The Eaves of Heaven (5 page)

Mother gathered her three boys around her on the divan and let us eat our fill. We gorged ourselves until our bellies hurt. Two-year-old Hong and four-year-old Hung groaned and fell asleep in her lap. She smiled at me. My mother had the full round face of the alluvial-plain women. When she smiled, her whole face beamed. I liked the way she coiled her long black hair around the crown of her head. I leaned my head against her arm, in my belly a fat, warm, bright feeling. I was so very happy that Father had decided not to come home for the festival. I looked up at Cuoi, the mythological boy in the moon. He showed himself clearly tonight, fishing and playing his flute beneath the
da
tree.

A gentle calm settled over the garden. People sat on straw mats and watched the silver orb as if it were a moving-picture show. Moonlight fell like fairy dust on the earth, the dark trees, the paddy-sea, on the upturned faces of the rich and the poor alike. Ever so slowly, the moon drew away, higher and higher, its features blurring in the distance.

Night snuggled around the waning party, and at last, it was time for
Quan Ho,
the lovers’ serenade. Folks drifted into the garden and seated themselves before the moonlit pond. Two choirs of nervous teenagers aligned themselves, boys to one side, girls on the other. Gangly lads tugged at their tunics, elbowing rivals. Panicky coughs. Abruptly they belted out the first chorus, crackling voices going in several directions at once. Line by line, they sorted themselves and found their momentum. Older boys crowed in their newly found baritones, singing for the audience, but trying to catch the girls’ eyes. As slight as spring vines, the girls, soon to be women, listened intently to the riddle posed, then huddled together, whispering, searching for a witty reply to be sung in equal rhymes. Hand in hand, they gathered themselves and released their winsome voices. They soared, trilling and spinning on threads of meanings. Back and forth, the village youths declared their adoration, flirting with wit, with improvised poetry, with ancient verses. Tradition led them with the lyrics of love, fidelity, obedience, and obligations. Grandparents and wizened elders smiled, for they too remembered wooing and being wooed beneath the Mid-Autumn Moon.

THE NORTH
1942

7. S
EA
G
RUBS

I remembered there was a fortnight after the Autumn Harvest Moon when the edges of the sea thickened. That brief season saw many boats moored or hauled up for repairs. Fisher-folk rose in the violet night. The sea was hatching its lemon-hued grubs,
roui,
by the billions. Centipedes with tan lines running their inch-long backs churned the sandy bay. At the first light of dawn, folks waded into the soupy tidal marsh and simply scooped up
roui
in bamboo baskets. It was a crop that perished by noon.

Harvests, plantings, and seasonal delicacies marked country life and so it often seemed as if we had waited the whole year for the
roui
vendors to arrive at our door. The women had sat on buses all morning to rush their catch to us by midday. In the baskets, the top layer of grubs had died, their fragile casings spilling custard-like cream that congealed into a gooey brown sheet. Vendors dug beneath the surface for the live grubs.
Roui
was sold by the bowlful, thick as oatmeal.

Mother always came down into the kitchen to prepare her special
roui
patties. In a great bowl big enough to feed everyone in the estate, she beat eggs together with
roui,
grated mandarin orange peels, chopped shallots, and strips of black wood mushrooms, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and added clear noodles to hold the mixture together.

The moment she ladled the batter into the hot oil pan, everyone abandoned their chores and ambled to the kitchen. The scent of fried
roui
patties was irresistible. It woke the little ones from their naps and drew all us children, young and old, from our games. We crowded around the hot pan, jostling, begging, whining like pups and threatening to overturn the hot pan until we were fed.

There was no waiting for mealtime; folks devoured
cha roui
the instant it was ready. Such was its precious urgency. The men savored
cha roui
with pickles and rice wine. Mother and the Aunties ate
cha roui
rolled inside lettuce leaves and dipped in a mild lime-chili fish sauce. I loved mine hot and crunchy right from the pan. Crispy outside, soft and moist within, these were our custard pastries, our peasant’s seafood puffs.

It was incomparable, a singular taste that encapsulated my childhood in its entirety. Somewhere between the tangy mandarin and the sweetly caramelized shallots lay the essence of our misty, dark Ha Long Sea, a flavor I have not found anywhere else in the world.

THE SOUTH
1959

8. S
AIGON
N
IGHT

C
ho Lon, Saigon’s Chinatown, was also its nightlife hub. Although the Great World was no longer in business, peace and the influx of foreign investments had brought a profusion of bars, clubs, inexpensive eateries, dim sum shops, and cafés into this part of the city. There were hundreds of places to have a good time on a student budget.

The Saturday after the exams midway through my sophomore year in college, I took Anh out with my three best buddies and their girlfriends. Anh and I had been dating six months since I came back from Dalat. She knew all my friends’ girlfriends.

We went to our favorite nightclub on the seventh floor of the Dong Khanh Hotel.

Thu, Ha, Tat, and I had been friends since our high school in Saigon. Thu was a pudgy joker and fantastic dancer whose presence was required at every outing. Ha was the nice guy, pole-thin and at six-foot ridiculously tall for a Vietnamese. Tat was Mr. Handsome. The girls were crazy for his round, deep-set eyes, high-bridged nose, and curly hair. I was the bookish one.

The club was packed because there was no cover charge and the drinks were cheap. The girls wore both traditional and European dress while the boys were in the standard dark slacks and white long sleeves. We danced the waltz, rumba, tango, cha-cha, and even did the twist for hours.

While the girls ran off to freshen their makeup, the guys sipped beers around a table at the back of the club. As usual, the conversation was about the future. There was no need to talk about the past because we were all northerners from well-to-do families—and because it was depressing.

Before the Japanese invasion, Tat’s father was an official in the administration under the French. After the French were removed, the whole administrative system came under the Tran Trong Kim regime, a puppet government set up by the Japanese. Tat’s father quickly rose in rank. In the South, he was retained, as were many former Tran officials, by the Diem administration. He became a department manager in the Ministry of Justice and earned a comfortable living.

Ha and Thu were both from the upper merchant class. While Thu’s father was able to salvage part of his wealth before leaving Hanoi, Ha’s father lost everything. Thu’s family restarted a moderate life in the South. Ha’s family lived off their meager savings. Having lost his will to live along with his fortune, Ha’s father spent his remaining days reading novels in bed.

But we were young and did not see ourselves as poor. Tat, Ha, and I were in our second year at Saigon University, pursuing our degrees in pedagogy. I was also attending the government’s Institute of Administration with Thu, who was my study partner at the college. He knew I wanted to pursue a teaching career and was trying to convince me to stay with the administration program.

“You’ve passed basic training in Dalat. The rest is easy,” Thu said. “All you have to do is finish the program and you’ll be exempted from military service.”

Tat snorted. “The country is fine. Besides, if he becomes a teacher, he’d be exempted as well.”

“I’d drop one program if I were you,” Ha said. “You know what happens when you try catching two fish with two hands.”

Tat, Ha, and I thought that there was no prestige in being a paper pusher in the government’s bureaucracy. We were stuck in the old mindset that saw honor in pursuing the difficult paths, and one of those was teaching. I was doing very well in both schools and was intoxicated by my own abilities. I could not see beyond my success.

The girls returned from the WC and ordered a round of iced teas. Ha’s girlfriend, Loan, was gregarious and always tried to please others with her compliments.

“You’re very handsome, Tat! I think you would look fabulous in photos,” Loan gushed, trying to flatter him. She turned to the other girls. “Don’t you think he could be a French movie star?”

They giggled, nodding with Loan, but Tat flinched, his features hardening.

“I wish I had your nose,” Loan crooned, mistaking his reaction for shyness. “I could be a famous singer, even with my voice!”

Tat snapped, “Shut up! You’re just a peasant. What do you know about anything!”

He brushed her off his arm. I could see he was on the verge of striking her. Tat stomped across the crowded dance floor and out the door without saying good-bye, leaving his date, Bich, without a word. Loan gasped, looking at us. Ha shook his head, telling her never mind. Loan burst into tears. The girls gathered around her. Thu, Ha, and I glanced at each other; none of us wanted to explain it to the girls. Ha offered to take Loan and Bich home. Thu put his arm around Lien, shrugged, and said it was getting late.

It was past 1:00 in the morning when Anh and I took a cyclo back to her uncle’s house. It was a modest single-level home in the residential maze of a middle-class neighborhood. There was a brick courtyard and garden behind the picket fence. I had never seen the inside of the house. Her uncle was a high school counselor and didn’t approve of premarital relations between boys and girls.

The moon beamed from high overhead. Anh fumbled with her purse. She had forgotten her keys and was afraid of waking her uncle. I couldn’t take her back to my house. This was not the proper way to treat a girl. Besides, my father already expressed his disapproval of Anh and me dating. I was in a quandary. There was no all-night diner, and taking her to a hotel would have compromised her reputation.

We lingered indecisively at the gate under the arch trellis with blue ivy blooms draping over us, the pale moon on her arm. A sense of fullness welled within me, a sort of engulfing warmth. I wanted to share this feeling with her. I wanted absolutely to be with her. I gathered her into me. She was supple within the circle of my arms.

“I have an idea,” I whispered. “Are you feeling adventurous?”

Anh nodded, grinning. Her trust was empowering.

I took her hand and we fled down the moonlit alley, her heels a flurry of clacks. A dog barked. We could have been the last souls left in the city. She giggled into my ear. I inhaled the scent of her.

A cyclo driver was waiting on the main street. I told him our situation and made a proposition: an all-night tour of Saigon in his cyclo for the price of a hotel room—three times what he would have normally earned. He smiled and dismounted to tilt down the cab for Anh.

Entrusting ourselves to a stranger, we floated deeper into the night, delighted. In ponderously slow strokes, he pedaled toward the city center, and then looped around the grand cathedral, the government buildings, and the commercial avenues. Saigon was flat, lush with tall trees; the night air fragrant with blooms. It was like going through an immense tropical park, the asphalt streets, fluid in their emptiness, like canals. We sailed through the city unimpeded. It was strange to know there was no French gendarme to stop and question our movement—a liberty I never knew in Hanoi. Saigon was at peace, without fears. We did not even own the privacy of four walls, but there was an impression of wealth as if the city was truly ours.

Down by Ben Thanh Market, merchants were preparing for the coming day. We ate coconut tapioca pudding and sipped hot soy milk among laborers at a roadside stand near the market. He brought us down to the quay where a dozen cyclos had gathered by the river. Slouched in their cabs, exhausted drivers slumbered. One young man strummed a guitar, his cohorts drowsily humming along. A bottle of rice wine was being passed among them. We dallied, watching them for a few songs, then moved onward. Our chain-smoking cyclo-man enjoyed rolling in the night breeze.

Anh asked me why Tat was so upset. I said he didn’t like being reminded of his family’s secret. He would never admit that he had foreign blood.

“It’s not a big thing,” Anh whispered.

“It is for people of our parents’ generation,” I said.

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“When I first met Tat through Ha in high school, I asked Tat why his hair was so curly. We were riding our bicycles. Tat kicked my bike so hard I fell over. I would have punched him right then, but Ha stepped in and calmed us down. We almost became enemies from the start.” I took a deep breath, still not sure if Tat had forgiven me for that unintentional slight. “I didn’t know Tat’s mother had given up a half-French son for adoption.”

“Tat’s younger brother is very handsome. The first time I met him, I thought he was European.”

“We are free now, but the older generations had to live under colonial rule. It was common for French bosses to have affairs with the wives of their Vietnamese subordinates. Sometimes, it was coerced. Sometimes, men offered their wives or even their daughters to their bosses to advance their careers.”

Talking about it made me sad for our country and our people. It stirred up a slew of old feelings and made me feel dirty. How had generations of colonialism reduced us? How had we reduced ourselves? Are we doing that still?

Anh fell silent. She curled into me, drawing her legs over mine. The hems of her
ao dai
draped us like a blanket. The cyclo lurched over a small pothole. The night felt tender, fragile. I couldn’t help but hope for a better future.

She rested her head on my shoulder, eyes lulled closed by the cyclo’s gentle rocking. I was intensely aware of the warmth of her body. I wondered what she saw in me. Anh had many suitors more wealthy and accomplished than me, but she chose to wait patiently throughout our long courtship, six months of ice cream parlors, cafés, and dance halls. It was not customary for a woman to initiate talk of commitment or of a future together. To venture beyond cuddles and kisses was to enter the realm of matrimony—something unimaginably irresponsible for a college student, so far from success, working several jobs to help support his family.

I held her hands. She had long fingers, the palms coarse, hands unafraid of work. Anh opened her eyes and smiled the same smile that won me from the first moment. I knew then I would not give her up, that when the time was right I would ask for her hand. With the decision came a liberating sensation, that of falling.

The sky was dark, but you could feel the shift toward dawn even before the eastern horizon changed. Downwind from the
pho
shop, the cool air was laced with the reassuring aroma of beef soup.