The Zenith

by Duong Thu Huong

  Everyone gasps in agreement.

  “Of course!”

  “It’s so simple yet no one had it figured out.”

  “We all are in debt to you, Comrade. As they say without exaggeration, ‘When the frog opens its mouth, it’s well worth a listen.’”

  All of a sudden everyone is talkative; now everyone can breathe. Every face is now at ease. In the end, they have found a way out. The opinion of the Battalion 3 commander is a light at the end of the tunnel. Not a single person contests his idea. The deputy division commander reaches across the table, taps his shoulder, and says:

  “Marvelous!”

  An looks around and secretly tells himself: “You Meo son of a bitch! In the end, you are the one marked as having changed names—not me. Now the sentence has been pronounced: you are the murderer. And so we end with the truth—that was the way it was.”

  As an irony of fate, in his ear he can hear the lyrics of “The Wild Rooster”:

  Wild Rooster,

  Why are you eating in the company of peacocks?

  Why are you deceitful, O Wild Rooster?

  Right after the meeting, An returns to the underground bunker, slings himself down on the bed, and goes to sleep. Even at lunchtime he does not wake up. The deputy company commander comes and pulls him up.

  “Are you sick? To the point of skipping your meals?”

  “No, I am not, but I am extremely sleepy. It looks as if I’m going to catch malaria again.”

  “Get up and have lunch. The kitchen says you have skipped breakfast this morning.”

  “My tongue tastes bitter.”

  “I have with me here some malaria prevention medicine for you. But you cannot take it unless you have a full belly.”

  “Well then, I’ll try. Getting sick at this point will inconvenience everybody. Let’s go. Have you eaten?”

  “I waited for you. Today the cooks found some wild vegetables. And there is some broth to go with them.”

  “Are the guys in our company done eating?” An asks, then buttons up his shirt and walks out of the bunker.

  His deputy follows him and answers lackadaisically: “After the meal the guys went back to their quarters to play cards or catch some sleep. They don’t have anything else to watch. Out at the stream, the on-duty guards have collected the material evidence and taken it to division headquarters.”

  “Is that so…”

  An bursts out laughing at the way his deputy has replied. He then asks another question: “Has the leadership given an explanation as to what happened?”

  “Not enough time for them to come up with one. But the guys overheard things and already have a good idea. The information went from the division headquarters down to the battalions, then it went from the battalions down to the companies—just like an arrow.”

  “That’s because we’re here in the forest.…What is there to divert them?”

  “Yes, they had to wait a couple of years before they could have a night of entertainment. Who would have thought that with it would come a murder?”

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  “I believe a hundred percent. They dare not say it but everyone believes it to be so. In the battlefield who can say he will sidestep the bullets? It’s the bullet that chooses its victim. If it were not for fate, how could it be that a bullet would hit this one and not another in that same place at the same moment?”

  “Fate is something that exists and that doesn’t. For if people truly had a choice, they would never willingly take themselves to the battlefields to face arrows and bullets.”

  “Ah, this question, if one were to trust the fortune-tellers, relates to the destiny of a nation, a common fate that belongs to a collective. The destiny of a nation turns on whoever leads it, not on ordinary soldiers or common people like us. In the old days, it depended on the king or emperor. Today, it turns on the president.”

  “If you are right, then our president must have a truly rotten horoscope to have led our people into living deep in the jungles and forests like we do now.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that. Please, Comrade, don’t put things in my mouth,” the deputy company commander mumbles, his face turning pallid.

  An reassures him: “Don’t be afraid. I am the one who said that, not you. Neither am I intelligent enough to raise such issues. I heard it from a Vietnamese astrologer who has lived many, many years in Laos. I have merely repeated what he told me.”

  “Yes,” the deputy replies and then, lowering his voice: “Do you know, I have heard one person say exactly the same thing. But he was not an astrologer, he was a historian.”

  “Yes, a historian also must have a brain full of pebbles like an astrologer. We are approaching the dining hall, though. Let’s keep this between you and me.”

  “Yes,” his deputy answers, almost in a whisper.

  After they are through, the clock shows 1:30 p.m. Only two of them remain in the five huge wood-built dining halls. Outside, the sun is shining full blast everywhere. A gentle breeze runs across the range of trees, which are heavy with scintillating leaves on which dew still hangs in the thick leaf funnels. On the edge of the forest, wildflowers are in gorgeous bloom. The deputy company commander looks at the petals, which are like butterflies displaying their vying colors, vermillion and purple, then sighs:

  “How I miss my home! These flowers make me remember the mustard fields along the river. In the spring the mustard flowers bloom yellow, attracting butterflies in the thousands. When young I used to run after my mother to go out and pull up those mustard plants. Then, when we were of marriageable age, we went out to various festivals in the first month, and we could find these yellow mustard flowers all along the foot of the dike.”

  “Right, I remember a folk song of the ethnic Vietnamese:

  ‘The first month is for having fun all month,

  The second is devoted to gambling and the third to drinking.’”

  “Yes, that’s a folk song from way back. When I was home we would try to get people to work starting with the fifth day of the first lunar month. But even as they worked in the fields, they would find ways to hold spring festivals, for that was the custom.”

  “It’s the same way with us in the mountains. We prepare various kinds of cakes, make crispy honeyed rice balls, then play cards all of the first month. Even when we don’t have festivals, there is not much to do since it drizzles all day long. At that time of year, the rice is maturing while the weeding is done in the dry cassava fields.”

  “Up there do the festivals last as long as they do in the lowlands?”

  “Not as long but enough for people to have fun all around. After the Spring Music Festival is over, we call on one another to go see the Ball Throwing Festival of the Thai, then the Khen Playing Festival of the Meo. Only the strongly built young men in the village, equipped with good steeds, dare go far. As for the women, all year ’round they stay in the village.”

  The two fall silent for a long while. Then the deputy asks, “When will the war be over?”

  “When?” An echoes.

  No one has an answer to that difficult question. A moment of silence follows. All of a sudden, the deputy company commander asks:

  “Do you remember Tiny-Eyes Toan?”

  “Of course. He’s the buffoon in Company One. Wonder whether his bones have disintegrated by now? It’s been over two and a half years. And there the soil is humid all year ’round with dew settling, intermittent mountain rain, and moss-covered ground all the way from the foot of the cliff down to the gulley below. In that kind of soil no bones can remain intact.”

  An does not hear his deputy reply. Turning, he sees the man bite on his lower lip, his face smeared with plentiful tears. His shoulders quiver in waves as if he has malaria. An looks around but luckily there is no one to see them at that moment. After clearing the tables, the kitchen staff had gone back to their chamber to nap. The only souls stirring are probably just the chirping birds in the nearby forest. Raisin
g his hand to console his companion by rubbing his back, An says:

  “It’s very good that you can cry like that. Go ahead and get some relief.”

  A second voice is heard in his own soul at the same time: “You are lucky to be able to cry with me. As for me, I can only cry by myself. And I will have to do so till the end of my days…”

  The two of them sit there until the deputy gets hold of his emotions. On the other side of the grass clearing one can see vague images of naked soldiers. Surprised, An asks:

  “What are they doing over there?”

  The deputy blows his nose and answers, “They are scooping the gulley water to bathe.”

  “Why don’t they go over to the stream? It’s very easy to catch a cold bathing with gulley water. By now the springwater has had time to warm up a bit.”

  “Have you forgotten that our division commander has just drowned? This morning they all rushed out to watch right and left.”

  “The water flows unceasingly, washing everything downstream. Besides, the stream flows through so many areas, how can one count all those who have drowned from its source down to its lower reaches?”

  “That’s true…But our commander died right here, at this stream, so the guys are very afraid. Maybe, being a mountain person, you do not know the fears of us ethnic Vietnamese.…We people from the Red River delta or in other river valleys are all obsessed by the unceasing and wicked pursuit by water ghosts. According to our legends, water ghosts are the innocent souls of those who have drowned. For when they are forced by others to drown in the rivers, they have a chance to escape from hell, and can reincarnate into another life on earth.”

  “Is that so,” An answers. And a second voice arises in him: “If that were the case, then the first one to have been forced to drown would have been me. For it’s not just one water ghost but two who would look for a common enemy to take in exchange for their lives. But for a long time now I have no longer known fear. Fear has long since abandoned me, both in my soul and in my brain.”

  An stands up and says, “I feel so much like taking a bath. Would you want to go to the stream with me?”

  The deputy looks at him, flabbergasted. “Me?…I had a bath yesterday afternoon.”

  An laughs and tells him, “There’s no fear. I just need you to sit on the bank and watch me take a bath. If we cannot get rid of this superstition, how can we solve regular problems in the lives of our soldiers? Should more than a thousand guys have to fight for a few drops from this tiny gulley—not much more than a cow’s piss—they will surely come to blows. While this stream, nay this river, is left untouched. I just don’t believe in water ghosts.”

  “Yes.”

  “Follow me.”

  “Yes.”

  The deputy answers An mechanically, then he also follows him mechanically. The two of them go to the bank of the mountain stream. Several groups of soldiers who have been in the forest follow them out of curiosity.

  Arriving at the stream, An loudly asks: “Who would like to come down here and have a swim competition with water ghosts?”

  “Sir, we are not all that courageous.”

  “Wait and see.”

  So saying, An takes off his clothes and steps into the stream. He goes all the way out to the middle and plunges down and resurfaces several times just like a professional athlete. So doing, he turns his eyes toward the white foaming Thundering Elephant Falls.

  “No one is suffering more than I right now. No despair is deeper and heavier than the one right now in my heart. Thus, no force can stop me before I take this revenge.”

  The soldiers on the bank clap their hands. Seeing An smile, they clap even louder because they think he is laughing with them. But in actuality, he is laughing at the bitter fate that has befallen him.

  3

  In the fall of the year Quy Ty (1953) An had been stationed in Tuyen Quang. When a relative in the people’s labor force who carried provisions saw him, she eagerly told him:

  “Little One has been presented to the president king, do you know that? The revolutionary organization had found an ethnic Vietnamese for him but he prefers our Little One, so by now your sister-in-law has become the queen, do you know that? Her name has now been changed to Chi Thi Xuan. The twelve families in Xiu Village changed their family name to Chi after they learned the news.”

  At the time An had been in the army for two years. For two full years he had not had one single piece of news from home. This run-in with his relative made him happy for months. His joy was like a slow-burning coal, which kept the fire going without getting extinguished.

  On that very day, An went to his battalion commander and said, “Report to the leader: from this moment on I am no longer Nong Van Thanh but Chi Van Thanh.”

  “Why?” asked the surprised battalion commander.

  “Because my uncle who is the chairman of the village committee has so decided. My village contains only twelve households, so whatever he decides, the people in the village just do as told. A relative whom I’ve just met told me so.”

  “Is your relative among those serving in the people’s labor force being bivouacked right in front of our camp?”

  “Yes. That’s precisely true.”

  “Nonetheless, there must be a reason to change one’s name or family name. For who would suddenly decide on something like that, out of nowhere?”

  “I report to you, sir, there surely must have been a reason. But that reason is known only to my uncle and the old learned scholars in our village. We, as the younger ones, are not entitled to ask,” An smilingly responded.

  So seeing, the battalion commander also laughed along and said, “That’s OK. We’ll respect the decision of the local leaders.”

  So saying, he quickly gave an order to his assistant. The latter took out the unit registry, rubbed out the word “Nong,” and replaced it with “Chi.” That was it. In the maquis everyone was a volunteer joining the army to fight; nobody needed any advantage or privilege, and thus one’s wishes could be easily addressed. Additionally, he was from an ethnic minority and the minority peoples were the firm foundation of the August Revolution and of the protracted resistance. Every leading cadre knew this principle: “In all situations, minority cadres and fighters are entitled to privileged treatment.”

  “Our Little One has now become queen!”

  An’s joy at that fact had stayed with him throughout the remaining days of the resistance, together with his new name, Chi Van Thanh. It seems that the new name brought An much good luck even though no one in the battalion, from the officers down to the soldiers, quite knew the secret source of this good fortune. An was promoted beyond normal expectations because of his fighting valor. The luckiest stroke, however, was that, having gone through many battles, he was still whole, not even grazed by a bullet or anything else. He did not have a chance to meet with Little One although he knew that she had left Xiu Village to go and live in the government’s headquarters in the Viet Bac maquis. His pride in her lightened his soul. As far as he was concerned, she was like a little sister or even a daughter to him. He wasn’t quite sure. The ties that bound him to her were nothing like the normal ties between a brother-in-law and his wife’s sister.

  Nang Dong being his companion since infancy, when Little One was born it had been he along with Nang Dong who had taken care of her. Her father, Mr. Cao, who was multitalented and also lived a multifaceted life, had left the village and gone into the wide world until the age of forty-two, when he came back and married a beautiful girl twenty-three years his junior. When she died giving birth to Xuan, he was already over fifty. At that age no man could be expected to carry around a baby or feed it with bottle and milk. In his huge house the sawmill occupied the main room, the altar to his wife the outer room. As for the inner room, which was used as a kitchen, he had divided it with wooden partitions into three smaller ones. This is where the two children, then aged nine, had taken care of the half-orphaned sister, still red in a cradle. For two
full years An had lived in one of the three small rooms, the middle one being used for holding the baby’s cradle, and the last room reserved for Nang Dong. Mr. Cao slept right in the kitchen so as to keep the fire going. In front of the baby’s room a dish holding a candle burned all night. When the baby woke up it was either Nang Dong or he who would rise to change her diaper or feed her. In rare instances when they had trouble waking up, Mr. Cao would ring a bronze bell to shake them out of sleep. The sound of the bell ringing in the deep night left a memory that would never leave him; it was like some sort of rudimentary but lively music that joyously sounded in his childhood days. He also recalled with fondness the deep ceramic dish that held beeswax with a wick made up of rough cloth the size of a chopstick. The flickering light would project their silhouettes on the walls.