When Heaven Fell Read online

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Author’s Note

  Glossary and Pronunciation Guide

  Acknowledgments

  Binh’s fruit stand was sheltered by corrugated tin on three sides and by a large umbrella overhead. The canvas of the umbrella had rotted away long ago.

  “Mr. Thang! Come for your soda!” Binh called.

  Old Mr. Thang crossed the street.

  “My pleasure, Granduncle,” said Binh, handing over the can of Orange Crush.

  Although Mr. Thang hadn’t paid cash for the drink, later he would bring a load of charcoal to the house.

  Trucks and motorcycles passed back and forth on the highway, four lanes of black asphalt. Gray exhaust colored the concrete buildings, the speeding vehicles, and even the face of Mrs. Tran across the highway, selling her flat baskets of bok choy and ginger.

  Every vehicle honked — either a series of quick beeps or a steady blast.

  Binh took off the cotton mask she wore for protection against the fumes. She wiped her forehead with it. The day had been long and hot.

  Binh’s cousin Cuc rode up on her old bicycle, wearing a dress with red flowers. Cuc was a year older than Binh and half a head taller. Her black hair was cut in a short bowl, while Binh’s fell to her shoulders.

  “Did I get bicycle grease on my dress, Binh?” Cuc lifted the fabric to examine the hem.

  “I don’t see any. Or maybe just a little spot right there . . .”

  Cuc gave Binh the clothes she outgrew. Binh couldn’t wait until the pretty red dress — now dirtied with a dab of oil — would be hers.

  Cuc not only had the red dress and a bicycle, but often wore colorful bracelets from her mother’s tourist shop. The shop made enough that Third Aunt, unlike Binh’s mother, wasn’t always complaining about money.

  Just then, three boys and two girls came down the highway in their blue and white elementary-school uniforms — white shirts with round collars, dark blue pants for the boys, skirts for the girls. Each carried an armload of books.

  The boys went on while the girls stopped by the stand.

  Binh pulled her cone-shaped hat low over her face.

  “How much are the fruit cups?” one girl asked.

  “A thousand dong,” Binh answered, studying the ground.

  As each girl handed over a bill and helped herself to the yellow fruit, Binh kept her hat pulled down.

  Watching the girls catch up with the boys, Cuc said, “They think they’re better than us!”

  Binh jumped up and imitated the girls’ walk — stiff-legged, nose in the air. Then she picked up a small pebble and tossed it after them.

  Cuc laughed, the streamers on her handlebars jiggling. Yet in spite of the way they poked fun at the schoolchildren, whenever those children came close, both Binh and Cuc lowered their eyes.

  Instead of going to school, Binh worked at the fruit stand and Cuc helped her mother in the tourist shop.

  Binh had heard that at school one learned not only about America, but about other places as well. School sounded like a huge doorway to the world, a doorway through which Binh longed to walk.

  But Binh didn’t like to think about school since her family couldn’t afford to send her. School was for the sons and daughters of families who had large businesses in town and for paid members of the Communist Party. School wasn’t for her.

  “Let me have that last cup of fruit,” Cuc demanded.

  Binh shook her head.

  “Please. Look. It has flies on it. You can’t sell that.”

  “I will sell it.” Binh slapped at Cuc’s reaching hand.

  Across the highway, two high-school girls bicycled past, the tunics and loose trousers of their white ao dai fluttering.

  Cuc gazed after them. Neither she nor Binh mocked the older girls.

  Binh turned to the box tied to Cuc’s bicycle. “What’s in that package?”

  “Paper fans. The bus dropped them off this morning.”

  “Are they pretty?” Binh asked.

  Cuc shrugged. “I haven’t opened them yet. But Ma is eager to sell them. I’d better get going.” She pedaled off, her bicycle entering the throng of motorcycles and small cars on the highway.

  The sun rode low in the sky, and Binh still had one cup of fruit left.

  Binh’s father, Ba, and her older brother, Anh Hai, would come soon.

  If she sold enough, Ba might reward her with a small bill.

  “Mr. Nguyen!” she called to a man walking toward the stand. “Come for your pineapple.”

  Mr. Nguyen, who owned the hardware store, approached. “Is it nice and fresh?”

  “I’ve just cut it,” Binh lied. The pineapple had sat in the sun all day, flies feasting on the yellow juice.

  “Good.” He handed her the money, helped himself to a toothpick from the small jar, and strolled away, spearing a chunk of fruit.

  It wasn’t a bad thing to sell old fruit to Mr. Nguyen, Binh thought. He had enough money to go often to Ho Chi Minh City. He’d ride off on his motorcycle, and then a day or so later, a truck would come with rolls of wire or boxes of parts for his hardware store. If he wasted a little money at her cart, the loss wouldn’t hurt Mr. Nguyen.

  A Buddhist nun came by, with her shaved head and brown robe.

  Binh pressed her palms together and gave a little bow. On Sunday, she would light incense at the temple to make up for cheating Mr. Nguyen.

  Binh wiped the metal surface of the cart with a cloth. She put away the unsold bottles of soda. Finished, she scanned the highway for a sight of Ba and Anh Hai. The highway was lined with the red and yellow satin banners of the Communist government. Some banners had a yellow star, others a hammer and sickle.

  She looked down the road toward the motorcycle repair shop where Ba and Anh Hai worked, but couldn’t make out their motorcycle in the stream of others.

  Then she looked up the road as far as the large kiln where the Mai family manufactured bricks, a black cloud hanging above the chimney. Someday, she hoped to see more of what lay beyond that kiln.

  Once she’d traveled the highway on the back of a motorcycle with Anh Hai. He’d stepped hard on the pedal and they’d zoomed out of the village, until the spaces between the villages grew greater and neat rows of tea plants covered the hillsides.

  She’d held on to Anh Hai’s waist tight, filling her lungs with air from the huge blue sky and filling her head with memories of all she saw.

  The sun slid toward the horizon. Binh felt tired and wished she could walk home. But if she did, someone might steal the cart.

  Just as the vehicles turned on their lights, Ba and Anh Hai finally arrived. It wasn’t Ba’s motorcycle they rode, but one he’d borrowed from the repair shop.

  “How was business?” Ba asked, idling the motor.

  Anh Hai sat on the back, his fingers drumming the rhythm of his favorite new song.

  “I sold six cups of pineapple and twelve sodas,” Binh answered.

  “Good. That’ll buy some rice.”

  Binh was proud of the way she’d sold all of the fruit. She handed Ba the dong notes from her earnings.

  “Thank you, con
cung,” he said, and shoved the bills deep into the pocket of his pants. Even though Binh had turned nine at Lunar New Year and tended her own cart, Ba still called her “my spoiled little girl.”

  As Ba revved the motorcycle engine, Binh climbed into the space in front of Anh Hai, holding Ba around the waist.

  Anh Hai reached one hand behind him and took hold of the cart. Then they rode off down the road as traffic fumes billowed around them. Ba edged the motorcycle in and out of the traffic, the cart following after them like a duckling following its mother.

  Ba drove the motorcycle to the yard, where Anh Hai dropped the cart. Then he eased the motorcycle into the house, exhaust still pluming from the tailpipe. A motorcycle was safe inside.

  Mist rose from the river, which slipped along like a sleepy blue dragon. Misty wisps concealed the bamboo, then drifted aside to reveal the shapes of long stalks and sharp leaves.

  Ghosts lived in the thin fog. Binh’s grandmother, Ba Ngoai, told the story of how soldiers had shot their neighbors during the war. Ever since, the neighbors’ ghosts had wandered in the mist. Binh hurried across the yard to the house.

  As she drew closer, she noticed Ma and Ba Ngoai whispering together.

  When they saw her, they stopped their conversation. Ba Ngoai, barely taller than the motorcycle handlebars, folded her hands in front of her.

  “Dinner is ready, Daughter,” Ma said.

  Binh kicked off her sandals and went inside. She heard murmuring behind her as Ma and Ba Ngoai followed.

  Ba and Anh Hai entered too, dressed in their greasy work clothes, but with the sleeves rolled up and their hands freshly washed. They sat down on the floor mat, a steaming pot of noodles smelling of salty fish sauce in front of them.

  Binh waited until Ba Ngoai had taken her place on the high cushion, and until Ma had sat down, before sitting cross-legged herself.

  Ba and Anh Hai helped themselves to the food first, then handed the ladle to Ma, who spooned out a bowl of soup for Binh.

  Binh brought the fragrant, warm noodles close to her face. She drank deeply of the warm broth.

  When Ma reached across and dropped a bit of pork into Binh’s bowl, Binh ate it up quickly.

  After they’d finished and set the bowls and spoons in a large woven basket, Binh poured green tea into tiny porcelain cups.

  Ma passed a plate of sliced papaya.

  Normally after dinner, Ba and Anh Hai would go outside to sit under the arch of pink and white bougainvillea, smoking and watching the traffic. But tonight they stayed seated, even though dinner was over. Anh Hai unfolded the blades of his pocketknife and wiped each clean with the hem of his shirt.

  Binh noticed a gecko on the wall: frozen, its toes spread wide, its head cocked.

  The dying cooking fire popped.

  Instead of rising to tinker with the kitchen fire, making sure that it was safe yet would burn until morning, Ba Ngoai remained seated. She smoothed loose strands of her graying hair toward the bun at the back of her head.

  Binh shifted her legs. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, the air warm from the lingering heat of the day and the evening cooking fire. What was everyone waiting for?

  Suddenly, Ba Ngoai folded her hands in her lap, chaining them together, fingers locked. “I have important news. My daughter is coming to see me.” She pulled herself up very tall.

  Binh looked around the room. Daughter? Ma was right here. Whoever could Ba Ngoai be talking about? Was Ba Ngoai getting old and forgetful?

  Ma stared into the basket of dirty dishes. Shimmers of feelings Binh couldn’t name crossed Ma’s face.

  Ba let his black hair fall over his eyes.

  Anh Hai folded up the knife blades, snapping them in one by one.

  Binh realized that it was she Ba Ngoai was telling. Ba Ngoai had already shared this news with everyone else. “But Ba Ngoai”— Binh hesitated —“Ma is already here.”

  “Binh”— Ba Ngoai’s voice dropped —“I have another daughter.”

  The room was silent.

  “Another daughter?” Binh asked, sensing a good story. “Tell me about her, please, Ba Ngoai.”

  Ba Ngoai shifted on her cushion. “During the war, I was in love with an American soldier named William. He was very young, and so was I. We had a child together. I called her Thao.” Ba Ngoai closed her eyes and seemed to shrink.

  Binh had heard such stories. In the war against the North Vietnamese Communists — or as others would say, against the Americans — many South Vietnamese women had had children with American GIs. But Ba Ngoai? This was a story.

  Ba Ngoai opened her eyes. “William was transferred to Saigon. Maybe he died — I don’t know. I lost contact with him. But Thao stayed with me.”

  Like the gecko, no one in the room so much as blinked.

  “Things were very hard after the Americans lost and the Communists took power,” Ba Ngoai continued. “The country had been through decades of war. We had nothing to eat but grass and insects. The American government offered to take all children who had American blood. They offered adoption by good families. I gave Thao away.”

  Ba Ngoai’s head dropped to her chest. A tear ran down her cheek. “If I hadn’t sent my daughter, she might have died. News came that all babies who were part American would be killed by the Communists. The Communists hated the Americans. And Thao had such light hair. . . .”

  Outside, the traffic flowed as though nothing important was happening inside the house.

  Inside, Ba Ngoai talked of things Binh had never heard of. She leaned forward, not missing a word.

  Ba Ngoai cleared her throat. “I’ve tried not to think too much about Thao. She was five years old when she left. Thirty years have passed. Now, somehow she has found me. She wants to visit me.” Ba Ngoai looked up and smiled, her face wet with tears.

  Binh had never seen Ba Ngoai cry. She leaned closer. “When is your daughter coming?”

  “Next week. She is a teacher.” Again, Ba Ngoai sat taller. “Her two-week holiday begins next week. That is when she will come.”

  “What great news, Ba Ngoai.” Binh smiled up at the gecko. The outside world was coming to her. Things were changing. She imagined that even the solid land between the flowing highway and the flowing river had shifted.

  She placed both palms flat on the floor.

  For Binh, the best part of Lunar New Year in February was the letters that came from the American relatives. After the American War, when life had been hard under the new Communist government, relatives had escaped in fishing boats. Many had ended up in America.

  Now they wrote letters home.

  Binh always looked forward to hearing the news. Some news made sense: a wedding, a new baby, a death. Other news was strange: a job working with computers, a move to a different city, travel to countries outside America (but never to Vietnam).

  From the movies Binh watched at Café Video, she knew that Americans lived in sparkling new houses that never needed fixing. Americans wore beautiful new clothes that never needed mending. And all Americans went to school and learned all they wanted.

  Except when they were shooting each other. Some movies were full of gunfire and stabbings and men driving fast cars.

  Which was the real America? Binh always studied the relatives’ letters, looking for clues.

  She loved the feel of the thin blue paper, the envelope and letter one piece. She always ran her fingertip over the tiny American-flag stamp.

  Sometimes money dropped out of the envelopes: crisp green bills with faces of American men on them.

  Ba Ngoai always let Binh hold the money before she put it in her wooden box.

  Photos dropped out, too.

  Each year, Binh examined the faces of these strangers. None wore a cone-shaped hat. Their clothes were never missing buttons, nor were they torn. The men and boys had on suits like Mr. Luong, the town mayor; the women and girls wore pale-colored, ironed dresses. These relatives didn’t look like family. Nor did they loo
k like anyone in the movies.

  No family member who’d left had ever returned home.

  Now one was on her way. Coming soon. Binh placed her hand over her heart, feeling the dull thump under her blouse.

  After a while, Ma led Ba Ngoai to the corner of the room and unrolled Ba Ngoai’s sleeping mat.

  Ba Ngoai lay down, pillowed her head on an open hand, and closed her eyes.

  Binh lifted the basket of dirty dishes, which clinked against each other as she carried them out of the house, across the yard, to the river to wash.

  The mist hid the river under its damp veil, so Binh felt her way down the slope with her feet. Usually, she shivered at the thought of ghosts. But tonight she bubbled with such excitement that there was no room for fear. She squatted and set down the basket.

  As she dipped the first cup in the water, she held on to it tightly so she wouldn’t drop it. There was nothing steady in her tonight. She felt just as fluid as the water.

  Ba Ngoai had talked of Di Hai, her auntie, her mother’s older sister. Someone who could tell her many things about the world outside this little village.

  “Di Hai,” Binh whispered to the dark blue silk of the river, “please bring lots of stories when you come!”

  Word spread quickly among the relatives. Soon, Ba Ngoai’s remaining brother and three of her five sisters, Ba’s three brothers and two sisters, and all of their families, including Binh’s many cousins, gathered under the arch of bougainvillea and under the shade of the huge spreading tree.

  The white dogs and ducks wandered in and out of the conversations.

  Binh and Cuc sat on the low bench and listened. When Cuc wasn’t looking, Binh touched the sleeve of Cuc’s red dress.

  Ba’s elder brother, Second Uncle, who had a long, narrow beard, said, “Americans make more dong in an hour than we make in a whole year.”

  “You mean dollars,” said Fourth Aunt from her perch on a small plastic stool. “Thao is sure to bring dollars.”

  “Maybe she’ll bring money for all of us,” said Third Aunt, Cuc’s mother. “We’ll eat meat every night now.” The waistbands of her skirts always looked tight. Second Aunt had died in the war, but Third Aunt had never become Second Aunt.