The Zenith (15 page)

“Are you all right?” Vu suddenly asks.

The president understands that he has just put his hand to his chest to feel a pain in his heart: “Sometimes the tightness recurs,” he answers, smiling.

“With old age, everything is fixed in place, even death. Therefore, it’s smartest of all to learn to coexist with disease. And with disappointments…”

“First come the disappointments.”

They are silent. A floating moment spreads through the springtime, a moment when dampness mixes with sunlight to make a band of shining sea bubbles. They both hear a pair of larks singing somewhere. Then the chubby guard appears before the temple’s front door.

“Mr. President, the office just called to ask Chief Vu to go down to the landing field.”

“What time does the plane leave?” Vu asked.

“The office did not say when.”

“Please call them back to ask the exact time of departure.”

The soldier left immediately.

On the patio, the sunlight spreads like honey, calm and still yellow from the mountain peak. In that yellow, there is not the muggy environment often found in the low plains of the north, but a delicate, pleasant freshness, like the kind of fall weather found in Europe. He closes his eyes to find himself strolling along the river Seine when the leaves are changing color, where on both banks rows of reddish yellows and light reds burst into the sky like vibrant but fragile flames. The white bridges that appear out of the fog were not made for pedestrians but for painters and poets. He remembers the green slopes of Montparnasse; the lights along the streets, the arrows pointing to sidewalk cafés. Europe: part of his life happened there. He recognizes it by all the emotions that had been engraved deeply and permanently in his being, by the taste of cheap red wine on his tongue and the noise of the streets in his ears, by the remembrance of the colors of sunlight and sky. The warm memories of youth are tainted by the sadness of having been away from his country. When living there, he had recalled his homeland, missing it as a void, as a madness. Why now do his thoughts go back to that faraway land? Why now has it become something missing within him? Day by day that feeling is becoming more and more passionate, more and more filling his heart with emotion. So sad, so very sad! Nostalgic, so very painfully
nostalgic! Europe! Europe! Is it that Europe is only a subterfuge to remind him of his now finished youth? Maybe he recalls Europe because he recalls all the dreams unfulfilled, all the journeys not completed. Was not Europe a land with both foe and friend and thus a companion both silent and nagging, until the moment of burial? He felt very tightly and permanently attached to a land that did not belong to him. Is this his own private drama or is it some eternal pain for every person?

“Chief, the office says that the plane will take off at four p.m. sharp,” the soldier announces, reappearing.

Vu replies in a very curt manner: “Tell the office I will be down there at four; a five p.m. takeoff is not too late.”

“Yes, sir.”

The president waits until the soldier leaves and says to Vu: “Why are you tense with them? Functionaries are functionaries.”

“Sometimes we have to slap their face so that they remember who we are. Not everybody becomes their servant.”

“That is not the fault of the little people.”

“You forget that every golden lord was toppled by his closest guards; they may be little people but they have big dreams. You forget Quoc Tuy? He started out as a professional pickpocket in the Sat market. He was whipped close to death because he did not give up his share to the boss. One night he sneaked in and stabbed his boss, who was in bed at a brothel. He then left his hometown and wandered south to become a plantation worker. There, he got class consciousness and chose to follow the revolution. He became Sau’s follower when the two shared a bunk in the Son La prison.”

“I thought he was much younger than Sau.”

“Exactly so. They are at least a dozen years apart. In prison, Sau turned himself into Quoc Tuy’s protective mentor. That’s how they treated each other. Quoc Tuy cleaned his pot, washed his clothes, and even scratched Sau’s back. That’s why Sau later appointed him minister of the interior. That was the most important ministry, with the most power; everybody knows that. At that time, many comrades saw the danger and protested, but Sau repressed them without mercy. His power was in knowing just how to use those whom you call little people. Then the time comes for the little people to use the littler people. The credentials most in demand are: uneducated, with a criminal record. Secondary credentials are being truly poor and stupid, of which the husband and children of that broad Tu of the fish market
make perfect examples. Those two kinds of people become Sau’s main pillars of firm support. They will do anything he wishes. Have you forgotten Brother Le Liem’s report?”

“Everything is too late.”

“Yes, too late!”

He hears his younger friend swallow, as if he is swallowing the rage in his throat. He wants to say something to Vu to comfort him but can’t find the words for it. What could he do for Vu and what could Vu do for him now, under the circumstances? No alternative is satisfactory. At least while they sit next to each other they gain some unspoken comfort to soothe the heartaches. On the patio, the wind blows and the trees look naked. The singing of wild birds on the far side of the ravine mixes with the high-pitched chirping of nightingales on the patio, creating a soft, natural mountain harmony. Why are the mountains and rivers so beautiful but the people’s hearts so sad? When had he turned criminal toward himself and toward those others bound up with him? Oh, this question has not ceased to torture his aging heart, and it will torture him until he dies.

Another gust blows by from the sky. The yellow leaves that it catches are spinning around the patio. It seems the air has turned colder; or is it the misty clouds surrounding the temple that make him shiver? The sunlight has muted into a weak yellow. It is very possible that a spring rain will pour down in a few minutes.

“You’d better get down the mountain, I am afraid it will rain.”

“Yes, I must go, as a lot of work awaits. Besides, the plane is only booked for today.”

He then looks straight at the president. “Elder Brother, please take it easy and rest. Everything is as usual. Although he lives in a distant place, the little one is an excellent student. He just won the Marie Curie math award in the all-city high school competition.”

“Thank you, brother.”

“There is another thing I need to tell you truthfully.”

“I am listening.”

“Trung is reaching the age of thinking for himself. To spare him pain, I told him that he is my own son, out of wedlock.”

“What you did was correct. A child out of wedlock is a thousand times happier than a child without a mother and a father.”

They both stand. One looks down at the old tiles of the temple floor, and the other looks out at the layers of clouds forming a white wall.

That night the president goes to bed really early.

When the doctor arrives to take his pulse, he finds the door closed and the lights off. The two guards who are on watch all night stand in front of the veranda. The watch lights illuminate half the temple patio and the trees at the garden’s edge. Not daring to sing and disturb his sleep, the doctor returns to his office, gets some cards, and asks the guards to play.

“Remember not to laugh loudly or shout. If you get too happy, keep your lips tight and cover your mouth if you want to laugh. The loser will have a mustache drawn on his face with soot, but must absolutely remain silent, OK?”

“Absolutely, Doc, whatever you say; we are under your command.”

In the room, the president hears the whispering, the shuffling of furniture, and the doctor’s footsteps crossing the patio to the kitchen area of the temple. Most likely he is fetching a pot to use its soot for drawing the mustache on the loser. When all has been arranged, the group sits down, pleased with their harmless game of luck, and the cards are dealt. From that point on, he hears no sound other than the screaming of his own soul:

“My child; oh, my own child! My own son!”

Tears on both of his temples are wet and cold. He presses the pillow down on his face to suppress the sobbing:

“Why am I crying like an ordinary woman from a most ordinary family? When did this ridiculous thing start to happen? It must be old age, which brings changes to a person, making one act in this silly way.”

He scolds himself, but a few seconds later, his heart starts crying out again:

“Oh, my child, my own son!”

Simultaneously a burning longing to see the little boy’s face tortures his abdomen:

“Is he taller than the son of the woodcutter, or the same size? And what does his face look like now? I only remember him when he was three months old. Nobody thought that would be the last encounter.”

He remembers the loft in an old street. One had to walk a long corridor to reach the entrance, where there were always three guards dressed as civilians. The corridor was narrow and very dark alongside a thick wall, and served as a divider with another house, that of a shopkeeper. The
shopkeeper had a storefront on the street level, and lived upstairs with an older sister. A huge spiral staircase with a wooden balustrade rose from the dark corridor to the upper floor, to a high and aerated room painted in light blue. For a short time that room was to have been his warm love nest; a nest, however, that had had no time to warm up before it was destroyed by a windy vortex…Like the transit of a shooting star, happiness had passed him by. He hadn’t even had a good look, and it was gone. Happiness: only sand grains in the palm of his hand. Before he could grab them, they had slipped through his fingers.…

Even with all that, it had been happiness.…

He thought he had forgotten, but it returned. The vision of an ancient spring day. For an instant, the brightness brought forth the scene of a past paradise—the old room; the old bed. The little one kicking wildly in the white diapers. The baby had smiled at him. Its red lips curled up, trying to say something. And her! She sat at the end of the bed, her fingers rolling up red yarn. All around were small skeins in many colors. What did she do with all that yarn?

Now he remembers: she had rolled up the yarn to make new dolls to hang around the bassinet for the baby boy to play with. The old doll had been damaged by his older sister a couple of weeks before. She had told him so, because every two or three weeks he could visit the mother and her child.

While listening to her chat, he asked where his daughter was. She said she went to sleep with Auntie Dong. He didn’t ask of her further, and she pouted that he loved the boy Trung more than the girl Nghia, that he respected men and disparaged women, still living by feudal values. He smiled because she had repeated to him the exact propaganda lesson taught her by the cadres. And he himself had taught them:

“The revolution will establish a new society, in which everyone will be equal before the law, with no distinction based on ethnicity, religion, or gender.”

He didn’t listen to what she said, for he was attentively looking at her young pouting lips, recalling the pair of doe’s eyes staring at him through the fire in the forest night. He smiled while she was lecturing him, while the little one wildly kicked in the white diapers. Intensely he looked at the baby, realizing that the boy had inherited the best traits of both him and her:

“He will be really handsome. He will become an elegant and stylish young man.”

She was certain of his bias and one more time reminded him:

“Mr. President, you must love them both equally.”

“Oh, of course. Each one is our child…” he replied to please her.

In reality, he cared for Nghia very much, as the girl resembled the older sister he liked best of all in his family. They were as two sickles made from the same mold. Because Nghia carried his very own image, she had to bear misfortune. In the little boy he saw her resemblance, his beloved.

Now she was no more. No one left to pout about his impartiality, a bias that he recognized in himself.

“I have two children, a girl and a boy; one is only a year older. Why do I remember only the boy? I, who always taught people about equality between men and women?

“But danger hovers over the boy more than the girl. Thus, probably, my sin through him is proportionately larger. Thus, this constant obsession about him,” he reasons to himself.

Even if his rationalization is extremely weak, he does not go deeper to question what is in his heart. It would be useless. All the paths in his rationalizing always return him to the old resting point. He misses the boy like crazy. After ten years he thought he could forget, but suddenly memories return and become a permanent pain, a gaping tear in his heart. The dream of being oblivious had dissipated like a cloud before the sun, leaving now only a burning longing:

“How is my son doing now? Does he worry about where he comes from? Or does he live safely under the protection of his ‘uncle’ Vu, believing that he is the son of some unknown person, an out-of-wedlock child living with an adoptive father? He will believe that. Believing so will provide an anchor for him. An out-of-wedlock child? Fate must have predestined it, because his affair with her had been outside the law. That kind of illegal affair would naturally produce children out of wedlock. Pity all of us, all victims of an unjust game. Now what is happening to my out-of-wedlock child? Does he look like me or her; does he keep intact all those features he had at three months? Is his complexion fair like that of his mother? Is there a Mongolian birth mark on his back like the one on mine, because older sister Thanh said that the mark appeared only when I was ten years old…”

All these concerns could only be shared with her. He knows that people would dissect every word that came from him. Even if he ventured to tell Vu, Vu could not bring up any photo of Trung, as Vu, too, is being watched closely. If he showed the slightest sign that his heart was still passionate, the child would be used more effectively as a weapon in the hands of his enemies.