Duong Huong - The Zenith

Many years ago, Vu found a tight bond between the blue curtain and his favorite song from his high school days, “Come Back to Sorrento.”

This Italian song was first imported by the French schools, then it spread to the local schools until it intoxicated all the boys and all the girls in their flowing white school uniforms. The song inspired a vague conviction that everybody should put down anchor at some shore, someplace where they could heal their wounds, where new skin could grow over an open gash, and you could wait for the scar tissue to harden. A place where they could find again a source of life. A place where they could be reborn. A place called the old home…

For him such an old home was now just a few yards of faded cloth. He had nothing else besides that.

He thinks: “In a few minutes, I will crawl onto the bed, into the familiar corner. The blue curtain will protect me and I will find an escape…”

The sudden braking sound of the Volga startles him:

“Chief, we’re home.”

“Thank you.”

“Tomorrow, what time is convenient for me to pick you up, Chief?”

“I must leave earlier than usual. Perhaps six fifteen would be ideal.”

“Chief, will you eat breakfast at home?”

“Correct; I’ll eat at home to make it simple.”

He gets out of the car; walks as if running into the house; hurriedly climbs the stairs; hurriedly strips off his outer clothing to change into pajamas; falls crumpled onto the bed with a sick person’s collapse such as one who has been overcome by a seizure and would just drop anywhere on the sidewalk or in the bushes. Familiar feelings and the soft blue color help him regain regular breathing. He closes his eyes, waiting for calm composure to return to his soul just like a farmer listening to the raindrops during the dry season. Downstairs, there are the sounds of china being broken, of chairs being pushed, then the screaming of Van, his wife:

“What’s going on?”

…

“I ask: Who broke my plate of boiled meat?”

“Trung did.”

“Throwing away food? Then in three days you will eat nothing but salt.…Who allows you to create havoc in this house?”

…

“I ask: Who gives you the right to pillage under my roof?”

Van’s voice shries like a knife scraping slate. He has never heard his own woman’s voice so terrifying as just now: “Why is her voice suddenly changed so oddly?”

“Trung, answer my question!”

He hears the loud sobbing of the child. And this sobbing is suppressed into the sound of sniffling. Leaning on his arm, he gets up. Downstairs, his wife continues to scream:

“Did you hear what I said? Answer me, Trung!”

At this, the child bursts into tears. It is no longer a sniffling sound but the low crying of a teenage boy whose voice is changing. Vu opens the door and goes downstairs. In the dining room, his wife has her hands on her hips, a position that he despises most in a woman; a position that he considers most unattractive, from the point of view of both beauty and morality. In that position, even a beauty queen could not inspire positive reactions from a man, especially from those who have been well educated. For a long time, his wife had not dared to so stand, a stance he often condescendingly called “the manners of that fishmonger, Tu.” For a long time, too, his wife had understood that his disposition was quiet and humble, but that once he became angered or enraged, it would be a tragedy for the family, as a breakup would become unavoidable. For a long time, she had also known by heart those areas into which she should not trespass, which he had formally established, knowing it would be like a deadly minefield if she ever stepped into them…

Thus, today, what insane spirit had crossed their threshold or what defect of memory had prematurely arrived to make her forget so completely?

He stands right next to his wife and asks, “What is going on?”

Van is startled and turns. She points to the corner:

“Look over there, Trung is fed up with meat and he threw the whole plate on the floor. And Vinh did not have any…From today until next week, I will let them eat rice with salt.”

“That’s OK,” he says softly, then slows each word, as with students who are just starting to learn spelling. “In the next three years, I will not touch any meat with chopsticks. That way nobody will be missing anything…Are you satisfied now?”

“Ah…” His wife drops her arms, looks at the smile on his lips. Her red face turns purple then white.

Having lived with him over thirty years, she knows very well that insipid smile is reserved for his enemies. She backs off, opens her mouth to say something but can’t. Suddenly, she turns away in an unusual provoking and rude manner. Leaving the dining room, she goes straight out to the courtyard, where the jade plant is waiting to be groomed.

Vu stops and asks Vinh: “What happened between the two of you?”

“Nothing…nothing happened,” Vinh replies awkwardly. Then he dashes out of the dining room into the courtyard

Without even glancing up, he knows that Vinh is looking for his mother. That is his only refuge in this house, the place where he can hide from all his sins. Waiting until Vinh disappears, he bends over and asks Trung:

“What did he do to you?”

The adopted son bursts out sobbing. He obviously had repressed his cries, but now the water overflows the dike, and he cries profusely and uncontrollably like a three-year-old, but with the low tone of a teenager. Vu waits for his cries to end, and pulls him to his bosom:

“You and Vinh are the same age but you are ten months older. There is an old saying: ‘Older by one day only, you are still the older brother.’ You ought to behave like one, right?”

“Yes. I remember your words. But today Vinh insulted me.”

“How did he insult you?”

“He told me that I am a bastard, and a moocher.”

“Suddenly he said that?”

“We sat down to eat dinner because Mother said you wouldn’t be home for quite a while. At first, nothing happened. But when I was about to pick up some meat, he blocked my chopsticks and screamed: ‘You’re a moocher, a bastard. Your kind only deserves to eat vegetables and peanuts; you have no permission to eat meat or fish. Letting you sit and eat with us is honor enough.’”

Vu is mute. His face is sweating and his heart grows cold. He feels as if it stops beating for a few seconds. A thought runs across his mind, burning it as if someone is guiding a hot iron across his flesh: “Vinh couldn’t have thought of those things all by himself. He is a rude boy but not too smart. Those cruel words must have come from his mother. From my wife? How could she be so low class?”

After a while, he calms down and says:

“You should not bother with Vinh. He is greedy and he lies. You are actually my own son. Your mother’s name is not Van, but the blood that runs in your veins is mine. The skin covering your body is surely my own as well. If Mother Van and younger brother Vinh do not accept you, we will leave them and live separately. Just you and me. Do you understand?”

“A…”

The boy opens his mouth; his eyes open wide. In the boy’s state of utmost astonishment, Vu detects suspicion and fear mingled in opposition to a sense of great good fortune. He knows that what he has said has surpassed all the boy’s expectations, and is his dream of all dreams.

“You are my own child. Do you understand this?” Vu says again.

Trung still stands dumbfounded, his face pale and his lips turning white. Vu sees clearly all the waves of emotion that surface in Trung’s beautiful eyes.