Duong Huong - The Zenith

“So: it was you! It was you who made that decision?” Vu said with surprise, continuing: “I argued so many times with the Party’s Central Administrative Office. Perhaps because of that they kept silent before all my screaming. Now I know that you were the culprit and that they were the ones who had to throw out the garbage.”

He stopped a few moments to process his many memories, then asked, “But, if you were using simplicity to create prestige, why didn’t you personally practice it first? Why didn’t you ask for a simple thatched-roof house with climbing vines on the fence out in the suburbs, rather than live in this overly imposing house?”

“You forget that I must administer the work of a nation.”

“So the Old Man is just a puppet for you guys?”

“The Old Man is higher than us by a head. He is the top leader of the people.”

“Because the Old Man is the top leader of the people, therefore the woman who sleeps in the same bed had to live in an ordinary flat in a narrow alley. And the woman who sleeps with you lives in this spacious, majestic villa. Because the Old Man is the top leader, the very soul of the Fatherland, his young wife had to be killed by you all, killed as if she were a rabbit, while the women who sleep with you all — I want to emphasize here that this includes my own wife — can ride in Volgas to go shopping, to buy clothes, candies and cakes, and cosmetics, at the international stores. By what moral principle do you guys authorize yourselves to do such things?”

Thuan did not answer; he squished some invisible thing on the grass; he did not look up. A lonesome and cold spring breeze was blowing. After a while Thuan cleared his throat.

“I apologize. I am disappointed that our talk has hit a dead end.”

“We hit the dead end because you all refuse to assume responsibility. You are all just like kids who throw rocks at a bird’s nest: when a stone hits someone, cutting his head, and he falls down and bleeds, they all run away. Is that comparison accurate or not?”

“I have never had a concrete answer from Brother Sau. When I called this morning, he was not home. The secretary on call said that he was running in the sports center. I think her death is an act of overreaching excess by the minister of the interior. It’s possible that Sau only gave some general instruction. Quoc Tuy acted according to his own hoodlum instincts. They assigned him; I had warned Sau about this minister’s criminal past, but Sau ignored it, saying that we should trust the innovative and constructive abilities of revolutionary cadres.”

“What that means is that this is beyond the scope of your duties. Or more accurately, you have no responsibility whatsoever.”

“I am very sorry that things turned out this badly. I will try my best. Nevertheless, you should try very hard to understand our situation.”

Then Thuan waved his hand to show the rows of iris with curly petals bordering the lawn like lace around a woman’s shirt. “You should look over there.”

Vu bent down but he did not see anything besides the purple petals; they were shiny, full of water, and cared for regularly. The garden was really beautiful. But that exquisite beauty angered him all the more.

“I don’t see anything at all besides the beauty of this garden. But that beauty is now like thorns that prick my eyes.”

Thuan’s face was somewhat puzzled and sad. He pulled on Vu’s sleeve and showed him a large spiderweb between two iris stalks. On it was a fly, caught but struggling.

“Do you see that fly in the spiderweb there? Doesn’t it bring some analogy to your mind? Prime Minister Do as well as I can easily meet the same fate as this miserable insect. Previously I had never thought of this. It is the death of Miss Xuan that has opened my eyes. Things have changed. The game has taken a new turn. Just look around us: sentries, bodyguards, the cook, the gardener, the driver, as well as the house servants and the garbage collector for this area, all belong to them. In just a few years everything has changed. Two years ago, we shared a meal of red rice with salted fish in the mountains; all were of one heart and one mind. Now, with a house and a large garden, nothing is as it was.”

Instinctively, Vu shivered. He suddenly visualized the cowardly pettiness of people, including those with power and position — the most enlightened minds of the nation, pillars of the state. Looking straight into the deputy secretary’s face, he smiled and said, “The most important and most decisive thing is this change: when we were up in the mountains, we all were committed to the big cause, ready to accept any sacrifice, even death. Now, because of large houses, servants, and sentries all around the yard, no one retains a warrior’s honor. Wealth and glory have turned people into docile horses and sheep.”

The secretary’s face reddened; his fleshy nostrils quivered. He turned away to avoid Vu’s look.

Vu continued: “Whatever happens, we have to protect the Old Man’s two children. And for you, your conscience will tell you how to act.”

Then he turned his back and walked away.

“Good-bye, Brother.”

“Let me walk you out,” Thuan said, and the two strolled away from the rows of roses to the gate. While walking, the deputy secretary said the final words: “I will bring the subject to the Politburo. I will intervene with all my ability. I will beg the Old Man’s pardon and hope he will forgive me.”

“It’s up to you,” Vu replied coolly, extending his hand to shake with the same coldness. Then he walked toward the main gate because now the barrier had been raised and the two heavy steel doors were open wide. The shiny Volga approached from the garage, stopping in the parking lot. Fifteen minutes were left before offices would open. He saw Thuan hurriedly go up three steps and into the house. There was enough time for him to change his clothes.

“Uncle: your ration of morning porridge. Go to your room and eat it while it is still hot.”

With a broad smile the nurse gives Vu his breakfast. Vu looks in the enamel bowl: meat porridge cooked in a huge pot then scooped out into large aluminum saucepans to be divided among the one thousand people in the hospital. A quiver shakes all of Vu’s body. Suddenly he is afraid of this communal dish. Perhaps some heavy memories check his appetite; perhaps the death of his roommate makes the porridge stale in his mind.

Vu looks around at the few female relatives who are there taking care of the patients in his room. Among them, he notices a bony woman, quite tall. He had seen her before, carrying her husband to the bathroom as if he were a three-year-old. The story was that this husband had left her in their village for fifteen years while he had lived clandestinely with a female cadre at the front. And, after the liberation of the capital, he had then bedded a city widow. Now, close to earth and far from heaven, he could rely on no one, so he’d had his children summon the “skirted woman with the blackened teeth” to care for him. This country woman doesn’t like the hospital’s food. Now she is in line, holding out an aluminum plate, waiting to receive her husband’s portion of rolled rice-flour pancakes.

Vu immediately presents his bowl of porridge: “Hello, Sister, I don’t feel like eating today. Can you help me out?”

“Yes, that is so nice of you, thank you, Uncle,” she replies cheerfully. “I’m waiting for the pancakes and will take them to our room.”

Vu then walks toward the end of the hall. He thinks of strolling around the garden a couple of times; when tired he will go to the cafeteria to drink coffee and eat sesame balls. At least they are not as awful as the thin meat porridge. Vu purposefully goes down the stairs. He does not notice a man running after him.