“I was single like you before I married. But we are neighbors; you have a career, I have mine. There is no relationship. You don’t compete with me nor I with you. It would be very good if we became close.”
He had been amused because he had never met a merchant who spoke so “straight as a stick.” It put him in sympathy with the neighbor and he had accepted the invitation. After changing clothes, he went to the merchant’s house. The latter had stood at the gate to wait; a maid was feeding the youngest child in the compound’s yard. They sat at the table right away.
“This is an ordinary meal. Because we trust that you are easygoing, therefore we presumed to invite you over. Please forgive us should there be any shortcoming.”
The neighbor had then said, calling out to his wife: “Mother, you do not have to worry too much. Today it’s just a simple meal to open a relationship. Having a party for our guest in a few days would still not be too late.”
He had been quiet, thinking to himself: “A simple meal like this is better than a New Year’s banquet in my home village.”
The merchant’s dining table with its marble top was very large, but places had been set for only three. On the empty chair the host had put a vase full of large mums. This gigantic vase was more than a meter high and it presented itself more seriously than would another guest. It added elegance to the room and put everyone in a comfortable state of mind. On the table was a porcelain tureen of rice covered with a basket opposite a pitcher of wine brewed with many medicinal herbs. Seeing the dishes in the middle of the table, his mouth watered intensely. He swallowed quietly, but was unable to suppress this traitorous reflex. The wetness could not stop, because the flavors and the colors could not but excite. First was a spring hen braised in a clear broth of sunflowers, a bantam chicken with paper-thin skin, yellow with fat, coming with the nice fragrance of fresh shiitake mushrooms, which were left whole and surrounded the chicken like the petals of a chrysanthemum, one on top of another. There was a fresh whole fish with oranges swimming in the middle of a clear broth holding specks of chili flakes and minced coriander leaves. He had never seen fish with oranges so prepared; each flavor of spice was pronounced but all blended splendidly. On that night, as he recalls, he had eaten the oranges and fish as if he had been drinking soup. He had felt a bit ashamed but at the end he told himself, “A woman eats like a cat; a man like a tiger. I am full of youth.”
He ate the next dish — braised garlic eggplant — in the same quick manner. In his village, people were used to eating eggplant slightly pickled or deeply immersed in salt — a hand-me-down recipe for all poor farmers, not only in central Vietnam but also in the north. There is a saying that makes fun of stingy, wealthy men harshly using their prospective sons-in-law:
In five years of servitude to my future father-in-law
Your mother has used up three vats of pickled eggplants.
Please get me to the well quick, for I am dying soon
Of thirst from eating her pickled eggplants.
That meal had taught him that people could make something of this vegetable totally different from what he had known at home. The braised eggplant dish that evening had included crisp, deep-fried soft tofu, slightly burned cubed pork cutlets, and a bright red tomato sauce. In addition, there had been plenty of garlic, both fried and fresh.
As he later walked along his paths of destiny, he had eaten dishes from East and West, but nothing ever compared with the flavor of the braised eggplant by the woman in Phan Thiet.
“Mr. President, please start your meal before it gets cold.”
The group of soldiers who have done the cooking are still outside the window, still looking at him.
“I will eat now,” he replies, then mechanically picks up some braised eggplant. He smells the garlic, the grape and perilla leaves, the fried tofu, the grilled pork, the eggplant fried in lard. But these smells do not come close to the ones he knew before. They are only a faint reminder. His mouth does not water and the food tastes bland. His youth, too, is gone; gone, too, is a far horizon enticing him forward; gone, too, is his faith. And likewise the braised eggplant dish is no more. What is left before him, in an expensive gold-rimmed dish, is its ghost. A ghostly shadow of that evening meal a long time ago in Phan Thiet.
“Mr. President, is the eggplant dish I cooked OK or is it undersalted?”
“Good, very good. And the frying in lard was perfect, not too much, not too little,” he answers quickly, intentionally picking up some raw garlic and herbs to please the cook. The food sticks in his throat. He has to take some soup to wash it down. The cook still observes him attentively and respectfully. He tries to finish the bowl of rice, sticks his chopsticks into the second dish, and nibbles on the red fried pumpkin blossoms before placing his chopsticks down.
“Please clear all this. The food is very good today but I am not feeling well. Maybe a headache. Your duty is successfully completed; I did my part poorly. Old age is something we cannot avoid.”
“Mr. President, you did not finish one third of your food.”
“When you reach my age, you will understand,” he says, making a gesture to pacify the group and to close the conversation. The on-duty doctor steps in to prepare his medications.
On the other side of the temple, the sounds of nonstop chanting can still be heard. There was no stopping for lunch. “How can they endure all their lives such a strict regimen and still stay healthy?” the president thought to himself. “If I am not mistaken the founder of this religion lived until his eighties. What strength nourishes them besides their faith?”
The sounds of the bells synchronizing with the chanting return him to reality. The congregation is praying for the soul of a father who had been assaulted by his own child. Is it performed genuinely with full regret by the guilty child or is it just for show? Further, if this father had not died abruptly by accident, and if he were alive with all the operative strengths of body and a clear mind, would the child still display heartfelt repentance?
“Alas, the answer already comes to mind given the arrangement of the ceremony.”
Suddenly, a curiosity arises in his mind: “When I die, will the cadres who betrayed me cry?”
He imagines those people in a group standing on the platform in Ba Dinh Square, with of course everything being as it must. Above their heads would be the flag at half-mast, his portrait surrounded by a black border, and so many heartfelt and powerful slogans, such as:
“From Generation to Generation We Mourn Our President, the Great Father of Our Mountains and Rivers,” “The President Will Forever Live in Our Hearts,” or, “The Country Survives; the People Survive. The Thoughts of Our President Are the Compass Showing Us All the Way.”
Perhaps all those beautiful words will be used to praise his public achievements. Beautiful words cost least of all; they call for lots of saliva but very little morality and intelligence. Besides words, there will be music, because, always, music has been an effective charm and hypnotic. Will they not look for both old and new songs to make the national funeral more heart-wrenching? More tragic? Will they play the Sa Lech Chenh tune? Or the Nam Binh or Nam Ai song? The Ly Chieu Chieu or the Nghe Tinh marching style? Oh, what a country brimming with sad tunes to see people off to heaven. Suddenly he sees clearly before him events at their comedic best and so he imagines the delegation standing on the platform for his funeral, all using handkerchiefs to wipe away tears, real or fake.
“They will be forced to pretend that they are crying but in their hearts will rise the loud noise of teeth grinding: ‘Why did you wait so long to die, you hunchbacked old man? We wasted so much building the public edifice to speed your passing over to the other side but your stubborn will to live hung on until this minute. Too much to endure…’”