Binh followed Anh Hai inside to a courtyard garden with chrysanthemums like balls of golden light, rows of water spinach and purple basil, an arbor heavy with long bitter melons hanging among the leaves, and a bird in a bamboo cage waiting to be freed.
Temple dogs and a rooster roamed the pathways, while fierce snarling statues holding huge swords guarded the entrance to the temple. Inside, Binh glimpsed the copper-colored Buddha relaxing in his dark sanctuary.
At the bottom of the steps leading into the temple sat a table bearing a large pot of sand where people placed lit incense.
Binh plunged her stick into the jar with all the others. As the fragrant smoke enveloped her, she prayed that Di would arrive safely, would bring all that they’d dreamed of, and would speak Vietnamese.
The temple gong rang with a deep, vibrating hum. The brown-robed monks and nuns, sitting above on an open porch, began their chant to the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara.
Behind them, a mural depicted the beautiful bodhisattva wearing a golden headdress, her thousand arms open to all who needed her.
Binh found a small plastic stool under a tree in the courtyard and pulled it close to Cuc. Cuc’s hair was held back with a headband Binh had never seen.
When everyone had settled, a monk sitting quietly with his legs folded began a story: “One day a rich man came to the Buddha and his followers, asking if they knew the whereabouts of his runaway cows. No one had seen the cows. When the man left, the Buddha turned to his followers and said, ‘That man is burdened by the cows. It’s good that we have no cows to keep track of, no cows to worry about.’”
People laughed.
“I’m not saying,” the monk continued, “that it’s better to be poor than to own things. All of you know the difficulties of poverty. I’m only saying that not having to look after one’s possessions is a benefit of being poor. Please think about your cows. Some cows may be possessions. Others may be ideas you cling to. Think of releasing your cows.”
Binh shifted on the uncomfortable stool.
Cuc bent to whisper in her ear: “Only a monk would talk like that. He’s given up the world. We haven’t.”
Binh nodded, but couldn’t dismiss the monk’s words so easily. Everyone’s hearts were heavy with longing for new clothes, a television that played videos, curtains for the windows, and a motorcycle for Anh Hai. The monk had called these things cows. If they had all these things would they be more — or less — happy?
Binh herself was filled with a desire to hear stories. Was that desire a cow as well? Daily, the desire grew within her to go to America. Was that the biggest cow of all?
Ba strode into the yard, announcing, “I’ve borrowed a truck to bring Thao home from the airport.”
A truck. Binh sat up taller. That meant she could go too! She looked to see a small pickup parked by the side of the highway — red with a large rusty wound on the hood.
“Arriving on a motorcycle wouldn’t look good,” Ba continued, sitting down on the bench. “A truck is much better.”
Binh had never been to Ho Chi Minh City, and she’d dreamed of seeing that faraway place where the buildings touched the sky and the stairs moved by themselves.
She imagined sitting next to Di Thao during the long drive back from the city, stroking the fabric of her fancy dress, studying her painted nails. They could get an early start on Di’s stories.
Ma was hanging wet laundry. “You do need a truck,” she called from the near clothesline. “Chi Thao will have luggage. You can’t carry suitcases on a motorcycle.”
“And the gifts,” reminded Third Aunt. “She will bring so many.” Third Aunt seemed to have forgotten her tourist stand and spent all her days with Ma.
The gifts. Binh’s heart quickened.
“Hai will go with me,” Ba said.
Binh stood up. “May I go too?” she asked. “I’d like to welcome Di Thao to her homeland.” When she saw Ba shake his head, she sat back down.
“There won’t be room for you once we fill the bed of the truck with the gifts that Thao brings,” said Ba.
Binh smoothed her blue skirt. She wished that just this once, Ba would choose her over Anh Hai. Even though she wasn’t a boy, she was surely strong enough to help carry Di’s gifts. And she, more than Anh Hai, had always longed to see the big city.
Usually, Ma or Ba Ngoai bought food from women who displayed their wares along the highway. But for Di Hai’s welcoming feast, they needed to go to the market.
Ba took them in the red truck — Ma and Ba Ngoai in the cab, Binh riding in the bed. It felt good to go fast past the familiar sights, the wind blowing her hair. When they came to the motorcycle repair shop, Ba honked. Binh waved to Anh Hai, who looked up in surprise.
Too soon they approached the market — a sea of blue tarps stretched between poles.
As Ba dropped them off, he slipped Binh some money, saying, “Get your auntie something special for me.”
Stepping into the market, Binh paused at the bright colors and smells, the sounds of people bargaining and chickens squawking. Where would they start?
There were piles of green guavas; pyramids of the waxy yellow fruit that, sliced, made perfect stars; baskets of brown eggs; dusky tamarind pods; gingerroot; huge piles of baguettes.
Binh picked up a shiny tangerine. When she squeezed it gently, fragrant oil shot from the pores in the skin.
“Get a few,” Ma said.
“Just a few,” said Ba Ngoai. “When Thao was little, she always liked mangosteen.”
The woman behind the pile of purple fruits said, “Take one, Grandmother. Try it.”
“Thao always watched me split it open,” Ba Ngoai said to Binh, prying apart the tough purple skin. “She would laugh when I tucked a bite into her mouth.” Ba Ngoai broke into the white sections. She held up a section, and Binh opened her mouth to take it.
“Let’s get some for Di Hai,” Binh said, crunching into the soft seed in the center.
“We’ll take six,” said Ma to the woman.
They bought fresh bean curd, rambutan with the long red hairs on the outside, stalks of lemongrass. Ma bargained fiercely over the soybean sprouts. They got whole grains of rice instead of broken grains. They also bought sweet potatoes and corn. “These are cheap enough to fill up the guests,” Ma explained, filling the bags.
“Do we have money enough for this?” asked Ba Ngoai, staring down at a fish swimming in a pan of water. “Thao always enjoyed fish.”
Ma looked into her purse, then shook her head. “Let the others bring the expensive things.”
Binh remembered the money Ba had given her. “Is this enough?” she asked pulling out the bills.
“Just right,” said Ma. “That fish, please.” She gestured.
Their money all spent, they carried the bags to the side of the highway and waited.
Binh thought of the American parties she’d seen in movies. Americans feasted on hamburgers and cake with thick, sticky icing. Would Di Hai like this food? Would eating it help her remember Vietnam?
She saw Ba approaching in the red truck. It stalled once in the traffic and everyone honked loudly. Binh dug her fingernails into her palms until Ba got the engine started again. Creating a cloud of dust, he pulled the truck to a halt in front of Ba Ngoai, exhaust fumes spewing over the bags of food.
“Wake up. They’re leaving,” whispered Ma.
Binh sat up and rubbed her eyes. The air was golden from the oil lamp burning on the ancestral altar, sweet and smoky from the incense Ma had lit.
Then she remembered: Di Thao. Di would become a part of her life today. Di would arrive in time for the noontime feast.
It was still dark out. The roosters’ crows hadn’t yet scared off the ghosts clinging to the morning mist.
Binh got up, crossed the room, and went out the open doorway. She slipped her feet into a pair of rubber flip-flops.
In the front yard, Ba and Anh Hai were already in the small red truck, dressed in their
good white shirts, their hair carefully parted.
An old moon still hung in the sky, yellow as bean curd. Not a good moon for new beginnings, Binh thought.
Through the truck window, Ma handed Anh Hai sticky rice packaged in banana leaves. “Come back safely.”
Ba Ngoai stood in the doorway and watched, her hands folded.
Ba gunned the motor of the small red truck. He backed up into the black cloud that came from the tailpipe and swung the truck onto the highway.
Binh watched until the taillights disappeared.
As Ba Ngoai cooked the breakfast soup, broken rice boiled with vegetables, Binh took three bowls from the shelf. She spread out the grassy eating mat.
Outside, the roosters crowed and morning dawned, a lime green blush above the hills. The day prepared itself for Di’s arrival.
After breakfast, Binh swept the yard with a stiff broom until the dirt was smooth. Instead of collecting the fallen bougainvillea flowers along with the dirt, she arranged them in a circle around the base of the tree.
Then she buffed the floor inside with a rag, crawling on all fours. She felt proud of the way the yellow linoleum shone. Even a rich relative would admire such a clean floor.
Ba Ngoai placed tangerines in a neat pyramid on the altar for the ancestors. “I’ll pray for the safe return of the travelers,” she said.
“Including Di Thao?”
“Of course. For the safe return of my daughter.”
With a soft cloth, Binh polished the glass covering the photos of the men with long thin beards, the women with their hair tucked under velvet hats. The ancestral altar was crowded with the photographs of those who had died in the war: Ba Ngoai’s three brothers and two sisters, Binh’s great-grandparents. In spite of the prayers, none of them had returned safely.
Beside the tangerines, Binh arranged fresh bananas and round green guavas, then lit a stick of incense, silently thanking the ancestors for sending Di Thao.
When Ba Ngoai knelt and bowed low to the altar, Binh bowed beside her.
Finally, Binh shook out an extra sleeping mat, checking it for insects.
As the morning grew brighter, relatives arrived, walking or riding motorcycles and bicycles. Some dangled an extra chair off the back of a motorcycle. All carried containers of food. The men set up the big table under the tree, near the river. Some used large knives to hack open coconuts, releasing the sweet, clear juice inside.
Binh cut sprigs of bougainvillea and put them in white paper cups. The shade of the tree dappled the faded tablecloth.
The house overflowed with people and the smells of fish sauce, garlic, and ginger.
“If too many people come, we’ll make the food salty so they won’t eat much,” said Ma, stirring a wok full of bok choy and sliced garlic.
“This food is a good investment,” said Third Aunt, undoing a button at her waist.
Cuc and Binh watched Vuong, the man who delivered water, bringing load after load in his ganh hang, the two buckets on the end of a stick that he carried across his shoulders.
Vuong had had an American father with very dark skin. People let him bring the water and handed him small bills in exchange, but because he had mixed blood, they would never chat with him or invite him in for tea.
“Do you know who’s coming today, Vuong?” Binh asked.
“I hear it’s your auntie.”
“Yes. She had an American father. Like you.”
Vuong looked at the ground. He was called my lai — less than dust — because of his American father.
When he’d gone, Binh said to Cuc, “Vuong is nice. Too bad he’s my lai.”
“Your auntie is also a half-breed,” Cuc reminded her.
“But she’ll be welcomed like the queen of the world — with a feast and a big crowd.”
“That’s because now she lives in America and she’s rich.”
“Not fair,” said Binh, watching Vuong disappear with his empty buckets.
Little children chased the ducks, their pockets full of candies.
As Ba Ngoai emptied the wash basins after cleaning the vegetables, she knelt down and spoke soft words to the ancestors under the earth.
Watching, Binh wondered if Ba Ngoai was telling the ancestors that her long-lost child was coming home.
Finally, Ba Ngoai straightened up and carried the bowls to the shelf by the back door. She went inside.
When Ba Ngoai came back out, she was wearing her best dress, a pink silk ao dai she’d kept hidden during the war. It had red dragons embroidered along the hem of the tunic. “Here.” She held up a handful of pink and white ribbons. “For my hair. I need to look nice for my daughter.”
“You do the white,” said Binh, grabbing all the ribbons.
“I want pink,” Cuc said, reaching.
“Oh, fine.” Yet Binh made Cuc wait a little while she pulled the pink ribbons loose from the white.
First Binh wound white, then Cuc leaned in with her pink, alternating, as they decorated Ba Ngoai’s neat, gray bun.
Villagers, especially children, peered from the road or pressed against the fence. The ducks had hidden in an old box to escape the crowd. The dogs roamed between the guests.
“The sun is already hot, Binh. Put this on.” Ma handed her a non la. “The feast will be ruined if Ba doesn’t arrive soon.”
Binh and Cuc meandered in and out of the men smoking and chatting, women carrying plates of food to the kitchen, teenagers whispering together.
“Where’s the red truck?” Binh wondered aloud. “Did it break down? Did Ba get lost in the big city?”
Cuc said, “Maybe your auntie isn’t coming, after all.”
She and Binh headed for the highway, shouldering through the crowd. Exhaust made the sunshine a dirty yellow and Binh’s skin felt gritty. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.
Finally, someone down the way cheered, and then more cheers rose into the hazy air.
Binh leaned out to peek. “Oh, here they come!” she said, taking Cuc’s forearm. The red truck was chugging slowly in the middle of the uphill traffic.
“Look, there’s three people inside. That’s Ba driving, Anh Hai is by the window, and that person in the middle has to be Di Thao!”
People edged back as Ba drove into the yard. Some threw yellow flower petals at the truck.
Through the windshield, Binh saw that Di had short, dark brown hair cut like a boy’s. She saw no sign of lace or sparkles on her clothes.
As Anh Hai opened his door, people again backed up. He slid out, then held the door for Di.
Binh stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse.
When Di Thao climbed out of the truck, she seemed to unfold her body, rising taller and taller, until she looked down on even the men. Though she had to be older than Ma, she appeared younger.
“Look at her, with her short hair, her jeans and T-shirt,” said Binh, nudging Cuc.
“She dresses like a teenager.”
As Di raised her hand to take off her sunglasses, Binh saw her fingernails were as short and plain as her own.
“She doesn’t look Vietnamese,” said Binh.
“She’s too big and her brown hair is too light,” Cuc said.
“She doesn’t look like any of us.”
“Why is she dressed so plain?” Cuc asked.
“Maybe she’s poor after all.”
The crowd parted as Ma led Ba Ngoai forward, holding her at the elbow. At last, a pathway opened up with tiny Ba Ngoai at one end, elegant in her pink ao dai, and Di towering at the other in peasant’s work clothes.
No one moved or even whispered.
Binh held her breath.
“Chi Thao, this is our mother,” Ma announced to Di, each word solid like a round river stone.
“Ma?” asked Di, stepping forward, her long legs quickly closing the gap.
“Thao,” Ba Ngoai answered softly, the ribbons in her hair catching the light, the embroidered dragons marching forward.
When they reache
d each other, Di leaned way down to look into Ba Ngoai’s eyes. Then they embraced, Ba Ngoai barely coming to Di’s shoulder.
Tears ran down Di’s cheeks as she dropped the side of her face onto Ba Ngoai’s head.
Ba Ngoai clung fiercely, her shoulders shaking.
Binh said to Cuc, “I’ve never seen Ba Ngoai act like that.”
“No,” whispered Cuc. “You can tell how much she’s missed her daughter.”
The two embraced for so long that Binh shifted from one foot to the other. Her small cousins began to chase each other.
When Ba Ngoai and Di drew apart, Di reached into her purse and pulled out a tiny camera. She took a photo of Ba Ngoai and then flipped over the camera to show something.
Ba Ngoai glanced and smiled. She reached up to tuck loose stands of hair behind her ears.
“It’s a digital camera,” whispered Binh. “On a little screen, like magic, you see the picture you just took.”
Ba Ngoai stood aside while Di turned to Ma. She held out her arms and, to Binh’s surprise, Ma opened her arms too. Ma never hugged anyone, not Ba or Anh Hai or even Ba Ngoai. She never hugged Binh.
“Binh!” Ma called as she released Di from the embrace. “Come meet your new auntie.”
“Wait here. I’ll be back,” Binh said to Cuc.
“But . . .” said Cuc, grabbing onto Binh’s waist.
“She wants to see me,” Binh hissed.
People stood aside to let Binh pass, and Ma caught her hand, pulling her close.
Binh smiled a big, welcoming smile at Di.
“My daughter,” Ma said, putting her hands on the back of Binh’s neck, gently urging her forward.
Di looked at her with narrow brown eyes just like Binh’s own. It was the only part of Di that looked Vietnamese. “My little niece,” Di said.
Binh found herself enfolded in Di’s arms, her face right up against Di’s pink T-shirt, which smelled not of expensive perfume but of laundry soap.
Then Di loosened her hold, but still held Binh by the arms. “We’ll be friends, won’t we?” she said in Vietnamese.
When Heaven Fell Page 3