Duong Huong - The Zenith

An wanted to take the girl to the house, but the old neighbor said, “Just leave her here to play…her mother told me so…”

This seemed odd, but An didn’t feel comfortable asking anything further of the old lady. He went upstairs, where the two women were waiting for him by a tray table with food. Seeing their faces, he understood half of the truth, but he said, laughing, “You must be about to faint from hunger, right? Sorry I’m late. Let me wash my face and then we can eat. I had to borrow the bike from the food team; mine has a burst inner tube.”

“The army doesn’t even have enough inner tubes to use?” his wife asked.

“Inner tubes are rationed for all government-issue bikes. And the priorities do not extend to shirts, underwear, rice, and food. What do you have to feed me today?” An said, changing the subject.

Dong replied, “Today I made banana shoots with steamed pork and Vietnamese shrimp paste.”

“Next meal, I suggest you cook traditional sour beef soup.”

“People say that the sour beef soup of Lang Son is better than ours in That Khe, because they add spices to the broth — grilled onion and ginger, cinnamon, star anise, and other things — as secret ingredients. If you want, when I am free I will go to Mam Street to try it out. After eating it a few times I will figure out the recipe.”

“Yes, why don’t you try that? Lang Son sour soup has been famous for a long time.”

Thanks to this dialogue, they were able to forget temporarily all the troubles and finish their meal. But when tea was served, he could not pretend to be cheerful. The gigantic spiderweb encircling them was pulling tight its choking threads. He was the male, the eldest of the family; he must be the first one to speak the truth:

“Now, let’s deal with our issue. I am waiting to hear.”

Little One was still silent but his wife said, “On Sunday, the issue was presented to the president; he agreed but had to wait for the consensus of the Politburo. On Monday the subject was brought up because that was the day of a regularly scheduled meeting. But the president’s idea was not accepted. Not one supporting vote.”

“For what reason?”

“Because they do not want the president to have his own family. They want the president to be only the elderly father of all the people. Thus…thus, that was the resolution of the Politburo.”

“They forced the president to accept their decision? Or did the president want to follow them?”

Dong remained quiet. Neither his wife nor Little One could reply. But An wanted to get to the core of the issue. He asked Little One:

“You saw the Old Man what day after that meeting?”

“Friday. Around eleven a.m., the president sent a car to pick me up.”

“How did he explain it?”

“The president said that, by Party principle, the minority has to surrender to the majority.”

“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.”