Duong Huong - The Zenith

“It’s not that I am swayed by what those two talkative guys said. The reality has been sinking in for a long time now but no one is courageous enough to face it. Those standing outside the power structure surely must have a more objective view of things. It’s possibly because of their station, or more precisely because they have chosen to roam freely that they look at events in a more detached way. For it’s impossible to deny that the majority of those around me are no more than toads and tree frogs living in the mud.”

Together with this bitter thought, he reviews the long line of faces that crowd around him on the reviewing stand. These drivers of government include scoundrels and cheats, robbers and thieves, and low-class prostitutes…all of whom can be summarized in a word: trash. Wealthless and without principles, they move according to a violent passion, a passion that allows them to accept all sorts of cruelties, all measures of inhumanity. Their underlying strength is the thirst for power. Their licentious and limitless greed grows out of their original misery — an unsatisfied need for unconscionable revenge owed to sufferings, losses, hatred and vicious enmity accumulated over many months and years!

Memories of the Ninth Central Committee Plenum have not yet faded. It marked a fateful turn in the nation’s life and had brought the fall from grace of the one who had worn the most beautiful armor.

It had been a muggy morning, as muggy as the atmosphere suffocating the entire gathering. Though all the ceiling fans were turning at their highest speed and the standing electric fans were sweeping and blowing, everyone was stifling in the heat. Now was a most crucial moment, for they were casting their votes for the nation’s political future. Of the more than three hundred and fifty representatives, the faction for war had a crushing majority whereas the peace party numbered fewer than the fingers on both hands. But courageously they held out to the last, out of a sense of responsibility for the fate of the nation. The first to stand up was Le Liem, vice minister of culture. Because Vu was in the row right behind him, he could clearly see the sweat soaking through the back of Le Liem’s shirt. Nonetheless, he went on speaking, not sparing one word or omitting one idea:

“I think we represent an independent nation,” said the vice minister. “We have the right to choose for ourselves the optimum policy in line with our national interests. The resistance war against the French was concluded only yesterday; there remain tons of problems that need attention. We are not sure that the minefields in Muong Cum and Him Lam have been thoroughly cleared. Rice has yet to cover all the old battlefields. The wounded in many camps must still be nursed and helped. And the people still lack many essentials such as food, clothing, medicines. And we have not yet touched upon the books and notebooks and school supplies for our young ones. In such circumstances we have no reason to commit ourselves to a new war just to prove the superiority of socialism. Two opposing camps can coexist on one planet, for our earth is large enough to sustain different countries and different political systems. We can triumph over the Americans without having to go to war. We can triumph over them through scientific competition, industrialization, and economic prowess.”

While Vu does not remember exactly what Le Liem said thereafter, he is able to recall in detail how those surrounding him cast hostile eyes at the vice minister. Those sitting in the front rows turned themselves fully around to stare with bloodshot eyes at the man holding the floor, frankly promising that he would be stoned or have a knife stuck through his neck. Those sitting in the back rows showed their anger and protestations toward “this revisionist” by comments and loud cries…After a moment, a delegate jumped up, got out of his seat, went over in front of Le Liem, pointed his finger at Liem’s face, and shouted:

“If you don’t shut up now, if you go on spitting out this revisionist line, I will hang you, you hear!”

Liem stopped on the spot as if someone had hit him in the back of his neck. He looked intensely at the guy who just tried to shame him, Vice Minister of the Interior Le Chi Than, a crony of Quoc Tuy. Taking off his glasses, Liem blinked, somewhat embarrassed. He was at a loss as to what to tell his antagonist even though he was known for having cutting rhetorical skills. The entire plenum also went quiet. This was the first time that they had witnessed a situation where “comrades” were treating one another like the scum of the earth. More than three hundred people had to look down in shame.

On the dais Ba Danh and Sau were speechless as well.

After a moment, the president of the plenum stood up, turned to Le Chi Than, and in a natural voice said, “If you want to hang Le Liem, then you have to hang me first.”

Le Chi Than shut tight his lips, looked down, and regained his seat. The assembly was quiet for a short moment.

Sau then rang a small bell.

“Refreshment time. Please take a break.”

After the plenum, Le Liem wrote the Politburo a letter requesting that the Party’s top leaders correct this excess, for he did not believe that the Party could tolerate hoodlum language and behavior among members of the Central Committee, who represented the people.

The vice minister of culture was much too naive. He was an aesthete. But aesthetics had no place in this country. The Politburo, which he expected to arbitrate between him and the one who had humiliated him, was cut from the same cloth as the latter. To create a monumental Arch of Triumph, the Party necessarily needed people with monumental capabilities to destroy and to exterminate. War needs criminals — professional and amateur murderers — among which those who excel are precisely the hired guns and executioners, soon to be recognized as the flowers among the grass. Their achievements had been recorded in lists and put into charts. But come to think of it, the majority of those in power also came from crooks and thieves, the very replicas of those unprincipled proletarians!..Wolf howls normally make every other species shudder but are reassuring if you happen to be of the same breed. It’s people like Le Liem who were the odd ones out. While waiting for a response from the “comrade leaders” he was at once expelled from the Party, relieved of his post, and put under house arrest. A few days later, General Dang Kim Giang, director of the Hoang Minh Chinh Institute of Philosophy, the literary author Nguyen Kien Giang, and nearly one hundred other personalities — those identified as having been poisoned by the thought of the archrevisionist Khrushchev — were arrested. During the same week, more than twenty generals were thrown into jail because they had undergone long training at the Kutuzov military academy or were close to General Long. The following week, more than five hundred officers from the rank of colonel down, officers who had collaborated with or who had held posts under the direct command of General Long, were also arrested, one after another. They were picked up in trucks belonging to the Second General Directorate of Internal Security, then incarcerated at the Thanh Liet prison on the outskirts of Hanoi, and, additionally, in two other centrally run prisons in Ha Tinh and Thai Nguyen provinces.

The war was only just starting.

The people’s itinerary changed destination.

Together with it came tragedy to all those who had been close to Vu.

Fresh from sleep, the president notices that plum flowers have blossomed white outside his window. Is this spring’s last showing of blossoms? He stands up and gazes at the flower-covered branches, which look like the snowy cotton hanging on a Christmas tree, like crystal petals carved from white dew. The white plum garden makes him think back to the Parisian sky on snowy days.