Duong Huong - The Zenith

It happened when Vui’s house was still shut. Snoring like thunder rose up high and fell down low, like the singing of people dragging timber logs, spreading through all five rooms of her house. What comes to life, life raises up. Act Two of Mr. Quang’s family drama that she secretly awaited had begun. Unfortunately she did not witness the curtain rising, even though she was the only person who had climbed ravines and crossed streams to get all the way to the distant Khoai Hamlet.

It is customary on the morning of the first day of the three-day Tet celebration for everyone to dress nicely, to replace incense on family altars, and to make remembrance offerings to the ancestors. In the early afternoon, after the offering, families may bring the offering food down from the altar to partake of a joyful meal that will ensure plentiful rice wine and tea all during the coming year. After the banquet comes the time for welcoming guests to the family home. Then, each family host welcomes his sons and their wives, his daughters and their husbands, and scores of grandchildren. There must be trays of five kinds of fruit for the children to eat to their heart’s content. There will be red lucky envelopes with cash inside to distribute fairly among the grandkids, no distinction being made between boy or girl or between the children of sons and the children of daughters. There must be candies and cakes and many kinds of different candied fruit for people to munch with tea.

This year, Mr. Quang’s house had only the newlyweds. Master Quynh still lived in the lower section with his maternal grandmother. After the failed negotiations by the two uncles, it was Quynh himself who had come up and asked his father for his clothes and other things, plus a sum of money large enough to pay for his tuition and activity fees. After living with his maternal family for a week, the young man had realized that nice words cannot mint money. The grandmother and the two uncles only provided him with empty advice or ineffective actions. They could do no more. Therefore, Quynh accepted living there as if in a boardinghouse, making monthly contributions for his food. The young man did not want to return to his family home, partly because of pride and partly because of his stepmother’s beauty, which inflamed his emotions. Obviously the father understood his son’s heart and did not force the matter.

“OK, whatever you want is fine. What about the five rooms reserved for you, what do you want to do with them?”

“Dad, just keep them for Stepmother and the younger siblings. I do not have any intention of returning.”

“Please think carefully.”

“I only ask you for the money to finish college. After graduation, I’ll take care of myself.”

“If so, I am happy for you. I’m only afraid you won’t qualify for secondary school.”

“I know. From now on I will attend public school.”

“OK, I’ll make sure you have enough money.”

“It’s what I ask for, Father.”

The conversation ended and the youngest son picked up the shiny varnished trunk and left. It was a good separation because, subsequently, Quynh suddenly became more mature and began to do well in his studies. His new grades surprised his whole school.

This New Year, it was Mr. Quang who presented gifts to Miss Ngan. The gift for her was not a red envelope containing a few bills but a pink velvet box. When she opened the box, her eyes flashed like electricity and she jumped up to put her arms around his neck:

“Good-looking old man! This is truly marvelous!”

“Is this gift fit for a girl from Khoai Hamlet? Or are you the literary star from the right branch of the celestial horoscope?”

“Literary star of the left or the right branch does not equal becoming mistress of the house of Mr. Quang in the upper section.”

“Are you sure of that, honey?”

“As sure as teak wood is hard.”

“If Teacher Tuong returns and entices you to leave me, I will hang myself on the jackfruit tree at the end of the yard.”

“Smack that lying mouth. You do want to hang?”

“I’ll hang your neck first, then mine; in the same hour, no more, no less. It’ll make it easy for the kids to do the funerals.”

“That is horrible.”

“Why such a faint heart? Just a little joking around.”

“Don’t be so foolish. We’ve had our share of bitterness. We will live with each other until we step into the grave.”

She held on to him tightly, her tears welling up as if separation were stalking outside just beyond the door sill. He held her tightly, too, to confirm his unconditional protection. At that moment, he had a feeling, extremely definite, extremely strong, like his feeling when he first met her, when she, embarrassed, had put the two bottles of rice wine on the table in the boardinghouse in town: she was part of his bones and flesh, part of his own life, the part that he had forgotten, which he had ditched many incarnations before in someplace so far away, on the far side of the horizon. They stood like that for a long while in the calming New Year’s air, both knowing and surprised as to why they were so passionately in love with each other. Then the sound of a barking dog and the footsteps of young men going out for a New Year’s stroll on the hamlet road startled them out of their love enchantment. Miss Ngan hurriedly put the two red ruby solitaires in her ears.

“My gosh, it’s time to cook food for the ancestors.”

“Why hurry? The ancestors witness our faithful hearts. It’ll be fine to bring them food at noon,” he replied.

There were only the two of them, but the offering meal had to be complete. Besides being smart, Miss Ngan possessed all the necessary skills to cook well in a kitchen. She did not need her husband’s help to prepare a ten-course banquet in less than two hours: steamed chicken with lime leaves, fried honey chicken, stir-fried beef with bamboo shoots, stir-fried fish with celery, stir-fried pork with cauliflower, chicken pie, pork pie with fungus, jellied pork hock, shrimp soup with fish bladder, and braised ribs with bamboo shoots. Not counting different pork rolls and rice cakes. Right at noon, a tray was brought up and enticing dishes were put on display all over the altar. There were eighteen plates and bowls for the main and the minor dishes. Mr. Quang stood there, stroking his beard and complimenting his wife. Incense and sandalwood smoke spread pleasing aromas throughout the rooms. The warmth of an invisible fire filled the air. The genies of happiness — which always come to a house where people love each other — smiled invisible smiles.

At the very moment when Mr. Quang, dressed in formal robes, stood directly in front of the ancestors’ altar getting ready to offer prayers, Quy with his wife and two daughters stepped in. He carried two pink grapefruit from his own garden with a stack of black cakes, the kind that Mrs. Quang had liked to eat the most when she was alive. After putting these offerings on the altar, Quy said:

“May I pray to my mother first? Afterward, I must go and bring good New Year’s wishes to the units and the villagers.”

“Back away from there! On this altar I have ancestors from seven generations back. After that we have great-great-grandparents, grandparents from both maternal and paternal sides; then come the parents, my uncles and aunts. After that is my older brother who died young. Your mother, that is, my wife, has to wait her turn after him. The order of precedence is settled. There is no authority for a variance.”

“But I…”

“Back off,” Mr. Quang screamed. He did not say it but he knew that nobody in Quy’s family had acknowledged Miss Ngan. She had withdrawn to the kitchen on seeing the animosity on their faces.