“I did not expect things to get to this point. But if you want to play, you accept the rules. Let’s see what they can do to me.”
Though his disposition was rather sweet, Vu could get stubborn when challenged. He walked straight to the villa.
Then the owner called to him from the garden on the left: “I am here, Vu, my friend.”
“Good.”
“I am over here. Don’t you see rows of yellow roses full of blooms? Come here. These flowers last for only a couple of weeks, and this kind of rose is especially rare and hard to grow.”
Thuan had been standing in the garden, wearing blue pajamas with white stripes. Indeed, the garden of yellow roses was in full bloom. The petals were soft like thick velvet. Their color was between the color of ripe lemon rind and the yellow of an egg: a soft and dreamy yellow; a gentle fleeting color like a suspicion, as if it could fly and rest on the wing of a dragonfly or a butterfly, as if it could vaporize like fog.
Under normal circumstances the small vista would have been worth admiring. But at this time, beauty just inflamed him.
“Your garden is really beautiful. Your roses are exquisite,” Vu said as he approached his host. “I have never seen roses this fresh and beautiful. Paradise cannot exceed their perfection. In this life how many are able to enjoy such things?”
Thuan remained silent before this question, which contained no hint of reproach. Putting out his hand to shake, he walked toward Vu, then whispered: “I stand here to wait for you. You don’t have to fight with me. We can go to the end of the garden to talk safely.”
They walked beside each other between the rows of roses toward the end of the garden, where irises circled a plot of needle grass that ran along the foot of a wall. The two stood in the middle of the tender green grass.
Looking around, Thuan acknowledged, “Here the reeds cannot grow.” Then he turned to Vu and asked, “Who gave you the news this morning?”
“A disguised voice, as if the nose was covered or was stuffy from a cold. And you?”
“Also the same voice informing me, not quite at five thirty a.m.”
“With me, also about that time.”
“Who do you think informed us, with such an intentionally distorted voice?”
“Why are you asking me? You belong to the Politburo — assistant general secretary of the Party. To refer to old times, you are one of the four pillars holding up the dynasty. Me? I’m just a marginal guy, so many ranks below you. Properly speaking, I am the one who has the right to ask you.”
Thuan quietly sighed, looking down at the grass near his feet as if the answer could be found among the tiny shoots. Pausing, he then slowly explained: “I know I am at fault, because, in a Politburo meeting on the issue, I promised to guarantee the safety of Miss Xuan and her two kids. I did not expect things to happen like this.”
“You didn’t expect? Perhaps you did expect but washed your hands and let others act.”
Thuan looked up at him. “I am well bred and well educated, Vu, my friend. Therefore, I ask you not to suspect me of doing anything so grotesque. If not for my sake, then at least with a forgiving heart in respect for the departed spirits of my parents. They were good people. I do not lie, above all with someone like you.”
His voice was shaking and his thick nostrils started to redden. Vu knew that he was being truthful, and that eased a bit the rage burning in his heart.
“My mistake was the very fact that I did not learn what to expect,” Thuan continued. “I didn’t expect all the dark turnings of human hearts. I was thinking as if I were still living at the front: when all in the Politburo were of one mind, then everything would proceed exactly so; no need to be concerned. This event takes me aback. The game has changed; the times are different but my simple thinking is stuck in the past. Now, it has happened. What to do?”
“It has happened and now you just whine about what to do? That is really the simpleminded talking!” Vu interrupted. “Thuan, just once, try to put yourself in the place of others. At this moment, you are standing here and talking to me. Later, you will walk fewer than a hundred steps and you will be in a majestic house; in there, your wife, your kids and grandkids — the whole crowded flock. In that company, nobody must endure isolated loneliness, and none of your little ones will have to worry about being orphaned or exiled; exiled in their own country.”
To escape his inquisitive and angry look, Thuan looked over at the lichee bush in the corner of the garden next to the main gate. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “I know I have failed the Old Man.”
“What do you think about that person? Now, how will the Old Man live knowing that those who claim to be his comrades have killed his loved one? Do all of you — twelve people with the most power in this country — think that the Old Man is not a person but only a rock? Because you were the first — and you were the one who spoke up strongly — to oppose the recommendation to normalize the relationship between Older Brother and Miss Xuan. Because your words were decisive, having power to obtain consensus from the others. I carefully asked Do about that meeting.”
“I know that you are extremely angry, not only with me but with all those who opposed that relationship. Really, we acted in the interest of the country, and also because of the Old Man’s prestigious stature.”
“I think all the time about the notion that you usually call the ‘charisma’ of leading cadres, that those who lead the way for the people must be role models or idols. I find that an odd and imposed concept. Life is filled with old men who are madly in love with younger women. Not only royals but little people, too. If I am not mistaken, your paternal grandfather had a twenty-year-old concubine when he was seventy-two. Is that true or not?”
“It is true, even though my grandfather was only the chief of a small district. I still remember the sight of my grandfather taking a nap, his head on the lap of the beautiful twenty-year-old as she gently fanned him. I also remember my grandmother eating her meals with those two people in the main house, and our family taking ours separately in the side residence. I also remember the concubine could sing the ‘Kieu’ poem very well, and when my grandfather was inspired he usually asked her to sing to entertain guests. All that is very true, Vu, my friend. But when it comes to Elder Brother, such cannot be accepted, because he does not live for himself alone. He is the compass, the torch to light the way, for all the people.
“And because of that shining torch, the Old Man must be castrated like the eunuchs were in the old days, or forced to live in hiding like a smuggler? All of you invented this role for him; starting with Miss Minh Thu carrying her sleeping things to the house at the resistance zone. If the Party were to ask you to marry Miss Minh Thu instead of the woman you are bedding now, how would you take it?”
Thuan was silent. He cast his eyes down and continued to look intensely at the grass under his feet.
“I do not fully understand the terms ‘comrade’ or ‘brother-in-arms’ that you speak as if singing with the tip of your tongue. Really, I don’t understand,” Vu continued. “For all time, people have bonded together through understanding. Little people with little voices still know the saying ‘Everyone has bones and skin; cut anyone, blood flows.’ Any Buddhist most likely understands the famous teaching of Gautama: ‘All blood is red; all tears are salty’…Catholic teaching also says, ‘Treat others as you want to be treated.’ Whether the religion is Eastern or Western, this is what is taught about good behavior.”