Duong Huong - The Zenith

Oh, those doe eyes, doe eyes!

His heart sang a high note of admiration:

“How could there be such beautiful eyes? I never saw any other such eyes. A rare gift from the Creator! Are not heaven and earth extraordinary?”

It is so true.

Exactly so true.

After that, he could not remember anything, as work had pressed down on his shoulders. A campaign; then another campaign. A battle front collapsed on the east but expanded to the west. A vitally essential operation was put in motion. An opposing operation brought problems. A network of enemy agents was discovered with half of its members caught and held in jail and the other half reduced to inactivity, widely dispersed or hiding in the shade. The internal situation gave rise to problems that needed redress. The country had a dire lack of culturally able cadres who could handle proselytizing missions and foreign affairs.

He really did not remember anything else.

The months and years passed.

And so passed the vicissitudes of a life. Each life is like an uncharted river, with no one able to foresee its twists and turns, its corroded passages or filled embankments, where its waters will run calm and where they will become rough. Are we not each trapped in fate’s long, wide net? Are not the twirlings and turnings inside each of us nothing more than a clown’s performance?

If only he could have guessed his fate, he would have turned in another direction…If only he could have foreseen his future, he would have avoided heaven’s net.

But every “if only” is just a long sigh coming at the end. Every “if only” is like the sound of falling rocks. One hears the loud noise and the breaking only when the rocks are about to hit bottom. Who can raise hand or foot to stop rocks when they fall from mountaintops into deep ravines? Who?

This question might be a bit lame, and he does not want to believe he has a soft heart. The brave resolve of a revolutionary coupled with pride in dialectical materialism stops him from believing in fate. However, his continually nagging mind still awaits an answer. And the answer is buried in the fog along the horizon before him. Thus, whether he likes it or not, he still has to remember one occurrence, one point in time, when, suddenly, his aging heart was pierced.

That had been a fateful summer day.

That noon, General Long had invited him to review plans for an upcoming military campaign: the 1951 fall-winter offensive against French bases. He had been satisfied, from the beginning of the resistance up until that very moment, and felt he could now breathe lightly with relief as he thought to himself:

“The wheels start to turn. We have passed through the wobbling phase of the war, a phase with a thousand difficulties. This summer opens up a new phase.”

That summer was in the year of Tan Mao.

He had been born in a Tan Mao year. Summer had come late but was not too muggy. He had planned to wear a set of maroon civvies, but after a few minutes of pondering, he changed into a military uniform. He knew that in uniform he looked younger and more handsome. His slight carriage fit well with either civilian or military clothes. In uniform, though, he could easily assert his charm and power of attraction. In uniform, his features seemed fresher and softer, and in his mind all the songs of his youth rushed back. Those verses lingered on, hidden away within him and bringing him an elation that only he knew. After changing into uniform, he had told his bodyguard that he would go to General Long’s cave all by himself, a very short and familiar walk. He had wanted to reclaim for an instant the freedom that had been confiscated. A forest road, the sounds of birds, monkeys, leaves…but most of all, to walk alone, to think by himself, to admire the scenery by himself…such was truly happiness when one’s life was so tightly tied up with a group.

Completely happy, he walked briskly without paying any attention to his surroundings. About halfway along, suddenly someone cried out in panic:

“Stop! Please, Mr. President, stop!”

“Don’t take another step. Please, Mr. President, don’t!”

Looking up, he saw two girls dangling from a large branch of a fallen tree. They were frantically looking for a way down, their faces very red, their mouths spattered with fig grains. He knew they had been up there sharing the figs, so busy with eating them that they did not see the pedestrian inadvertently invading their world and breaking up their rare opportunity to snack well. When they had suddenly recognized him, they had no time to get down, therefore they had frantically called out to stop him. Then the pair desperately sought a way to escape.

“Be careful! Be careful or you will fall.”

It was his turn to cry out in fear when he saw the two of them hugging the tree, sliding down at one scoop like little monkeys.

“Careful!” He cried out and could not help smiling.

“Why don’t you come down slowly? Sliding like that, you might fall easily and tear your clothes.”

Now on the ground the two girls looked down at their roughed-up clothes.

“Mr. President!”

One girl spoke out and looked up at him.

The president was stunned: it was that pair of eyes! Those doe eyes; the final fixation on that night of celebration four years ago. He recognized the young girl from years past who had stared at him across the fire. In an instant, the images, the colors, the sounds, the memories of that evening’s walk with the chief of staff were reborn. Completely. Revivified. After four years, suddenly the ashes of forgotten memories were cleaned away by a gust of wind.

“The late children’s festival. That night of celebration moved to the fourth day of the sixth month.” The thought moved like lightning. At the same time, a succession of thunderclaps exploded, pressing his head to burst open: “Then she was fifteen! Now she is nineteen!”

Yes, it was her!

It seemed that he had stood there silent for a long time, embarrassing the girls. They looked at each other, then at the tree, then down at the ground.

“We’re sorry, Mr. President!”

“We didn’t see you, sir.”

“We…”

He didn’t understand her babbling words. He only saw her delicate doe eyes, which looked like deep lakes or dewdrops dangling on a leaf, her curved lashes blinking incessantly like the fluttering of a sparrow’s wings. He saw clearly only her full red lips tainted with pieces of fig innards that highlighted her two rows of teeth as bright as pearls. He found her face filled with innocence but having as well that special seductive magnetism given by heaven to a woman who would be known as capable of “rocking the nation and upsetting a city.”

He cannot remember what he did to calm the girls down. He also cannot now remember how the girls bade him farewell and how they took their leave. He cannot remember now what he had said to her at the parting moment. His spirits had been topsy-turvy. His heart had beaten as hard as if he had been in his twenties. In that stormy state, sounds coming from all four sides had sounded like a huge choir singing around him — the singing of an invisible, imaginary crowd. Could it have been a forest ghost or a mountain god? The happy cries of a forest lord or dangerous screams from a gaggle of old sorcerers? A fleeting fear had made him stand still. He had stood like that for a while after the girls were long gone. He had listened carefully to the singing of the mysterious choir, had felt the air trembling and twirling, had seen gigantic and shapeless waves curve around and soar. Miraculous space was an ocean and he was a boat that had been thrown to the waves without his consent, without his calculation, without his hesitating…