The Zenith (20 page)

“His arms are bone skinny in the loose sleeves of the shirt. Exactly from when we were starving, when bowls of cooked cassava were flavored with bright red pepper and salt.”

He remembers the black piece of soap that looked like dog feces, made by the local shop, using ingredients that, if disclosed, all the soap producers on earth would be ashamed of. Eventually, that miserable time passed. Every time one stepped into a stream to wash clothes, the soap foam floated dark gray like bubbles of sour earth from the fields; it was horrible. But making up for that were the sounds of young military cadets singing loudly and of wild birds chirping. And hopes rested on a victorious tomorrow. Our people had never lived in a present reality. We lived only with and by hope. That never-ending resistance survived thanks to hope.

But then what about this war? Perhaps the companies of soldiers who today advance down along the Truong Son mountains separating North Vietnam from Laos are just as we were in the old days: hoping and thinking of a bright tomorrow. The saintly Old Man who still leads their way shows the same face and bearing of that saint of the old war in the Viet Bac. With just one difference: he is no longer a true saint but only an embalmed corpse on a short leash—a zombie!

“It was I who gave them that picture; now they exploit it like a weapon of amazing power. Who could have predicted that?”

That particular angst has been stewing for a long while.

“Who could have predicted that?”

No longer is that picture in his family album. The negative was lost with the Conrad camera on the day of victory in the fall of the year Giap Ngo. When
the troops had marched in from the five gates, all the units and organizations had excitedly set off for Hanoi…Hanoi, Hanoi with its beloved thirty-six old quarters, the cherished city that had been taken from us for ten years. Nobody had wanted to be late even by a day.

“On to the capital! On to the capital!”

That had been the cry in everybody’s heart in the chaos of good fortune. When happiness fills up your soul, a few items will be forgotten, or a few things will be misplaced or lost. That is normal.

But if that photo had been used in an exhibit of portraits or for any other artistic purpose, maybe he would not have felt such remorse. But it was being used in the war against the Americans, a pot of war that boils flesh, a war that Elder Brother had predicted and had tried to avoid from the beginning. Therefore, a bitterness never ceased to gnaw away at his heart. Yet he recognizes at the same time both the shameless games that people play and his own failure. That state of mind is more terrifying than death itself.

A convoy of trucks approaches from the Quang Ba road, each one completely covered over. Crossing the empty space to enter the city, the trucks throw up thick dust. He knows for certain that the convoy carries supplies to the front. All day, every day, convoys carry ammunition and food toward the south. Every day ships carry cadets south to Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. From those two provinces, the units will disperse in different directions according to their orders.

And this fact is certain: every day blood will spill.

But spilling blood has been the norm of life over the long history of the Vietnamese people, a people for whom each era has been delineated by war. Furthermore, for this particular war, those in command offered a compelling logic to for their orders:

“Our people are heroic; such a people will defeat every enemy; such a people cannot lose very much in a war.”

With that kind of logic, blood spills in silence, bones will fall in silence, the names of the fallen will be enveloped in darkness and fog.

Is this just fate?

Is this just fate or is it a choice?

Fate: because the Americans had chosen the south as a dike to contain the Communist wave.

Fate: because the north had fallen into the hands of one inflicted with insanity. He wanted this war at any cost: a war that would build for him a colossal monument, the most colossal one in the history of all wars.

“The war against the Americans must be ten times bigger than the war against
the French, so the monument will be a thousand times more imposing!”

This end had been fixed right from the start.

The memorial had been built in the imagination and in daydreams since the beginning of the war.

How damned! History’s game pitting red against black; the most facetious black comedy of all is the spiritual punishment of a whole nation planned secretly inside a madman’s skull. And how many millions had voluntarily given their lives believing that their sacrifice was necessary for the future of their motherland, for the honor of their race, when in reality they are only a pack of sheep led into a gigantic incinerator to justify the theory of a ghostly corpse that has decomposed under the black dirt?

“Does he truly believe in Marxism or does he only borrow Marxism to achieve his dream of conquest?

“Marxism is nothing more than a large cloak in which to hide this dream of imperial glory. He is nothing but a traitor who usurps a throne using the oldest tricks in the book.”

These thoughts drill through his heart as usual. These thoughts had left a well-trodden bare path in his brain. In recent years they obsessed him more intensely. Many illogical points can be understood only as time and space retreat. Now he has no doubt. The one who had harmed Elder Brother was the one the Old Man had most loved and trusted. But this one cares not for the people, and is not moved by the sincere guidance of the leader. He needs only power and glory.

He needs glory at all costs.

He is the one who at any cost must throttle his teacher.

He is the one who must find any means to kill his father. He can accomplish all this because the people admire him unconditionally. That is the price that has to be paid for being ignorant and cowardly. This reality is not fate but belongs to the phenomenon we call “victimization through collusion!”

For a long while, plagued by doubt, he questioned himself many times. But never did a true answer arrive; not until the Ninth Party Conference. At that landmark conference, all the cards were turned faceup. The majority of the delegates sided with Ba Danh and Sau. They wanted a victory more worthy than that won in the resistance war against the French. They wanted this new war. It was an addiction; an addiction beyond their control. A fateful romanticism that seduced an entire people in a mad rush. The passion to be
a hero is fiercer than any sexual fixation. In the burning fires of sexual desire, no logic survives. When Sau decided to move the resolution for the war, Elder Brother walked out into the corridor to smoke alone. He returned to the room, looking out through the window, smoking nonstop. His heart pounded hard in his chest. An invisible fear weighed on his mind. An unnamable concern churned his stomach. A dreamy sadness like gray clouds filled the four corners of the sky. Vu had wanted to go stand behind Elder Brother but didn’t dare. Even Elder Brother himself could not explain his cowardly action, although those around him all looked at him as if he were the last hero of the epoch.

“Is it human nature to cling to a group and otherwise to lose one’s balance and feel insecure when standing all alone? Is that why I stayed in the meeting room with all the rest?

“No! I stayed there because I could not and did not want to do any little thing that would console Elder Brother in front of them all. That display of formality or that naked complicity was the most debased act in both our lives.”

Exactly so!

Perhaps, so.

No, exactly so!

He had confirmed it but for years he had tortured himself:

“I should have stood behind the Old Man. I should not have let Elder Brother stand all alone in the hallway at the moment when he saw so clearly his betrayal by those cretins. A betrayal in broad daylight.”

He recalls that he had glued his eyes on the window frame, where part of the president’s back could be seen inside circles of cigarette smoke, while his own brain and soul were paralyzed. He understands that, from then on, history’s path had turned sharply; that the image of the other was an irreversible stigma of loneliness, of a hero fallen from his horse, that from that day forward the fates of everyone, including his own, would change with this lonely man’s falling off a horse.

Another convoy of trucks comes.

This time it’s an artillery unit.

But the barrels are lowered, covered with parachute fabric and braided leaves. Red road dust coats the tires as well as the soldiers’ faces. He waits for the artillery unit to go then turns into the Quang Ba road. He has not walked on this street for ages, partly because he has been busy but also
partly because he wanted to forget a place of misfortune. But today, he had walked all the way here, and he could no longer reverse direction:

“Why am I setting foot on this ill-fated road?

“Because of the ill fate, must I look at it up close yet one more time?

“Did arguing with Van bring back memories of the past or has the spirit of the deceased coaxed me to come back for a chat?”

He doesn’t know anymore. His steps take him along a narrow road with a row of guava trees on each side. When did they plant these trees? Nobody remembers, but they have grown abundantly like a forest. They reach out one to another, spreading over the lips of the field of flowers and the pond of watercress below. The trees touch; so do the branches, forming a full and thick tunnel that the sunlight can’t penetrate. This is a haven for gangs to rob and hide their loot; a place where rascals come to settle their blood debts; where unrestrained lovers come to make out; an ideal spot for prostitutes chased away by the police. These rows of guava trees are famous across the city for hair-raising stories, dramatic or comical episodes of forbidden love or wild jealousy.

Was it this notoriety that incited the young and hot-blooded Quoc Tuy to choose this road as the place to murder Ms. Xuan?

Or was it the disgraceful reputation of the place that prompted him first to shame the woman he killed?

Or had he been scorned by the beautiful woman turning him down, so that he needed to revenge his wounded pride in addition to killing her at Sau’s wish?

Vu looks at the rows of guava trees running in straight lines along the road back to the northwest edge of the city. Covered with dust, the trees seem to look back at him, a white-haired traveler, with leaves as their eyes.

Then a gust of wind brings cold and humid air even though the sun still shines brightly all around. He shivers:

“Is that wind or the soul of the pretty one?”

“Dear Xuan, I will never forget this…As long as I live I will protect your child with Elder Brother…Do rest in peace in heaven. If you are able, please protect us.”

Someone sobs nearby.

He quickly closes his eyes. Teardrops fall and roll down his cheeks. His face is now wet and cold. He hears the singing of birds in the guava trees, rising and growing chirpier. The birds sing at the border between a populous
city and rural fields with too few workers. Birds singing. Why do they sing so much during such painful moments in one’s life?

He remembers such chirping during a long-ago winter morning, when he hurriedly ran across the yard in front of the house out to the road.

That terrifying morning, not yet even 5:30 a.m., the phone rang. Barely awake, he got out of bed to take the phone. A muffled and hoarse voice cried:

“Oh, Vu, Ms. Xuan is dead!…On the Quang Ba road.”

Before he could ask a question, the person had hung up. He heard clearly the panting breathing, the shaking and distorted tone of voice as if someone intentionally covered the nose seeking disguise. Instantly he was wide awake and understood what he had to do. He hurriedly called for a car, dressed, and ran to the gate when he heard the motor starting in front of the garage. At that instant, the sounds of birds made him stop. He did not understand the reason why, during such an extremely tense moment, a moment when hundreds of things took over his mind, he paid attention to the sound of the birds. Stopping by the two railings of the wide-open gate, he looked up at the leaves of the lychee and jackfruit trees in the garden. He did not find any birds among them. In front of him there was only a melody from a sixteen-string zither, and from it came the joyous music of the birds, like notes infused into the melody of life. It brought out a flavor totally opposite from the appalling event he would have to deal with.