When Heaven Fell

by Carolyn Marsden

  “Stand up a minute,” Binh said to Cuc. Cuc stood while Binh scooted the bench closer to the conversation. She wanted to hear more about money.

  The dog underneath the bench came out on sleepy legs, yawned once, and lay back down.

  “She may not be rich. Teachers don’t make much,” Ba Ngoai said quietly from the chair where she was shelling lima beans. “Not all Americans are rich.”

  “Oh, but they are.” Third Aunt leaned over and squeezed Ba Ngoai’s forearm. “Compared to us, they are.”

  Ma, her back against the tree trunk, said, “Maybe she’s rich enough to pay our rent.”

  That would be nice, Binh thought.

  But Cuc, keeping her voice low so that only Binh could hear, scoffed, “Rent money! Visitors from America always bring gifts.”

  “Gifts would be nice. But I want to hear stories about America,” said Binh. “And,” she added, “maybe Di Hai will talk about the war.”

  “Anyone can talk about the war,” Cuc said, gesturing toward the relatives. “I’m tired of the war. You don’t have a bicycle. Maybe she’ll bring you one.”

  Binh imagined herself on a bicycle, not rusty like Cuc’s, but new and maybe yellow. On a bicycle, she could travel far from home.

  The next day, Binh didn’t tend the fruit cart and Anh Hai didn’t go with Ba to repair the motorcycles. With a rich auntie coming, who needed to work?

  Ma was making a non la, a cone-shaped hat of young palm leaves, while she chatted with the visitors. She took long strips of bamboo and placed them in the notches of her triangular wooden frame. Soon the bamboo strips outlined the shape of a cone. When Ma leaned forward to talk to Third Aunt and her fingers relaxed, the last strip came undone, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  Binh pulled the frame close to her. She’d watched Ma make the hats, and as she listened to the talk, she set the final strip in the groove. She began to lay the white palm leaves over the bamboo frame, her thoughts flitting wildly.

  Maybe her rich di would bring her dresses like Cuc’s. Or a radio to listen to the latest songs.

  Binh stopped work. The palm leaves had to be stitched onto the rings, starting with the tiny circle at the top of the cone.

  “I don’t know how to sew this part,” Binh whispered, touching Ma’s elbow.

  “Like this,” said Ma, turning to her. She held Binh’s hand and guided it until the first circle was sewn.

  Binh started on the second, larger circle.

  “A CD player would be nice. And some CDs to go with it,” said Binh’s older cousin, Bien. He was almost Anh Hai’s age and tended his family’s vegetable plot, raising vegetables to sell at the Saturday market.

  “With all Chi Thao has, she wouldn’t miss a little of her money,” Ma said, glancing at Binh’s work. “If she gave us just a little, we could buy rice and vegetables — maybe some fish — without counting every dong.”

  Binh’s needle made a raspy sound as she plunged it into the straw. Ma expected so little from Di Hai. Surely she would offer more than simple food!

  “Why not a television?” asked Third Aunt, lifting one finger and smiling.

  On the fourth morning, Ma announced: “We will keep the yellow linoleum. That is not so old. But maybe Chi Thao can fix the roof and the broken window. . . .”

  “And even buy curtains for the windows,” said Fourth Aunt, who often worked behind the counter of the tourist shop.

  “And maybe she will even get you a refrigerator,” Third Aunt whispered.

  A refrigerator? Binh’s heart fluttered.

  Whispers about America grew.

  “Why shouldn’t Thao take someone?” said Third Uncle. He lived in the north and had come down by train to see Di. “She is rich enough. She can take whomever she wants.”

  At Third Uncle’s words, Binh shifted, the blotchy shade of the tree traveling across her lap. A shiver ran up her spine. America? Might she actually go there? Seeing America in movies had always seemed miraculous enough.

  “After all, she should take some of us,” said Ba Ngoai’s youngest sister, who was just a little older than Ma. “She had it easy. She didn’t have to starve, at least not for too long. She didn’t have it hard like those in the boats.”

  Binh looked at the small house with its shattered window covered by a square of cardboard, at the layer of palm fronds patching the bad roof. She fingered the material of her blue dress, faded by many washings in the river.

  But what if she were caught up in one of those American shootings? So many people died. Binh shivered again.

  That afternoon, Binh put her hands on her hips and announced to her little cousins, Phu and Vi, “My di hai is going to take my whole family to America.”

  Of course, Vi and Phu told Cuc.

  “I want to go too,” she demanded of Binh. “You can’t go without me.”

  “When we get settled, you can join us,” Binh reassured her.

  “And we can go to the discos and dance all night,” said Cuc.

  “And see the Statue of Liberty.”

  “I hear she’s smaller than she looks in movies.” Cuc flipped her bangs out of her eyes. “Very disappointing. Let’s go to Disneyland.”

  Binh said, “Shouldn’t we get Di Thao some presents to welcome her?’

  Third Aunt donated a hand-carved water buffalo.

  Cuc brought over a piece of gold silk. “I sleep with this every night,” she said. “Feel it, Binh. It’s so soft.”

  Binh held the lovely rectangle against the sky. “Are you sure you want to give this to Di Thao?” she asked.

  Cuc squinted as though the gold color blinded her. “I do. I want to give her something nice.”

  “I have nothing to give her,” Binh complained.

  “How about this?” Cuc pulled a bracelet from her arm. The thin ring of metal shone with all the colors of the rainbow.

  Binh wrinkled her nose, but took the bracelet. At least it was something.

  “I’ll fix her motorcycle,” Anh Hai joked.

  Binh wrapped the gifts in newspaper and tied them with string.

  After the relatives had left, Ba said to Ma, “You are all getting too greedy. We shouldn’t expect so much. Just ask your sister for a little support for Ba Ngoai. A little to make her comfortable as she gets older.”

  Binh pretended to be busy stacking the basins on the shelf by the back door. She turned slightly and saw Ma lift her face even with Ba’s.

  “We are the ones who have taken care of my mother all these years,” she said. “She deserves support, but don’t we deserve something too?”

  A mosquito buzzed close to Ba’s ear.

  “We don’t have to live like mandarins,” Ma continued. “But the landlord is still waiting for last month’s rent. And have you looked at the holes in Hai’s shoes, the condition of Binh’s dress?”

  Ba swatted at the mosquito.

  Anh Hai was feeding the ducks, tossing scraps of vegetables from the flat basket balanced on his hip. “I don’t think Di Hai should come. She’s already upset things. Everyone wants something from her.”

  Binh stared into the heart of a bougainvillea flower. Tiny pistils rose from the papery interior. “You don’t want anything, then?” she asked, touching a pistil with the tip of her finger.

  Anh Hai stopped throwing the scraps. He reddened like the bougainvillea, and smiled at the ground. “Just a motorcycle . . .”

  On the fifth day, Ba Ngoai and Binh took the men’s work clothes to the river to wash. They massaged the grainy soap over the stains and rubbed the fabric against the rocks until the grease melted into the water.

  After they had stretched out the shirts and pants on the rocks to dry, Binh lay back in the sunshine, daydreaming of Di Thao’s coming. Maybe Di would wear a fancy American dress, long to the floor, with tiny straps over her shoulders. Pink, or maybe pale yellow.

  “Tell me about Di, Ba Ngoai,” she called lazily to the rock where Ba Ngoai sat. “What’s she like?”

 
Ba Ngoai didn’t say anything.

  Only the river gurgled and murmured between them.

  Binh felt sleepy. Perhaps Ba Ngoai didn’t remember much.

  Then, just as Binh was drifting off, Ba Ngoai spoke, her soft words echoes of the river itself. “The purple flowers flew off the trees. They filled the sky like flocks of butterflies. It was a beautiful sight, but really the sky was purple because of the fires. The soldiers had set fire to our grass houses. The draft created by the heat tore the purple flowers off the trees.”

  Binh leaned up on her elbows. “Oh, Ba Ngoai . . .” She could see Ba Ngoai’s purple sky so clearly. Whenever war stories were told, Binh drew closer and listened carefully. The more detailed the telling, the sharper the pictures appeared in her mind.

  Ba Ngoai was gazing off into the trees. “We ran. I carried Thao in one basket of my ganh hang. In the other side, to balance it, I carried a sack of rice. I ran with the others through the rice fields, into the jungle, where we hid.”

  “Wasn’t Di Thao heavy?”

  “She was very heavy. And the rice was equally heavy. But I didn’t care then. Saving her life was all that mattered.”

  Sitting on the edge of the large rock, Ba Ngoai kicked her feet up and down in the rushing water as though the memories were kicking inside her. “When it got dark, sparks flew from the burning village. They flew over the rice fields. They were beautiful like the purple flowers. They were like little orange stars floating close to the earth. But those orange stars meant our homes were gone. And in the morning, I saw an owl, the bird of death.”

  Binh laid her head in Ba Ngoai’s lap, shuddering at Ba Ngoai’s memories, yet intrigued by this world of the past, one more exciting than her own.

  In the kitchen as Ba Ngoai handed Binh a bundle of green beans to wash and trim, she said, “I’m happy my daughter is coming back. I’ve missed her all these years.”

  “Tell me more about her, Ba Ngoai.”

  Binh sat down on the floor and plunged the beans into a red plastic basin of water.

  “During the war, when they heard the airplanes coming, the B-52s, the children ran inside,” Ba Ngoai said, stirring the cooking fire. “The planes sounded like giant insects, but then the bombs hit, tearing our world apart.”

  Binh concentrated on rubbing the beans against each other to clean them. She’d heard this story before. It made her heart ache, yet she wanted to hear more. “Ma wasn’t alive yet, though, right? Wasn’t she born after the war?” She lifted a handful of dripping beans to the cutting board.

  “Yes. The war was over by then. After I sent Thao to America, I met another man. A South Vietnamese soldier named Hung. Just after your mother was born, he was killed by a land mine.”

  Binh had heard about this grandfather many times. She snapped the beans in half, the only noise the crisp sound of the breaking. “I hope Di Hai will tell me lots of stories.”

  “Thao won’t remember much. She left Vietnam when she was very young,” Ba Ngoai said.

  “Does she speak Vietnamese? Will she be able to talk to us?” What if Di couldn’t describe anything?

  “I don’t know, Binh. We’ll see.” Ba Ngoai added three more pieces of charcoal to the fire. “During the war, I spoke a little English. I can’t talk to Thao in English now, though. I’ve forgotten all of it.”

  Ba Ngoai tossed the beans into the wok. When the drops of water met the oil, they produced a loud sizzle and the fire leaped higher.

  “Thao was only one of many who escaped. Remember Fourth Uncle.” Ba Ngoai stood to take a photo from the shelf. “When he was just ten years old, he and his family left in a boat. After many days at sea, many days of hunger, the people in that boat were rescued by a cargo ship. The captain handed your uncle a huge red apple. Although your uncle was hungry, he held the apple to the sky like a sweet sun before biting into the crunchy, sweet skin.”

  That story had been told in letters. As usual, Binh held the photo gently by one corner. It was always hard to imagine this man wearing a white starched shirt, the line of his tie even and neat, as a little boy lost at sea.

  “Guess what!” Cuc shouted, riding into the yard, her bicycle rattling. She skidded to a stop in front of Binh. “Ma gave me enough money to take you to Café Video!”

  Binh ran her fingers through her hair and smiled.

  “She gave me money to get ice cream. But I won’t get ice cream. I’ll pay for you instead.”

  Binh reached out and rang the bell on Cuc’s bicycle. “Thanks.”

  “Get on,” Cuc ordered.

  Binh put her feet on the metal bars sticking out from the back wheel. She held on to Cuc’s shoulders.

  As Cuc rode by the doorway to the kitchen, Binh called out, “Ba Ngoai! I’m going to the movies!”

  Instead of following the highway, Cuc took the river path almost hidden by the evening mist. At the thought of ghosts, Binh pressed her fingers into Cuc’s shoulders. Bamboo slapped at their bare arms. When Cuc drove over a rock, Binh’s feet bounced up.

  After one more bend of the river, they arrived at Café Video, a thatched hut open to the water. Just as Ba brought the motorcycle into the house, Cuc wheeled her bicycle into the café.

  A woman with hair wound into a tight black bun took Cuc’s money and gestured toward the movie room.

  A big screen covered one bamboo wall while movie posters papered the other two. Men and boys smoked at the round tables. Small children sat on the cement floor close to the screen.

  Cuc led Binh to two chairs in the corner.

  “What will you have to eat?” the woman asked.

  “Nothing,” Cuc said, waving her arm, her bracelets dangling.

  “No tea?”

  “No tea,” said Cuc airily.

  When the woman had gone, Cuc pulled out a package of spicy candies. “Here,” she whispered.

  The candies were tamarind with chewy centers of hot chili paste.

  “I hope it won’t be one of those movies with a lot of guns and killing,” said Binh.

  “This movie’s called Let’s Party!” said Cuc. “Absolutely no guns.”

  The American movie bloomed onto the screen with the Vietnamese subtitles flashing below.

  Bethy, with long blond hair, and Tiffanie, with short yellow curls, sat by a swimming pool, wearing bikinis.

  Binh leaned forward, studying the blue pool. Pools were like the river, but calm, with no rocks or currents. She crunched into the hot center of her candy.

  On-screen, the girls were talking on cell phones. A woman —“That’s a maid,” whispered Cuc — brought them a tray of sandwiches. Bethy began to eat one, then tossed it aside and sighed.

  Cuc slipped Binh another candy.

  Tiffanie laughed, her white teeth glistening in the sunshine. She covered the receiver of her phone and said, “It’s Marco. He wants to party.”

  Bethy dove into the pool and swam underwater a little. When she surfaced, the camera showed a close-up of her face, the perfect blue eye shadow still painting her lids.

  Behind Binh, the mist grew thicker. If she listened closely, she could hear the river chanting its own stories.

  “What does that say?” Cuc asked Binh. She didn’t read as well as Binh and often asked her to read subtitles.

  “She doesn’t know what to wear,” Binh explained, waving away the cigarette smoke that drifted toward her.

  The scene shifted. The girls stood in front of a closet as big as Ba’s motorcycle repair shop. They shuffled through dresses, holding them up, throwing them down.

  “The maid will pick those up,” said Cuc.

  A man in front of Cuc turned around. “Shhh!”

  Finally, the blondes emerged from the house and Marco arrived in a black convertible with the top down. Both girls rushed toward the front seat.

  Tiffanie won. She gave Bethy, climbing into the backseat, a huge smile.

  Cuc giggled.

  The black car drove past the beach, the girls’ golden hair blowing. Musi
c blasted from the radio, then trailed off into the wind behind them.

  The ocean waves crashed — what a pale sound the river made in comparison! On the sand, people lay under huge, striped umbrellas. Like the umbrella over the fruit cart, Binh thought. But different . . .

  Marco’s car zoomed fast, passing all the other cars.

  The little kids sitting in the front laughed, but Binh wondered if the movie was about to turn into another boring car chase. Maybe there’d be shooting after all. She’d grown thirsty from the candies and wished Cuc had money for tea.

  The black car finally arrived at a house, screeching up to the front door. As the girls smoothed their hair, Binh reached toward her own.

  The party house seemed to be a part of the beach. Big windows and porches opened onto the sand. Music pounded from a stereo.

  Binh squinted at the food spread on a long table. She’d left home without eating dinner.

  After a while, Tiffanie went for a walk with Marco, the waves breaking white and clean around their feet. When they kissed, the children in the audience booed.

  As the sun set behind the silhouettes of Tiffanie and Marco, the English words THE END — Binh could read that much — burst onto the screen.

  The audience clapped. Someone cried out, “Play it again!”

  “Didn’t we already see that movie?” Binh asked Cuc as everyone stood, scraping the legs of the chairs against the cement floor.

  “Not that one. One like it, but not that one.”

  Cuc wheeled her bicycle out.

  “Do you think that’s how it really is in America?” Binh asked as Cuc climbed on.

  “Why not?”

  As Binh took her place on the back of Cuc’s rusty bicycle, she thought of how, in just a few days, Di Hai would arrive from the land of parties. Would Auntie wear a bikini and constantly hold a cell phone to her ear? Would she really take Binh’s whole family — plus Cuc, of course — to that wonderland?

  The Buddhist temple, mustard yellow walls covered with vines, was down the highway, set back from the road.

  Ba Ngoai attended the temple every Sunday, while the others went only on full moon. But Ba had suggested that all the relatives — except for Third Uncle, who was an atheist, and Third Aunt, who was a Catholic — should prepare for Thao’s arrival.