The Zenith (11 page)

They had to rely on such natural lights to walk. In about thirty minutes, they came to the stream. After crossing it, only a short descent remained until they arrived at the encampment. He asked the chief of staff:

“Last time I told you what you need to do when you cross a stream. Do you still remember?”

“Mr. President, you said…that…that…” He chewed on his words between his teeth. It made the president laugh.

“I reminded you to pee on both feet before you cross. That’s the old way to prevent arthritis which I once learned. Your generation is still young and doesn’t
know the laws of heaven. You all take your health for granted. But health is the big asset which we all need to preserve.”

“Mr. President, because my brain is thick, I learn now but forget later.”

“It’s not a question of education: it’s not a lack of intelligence but of taking precautions.”

The chief of staff smiled, then stepped rearward behind him, and put into practice what he had just learned. Hearing a loud sound of splashing urine, the president had a quick thought:

“For sure, he is healthy. Youth really is a time of paradise.”

It took them a while to feel their way across the stream, because the bottom was quite slippery, though the water was not that deep. The rocks were not sharp but the big ones here and there were quite mossy; one needed only a small false step to fall down. Having to go to the clinic was a real bother, especially in the deep mountains and forests, where not all equipment and medicines were available. This very real worry prompted him to always remind himself and others:

“This war is in a very difficult phase. We all must take care of our health. In other words, we have no right to get sick. Clinics and medicines should be reserved for wounded soldiers. Caring for your health to the utmost is discipline; it is the spirit of responsibility to the nation as well as to our own selves.”

In the middle of the stream, the chief of staff suddenly grabbed him:

“This spot is very slippery, let me hold your hand and lead the way.”

“Thank you, but I have passed the most dangerous spots.”

“Do you find the water too cold?”

“Cold or not, we are close to the bank.”

The president smiled and said: “Next time, if you mean well, you should ask to carry me before I put my feet in the water.”

“Oh, oh, oh…”

The young assistant had no way to answer so he cried out like a lamb.

In the darkness, a large group of people straggled forward into view.

“The president…the president has arrived…”

“The president has arrived.”

He raised his voice: “I am here!”

The group cried out and ran down to the stream, where the water was only about a foot deep. Water splashed all over the president’s clothes. Lantern light glistened back and forth on the water, and arms grabbed his shoulders, his back. One touched his shirt, another his shoulder. The president recognized these people by the smell of their sweat and breath.

“Are you tired, Mr. President?”

“Sure, I’m tired. But not so much that I have to ask you to carry me to camp,” he replied and briskly went up the slope. From here on, the forest was dense. Everybody uncovered their flashlights. Between the two sides of the path, rays of light intermingled in front of him. He felt enthusiastic. He thought of the joy waiting for him. Meeting young people was relaxation to him, like recess for elementary students.

Ahead, lodgings were bright with burning lights. The door frames were burnt orange, a vibrant color in the night. The sound came of children singing to the beat of clapping hands. When he stepped forward, they all stood up and sang loudly to the clapping instead of using words of welcome:

All those fresh and youthful faces, those bright eyes, and the bright fires of that night…he remembers them clearly to this day. Was it because they had registered at the same time with one face, a couple of eyes, a smile as red as if it carried lipstick, a flock of shiny black hair? Was it because all this had registered at the same time with the image of her?

Oh, no, no!

Maybe time had dyed everything the color of a magical cloud. The truth is, that after that night, he hadn’t longed for anything else. The exact truth is, that when his sleep came on, he would recall that glorious night with a light and floating joyfulness: people singing, fires, the
xoe
dance of the mountain folk, and skirts fashioned from scintillating cellophane paper. A boy of about twelve had sung “Song of the Mountain Girl” in a marvelous tenor voice. And finally, a pair of clear brown eyes had looked straight at him across the fire.

Oh, those doe eyes, doe eyes!

His heart sang a high note of admiration:

“How could there be such beautiful eyes? I never saw any other such eyes. A rare gift from the Creator! Are not heaven and earth extraordinary?”

It is so true.

Exactly so true.

After that, he could not remember anything, as work had pressed down on
his shoulders. A campaign; then another campaign. A battle front collapsed on the east but expanded to the west. A vitally essential operation was put in motion. An opposing operation brought problems. A network of enemy agents was discovered with half of its members caught and held in jail and the other half reduced to inactivity, widely dispersed or hiding in the shade. The internal situation gave rise to problems that needed redress. The country had a dire lack of culturally able cadres who could handle proselytizing missions and foreign affairs.

He really did not remember anything else.

The months and years passed.

And so passed the vicissitudes of a life. Each life is like an uncharted river, with no one able to foresee its twists and turns, its corroded passages or filled embankments, where its waters will run calm and where they will become rough. Are we not each trapped in fate’s long, wide net? Are not the twirlings and turnings inside each of us nothing more than a clown’s performance?

If only he could have guessed his fate, he would have turned in another direction…If only he could have foreseen his future, he would have avoided heaven’s net.

But every “if only” is just a long sigh coming at the end. Every “if only” is like the sound of falling rocks. One hears the loud noise and the breaking only when the rocks are about to hit bottom. Who can raise hand or foot to stop rocks when they fall from mountaintops into deep ravines? Who?

This question might be a bit lame, and he does not want to believe he has a soft heart. The brave resolve of a revolutionary coupled with pride in dialectical materialism stops him from believing in fate. However, his continually nagging mind still awaits an answer. And the answer is buried in the fog along the horizon before him. Thus, whether he likes it or not, he still has to remember one occurrence, one point in time, when, suddenly, his aging heart was pierced.

That had been a fateful summer day.

That noon, General Long had invited him to review plans for an upcoming military campaign: the 1951 fall-winter offensive against French bases. He had been satisfied, from the beginning of the resistance up until that very moment, and felt he could now breathe lightly with relief as he thought to himself:

“The wheels start to turn. We have passed through the wobbling phase of the war, a phase with a thousand difficulties. This summer opens up a new phase.”

That summer was in the year of Tan Mao.

He had been born in a Tan Mao year. Summer had come late but was not too muggy. He had planned to wear a set of maroon civvies, but after a few minutes of pondering, he changed into a military uniform. He knew that in uniform he looked younger and more handsome. His slight carriage fit well with either civilian or military clothes. In uniform, though, he could easily assert his charm and power of attraction. In uniform, his features seemed fresher and softer, and in his mind all the songs of his youth rushed back. Those verses lingered on, hidden away within him and bringing him an elation that only he knew. After changing into uniform, he had told his bodyguard that he would go to General Long’s cave all by himself, a very short and familiar walk. He had wanted to reclaim for an instant the freedom that had been confiscated. A forest road, the sounds of birds, monkeys, leaves…but most of all, to walk alone, to think by himself, to admire the scenery by himself…such was truly happiness when one’s life was so tightly tied up with a group.

Completely happy, he walked briskly without paying any attention to his surroundings. About halfway along, suddenly someone cried out in panic:

“Stop! Please, Mr. President, stop!”

“Don’t take another step. Please, Mr. President, don’t!”

Looking up, he saw two girls dangling from a large branch of a fallen tree. They were frantically looking for a way down, their faces very red, their mouths spattered with fig grains. He knew they had been up there sharing the figs, so busy with eating them that they did not see the pedestrian inadvertently invading their world and breaking up their rare opportunity to snack well. When they had suddenly recognized him, they had no time to get down, therefore they had frantically called out to stop him. Then the pair desperately sought a way to escape.

“Be careful! Be careful or you will fall.”

It was his turn to cry out in fear when he saw the two of them hugging the tree, sliding down at one scoop like little monkeys.

“Careful!” He cried out and could not help smiling.

“Why don’t you come down slowly? Sliding like that, you might fall easily and tear your clothes.”

Now on the ground the two girls looked down at their roughed-up clothes.

“Mr. President!”

One girl spoke out and looked up at him.

The president was stunned: it was that pair of eyes! Those doe eyes; the final fixation on that night of celebration four years ago. He recognized the young
girl from years past who had stared at him across the fire. In an instant, the images, the colors, the sounds, the memories of that evening’s walk with the chief of staff were reborn. Completely. Revivified. After four years, suddenly the ashes of forgotten memories were cleaned away by a gust of wind.

“The late children’s festival. That night of celebration moved to the fourth day of the sixth month.” The thought moved like lightning. At the same time, a succession of thunderclaps exploded, pressing his head to burst open: “Then she was fifteen! Now she is nineteen!”

Yes, it was her!

It seemed that he had stood there silent for a long time, embarrassing the girls. They looked at each other, then at the tree, then down at the ground.

“We’re sorry, Mr. President!”

“We didn’t see you, sir.”

“We…”

He didn’t understand her babbling words. He only saw her delicate doe eyes, which looked like deep lakes or dewdrops dangling on a leaf, her curved lashes blinking incessantly like the fluttering of a sparrow’s wings. He saw clearly only her full red lips tainted with pieces of fig innards that highlighted her two rows of teeth as bright as pearls. He found her face filled with innocence but having as well that special seductive magnetism given by heaven to a woman who would be known as capable of “rocking the nation and upsetting a city.”

He cannot remember what he did to calm the girls down. He also cannot now remember how the girls bade him farewell and how they took their leave. He cannot remember now what he had said to her at the parting moment. His spirits had been topsy-turvy. His heart had beaten as hard as if he had been in his twenties. In that stormy state, sounds coming from all four sides had sounded like a huge choir singing around him—the singing of an invisible, imaginary crowd. Could it have been a forest ghost or a mountain god? The happy cries of a forest lord or dangerous screams from a gaggle of old sorcerers? A fleeting fear had made him stand still. He had stood like that for a while after the girls were long gone. He had listened carefully to the singing of the mysterious choir, had felt the air trembling and twirling, had seen gigantic and shapeless waves curve around and soar. Miraculous space was an ocean and he was a boat that had been thrown to the waves without his consent, without his calculation, without his hesitating…

A…a…a…

A…a…a…

He had listened to the sounds ringing from the four points of the forest, following him as a wake follows a ship that has been jolted and pushed into misadventure, some cruel melodrama authored by destiny.

That night he had written in his pocket diary: “Tan Mao Year.”

In the Mao month.

Noon. I had…

But even the most intelligently curious mind could not have completed the unfinished sentence.

“Mr. President, please come in for your meal.”

For a while now the chubby guard has been standing behind him.