The Zenith (48 page)

“That is why I understand that that gang standing on our heads and stepping on our necks only cares about filling their three holes. Why don’t we get smart and flush our own holes?”

The neighbors all fell dead silent at this, partly because of embarrassment, partly because what Quy had just said was so new to them they had no idea how to react. Some said he was irreverent to draw attention to his “lessons from prison” while forgetting all the low things he had done. Some thought that Quy intentionally exaggerated the truth to show that he no longer cared about living, that he had not an inch of conscience, that his time in jail had been only a lark and a frolic.

It turned out that the neighbors were wrong. Several weeks later, crying, Quy’s wife ran to the village committee to ask that Miss Vui sign an order to remove her IUD, for the reason that the husband wanted lots of kids, because, after a thousand years, people still thought that a family with many children has “lots of good fortune.” She said that if she resisted his wish, Quy could chase her out the door immediately and bring home a city girl, young and pretty—a thousand times better than “that whore Ngan.” The new chairwoman understood that she was dealing with a real jerk, that “even a king gives way to the insane,” so she took up her pen and signed off on the order as requested. The next week, Quy’s wife went to the hamlet clinic to have her IUD removed. That same afternoon, Quy sat drinking in the middle of his patio, wobbling like an old man of seventy. Halfway through the carafe, he raised his voice to curse:

“The old maid knows her fate, bows her head to sign the order. If not, I would show her the martial arts of a ‘hero from the jail.’”

Then Quy ordered his wife to bring him more alcohol. Half drunk and half sober, he told his two daughters and son, “Now, me—I have no Party membership nor committee responsibilities; nothing ties me down. I and your mother have the freedom to make babies, until we no longer have eggs. Now it is your turn, too; paternal and maternal grandchildren, they are all gifts. From antiquity, the elders have taught us: “to have bodies is to have wealth.” If our family is large, we can fart all together and blow their house down.”

“Their” here referred to Mr. Quang, his wife, and their recently born son—Que. While Quy was in prison, Miss Ngan became pregnant. Most pregnant mothers are sick for several months, but she threw up not even once, even though she ate such unsettling things as green guava, fresh limes and chili peppers, and bitter eggplant. Mr. Quang’s wife grew even more beautiful during this time; like spring flowers her complexion and skin were smooth and her cheeks pinkish red. When her tummy grew to the size of a drum she still ran around briskly, still went out to the burrows and fields, laughing merrily like popping New Year firecrackers and with not a hint of weariness. Mrs. Tu took her down to the district to give birth, and boasted that the baby boy was born with rings of flowers around his neck. As soon as the rings were removed, he started crying so loudly as to be heard throughout several rooms. Even though he was a first child, he weighed nine pounds and was over twenty-three inches long; with those numbers, he
was indeed the largest newborn in the region, not only in Woodcutters’ Hamlet but in the whole district.

Mr. Quang waited for his wife in the halls of the clinic. When all was done, he stepped in and placed around her neck a necklace with a stone carving of the Guan Yin Boddhisattva. All women giving birth in that region would envy such a gift. When the child reached one month, Mrs. Tu prepared a thirty-tray banquet and invited relatives from near and far. The father instead of the mother held the child when greeting arriving relatives, something he had never done with the children by his first wife.

The relatives from both sides—paternal and maternal, close and distant—almost had to admit that they had never seen a child as beautiful as Que; that he deserved the pride felt by the entire family; and that, if, in this life, an old and lonely father like Mr. Quang could have such a child, then millions of people could dream about such happiness for themselves.

All that happened under his father’s roof reached Quy’s ears, giving pain to his vengeful heart. His words—half sober, half inebriated—could not hide his toxic bitterness. People understood that imprisonment had not brought an awakening to the son, but, on the contrary, had exacerbated bitterness toward the father.

The nightmare of the “father-son war” lingered; it haunted the people continually. In the dark night, the residents of Woodcutters’ Hamlet would look up to the dark cloud-covered skies, and worriedly sigh.

That next New Year, Quy gave away in marriage both his daughters at one time. The wedding ceremony took place just when Quy’s wife was packing her clothes to go to the district to have a baby. Her small belly was in the eighth month. And their fourth child came just as the “presentation” ceremony of the daughters ended. It was a boy and they named him Chien, or “Fighter”—a word that embodied the father’s wish as well as his determination. Chien was just nine months when Quy’s wife again became pregnant. The following year she gave birth to another son, named Thang, or “Victorious,” also a name full of implication. That same year, the two daughters gave life to two little girls, the older sister one month, the younger sister the next. The two granddaughters were just weaned and barely a year old when the girls again became pregnant, their faces as green as leaves. The babies drank bad milk, constantly coming down with diarrhea. So this family became a reproductive assembly line, ignoring all neighbors’ opinions. With two weak-willed sons-in-law, even though the father had lost his position, he
was still intimidating, so Quy’s dream that “our family is big, we can fart all together and collapse the roof of their house” became a reality.

Nevertheless—because reality always kicks in with the word “nevertheless”—nevertheless, while working to put his crazy dream into action, Quy did not plan the logistics necessary for such a large army. The sons-in-laws’ families were poor, classified among those that regularly received assistance from the village. Very poor, yet they had the carefree habits of those who might live or who might not, as the elders said in the old days: “If my meat is raw, I’ll eat it raw; if it’s well cooked, I’ll eat it, too.”

The new in-laws had not even a penny to their name. From the betrothal to the “new age banquet,” there were only cookies, candies, and tea, and still they had to borrow from neighbors, and after the day of “presentation,” Quy’s wife had to slip envelopes to her daughters so that they could cover the debts. After each “presentation” ceremony, the young couples returned to stay with the in-laws because they could not afford their own private room. On the wedding night, the parents-in-law had to relinquish their only bed to the newlyweds, taking a bamboo settee out to the veranda to sleep. Thus Miss Mo’s and Miss Man’s families shared the five-room house of their parents. Each family had two rooms, while the fifth was for storage of all their farm products as well as farming equipment. With such an outstanding record of procreation, Quy’s family suddenly fell straight down, from the kind that lives on wealth to the kind that struggles to move forward while mired in the mud of poverty. The money saved vanished like dry leaves blown away in a winter’s tornado. Quy’s stamina was not that robust; nor was his business acumen. For the previous three years Quy tried only to stabilize his family’s economic situation. Under his dominion, the two sons-in-law were docile; they listened to him. But the head of this family had no experience in production and the sons-in-law, born and raised in indigent families, were hopeless. Many people lived in the “big” house. One would think that the circumstance could have brought warmth, vitality, ample rice paddies, and much cash flowing in as well. But fate did not smile on Quy; the genie of good fortune was grinding its teeth and throwing cold water in his face.

For several years in a row, even though the cassava was planted separately for family appropriation and the earned labor points were sufficient, whatever might have brought Quy some cash totally failed. During the mushroom season, only the three men went up into the woods to scavenge, as the women in the family were either expecting or had just had a baby. With one child on the hip and another on the back, caring for the children exhausted them.
That no women were available to dry and bag the mushrooms left Quy and his two sons-in-law in charge, and a significant part of the harvest was ruined. The endeavor that should have brought in the most money—beekeeping—was also a disaster. First, Quy’s bees had diarrhea. Then they had green fungi growing on their backs, and in only one day the infection had spread all the way to the base of the wings, causing them to fall off. The hive died out.

Many people whispered behind his back about his family’s mysterious misfortune; others were too afraid to talk about it. If you passed by Quy’s gate, you would see the three families sitting on a mat—no table—having dinner on the patio, entirely like a very poor rural family in days far past, looking puzzled, with a powerless gaze, without even the capacity to feel ashamed. During that time, Quy’s family became the very first family in Woodcutters’ Hamlet to eat rice mixed with cassava. Meanwhile the storm lamp still shone brightly over part of Mr. Quang’s large patio, a setting where neighbors were generously treated to chicken and rice as well as many other goodies. Nobody dared raise a concern. Their anxiety looking at such contrast twisted their hearts into knots so words froze at the tips of their tongues. Quy’s plan of “many children making grandchildren; plenty of good fortune” hit the wall of dire poverty.

Dire poverty is a bad-tempered acquaintance, an opponent well deserving caution, giving its victims blows that can never be healed. Forever in the past, one relied on the reassurance that “paternal concern will prevail.” So it was expected that, sooner or later, Mr. Quang would reconcile with Quy so that there would be someone to hold the bamboo cane and wear the gauze mourning headband and mourning coat when he came to lie down for the last time. Quy never imagined that someday the man he called “Father” would look at him as no more than a passerby crossing the street.

One morning, Quy and his two sons-in-law went up to the forest to cut firewood. In the early new dew, the air of the mountains was still rising thru the cracks, giving everyone goose bumps. The three men shivered in clothes that gave no warmth; they kept stepping on one another’s feet as they rushed forward. It was a steep climb and there were many large stones made slick by the dew that caused the path to be very treacherous, especially for those wearing rubber sandals. It was bad luck that Quy had left his old canvas shoes at home that day to wear light, six-strap rubber sandals. He slipped and began to roll down the ravine; midway down the stony slope, an old thornbush full of dry branches stopped his fall, saving him from death,
but he broke four ribs. While he was held by the thornbush, waiting for his sons-in-law to rescue him, he suddenly looked up at the top of the slope. Mr. Quang was standing there, looking down into the ravine. For an instant, their eyes met. For the first time, the son understood that all was over—forever. He caught in the eyes of his father a terrifying coldness—the type of frigid cold brought by the north wind in December. He shivered and quickly closed his eyes.