Duong Huong - The Zenith

And this fact is certain: every day blood will spill.

But spilling blood has been the norm of life over the long history of the Vietnamese people, a people for whom each era has been delineated by war. Furthermore, for this particular war, those in command offered a compelling logic to for their orders:

“Our people are heroic; such a people will defeat every enemy; such a people cannot lose very much in a war.”

With that kind of logic, blood spills in silence, bones will fall in silence, the names of the fallen will be enveloped in darkness and fog.

Is this just fate?

Is this just fate or is it a choice?

Fate: because the Americans had chosen the south as a dike to contain the Communist wave.

Fate: because the north had fallen into the hands of one inflicted with insanity. He wanted this war at any cost: a war that would build for him a colossal monument, the most colossal one in the history of all wars.

“The war against the Americans must be ten times bigger than the war against the French, so the monument will be a thousand times more imposing!”

This end had been fixed right from the start.

The memorial had been built in the imagination and in daydreams since the beginning of the war.

How damned! History’s game pitting red against black; the most facetious black comedy of all is the spiritual punishment of a whole nation planned secretly inside a madman’s skull. And how many millions had voluntarily given their lives believing that their sacrifice was necessary for the future of their motherland, for the honor of their race, when in reality they are only a pack of sheep led into a gigantic incinerator to justify the theory of a ghostly corpse that has decomposed under the black dirt?

“Does he truly believe in Marxism or does he only borrow Marxism to achieve his dream of conquest?

“Marxism is nothing more than a large cloak in which to hide this dream of imperial glory. He is nothing but a traitor who usurps a throne using the oldest tricks in the book.”

These thoughts drill through his heart as usual. These thoughts had left a well-trodden bare path in his brain. In recent years they obsessed him more intensely. Many illogical points can be understood only as time and space retreat. Now he has no doubt. The one who had harmed Elder Brother was the one the Old Man had most loved and trusted. But this one cares not for the people, and is not moved by the sincere guidance of the leader. He needs only power and glory.

He needs glory at all costs.

He is the one who at any cost must throttle his teacher.

He is the one who must find any means to kill his father. He can accomplish all this because the people admire him unconditionally. That is the price that has to be paid for being ignorant and cowardly. This reality is not fate but belongs to the phenomenon we call “victimization through collusion!”

For a long while, plagued by doubt, he questioned himself many times. But never did a true answer arrive; not until the Ninth Party Conference. At that landmark conference, all the cards were turned faceup. The majority of the delegates sided with Ba Danh and Sau. They wanted a victory more worthy than that won in the resistance war against the French. They wanted this new war. It was an addiction; an addiction beyond their control. A fateful romanticism that seduced an entire people in a mad rush. The passion to be a hero is fiercer than any sexual fixation. In the burning fires of sexual desire, no logic survives. When Sau decided to move the resolution for the war, Elder Brother walked out into the corridor to smoke alone. He returned to the room, looking out through the window, smoking nonstop. His heart pounded hard in his chest. An invisible fear weighed on his mind. An unnamable concern churned his stomach. A dreamy sadness like gray clouds filled the four corners of the sky. Vu had wanted to go stand behind Elder Brother but didn’t dare. Even Elder Brother himself could not explain his cowardly action, although those around him all looked at him as if he were the last hero of the epoch.

“Is it human nature to cling to a group and otherwise to lose one’s balance and feel insecure when standing all alone? Is that why I stayed in the meeting room with all the rest?

“No! I stayed there because I could not and did not want to do any little thing that would console Elder Brother in front of them all. That display of formality or that naked complicity was the most debased act in both our lives.”

Exactly so!

Perhaps, so.

No, exactly so!

He had confirmed it but for years he had tortured himself:

“I should have stood behind the Old Man. I should not have let Elder Brother stand all alone in the hallway at the moment when he saw so clearly his betrayal by those cretins. A betrayal in broad daylight.”

He recalls that he had glued his eyes on the window frame, where part of the president’s back could be seen inside circles of cigarette smoke, while his own brain and soul were paralyzed. He understands that, from then on, history’s path had turned sharply; that the image of the other was an irreversible stigma of loneliness, of a hero fallen from his horse, that from that day forward the fates of everyone, including his own, would change with this lonely man’s falling off a horse.

Another convoy of trucks comes.

This time it’s an artillery unit.

But the barrels are lowered, covered with parachute fabric and braided leaves. Red road dust coats the tires as well as the soldiers’ faces. He waits for the artillery unit to go then turns into the Quang Ba road. He has not walked on this street for ages, partly because he has been busy but also partly because he wanted to forget a place of misfortune. But today, he had walked all the way here, and he could no longer reverse direction:

“Why am I setting foot on this ill-fated road?

“Because of the ill fate, must I look at it up close yet one more time?

“Did arguing with Van bring back memories of the past or has the spirit of the deceased coaxed me to come back for a chat?”

He doesn’t know anymore. His steps take him along a narrow road with a row of guava trees on each side. When did they plant these trees? Nobody remembers, but they have grown abundantly like a forest. They reach out one to another, spreading over the lips of the field of flowers and the pond of watercress below. The trees touch; so do the branches, forming a full and thick tunnel that the sunlight can’t penetrate. This is a haven for gangs to rob and hide their loot; a place where rascals come to settle their blood debts; where unrestrained lovers come to make out; an ideal spot for prostitutes chased away by the police. These rows of guava trees are famous across the city for hair-raising stories, dramatic or comical episodes of forbidden love or wild jealousy.

Was it this notoriety that incited the young and hot-blooded Quoc Tuy to choose this road as the place to murder Ms. Xuan?

Or was it the disgraceful reputation of the place that prompted him first to shame the woman he killed?

Or had he been scorned by the beautiful woman turning him down, so that he needed to revenge his wounded pride in addition to killing her at Sau’s wish?

Vu looks at the rows of guava trees running in straight lines along the road back to the northwest edge of the city. Covered with dust, the trees seem to look back at him, a white-haired traveler, with leaves as their eyes.

Then a gust of wind brings cold and humid air even though the sun still shines brightly all around. He shivers:

“Is that wind or the soul of the pretty one?”