The Zenith (41 page)

Now each day the antagonistic encounters between the “beautiful whore” and his wife and children grew more and more tense while his own rage escalated.

“That Vui has betrayed me; she does not want to help us anymore. That female elephant without a mate has fallen for my father. That old man eats up all the good fortune out there.”

Painfully, Quy realized that he could never measure up to his father. And this feeling was eating away at him day and night. After one of these sessions of torturing himself over his shortcomings and shame, sometimes he would sit up and calculate the ages of his father and himself. This was the only way Quy
could find some consolation. Without question, he was still young, and youth is the strength of champions. Heaven had given him time and heaven gave him opportunity. There was an undeniable difference, a deep pit that could never be filled, between an old man of sixty-one and a man of forty.

“I cannot accept being pushed out to live empty-handed. The fight cannot end that simply. I still have ways to act. I don’t need that big broad, I can still do things by myself.”

This last thought preoccupied Quy during the entire three weeks of orientation from district and provincial cadres. When the sessions ended he skipped the celebration and headed straight to the city to the district construction complex. Villagers had told him that Mr. Quang was still in Woodcutters’ Hamlet, helping his young wife to dry mushrooms. It was a lucky break, actually. At the complex, Quy avoided the area for contract workers because most of them had been recruited by Mr. Quang from the district. He lingered along the rows of food stands outside for a long while, to spot the house where the workers from Ha Tay—the gang of “Coolie Girls”—resided. Finding the cave of the “green-shirted whore,” Quy went on sitting at a food stall until dark, then ambled over to the construction complex after buying two packs of cigarettes to give to the night watchman.

“I have a brother who works in Mr. Quang’s masonry group. He wants to find out about a girl painter from Ha Tay. My uncle and aunt asked me to check her out to see if she behaves properly before deciding to go on with the marriage. For such an upright purpose, I hope, Comrade, you can help me.”

“Comrade, do you have papers?”

“Right here.”

Quy handed over the cover letter that came with the instructions to attend the district and provincial orientation sessions. The entrance guard bent over to read. Then he looked up at Quy and with a flattering manner said:

“Please do enter, Comrade. Be careful, part of the road is still slippery because by this time we have turned half the lights off and many parts of the public area are still muddy. May you find success.”

“Thank you,” Chairman Quy replied with satisfaction. The reserve of the entrance guard made him more confident and excited.

It took over half an hour to walk from the entrance to the complex where the workers lived. On his way over, Quy contemplated how he could chat up the painters, whom, by a bit of bad luck, he didn’t know. Once again,
the imposing shadow of his father came down and completely enveloped him. Quy knew he had no skill in persuasion and lacked interpersonal charm. Things that Mr. Quang could have said easily in minutes were difficult for him to think about, much less find words for. As the father enjoyed all the gifts of destiny, the children had to endure bad luck.

“Heaven gives to one what it takes from the pocket of another!” Quy thought to himself, certain of this truth.

The rooming house reserved for female workers was noisiest after dinner when the women gathered around for games or chitchat. There was a nice smell of roasted corn; those of middle age ate popcorn and candy while playing cards. The youngest ones put their faces close to a mirror to better trim their eyebrows, the cheapest way to maintain their beauty. Quy had to stop at the door because of the sharp sounds of cards turning, the loud laughter, and the high-pitched and rather unpleasant voices, a new experience for him. Women in Woodcutters’ Hamlet never laughed loudly like that; they didn’t even scream and shout like men caught up in card games. As a matter of fact, the women of Woodcutters’ Hamlet were not even allowed to play cards. They had too much to do around their houses and in their kitchens.

“No doubt, these are the whores in the construction trade; people are not off the mark calling them just that. They are like female horses running wild outside the paddock,” Quy thought to himself, elated that the “green-shirted whore” had come from this environment, from among these women with no virtue. His father had no reason to be so proud of a young wife like that. While Quy was lost in his thoughts, a young woman who had just finished trimming her brows stepped outside. Seeing the shadow of a man in the dark, she hollered:

“Oh, oh! Who is it?”

“It’s me…me…” Quy awkwardly replied: “I am a relative of Miss Ngan…of Ha Tay…I am looking for her.”

The young woman’s shout drew all the others to the door. They surrounded Quy, some still chewing on popcorn, others still holding cards in their hands, the whole group staring at him, making his legs turn weak as if they wanted to run away from his body.

“Which Ngan? The one with stinky ears or Ngan Quang?”

“Ngan…of Ha Tay…of Khoai Hamlet…”

“Ah, that’s Ngan Quang. She is married; you are a relative and you don’t know?”

“I was away in Ninh Binh for a few years…” Quy answered.

The women looked at him curiously from head to toe then one suspiciously inquired: “How are you and she related?”

“She and I…we are cousins.”

“Cousins or siblings? Just tell us the truth and we will tell you how to find her.”

Quy was quiet. His face was suddenly hot and the veins in both his temples pulsed. He did not know how to handle these bossy women, who started laughing, turning left and right as if they were watching a funny comedy. Their mischievous stares at his face were like needles pricking his numb skin. After a moment, he cleared his throat and made an effort to speak slowly and calmly:

“You girls tease too much; really, I only come to inquire.”

The older woman with the mostly manly laugh, after wiping her tears with her sleeves and bunching her cards together, said to Quy, “OK, if you are sincere, we will tell you the truth. We’re just having some fun. Whether you are cousins or lovers, it is none of our business. If you are sure it’s Miss Ngan of Khoai Hamlet you are asking about, she has left the complex and gone with her husband to work on a farm. Her husband is Mr. Quang, the managing boss of city workers, not like us, hired hands from elsewhere. If you want more information, go to the A7 or A8 housing units. The workers there are all selected by Mr. Quang. They know more than we do.”

“Thank you, ladies. So when did Ngan get married?”

“Sorry, nobody knows.”

“I thought when workers get married, the site organization is supposed to assist them.”

“There are workers and then there are workers. We are only dirty-feet country people hired temporarily and not government civil servants. We have no right to make demands. Besides, Ngan’s family situation was rather complicated. They cannot be married normally like others.”

A young woman next to her added, “I heard she was properly married.”

Another interrupted immediately, “Properly married my foot!” And she turned to the other impatiently: “If she were married, why was she so hushed-up about it?”

“She did not invite us to have noodles with roasted pork and sweets on the day she departed.”

“Leaving is one thing, proper marriage is another. You’re so big yet so dumb!”

The older woman with the manly laugh scolded the girl. Then she bent over
to look at the deck of cards in her hand. Quy knew it was time for him to leave. He nodded to bid farewell to all:

“I thank you, ladies.”

“At your service…”

As soon as he turned his back the peals of laughter rose anew. In the bright door frame, girls passed back and forth, some in white shirts, some in purple, and some in pink.

“Some horsey whores out of the paddock,” Quy almost blurted out loud, but was able to control himself.

His eyes stayed glued on the bright rectangular opening; something there pulled him like magnets pull iron. He did not understand. Standing awhile in the darkness, clandestinely looking at those girls, he suddenly felt as if he had just lost something, but could not find words to describe it. He tried to figure out what was going on in his heart but could not, asking himself, “What is this? What did I lose? What do I want?”

There was no answer.

Then all of a sudden a bitter anger could be felt in his throat and he said out loud:

“Just a gang of man-hungry whores; any guy who takes one will fall apart sooner or later. Definitely ‘Coolie Girls.’ A few months ago that other whore was parading just like this.”

In the night, his voice resonated loudly, bouncing back from the rough and empty buildings. He panicked, fearing the people inside could hear him. He turned and ran. The path in the complex snaked around piles of sand and gravel, scattered heaps of bricks, piles of wooden timbers, of half-wet cement mixture covered with many layers of wet jute bags. In the dark with his soul in flight, Quy stepped on a stone and fell forward into cement that was still soft. The wet mixture covered his face, one shoulder, and an arm. After he was able to stand up, Quy started to realize his situation:

“How can I show my face in the streets like this? But before I get to the streets I have to pass the guard at the gate.”

He put down his leather attaché case and looked inside to find some newspaper with which to wipe his smeared face. At that moment, the lye water entered one eye and irritated it. The stinging multiplied, a terrifying development. That physical pain crawled up to the top of his head and mixed with another pain, more devastating—a realization of his inability and humiliation. His tears flowed, mixing with the lye to make the whole area around his eyes and cheekbones burn as if they were cut. The pain caused him to sob and he found that he could not stop his crying. In front of Quy’s eyes
there was only a vast space where black water would not stop falling. It seemed as if all the blood in his veins now became black, totally black, inky black. The dark blood spread all over his body. His whole body shook in an insane desire to cut someone’s throat, to crack someone’s skull, to stomp someone under his feet, to relieve the pain he was enduring. While wiping his slush-smeared face, Quy closed his eyes tightly to let tears wash out the lye that clung to his lashes. Then, in his mind, he carried out many scenarios for revenge: he would burn down the majestic house of the provincial Party secretary; he pointed a gun at a gathering crowd like a child who smashes an anthill; he sat on the head of the provincial Party secretary, the guy with a big belly who once scolded him as if he were a three-year-old child during a provincial conference of cadres; he pointed his penis and squirted urine on the guy’s slippery and fat face; he spat on his beautiful gray hair always straight-parted; he climbed in the Volga car, took the driver’s seat, and made the old man run behind the car to eat dust.

The final image seen by Quy’s burning eyes was one of himself riding on the white chest of a naked woman. He kneads her breasts, pinches them, bites them. Her small nipples are almost severed, they are dangling and attached to the breasts only by tiny pieces of skin, looking like two lotus seeds. He bends over and pulls them off with his blackened fingers, with the delight of a child who has just pulled the legs off a grasshopper. Then he rapes her, rapes her with all the passion and hatred piled up over so many lives; he rapes as if it were the only way to exist on this earth. He rapes her insistently from moonrise until noon of the next day. He rapes her until her skin, fresh like congealed fat, fresh pink like eggshell, becomes floppy, discolored, and pale, and at the end transparent, like frog eggs. Beautiful like a rose, she is raped until she becomes weak, exhausted; until she barely breathes. When he stands up to button his trousers, she turns totally into mush. What is left on the ground is a pile of some shapeless and torn rags.

A pile of green rags.

The season for mushroom gathering passed as if it were a festival. People say that January is the month to have fun, but for Woodcutters’ Hamlet, January is the month of hard work. On the seventh, eighth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, villagers go to the temple and don’t think about money or food. Otherwise, every day is translated into money:

“Today, how much did you get?”

“Five point seven kilos.”

“Only so-so.”

“How so-so? It’s less than Minh’s family down in the lower section. They are also only one mother and one child like me and on average she gets seven point five kilos.”

“Can’t compare with them. Both mother and child are strong like bears. They climb mountains like the San Diu, San Chi people.”

“You are doing pretty well, too, each day almost ten kilos.”

“All three of us work without stopping for breath, with sweat running down our backs. At night the thighs are painful. But, thank goodness, it’s worth it. This year’s mushroom harvest is three times better than the cassava one.”