The Zenith (72 page)

At that the soldiers all jump up, their yells ringing through the forest:

“Hurrah, hurrah…”

“Headquarters can go on delaying the performances, even until midnight. In fact, the later, the better.”

“This will be the most marvelous night in the last three years. Those who have a favorite song can start practicing it. For we have musical accompaniment and our local talent will have a chance to show off.”

Nha, the battalion commander, asks An, “Do you know how to sing?”

“I am afraid I am totally ignorant on that score.”

“Likewise here. We can then take advantage and have some rest before the curtains go up. We still have two and a half hours to go.”

Just at that moment, the division commander walks toward them, and warns loudly: “Looks like you two are thinking of slipping out of here. How can you leave a good party and waste it?”

“I report to you, sir, I don’t know how to sing. Besides, I am nearly fifty and my vertebral column is not standing up well.”

“Am I any younger than you?” retorts the division commander.

Indeed, he is older than Nha by a few years, but being a fisherman originally, he still shows an abundance of energy. And despite all the ravage of the war and years, he still has rippling muscles. His shoulders are broad and even and, because he is not very tall, his build is almost square. Whenever he walks by the side of the battalion commander, he is often compared by the literate soldiers with Sancho Panza walking with Don Quixote, his superior. Instead of being upset, he would return the compliment:

“They say, first comes the look, second the air, third the voice, fourth the appearance. You outshine me on the last item but I am better than you on the third one. That’s why I am a division commander while you only command a battalion.”

It’s true that when it comes to voice, no one can best him. And not just in the division. In the whole front, where four divisions are in place, no one can mistake his voice. If he were a tenor, his voice could break many layers of glass. His voice is stentorian, the kind of voice that has been trained through many generations of yelling over the waves. You have only to listen to him speak to know right away that he is the kind “who can stand firm and even melt stone.” That is why the battalion commander replies without hesitation:

“Oh, you are old but you belong to the type that is both old and tough. You are not an empty crab shell like me.”

The division commander has to give up: “I raise my arms and surrender.”

The battalion commander continues to tease him: “You being tough, you should stay and compete in singing with the young ones. Please pardon such brittle-boned and flabby guys like the two of us.”

So saying, Nha drags An away. But whereas Nha goes back to the underground compound to grab some more sleep, An quietly goes to the stream for a bath. This immense stream is even better-looking than the one in his home village. They call it a stream but it is no less broad and long than a true river and it flows into the largest river in the region. The stream water is crystal-clear and it does not display any moss or bronze color as in the case of more poisonous mountain runs. The rocks on its bank are clean and shining, well fitted for one to lie on or for drying one’s clothes on sunny afternoons when the sun beats down on them. The banks of the stream are gently sloped and filled with white shining pebbles. If one hikes up less than one hundred meters one runs into Elephant Thundering Falls, which, with its ten-meter drop, makes the stream below churn like boiling water. Oftentimes playful soldiers break off dry branches and throw them in the cascade. The branches are immediately carried away, turning in the process into arrows sharp enough to pierce anyone trying to wade across. Each time he comes here, An’s reminiscences arise inside him. He shakes off his clothes and begins to wade into the stream. But when he is about up to his knees in the bubble-filled water he suddenly feels a chill. He returns to the bank and puts on his clothes. Is there a ghost who happens to be around and forces him out of the water? Or is it a premonition of things to come? He doesn’t know. No one can understand everything we do during all our time on earth. But this time, he feels absolutely confident that an invisible power has pushed him to action.

“Is that you, darling, truly you? Or is it the Little One? There is no mistaking that one of the two girls has stretched out her arm to impede my going forward.” So he softly wondered.

But there is only the wind in the leaves, and the singing carried from the other side of the tree line. The eerie music seems to blow a vague chilly breath onto his back.

An folds his arms above his knees and listens to the waterfall rumbling upstream. As usual, that fall recalls the sound of another fall, a smaller, gentler one of no more than three meters that did not threaten anyone, nor was it an omen predicting injury or death. That fall was called Nightingale, for nightingales nested in the forest on its two sides, and their songs made an interminable music that resonated in the quiet environment of those faraway woods. From Nightingale Falls, one crosses a forest clearing and a valley and then reaches Ban Xiu, An’s native village. The place where he left his heart while his two feet have taken him ever farther, and it is impossible to know when he will return.

“But who would I see if I did return, if ever that day should come?” he thinks to himself. “The two persons closest to me are already under the black earth. My uncle and aunt are, by now, likely to have passed away, and my little cousin Mai must have gotten married and moved away. There remains only an old one but soon he will have to follow the tracks of the ancestors.”

When An left his village, his father-in-law had been sixty-nine. Twelve years have now gone by. Even if he were still alive, it is doubtful that he could take a bundle of firewood from under the house on stilts up to its kitchen.

“I wonder who will still be there once he is gone?”

Oftentimes that is what he keeps repeating to himself. But a birthplace remains one’s birthplace, a never-ending echo that follows us throughout life. We think that we have forgotten it but suddenly it comes back to haunt us unexpectedly. A tree branch breaking off in front of one, a pebble falling near the bank of a spring, the song of nightingales in a cliff…they are all insignificant pretexts summoning the echo back and causing one’s heart to be in pain. On occasion when he woke in a dark underground tunnel, An would imagine sun-bathed mountain flanks, where the indigo silhouette of his loved one would appear. Sometimes she would be by herself, at others she would be accompanied by her sister, who was nine years her junior. Though they were sisters they almost looked like mother and child, for she had had to raise her sister from birth. When the young sister had been born was also the day their mother left this world. As for the two sisters, because one was born in the winter, she was named Dong (Winter), and because the other was born in the spring she was named Xuan (Spring). In An’s mind they always manifested themselves in the bright yellow sunlight bathing the mountainside, always walking toward him in the magnificent beauty that they had inherited from their mother. An could see their shiny black eyelids closing as they laughed, and the crystal-pure bright sun reflecting from their doe eyes. He could see their vermilion lips—the color of wild banana flowers. And the silver bracelets that rang against one another on their milk-white wrists. In the little village called Xiu (Tiny), heaven had blessed these two girls with extraordinary beauty, so that they had to pay for it with equally extraordinary misfortunes—on a scale to match their beauty.

“What did they ever do wrong?”

“They never harmed even a small bird, let alone another human being!”

“Why was it, heaven, that they had to meet with such calamity?”

His soul does not stop yelling out these questions. An does not believe in heaven, but he invokes it as a habit, just as anyone would when in trouble;
clearly, though, he has fixed in his mind the faces of flesh-and-blood murderers.

“Maybe they are too powerful while I am all by myself. In other words, I will have to stomach this offense and hold it until the grave. If so, I shall pursue this injustice into the next life. And if one life is not enough I shall ask heaven for another incarnation. I will go to the very end of hell to find those who killed her and her little sister.”

Beyond the trees, one can hear the hubbub of a combat unit arriving. As the forest opening is narrow and the newly arriving troops are rushing pell-mell to get in, the noise they make echoes from all directions, reverberating from the mountainsides and woods. Realizing that Battalion 209 has arrived from Panda Mountain and that it’s time for the evening’s performance to begin, An gets up and returns to the stage area. Sunlight has long since disappeared and the grass public area is now flickering with lamps like some kind of enchanted land, as large headlights illuminate the whole stage. The new arrivals assemble in the assigned corner, each drenched in perspiration but happy like a kid receiving candy. The performers have gathered behind the sides of the stage. The soldiers have split from their provincial groups and rejoined their units. Whistles and catcalls come from everywhere.

Nha, the battalion commander, apparently restored after his nap, is now back in charge of his troops. An gazes at the whole spectacle somewhat puzzled, for he is still haunted by his memories of loss. He somehow feels left out of the party. Leaning on the base of a tree, he looks toward the stage as the soldiers from Battalion 209 keep surging forward from behind him to occupy the patch of ground reserved for them.

“Chi Van Thanh! Chi Van Thanh!”

A sudden call explodes right beside him, making An jump up. He unconsciously turns back. When he realizes that it was a mistake to do so, a guy has already come close, face-to-face with him:

“Brother Chi Van Thanh.”

“!…”

“Thanh, don’t you recognize me?”

A smiling face in the dark. An leans back against the tree, his whole body shaking like he is being electrocuted: “Comrade, you must be making a mistake. I am Hoang An.”

“Brother Chi Van Thanh, I am Ma Ly. Don’t you remember me?”

“But I am Hoang An.”

“Oh…”

The new arrival turns the flashlight toward himself so as to throw light on his face, which is drenched in sweat and sort of plump, like those of some women. The eyebrows are short and slanted and the eye slits really deep as they twist into a smile. The man has a short nose with open nostrils, and two rows of small teeth. An shudders, for there is no denying it. This man is indeed a former companion-in-arms—Ma Ly, of Meo origin, deputy squad leader in a company that An used to command. It was An who had suggested that he be promoted to that post. An takes Ma Ly’s arm and squeezes it, pulling him near.

“My name has been changed to Hoang An. I forbid you to use my old name. Understand?”

The other guy nods his head repeatedly in agreement.

An then says, “Go on watching the show. We will talk later on.”

Ma Ly agrees. “Don’t forget, will you? It’s quite a while since we have seen each other.”

An nods and says, “How long are you going to be here?”

“Only God knows,” Ma Ly replies. “Our battalion commander says we will have to be stationed here for quite a while to practice and wait for the order to integrate into an understrength division on the western front. It might be a few months.”

“In that case we still have time to run into each other. We often go that way.”

“Good. We must see each other. I’m going now.”

Ma Ly runs after his comrades. In a minute, everything becomes an indistinct crowd mingled with the trees in the woods, an undifferentiated black block. An suddenly remembers something. He springs up and runs after Ma Ly.

“Ma Ly, Ma Ly! Wait for me, Ma Ly!”

He brushes aside soldiers from Battalion 209 as he runs after his old comrade-in-arms.

“Ma Ly!”

“Here I am.”

An looks in the direction where the voice is coming from, and notices someone standing beside Ma Ly, so he hides himself behind a tree, waiting. In the dark he hears Ma Ly say: