When Heaven Fell (5 page)

“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.

A
s 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 reached 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.

Binh nodded.
Oh, yes. Yes.

Others stepped forward to meet Di. Each wanted to shake her hand, to have Di repeat his or her name.

Di took many pictures, and people crowded close to see the screen of the camera, the small children pushing through the grown-ups. People began to whisper her American name:
Sharon. Sharon Hughes.

Binh turned the unfamiliar syllables in her mouth.

She thought suddenly of Di Thao’s gifts. In the excitement of seeing her, she’d forgotten all about the wonders that Di had carried from America.

She made her way to the red truck. The bed was large enough to hold everything her family owned. Binh could hardly wait to see what Di had brought. In her hurry, she bumped into a man and half tripped over a rock.