The Zenith

by Duong Thu Huong

  “I’m very grateful to you; but not enough guts. I am afraid I might just turn off in the middle. And my kids are still chicken and duck eggs with nobody to raise them. I’ll step aside for anyone with stronger willpower.”

  “Let’s bet: whoever dares touch Vui’s cavern will be feted for one whole month. The losers will take turns paying for good wine and juicy chickens.”

  “Never; what value would your wine and chickens have?”

  “OK, how about a young calf?”

  “No young calf is worth the loss of half of one’s life.”

  “How about three of them?”

  “Three cows or ten cows, add in three bars of Kim Thanh gold, I will still decline.”

  “Don’t joke around: three gold bars would build five brick houses.”

  “So, then, why don’t you try?”

  “I don’t bet on bluffs. If you all put in enough money to buy the gold, I will put my life on the line immediately.”

  “You’d sacrifice yourself in public? Nobody believes that. Your wife is barely five feet and only ninety pounds yet she pouts and tells everybody that you are hopeless, that you pump three times and fall out of bed; before you get to the market, all your coins have already dropped out. Like that and still you boast.”

  “Don’t believe a woman’s mouth. Are you in the bed with me to know anything?”

  “OK, someday let’s have a contest. We’ll call out the administrative committee to judge; we’ll borrow Mr. Quang’s watch to check the time. You and your wife on the left, me and my wife on the right. Whoever loses must give up a cow. I won’t eat that cow alone but will grill it for everyone in the hamlet. So, are we on?”

  “You are a little smart-ass. My hair is in two colors, I won’t be stupid enough to lose a cow to an oversexed guy like you. OK, I concede. If you believe you have an iron rod, why don’t you try it on Vui just once? Her family must have hundreds of gold bars, not just three. Everybody says that after Vang passed away, she pulled in the money. The old man must love his daughter to watch over her day and night. If you can get into bed with her, right away your life will really improve. Not like a mouse that falls into a basket of rice, but like one who lands in a jar of gold.”

  “No way, not for money, gold, or jade, I won’t do it. I dare only to get on my wife’s belly or on some equally silly woman. But with Vui, we speak in the presence of Martial Artist Vang’s spirit: if I were to test her strength, for sure I would perish in the middle of the struggle. Perhaps I can only duck my head into the cavern and pop out again or put my foot into it for a little kick.”

  Such chatty sessions could go on and on before becoming boring. No doubt the tedious, hard work in the countryside drives people to seek such distractions, even when they suddenly realize that the joking around can hurt another’s reputation or can even be cruel. On Miss Vui’s part, she doesn’t care what people say behind her back. She lives just like a man, doing all that only men can shoulder. She shows no sadness or loneliness like other women dreaming of happiness. Because they are married and have children, happy fortune rarely comes to them while hardships quickly arrive to wear them down. Sometimes when out briskly walking, with a face full of confidence, she makes even the most successful men envious, leaving them with an inexplicable hurt as if an invisible force has crushed them flat like a runaway fox killed by a horse cart. Especially after Mr. Vang passed on, anything she touched turned into money. When alive, he had built houses for his daughter, guessing that she couldn’t live an ordinary life. He taught her carpentry, bee farming, tea growing, and noodle manufacturing…anything that could turn into pieces of paper good for spending or that could entice somebody’s desires. Vui is smart, and has an unusual aptitude: she can learn any trade thoroughly. Her mother died in childbirth; she was raised by her paternal grandmother; and when that grandmother died, Mr. Vang gave up his travels and returned to Woodcutters’ Hamlet to be with his only daughter. People did not understand why he never remarried to provide a caretaker for his household, to have someone bear him a son. His only reply to the concerns of his neighbors was this brief comment:

  “Is there ever a time when stepmother and stepdaughter will get along?”

  When his curious relatives would question his personal situation, he would say casually:

  “Having sex is easy; I can have it anytime I wish. Women secretly seek me out before I seek them. But that’s just a momentary satisfaction for the body. To remarry is totally another matter. I won’t bring trouble on Vui. Because of her birth, my wife died; I have no heart to betray her up in heaven.”

  A husband so loyal is indeed hard to find; a father with that kind of love for a child is a rare thing in life. When Mr. Vang died, Miss Vui honored him with a three-day funeral commemoration, even though she was a Party Committee secretary and her Party superiors had forbidden people to spend money wastefully on festive celebrations or funerals. But always life bestows on some people privileges that put the law to shame, because beyond the laws set by those in power, there is a kind of law that people just naturally intuit which doesn’t need to be written down in black and white. Thus for three consecutive days, the sounds of drums and horns were heard throughout the entire village, and songs to send off the spirit poured down like a waterfall. Each day, cows, chickens, and pigs were slaughtered on the tiled patio. Village people, from old to young, with social prominence and with humbling poverty, leisurely enjoyed this banquet. So the passing of Martial Artist Vang resembled a celebration even though people would be reluctant to call it that. Right after her father’s funeral, Miss Vui suddenly gained powers outside the realm of formal regulation. Before, being only a secretary of the village Party Committee, she was the boss of teenagers and kids. After witnessing evidence of her dedicated filial piety, as well as of her uncanny generosity never before seen in a woman, the villagers totally changed their perception of her. Thus, from a girl that had missed her opportunity, who had been a never-ending subject of salacious jokes from the men, she became a village elder who should automatically participate in all important village projects, a role normally held by senior males and never by women. They don’t involve her when spouses quarrel, because that is the work of female cadres in the mediation section, but they will engage her when drenching rains flood the roads, when dispute over the land erupts with the next hamlet, when a school or a maternity clinic for the village needs to be built, when the district needs to be petitioned over the distribution of equipment and provisions; in short, for all those necessary and important issues that affect the future of the residents. That winter, for the first time, the kitchen in Miss Vui’s house replaced the now cold kitchen of Mr. Quang and his wife.

  Village people, especially the women, very quickly became familiar with her storage sheds. She did not have ten spacious sheds as Mr. Quang had. Having long been wealthy, his compound was arranged in the old-fashioned style: three buildings formed a U around a square tiled patio; each building had five spacious rooms, with thick tiles, high ceilings, and wooden doors that shone like mirrors. The five rooms in the left building were reserved for the youngest son, Quynh, who would marry and raise children. The five other rooms in the building on the right were for storing provisions, staples, and every kind of tool. When anyone would ask him where were the rooms for Quyet and Quyen, he would say:

  “Those two are destined to live with their in-laws. I consulted fortune-tellers seven times on this and they all said the same thing.”

  Martial Artist Vang’s house, with five rooms, is much too large for Miss Vui, unmarried and childless. That is why she decided to convert three rooms into storage as city people do. In her storage units, everything is organized neatly, lined up like soldiers; from tools for gardening, carpentry, drying tea, making noodles and raising bees to boxes of provisions. Each numbered, neatly and cleanly, in a most professional way. Because of her single woman’s habit of extreme orderliness, Miss Vui designates for her guests those dishes that she thinks will not dem
and too much effort. Therefore, villagers are treated by her only to basic entrees like sticky rice with beans, five-spice cakes, or savory sesame balls. Not to be imagined are steamed or roasted chickens with sticky rice or other more painstaking creations.

  Very quickly did the villagers accept the spinster’s household rules. Even if they missed the festive atmosphere of Mr. Quang’s kitchen as a paradise lost, their practical eyes forced them to value Miss Vui’s kitchen as a pleasant inn for tired pedestrians. The smell of lam ngu porridge was not as tantalizing as that of sticky rice with chicken, but porridge was still enough to warm one’s stomach on cold days. And that year it was brutally cold. No one had ever experienced such a terrifyingly cold winter. People did not exaggerate when they said it was so cold it shrank your ears, froze your brains; so cold it congealed your breath in your nostrils. From October to December, the cold hung on without a break. It seemed as if there was not a single sunny day. Looking up to the top of Lan Vu, not even a green dot of a tree or rock could be seen. It was not snow, but fields of clouds piled up layer upon layer to create a vast, frigid and white sky so that when the wind blew, those fields of white clouds shoved one another, moving and floating to project silvery cold effluent. It was rare for the sun to rise; if it did, it was pale and wrinkly like an orange eaten by a worm, and then it disappeared without a trace.

  That year, to be more accurate, there was not one winter but two, continuous without a break. The Lunar New Year passed in a hurry; nobody seemed to remember it because of the cold rains. Nobody cared to celebrate; there were no drums of any kind. There were no games at all; no pigs or buffalo were butchered. No one let the kids run around outside. The only pastime was gathering around the kitchen fire making rice cakes and all kinds of sweet porridges. One day at the end of February, when trees should have started to launch their buds but, because of the lingering cold, were still totally naked, people gathered in Miss Vui’s kitchen. The hostess realized that she had two containers of chicken fat of the best quality, used only to make the sweet kinds of sticky rice, with shredded coconut and sesame seeds, and decided to make that special treat, a decision that everyone welcomed. Immediately in the kitchen, the women briskly started to soak the beans and the rice and to clean the steamer pot, while in the upper part of the house, the men sat and smoked around the fire, munching on five-spice cakes. Out on the patio, the rain continued, a rain with heavy drops accompanied by a north wind; the type of rain that hurts the bones, that holds those who want to leave more tightly than the clinging arms of lovers. Just when the pots started releasing the fragrant steam of red sticky rice, Mrs. Quang suddenly appeared with her raincoat in the middle of the patio. At first nobody recognized the new guest. To get from the upper section down to the middle one has to cross several hills; it was raining relentlessly; the cold cut through skin and flesh. Nobody thought that an old lady of sixty would walk such a road to come here. When Mrs. Quang took off her hat and her raincoat made of light blue nylon, people understood that she sought out this warm kitchen because her own had become cold and empty. A sixteen-year-old boy could not cook and take care of someone afflicted with hunger cravings like her, especially when he was used to being served himself.

  The hostess was the first to recognize the uninvited guest. Miss Vui was talking to a group of men in the parlor. She hurriedly took a hat belonging to some guest to protect her head, then rushed out onto the patio to greet Mrs. Quang. She warmly and cheerfully welcomed her to the house. The cheerfulness was special because she realized that just a winter ago, Mrs. Quang had owned the grandest kitchen in the village, to which guests had flocked from three villages, and that, for more than three decades, the name of Mr. and Mrs. Quang were famous throughout the entire district because of their wealth and their hospitality.

  Mrs. Quang acknowledged everybody very slowly with a vague general salutation to all at once, as she didn’t greet anyone by name. Then she sat down on the corner of the settee that Miss Vui had arranged for her, and turned her face to look out at the patio, where the rain was falling sideways without stopping.

  After pouring tea for the new guest, Miss Vui ran to the kitchen to give warning. The storage cupboard had to be opened immediately, enough sweet rice quickly scooped out to cook another pot to eat with roasted pork. The villagers quipped that Mrs. Quang was eating with more salt than before. Her every meal must have meat or fish. She would not be satisfied with varieties of sweet rice like all the others. The hostess, as well as all the women of the hamlet’s middle section, prepared everything with evident excitement. This was a rare opportunity for them to observe the mysterious illness that the whole region was discussing. Since the Mid-Autumn Festival, Mrs. Quang had not set foot outside. Along with her hunger affliction, she had lost the habit of working as well as the ability to socialize normally with her neighbors. She would not move her limbs or touch anything, nor take care of the garden, tend to the chickens and pigs, or sweep the courtyard. She only made special dishes for herself. She forgot all ordinary concerns for husband and child. With loss of memory she could not even remember the names of her neighbors. For a while now Mrs. Quang had lived as if cut off from everyone. The two huge wooden doors were always latched tight. People saw her cross the yard only on the rare occasions when her youngest son, Quynh, returned to cook for her or move the beehives. Villagers looked at her with eyes of veiled curiosity, as they would look at one with special mental problems. It was no surprise that as soon as she settled her bottom on Miss Vui’s large settee a crowd gathered around her to chat; men as well as women could not conceal their itching curiosity. But as if Mrs. Quang were unaware of where she was, to anyone who asked, she just nodded, then she turned her head to look out at the tiled courtyard while smiling faintly. Silent until she was brought a tray full of sticky rice with braised pork, red rice, and sesame rice with honey, she quietly held a pair of chopsticks and said:

  “Please do eat, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Saying this and not waiting for any reply, Mrs. Quang started eating with intent. People dispersed to other tables, but, while eating, still watched her. The hostess ran back and forth, from the parlor to the kitchen, keeping in charge but never taking her eyes off the patient. Every conversation, every discussion evolved as a commentary behind the back of one person: Mrs. Quang. She herself was unaware of everything. She ate two platefuls of sticky rice with roasted pork; no one else dared to touch them. Then she pulled the plate of sesame rice closer to her. The men lowered their heads, pretending to pay no attention, but anxious glances passed among them. After eating up the sesame rice she looked over at the remaining half plate of red sticky rice at the other corner of the table.

  Standing behind her, Miss Vui shouted out alarmingly: “Ladies in the kitchen, please bring up a new plate of red rice.”

  “Right away, miss.”

  The women scattered to the kitchen, then one quickly ran in carrying in both hands two plates of bright red sticky rice:

  “Madame, here are two plates, not just one.”

  No one had anything to say, but all understood that once her chopsticks touched a plate, that plate would be contaminated with a germ more dangerous than those causing fever and dysentery. No one would dare touch such a plate with their own chopsticks. Those who had to be at her table ate cautiously while shaking. A nameless fear stabbed them. Even so, there was fair compensation to offset their fear: their curiosity was satisfied. As the four men at Mrs. Quang’s table were sharing the last bites on their plates of rice, Mrs. Quang had already cleaned up both her new plates of red sticky rice. To sum up, by herself she took care of five plates of sticky rice along with a large bowl of roasted pork.

  The four male guests quickly withdrew from this battlefield of appetites to find a place to smoke. Their fear showed. They were terrified of catching her horrifying condition. Even the hostess did not escape that fear, whispering to her two nieces:

  “Take the tray to the back of the garden and bury it, the deeper t
he better.”

  At that moment, Mrs. Quang stood up and said aimlessly in the middle of the house:

  “Thank you, Hostess. Good-bye everyone; I am leaving.”

  Without waiting for her hostess, she put on her raincoat and hat and walked out to the patio. When Miss Vui ran out of the kitchen to bid Mrs. Quang farewell, she had already left, so Miss Vui saw only a swath of the light blue raincoat flapping behind the kitchen.

  Twenty-four hours later, everyone in Woodcutters’ Hamlet heard that Mrs. Quang had died.

  It happened on her way home, in the bamboo forest between the middle and upper sections of the hamlet. She had sat down on the side of the road, leaning on a rock, her hat over her face. Sadly, her youngest son had gone to visit a friend in the next village and, having fun chatting away, decided to sleep there overnight. It was a brutally cold day and no one was out on the road. That was why it was not until early the next afternoon that people came along the road to see an old lady sitting and sleeping in the cold rain. Suspicious, they approached and moved the hat. She was stiff like a rock. Because she was the mother of the village chairman, there was no shortage of people who would run fast to the office of the upper section to give word. Quy immediately sent people to the city to inform Mr. Quang while he and other hamlet elders made funeral arrangements.

  Always and everywhere, for being the mother of someone with power and position, one automatically enjoys a more ostentatious ceremonial than do average women. Of course, her son was the village chairman. No one person had to prepare tea and betel nut, buy cigarettes, arrange for a band with drums and horns to immediately arrive at the house; sounds of music and singing just rose up all over the hamlet. If you were not the mother of the village chairman, your family would have to take care of the banquet, the betel and tea and the money in the envelopes, before the drum and horn ensemble from the funeral home could be summoned. From the one who played the horn or the two-string zither, to the drummers that sang the soul-sending songs, all the musicians were professionals who started their career in early youth and have patiently preserved their professionalism through many repressive campaigns of the revolutionary government. There had been long periods when they had to hide their instruments, pretending to retire. Everyone duly played the role as ordered with one heart, a common resolution, to obey the order of the district chairman or the village chairman: