“Mr. Chairman is drunk.”
He continued to laugh but suddenly his voice turned strange, causing the son and his family to look at one another in surprise: they had never heard him talk with all of them in such a soft and formal manner.
“Mrs. Chairman, take him home now or else I will file charges. The chairman is drunk and disturbs the home of a citizen.”
“What did you say?” Chairman Quy asked, looking straight at his father. Perhaps he was drunk, or more likely he lacked the smarts to understand that his father had changed his tone, a way to mark the crossing of that final boundary line. Enunciating his words slowly, Mr. Quang replied:
“Mr. Chairman is drunk and disturbs the home of a citizen, thus doing harm to the honor of the Party and the government.”
“What are you saying?”
“Now you, mister, are no longer my child. You are the village chairman, the government’s representative. You are drunk and you take your pals around to disturb citizens.”
“I MYSELF, I am not drunk. I MYSELF am humiliated because you brought a whore back to be your wife.”
“In the old days, our elders told us: ‘You can take a whore to be a wife, but never a wife to be a whore.’ If Miss Ngan is a whore, I MYSELF haven’t gone against our ancestors’ teachings. But if my wife is not a prostitute, Mr. Chairman will be punished for defamation and insulting a citizen. Do you understand that?”
“If your wife is not a prostitute then she is a whore who was pregnant out of wedlock. You think nobody knows the story of the teacher sleeping with a student; Ngan pregnant by the teacher Tuong? You think that you can just pick up a whore at the end of an alley or off a mountain or by a river to bring back here and be able to hide everything?”
“I have always acted in full daylight; I have nothing to hide from the eyes of the world. Mr. Chairman crawls away from this house and has already forgotten — such a short memory. Correct: Miss Ngan was pregnant out of wedlock. She was pregnant by someone she loved — Teacher Tuong. It’s like thousands of other women who get pregnant with the men they choose. She was pregnant because she’s as fertile as a bantam hen. Many other women not pregnant out of wedlock are lucky because they belong to the class with duck’s blood, not dove’s blood. Like your mother, for example; she was not pregnant out of wedlock because she belonged to the infertile group — not because she was holding tight to her virginity. Before I married your mother, for a whole year I would take her up to Golden Bamboo Mountain. Do you want me to show you the places where I took her down?”
Right then, it was the son whose mouth was open wide with surprise — like someone being struck by lightning on the ears. And when he realized clearly what his father had said, he squealed like a pig being slaughtered:
“That’s not true; you lie about my mother! I don’t believe you!”
“Your mother and I were in the prime of life. We cut lumber in the woods together all year ’round. Who could stop us? We didn’t have to deprive ourselves of our desire. Why did we have to wait for the right day and month? We were engaged; the two families had an agreement. Sooner or later we would be in bed together.”
Quy had no reply.
“You are tongue-tied and cannot answer because you are used to lying. You and your wife, too, my man, yourself with your wife, didn’t you mix oil and vinegar with each other for a whole year before I managed to make enough money to pay for the wedding? What about the time you furtively took her for a curettage down in the district? You thought I was blind? The money your mother sneakily gave you was taken out of my pocket, why wouldn’t I know? It’s lucky your wife could still have kids. In many cases, a curettage of the first pregnancy leads to permanent infertility.”
Quy’s wife was looking at her father-in-law with her mouth wide open until she burst out crying from shame. The two daughters, both of an age to be married, and the son lowered their heads. All were acting their roles under the baton of the father. At this instant, the cards were turned faceup, the father and the mother were exposed, and the children dared not look up. Mr. Quang lowered his voice:
“Enough: we fought so it was a fight. You were born, but only when you were thirteen did I know what kind of person you were. I tried every which way to turn things around but could not. No one can stand against heaven’s plans. From now on, don’t ever set foot in my house. We are no longer father and son.”
“That is your will.”
“You are wrong; people don’t choose what they want or don’t want. But once we have pushed each other this far, everything must change.” Again Quy could say nothing.
“You don’t dare open your mouth because you still think of wealth. Being a person is quite difficult, Master Quy. Opening your mouth is easy; opening your hand is much more difficult. Filial piety on the lips — everyone has it. If you don’t want to, I MYSELF will continue to perform your mother’s death anniversaries as usual. She was my wife and now she is still my deceased wife. She made no mistake with me. But you are different. From this day on, I MYSELF will not have you.”
The group stood there stupidly. Perhaps what had happened went too quickly and they had no time to understand how it all had ended. Perhaps they believed that whatever they might do, Mr. Quang would never dare push them out the doors of this house, a house they believed their only son would someday own. But Mr. Quang threw the pole back to the corner of the house, looked at them, and said, lowering his voice:
“Go, go! Go away from here!”
He said this softly, almost murmuring, but within this quiet voice, everything was finished; the water had run its course, the boat had slipped its moorings.
Nothing could return to what it had been.
Quy, his wife, and their children took themselves home, the eyes of neighbors watching them from behind windows and doors, trees and stands of bamboo.
People live rather calm lives in the mountains — like the surface of the lake down the valley imprisoned on all four sides by mountain slopes. But if you throw in a stone, circles will spread without stopping. In the same way, some events, big or small — if they upset whatever is most hidden in the human soul — can start a war, a conflict between old-fashioned understandings and modern innovations. Woodcutters’ Hamlet that spring resembled a volcano squirting out lava nonstop because of what was happening in Mr. Quang’s family. Or, speaking more precisely, Woodcutters’ Hamlet that spring was like a roaring, burning stove with the person throwing charcoal briquettes onto the fire being a beautiful girl coming from a strange place, with sensual eyes, and wearing a green silk blouse.
One o’clock came on the first day of Tet; villagers flowed into the streets to go and present their wishes to their loved ones. According to the old custom, the first day of New Year is reserved for visits to close relatives. Visits on the second day are made to more distant relatives, neighbors, and friends. The third day is for hamlet officials to pay calls on one another: the chairman goes to the secretary’s house; the secretary visits the hamlet police commander, then the police commander presents his New Year’s wishes to the secretary of the Youth Committee or the secretary of the Woman’s Federation — the formal structure holding the community together. That year everything seemed to be wrong side up. Right on the evening of the first day, people rushed pell-mell to knock at Miss Vui’s door:
“Happy New Year. We wish you five, ten times more prosperity this year than last.”
“Happy New Year. We wish that you get many new things, from your head down to your toes.”
“Happy New Year. We wish Miss Vui happiness all year long, always to smile with happiness; every day to be as the first day of Tet, every month to be as the first month of the year, and each season to be as the spring.”