The Zenith (46 page)

Thus if Miss Vui were smart enough, she would have guessed exactly how people would criticize her behind her back. But with fortune in charge, all intelligence has limits, and so Mr. Do’s daughter became completely intoxicated with the happiness belonging to someone in power, someone who was all caught up in building a nest, rallying allies, and building up defenses around the chair that comes with being chairman. Those tasks diverted her time and attention away from understanding the level of criticism about her among the villagers, those who would dig up every mystery in her heart like the investigator who exhumes the corpse in some unexplained death. The investigation had the feel of “people’s justice,” as all the relevant facts had the character of belonging to the “masses” rather than to some single storyteller. Young and old, big and small, boys and girls, all took part, even though the ones who could officially jump into the discussion were those with formal positions:

“Do you all agree that we are old and stupid? The whole flock, everyone from the upper section down to the lower one, gathers around to listen to the story of Mr. and Mrs. Quang, like a bunch of kids who gather to watch shadow boxing without any idea of why they love it so enthusiastically.”

“Who knows? I thought because of recent wealth, Chairman Vui likes to put on airs, act like patronizing everyone, thus competing with Mr. Quang.”

“Sure, sure…That one cannot be generous or open-minded. The other day my grandchild had the fever with caked tongue. Out of honey, we went to ask her for some. She gave only two spoonfuls.”

“You lie.…Who would dare put out a hand to a neighbor with only two spoonfuls of honey?”

“The little cup where I keep the honey is still in our cupboard; come over later and look for yourself.”

“That’s the truth. She suddenly became so generous only because she wanted to be on warm terms with her neighbors, but she also wanted to use gossip to destroy her opponent. It is not that she sacrificed her time and money for nothing, renting a car and going all the way to Khoai Hamlet to investigate the happenings of another woman. A stable person would be crazy to do that.”

“At that time I simply thought she had followed Quy’s orders.”

“An order from the chairman is only that effective if your heart gives it a push.”

“How true. Now I remember; I may have had eyes but I was blind. I am the very one that stood close to her during Mrs. Quang’s funeral. I saw her lighting incense three times and doing all three bows.”

“To bow low three times so that the poor dead soul would agree to her stepping into the conjugal bed with the widowed husband.”

“Neighbors and relatives should bow only once; that’s proper etiquette.”

“It was so obvious but nobody noticed; her tactics were most discreet.”

“Not so discreet really; we were blinded by a ghost so we saw nothing. I guess that Mr. Do is at work helping his beloved daughter find a husband to give him some grandchildren perhaps. She’s over thirty; there’s no time to wait.”

“No ghost closed our eyes. We’re just oblivious. This spinster girl has a strategy. After thinking about it, I realized that it is right on the button that she chose Mr. Quang as her target. In this village, he has wealth and guts, has lived the most, been out in the world for how many years now? Who here beside him would dare to touch her?”

“That’s exactly it! But being clever can’t overthrow heaven’s plans. Without heaven’s OK, a hundred thousand strategies will all come to naught. Because of this they say: ‘Luck is better than brains.’”

“The delicious reward fell from her mouth, so, in revenge, she followed Quy. She thought she would surely find a place on Mrs. Quang’s classy bed. There was the chance to form a large estate; he is half a pound, she is eight ounces—no big difference between them. She didn’t expect some faraway woman to fly in like a swallow to land right on the branch of her dream lover. That destroyed everything.”

“This time she miscalculated. A cultured gentleman pays no attention to his wife’s possessions. Only gold diggers think of the purse. ‘He is the captain, she is the ship.’ A real gentleman chooses beauty and virtue.”

“Exactly. Mr. Quang has too much money to look for a woman with means. He carries one as beautiful as a fairy, young and fresh, with fragrant skin. To be sixty and have it like that, to die there are no regrets.”

“To sum up, the spinster is not that clever.”

“Don’t rush to judgment. Miscalculating, but still supple with maneuvers. Her head holds more strategies than do all of our empty heads put together. I challenge you all to shift position as she did. She was on Quy’s side but with a quick leap she becomes Mr. Quang’s ally. People say ‘troubled waters protect the heron.’ So it is.”

“We must admit this woman is a terror. Mr. Quang is as secretive as a sphinx but she discovered that his influence with the district, the province, was
as strong as split bamboo. She must have an ear on the inside: a relative sitting with those in authority. Never underestimate a woman who can run from here to there, who can leave the east for the west, as fast as a flip of the hand.”

“Unable to hold Mr. Quang’s tuber, she got her hands on the seal of the village committee instead. Now she is in the first ranks of those in power, the boss of over two thousand people in Woodcutters’ Hamlet. So, didn’t she win big?”

“A huge victory for sure; nobody denies that. But I ask you all: Her head is full of strategies but does she have any gravel inside her turtle?”

“Yes; yes, she has. Pay attention and listen when she walks by: a row of gravel on each hip rattles away.”

“You’re dead now! Tonight I will tell your wife that you always tilt your head to listen to Vui’s bell ringing. She will pull your ears for sure.”

“Oh well! Telling my wife would be useless. She knows that on seeing that old maid my pair would wilt and the hour hand would right away swing to the number six.”

“Poor baby, with great power and high position, with a large house and patio, yet her turtle is all moldy. Perhaps if we hit it now, it would sound like a temple’s wooden gong.”

“Insolent! How dare you compare one with the other? It’s out of order; the elders will slap you and give you a swollen mouth.”

“Sorry, I beg you all to forgive, I am silly and my tongue slips.”

“Be quiet! I have a challenge for you men, also for the ladies if you wish to participate. I ask you: From now on, what trees will Chairman Vui plant?”

“Why do you ask such a crazy question? Who sits in her brain to know?”

“But I know; what will you give me for telling you?”

“Agreed: drinks with fried catfish.”

“That’s too puny, I won’t do it.”

“A second round of drinks, this time with a young chicken steamed with salt and lime leaves.”

“Still not enough.”

“Add a third round with entrails over thin rice noodles, seasoned with shrimp paste and basil.”

“I accept! Now, open your ears and listen. From now on, our village chairwoman will pull up all the trees in her yard and replace them with only banana trees. A kind of banana tree propagated in Hung Yen, also called the ‘propagating’ banana, or the ‘show off’ banana with each fruit weighing
a pound or more, bigger than the pestle housewives use to pound up crabs.”

The women immediately screamed as if they had been bitten by a centipede or doused with boiling water:

“You scoundrel!”

“You dirty old man!”

“You devil; heaven will hit you hard!”

Then they laughed furiously, madly, with shrieking noises like those of the insane; laughing so hard they started to choke and cough. Thus, these kinds of discussions always climax with such a strange and obscene metaphor, where the imagination of rural folk is used to the maximum to gather up all the burdens hidden in their souls and then shoot a machine-gun belt of bullets at someone being pilloried before an ancient and permanent court of justice.

Such half-serious, half-joking stories about the powerful woman were in fact a way to obtain revenge; an unconscious way, but one as old as the earth. When emotions bring turmoil to a community, people must find a way to restore balance, to reinforce faith in themselves, and, in the end, to prepare themselves for the future. The most convenient course is to find an object to offer to a formless deity, a divine and most powerful one with enough magic power to melt away all ills. In the past, people took the most beautiful girls in a region and threw them into the deep sea to satisfy the king of the sea dragons, who would have a name like Royal Green Dragon, White Dragon, or Black Dragon, depending on which part of the sea received the offering. Nowadays, however, people living in Woodcutters’ Hamlet could not throw their own daughters into deep ravines as offerings to formless gods. So they sacrificed at the burning stake of public opinion the one who had the most vulnerable reputation. In this situation, no one was more deserving than the newly appointed village chair, Nguyen Thi Vui. The nightmare of a child in the middle section had spawned a storm all over the region, but mostly over the people of this one village—a gigantic monster fighting with its own child, which had just come out of its womb. Wasn’t that an image of what is most terrifying and feared in life: no good fortune, no virtue, and no moral conscience?

Every family—classy or humble, rich or poor—counts on the relationships between generations as the most reliable protection for their lineage. Maternal love, like paternal concern, has always been regarded as humanity’s most sacred emotion. Right after birth, a child hears this lullaby:

This cradle song will be repeated over and over throughout childhood. And when the child becomes a young man or woman, on their wedding day—the most auspicious day of their life—he or she must kneel before the altar to the ancestors and honor those who gave it life and nurture. This ritual demonstrates appropriate respect and gratitude; this ritual gives a warrant to filial piety.

Circumstances change. Weddings under the revolutionary authority have no betel nuts, firecrackers, or silk scarves. Enamored, boys and girls just glance at each other the night before; the next morning they make an announcement to the whole community, to the Party, to various groups, or to the women’s committee of the village. Parents now have no opportunity to say anything, the children having already received an official seal on their marriage license. As soon as the ink dries, all the groups stand up to make announcements and speeches, advising the newlyweds to be unified, to be conscientious in their work, to execute all the duties to the nation and the family. After that, it’s peanut brittle candy with green tea in lieu of large or small wedding banquets; hand clapping replaces red firecrackers and silk scarves. People must bend their heads before power and its new protocols. But revenge hides in the silent shadows. And when the time comes, scores are settled.

Thus, the nightmare of the young child in the middle section poured a tempest of fear and anger into the villagers’ souls. Except for the demented, no one would want a child to turn around and put a knife in their parents’ back. Those who are parents usually sacrifice without reservation so that their children can benefit from food and education, and can become “somebody” better than themselves. We have been taught for many generations that only a mother pig would roll over on her piglets; only a bitch would fight over her chow with her puppies; and that humans cannot behave in such ways. It is parental sacrifices like that that entitle them to demand filial piety from their children. This self-evident logic, shaped by natural laws, always succumbs to a destructive reality. The dream of moral reciprocity is indeed large like the sea, but the reality of human love, of selflessness, is like a meandering river flowing between low and narrow dikes. For years, life proceeds as the water flows between the two banks of hope and deception, of
trust and mistrust, of love and resentment. Similar to the earth turning around the sun: an endless motion, a nonstop rotation until the day when the cosmos becomes some insane spirit’s pile of ashes in its last turn. Trapped by the law of this tireless rotation, we must salvage our self-confidence in the moments of greatest danger. Without faith—even insane faith—how can there be life? Rural people need to protect their homes; they need to trust that their children will become aware of their sacrifices, that they will become filial ones meriting all the hardship, the weariness, and the devoted sacrifices of so many years. Parents need a warranty that, one day, when they lie in the coffin, the children who follow behind the hearse will shed tears of genuine love and not cry just because they have to perform for the sake of the neighbors or just because they want to pay back the expenses of the household and the patio and the money left for them. Parents need to be compensated with fairness, just as love should be compensated by love.

At its start, the drama of Mr. Quang’s family was only an entertaining opera, but slowly it evolved into a clandestine tragedy, more exciting by the minute, resonating with the perpetual worries simmering behind the doors of so many households. When the “mother fighting child” nightmare of young Hoa in the middle section happened, the gnawing and hidden anxieties in people’s souls suddenly burst over the community like a storm, and people changed the name of the “mother fighting child” nightmare into that of “father-son blood fight” to better reflect reality.