Duong Huong - The Zenith

“Brother Vu…Brother Vu…Brother Vu…Wait for me…”

The guest calls three, four times.

Vu turns around. “Brother Bac!”

The older brother wears a palm-leaf hat, his clothes the brown outfit of a real farmer, his hands full of small and large bags.

“Forgive me, I was busy walking…”

The two men stop in the middle of the stairs and look at each other. The older brother says, “Nobody told me until yesterday, when Thao’s daughter stopped by the house.”

“That’s true,” Vu replies. “Van couldn’t tell you because she caused the physical and mental breakdown that led me here…And the organization, I asked that they not tell you, to spare you worry.”

“You’re mistaken! You and I — we come from the same stock, why hide it?”

“Because you already have too much to worry about,” Vu replies.

“What is all that you have brought?”

“Oranges and bananas from our garden, and honey from our own hives…Only some ocean shrimp did I buy to grill them myself.”

“You still treat me like a little child.”

“Well, child or grown man, you are still my kid brother.”

The two look at each other. Two men with salt-and-pepper hair, the younger one with more salt than pepper, the older one with more pepper than salt. There is a moment of emotional silence before the older brother awkwardly smiles and says, “How awful. You worry too much, therefore your hair is much whiter than mine. A farmer’s fate has its hardships but also its blessings. Each day we eat simple meals; when the sun rises, we start singing; not a worry.”

“You: not a worry?”

“Now, let me put these bags away and we — two brothers — will go down to the cafeteria for some refreshments. In the hospital, it doesn’t smell nice. Just stay here and wait for me.”

Vu takes the bags back to his room, and after arranging them neatly in a small cabinet, returns to the stairs and the two brothers head to the cafeteria. There they sit in silence with a teapot. Both think about the last time they had seen each other. Then, almost simultaneously, they blurt out:

“It has been two and a half years.”

“Two years, seven and a half months,” Bac says, correcting Vu.

Both remain silent as if waiting for the other to speak first. After a long while, Vu cries out, “I really miss Mother, dear Brother Bac.”

“Me too.” After a pause he adds: “So strange: as we grow older we are like kids. We miss Mother like when we were six.”

“This morning when the hospital served meat porridge, I remembered the fish porridge Mother cooked in the old days. Just thinking of it made me salivate.”

“Yes, Mother’s cooking was famous throughout the whole region. Thus, anyone who had a big banquet would call on her. Do you remember once when she cooked catfish porridge for everyone in the family?”

“Yes, I can still smell the nice aroma of fresh chopped ginger, dill and green onions, crushed pepper and fresh hot chilies in fish sauce. I still remember the large ceramic barrel under the eaves where she put the catfish to use up slowly. The fish jumped friskily all night.”

Vu stops, as if he would cry if he continued. The two brothers often goofed off around that great pot of fish. One time, playing war with other kids in the hamlet, he had taken the role of the mighty hero Dinh Bo Linh. Wanting to impress the neighboring kids, he had demanded that his mom cook porridge as a treat. Of course she refused, because no one would ever spoil a child by doing such a crazy thing. The next day, waiting for his mother to go to the market, Vu had emptied a whole bag of powdered chili into the container of fish and had killed them all. After this wicked act, he had sneaked over to his grandmother’s. Back home, his mother had taken control of the situation. She was forced to turn her anger into something useful, so she had cooked close to twenty fish to make a huge pot of porridge to treat the little army of the hamlet’s Dinh Bo Linh. More than forty little guests were invited to enjoy the fish soup and many sweet desserts. His older brother, on behalf of “Warrior Vu,” had stood up to announce the reason why “Warrior Vu offers his army a victory celebration.” When the party was over and the kids with their full and happy tummies had left, Bac was punished. He had to lie facedown on the mat in the middle of the room, to receive on his buttocks twenty strikes from a bamboo stick for the crime of abetting the killings. Meanwhile Vu, unabashed, enjoyed safety in his grandmother’s protective arms, even though he had missed a meal of tasty fish soup. In exchange he had good beef soup and other goodies. Four days later his mother had come and called out from the street:

“Vu, I forgive you. No more running away; come home.”

This memory fills his heart with nostalgia. He thinks to himself, “He always took punishment for me. He always had to extend his arms to help carry heavy burdens. Not only during childhood, but until now, too…”

Instinctively he looks down at his brother’s hand on the table: the hand of a real farmer with coarse fingers, all brown from sunburn, nails dark from tree sap. By contrast, his fingers are fair, like those of women during childbirth. It has been twelve years since Bac left his family in the city, turning the management of his carpentry store over to his son-in-law, in order to live in the countryside with the pretense of caring for an unmarried, childless aunt on his mother’s side, but in reality to raise Nghia, the daughter of Miss Xuan. The day Miss Xuan died, Vu had sent word for him to come, because he could not find anyone else to assume this responsibility. It was already too much for his wife to take in Miss Xuan’s son. Moreover, everyone knew that Van disliked those of her own sex. She could be friendly for a while with a few women who were clueless or ignorant, taking advantage of them or turning them into her pawns, but in her heart she wanted no friendship with any female whatsoever. She could befriend only men. She had real feelings only for those of the opposite sex. She loved him, and, besides him, she wanted a regular contingent of men around her from different walks of life; this flock of men, old and young, all circled around the city beauty like little satellites orbiting a sun, ready to serve her as needed. They admired her beauty, concealing their lust in their afternoon or midnight dreams. Thus, Miss Beauty To Van — without having a throne — had always enjoyed the pride of being a queen. Though without an official title, there had been no absence of a bright halo highlighting her name. And so heaven could not endow her with enough kindness to care for an orphaned girl. There was nothing else to do but to turn to his own family. He had asked the driver to deliver a letter of one sentence: “Dear brother, I need to see you right away, the sooner the better.”

The car had left early, returning to Hanoi at dark with his older brother. At night, after dinner, they had gone to the garden to smoke. Bac had asked: “Will they let the child live peacefully in the countryside? Don’t forget that the farther you are from the capital, the darker it is. It’s easier for hoodlums to strike.”

Vu had replied, “I think farther is safer for the child. She’s a female, not someone who will extend the patrilineage, therefore she won’t be on their radar. Farther away, they pay less attention. Less attention — less viciousness.”

Then the older brother had agreed: “If so, all right. If you gather enough clothing for the girl, I will take her immediately tonight.”

“You don’t need to go immediately tonight. The driver needs sleep. But tomorrow morning, I will ask the driver to take you and the little girl very early. However…”