The Zenith (55 page)

“But I cannot twice push her into humiliation. She is a human being nonetheless, a woman. Humiliation can drive a person to seek death…”

When young, he had read quite a few tales of palace life. He remembered deaths by the poison-filled golden cup, by slashed throats, or by a piece of white silk hung over stair rails. From queens to concubines, from ladies-in-waiting to maids…how many women had sought death to end humiliation arising from unrequited love? But the majority had been real beauties. Miss Minh Thu was not a beauty, of course, but had accepted the mission of “serving the revolution.” Her reaction thus would be increased manyfold. No need for a rich imagination to know that after the previous Saturday she would have confessed to her superiors: “To report, I did not accomplish the mission assigned to me.” The older sisters had met, and all week had looked for ways to help her. Luckily for them, he had had to go to prepare for a forthcoming military campaign, giving them time to work on a plan: “The lady will prepare scented water for him to bathe and sit by the fire knitting.”

Pity the fate of humanity!

But even if he complained on his or her behalf, he could not forget that in a little while he would have to “enter the room,” according to the old saying. But what was under his belly button still refused to play its part. This worry over failure mixed with fear of all the consequent humiliation that could set in made him lose his bearings. But at that moment the work of toweling dry brought to him an old but always effective solution. He caressed himself. He brought vividly to mind a memory of the most sensual woman he had ever met in his life, the one with the slanted eyes. He visualized the sight of her straddled on his stomach, her flesh, her breathing, her charcoal black hair spread on her forehead shining under the light.

And his youth returned.

The loud ringing of the telephone startles him and wakes him from his revery. He is about to get up but the guard runs straight into the room and picks up the phone.

“Mr. President, Vice Minister Vu.”

“Thank you, leave it there for me.”

He holds the phone to his ears, hearing the panting breathing on the other side of the receiver.

“What happened to you? Do you have bronchitis?”

“No, I just have a cold from yesterday afternoon.”

“Be careful. You may be much younger than I, but you’re no longer so strong and youthful. Don’t tease the Big Boss.”

“I know. Are you well, Eldest Brother?”

“I am OK. After you left I had someone bring me more money to offer to the woodcutter’s family. They had prepared the envelope too skimpily.”

He hears Vu’s laugh on the other end of the line, then continues:

“We always forget the details. We are always indifferent to the concrete facts.”

“But those very details and all such ordinary calculations are life.”

“Agreed. These days you have the inclination to become a philosopher of dialectical materialism. Do you plan a transfer to the training department?”

“What?”

He hears Vu burst into laughter in his familiar playful manner.

“What? Will you spare me!”

He also laughs and quickly changes the subject:

“What is going on in Hanoi?”

“Tomorrow there will be a wind from the northeast. Don’t forget that it will be cold for a long while.”

“I do not forget: in January it’s a drawn-out cold, in February it’s a fortunate cold, and in March it’s Lady Ban’s cold.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m calling you. With the north wind, it will be cold up there first. Don’t take a walk in the woods; a sudden rain will bring the flu.”

“I will remember.”

“I have to go now. They just informed me of a sudden meeting at central administration, followed by dinner…after dinner, for sure we will continue the meeting…Eldest Brother, take care.”

“You, too,” says the president. “Give my best to Sister Van. You are lucky to have her. She is beautiful both in person and in character.”

“Yes, thank you,” Vu replies in a joking manner that the president has not heard before, and repeats on the other end of the line: “Eldest Brother sent me congratulations on the beautiful woman with attractive character.”

Then, right away, the younger brother turns back to the phone to say, “I am going now.”

The president hears a strange noise when Vu hangs up the phone. A suspicion flashes by. But he is unable to guess what.

Hanoi becomes cold. The north winter wind returns.

The rows of trees turn deeper green in the freezing cold and the surface of Ho Tay Lake ripples with millions of wavelets. The rows of jacaranda along the lake’s edge are purple, a solitary kind of purple. Pedestrians pick up their pace along the Co Ngu road to shield themselves from the strong, wild wind blowing above the water. Right at that moment, too, a pair of lovers sits at the edge of the lake holding each other, their faces toward the wind.

Vu casts his eyes in their direction and thinks to himself: “How long will those two be able to live out their dream of love? Who knows in what year, in what month, on what day they will have to cry in regret because of their passionate embrace today?”

Pairs of curled-up men and women hold on to each other under their transparent rain gear, shields too delicate to ward off the cold February wind. Leaving the Co Ngu road, Vu finds a tea stall, a folksy hangout, a tiny and deplorable “private enterprise” that has permission to operate in the exclusively government-run economy. The stall is sheltered by deteriorating old panels with used newspapers glued to them. The pot of green tea sits warmly inside a large cozy lined with hay. The cups are chipped, stained with tea residue; they are placed disorderly on a large tray that is no less dirty. But this scene of utmost poverty and frugality befits the society in which he lives. Because it does not invite jealousy. Because it can evoke only pity or disgust. Things considered diseased or cursed in a prosperous society are right for this society. For a long while, these suspicions have been gnawing at him.

“Lean the bicycle on a lamppost and lock it. Caution is the mother of success,” says an obnoxious and disdainful voice. The tea seller had seen the strange guest and raised his voice to guide him:

“Don’t you see that lamppost over there? Put your bike there so I can watch it.”

Vu looks up and around for a while and sees a lamppost on the other side of the street somewhat hidden from sight by a cart drawn by a cow and filled with watercress in long bundles. He walks his bike to the other side of the street and leans it close against the cart and carefully locks it.

The tea stall owner watches his every movement carefully with an inhibited curiosity. Then he waits until Vu walks into the stall and sits on the long bench with his back against the panel holding out the wind then asks, “What do you want to drink? Green tea or black tea? Or if you want to enjoy a glass of rice wine, I have that, too.”

Vu is surprised: “A tea stall also selling wine?”

“Why not?” the old man asks back with an air of daring mixed with playfulness: “You think that people need only tea and not wine? You think that if the government forbids selling something people must go along?”

“I do not think it is that simple. But…”

The old man laughs hoarsely: “But I find you a good person, that’s why I said that. If it were someone else, I would bend my tongue in another direction.”

Vu also laughs along: “Thank you. You find me a good person, really? What does it mean, ‘a good person’?”

“A good person is one who is not sneaky; who is unable to be a lowlife or be disloyal. Not like those who come here begging me, asking me, to sell them wine to drink. After they are done drinking, even before they take time to pee, they go and report to the police.”

“And then?”

“And then?” the old man repeats with a faint smile full of spite. “The police are what they are. Many know how to drink wine. In cold weather like this, a sip of wine is warmer than a swallow of rice gruel, thin like snail water. Therefore, even if they pretend to confiscate my bottle of wine, three days later they have to return it anyway. The only thing is, when they return it, there is only the empty bottle. I continue to call the people in the countryside to bring up more wine and everything is normal again.”

By then, the old man has bent down and pulled out from under the settee a basket covered with a jute bag. Turning over the jute bag, he shows Vu the wine jug in a jade color with a large, open spout.

“Do you see it now? Top-rated sweet rice with yellow blossoms is of superior grade.”

“Such a beautiful jar!” says Vu. “The wine must be good. Please give me a cup to warm up.”

“Ah ha…” The old man starts laughing loudly, making his beard shake hard. “The nice vessel does not guarantee good wine; like good paint does not warranty good wood. But my wine is guaranteed to be good.”

That said, he bends down and opens a wooden box with two brass handles; he takes out a shiny clean porcelain cup, then pours one full cup and gives it to Vu.

“Taste it and you will know what wine is!”

Vu holds the cup, bemused. The porcelain cup is blue with a painting of a phoenix. Its rim is encircled with brass. It is the kind his father had used to drink wine. In the afternoon, after his gardening chores, his father used to put a small brass tray on the sitting platform. On the tray, there would be a drinking set that held one cup, one tiny wine jar, and a small plate of appetizers. He would sit there contemplating the scenery, sipping his wine while waiting for the evening meal with his family.

“Well, take a sip to see if I tell you the truth or only joke!” the old stall owner urges. Vu lifts the cup to his lips; the fragrance of the fermented rice touches his senses before his tongue touches the liquid of the Luu Linh wine. That fragrance invokes the harvest, the warm countryside of the fields of his youth, where golden waves of harvestable rice overflowed and covered the surface of the earth, where one was surrounded by outlines of villages with rows of dark green bamboo, and where the shining and silvery streams by the paddy fields were bathed in the whispering songs of the wind. The wind during the harvest gave off a special scent. He takes a sip and voices his praise:

“Splendid! I never had wine this good.”

The old man is elated. “I knew right away. Nobody has complained about this wine. The people in my own village brew it. But in the whole village only Mr. Khai’s family reaches this superior grade.”

“Really good.”

“So many times production was stopped, swept away. From the guerrillas to the police: they sneak up to confiscate the equipment and throw it in the river. Half of the village loses their work. But the remainder carries on; they live here, they live there, but they still live. As long as there are people who want to drink wine, those who can brew it still exist.”

“Aren’t you afraid, saying that?”

“Like I told you: I find you a good person, therefore I tell the truth. With others I change my tune. Like this kind of wine.”

At this moment, the old man pulls out another basket to show Vu: inside is a vat made of plastic, washed clean and full of wine.

“My gosh, why are you storing the wine in this plastic vat, isn’t it toxic?”

“To each its own device. With you I offer my superior wine served in the blue phoenix cup. With others I sell this kind of wine from the chipped cup. Our elders say: ‘Of people, there are three grades; of things, three kinds.’”

“But…”

“It was different in the old days. Nowadays it’s different, too. Don’t you see that the situation has turned upside down? I display the good vessel and the pretty cup to let the rotten ones report that I am suspect, one who opposes the revolution.”

“Yes, now I understand…” Vu slowly replies, and a pain penetrates his soul as the wine stirs his nerves: if drinking from the blue phoenix cup makes you a suspect, then his father was among those in opposition who were subject to suspicion. It was fortunate that his father had died before he could have been tripped up by the revolution, which his own beloved son supported.

Vu takes the last sip of wine then hands the cup to the old man, who immediately puts it back in the wooden box, because, just then, a new customer had walked in.