The Zenith (19 page)

He stands there for a while, absentminded, unaware that the sun is becoming very bright. On the river, the barge suddenly blows its whistle. The strident sound brings him back to the present. The numbness slowly dissipates and he can feel his legs and arms and warmth on his face. The wind from the river brings the smell of grass and the water, mixed with the warm and organic smell of trash decomposing in the waves that push against the banks.

A tickling feeling makes his throat itch. As his hand touches it, he gets hold of a praying mantis. The little creature waves its swords like mad. Even after he catches it in his hand, it does not stop moving its thorny legs in the air:

“You are pretty wild—a young horse fond of kicking, a young praying mantis fond of fencing, a young dog fond of barking, a young cat fond of scratching…What are you fond of doing?”

Next to his ears, he suddenly hears a children’s song that he used to sing when he was six, on those summer days in the countryside when he followed the village kids to ride water buffalo and fly kites. It has been sixty years. One’s life is like a dream. Instinctively he bends down and looks at his shadow on the corn rows:

“How many more springs will I see this shadow?”

The question just popped up in his mind, the reply already bouncing back with a sad laugh:

“Oh, of what importance is that? The longer you live, the more shame you endure, it was said of old.”

Lifting the mantis, he observes it for a last time before throwing it in the cornfield. The tiny insect disappears among the rows of green leaves that wave without tiring. His nape again erupts with an itch. This time it’s not because of a mantis or a grasshopper on him but the heat. The roots of his hair also start to sweat. Vu takes the soft hat, puts it on his head, and then returns to the Yen Phu dike.

The road is deserted, so he can see right through the entire little town. People shouldering goods in baskets quickly walk by. Smoke from electric generators blows out black dust that turns part of the town dark. To the other side is West Lake, a huge expanse of water behind rows of purple flowers along the Co Ngu road. A little farther on, he can see the Tran Quoc pagoda with little buildings unevenly arranged close to the water. A boat bobbles in the distance, most likely belonging to a fisherman, because every now and then a net is thrown in the sunlight.

“Where am I going now, home?” he asks himself, but he knows he can’t return at this time, even though he briefly thought of that blue curtain as his last refuge where he could recover his balance. She holds the key to the motorcycle; for sure she had driven home first. And right now she has changed clothes and is getting ready for lunch, unconcerned as if nothing had happened. He knows this clearly. He knows well that women recover rather quickly after every tormenting crisis, that their ability to fend for themselves in these emotional outbursts outdoes that of men. Maybe their hormonal disposition provides them with sufficient capacity to overcome such stormy episodes, such extreme emotional pain, and this ability creates for them a gendered reflex to emotional and spiritual chaos. Another cause might be that their skill in thoughtful consideration has limits, therefore they are less prone to the feelings that nag away at men. In each woman survives a part of primal humanity, quite powerful in the ability to sidestep the conscience. Their broodings as well as their regrets normally pass like a summer rain. Therefore they can stand more pain than men:

“Women are the strong ones, not men. This is the Creator’s biggest mistake.” He visualizes the calm face of his wife, at times stubborn, whenever she is scheming something. Tears always accompany some small objective, such as when to defend her younger brother’s mistakes, to run around trying to correct his misdeeds, or to justify her son’s academic incompetence, and when to paint new hopes for the one who will carry on the family
name. He is familiar with all her tactics and campaigns even if he appears not to be paying any attention. In reality, all such maneuvers by women seek only to protect those who are close and to protect their own interests: “Mine, where is mine?”

There is the number one focus of all women.

Not only women, but all of humanity. Selfishness, a basic instinct, sits deep within all living things.

When he is tired of his wife’s petty tricks, he usually thinks:

“Rats, life is like that! She is just a woman, an ordinary woman among thousands of women, born that way among thousands of beings.”

Besides, he knows that living in any family demands negotiation. Without compromise, no community is possible. But he knows for sure that he cannot live with a woman who lacks morality. An ordinary woman with all the ordinary shortcomings would be acceptable. But an immoral or cruel woman, that would be another story. Like this side of the river or that side.

Today’s conversation has pushed him over to the other side. The danger is obvious. Already he can see the roof of his home torn off and its walls cracked open.

“No one can measure the depths of a woman’s heart. No one knows for sure what thoughts are buried in their minds, what feelings hide in the deep, secret recesses of their hearts. And I have lived with her for more than thirty years.”

Decades; so many ups and downs; so many warm memories; so much shared sadness. How can he count all the times at his wife’s bedside during her many miscarriages? How many paths had they walked; how many forests and streams had they crossed? Under how many temporary roofs during nine years of unsettled living in the resistance, with the sky as a tent and the dirt as a mat? How many times had he boiled water with herbs for her to wash herself and her hair? How much rice soup had he cooked for her when she was ill? How many days and how many nights?

He finds it so vast—all those eventful years, that stretch of a life now gone forever. He feels a lump in his throat as he thinks of the path ahead: a lonely life, like a desert spread far to the horizon, with no shelter, no shade trees. An invisible and shapeless desert that leads straight to the grave.

“From where and since when did this venal jealousy arise? It can’t have been an ugly feeling that developed from disappointment in the son, an obvious failure of a mother. It can’t be that simple. So if this cause makes no sense, then this jealousy has been nurtured for a while, since those days before
the resistance was victorious, and all that had to have happened in the Viet Bac resistance zone.”

All these wandering thoughts bring him to the intersection where the road forks: to the left is the road that leads to Quang Ba; to the right is the curve of the Yen Phu dike leading all the way to the northern part of the city. In the middle of the fork, a group of concrete pillars has been erected to support gigantic panels that display the government’s strategic slogans. Striking red letters shine on a white canvas that is stretched on a steel frame a little higher than ten meters. One has to bend over backward to be able to read them. He knows by heart all those sorcerer’s sentences. In truth, he had imprinted them in his heart and mind with a frightening determination:

A gigantic panel holds a portrait of the president in military uniform, his finger pointing to the zigzagging road along the Truong Son Mountains heading into the south. Above the picture is written:

CROSSING THE TRUONG SON RANGE TO SAVE THE NATION!

Under the picture is written the echoing reply:

UNCLE, NEPHEWS, AND NIECES ALL TOGETHER INTO BATTLE!

The huge, blown-up portrait of the president on that highest panel was his, actually his. The National Museum had asked to put it in an exhibition called Vietnam Is on the Road to Victory!

He had taken that picture unexpectedly while accompanying Elder Brother to the battlefield, with a very old Conrad that a Russian reporter had given him before going to China on his return home. At that time Elder Brother had just recovered from a bout of dysentery. There were no vegetables; meat and fish were only for display; for many long months there had only been salted fish and boiled bamboo shoots, bringing more than half the people
on staff down with dysentery. At the end even Elder Brother, a little better treated, but older than most, had to endure the same disaster. A disease shared fairly. Then, Elder Brother had joked:

“Everybody is equal before dysentery!”

On the way to the front, the Old Man always joked like that. His jovial way of speaking, full of images and hidden meanings mixed with gestures, made him especially magnetic. The Old Man knew that he had magnetism; Vu had witnessed more than a few people intensely listen to him with their mouths wide open. He recalled that Ms. Xuan had loved the Old Man during that time. The fateful romance had begun in the 1953 campaign. 1953; definitely that year. It was said that was the year of the Snake: Quy Ti, the green snake. The resistance had one more year before it was over.

He remembered the stream over which he took Xuan for the first time on the way to the Old Man’s house. He was the first and the only person this mountain woman had confided in. That stream had been as transparent as glass; one could see clearly the fish that swam around the mossy plants, the crabs that suddenly crawled out of cracks between the rocks.

“Oh, oh, oh!” The girl had exclaimed with joy and immediately bent down to catch some crabs and put them in the Cham cloth bag on her arm:

“Let the cook make sour soup for the president…we have enough for a pot.”

He didn’t know what to say but was obliged to wait and watch her check all the cracks to catch any unfortunate crab that came within her sight. It must have been at least fifteen minutes later before they resumed their walk. Xuan shook the bag in her arms and smiled happily:

“Tonight the president will have a good bowl of soup.”

“Right. Crab soup with wild watercress. What a perfect dish!” he replied as he took in her beaming happy face.

There was a spontaneous naturalness, a simple angelic presence in this woman like wild grass, a freshness like a wildflower. She stirred the young souls of men. She brought together spring and youth—a priceless gift, something heavenly that neither power nor money could obtain. Not to mention an exquisite beauty that made birds fly and fish dive before her.

He understood why Elder Brother loved Xuan, even though he never spoke of it in words.

Nothing is more difficult to hide than love. One can hide big spending, wealth, dreams and wishes, hatred or pride. But nobody can hide love. Love is like poverty, if you consider it from that point of view. That’s what he had learned
from Elder Brother’s convoluted love; even though he was a leader, even if he had passed through many past romances in his wandering life. But this girl was his greatest love, his last love in an unhappy life.

Gusts of wind blow on his face, dreamingly.

And the sounds of birds singing rise from the guava trees along Quang Ba road, sounding both real and unreal. He pensively looks at the huge picture, the image of a person to whom he is bound more than to his own blood and flesh. The sunlight gliding on the oil brushstrokes makes the portrait become lively, as if someone had poured on it a layer of silver sparkles. This kind of technique is more appropriate to theater art and this makes him uncomfortable. But it presents the old features fully: that gaunt face in profile, with cheekbones and nose bridge, those bright shining eyes with which he can read every glance: