Duong Huong: The Zenith

It is beyond me to write only from my imagination. Everything I have ever written has built upon true events. Even so, one needs to remember the hard fact that fiction is still fiction. A novel is neither the divulgence of self-referential musings nor the stringing together of episodes from an author’s life.

Like all my published books, The Zenith is truthful to this rule. But, to avoid all unfortunate misunderstandings that might occur, I must emphasize this once again with respect to the character Tran Vu and those related to him. The inspiration leading to the construction of Tran Vu’s character came from the real story of Mr. Vu Ki, the former curator of the Ho Chi Minh Museum. On the other hand, the character of To Van is not at all related to Mr. Vu Ki’s actual wife or her family. The fictional juxtaposition of such a man and such a woman is not far from the realities of high-ranking Vietnamese during those years. Such juxtaposition is only a timeworn novelist’s invention. There should be no special inferences arising in this case.

In reality, I did not have the honor of knowing Mr. Vu Ki for I had no intention of ever inserting myself in to the ranks of the Communist dynasty. Though I had a serious prejudice against all the frivolous maneuverings and red tape of that environment, curiosity mixed with admiration in my unsettled mind and made it hard for me to control the urge to meet him. Only when I heard that he had become frail did I mingle with a group of underlings to have a look at him from afar. That was the first and also the last time. The following year he passed.

For me, Vu Ki was one of a tiny group of people who could preserve some sense of chivalry and loyalty among teachers and friends — those extremely beautiful Vietnamese virtues which the Communist regime successfully destroyed during fifty years of rule.

Vu Ki’s wife and her family have every right to feel proud to have had such a husband, a father, and a man.

“Oh, Father, Father, Father…”

The scream of a child wakes him up, and instantly it seems as if a blow from the back of the head knocks him emotionally off kilter.

“Oh, Father, Father…”

The scream rises up from the valley, the sound reverberating between the rocks, shaking the top of the trees, creating an invisible wave that agitates a large, still space.

After composing himself, he understands the screams belong to a different child.

“It’s not him, it’s not the little one…” he tells himself.

The painful feeling at the back of his head subsides and so does his anguish. The president stands up, steps out, and asks the security guard,“What happened?”

“Sir…it could be an accident in the valley. Someone has fallen from a tree or a rock, or the cliff.”

Just then, the strident sound of a siren rises from the security unit camp below. In the calm wind he can clearly hear the bustle of a soldiers’ posse gathering for the rescue…

“Oh, Father, Father, Father…”

“Oh, Father…will anybody save my father?…Hey, folks…Anyone, please save my father…”

This time he hears the desperate call of the child. The call of a boy entering his teenage years. That cry oscillates between the innocent feeling of youth and a turning to the ways of adulthood. In the cry, he can hear many different heartstrings vibrating all at once — moving with the accumulated love of months and years, reciprocating love and so many other invisible obligations, the pain of the unplanned separation, the terror of an uncertain future…All these feelings converging at once, like many different rays of light meeting at one spot. That rendezvous, he understands clearly, provides our fundamental link in the chain of our life, a hook that can tie us to the highest sublimation as well as to the last stage of depravity, a relationship that can spill much ink in the history of mankind. Such is the binding quality of the love between father and son, the oldest melody in the symphony performed by all living creatures. A kind of antique music that the tides of time have tried in vain to destroy.

“He must now be about the same age as this boy — same age but less fortunate.”

He wonders, and visualizes the face of the kid now. The son that he tries to forget but can’t put out of his mind. The son to whom, for a decade, he has refrained from coming close and yet who returns to rule over his heart, the most secure place for a child but not secure for himself. There, the image of the child is embroidered by his imagination as well as by his melancholy yearning. In this same place, his presence ignites a hellish fire that burns him daily.

“Who does he look like, I wonder? She or me? Does he look intelligent?” he has asked himself so many times. Many times, the silence alone answered.

He remembers clearly that from birth to six months the boy resembled the president’s eldest sister, from the bridge of the nose to the lips, especially in the thick hair falling and covering the temples and forehead. But then from the seventh month to one year, strangely, all the features changed and the child came to resemble its mother. This change surprised everybody, himself first, then the mother; and after that the mother’s older sister.

“Wow…He’s already at puberty…the years fly by like arrows…”

Instinctively, he sighs, not noticing the bodyguard behind him.

“Mr. President, do you have any instructions?”

“Instructions?”

As he replies, he realizes how distracted he is.

“You see the men down there already gathering to go help?…Just you and I are standing here…We are the useless ones.”

“Sir, Mr. President…”

The soldier is uneasy, his neck turns red. Then his face and both hands slowly become red, too. He backs up, looking at the president with wandering and puzzled eyes. The president suddenly realizes his careless oversight.

“Oh…I mean to say at this moment, you and I are not useful because we can’t run down to the valley to help the victim. But otherwise, we are all useful people, with each carrying his own duty…”

“Yes, sir.”

The soldier sighs in relief. The fat face shines sweaty and red.

The president pats his shoulder. “I am just joking, don’t take it seriously.”

Then he smiles and points to the temple, which, since early morning, has been emitting incessant sounds of praying and a mallet knocking on a wooden gong.

“There is nothing to do right now. Why don’t you go to the temple and relax?”

Then he returns to the inner room and throws himself on the pillows. In the outer room, the plump soldier quietly closes the door and leaves. Feet heard stamping on the steps and temple yard fade into the knocking on the wooden gong. The rhythmic knocking resonating in the air makes him remember the sound of dripping water in a cave filled with stalactites. That is the sound of time passing, an eternal tune. This morning when it was still dark and he was lying in bed, he heard the nuns and the two bodyguards whispering by the door:

“Today, the temple must begin the prayers early because of an important occasion. Just wondering if it will annoy the president or not?”

“Oh, no! You cannot pray so early. We must let him sleep peacefully,” said the bodyguard.

“Please bear with us. In a year of 365 days, the temple dares disturb the president with unusual praying this morning only.…”