Duong Huong - The Zenith

“Dear Xuan, I will never forget this…As long as I live I will protect your child with Elder Brother…Do rest in peace in heaven. If you are able, please protect us.”

Someone sobs nearby.

He quickly closes his eyes. Teardrops fall and roll down his cheeks. His face is now wet and cold. He hears the singing of birds in the guava trees, rising and growing chirpier. The birds sing at the border between a populous city and rural fields with too few workers. Birds singing. Why do they sing so much during such painful moments in one’s life?

He remembers such chirping during a long-ago winter morning, when he hurriedly ran across the yard in front of the house out to the road.

That terrifying morning, not yet even 5:30 a.m., the phone rang. Barely awake, he got out of bed to take the phone. A muffled and hoarse voice cried:

“Oh, Vu, Ms. Xuan is dead!..On the Quang Ba road.”

Before he could ask a question, the person had hung up. He heard clearly the panting breathing, the shaking and distorted tone of voice as if someone intentionally covered the nose seeking disguise. Instantly he was wide awake and understood what he had to do. He hurriedly called for a car, dressed, and ran to the gate when he heard the motor starting in front of the garage. At that instant, the sounds of birds made him stop. He did not understand the reason why, during such an extremely tense moment, a moment when hundreds of things took over his mind, he paid attention to the sound of the birds. Stopping by the two railings of the wide-open gate, he looked up at the leaves of the lychee and jackfruit trees in the garden. He did not find any birds among them. In front of him there was only a melody from a sixteen-string zither, and from it came the joyous music of the birds, like notes infused into the melody of life. It brought out a flavor totally opposite from the appalling event he would have to deal with.

Smack!

A blow on his nape makes him dizzy. The pain brings flying fireflies in his eyes. Unexpectedly, the president wakes up, walks to the outer room, and sees the chubby soldier sitting in front of a shattered crystal lamp:

“Little one, you broke the lamp.”

He suppresses a sigh and says to the young man, “Never mind, it broke. Tell the office to replace it with another one!”

Seeing the soldier’s beet-red face full of shame, he smiles:

“Tell them I broke it. I am old and I am entitled to have my foot and hands shake. How can I have quick hands and eyes like young people?”

The soldier bravely looks at him:

“Forgive me, Mr. President.”

“This is not a mistake but a happenstance. I already told you. You must know how to use the noun properly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Too many insects, right?”

“Yes, I can’t sweep them all.”

“Spring insects for you. Clean them up then bring me some tea.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looks at the young man carefully picking up the broken glass, reflexively bringing his hand up to rub the back of his head. How many times had he felt that he had been hit from behind right in the middle of his skull just above the neck, where one blow can kill a man or a woman. This time again at that same point and only at that point:

“Only one blow; never use a second one to take someone’s life. Even if the victim stands one meter and sixty tall and is equal in weight.”

That had been the modus operandi of One Stroke Tam, the special aide of Quoc Tuy, minister of internal affairs. Nobody had ever told him that it was Tam who assassinated her, not even Vu. But he learned the truth in his dreams. Through his dreams, he knows for sure that she was strangled. Through his dreams, he knows they assassinated her the same way they eliminated members of the rival People’s Nationalist Party in the old days. Ever since then, One Stroke Tam had been notorious. He had never met this thug face-to-face, but more than once during the resistance years, when the Party had fought with rival nationalist leaderships, Sau had bluntly described this hooligan, recounting and not concealing his pride. Later on, after the resistance had won, Sau rarely mentioned this person’s name, but he knew that One Stroke Tam had been made head of a senior police unit and that mysterious deaths of Party enemies and those who contradicted Sau happened as regularly as lunch. All in silence. Nobody dared bring up the topic, except Vu. Was it because of this openness that Sau had pushed Vu aside? So many people had talked about this in whispers. Sau’s relationship with Vu still remains a secret. Everybody knows Sau’s personality. The recent death of his youngest brother, Le Dinh, is still hot news in palace circles.

Sau is the oldest son of a wealthy family. After him came two younger brothers. Both were tall and stocky like Sau, keen for food, women, and power. But of the two, the older one was more accommodating, even though before joining the resistance, he had killed someone in a gambling match. He had therefore fled the village to follow his older brother into the resistance to avoid arrest. Under the protective arms of his older brother, he first escaped imprisonment while the resistance was still covert, and then, when the day of victory arrived, he enjoyed every privileged advantage suitable for his cheating mind. Therefore, he idolized his older brother. The youngest brother, rather unconventionally straightforward and having no criminal past, was not bound to take orders from his elder. The tradition of the eldest brother’s power replacing a father’s authority did not enter his head. Many times, he publicly announced:

“You eat your own rice; you do your own work; you are responsible for what you do.”

At one anniversary of their father’s death, the three brothers gathered. They discussed many topics, including national affairs, because all three were highly placed palace retainers. The least senior, Le Dinh, was minister of industry. At the anniversary, there would be good wine, fatty pork, and all the delicacies of the ocean, even though the country was at war and the people had to tighten their belts. When wine goes in, words come out. So, at some point, inner thoughts come to light. The youngest brother pointed at his brother’s face and shouted:

“Brother, don’t be too cruel. If not, later on people will dig up Father’s grave. And Father belongs to all of us. He did not sire you alone, he sired me, too.”

“Shut up,” Sau growled in a hushed voice. He did not want those around them to hear their argument, even though the three brothers were eating separately in a private room, but there was still a risk that their conversation could be heard outside it. Besides, servants went in and out to pour more wine, refill water glasses, or bring in new dishes.

“I order you to shut up.”

“I won’t shut up.”

The youngest brother shouted even louder:

“I don’t want my father to have his grave desecrated and his body exposed because of your wrongdoings. You enjoy great power and senior rank; you enjoy seafood delicacies; our old man lying in the ground never had a taste.”

At this point the middle brother intervened. Two sisters came from another room to plead with Le Dinh to lower his voice. Sau did not utter another word. More than a month later, Le Dinh took two followers hunting in Thanh Hoa. It was a pastime of which he never tired. Many times he had left cabinet meetings if hunting was still possible. He was a first-class hunter. Perhaps heaven had created him in the first place to be the boss of the wild animals. In his trophy collection were five tigers, more than twenty bears, not to mention wild boars, deer, and various other creatures.

During that particular hunting trip, Le Dinh had died right in the car, on the stretch of road between the cities of Ninh Binh and Thanh Hoa. It was officially reported afterward that his hand had itched to take out a gun to clean it, when, unfortunately, it had gone off.