The Zenith

by Duong Thu Huong

  “Why? Are you nostalgic for the past or do you regret things you ought to have done?”

  “No. Regrets are useless.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “I think yin and yang are unbound. You—a nemesis—bother to come visit as an honored guest. But all the advice given out in life is worthless because individuals are different.”

  “Right. Sheep graze grass and vultures devour corpses. But anyone governing a large kingdom with prowess or just caring for a small island must study the art of governing. Even Africans know how to retain sovereign power. You are a thousand times more intelligent than they: why you let subordinates push you to this extremity is something I would like to know.”

  “You have nothing else to do down in this sad and gloomy country? Have all the relatives of those you harmed up on Chinese soil really lost their smarts or come down with dementia? You think they will always remain silent in the presence of millions of innocent corpses?”

  “Believe it or not. Is it so important? The game is over. The chess pieces are back in their coffins. Now I am looking for new lands. You are an object that excites me. All excitement is linked to curiosity. But for thousands of years China and Vietnam have been enemy siblings. You and I, too.”

  “I find you pretty honest.”

  “Yin and yang take different paths; the game of being diplomatic—no longer useful.”

  “If you already confirm our kinship of brotherly enemies, why do you come?”

  “You ask a stupid question. I come because of that kinship.”

  “To give your power an official stamp; to prove that as head of state you are outstanding; to say that during all your life you were full and satisfied in every way and your personhood was always on a pedestal looking down on the interests of your country. That is why you never hold your hands back from any kind of destruction. That is also why you became the ‘Great Helmsman.’ Because your people are so used to worshipping great ones who stand on arches of triumph built from human bones. Given that you want to stand on a high pedestal, the higher the pile of human bones, the more beautiful the result. And, finally: Is this the best way to educate those who want to be kings?”

  “In reality, it is. Now, you are extremely intelligent. I came here to advise you or to humiliate you—however you want to see it! Because always, words just whore; a gentleman from the southern capital or from the northern one just jumps into bed. I am here to teach you that acting the role of a king is day and night different from the skills displayed by any old actor. You should study acting or else retire to the calm life of ordinary people ‘under a thatch roof; two shining hearts.’ To be king, such work demands different behavior. Rulers can never forget two basic rules. The first thing is to be able to release your semen perfectly. This is hygienic for the body and must be done to keep the brain clear and the blood flowing. The second thing is to know how to use the blood of others in cleaning the steps to the throne. Because blood is the only liquid that can water the garden where the fruit of power and glory grows. Do you see any tree that is not watered producing leaves and fruit? These are the two golden rules by which to nourish the mind and body and to preserve the throne. Kings and mandarins in years past all knew how to apply these two principles. And you can’t. Worse: you went against them. This was the biggest mistake in your life. This fault not only destroyed your life’s work but also pushed you into a life of imprisonment. Imprisonment on two fronts: your body suffering from clotted blood and your mind in agony because you are in the state of being used. Your subordinates used the Kwangchou rest house as a place to tie down your legs. If I am not mistaken, you were settled in there about six, seven months, started to get used to the terrain, to like the food there, to love looking at pretty local girls. So why did they send you here?”

  The president is silent. A misty white shroud from the ghost shadow flows toward him. His face goes frigid, especially his cheekbones.

  Realizing that there will be no reply, Chairman Man smiles and continues: “Oh, I am just joking when I ask. How would you know? The bowl holds the fish; the cage the bird.”

  Then, shaking his head as if in pity, he waves his hand and disappears.

  Loud knocks on the door startle him. The hands of the clock are lined up on the number twelve.

  “It’s lunchtime already.”

  “I have a headache,” the president says. “Just leave the food on the table and return to your company.”

  “Yes.”

  The president continues to lie down but he is nervous. Ten minutes later, he stands up, washes his face, and steps beyond the bedroom. Some cozies cover the bowl of rice and several stir-fry dishes set for him on the table, but the nutritionists and the doctor still stand out in the hall. They have not dared return down the mountain but have gathered behind the guard booth, contemplating the temple scenery. On the other side of the patio, the din of the wooden gong and the little bells intermingled with chanting continues. The president steps outside to inquire:

  “Why haven’t you returned down the mountain? It’s OK; later the guards can prepare my meal.”

  “Mr. President, we must do our duty.”

  “All right. If so, come in and prepare the meal for me then clear it away when convenient. Really, today, I don’t feel hungry.”

  “Dear sir, today the cook has made the eggplant-and-tofu dish and the stir-fried pumpkin blossoms that you like. Please, Mr. President, try to finish it.”

  “Fine…I will try,” he says. Sitting down before the tray of food, he suddenly remembers the words of Chairman Man:

  “You forget that those in the East hold chopsticks and distinguish ranks very clearly.”

  Holding up the black wooden chopsticks, he gazes at them as if seeing them for the first time.

  “Why make such a big point of it—the differences among those who hold chopsticks, or forks, or eat with their fingers? What is the meaning of any difference in habits?”

  That thought floats past him, passive without feeling, like a face strange and cold. He starts to pick up the purple basil scattered on top of the plate of eggplant and tofu. He has always enjoyed this dish. When he used to teach in Phan Thiet, his neighbor married a woman from the north; she had introduced him to eggplant with tofu. She had been a homemaker worthy of the name; she lived with the single aspiration of caring for her family and keeping their home tidy. Her husband, a savvy businessman on the north-south railroad, who, all year round, enjoyed banquet food and restaurants with his business buddies as well as those who owned government franchises, nonetheless admired his wife’s culinary skills. It was she who had exposed the bitter truth to him:

  “If you want to talk about dragons and phoenixes, be my guest; but if you are dirt poor, how can you ever have good food?” Then she raised her voice: “But even if wealthy, you may not know how to eat well. With your coffers full of cash, sometimes you still eat from containers and drink from vats; or waste your money bringing junk home.”

  Inadvertently, her frank words shamed him when he thought of the pride that people in his native region took over their shiny eggplants: it was nothing but a mask of confidence used to cover up their poverty. That merchant’s wife had also opened his eyes to see that people’s tastes differ according to customs and culture. She taught him how to appreciate good food. Eggplant cooked with tofu is one of the everlasting memories from his youth, connected to Phan Thiet villages with their hills full of lush vegetation and lonely Cham monuments on sun-bathed red sandy hillocks.

  One afternoon after he was done teaching, he was returning home at the same time as the respectable merchant. Before they had reached their common destination, rain started pouring. Both of them had to duck under the eaves of a prayer shrine. They may have been neighbors but they had never sat together or chatted with each other. Their relationship was based mostly on greetings politely exchanged by the fence. The rain provided an opportunity for them to talk. The merchant seemed open and friendly. When the
rain had stopped and it was almost dark, he said:

  “It may be too forward of me, but may I invite you over for dinner?…You are single; it might be inconvenient cooking for yourself.”

  “Thank you. I am used to living alone.”

  “I was single like you before I married. But we are neighbors; you have a career, I have mine. There is no relationship. You don’t compete with me nor I with you. It would be very good if we became close.”

  He had been amused because he had never met a merchant who spoke so “straight as a stick.” It put him in sympathy with the neighbor and he had accepted the invitation. After changing clothes, he went to the merchant’s house. The latter had stood at the gate to wait; a maid was feeding the youngest child in the compound’s yard. They sat at the table right away.

  “This is an ordinary meal. Because we trust that you are easygoing, therefore we presumed to invite you over. Please forgive us should there be any shortcoming.”

  The neighbor had then said, calling out to his wife: “Mother, you do not have to worry too much. Today it’s just a simple meal to open a relationship. Having a party for our guest in a few days would still not be too late.”

  He had been quiet, thinking to himself: “A simple meal like this is better than a New Year’s banquet in my home village.”

  The merchant’s dining table with its marble top was very large, but places had been set for only three. On the empty chair the host had put a vase full of large mums. This gigantic vase was more than a meter high and it presented itself more seriously than would another guest. It added elegance to the room and put everyone in a comfortable state of mind. On the table was a porcelain tureen of rice covered with a basket opposite a pitcher of wine brewed with many medicinal herbs. Seeing the dishes in the middle of the table, his mouth watered intensely. He swallowed quietly, but was unable to suppress this traitorous reflex. The wetness could not stop, because the flavors and the colors could not but excite. First was a spring hen braised in a clear broth of sunflowers, a bantam chicken with paper-thin skin, yellow with fat, coming with the nice fragrance of fresh shiitake mushrooms, which were left whole and surrounded the chicken like the petals of a chrysanthemum, one on top of another. There was a fresh whole fish with oranges swimming in the middle of a clear broth holding specks of chili flakes and minced coriander leaves. He had never seen fish with oranges so prepared; each flavor of spice was pronounced but all blended splendidly. On that night, as he recalls, he had eaten the oranges and fish as if he had been drinking soup. He had felt a bit ashamed but at the end he told himself, “A woman eats like a cat; a man like a tiger. I am full of youth.”

  He ate the next dish—braised garlic eggplant—in the same quick manner. In his village, people were used to eating eggplant slightly pickled or deeply immersed in salt –a hand-me-down recipe for all poor farmers, not only in central Vietnam but also in the north. There is a saying that makes fun of stingy, wealthy men harshly using their prospective sons-in-law:

  In five years of servitude to my future father-in-law

  Your mother has used up three vats of pickled eggplants.

  Please get me to the well quick, for I am dying soon

  Of thirst from eating her pickled eggplants.

  That meal had taught him that people could make something of this vegetable totally different from what he had known at home. The braised eggplant dish that evening had included crisp, deep-fried soft tofu, slightly burned cubed pork cutlets, and a bright red tomato sauce. In addition, there had been plenty of garlic, both fried and fresh.

  As he later walked along his paths of destiny, he had eaten dishes from East and West, but nothing ever compared with the flavor of the braised eggplant by the woman in Phan Thiet.

  “Mr. President, please start your meal before it gets cold.”

  The group of soldiers who have done the cooking are still outside the window, still looking at him.

  “I will eat now,” he replies, then mechanically picks up some braised eggplant. He smells the garlic, the grape and perilla leaves, the fried tofu, the grilled pork, the eggplant fried in lard. But these smells do not come close to the ones he knew before. They are only a faint reminder. His mouth does not water and the food tastes bland. His youth, too, is gone; gone, too, is a far horizon enticing him forward; gone, too, is his faith. And likewise the braised eggplant dish is no more. What is left before him, in an expensive gold-rimmed dish, is its ghost. A ghostly shadow of that evening meal a long time ago in Phan Thiet.

  “Mr. President, is the eggplant dish I cooked OK or is it undersalted?”

  “Good, very good. And the frying in lard was perfect, not too much, not too little,” he answers quickly, intentionally picking up some raw garlic and herbs to please the cook. The food sticks in his throat. He has to take some soup to wash it down. The cook still observes him attentively and respectfully. He tries to finish the bowl of rice, sticks his chopsticks into the second dish, and nibbles on the red fried pumpkin blossoms before placing his chopsticks down.

  “Please clear all this. The food is very good today but I am not feeling well. Maybe a headache. Your duty is successfully completed; I did my part poorly. Old age is something we cannot avoid.”

  “Mr. President, you did not finish one third of your food.”

  “When you reach my age, you will understand,” he says, making a gesture to pacify the group and to close the conversation. The on-duty doctor steps in to prepare his medications.

  On the other side of the temple, the sounds of nonstop chanting can still be heard. There was no stopping for lunch. “How can they endure all their lives such a strict regimen and still stay healthy?” the president thought to himself. “If I am not mistaken the founder of this religion lived until his eighties. What strength nourishes them besides their faith?”

  The sounds of the bells synchronizing with the chanting return him to reality. The congregation is praying for the soul of a father who had been assaulted by his own child. Is it performed genuinely with full regret by the guilty child or is it just for show? Further, if this father had not died abruptly by accident, and if he were alive with all the operative strengths of body and a clear mind, would the child still display heartfelt repentance?

  “Alas, the answer already comes to mind given the arrangement of the ceremony.”

  Suddenly, a curiosity arises in his mind: “When I die, will the cadres who betrayed me cry?”

  He imagines those people in a group standing on the platform in Ba Dinh Square, with of course everything being as it must. Above their heads would be the flag at half-mast, his portrait surrounded by a black border, and so many heartfelt and powerful slogans, such as:

  “From Generation to Generation We Mourn Our President, the Great Father of Our Mountains and Rivers,” “The President Will Forever Live in Our Hearts,” or, “The Country Survives; the People Survive. The Thoughts of Our President Are the Compass Showing Us All the Way.”

  Perhaps all those beautiful words will be used to praise his public achievements. Beautiful words cost least of all; they call for lots of saliva but very little morality and intelligence. Besides words, there will be music, because, always, music has been an effective charm and hypnotic. Will they not look for both old and new songs to make the national funeral more heart-wrenching? More tragic? Will they play the Sa Lech Chenh tune? Or the Nam Binh or Nam Ai song? The Ly Chieu Chieu or the Nghe Tinh marching style? Oh, what a country brimming with sad tunes to see people off to heaven. Suddenly he sees clearly before him events at their comedic best and so he imagines the delegation standing on the platform for his funeral, all using handkerchiefs to wipe away tears, real or fake.

  “They will be forced to pretend that they are crying but in their hearts will rise the loud noise of teeth grinding: ‘Why did you wait so long to die, you hunchbacked old man? We wasted so much building the public edifice to speed your passing over to the other side but your stubborn will to live hung on until this minute. Too mu
ch to endure…’”

  But they could also be crying real tears.

  “Tears mixed with salt really will roll down from their eyes, because they will cry first of all over their fate. Because they know for sure that someday they, too, will go down to the grave, the last place for every human life. A place for gathering in—common to all—that none of us can miss. There, they will have to face me!”

  That thought makes him shake his head, depressed. He quickly drinks a sip of tea because he fears the soldiers will notice his mood. They would think that he has lost his self-confidence, has become an old, enfeebled patient. Many times in the past he had passed on the streets of Paris old people who walked while talking or laughing to themselves. He thought: “Pity to watch the old ones.”

  Now could such pity be directed his way? A muffled laugh rises in his thoughts: “If only I could laugh to myself and talk to myself as they did!…But—the worst thing is that I don’t even have that much freedom. Even worse, my memory is not fatigued from traveling over the years. It refuses to sink into the fog. It does not want to fade with age. The biggest punishment for a person is to have their old body house a sharp memory. Memory forces me to live in hell day after day. Memory is the one who builds you a permanent court of justice. Memory is the one at your side from whom you cannot run nor can you dare repudiate. Without our memories, would not life be lighter?”