life and its tiny pleasures. It is also the way that the old folks called ‘to live while hiding.’ Because right after the liberation of the capital, we knew that the ‘Great Task’ had been wrongly done; that the love boat had foundered; and that dreams had been illusions. The day we started on the road of resistance, all had the same dream. A revolution for a backward society or a people in slavery is to be a great cleansing—like a storm that sweeps away all the garbage and brings after it a new life of fortitude. For that reason, people accept death on its behalf. To be precise: people will die for their mountains and rivers because of a brighter future. All real revolutions always liberate productive forces and expand the space of freedom. But this revolution, aside from what it did to emancipate the people, neither brought freedom nor expanded productive capacity; on the contrary, it totally destroyed all the valuable culture that had made our nation, while also destroying its productive capacity. The land reform was actually a systematic and organized slaughter of all talented and effective people in the rural areas. Thus, from the social point of view, this revolution accomplished only a disgusting dredging up of layers of mud from the bottom of the pond to pollute its surface. With that mud came the dead bodies of frogs and toads along with junk and weeds.”

  He stops talking. Vu feels as if he has been slapped by someone; a strong blow. But the fellow had not taken aim at him personally. He had only announced a truth. A truth that is the price to be paid for putting one’s neck in a noose when young; a price paid by so many other young men who had died without justice following a hallucination. When the writer spoke about this, his eyes were so sad; the pronounced wrinkles on his face deepen when he does not smile. Are his lighthearted and silly stories really a way to disguise a huge disappointment? A disappointment for an entire people!

  All three of them fall silent. The other customers had left long before; there are now only three waitresses, busy plucking their eyebrows.

  Tran Phu comments: “Those three girls must have just come from the countryside. If we stay here longer, they will take off their shirts to pluck the hair under their arms.”

  “Yes, don’t rule out that possibility. Because they have no need to pretty up or play coy for three old men.”

  “Have we really turned into some torn rags?”

  “Not quite, if we look at it more objectively. The merchandise can still be used if it meets up with ladies in their thirties and forties. But these ones are very young and fresh, about sixteen or seventeen at the most—the age of our own children and grandchildren.”

  “Oh, old age! Old age sneaking up behind our backs. Hey, Brother Vu, what is your take on old age?”

  “I embrace it and live with it peacefully, to the extent I can.”

  “That’s a smartly masterful reaction,” Tran Phu says, then he stands up. “Well, it’s almost time for supper, the patient must now return to his room. Le Phuong, will you accompany Vu back to the treatment ward? I will settle the bill and catch up with you.”

  As Vu and the writer step out to the yard, they hear Tran Phu loudly call out to the girls: “Hey, if you want to groom yourselves, you should find an appropriate place. This is not the place to display womanly utensils.”

  Hearing no one reply, Tran Phu suspects the girls are afraid to answer. A little later he catches up to the other two. They leisurely return to the building reserved for high-ranking cadres then part ways at the foot of the stairs.

  “We wish you, Great Brother, a speedy recovery. Today, meeting a hero, I am completely satisfied,” says the writer to Vu.

  When Vu gets to his room, he sees a group of nurses surrounding the doctor, a mature woman in her fifties. They had carried in an artificial breathing machine for the patient in the bed opposite his. His face is all pale; his eyes are shut tight; his lips are compressed, leaving only a dark line. Vu steps in just as the nurse puts the oxygen mask on the patient. He quietly walks behind them to his bed.

  4

  It rains again, the shy rain of spring.

  The drops fall singly, dropping lightly on the ground without bravado. Then it stops. The wind from the Eastern Sea rolls in and chases the wandering clouds across the deserted sky. Clouds the color of eggplant, reminding him of the garden in his birthplace, a home village that seems so faint and distant that no more than some delicate and mysterious memories remain. The purple reminds him also of the fields in Provence where people grow the fragrant herb called lavender to make perfumes and soaps. The first time he had ever stood before such a vast and purple field, his soul had frozen still before the beauty of the foreign land. And he had then cried silently in his heart:

  “Oh, when will our local fields and the vast and sunburned hills of central Vietnam be covered by such an exquisite blanket? Oh, when will the peasant farmers of my country walk in their fields with the tranquil faces of those in this country? Oh, when will the kids who watch cattle in our country be dressed properly like those kids here who leisurely walk their cattle in the shadow of poplars lining the roads? When and when?”

  For many months and years, his heart raged over these questions. For many months and years, he was obsessed by a parallel image—a comparison that was painful and that could not be forgotten: the leather shoes and warm socks of French farmers seen next to feet that were cracked, with muddy black nails, with toes that were crooked because for a thousand years they had had to take hold in the muddy fields. That pair of images had followed him like a shadow, appearing to him during noontime dreams or when he was tossing and turning in the middle of the night; when he was sitting in jail as well as when perched honorably on a dais. His suffering people. The hard fate reserved for them by the Creator. So many tears he had shed over that bitter destiny. Everything he had tried to do had been in the brave hope of changing their condition.

  “I love my people so much. Why don’t they love me? Why can’t they give me just a tiny bit of happiness, the same as in other, ordinary lives?”

  “Oh, the people: it’s an abstract concept, a formless crowd, a cacophony of the sea breathing, the pounding knocks of the waves of time. Those who have prevented you from living as a true human should are your very close comrades, but most of all it was my own fault because I took up the role of a saint.”

  “But my nation is small and weak. To have stimulated their trust and courage, could I have acted differently?”

  “You chose the easier path, one most appropriate for your people’s intellectual capacity. That is why you have had
to pay a price. The game of playing the saint is not a new one in human history. What altar has not been decorated with fake flowers, even though, in the past, it was made from silver or brass or, today, of pliable plastic and synthetic diamonds? Every game has its price. In this life, nothing is given free.”

  The one in dialogue with him has the last word, with a teasing smile on his lips. Then he disappears with the wind; a warm and wet wind that leaves him cold, making him shiver. He casts his eyes as if he could follow the unfortunate fellow, as if he had come from the left side of the temple, crossing the yard and the cherry blossom garden. Then he had disappeared in the same direction. That fellow looked exactly like him, but with a complexion greenish like a banana leaf and a look full of contempt.

  “Mr. President, please come in, you are cold.”

  The chubby guard is already behind his back; the sudden voice quite startles him.

  “All right, I will come in,” he replies with a little anger that he does not want to show. Whether he likes it or not, he is under surveillance from all sides. Not a minute of freedom. His life belongs to the people. His health belongs to the people; his time belongs to the people. Is there nothing left for him? The game is really wicked!

  Dong, dong, dong…The temple bells suddenly ring repeatedly, briskly, one after another. Dong, dong, dong…

  He turns around and asks the guard, “Why is the temple bell pealing like that?”

  “I forgot to tell you that the abbess herself is presiding over the cleansing ceremony for Mr. Quang. The temple bells will ring and there will be more chanting than usual. Please be sympathetic, Mr. President.”

  “Here we are staying on temple land. They may do what they please.”

  “Yes, but nonetheless…”

  “What kind of ceremony? I did not hear clearly.”

  “The cleansing away of bad fate and the dust of life for the deceased.…The woodcutter from the hamlet has been dead for forty-nine days now.”

  “Already forty-nine days? So fast.”

  “Yes. Yesterday the hamlet chief came all the way up to ask that Brother Le permit Mr. Quang’s family to come up here for the ceremony. When they come up, the company will increase security.”

  “Here, really it is their business. Increase security for what? To make sure that I don’t fall down before the woodcutter’s widow? Otherwise, why would the country people want to harm a president?”

  That hidden thought runs through his mind, like a joke and a question.

  “Please have some tea while it’s hot.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Will you place the rocking chair near the door for me…There, I can read the paper with the natural light.”

  While drinking his tea the president thinks that in a little while he will see clearly the woodcutter’s whole family, first the oldest son. This story has become an ongoing obsession since he first learned of it. An uncontrollable curiosity gives him this need to look at the personalities revolving directly in the tale of this mismatched couple. “So, you thirst to see the faces of these people as a mirror reflecting back your own life. A perfect reflection but from an opposing vantage point. For the woodcutter was no saint. He lived out only an ordinary destiny. He conquered all the misfortunes that he had a chance to encounter, while you were vanquished under the awning of power and glory. A silent, wretched, defeat.”

  “Mr. President, is it OK like this?”

  “Back up a little bit. Better if they don’t see my face. That would be distracting to both sides.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that Le’s voice?”

  “Mr. President, precisely. Brother Le brings reinforcements. The woodcutter’s family will arrive after these soldiers.”

  “Tell Le that I am reading documents. Have him put the men outside; no need to come in to greet me.”

  “Yes.”

  The chubby guard glances at the chair to see whether it is properly placed then goes out to greet the augmented force. Carrying the stack of documents to the rocking chair, the president takes the best position from which to observe the mourners who will pass before him as they proceed to the principal hall of the temple.

  The air fills with the smell of incense. The sound of a wooden gong rises loudly after the bells stop ringing. He hears soldiers’ footsteps. They line up in a row right in front of the hall. All are solemn like wooden statues, facing the far side, their backs turned toward his room, where the door is half closed, half open to hide the person sitting inside. Perhaps Le has guessed his wish, because he stands in some out-of-the-way corner. His absence makes it more comfortable for the president.

  The sound of bells arises again to announce that the mourners are approaching the temple. The abbess steps out onto the patio, her two hands in lotus position to greet the guests. The first person he sees is not a member of the family but a monk definitely older than fifty. Behind him are two more monks, then comes Mr. Quang’s oldest son, Quy. The president recognizes him at first glance and is somewhat disappointed. His appearance creates no impression. A small man with uneven shoulders, his face is pointed. It exhibits no feature of the father nor the slightest evidence of masculine charm. He wears an old winter uniform, which is usual for village cadres. He does not have a beard, nor a sharply defined jaw. Even his gait is strange, exactly like that of women who must accept the fate of singers or actors; it is both twisted like a slithery snake and on tiptoe like a sparrow. Even though he displays such a sad and weak physique, the oldest son emanates a dangerous power that is hard to describe or explain. “Here is a model of the pseudo warrior,” the president thinks. “His movements look like dancing steps but they are aimed at where his opponent is most vulnerable. When making his move, he can finish an opponent most unexpectedly. In other words, this kind of warrior never enters the ring; this kind of swordsman does not appear by day but, in the dark, puts his enemy down with a stab from behind. This type of person will never retreat from any obstacle blocking his ambition, giving no heed to conscience or the contempt of others. But Quy’s guardian angel lacks the clout to help him succeed, so the struggle of one without a father only spawns malnourished and neglected offspring.”

  So he quietly thinks as he watches the family come forward, all dressed in white mourning clothes and lined up according to lineage rank. Behind the family comes a group of old men and women. They must be close relatives of the deceased. At the end is the young wife and her child with a good-looking young man that he guesses to be the student Quynh. This group leaves no special impression.

  The president instinctively closes his eyes. A fixation returns him to the image of the oldest son, who is already inside the temple.

  “Such a pitiful and weak son adamantly opposing his father; using his position to turn him into a slave? How absurd is life? Someone living under the protection of the family head but who wants to apply his own power over him: Is this a unique madness or a common denominator of all species? Do all children have to kill their fathers and do all grown animals have to eliminate the old ones in search of food? Are humans and wild animals not so far apart?”

  Beyond the patio, the bells slowly ring. One set stops as another continues; the vibrations overflow the mountain ridges and penetrate the empty spaces around Lan Vu Temple with waves of magical enchantment. The temple patio is deserted as everybody is inside. Left are scattered yellow leaves in piles. The president looks at the blue sky to find an answer, but none is available. Because he has no direct evidence, because he loved his own father, and because he has no need to fight for power with, or to destroy, the one who gave him life, he does not believe that all of humanity has such a need.

  “Perhaps because I left the family too early, and I always missed my father, therefore in my heart there is only longing and sadness. Millions of others live tranquilly with their parents. A drama as in the woodcutter’s family is the first such that I have heard or seen. There are children who are filial and others who rebel and are ungrateful. But
if ambition turns you into a warring and blood enemy of your parent, you would be abnormal. If deep father-son affection still exists, then those who so love ignore those who are of different blood and cold hearts.”

  At the end he finds that he has returned to his familiar purgatory, to the tribunal where he is both judge and defendant.

  From the temple, the noise of the group chanting rises. The wooden gong sounds in regular measure to mark the song of the bells, mixing with the chanting. Those in the temple are living as they wish and in their faith. They believe firmly that heaven and the divine saints understand their pure-hearted wishes; that they are freeing the deceased from all wrongs and all the shortfalls he had endured in silence, erasing his mistakes, and restoring the honor that had been stained. And last, to open the path that leads to Nirvana, which will receive the one that has left the earth. As for him, what faith does he live with now?

  A pain runs down his back, turning his thighs freezing cold. The president shuts tight the doors, turns to his room. He lies down. He never lies down at this time of day except when he is ill. Today he is not ill but he wants to lie down. He feels weary—a weariness both physical and mental. He cannot sustain, and does not want to, the bearing and activities of a warrior king. Nor does he even want to be a leader with endless strength, to work like a machine that will never rust.

  “All my life I have had to maneuver, to strive to work like a hard steel machine. But a man is not a machine. A man will rust out with time,” he thinks quietly, but before he lies down he glances at the clock on the wall and hesitates a moment because the clock only shows 9:30 in the morning.

  “At this moment, what’s the use of exemplary spirit in an old king who is confined? Enough. Accept the reality that my life has limits and my strength is not a stream that will flow forever. I am more than seventy. At this age I should not stick with any illusion. All my life I sacrificed for big dreams, the kind people often call ideals, or lofty goals. All my life I kept myself facing the altar at which people unselfishly offer up their youth as well as their fate. But in the end, I finally find that the ideal is also illusion. It’s like a mysterious castle standing in the fog on the other side of the river, enticing those on this side. People get out of their boats to swim over. But when they reach the far shore, the boats have split into broken timbers and there is no sight of the castle and its treasure. There is merely a deserted beach by the river’s edge; besides the crumbled mounds are a thousand pieces of broken glass that reflect rainbow-colored lights.”