When Heaven Fell (4 page)

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. Music 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?

T
he 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.

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?

B
a 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.