Duong Huong - The Zenith

“Forgotten, really.”

“We defer to you. The day we joined up, we learned some lines to get by. When we were in, that was that. It didn’t brings us rice, clothes, or money, why bother to remember?”

“But I bet you all will remember all the minute details of Mr. Quang’s story. Is that true or not?”

“You don’t have to say so. Neither will we deny it. We do not have to wring our brains to remember what happens in the village and hamlets; it’s like remembering our pillows at the head of our beds. And those songs from somewhere and nowhere, brought back from China or the West, why bother?”

“Exactly!”

At the moment, one of the unhenpecked guys speaks up: “I’ll bet all of you: Is the story over?”

The loudmouthed woman answers first: “What else if it hasn’t ended. The end: he marries her, she sneaks into his bed…What else do you want?”

“That’s such woman thinking. Your brain is no bigger than a grapefruit, your eyes can’t see farther than two arm lengths.”

“Yes, we are indeed stupid, let you guys be smart…Clearly you are the haughty ones with your pride big like a large basket.”

“Listen carefully here: the drama is just beginning. Don’t you all see that?”

“I don’t see anything at all. They love each other, they cross the mountains and rivers, they legalize their marriage, who dares to interfere?”

“Miss Vui, have they gone through the process?”

“I’m not sure. I heard people speculate this and that.”

“If they have not done the formalities, then the man is a widower and the woman has no husband, what can be done to them? Thousands of years ago our ancestors married, had children and grandchildren; who then needed a marriage paper with the government’s red seal?”

“The marriage paper is not a big deal but the garlic bulb is. That’s the problem.”

“What about this garlic bulb? You mean the pair of testicles that dangle in the crotch of our pants, right?”

“How can you be so dense? Testicles are testicles and a garlic bulb is a garlic bulb; each its own kind. At night do you mistakenly touch your wife’s clam and think it’s the teapot on that table or not?”

“Your comparison is so damn complicated.”

“Complication is a fact of life. Now, who dares bet with me that the story of this family is over? For me, the curtain has just closed on Act One. And Act Two will be full of scenes. Well, who dares play?”

“You guys are timid like the field crabs. Nobody dares speak up?”

“No way, I’m not stupid.”

“Why bet with you? If it gets out in people’s ears, we’ll get nothing, just their cursing. In the past, his family has not harmed anyone.”

“Enough! Don’t make a molehill into a mountain! Whatever is to happen will happen. On behalf of us all we want to thank the hostess. New Year’s Eve this time was fun, really fun!”

The group scrambled to light torches, turn on lights, and put on their coats to leave. When the lights started twinkling along the paths of the middle section, a rooster had crowed to welcome the first hour of the new year. A dog’s barking followed people’s steps. The sky was black like squid ink and the air was still. Miss Vui turned off the storm light, started to clean up the house under the light of a row of homemade beeswax candles.

In her mind, she anxiously thought: “Whatever is to come, will come!”

She knew that everybody else was also waiting like her. With their cautious attitudes, rural people never dare participate in a messy situation but they secretly follow all the developments and also secretly want them to fall out according to their own analysis. Always holding on to the illusions that make for an analyst, one who has power over people living hard and lonely lives, Miss Vui felt a secret dream stirring in her soul, similar to a fetus kicking in its mother’s womb. She felt that “something will happen, if not sooner then later.” She remembered the angry pair of eyes of Chairman Quy when she had described to him the two-story house with seven rooms newly built for the old couple in Khoai Hamlet. Because Mr. Quang’s house was in an old-fashioned style, one-story high but very spacious and all the framing timbers made of real wood, and Quy’s house was much inferior. And now the father of the whore Ngan had a two-story house — how could he bear that image? Intuition told Miss Vui that this love story would eventually bring on a great storm. But what kind of storm, the wind blowing from the top of the high mountains or from the distant ocean, no one could predict.

All of a sudden, the old cat in the kitchen jumped out and curled around Vui’s legs.

“Go away, crazy one…”

She shouted while kicking with her legs, “Meow, meow, ow.”

The animal jumped to one side, crying out miserably, its eyes turning toward her, round with fear and surprise. She clicked her tongue: “I forget. It’s not fed yet. All night I was busy with guests and forgot about the cat.”

Leaving the pile of dishes she was cleaning, she went to the storage cabinet and took out a large salted fish and put it on the cracked dish reserved for the cat.

“Now it is your turn…”

The animal approached the dish, continuing to cry, its eyes always following its mistress as if it could not understand or forget Miss Vui’s rudeness. She suddenly laughed:

“Stop meowing and eat…”

Then she sat opposite the animal to make it realize that her anger had passed. When the cat lowered its head to the fish on the plate, she suddenly had a strange thought that she was like a cat: a cat waiting for its prey in the dark. But not an old cat — rather a female cat that is very young and full of vitality. That thought made her smile to herself for a while.

After the cat had finished eating, licking its lips with satisfaction then running to the other room to curl up in a bed made out of leftover materials, Miss Vui continued to clean the house and wash dishes. Gigantic candles burned brightly from the house to the kitchen, their light plentiful and wild.

She did not have to live frugally like most women with five or seven kids in tow. This New Year’s Eve banquet had satisfied her. While washing the dishes, she hummed the song “Rise Up, All You Slaves of the World.” She was proud of her extraordinary memory and because her literary aptitude was suddenly on the rise. When she was done washing the dishes and cleaning the house shiny like a mirror, it was sunrise. It was cold, but damp sweat ran down her spine. She said:

“A bath first! Thus, this year, before and after New Year’s Eve, I bathe twice.”

That was unusual, because people usually avoided bathing after New Year’s Eve. But single people like to worship the patron genie of cleanliness. This genie brings them a pride that those with children, grandchildren, husbands, and wives have no right to enjoy.

When Miss Vui finished her bath, the clock struck fifteen minutes before seven in the morning. Fog still covered the young mountains but the rows of trees started to appear faintly with soaking wet leaves. The mistress looked at the patio for a while, dreamily. Then she locked the door and went to bed:

“What will come tomorrow?” she asked herself while leisurely stretching her large body under the quilt.

What must happen, will happen!

But people don’t need to be armed against life with literature and words, and don’t need to waste time waiting. That afternoon of the first day of the new year, what-must-happen came to life.