Duong Huong - The Zenith

The neighbors gossiped, and every time they did, they felt pleasure about their own situation, whatever small happiness they had was in their own hands according to whatever their fates had allotted them. The cold spring of that year hit like a nightmare. It was followed by an unexpectedly muggy and hot summer filled with thunderstorms. Pouring rains in June and July made the streams overflow, breaking up many sections of road. The cleanup from the storms and the road repairs cost much money and labor. Cicadas popped out in swarms in the late summer. Their singing all day and all night prevented the elderly from sleeping. Children went through epidemics of first flu and then white fever. Their crying sounded like ripping cloth and made the air more oppressive and suffocating. Just as the weather can suddenly change, so, too, can life. Old worries return to the anxious and puzzled minds of the people, relentlessly vibrating like the sound of cicadas. Ignoring the meetings and warnings from the government, the villagers resolved to bring, during the summer festival, the monks from Lan Vu temple down to the two temples at the foot of the mountain to chant prayers and dissipate the bad weather. Usually the summer festival is given only one day, but that year, because of all the many unusual occurrences in heaven and earth as in their daily lives, the villagers celebrated for three consecutive days with flags and banners hung all over the temple courtyard. From old to young, villagers sat cross-legged and respectfully chanted prayers, hoping that the anger of the spirits and deities would disappear.

Mr. Quang returned to the village on the last day of the summer festivities. His horse cart was the only one in Woodcutters’ Hamlet to have a top, therefore villagers could recognize it right away. He seemed thinner than before. Wrinkles now framed his eyes but his jovial laugh had not changed. In half a spring and one full summer, he had paid his debts, both capital and interest, and had given each creditor ten meters of cloth as a gift. Neighbors looked at him as if he were a lost soul fallen from the moon. They whispered and speculated among themselves about all the ways he could have made so much money. But the speculations were just that: unanswered questions. No one guided or found the path of this particular person. He lived beyond the imaginations of rural people. Not only did he direct people from Woodcutters’ Hamlet but he also recruited people from neighboring districts to work in wood and cement in district public projects. After arranging tasks for a work crew, he would turn responsibilities over to his trusted partners and disappear in his horse carriage. A few weeks later, he would return to check the quality of the work, to discuss and reach agreement with superiors as well as with the lower-level staff assigned to the project, and then after a dinner with wine for the workers, he would raise and empty his cup along with everyone, laugh loudly at all the funny jokes, and disappear like a magician. No one could ever follow him, but he had a special way of checking up on everyone, even when away. One couldn’t expect to fool him. Of course he had never cheated or lied to anyone, and the group of villagers that followed him down to work in the city knew the rules of the game, so no one ventured to cross this successful personage.

After paying all his debts and sharing a meal with his children and grandchildren, his horse carriage again clip-clopped down the road one early morning. This time music from the Suong Mao radio he carried by his side could be heard. This machine that looked like a black brick but could produce all kinds of songs, even high-pitched singing, was nonetheless a mysterious object in the eyes of the villagers. Even the district officials were unable to possess such a strange thing. The neighbors opened the doors, looked at the horse carriage, and listened to the music, which was fading away.

“He is very with it!”

People would comment:

“If you are not with it, you are not the man Quang. Who else could dare to order a banquet of thirty full trays for the forty-ninth-day memorial of a wife? Even after a hungry devil had consumed his wealth.”

“If she were a normal, sweet person up until the very minute she jumped into her coffin, he would have ordered three hundred full trays for the banquet!”

“You would have to say so!”

“How old is he to look as firm as a female crab?”

“She was sixty, he is sixty-one. They married according to the rule: a girl is older by two, a boy by one.”

“Ah! Already sixty; then he doesn’t need to think about remarriage. From now on, his only remaining task is to collect money to put into his pockets!”

That was the point of view among the people of Woodcutters’ Hamlet. They wanted a loyal and dedicated husband like Mr. Quang to stay a widower until the end of his life so as to live up to their ideal of a completely moral person. Just so do people need to lean toward a moral ideal, as long as that ideal doesn’t apply to them. Then, at the end of that winter — to be more accurate, on the twenty-fifth day of December — Mr. Quang abruptly brought back a young bride. A young woman with good skin and good form, her eyes shining sharply like a knife, her eyebrows long across her temples to the roots of the hair. That first day, she sat on the bar of the cart as it passed along the village road, chatting with him while shaking her legs and laughing out loud. Many mistook her for Quy’s daughter:

“What? The girl Mo suddenly fills out so quickly?”

“Your eyes must have a cyst, how could Mo be that big? She weighs no more than a handbag at the most.”

“Could it be Man, who is only fifteen? Her laugh is very different and is hard as nails. I am sure it’s not her.”

They did not have to wait long. Right that evening, his patio courtyard bustled with neighbors. The storm lamp was hung in the middle of the patio and shone out to the front and back gardens. People drank tea, ate all sorts of cakes and candies, and listened to him make a brief introduction:

“This is my new wife. Her name is Ngan.”

Nobody had time to say a word before the girl stepped up and smiled broadly:

“I greet all of you as my elders. Thank you for coming to congratulate us. In a day or two we will become neighbors.”

The villagers stood mute. The dream of the ideal husband collapsed, dissolving like the lime-plastered walls of a house buried under a fallen mountain. Besides, the bride was too young and too beautiful, to the point that everyone lost their breath. She wore a green silk, short-sleeve blouse; her breasts were full and alive, as appetizing as two bowls of sticky rice firmly pressed. Her buttocks were curved, a nice sight under her shiny, black sateen pants. Just like her legs, bulging every time she walked, and creating excitement among the men each time the wind would blow against them. Her eyes were also black like sateen, shooting out rays of fire that made hearts beat wildly.

Clearly, Mr. Quang understood thoroughly the hidden thought of the men as he said half joking, half serious, “The district town is full of women as beautiful as my wife and more so. For whoever wants it, I can make an immediate introduction.”

As if someone pulled on their tongues, the men said:

“Of course we want one, but with no money in our pockets, what girl would take us?”

“A patched heart is no different than a healthy one; I’d take a beauty. If you can find one who is half as beautiful as your wife, I will be your assistant, looking after your fields and gardens without pay until your death.”