The Zenith (69 page)

He stands up; if he were to stay seated he would suffocate. Throwing his long coat on his shoulders, he walks out. As soon as he opens the door, the white clouds rush to his face, wetting it. The large tiles under his feet slush with water as if rain had just fallen.

From the other side of the temple, the guard yells: “Please go in, Mr. President. It’s very cold.”

The guard flies across the patio and takes hold of his waist as he is about to descend the stairs.

“Mr. President, please go back inside.”

“Oh no. I get a headache sitting inside the whole time. Besides, I have to go and say thanks to the abbess for her deep-fried patty.”

“Mr. President, it’s already a great honor that your chopsticks touched our vegetarian food. You don’t really need to come over.”

It is a nun speaking, her loud voice reverberating from the other side of the cloud. She is only a couple of dozen steps away but he can’t see her through the white fog. It is truly a setting from the extremities of a mountain. Only when he puts his feet on the threshold of the middle temple building can he see that the nun is sitting and pounding betel leaves for the abbess. Before he can say anything, the abbess walks out and says, “Please, Mr. President, please go right in because it is very cold. Should you by mishap catch a cold, we would not know what to do to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the people.”

“Please, you are even older than I,” the president replies, walking inside.

The nun abandons the mortar and steps in right after him, closing the door. The screeching sounds of the closing door startle him. Then he realizes how familiar this screeching sound was to him in his youth. The old wooden houses were all built on the same model, and the sound of the doors screeching on their wooden posts makes him sad, thinking of days long gone.

The abbess asks him to sit down facing her, on an antiquated ironwood chair,
which despite its age is still very strong with a patina that reflects like a mirror. The guard sits behind him, on a stool of woven rattan that the nun brings over to him. In the middle of the room, a brazier is crackling as it burns. From time to time, the nun takes a stick and pokes around so as to make the coal burn red. The whole room gives an air of simple warmth and antiquity. The nun pours tea water into a set of rare Bat Trang cups to honor the guest. The nuns drink
nu voi
(lid eugenia) boiled with ginger.

The smell of the tea water brings back memories of his mother: “Venerable one,
voi
with ginger is very flavorful. Do you use this refreshment also during the summer?”

“Mr. President, in summer we consume fresh tea leaves or dried mum petals.”

She turns to the nun: “You have mung bean pudding for dessert. Why don’t you offer some to the president?”

“I am sorry, venerable teacher. I am so forgetful.”

The nun goes to the next room, where the soft pudding is being kept for guests. He quietly looks after the woman in a long saffron dress, then vaguely thinks: “Why doesn’t she seek a family like so many other women? Is this place really a prayer hall or is it only a temporary shelter for her, somewhere to hide and forget a past of suffering, filled with unhappiness? A kind of surrender to Fate, just like me, an old king stuck in a hole on top of Lan Vu Mountain.”

The nun comes out with a dish of mung bean pudding topped with white cornstarch.

“Mr. President, would you taste this pudding, us poor nuns’ fare?”

“Thank you very much. I just had a taste of your deep-fried bean patty, it was excellent. I am sure your pudding must taste just as good.”

So saying, he takes up a piece of the pudding and bites into it. He then washes it down with a sip of the
voi
tea prepared with ginger. It was simply wonderful. He realizes this tea ceremony is helping to alleviate his depression. He looks up at the ancient wooden structure, wondering why it has taken him so long to visit this place. The tiled patio is like a wall separating the secular world from that of the monastery, and crossing it seems like crossing a frontier between two kingdoms that are, if not hostile, at least incompatible. Why should it be so?

“It’s truly delicious. This goes marvelously with
voi
tea.” He then laughs and adds: “I have been here more than a year, yet only today do I dare come into the temple. I didn’t realize what I was missing. Had I taken the liberty of troubling you sooner I would have had a taste of this pudding long ago.”

“Mr. President, the living quarters of a monastery are certainly not elegant enough for us to dare invite you,” the abbess answers, smiling. Her two rows of teeth are still intact, solid and brightly black.

Smiling in turn, the president replies, “We are neighbors, we should have gotten acquainted a long time ago. It’s my mistake for being so busy.”

As he finished the cup he continues: “Venerable Abbess, the other day, apparently, you had a requiem for the newly deceased woodcutter?”

“Yes, sir. You have such a busy schedule and yet you still have time to be concerned with the fate of a common person. This shows that your compassion is very vast. I learned from my nuns that you went all the way down to the village to attend his funeral.”

“Oh, I only dropped by to pay him a visit.”

“But that, sir, is already a great honor for the dead man’s family.”

“By the way, Venerable Abbess, would you be kind enough to explain to me what a requiem achieves in Buddhist terms? Do all deceased persons need a requiem or only those who have had an unusual, particularly painful, fate?”

“Mr. President, the Buddhist faith is not strictly tied to any rite. There is no regulation as to who needs or who doesn’t need such a service. Everything depends on the compassion of the living. Only compassion can open our minds, enlighten us to what is needed; and only when enlightened can one have what is needed to see through one’s karma. We in the temple only do what is requested by the living survivors. It is said, ‘When your heart is moved, the spirits will know.’ We monastic people know that when your Buddhahood is illuminated like a lamp, it shines not only on the spirit but also on the earthly body of the people. It shines across the seven skies to open up the lotus blossom of your plenitude.”

“Venerable, we are outside of your faith. No matter how we try we cannot readily understand the scriptures of your religion. However, from a secular standpoint, we are very much concerned with the story of the father woodcutter and his son. I wonder how you can explain that conflict.”

“Mr. President, the Supreme One taught us that in everyone’s life, greed is the one predominant drive. It is greed that blurs our conscience just as a black cloud covers the sun or the moon. Feelings between father and son, teacher and student, brother and brother can all be maligned and destroyed by greed. In one of the many lives of the Buddha, even the Supreme One was also murdered by his close cousin, the monk Devadatta. In dynastic histories, from time immemorial, there are many cases where a crown
prince would kill his own father, the king. I am sure that you must have read a lot more than me, a poor nun.”

So saying, the abbess again smiles benevolently. And again he notices the two rows of black and shining teeth.

“Clearly she is an old Vietnamese lady, with black teeth and a satin skirt. Seventy years ago, she must have been a bright and lively village girl, full of spirit. But she refused to accept a normal life with its normal pleasures in the village; instead she has spent time learning scriptures in order to become a disciple of the Buddha.”

So he thought to himself as he replied sympathetically, “Venerable, your explanation is just superb. Clearly you have spent lots of time on the scriptures.”

“I dare not accept your praise, Mr. President. Anyone who has ‘begged’ at a temple door, or who has read carefully the words of the Supreme One, can explain this a lot better than I, your humble servant.”

And without waiting for him to respond, she turns toward the back room and asks: “Don’t you see, my child, that the pudding dish is near empty? Our temple may not be rich but it never lacks hospitality.”

“I am sorry. I was so caught up listening to you.”

He smiles at seeing the venerable abbess still so sharp. Her way of avoiding topics that she does not wish to discuss shows that her reactions are still very quick. He finishes the last piece of pudding in the fashion of neighbors well acquainted for more than half a century, saying, “The pudding was simply delicious. Venerable, let me thank you as well as the nun here for your wonderful hospitality. With your permission, I would like to come back sometime and bother you.”

“Mr. President, that you set foot in our place is a big honor for us humble folks.”

He stands up, as does the abbess, who brings her hands together in a lotus gesture.

When he gets back to his room, the clock shows nine twenty-five. That means that the conversation in the temple lasted an hour and a half. In that time, the aroma of
voi
tea boiled with ginger and the beautiful smile of the abbess, with her two rows of shining black teeth, had saved him from the chasm of despair. Now he is alone with himself once again. He sits down on a chair and resumes being afraid of the time stretching before him. His solitude returns. Where can he run to and hide? Should he go into the
woods? That’s not possible. Should he go down the mountain? There’s no reason. Besides, he will not turn himself into a mental case in front of those charged with guarding him inside this beautiful prison. His self-respect does not allow him to act irresponsibly. Looking up at the bookshelves, he notices dozens of volumes that he has left partially read, books marked with bamboo wafers. Pulling out three of them, he begins to turn one, page by page. The lines of type go past him like so many soulless dots, with no meaning whatsoever. Sighing, he folds the book closed, putting the bamboo wafer right where it was. On the temple patio, the enormous white clouds still keep going by one after another. And the plum branches filled with white flowers still slightly sway outside the window, making his heart ravenlike, gnawed by memories of white snow.

“I cannot go on enduring these pangs of conscience. This is worse than death.”

He stands up and picks up his cotton-padded coat, intending to walk out again. But the wet and cold coat forces him to realize that he cannot go anywhere at the moment. He has no choice but to sit down again amid his four jail-like walls, face-to-face with his own tribunal, which is himself.

Rehanging his coat on the hook, he lowers himself down on the chair. Watching the white clouds roll through the patio like so many pieces of cotton, he remembers the abbess’s words.

“Even the Supreme One was once murdered by a follower, one who had put on his monk’s robe, one who had become a priest—even such a one was motivated by greed. How can one then blame a common person? Let’s not hold a grudge toward those turncoat comrades. The one to blame first of all should be myself. Yes, me. Either because I am a coward or a dummy, or both.”

This time, he no longer feels like defending his record. Is the attorney in him dead? That thought indifferently goes through his head as he thoughtfully watches a tattered cloud dragging itself across the patio. The form of this cloud suddenly makes him self-conscious:

“The roads of life being twisting and turning, how can one know which path to take? For our people I went to Paris yet destiny took me to chilly Moscow, fate chased me back toward Eastern shores. My whole life, I have been formed and pushed by chance. Is a man’s life a sequence of ‘drifting duckweed and floating clouds’?”

“The France of Diderot and Voltaire opened its doors and invited me in. But another France, that of top-hatted bureaucrats attired in shiny, gold-buttoned uniforms, slammed its door in my face, just like a butler slams the
door to beggars. The enslaved people of small and weak countries are chased away from all the roads leading to happiness, and the only cobblestoned slope that welcomes us is the very one leading directly to hell. By the time I realized this, it was already too late.”

And that hell has unmistakably arrived, no doubt this is true. But who can be courageous enough or contrite enough to dare open their eyes and look into it? He remembers the shock when, for the first time, he saw people queuing for their turn to buy food. His car had black windows and no one realized that he was inside. The car sped by but there had been enough time for him to see the common people. And that image of misery hit him like a hammer. That year, his heart was still humming joyfully the melody of “Forward to the Capital.” Two years had not been enough time to blur the glorious colors of victory or to cool the ardor in his veins. Busy with work, he did not have time for going incognito among the people. Whatever little time he had, he had spent it with her, but their rendezvouses were always after midnight, when all the activities of the common people were over. On that morning he had had an appointment with a foreign history professor. Because the subject of the meeting had to do with the national museum, he had suggested that they meet there. He had then asked his driver to choose a new route so that he could see something of the people’s lives. Since leaving the maquis, that was the very first time he had had an opportunity to observe the people’s activities. What he saw was not as pretty or as reassuring as he had expected. The masses appeared before his eyes—in person but fighting and in wild confusion—as if they were a herd of sheep contesting their way back to their pen. The faces that caught his eyes were thin, hunger-ravaged ones; faces dark and resigned, marked by patience and shame; faces in terror as they were repressed by fear, waiting, suffering, and hatred. Faces of people who were at the edge of going into institutions for the mentally infirm.