Duong Huong - The Zenith

“With such eyes, she can do anything she wishes,” he thinks and scrambles to find some appropriate words in response:

“We offer our condolences to your family, hoping you and your son will quickly pass through this difficult time. Make sure your boy completes all his studies.”

“Yes, we will carry out your instruction,” the widow replies right away, as if her answer had been prepared in advance.

Then the village chief asks him to retrace his steps and visit the deceased. He follows mechanically, not knowing the customs and proceedings of an ordinary funeral. This is the first time in his life he has been to the funeral of a common person. After an instant and very suddenly, wailing breaks out behind him:

“Father, oh, Father, why are you leaving us?”

At that moment he notices some twenty more people also in mourning dress; some are in their thirties and forties but there are also younger ones. They push their way forward, cuddled close to one another to form a gang that could overwhelm the widow and her son. They form up as a choir, voicing their laments as a song accompanied by instruments. This group stands to the left of the coffin, the young mother and child to the right.

“Two forces, two children; this point seems uncontested,” he reasons, and his eyes wander, looking for a picture of the deceased. He immediately sees a chair with an intricately carved back close to the coffin; on it is a large framed picture bordered by a black cloth.

“Ah, here he is! It’s not a father still in his thirties or close to forty like I guessed yesterday…”

The commander of the two watchful companies to the right and the left of the coffin is in his fifties, or older. Only his face does not reflect the weariness, or the equanimity, poise, patience of the faces of other men his age. His face is square, with trace lines of adventures, and reflects both pride and vitality. His eyes stare straight out with a confrontational and provocative look mixed with a touch of malice. The bridge of his nose is large and straight like a bamboo stick. A beautiful mouth, with regular lips, is seated in a long and bushy beard, curly like that of a Caucasian, and jet black.

“This face testifies to what has happened to this unfortunate one, even right in this house.”

He is shocked: all his guessing, his thoughts, his emotions, are put in play like boats bouncing on the water. An old understanding about oppression also immediately pours out like waterfalls wildly rushing down to sink those boats. A burning liquid enters into his nostrils. Smoke floats in front of him, with gray colors of storm clouds and the hazy purple of poppies.

“Eldest brother, we should leave!” Vu says behind him.

Feeling a hand gently touching his, he suddenly understands that he must awake. Turning to the group in plain white gowns and with white headbands to the left of the coffin, he says:

“I offer my condolences to the family. I hope we will all overcome this very painful and sad circumstance and quickly regain normal lives.”

It’s the turn of this family to acknowledge his consoling words with all the adamant and resentful feelings they have stored in their hearts. Patiently, he waits for the wailing to subside before he takes his leave. But it seems that his comforting comments only give an excuse for those strong, repressed feelings to reveal themselves after the loss. The cries, the whining, of some twenty people only become more intense.

“Oh, Father, Father, how could you leave us in the middle of a terrible situation? Father, you left, but all the problems were not explained, all the resentments were not revealed.”

“Father, oh, Father, please come back and listen carefully…your children, your grandchildren, all your own flesh and blood are here…”

At this moment it is the village chief who swiftly helps him escape this complicated situation: “Stop. Every pain must have its limits. Besides, the president needs to preserve his health to serve national priorities. I propose that the family disperse so that we can take the president back to rest.”

After speaking, she pushes out her muscular arms to back the mourners away on both sides, with all the strength and precision of the edge of a bulldozer’s blade. Before he realizes what is happening, he finds himself crossing the stone-tiled patio to the compound gate. A few bodyguards gather close around him. The four musicians stand and play the national anthem to bid him on his way.

The familiar tune arises. The president is now forced to stop in the middle of the patio with his guards, seeing at a glance that the village chief is glaring at the musicians, not knowing whether to compliment or threaten them. In any case, everyone has to wait for the song to stop.

The national anthem! The national anthem!

He is as dumbfounded as if he were hearing it for the first time; for years the verses with their deep meanings had been imprinted in his mind. Is this the impact of the funeral or have his own mental abilities changed over the years? Or do the folk instruments bring on a peculiar expression to a quite familiar piece of music? It’s impossible for him to explain this clearly, but a terror invades his soul as he hears the national anthem played on a one-string zither, a flute, and a two-string fiddle. Why is the melody so very sad? A patriotic song for a nation but one so sentimental and so full of melancholy? As if this upbeat and energetic melody hid within its notes evening temple bells and the howling of night owls. As if this provocative singing brings out parallel images that befit its ambience: dark, foggy horizons, deserted and cold streams, banks full of rubbish, a cemetery that spreads itself out infinitely under the sheltering wings of flying crows.

“Is it old age that makes me easily melancholic, or do these folk instruments bring to the national anthem a sadness that it does not usually promote? Because music for Sending Off the Soul is only appropriate for traditional songs like ‘Lan Tham, Sa Lech Chenh, Sam Soan’?”

He can’t find an answer. A pain twists in his heart. He looks up to the blue sky beyond the tops of the bamboo, trying hard to chase away such distressing thoughts, but to no avail.

“Let me know who your friend is; then I will tell you who you are. As such, I can say that: let me hear a people’s songs and I will tell you that people’s fate! Could it be true that a people’s fate is determined by its songs, by its oldest forms of dances, by songs that accompany a people like a companion for eternity, like your shadow, like the entwined male and female sides of some asexual fish? Can human beings change their fate or not, and in life can their efforts bring on no more than a small percentage of all that will accumulate in a lifetime?”

“Mr. President, please step along,” the chubby guard, who stands close behind him, whispers.

The president turns around and waves his hands to bid farewell to the musicians, then heads toward the gate. There the two platoons of guards are ready. They resume their previous formation to head back to where the helicopter is waiting.

“Venerable Abbess, we bother you too much.”

“Mr. President, we are honored to serve you.”

“Venerable Abbess, it might just be that our discussion will go on all afternoon. If so, your afternoon chanting will be interrupted.”

“Mr. President, as ordained people we pray throughout our lives. When we need to stop, we stop. Buddha’s spirit is within us even in our silence.”

“Venerable Abbess, aren’t you afraid that the sacred one will scold you?” he asks, half joking, half serious, with a smile that hides multiple meanings.

“Honorable Sir, if a Buddha did that, then he’d no longer be a Buddha,” the abbess replies with a smile, a gentle smile, then walks out of the room.