Duong Huong - The Zenith

“All the cadres, all the soldiers, all the people resolve to defeat the invading American bandits.”

“If the mountains remain, if the rivers remain, the people will remain. Once the American bandits are defeated, we shall restore the mountains and rivers tenfold more beautiful than they were.”

A gigantic panel holds a portrait of the president in military uniform, his finger pointing to the zigzagging road along the Truong Son Mountains heading into the south. Above the picture is written:

CROSSING THE TRUONG SON RANGE TO SAVE THE NATION!

Under the picture is written the echoing reply:

UNCLE, NEPHEWS, AND NIECES ALL TOGETHER INTO BATTLE!

The huge, blown-up portrait of the president on that highest panel was his, actually his. The National Museum had asked to put it in an exhibition called Vietnam Is on the Road to Victory!

He had taken that picture unexpectedly while accompanying Elder Brother to the battlefield, with a very old Conrad that a Russian reporter had given him before going to China on his return home. At that time Elder Brother had just recovered from a bout of dysentery. There were no vegetables; meat and fish were only for display; for many long months there had only been salted fish and boiled bamboo shoots, bringing more than half the people on staff down with dysentery. At the end even Elder Brother, a little better treated, but older than most, had to endure the same disaster. A disease shared fairly. Then, Elder Brother had joked:

“Everybody is equal before dysentery!”

On the way to the front, the Old Man always joked like that. His jovial way of speaking, full of images and hidden meanings mixed with gestures, made him especially magnetic. The Old Man knew that he had magnetism; Vu had witnessed more than a few people intensely listen to him with their mouths wide open. He recalled that Ms. Xuan had loved the Old Man during that time. The fateful romance had begun in the 1953 campaign. 1953; definitely that year. It was said that was the year of the Snake: Quy Ti, the green snake. The resistance had one more year before it was over.

He remembered the stream over which he took Xuan for the first time on the way to the Old Man’s house. He was the first and the only person this mountain woman had confided in. That stream had been as transparent as glass; one could see clearly the fish that swam around the mossy plants, the crabs that suddenly crawled out of cracks between the rocks.

“Oh, oh, oh!” The girl had exclaimed with joy and immediately bent down to catch some crabs and put them in the Cham cloth bag on her arm:

“Let the cook make sour soup for the president…we have enough for a pot.”

He didn’t know what to say but was obliged to wait and watch her check all the cracks to catch any unfortunate crab that came within her sight. It must have been at least fifteen minutes later before they resumed their walk. Xuan shook the bag in her arms and smiled happily:

“Tonight the president will have a good bowl of soup.”

“Right. Crab soup with wild watercress. What a perfect dish!” he replied as he took in her beaming happy face.

There was a spontaneous naturalness, a simple angelic presence in this woman like wild grass, a freshness like a wildflower. She stirred the young souls of men. She brought together spring and youth — a priceless gift, something heavenly that neither power nor money could obtain. Not to mention an exquisite beauty that made birds fly and fish dive before her.

He understood why Elder Brother loved Xuan, even though he never spoke of it in words.

Nothing is more difficult to hide than love. One can hide big spending, wealth, dreams and wishes, hatred or pride. But nobody can hide love. Love is like poverty, if you consider it from that point of view. That’s what he had learned from Elder Brother’s convoluted love; even though he was a leader, even if he had passed through many past romances in his wandering life. But this girl was his greatest love, his last love in an unhappy life.

Gusts of wind blow on his face, dreamingly.

And the sounds of birds singing rise from the guava trees along Quang Ba road, sounding both real and unreal. He pensively looks at the huge picture, the image of a person to whom he is bound more than to his own blood and flesh. The sunlight gliding on the oil brushstrokes makes the portrait become lively, as if someone had poured on it a layer of silver sparkles. This kind of technique is more appropriate to theater art and this makes him uncomfortable. But it presents the old features fully: that gaunt face in profile, with cheekbones and nose bridge, those bright shining eyes with which he can read every glance:

“His arms are bone skinny in the loose sleeves of the shirt. Exactly from when we were starving, when bowls of cooked cassava were flavored with bright red pepper and salt.”

He remembers the black piece of soap that looked like dog feces, made by the local shop, using ingredients that, if disclosed, all the soap producers on earth would be ashamed of. Eventually, that miserable time passed. Every time one stepped into a stream to wash clothes, the soap foam floated dark gray like bubbles of sour earth from the fields; it was horrible. But making up for that were the sounds of young military cadets singing loudly and of wild birds chirping. And hopes rested on a victorious tomorrow. Our people had never lived in a present reality. We lived only with and by hope. That never-ending resistance survived thanks to hope.

But then what about this war? Perhaps the companies of soldiers who today advance down along the Truong Son mountains separating North Vietnam from Laos are just as we were in the old days: hoping and thinking of a bright tomorrow. The saintly Old Man who still leads their way shows the same face and bearing of that saint of the old war in the Viet Bac. With just one difference: he is no longer a true saint but only an embalmed corpse on a short leash — a zombie!

“It was I who gave them that picture; now they exploit it like a weapon of amazing power. Who could have predicted that?”

That particular angst has been stewing for a long while.

“Who could have predicted that?”

No longer is that picture in his family album. The negative was lost with the Conrad camera on the day of victory in the fall of the year Giap Ngo. When the troops had marched in from the five gates, all the units and organizations had excitedly set off for Hanoi…Hanoi, Hanoi with its beloved thirty-six old quarters, the cherished city that had been taken from us for ten years. Nobody had wanted to be late even by a day.

“On to the capital! On to the capital!”

That had been the cry in everybody’s heart in the chaos of good fortune. When happiness fills up your soul, a few items will be forgotten, or a few things will be misplaced or lost. That is normal.

But if that photo had been used in an exhibit of portraits or for any other artistic purpose, maybe he would not have felt such remorse. But it was being used in the war against the Americans, a pot of war that boils flesh, a war that Elder Brother had predicted and had tried to avoid from the beginning. Therefore, a bitterness never ceased to gnaw away at his heart. Yet he recognizes at the same time both the shameless games that people play and his own failure. That state of mind is more terrifying than death itself.

A convoy of trucks approaches from the Quang Ba road, each one completely covered over. Crossing the empty space to enter the city, the trucks throw up thick dust. He knows for certain that the convoy carries supplies to the front. All day, every day, convoys carry ammunition and food toward the south. Every day ships carry cadets south to Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. From those two provinces, the units will disperse in different directions according to their orders.