Duong Huong - The Zenith

“Could it be that a few hours earlier, I hesitated to bathe in this stream because I would have to take care of them in this very spot?”

He does not have time to think much more, because the conversation has begun, with every word quite audible:

“Dear commander, we Meo are absolutely loyal to the revolution, that is why I think I am duty-bound to report this to you. An extremely important affair.”

So Ma Ly begins in a trembling voice. Maybe he is not quite himself. Maybe he hesitates between his own fear and the fear of his conscience, “the conscience of someone loyal to the party and government”…Or perhaps he is in a quandary, caught between his fear of An, one who has already escaped from an entire army, someone to be feared, and his own thirst for power. Or maybe he instinctively feels the danger to him lurking in this game. An cannot figure out the reason but there is no mistaking Ma Ly’s trembling voice and his shortness of breath.

An curses him with deep contempt. “Son of a bitch…You shake as you fuck…”

At this point, the division commander’s voice can be heard firmly saying, “All of us are duty-bound to be loyal to the revolution. It’s good that you spell out your thoughts clearly like that. I am ready to hear you out.”

“Commander…”

Ma Ly begins again, his voice no longer so shaky: “Commander, isn’t that true that in the division there is a company commander named Hoang An, a Tay from Cao Bang who is fighting directly under your command?”

“Correct! Company Commander Hoang An is a bold, clever, and promising leader. It can be said that he is the right-hand man of Battalion Commander Dinh Quang Nha…But his native village is in Dong Mo, Lang Son, not in Cao Bang. I know by heart the bio of Commander An, the way I know the CVs of all the battalion commanders in my division.”

“I report to you, Commander, that Hoang An’s native village is actually Xiu in That Khe district, Cao Bang province. He used to be the third company leader of Company 1, Battalion 109, a unit with special assignments stationed in Ha Dong in 1957. At that time I was deputy squad leader in his company. His real name is Chi Van Thanh. He was recruited as a Party member after he joined the army, in September 1951, three years before the liberation of the capital.”

“What did you say? He has been a Party member before?”

An notes how the division commander’s voice has grown louder as he posed those questions. When he had joined the division under the name of Hoang An, he had used the papers of a dead comrade who was not a Party member. And he had been newly recruited into the Party exactly two years ago. It was the division commander himself who had ordered that he be recruited into the Party on the spot after a series of combat successes achieved by An’s unit. An now hears Ma Ly laugh ironically; after a moment of silence, Ma Ly goes on:

“When I joined the army, Chi Van Thanh had already been a Party member for six years. He was recruited right in the Viet Bac resistance zone.”

“OK, then. Go ahead and tell me more. I am listening.”

“Chi Van Thanh motivated me to join the Party and proposed that I become deputy squad leader.”

“Then?”

“Then, one day he simply disappeared, saying he had a chance to visit Hanoi. The command did not know the reason for his departure and ordered that he be found, but without result. After about a week, the command staff sent someone down to officially report that Chi Van Thanh was a spy planted by the puppet army in our ranks so as to sabotage us from within. Because his identity was about to be revealed, they had reported, he had fled together with another spy in the guards. Both of them are Tay from Cao Bang and natives of That Khe district. Border defense soldiers went in pursuit, even crossing the Viet-Lao border, but all they could find was two tiger-eaten corpses and two abandoned rifles.”

“If he has been determined to have been eaten by a tiger, then how can he come back and live under another name? Especially when two rifles have been abandoned. Do you think, Comrade, that an escapee can throw away his rifle and survive in the woods with only his bare hands when in front of him are both wild animals and the enemy?”

An gets the feeling that his division commander does not believe what the Meo is telling him and that he is trying his best to lead him toward another explanation.

In hesitation, Ma Ly mumbles for a while but then speaks in a most decisive way: “I know. What you said makes sense. But I cannot be mistaken, since Chi Van Thanh also recognized me. He even told me not to call him by his old name, that he had been pursued and that he had changed his name and family name.”

Suddenly, whistlings and passionate shouts echo all over the woods:

“Bravo, bravo…”

“Encore; one more dance…”

“Once more! Hurray…Once more, please!”

“Once more! Please do it again.”

An is sure that the Cham Rong dance must have just been performed, the dance of spring, the dance of love, of festivals and of aspirations. He imagines the crowd’s excited faces under the headlights. At the same time, an idea comes into his mind:

“Dear commander, you and I have no enmity or hatred, we don’t have any unhappy memories of each other. You have been like a generous brother to me but right now I have no choice. Please pardon me.”

An points his gun at Ma Ly’s back, aiming at a span and a half below his left shoulder, and pulls the trigger. An explosion. Surely the Meo’s heart must be a mess. Moving his gun half a millimeter to the left, he shoots two bullets into the other, much larger, man. The whole thing happens in a blink. Both bodies fall forward almost at the same time, in the same direction.

An lowers the gun and puts it down at the foot of a familiar tree, where he used to sit by himself in the afternoon. The reflection of the fireflies in the water on the other side of the stream and the uncertain light of the phosphorescent balls under the tree bushes are all he needs to find everything. After hiding the gun, An walks toward the two corpses, which are piled one on top of the other. Both corpses are warm. First he carefully takes the pants of each man so that the blood from their chests does not smear their pants. The he picks up their weapons and flashlights, their cigarette packs and lighters, the nail cutters in their shirt pockets, notebooks and pens, and stacks everything on the grass. Then he takes off their shoes and socks. Figuring that all has been taken care of, he carries the Meo upstream to Roaring Elephant Falls.

Stopping to breathe a bit, he then throws Ma Ly’s body down the falls. He hears the corpse drop into the water and watches as the black body is carried violently downstream. Coming back, An tries to pick up the division commander. He is very heavy. Finally he gets the sturdy body over his shoulder and walks step by slow step to the falls, where he puts the corpse down on the bank. He then pulls from his pants pocket a parachute string and ties one of his legs to a nearby tree. Gathering all his strength, he picks up the corpse and throws it down the cascade. The momentum from his throw makes him fall after it, but the string stops him. An then jumps up and unties the string, then goes back downstream, where he immerses himself in the icy water to get the blood out of his clothes. He then picks up the flashlight and submachine gun, intending to go back to the underground chamber. But as he looks up, suddenly he hears running feet and glimpses a dark silhouette disappearing among the black trees. Though he does not get a clear look, it is for sure a living creature, not some ghost.