Duong Huong - The Zenith

“Brother…” Vu said; the prime minister quickly waved his hand to signal silence. Then he closed his eyes and from them streams of tears rolled down without stopping. Losing control himself, Vu also wept. The prime minister was leaning against the door; Vu stood in the middle of the room. The two men faced each other without a word and wept together as other men would drink tea or sip wine. They wept clandestinely, suppressing any louder sobbing for fear that the guards in the hall outside would hear. They wept, controlled and in silence. Then Vu understood what pain and humiliation were. Those overflowing tears were in regret both for the life of a beautiful and unfortunate woman, and to release the turmoil in their hearts. A powerless man is ten times worse than a weak woman. They had been born to be men, beings meant to embody strength and power. A man who cannot act knows only how to drown bitterness and rage with tears, no differently than a child of five. Realizing this fact first, Vu looked up and wiped his face. The prime minister continued to weep, his long and thin fingers covering his square face. Vu focused on those fingers because people usually called them “spear” fingers. They shook from the root to the tip, similar to wild grass shaking in a strong wind:

“Was it because of his scholarly disposition that he was squeezed and turned into a kind of brainy doll encapsulated within this power machine?”

Vu kept thinking about this possibility while waiting for the prime minister to regain control of his emotions. Do had been crying for a long time, even before Vu had stepped into the room. The history book was open to collect the stream of falling tears. Two pages were swollen in spots.

“He weeps not only for Miss Xuan. He weeps for himself, too. That’s for sure!”

Vu walked over, putting his hand on the prime minister’s shoulders as if to say good-bye.

“We won’t find any help coming from the brainy doll, not a drop besides his flowing tears. The magnificent building before us is just a little row house bereft of all hopes. But we cannot give up. Where there is water, you scoop.”

On reaching the street he told the driver, “Let’s go to the house of Comrade Deputy General Secretary. As of now he is not yet in his office.”

“Yes. Offices will open in ninety minutes.”

The driver turned back to Hoang Dieu Street, famous because it held the former residences of the palace majordomos. Two rows of trees stood firm like marble in the cold dew. Vu told the driver to stop and let him out so that he might find a stall to get breakfast. Then he leisurely walked to Deputy General Secretary Thuan’s house. This house had been the substantial villa of a French official, but the Party’s Central Committee had renovated it to provide better security. They had replaced fences with masonry walls, adding a second gate and a watchtower, so that people looking in had the impression of a seminary or ammunition warehouse. Vu stopped before a huge barrier gate, painted in stripes of white and red like a gate at the train station. A large lock, bigger than a hand, dangled at the main entrance. It was not yet time to open the main gate, but the guard had seen him. Hurriedly he had come over and opened the secondary gate for Vu to enter. Then the guard climbed back up the watchtower to observe him. Vu felt that gaze sticking to his back. Instinct told him that from now on, everywhere he went, he would be watched closely by naked eyes as well as through officially issued binoculars.

“I did not expect things to get to this point. But if you want to play, you accept the rules. Let’s see what they can do to me.”

Though his disposition was rather sweet, Vu could get stubborn when challenged. He walked straight to the villa.

Then the owner called to him from the garden on the left: “I am here, Vu, my friend.”

“Good.”

“I am over here. Don’t you see rows of yellow roses full of blooms? Come here. These flowers last for only a couple of weeks, and this kind of rose is especially rare and hard to grow.”

Thuan had been standing in the garden, wearing blue pajamas with white stripes. Indeed, the garden of yellow roses was in full bloom. The petals were soft like thick velvet. Their color was between the color of ripe lemon rind and the yellow of an egg: a soft and dreamy yellow; a gentle fleeting color like a suspicion, as if it could fly and rest on the wing of a dragonfly or a butterfly, as if it could vaporize like fog.

Under normal circumstances the small vista would have been worth admiring. But at this time, beauty just inflamed him.

“Your garden is really beautiful. Your roses are exquisite,” Vu said as he approached his host. “I have never seen roses this fresh and beautiful. Paradise cannot exceed their perfection. In this life how many are able to enjoy such things?”

Thuan remained silent before this question, which contained no hint of reproach. Putting out his hand to shake, he walked toward Vu, then whispered: “I stand here to wait for you. You don’t have to fight with me. We can go to the end of the garden to talk safely.”

They walked beside each other between the rows of roses toward the end of the garden, where irises circled a plot of needle grass that ran along the foot of a wall. The two stood in the middle of the tender green grass.

Looking around, Thuan acknowledged, “Here the reeds cannot grow.” Then he turned to Vu and asked, “Who gave you the news this morning?”

“A disguised voice, as if the nose was covered or was stuffy from a cold. And you?”

“Also the same voice informing me, not quite at five thirty a.m.”

“With me, also about that time.”

“Who do you think informed us, with such an intentionally distorted voice?”

“Why are you asking me? You belong to the Politburo — assistant general secretary of the Party. To refer to old times, you are one of the four pillars holding up the dynasty. Me? I’m just a marginal guy, so many ranks below you. Properly speaking, I am the one who has the right to ask you.”

Thuan quietly sighed, looking down at the grass near his feet as if the answer could be found among the tiny shoots. Pausing, he then slowly explained: “I know I am at fault, because, in a Politburo meeting on the issue, I promised to guarantee the safety of Miss Xuan and her two kids. I did not expect things to happen like this.”

“You didn’t expect? Perhaps you did expect but washed your hands and let others act.”

Thuan looked up at him. “I am well bred and well educated, Vu, my friend. Therefore, I ask you not to suspect me of doing anything so grotesque. If not for my sake, then at least with a forgiving heart in respect for the departed spirits of my parents. They were good people. I do not lie, above all with someone like you.”

His voice was shaking and his thick nostrils started to redden. Vu knew that he was being truthful, and that eased a bit the rage burning in his heart.

“My mistake was the very fact that I did not learn what to expect,” Thuan continued. “I didn’t expect all the dark turnings of human hearts. I was thinking as if I were still living at the front: when all in the Politburo were of one mind, then everything would proceed exactly so; no need to be concerned. This event takes me aback. The game has changed; the times are different but my simple thinking is stuck in the past. Now, it has happened. What to do?”

“It has happened and now you just whine about what to do? That is really the simpleminded talking!” Vu interrupted. “Thuan, just once, try to put yourself in the place of others. At this moment, you are standing here and talking to me. Later, you will walk fewer than a hundred steps and you will be in a majestic house; in there, your wife, your kids and grandkids — the whole crowded flock. In that company, nobody must endure isolated loneliness, and none of your little ones will have to worry about being orphaned or exiled; exiled in their own country.”