The Zenith (39 page)

She arrived at the alley at dark. For sure, no one saw her rush the bicycle to the middle of the patio. She tied the gate tightly. Then she opened her door and dashed into the house. She did not bother to change her dusty clothes, and, throwing herself on a pile of quilts, she began to sob. She sobbed in rhythms, at times in a crescendo like an injured boar. She cried to the full, overflowing, without restraint. She cried madly. She cried more sadly than on the day Mr. Do had died. She cried with all the passionate hurt she didn’t know she had, like a hungry child that gobbles up the bread given him. It may be that with all those falling tears, her soul became lighter.

The next morning, on the third day of the New Year, Miss Vui, dressed formally and most properly, carried a large branch of cherry blossoms to Mr. Quang’s house.

“This man does not lack anything but white cherry blossoms.”

All night she had debated the idea back and forth. As soon as morning came, she took a saw out to her garden and cut a large branch that had both blossoms and buds to take as an offering.

She had guessed correctly in her choice, because there were only peach blossoms in Mr. Quang’s garden and not the blush and white cherry variety. White ones are hard to propagate and need special care and Mr. Quang, away the year round, was unable to grow them. In the village, scores of people grew cherry blossom trees but most cultivated the yellow variety, with skinny branches and small flowers. Only her garden had white cherry blossoms, a large kind with branches full of flowers that spread out evenly. They were the imperial type of cherry blossom for which Mr. Do had gone all the way to a village growing Japanese trees to get proper seeds. When he was alive, he had guarded the tree like he would gold. After he died, Miss Vui continued to care for it as he had, even though she was not as passionate about it as he had been or enjoyed the pleasure it could provide as he had. But Mr. Do had been her sole idol: whatever her father wanted or did, she wanted or did, no matter the cost. She had no expectation that, just then, the white cherry blossoms would be her savior.

When she approached Mr. Quang’s house, no other callers had yet arrived. Miss Ngan and Mrs. Tu were sitting in the middle of the kitchen, plucking chickens. Seeing her, they both stood up to greet her. Miss Ngan smiled.

“Good morning, sister, I present to you my New Year’s wishes.”

Mrs. Tu was bubblier:

“On New Year, a dragon comes to the shrimp’s house; we will certainly have luck this year.”

Miss Vui tried to look at the black jade eyes of her eighteen-year-old hostess. Smiling when she presented her New Year’s wishes to them, her heart was beating hard in her chest. Then Mrs. Tu called out:

“Big Uncle, a guest has arrived!”

To Miss Vui, Mrs. Tu urged, “Please go to the front room, we are finishing up our task.”

“With your permission,” she replied and walked up the three steps. Standing in the door, Mr. Quang waited for her, wearing an old-fashioned silk suit.

“The old man plays tough; his style is so different,” she thought to herself as she bowed her head, greeting her host as the cadres in town would do, while silently evaluating the way a hero like him dressed. She had expected that with a young wife, he would wear a white or egg-colored shirt, at least a “blouson,” with a pair of straight-leg pants, according to contemporary urban styles. But, Mr. Quang had adorned himself with a local silk suit like the elders, worn quite loose. Additionally, he did not have his hair cut short, but
left it shoulder length, tied up with a rubber band as did carefree travelers in the old days. His beard was jet black and circled his jaw, bushy like grass and curly like those of Westerners. Strangely, in that old-fashioned outfit, all his chest and shoulder muscles stood out handsomely. In this outfit, he was extremely handsome, the incarnation of a great warrior, which would be hard to find not only in Woodcutters’ Hamlet but anywhere in the district.

She instinctively bent forward and stepped back, because Mr. Quang’s breath bathed her face like the hot wind of a muggy summer, a summer full of storms and lightning.

“Greetings, miss, early in the year.”

“On New Year’s, I wish you all things well,” she replied while leaning the large branch of cherry blossoms against the sideboard next to the altar.

Mr. Quang looked at her. “Please sit down. We have tea perfumed with jasmine or with white mums. We also have tea from Snow Mountain and red cherry blossom tea, too. Which would you prefer?”

“As they are all your own teas, they must all be good. Please choose whichever one you like,” she replied, finding her voice trembling. Not yet knowing why, she felt a lump rising in her throat with a strange feeling impossible to control, like a wild stream running through the fields of her soul, a vast and deserted field, actually. Frightened, she thought: “This is goofy; why am I suddenly feeling this way?”

Forcefully, she tried to restrain herself but to no avail. Miss Vui hurriedly bent down to fix the back strap of her sandal, her eyes intentionally staring at her toes, scrubbed clean, above a green floor:

“Look at this! Look at this! I do not have dark feet like the women and girls in Woodcutters’ Hamlet.”

She repeated it several times to herself and her pride enabled her to regain her calm. No woman or girl—in Woodcutters’ Hamlet or in the entire district—had feet as fair as hers. Even though she worked hard, Miss Vui protected her skin and her feet as others would care for their eyes. Whether rain or shine, in summer or in winter, she always wore thick socks and canvas shoes with rubber soles, just like Westerners. One time, a delegation of Russian professionals visited the village; Miss Vui thought their complexions as fair and fine as rice paper. She thought they preserved such complexions by wearing socks and shoes all year round. Then Vui was only thirteen but a precocious awareness of beauty had already obsessed her. From that day on, she demanded that Mr. Do always buy shoes and socks for her; since then her wearing shoes and socks had become routine, just like eating and drinking.
When all the working villagers went barefoot or wore skimpy sandals, people found it weird that a young girl would adopt the foreign custom of wearing shoes and socks all year. Because tropical summers are long, to wear shoes and socks is torture. Sweat quickly wets the socks and makes them smelly. Moreover, wearing shoes and socks was a public challenge to common custom that others dared not make. But Miss Vui could not have cared less. For her, all gossip, all harsh criticism from villagers, was just like a hatching of cicadas that live for only a summer. Come fall, whether they want to or not, they all have to crawl back into the ground.

When she looked at her feet, which were white like peeled boiled eggs, she knew they were her way out—a lifebuoy thrown right when she was about to drown. After locking the aluminum clasp in a meticulous manner, she looked one more time at her fine skin, fairer than that of city girls, to find a point of emotional support as a fighter finds an auspicious position in the ring. Looking up, Miss Vui was now able to speak in a formal manner, as she did when having to open meetings of village committees.

“At the New Year, here is a branch of white cherry blossoms as a gift from a poor family; please do not think unkindly of it.”

“You are poor?” Mr. Quang said, laughing out loud and asking further: “Do you think that because I make my living elsewhere, I know nothing of what is happening here?”

“No, of course not,” she replied, bashfully looking down because her host’s teeth were white like pearls, and even. They shone like white lightning when he laughed. She asked herself: “Does he smoke a pipe or cigarettes? What man can keep from smoking? How does he keep his teeth as nice as the teeth of those who are only eighteen or twenty?”

Mr. Quang continued: “The villagers told me that you acquired a generator of the best quality, and have the most up-to-date storm lamp, better than my own lamp. Pretty soon, you will be the wealthiest one in the hamlet.”

“I don’t dare.”

“But you have the heart to give me the cherry blossoms. I accept. For me it is indeed the most perfect gift for spring. We have a vase with brass handles, later I will put it in.”

He poured tea. She looked at the rising vapor, dreamily asking herself why she couldn’t be the one to arrange the cherry blossoms in that vase. Why not? Perhaps because a long time ago heaven or some spirit had forgotten some duty that should have been done?

Daydreams flit away very quickly. Miss Vui resumed the imperative mission
she had come to accomplish: removing herself as a target for the man now sitting in front of her.

“On the coming of spring, I come to present my wishes, to congratulate the new arrival and to bless the new happiness. But I also have something to tell you. I’m not sure whether you will welcome this.”

“Oh, I am not a district or provincial Party secretary, so you don’t have to beat around the bush. We are neighbors, in a village, in the countryside; we can talk about anything.”

“Then I wish to set a time to meet after the five days of the Tet holidays. When you have time, please stop by my house for a visit.”

“That’s fine; I also must go and present my New Year wishes. What goes around, comes around.”

Miss Vui had not finished her tea before guests began noisily pouring onto the patio. She stood up to leave, but, before she left, she stopped by the kitchen to politely say good-bye to Miss Ngan and Mrs. Tu, where those two had retreated into their kingdom. In the kitchen, pots and pans were scattered all about. The aroma of coconut sticky rice mingled with that of honey-glazed fried chicken, making an overwhelmingly sweet fragrance.

That noon Miss Ngan said to her husband, “Hey, you handsome old stud, that big gal who came early this morning has a crush on you. Do you know it or just pretend not to?”

“How could I know it?”

“Right, why should you know everything? West, east, north, south—all four quarters and eight directions—there are plenty of people under heaven,” Mrs. Tu interjected, clearly proud.

Mr. Quang looked at his wife, curious: “Why do you think that she has a crush on me?”

“Oh my god, really?”

She pouted. “The way she looks—as if she is high on the pipe. If it is not from a nightmare, then it comes from having a crush on a guy.”

“Truly? Like what?” Mr. Quang asked again, and then laughed loudly. “Hey, little one, if I hadn’t been destined to meet you, then there would be plenty like you wanting to enter my doors. I do not have to carry a gal as big as a temple guardian back home so that day and night I would have to work out to win a family competition.”

“Exactly,” said Mrs. Tu, quickly slipping in her opinion.

“For a year now, there have been so many who sent me betel nuts, bean cakes, and even Hai Duong black cakes. Thanks to your charm, I have had no time for a matchmaker because I was full of sticky rice and sweet soups.”

Miss Ngan looked at her husband then at Mrs. Tu, shaking her jade earrings and giving a broad, satisfied smile: “OK, I give in to the two of you, uncle and niece! It’s so clear that you are one pillar, one post.”

Miss Vui walked home troubled, wondering if Mr. Quang was aware she had gone to Khoai Hamlet. Because his laugh had been both open-minded and playful, she could not divine the answer. The same with his look—it showed cheerfulness and forgiveness when he beamed; when it turned darker, reflecting a vague bitterness, she could not detect the cause. Besides, she knew that after the first day of New Year, people had flocked to Mr. Quang’s house, the ideal location to enjoy traditional hospitality. His generosity as well as his classy style were beyond all competition. She visualized the huge patio, the spacious rooms furnished with first-class wooden furniture that he had bought from those brought low by the land-reform campaign; the tea sets displayed on the sideboard; the antique celadon plates and the vases with brass rims that no other village family could afford. She also brought to mind the muscular yet slim body in the silk outfit, the bright smile like pearls in a basket. She suddenly felt like a papier-mâché puppet that had collapsed, ripped apart by that man’s sharp insightfulness.