The Zenith (81 page)

“Did he say anything else?”

“He said that he knows I have suffered lots of disappointments…that we have to be patient and live in the shadows for a while to wait for an opportune moment to persuade the Politburo members.”

“When he said that, how did his face look?”

“I don’t remember, because I was bent over, wiping my tears.”

“Was he smiling or crying?”

“The president was also crying. He held me and said, ‘They really lack compassion, they have no empathy for us.’”

“‘Us’ here is who?”

Little One looked at him as if she did not understand what he was trying to say.

An answered himself: “‘Us’ here means he, you, and the two kids. To speak naturally: four individuals in one family. If it were a normal family, then it would be a complete family.

In the same instant, another bitter question arose in his mind: “Unfortunately there is another and different ‘us.’ That ‘us’ is a small group that includes me, my wife, and you—three related people who cannot be separated; a relationship that is living and intimate. This relationship stands outside the president’s awareness as well as his concern. But ironically, what happens to him will strike our heads like the sword of destiny. It will not bring on glory or wealth but, for sure, nothing but painful loss. Intuition never lies to us.”

He looked at Little One’s sad eyes and his heart hurt. What would he do now? What could he do to salvage the situation, to protect his loved ones from the wicked wind? He: the only man in this tiny family. Why did destiny push them to this point? An felt suffocated. He stood up to open the windows facing the yard. He turned around and said:

“Dear one: now we must be calm to think. I do not clearly understand the Politburo’s intentions. In the past vigilance was needed when a king became too enamored of a queen. Especially when the king was old and the wife was young and beautiful. The worry of our national leaders is based on the corrupting experiences of history: Duong Minh Hoang was passionate about Duong Qui Phi; Tru Vuong was enamored with Dat Ki. In our history, General Trinh Sam was passionate with Dang Thi Hue. But all these cases are totally different from our situation. All these beauties of Chinese kings lived in luxury with silks and precious jewelry. Each step Duong qui Phi took was on a water lily made of gold. Dat Ki’s castle was decorated with silk and brocade and each of her meals was worth several taels of gold and her coach was carved from jade and made with gold from its cushions
to its roof. Then, court mistress Dang Thi Hue of our country, relying on Lord Trinh Sam’s love for her, freely abused gold and silver, brought many relatives to the court, and covered for her brutal brother Dang Mau Lan. Wherever he went, Mau Lan robbed people of their wealth. Whomever he met, women or young girls, if they pleased his eyes, he would order his soldiers to set up curtains in the middle of the marketplace so he could rape them over and over. Whoever dared resist, he would kill them right then. His brutality and troublemaking angered both the people and the court officials. Many complaints submitted to the king requesting punishment for Mau Lan were all ordered by his relative in the palace, Mau Phi, to be torn up or burned. In the end, an officer stabbed him to death then voluntarily turned himself in to Trinh Sam. In contrast to those three cases, we have no connection to luxury or brutality. We live here like below-average people. I am the only male in this family, and I have never robbed or raped anyone. Your children were born in the most plebeian of clinics, with no medical staff from the president’s office. Little Mui and her sibling have grown up just like any other kid in a low-level cadre’s family. We have never had any benefit or advantage; we have never touched any property or power of the state. How can they treat us like this?”

Nobody could answer him. Both women cried gently, their heads lowered. An understood that no one could answer him other than heaven itself, but only if heaven would be moved by compassion for their situation. But he had never encountered such a heavenly being. The various spirits and the souls of all the ancestors that they worship were often mere smoke that floated over the altars on New Year. Now he did not know where to find the mind of heaven.

“Do you dare ask the Old Man directly about what I have said?” An asked, his voice rising, and Little One cried louder, her sobbings more pronounced. His wife looked at him, begging. Anger continued to overflow in him as a pot of rice soup comes to a boil on a simmering fire.

“Little One, you must ask him for clarity, for your life, and the life of your children.”

“I did ask, but the president said he must live as an example. And that, if I love him, I have to accept that. And when the two children grow up, the situation will change.”

“When the kids grow up? Heavens, he is now over sixty! Will we have to wait for him to get to be eighty in order to live in an official manner with the people? How sad for our Little One! How bitter for the children of an
old king! Our nephews—kids who, whether they like it or not, are related by a blood tie…”

Then another question rushed to him that he could not suppress: “Dear one: Do you truly love him?”

Little One looked at him, perplexed: “What are you asking?”

“I want to ask if you truly love him or do you love him just because he is the country’s president?”

“I love the president…I love…” she replied, then burst into stronger sobbing.

Dong looked at him, angry: “What’s the matter with you? Did a horsefly bite you?”

“No,” An replied awkwardly. He realized that his anger had pushed him too far. Perhaps he had wished for his sister-in law to have a different destiny. The strings of a tragic destiny had tied her up with an old king—an old king she happened to love. Love is so tauntingly unsettled! Not because he was someone with high position but foremost because he was a good husband, even though only a husband on occasion.

“Is this old man a good talker, a great flirt with women?” he wondered to himself, but immediately he intuited that this old king was not a good talker in that way but was able to move Little One’s heart with soft and passion-ate words that younger men couldn’t summon forth; that he could make her love him by tender and sweet gestures that locals were incapable of performing—all the foreign manners that he had acquired from the West. Such strength was not that of a hunter who raises his rifle to aim at his prey, because it was not intended to harm the prey but only sought to conquer its heart. Such strength was shapeless but he sensed it forcefully as if it were a fire burning. Such strength he had held in his hands as well. He thought back to warm nights in Xiu Village, when he would return from the town of That Khe. In the spacious house with dancing light full of neighbors, his uncle would have prepared a large container of wine. The deep wooden tray would be full of savory appetizers along with cakes and fruit. His aunt would have roasted a basketful of sunflower seeds before preparing tea to serve the guests. The neighbors, old and young, would sit around the room. Standing in the center, the student would recount all the stoic, pastoral, and magic stories of the lowlands as well as ones from other mountain regions—the complete warehouse of knowledge that his teacher in the district school had handed down to him. His uncle, sitting next to him, would give him a look both loving and proud, bending his head to conceal his pride from the guests. His
uncle was renowned for his salve made of tiger, bear, and deer horn gelatin. Knowledgeable and wealthy people everywhere would come for gobs of the thick, pasty ointment produced in his house. The very money the uncle had made from selling those jellied ointments had been used to pay for seven years of An’s education. But when hearing An praise the sound of a Truong Luong flute or comment on the death of Quan Van Truong or describe the Bach Dang battle with a shout of “Sat That,” the uncle would feel the admiration of those who are illiterate before one who is fluent in reading and writing. And that admiration walked very close to the edge of fear or passion. The conquering power gained by becoming cultured had been the most important conditioning agent during An’s youth, even though he had been only a secondary student. An understood that all he knew was only one small grain of sand compared with the president, who had traveled to the four corners of the world for twenty years, who spoke both Chinese and Western languages. His stored intelligence was thousands of times larger than his own, and thus, that Little One loved him was not a strange thing.

“Yes, you are a thousand times capable and powerful. But nonetheless, you came into this family’s home after me. Before the ancestral altar of the two women, I have the right to light incense. Now, under these circumstances, my wife and I are those who will care for your offspring. In the end, you will be indebted to us, dear old king.”

That evening passed ponderously. Later in bed, Dong held him tight. They made love in a quiet way, like their first time by the stream of Son Ca Falls, at the age of fifteen with all the welling up of a wild and boiling zeal. He slept till nearly noon the next day. When he woke, his wife had gone to market and Little One had taken the two kids down to the yard to play with the old lady neighbor. An opened the window wide to look at the three of them playing under the old tree. His eyes were glued to that scene but his mind was all foggy, and totally empty; not one thought appeared distinctly. Not one feeling could he put into words. An felt that he had become a wooden statue that could walk around and talk, but was devoid of feelings. He remained in that unreal state for a long while until his wife returned. Dong put the food basket on the floor and looked attentively at her husband. Then, as if feeling his strange mental state, she took him into the bedroom, where she held his head gently, pressing it against her bosom. Her familiar warm flesh and the tender softness of his love made him slowly rise from the cold water of his emotional numbness. He burst into tears. He cried loudly like a woman; painfully, like one who is hungry and cold; he cried like a child lost in a train station.

The following Saturday, An would have no time to cry.

As he pedaled his bike up to the house, three soldiers dressed in civilian clothes, including Nong Tai, the only Tay tribesman in the security guards, looked at him with dark eyes like those of the monster bats that live in deep caves. It was as if their gaze contained a frightening but silent scream, a suppressed fear. An nodded his head in greeting, then walked to the corridor. Those dark looks from the security guards followed him, withering his spine like a kind of hot, molten lead. But his heart did not pound hastily as before. A week had been enough for him to have thought about and planned for all contingencies that could happen to his family. The treasury of history stored in his memory helped him prepare to act. Stepping inside the house, An closed the doors behind him tightly and was surprised to find the two women holding each other and crying. It was all they could do. Their cries were ones of fear and rage. It was no longer sadness over their destiny but the reproachful lament of those who had been stampeded, raped, who live in fear before a death that slowly approaches like a hearse that will someday haul them away. An stepped forward, not waiting for the women to speak. He saw right away the swollen, purple, beaten face of Little One. He sat down, holding her arms and pulling up her shirt to see the scratches, bruises, and scars left by the ropes.

“Who tortured you?”

“Quoc Tuy!”

“The minister of the interior? The one who ambushed you when you were at the northern front?”

Little One nodded.

An turned to his wife and asked, “Where were you then?”

“I was in the yard with the children and the old neighbor. As I stepped inside the house, he chased me back into the yard. I could not resist because he pulled out his gun and threatened to shoot out my brains if I screamed.”

“Even if you screamed, it would only be heard by the old lady and the three guards. It is not without reason that they arranged for all of you to be in this house. That miserable bastard came here what day?”

“He came every day from Monday until today. Each time at about three in the afternoon. Each time he ordered the soldiers out to the streets to stop anyone who might enter the corridor. Each time they beat and tied up our sister.” Then his wife screamed: “It is so humiliating, Husband.”

Holding the smooth arms of Little One, he asked, “What did he say to you, that dog from the highlands?”

“He said he had had eyes for me since the resistance, when he met me crossing the stream; that if I were smart, I would have agreed to be his wife since that day; that he had sworn that, sooner or later, he would have me.”

“Then what?”

“I told him I am the wife of the president; that we have a son and daughter, that he cannot rape me. He showed his teeth, laughing that the old man of mine was far away; that he wouldn’t hear my screams. Here he is the king, he said; he can have whomever he wants. If he wants to kill someone, the person will be killed. Now he wanted me to lie under his belly. Because that was the Politburo’s order. The Politburo had decided that I will be his wife. ‘Think about it,’ he said, ‘I am much younger than that old man of yours. If his stick is made of wood, mine is made of steel. If he takes you to the third heaven, I will take you to the ninth one. If he gives you two kids, I will give you twelve, one after the other. Be smart, shut your mouth, and spread your legs.’”

At each part of her recounting, her tears flowed.

An felt red-hot steel pellets rolling around in his heart. An episode from history returned, resonating in his ears: “The government was cowardly, therefore Dang Phi slept with the Ngu military lord, leaning on this officer to protect her troubled and promiscuous son, Dang Mau Lan.”

He thought: “My sister-in-law did not decide to sleep with a Ngu military general, but she is raped, humiliated, and tortured. Then this old king is ten times more cowardly than were the Trinh Lords of years past. The peril cannot be overcome. If I don’t run fast and fly far, my whole family will be turned into headless ghosts, wandering forever in darkness. My sister-in-law’s painful injustice will be permanently consigned to silence and then forgotten. Each woman’s life will be abandoned like a corpse bobbing on waves. My sister-in-law did not sin. From childhood to adulthood, she never said one word that hurt anyone. Her soul is childlike and pure. Her goodness measures three times more full than that of all the people who surround her. I have to survive to clear her of dishonor. I have to live to be witness to this horrible, brutal act.”