The Zenith (52 page)

“Comrades, don’t be so harsh. In the end, all questions are to be resolved in a calm manner by consensus,” Thuan intervened, lifting his arm and continuing in a firm manner as if to have the last word. “I believe that all of us are of one mind: the matter of recognizing Miss Xuan cannot be done. We cannot even think about it. I hope that, in a spirit of high responsibility before
the whole nation, Mr. President must accept this decision. We have no alternative.”

“Mr. President is the elderly father of the nation.”

Sau followed with his lips still pushed out in a subtle smile: “The elderly father of the nation is the roof that shelters the people. For years now, the people have known this metaphor. Mr. President needs to remind Miss Xuan about this point, if she continues to demand that she be officially recognized.”

At that moment, he felt his tongue stick in his throat. Sweat ran down his spine and his feet were cold as if they were soaking in ice water. Those well-known faces had suddenly become plastic masks all puffed up, twisted, and bumpy. How could he find understanding and trust among those deformed people? All that he had firmly believed in had been a complete misunderstanding. A high wall just collapsed inside his heart. His soul emptied; his brain became paralyzed. He suddenly became mute. He could not move his lips. After a moment, his powers returned. A fleeting warning came on, making him quiver. He had to calm himself first before he was able to speak:

“If the Politburo has decided, obviously I have to accept. But, dear comrades, do not forget that Miss Xuan is my close associate, together we have two children, and these children are my own blood and flesh.”

“Be assured, Mr. President: all your loved ones will be treated properly. Just as long as they willingly live out of sight, behind the revolution,” said Thuan, who reputedly was the most mature and courteous member of the Politburo. He also was reputedly a man of moral character, which meant that, unlike his other comrades, he was monogamous. Thuan had only one wife. With that woman he had five children.

The president no longer remembers the end of that meeting, what happened after he had received what felt like a sentence of death. He had felt as if his heart were led up to the platform where the blade of the executioner’s sword came down. The last impression in his soul was a realization of his powerlessness. For the first time, he saw himself as just a colossal wooden statue hollowed out by termites. All those buddy-buddy comrades standing in his shadow just to seek some power. In reality, they were his bosses, such brutal and immoral cronies. The whole gang lived only for what could happen below their belly buttons. More than half of them had two wives and a gaggle of mistresses. The one who appeared to empathize most with him had been Do, for he understood the life of one who has been castrated. Do’s wife had been inflicted with a delusional condition since youth. After childbirth
she became a schizo. She was treated in the hospital and at institutions reserved for families of Politburo dignitaries. Do had to endure a period of no sex for a while, before taking up a clandestine relationship with a singer in a theater troupe from Zone Five, with whom he had a son. But Do was always in the minority; besides, his temperament was weak and submissive. All his life he was only an actor. For a long time, he had volunteered to be a marionette.

The one with the most respectable reputation, who spoke in a high moral tone and who took a firm attitude during that meeting, was Thuan. He had once and for a long time been his most effective right-hand man.

“But he was never deprived of sex,” the president thinks to himself. “He had only one wife, and with her he has five children, and both during war and in peace, the sex life of this man has run without lapse.”

The president remembers a celebration in the Viet Bac zone. That day the cooks had been authorized to kill a cow. Local villagers provided plenty of rice whiskey. After eating, all were tipsy and happy. Suddenly, a woman’s screams were heard coming from the family quarters, a male voice mixed with the woman’s curses and cries. Horrified, the chief office administrator ran over to inquire. He returned a bit later and reported that the wife of the warehouse warden was in difficult child labor. The more pain this coarse woman felt, the more she cursed her husband. Those around her offered encouragement. When her pain subsided temporarily, the women’s association took her to the clinic.

This incident triggered an explosion of crisp laughter mingled with jokes, both new and old, among the revelers.

Some guy asked, “Any of you ladies here ever curse your husband when you were in labor?”

“None of us!” the wives replied in unison.

A more daring wife said, “Even if we wanted to curse, we’d grind our teeth and do it quietly to let off some anger.”

“Maybe you’re the most honest one here!”

The president smiled in praise then continued to tease them: “But why get mad at the one who shares your bed and pillow?”

“Because…because…”

The woman hesitated, part of her wanting to respond, another part still unsure. Then he heard Thuan laughing; it was he who responded on behalf of the woman:

“Because when you are happy there are two of you; but when you suffer, you
bear it all alone. That’s what you feel facing the injustice of heaven and earth. That’s what anger demands from the Creator.”

“You have a wonderful talent for getting it right,” the president said, his voice raised in praise, and then he turned to Thuan’s wife:

“Knowing how to speak like that, he must also know how to be an ideal husband. Am I right?”

“Ah…”

Thuan’s wife also hesitated like the other women. She glanced at her husband and again he laughed out loud, this time without concealing his pleasure:

“Mr. President, on this topic you are pretty naive. Theory and practice are always like two parallel lines that never meet. My wife was just nagging me all night because I broke a rule.”

“Broke a rule? What rule?”

He had asked the question out of genuine curiosity because he was not clear what kinds of rules there were between the couple. For his whole life, women had passed him by like rain or clouds, temporary like an inn, dreamy like a fictional beauty. Family life for him was an unexplored continent. While looking toward Thuan, the wife’s face became red like a ripe fruit, while Thuan smiled the largest smile he could manage. Then he slowly explained:

“There are lots of rules, but no rule can withstand youth and all the rushes of one’s nature. For instance, our elders taught us that after a wife gives birth, we have to restrain ourselves for one hundred days, that was the official position. But I don’t believe any husband can fast past twenty-one days. Behind our wives’ backs, quietly I asked ten husbands: all ten admitted they broke that rule. Then the doctor has his rule: when a wife is nine months pregnant, it is absolutely forbidden to come near her bed. Me, I practice
‘jusqu’au bout’
(until the end). The day she went into labor, the night before I was knocking away.”

“Will you stop now, you devil,” Thuan’s wife screamed, almost crying of embarrassment.

The whole group burst into laughter, with an obvious air of complicity. He hurriedly intervened:

“OK, OK…when the lady speaks, it’s an order. I recommend that we turn to another subject.”

A time to remember; a time to love; a time to take revenge.

An old verse suddenly returns. He suddenly sees the logic of the ordinary. It’s correct that there was a time. A time to remember.

A time that has passed—a time of all those who had lived in the jungle, who had together sung the same military songs, who had marched in the same formation, who had shared bowls of rice, and who had had the same hopes. A time of suffering and dreaming, when each could share with the others all things in an easy manner. A time when people thought that love and friendship were the strong ropes that bound them tightly, despite all barriers, despite all changes.

“Why does this revenge arise? From hidden envy or from power crucified?”

Those two alternatives put him at a fork in the road where either way had snakes and centipedes underfoot. So many years had passed, but still he did not fully understand the reason for this communal betrayal. Could it have been that her beauty brought jealousy to the heart of his comrades? Or had his love for her undermined the power of the organization?

Before he had met Xuan, the resistance movement had decided to find him a woman who would be the future “Mother of the Nation.” His rejection of that proposal, followed by a torrid affair with a girl from the mountains, was the hammer that had decidedly smashed the sculpted image that his comrades had readily erected for him.

“Who appointed them matchmakers? Everything that has happened feels like a stupid game as well as a plan of some ghost taking me to the grave.”

He cannot remember for sure when, but about the winter of 1947 or the spring of 1948, the office had come to report:

“The Politburo has met without you and decided that a female comrade from the women’s association will be assigned to service you.”

“Why wasn’t I informed of the purpose of that meeting?”

“Because, Mr. President, your responsibility is to be the highest leader of the resistance; thousands of matters await you. Thus, you do not have time to worry about your personal affairs. The Politburo had to step up and make the arrangement.”

“But feelings between two individuals cannot be addressed in such a simple and mechanical manner. You all set the tasks, but the woman does not have any passion, so then the arrangement is a punishment for her.”

“Don’t you worry, Mr. President! To serve you is an honor.”

“But me, I’m human, too; I have to feel genuine emotion for the whole thing to work out well.”

“Yes, all the officials of the Politburo say that to carry out this decision is to safeguard your health, Mr. President. According to Hai Thuong Lan Ong’s
Encyclopedia of Medicine
, if your yin and yang are not balanced, then all kinds of ailments will come. Your health secures the destiny of the people and the future of the nation. The whole administrative office has the obligation to take care of your health.”

“I understand. But you cannot use that reason to solve everything so pragmatically.”

“Mr. President, the women’s association has briefed Comrade Thu. She has agreed that serving you means to serve the revolution.”

“What?”

“Mr. President, the administrative office informs you that it will commence this Saturday.”

“You don’t have to rush things like that. I have lived a few years without a partner and nothing happened,” he replied, an annoyance invading his heart. But the chief of the administrative office hurriedly went out. His quick footsteps could be heard at the top of the stairs. Then an aide stepped in and asked him to go to General Long’s bunker for a meeting. This meeting had been scheduled two weeks ago so he went right away, but his annoyance remained, similar to that feeling from the past when the widow in the short alley off Rue St-Jean had pursued him and stalked him in a blunt manner in front of all the neighbors.

As soon as he had stepped into General Long’s bunker, right away he asked about this decision. But this fellow pretended not to hear anything; he kept busy pouring tea. Then he said slowly: “It’s only temporary.”