An did not understand why he reacted so. He can still remember the wild-eyed look of his wife at his answer. That look followed him as he went inside. It obsessed him like a problem without a solution. It was not until very much later that he realized it was instinct that had told him to behave as he did. That he already had the premonition that black and sinister shadows of vulture wings were spreading above their heads at the moment Nang Dong told him the news, news that should have brought extreme joy to anyone. The next day, he took Mui to the zoo on his bicycle. On the way back, she insisted on stopping in front of the president’s palace so she could watch the guards. But they had not been there for more than a few minutes before the guards approached and asked for their papers. An showed his military ID.
The guard examined the paper carefully, then said, “This is a protected zone. You should take her to another place.”
“I didn’t want to bother you. It’s only that she wants to see.”
At that moment, little Mui spoke up: “I see soldiers.”
Probably because of the innocent babbling of the child, the soldier felt softhearted so he went away. Nonetheless, An’s heart clouded up. He looked at the house behind the pruned trees.
“What happiness is it when the father lives in a castle while his daughter sits outside looking in? What use is this twisted love affair? Had Little One failed to catch the eyes of the old king, she would have found a husband more fitting for her circumstances. In the countryside there is no lack of happy marriages. Our house on stilts was three times as large as these cramped homes in the city. Particularly the house of the father-in-law: a whole sawmill could fit in just one of its big rooms. We had land, buffalo by the herd, and pigs galore. The hundreds of hens we had laid so many eggs that we couldn’t eat them all. We had woods and streams, wild and domesticated bees, and animals to hunt. Sure, life is more convenient and civilized here but land is at a premium and people’s generosity is a luxury. Did we make a mistake by leaving the mountains to come here?”
He had not finished thinking along those lines when another soldier from the guard post approached. He looked to be the officer in charge of the guards. He said in a dry, unmistakable voice, “This is a zone that requires strict security. I suggest that you take the child elsewhere.”
Not bothering to answer him, An turned to Mui and said, “We can’t stay here, baby. Uncle will take you to Ngoc Ha market and I’ll buy you a ball. Do you hear?”
Then he climbed on the bike and pedaled away. He could not help but feel angry:
“Hey, man, you who are the father of this little girl here,” he whispered to the brother-in-law he had never met. “Could you ever have imagined this situation? A child stands in front of her biological father’s house yet is not allowed to enter; nay, not even to look at it. A child who is chased away from the entrance to her father’s house. Does a crazy situation like this, I wonder, make you feel bad, my president? Now your daughter is too small to understand it. But later, when she grows up, will she consider you to be a decent father or will she think that you have been an insensitive, heartless person willing to throw away the very blood of your offspring? Can it be that your splendid, magnificent palace does not have a room to accommodate your wife and children? Or is there a secret, a black reason, why you accept our Little One living with the common people? Could it be because she comes from the mountains that she is forced to undergo the persecution of your court? The very court that periodically comes out with orders that ethnic minorities are to be privileged!”
The suspicions and anger that had been buried in his soul all these years suddenly surfaced. So did curses; they sprouted and multiplied in his brain like a forest of bamboo shoots emerging in the spring. Without noticing, he ended up biking around and returning to Hoang Dieu Street, so he could further mark in his mind the appearance of these magnificent palatial residences now occupied by the pillars of the new imperial order. Afterward, he continued riding through Phan Dinh Phung Street so as to take another look at other residential palaces, palaces the occupants of which he had learned by heart, so that hatred and grudges kept on boiling in the quiet lake of his soul.
“These are palaces reserved for tiny-eyed and black-lipped society ladies and not for our Little One, even though she is a thousand times more beautiful.”
As he processed these thoughts he noticed a minister’s wife ride by in a Volga, her neck shortened by the layers of fat that rose all the way to her chin, and her eyes tiny slits the thinness of a thread watching the streets in full haughtiness. That afternoon the weather was gorgeous but An could not escape being drowned in dark thoughts. Was he pitying Mui? Or Little One? Or could it be that he felt his impotence before fate? It was not until that evening when his wife came back from the hospital with the happy face of a child who had just gotten a gift that he could temporarily put aside his bitter observations.
Nang Dong told him, “In three days we will bring Little One home. I won’t have to take the meals in to her.”
“Is she in good health?”
“Our Little One?” His wife laughed. “She is fine and happy. But I can see that you are biased toward women. You don’t ask about the newborn.”
He burst out laughing. “It’s because the whole society is already biased toward the males, that’s why I do the reverse. Don’t you like it?”
“Yes, I do,” she responded at once. An knew that Nang Dong was extremely happy to be by his side. He was a liberal type who did not care for richness or wealth. Neither did he care too much about descendants. The years of study at the district school had given him an outlook entirely different from other men his age. This came somewhat like a gift from the creator. On many occasions his wife had asserted, “Oh, how lucky that we live on two sides of the same hill!”
And he would rejoin: “Lucky that I had a neighboring girl already waiting for me when I was born.”
Nang Dong gave a twist to his answer: “You mean because I am older than you, by fifteen days?”
“You could have been older than I by fifteen years, you would still be my wife. That was what destiny had in mind.”
“Gosh!..” his wife burst out. “You must be the most clever liar on earth.”
Their conversations always ended in laughter. An had yet to see another couple as close as they were. When they were young, he did not in the least doubt his happiness. But after Little One gave birth to the boy, a cloudy premonition lodged permanently in his mind, even when he was at his happiest. He would remember the quotations he had learned from the history professor, the one teacher to whom he owed most while studying in That Khe district.
“Beautiful women are like flowers; they blossom early and die in the evening, because blue heaven has bestowed upon them a gorgeous beauty that causes many people to covet and envy them.”
The beauty of Nang Dong and her sister had only grown more and more pronounced, to the point of surprising him. Time, it seems, had no effect on them; on the contrary, the months and years seemed to have matured their beauty, making them more attractive, more mysterious. On numerous occasions An had witnessed passersby stop, struck dumb by the sisters’ beauty; they looked at them as if they were seeing river or mountain goddesses. In Hanoi, one could “light torches to illuminate the forest” and never find that kind of beauty — enough to make fish stop swimming and birds fall to earth.
An felt like he had been in love with Nang Dong since the day he was born. It was only much later that he realized his wife surely must have provoked desires on the part of men who came across her. In that way, he came to understand why the old king could fall head over heels in love with Little One. It’s impossible for any man not to be moved by the sharp-swordlike beauty of such women, who, besides, have simple and holy souls that promise years of family happiness. Although Nang Dong was totally unaware of all these things, An realized that he was in possession of a magnificent fortress. To protect that fortress, one needed both intelligence and courage. The pride inside him was always accompanied by vigilance. In the case of Little One, did the old king think like he did, he wondered. Or could it be that, given the fact that he was the king, instead of treasuring the rare love of a soul like hers, he would give himself the luxury of considering her beauty to be no more than an exotic dish?