The Zenith (75 page)

Growing up under the protection of his aunt and uncle, An could do no more than submissively comply with the orders of his uncle, who one day said to him: “You have become quite a grown-up man but you are still in your youth. I have hesitated for several years, but now you must go and join the resistance. We are a small village with not many households but we cannot afford to become the laughingstock of the larger villages.”

“I understand, Uncle.”

“Your aunt will take care of your clothes and medicine and some cash. Is there anything else you need?”

“I just need a few days to go and say good-bye to my friends in the village and to go down to the district to take leave of my teachers.”

“OK. We have five days before you need to go to camp.”

After a moment of hesitation, An had added: “I haven’t done anything to help you, Uncle. Ever since my childhood, I have done nothing but take your money and rice to go and study. Now that I am on my way, I leave back here my family burden.”

His uncle smiled. “We raised you so that you could become a useful person. That was my wish. Now that you are enlisting it’s because I realize you cannot avoid your duty toward the country. As you are going to be on your way, be at ease. At home we will take care of Nang Dong, your wife. Besides, Mr. Cao, your father-in-law, and I are friends…”

An had not dared say anything further. What more could he say to a person who was both his uncle and father? Besides, he was very much in the prime of his youth and had wished to be on his way into the world. New horizons had beckoned him. Echoes of war from far away had called to his soul; many of his classmates had already enlisted. Even Nang Xuan, “Little One,” had left the village at the age of thirteen to join other young cadets in the maquis. And pretty soon, his own sister would possibly be sent to the Soviet Union or China in accordance with the mobilization and training plans of the revolutionary movement. In such case, how could he stay put? The quiet valley, which was his birthplace, was bordered on all sides by the
forests. He knew every path going through those gentle woods. In the familiar surrounding hills, he was fully cognizant of all the falls that trickled onto the rocks and cliffs. Nightingale Falls in particular had been singing its eternal song from the time he had been a baby till he knew how to make love. The footprints of buffalo on the muddy paths leading to the village on a rainy day—the jingling bells under their necks resonating in the deserted sunsets—was all too familiar to him, familiar to the point of his not noticing them. He realized that he must leave this valley to learn a little more of the outside world. He must go out even though he very much loved Dong.

“Once you go, how long before you will be back?” she had asked.

“I am going to war. Once the war is over I will be back.”

“I’ll miss you,” she had said, starting to cry.

“I will miss you, too. But to do my duty to our rivers and mountains I must go. If you love me, then wait for me. For surely I will be back,” he had replied. The same answer that soldiers for thousands of generations had given to their young wives before leaving their villages. Such consoling words are always meant for those leaving as much as for those who stay. She had let her face fall on his shoulder and her tears had soaked the indigo shirt he was wearing. Her tears had been warm and very wet. Warm and wet the same as…

The recollection stands An’s hair on end. He at once closes his eyes. A chilly wind is blowing from the direction of the stage onto his face. Just at that moment, the singing of the madwoman in the red skirt fills the empty space.

In silence An tells himself: “Life is full of deceit. Like the wild rooster eating in the company of peacocks. Your innocent tears rendered my shoulder warm one night long ago. Tonight, however, my shoulder has been warmed with human blood. The blood of a traitor mingled with that of another innocent person. The same way, I guess, as the wild rooster ate together with the peacocks. That is, however, fate’s way. I had no way to avoid my fate. I will have to continue on that road so as to find where you are living now. You and our Little Sis.”

“Hurrah!”

“Bravo, bravo…”

Everyone is standing up around him. An quickly follows suit. The performances are over. All the performers and the musicians rush to the stage to take a bow and take leave of the soldiers. The commanding officers go up onstage to present flower bouquets. The accordions play at full volume in front of the sound system so that both the performers and the audience can
sing the finale before parting. Those onstage wave their bouquets, the soldiers below clapping hands in time with the drums.

The clapping of hands resonates over the mountain and into the forests. Then, after a few minutes of boisterous noise, the deputy division commander walks up to the mike to thank the performing troupe. At the same time he wishes the units present a fine training season. An noticed how he looked right and left for something before he stepped up onstage. For the person who should be saying tonight’s closing words is the division commander. But he has mysteriously disappeared.

Then the units of Battalion 209 start to check their ranks before retiring. The soldiers of the division disperse in every direction to their encampments. An sees Nha, the battalion commander, looking for him. An raises his hand and waves.

“Commander, our company is over here.”

He then gives an order to the platoon leaders: “You comrades can go back to your barracks. There is nothing left to do here by the stage. Tomorrow, I am sure the division leaders will let you sleep in a little in compensation. That’s my guess.”

“It makes sense to let us oversleep a bit, sir. It’s already two thirty-five.”

The Battalion 209 units begin to leave one after the other. Drumrolls of thunder arise over the forest.

“Quick, you bum! How can you be so awkward?”

“How can I speed up? The path is so narrow!”

“Then move aside and let me go forward.”

“What are you quarreling for? Whether you get ahead or fall back, you gain just a few yards. There’s no escaping the rain. If you know what to do, you’d better take out your plastic poncho.”

“Let’s pray that it doesn’t rain right away. Heaven: please let us get back to our barracks before it starts raining. Then you can pour down all you want.”

“Maybe we will escape in time. ‘If thunder peals in the east, one should watch out while running.’ But tonight the thunder rolls in the west.”

“What a dumb ass. ‘Thunder in the west means rain pouring and winds gusting.’ The rain might come late but it will be much worse, ten thousand times worse.”

“We’ll see.”

The night wind howls above the gigantic trees. Branches crack as if they are breaking off right over one’s head. An waits for all the soldiers to go by before he leisurely walks toward Battalion Commander Nha. The latter
stands in a circle with the deputy division commander and the officers of various battalions. When An arrives, the circle opens up as a way of welcoming him. An understands that the information they seek is known to him alone.

“Sir, did you, Comrade Battalion Commander, call me?” An asks, stopping in front of Battalion Commander Nha.

“Come here, come here!”

Nha then speaks in a worried tone: “It’s not just to meet me but the whole leadership here. We are all concerned because it’s not at all clear where our division commander has gone. About midway through the evening, he went out with a cadre from a company in the guest battalion. And they have yet to return. Battalion 209 reports that before he came into the clearing this Meo company commander met with you. Then both you and the Meo fellow went to sit with Battalion 209.”

“That is correct, Battalion Commander. I sat with him until past nine. Suddenly I had a stomach cramp and had to go back to quarters to get my medicine. When I returned I joined my company because I was afraid that my soldiers would get concerned not knowing where I was.”

“You were a former comrade-in-arms with this Meo?”

“Yes, I was in the same company with Ma Ly when we were in the Viet Bac. But at the time he was only a runner outside the unit, since he was not old enough. After the liberation of the capital, some recruiters came and got soldiers to cross into Laos for special missions. A number of us volunteered and I was one of them. Thus, in fifteen years we haven’t seen each other.”

“When you were still buddies in the Viet Bac, did you know anything about his particulars?”

“I don’t know much because of our different ages. He was more buddy-buddy with a couple of San Diu and San Chi guys from Lang Giang and Ha Bac than with me. But from time to time, a number of us belonging to six different ethnic groups also pooled resources to have a party. On those occasions, Ma Ly would brag that the blood flowing in him was not pure Meo, instead it was a kind of mixed blood. His maternal grandmother was an ethnic Vietnamese seller of dry fish. During the war she had been robbed of everything so she had to stay up in the mountains and ended up marrying his grandfather, a famous opium dealer in the region. When we met earlier, he said he would look up a cousin he knows to be in our division.”

“Could it have been our division commander?”

No one had an answer. An then asked them, “Did you say that our division commander went out with Ma Ly?”

“Right, after the sixth number with the
cheo
buffoon,” replied the deputy division commander.

“I wasn’t back then,” An says.

The officers all open their eyes wide looking at one another, each one searching the faces of the others, looking as if they were kindergarten children considering an arithmetic problem on a blackboard. An waits for a few minutes then turns to Battalion Commander Nha.

“I think they may have gone to the other side of Panda Mountain before the evening was over. Should it turn out to be true that our division commander is related to Ma Ly, then Ly will have to call him Uncle on the maternal side. In the case of ethnic Vietnamese, the paternal side is considered more related but in the case of the Meo, the maternal side is the more important. After so many years of separation, they must have a lot to say to each other.”

“Maybe…” Nha answers.

One peal of thunder follows another in the west. A few lightning flashes cut the coal-black night sky. The deputy division commander looks all around and says:

“At any rate, we have to wait until morning before we can know what happened. It’s really strange. For if it were so important, he should have warned me, at least.”

He takes a watch from his shirt pocket then continues: “It’s three a.m. already. Let’s go back underground. Tomorrow morning, at nine thirty, let’s get together. The soldiers can go on sleeping.”

Turning toward An, he says: “Thanks, Comrade. Sleep well.”

The group splits up, going in different directions as they return to their quarters. Battalion Commander Nha goes with An in one direction. On the ink-black path, Nha suddenly lets out a long sigh:

“Don’t know why I suddenly feel extremely dreary tonight. It spoils the whole party.”

“It’s true,” An agrees.

Another peal of thunder suddenly explodes. A chilly wind blowing vigorously through the clearing makes their faces feel frozen.

“Let’s run. The wind has changed,” says Nha.

“Yes.”

Both start running fast. Their flashlights throw erratic beams into the night darkness. Ten minutes and they are already in the underground quarters. Just at that moment the night bursts with more lightning and the wind begins to gust as a heavy rain whips down in lashes. The trees twist back
and forth in all directions. An and Nha stop at the entrance to the underground bunker. For just a second, they look at the sky.

“Wow. It’s just as they say, ‘thunder in the west means rain pouring and winds gusting.’” Nha remarks with assurance.

“Yes,” An replies, nodding.

“Now we can sleep in all tranquility,” says Nha. “At least for one night—tonight.”

“Yes,” An rejoins, “it’s war. Each day we get to live is a good day.”

Then both of them go below.

Once in his mosquito net, An listens to the pouring rain, which makes a sound like a waterfall cascading. He tells himself:

“Tomorrow, there won’t be any trace left on the bank of the stream. A hundred microscopes will not discover the murderer’s fingerprints. Oh, Division Commander: don’t hold a grudge against me—I am to be pitied. You had power in this infernal apparatus, so the higher you rose, the greater the danger to you. The more glory you have, the more shame you must endure. This has been the story forever. Please rest well in the Nine Springs together with my loved ones down there…”

He sighs deeply, then immediately falls into a deep sleep.

His sleep that night brings neither nightmares nor beautiful dreams; not a trace of the past, nor a premonition of the future.

His sleep is black like a winter night, thick from December fog, and ponderous like a cart carrying thick logs. It is like a skiff floating on an immense body of water that is neither river nor lake, neither pond nor troubled sea. An oversleeps the next morning, until ten. The leaders meet, and Nha has to send someone to wake him up, as he is late for the meeting. An jumps up and goes off to meet the other officers.