Duong Huong - The Zenith

The president is silent. A misty white shroud from the ghost shadow flows toward him. His face goes frigid, especially his cheekbones.

Realizing that there will be no reply, Chairman Man smiles and continues: “Oh, I am just joking when I ask. How would you know? The bowl holds the fish; the cage the bird.”

Then, shaking his head as if in pity, he waves his hand and disappears.

Loud knocks on the door startle him. The hands of the clock are lined up on the number twelve.

“It’s lunchtime already.”

“I have a headache,” the president says. “Just leave the food on the table and return to your company.”

“Yes.”

The president continues to lie down but he is nervous. Ten minutes later, he stands up, washes his face, and steps beyond the bedroom. Some cozies cover the bowl of rice and several stir-fry dishes set for him on the table, but the nutritionists and the doctor still stand out in the hall. They have not dared return down the mountain but have gathered behind the guard booth, contemplating the temple scenery. On the other side of the patio, the din of the wooden gong and the little bells intermingled with chanting continues. The president steps outside to inquire:

“Why haven’t you returned down the mountain? It’s OK; later the guards can prepare my meal.”

“Mr. President, we must do our duty.”

“All right. If so, come in and prepare the meal for me then clear it away when convenient. Really, today, I don’t feel hungry.”

“Dear sir, today the cook has made the eggplant-and-tofu dish and the stir-fried pumpkin blossoms that you like. Please, Mr. President, try to finish it.”

“Fine…I will try,” he says. Sitting down before the tray of food, he suddenly remembers the words of Chairman Man:

“You forget that those in the East hold chopsticks and distinguish ranks very clearly.”

Holding up the black wooden chopsticks, he gazes at them as if seeing them for the first time.

“Why make such a big point of it — the differences among those who hold chopsticks, or forks, or eat with their fingers? What is the meaning of any difference in habits?”

That thought floats past him, passive without feeling, like a face strange and cold. He starts to pick up the purple basil scattered on top of the plate of eggplant and tofu. He has always enjoyed this dish. When he used to teach in Phan Thiet, his neighbor married a woman from the north; she had introduced him to eggplant with tofu. She had been a homemaker worthy of the name; she lived with the single aspiration of caring for her family and keeping their home tidy. Her husband, a savvy businessman on the north-south railroad, who, all year round, enjoyed banquet food and restaurants with his business buddies as well as those who owned government franchises, nonetheless admired his wife’s culinary skills. It was she who had exposed the bitter truth to him:

“If you want to talk about dragons and phoenixes, be my guest; but if you are dirt poor, how can you ever have good food?” Then she raised her voice: “But even if wealthy, you may not know how to eat well. With your coffers full of cash, sometimes you still eat from containers and drink from vats; or waste your money bringing junk home.”

Inadvertently, her frank words shamed him when he thought of the pride that people in his native region took over their shiny eggplants: it was nothing but a mask of confidence used to cover up their poverty. That merchant’s wife had also opened his eyes to see that people’s tastes differ according to customs and culture. She taught him how to appreciate good food. Eggplant cooked with tofu is one of the everlasting memories from his youth, connected to Phan Thiet villages with their hills full of lush vegetation and lonely Cham monuments on sun-bathed red sandy hillocks.

One afternoon after he was done teaching, he was returning home at the same time as the respectable merchant. Before they had reached their common destination, rain started pouring. Both of them had to duck under the eaves of a prayer shrine. They may have been neighbors but they had never sat together or chatted with each other. Their relationship was based mostly on greetings politely exchanged by the fence. The rain provided an opportunity for them to talk. The merchant seemed open and friendly. When the rain had stopped and it was almost dark, he said:

“It may be too forward of me, but may I invite you over for dinner?…You are single; it might be inconvenient cooking for yourself.”

“Thank you. I am used to living alone.”

“I was single like you before I married. But we are neighbors; you have a career, I have mine. There is no relationship. You don’t compete with me nor I with you. It would be very good if we became close.”

He had been amused because he had never met a merchant who spoke so “straight as a stick.” It put him in sympathy with the neighbor and he had accepted the invitation. After changing clothes, he went to the merchant’s house. The latter had stood at the gate to wait; a maid was feeding the youngest child in the compound’s yard. They sat at the table right away.

“This is an ordinary meal. Because we trust that you are easygoing, therefore we presumed to invite you over. Please forgive us should there be any shortcoming.”

The neighbor had then said, calling out to his wife: “Mother, you do not have to worry too much. Today it’s just a simple meal to open a relationship. Having a party for our guest in a few days would still not be too late.”

He had been quiet, thinking to himself: “A simple meal like this is better than a New Year’s banquet in my home village.”

The merchant’s dining table with its marble top was very large, but places had been set for only three. On the empty chair the host had put a vase full of large mums. This gigantic vase was more than a meter high and it presented itself more seriously than would another guest. It added elegance to the room and put everyone in a comfortable state of mind. On the table was a porcelain tureen of rice covered with a basket opposite a pitcher of wine brewed with many medicinal herbs. Seeing the dishes in the middle of the table, his mouth watered intensely. He swallowed quietly, but was unable to suppress this traitorous reflex. The wetness could not stop, because the flavors and the colors could not but excite. First was a spring hen braised in a clear broth of sunflowers, a bantam chicken with paper-thin skin, yellow with fat, coming with the nice fragrance of fresh shiitake mushrooms, which were left whole and surrounded the chicken like the petals of a chrysanthemum, one on top of another. There was a fresh whole fish with oranges swimming in the middle of a clear broth holding specks of chili flakes and minced coriander leaves. He had never seen fish with oranges so prepared; each flavor of spice was pronounced but all blended splendidly. On that night, as he recalls, he had eaten the oranges and fish as if he had been drinking soup. He had felt a bit ashamed but at the end he told himself, “A woman eats like a cat; a man like a tiger. I am full of youth.”

He ate the next dish — braised garlic eggplant — in the same quick manner. In his village, people were used to eating eggplant slightly pickled or deeply immersed in salt — a hand-me-down recipe for all poor farmers, not only in central Vietnam but also in the north. There is a saying that makes fun of stingy, wealthy men harshly using their prospective sons-in-law:

In five years of servitude to my future father-in-law

Your mother has used up three vats of pickled eggplants.