The Eaves of Heaven

by Andrew X. Pham

  We stayed with Stepmother’s parents and her sister, ten people in a single army tent. There were roughly one hundred such tents in our site alone. With more than six hundred refugees, the camp quickly fell into disarray and filth. Children yelled and shouted, playing from morning to night. Babies cried all day long. People squabbled over space. Laundry lines were strung up between tents. Foot traffic kicked up a permanent dust fog.

  Within a week, several other camps sprung up in the vicinity to accommodate the flood of people pouring in from the North. Folks rushed back and forth between the camps looking for friends and family. Later arrivals told harrowing tales of being evacuated by rail to the port city Hai Phong and going south by ships. The Communists had organized demonstrations and blockades to prevent people from leaving the North. Strangers pulled refugees from trains and buses. As more people tried to flee the North, the Communist government detained whole families on fraudulent charges.

  Hearing their stories, Stepmother kept saying how lucky we were to be among the first wave to go south, and to have a decent tent at a camp with bus access into Saigon. Father smiled and quoted an old Viet adage, “Be the first to arrive at a feast, the second to cross a river.”

  But Saigon, from our sad perspective in the refugee camp, could hardly be called a feast. Among us boys, my cousin Tan was the most depressed. Although he hadn’t said a word to the family, his grumpiness spoke volumes about his feelings. We were crammed into the tent so tightly that there was only a small aisle down the middle. At dusk, swarms of mosquitoes descended into the camp, and we spent most of the night sitting inside our nets. During the day, the tents were like ovens. I got dizzy if I stayed inside for longer than five minutes, but outside wasn’t much better. There wasn’t a single tree to provide relief from the heat. The best we could do was clear a patch of ground beneath some bushes and collapse beneath the paltry shade, panting like dogs through the midday hours.

  Weeks went by, each day worse than the last. The few wooden latrines at the back of the camp began to reek so bad, no one could use the cooking and washing area nearby. It became a serious health issue. People had to resort to relieving themselves in the bushes, and it didn’t take long before the entire area became a stinking mess. Sewage formed black pools of rot around the compound. People began to fall ill.

  Tan bussed into Saigon daily, but couldn’t find work. I tried enrolling in several schools in nearby towns without success. Baby Hoang and our little sister Huong fell sick. Father gave up looking for work. Stepmother did her best to keep things going, but we all knew that unless we left the camp soon, someone would become critically ill.

  A month after arriving in the camp, Father rented a small shop-house with his brother-in-law Uncle Ty. Our two families of eleven people shared the two-room house, cooking and eating together for four months until Uncle Ty bought a modest house. The influx of northern refugees was forcing property prices up steadily, so Father finally had to buy a house while he could still afford one.

  Our new home was a wooden shop-house, twenty feet wide and forty feet long. It had a clay-tile roof, a packed-dirt floor, and a small open loft at the center of the house. Being right on the market square, there was always the reek of rotten vegetables, fish, meats, and garbage. On a hot day, it was like living in the middle of a city dump, and even a light rain would leave the street muddy for a day or two. But once it was dry, vendors would wash their stalls and platforms, and the runoff would return the street to its normal muddy state. During the monsoon, it was a hopeless, knee-deep pond.

  Father hired a drunken cook from Hai Phong and turned the front room of the house into a noodle shop. Business was poor at the start and worsened continually. Belatedly, he realized that the market was too small, servicing only the local neighborhoods. Father didn’t dare close the shop because street vendors would claim the space in front of our house, blocking our door and making it difficult to sell the house or reopen another business. The street vendors paid gang protection money, so it would be impossible to evict them once they settled in. We could do nothing but continue to live in our smelly shack and watch our savings trickle away.

  In Hanoi, even our servants had better living quarters. It seemed amazing to me, the distance we had fallen within the span of five short years, from living like princes to eking out a living in a mud hole serving noodles. Stepmother, who came from a wealthy family, endured the hardship courageously without a single complaint. I decided that if she could bear it, so could I. My little sister Huong was only five years old, and baby Hoang was two. My brothers Hung and Hong were in their early teens, too young to fully comprehend our predicament.

  The person who fared most poorly was my cousin Tan.

  “It’s a spiraling descent,” Tan told me when we were alone. “We will keep going down and down. It’s time we look out for ourselves and find a way out of here.”

  Tan’s refusal to work created an embarrassing and awkward situation for Father. While the whole family pitched in to make ends meet, Tan left to look for employment downtown. He came home only to eat and sleep, avoiding even the smallest task because he considered the noodle business beneath our station. Tan told me several times that he couldn’t believe Father had put us in this dump while he had enough money for a decent house like Uncle Ty’s. Tan talked about joining the armed forces like his half-brother Lang, who enlisted in the navy after arriving in Saigon with Aunt Thuan and her children.

  “I can’t leave my family,” I said. “I want to finish high school and go to college.”

  “I’m going to look for work as a secretary or clerk.”

  I wished Tan luck, but I thought it was hopeless. He was still thinking like a rich kid. Tan would never stoop to restaurant, construction, or any other manual labor. But in a way, I was thinking like a rich kid as well; I was expecting that I would have the time and leisure to study.

  “You still have hope because we haven’t hit the bottom yet,” Tan said and laughed with a sneer.

  I had to turn away to hide the blood rising to my face. It was a controlled staccato laugh filled with disdain. Tan and I were closer than brothers, best friends since we were toddlers, but there were times I could barely keep my fist from smashing into his face.

  Two months after we received our Tu Tai 1 diplomas for graduating from the eleventh grade, a major achievement at the time, Tan successfully enlisted in the air force. He was following in the footsteps of his older half-brother Lang. Tan left immediately for basic training and vanished from our lives.

  A LETTER came from Tan one afternoon. My landlady gave it to me when I returned from my classes. I took it down to the beach, where I now swam daily. The evening fishermen hadn’t stirred from their naps to prepare their boats. A group of children played on a wrecked skiff far to the south. I sat on the sand and opened the letter. There was a photograph of Tan, grinning, the Eiffel Tower in the background. Tan said he wasn’t tall enough to be a pilot so they transferred him to Morocco for aircraft mechanic training. It was the time of his life. A virgin when he left home, Tan was now drinking whisky, dancing in clubs, and sleeping with bar girls. Women were fantastic, he wrote; not all of them were like the working girls we had seen up north. He urged me to start dating. He said life was passing me by. It made me chuckle to imagine Tan carousing in the bars, wrist-deep in cards, a girl on his arm, behaving like one of the drunken French soldiers we had had to deal with at our inn in Hanoi.

  I often thought of him when I came down to the beach. Before coming to Phan Thiet, I had seen the sea only once. Tan and I were fifteen then and had ridden a bus all the way from Hanoi to Do Son on the shore of Ha Long Bay. A gray, blustery day of needling rain, we stood on the wind-teased beach and compared the churning, frothing ocean before us against what we had read in Moby-Dick and we were deeply impressed.

  “There is much ugliness, but there is also much beauty in this world,” my mother had once said, she who spent most of her days in her garden reading poetry written
worlds away.

  Mother had taught me that the eaves of heaven had a way of turning in cycles, of dealing both blows and recompenses. For every devastating flood, there followed a bountiful crop. For every long stretch of flawless days, there waited a mighty storm just below the horizon. For every great sorrow, there was a great happiness to come.

  I stripped down to my shorts and walked into the tickling surf. Floating in the calm sea, a vast blue above me, I was filled with a cozy, billowy warmth. It was the same sensation I had as a boy whenever Mother looked at me. She had smiling eyes; it was a pleasure to be within her sight. It seemed like only last week. It had been seven years since she passed away after childbirth.

  She was still watching over me. This I knew. I had the feeling that I hadn’t stumbled upon this place and this peace at all, but rather it was something Mother had guided me to, something good to help me hold the course against what would come; like giving a traveler a drink of water before a long, difficult passage.

  THE NORTH

  1942

  4. MOTHER

  My mother was born one province over to the west. She came from a more prestigious and even wealthier line than my father. Her uncle was a county chief. Her cousin was a senator, and her parents were both scholars. She had a mandarin upbringing, but she was uniquely modern in a time when most girls were limited to a primary education. She was fluent in French and the classic Vietnamese Nom script. Her passions were Vietnamese and French literature, poetry, and theater. When she came of age, her parents were certain that she needed to marry a modern, educated nobleman who wasn’t a political fanatic—it could have meant disaster and death in even that relatively peaceful colonial period.

  In his early dashing days, Father was very much a man of the city, fluent in French and passionate about French poetry, French cuisine, French wine, Western theaters, Charlie Chaplin movies, and motorcycles. He was a devoted enthusiast of various European pleasures the colonial French made accessible to their supporters and the rich Vietnamese ruling class. His parents hoped that a wife and family would force their youngest son into maturity and wean him from the city’s seductive pleasures. When they told him firmly that it was time for him to marry or have his allowance curtailed, he yielded, but vowed that he would never marry a girl with blackened teeth. It was the one modicum of modernity he required of a wife. His father looked to his mother, who, like most women of her generation, had lacquered her teeth at fifteen with calcium oxide—black onyx-like teeth had long been a vanity of the local women. His mother simply nodded and said, “If he prefers a white rotting smile, so be it.”

  They were introduced by a professional matchmaker and blessed by monks. The initial contacts between the families went well, and when they actually met, neither found the other repulsive. In fact, they found each other to be intelligent and pleasant. They weren’t in love, but as the popular wisdom said, love would come in time. After a few auspicious meetings, they wedded. A year later, I was born. My two brothers followed a few years behind. Having fulfilled his filial obligations of marriage and siring male heirs, Father strayed back to Hanoi and the high life he had enjoyed as a bachelor. Mother was left to raise three boys and manage the estate alone.

  For years, Father divided his time between Hanoi and the country estate. Every time he left, Mother was very sad. His return was always an occasion to celebrate. Father always brought gifts for everyone, Mother, aunts, and cousins included. There were French biscuits, cloth, chocolates, and magazines for the women. Father gave my brothers and cousins toys, but he gave me three books that turned me into an avid reader: Gulliver’s Travels, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Voyage to the Moon.

  Once he brought Mother a beautiful phonograph. It was a compact, well-crafted machine, housed in a polished wooden box. The lid was embossed with golden letters and had a picture of a dog sitting in front of a phonograph, head canted to the flaring flower-shaped speaker. Inside, the hand-cranked turntable was covered with dark blue felt. It had a chrome-plated arm with a diamond-tipped needle.

  The first day he brought it home, Mother invited all the Aunties, nieces, nephews, and staff to the house for after-dinner tea. Father and Uncle Thuan were considered too serious for such fun. Mother didn’t invite them, so everyone else could relax and enjoy the party. We sat on mats on the porch and in the garden. Gardener Cam lit some paper lanterns and hung them on the trees. We stuffed ourselves with cookies, candies, and cakes, and listened to the phonograph. Mother played Vietnamese ballads and French songs one after another. It was one of the finest nights because I remembered Mother smiling and laughing a lot.

  Mother was happy whenever Father came home, and she tried her best to make his stay pleasant, hoping that it might keep him there longer. During one of his visits, I overheard them talking in the sitting room. It was right after supper, when Father liked to have his tea.

  Mother said, “Things are chaotic all over the country. You should be home helping your big brother.”

  “He has been governing the domain fine without my help.”

  “It’s not the same anymore. There are robberies everywhere. The roads have become very dangerous since the Japanese invasion. When the soldiers come, it’s to requisition our rice and conscript men for the Japanese. Law and order are the least of their concerns. They only care about conquering Asia.”

  “I know, but Big Brother Thuan hasn’t asked for my help.”

  “He expects you to volunteer. Don’t you know the villagers sound the temple bell in the middle of the night, once or twice a week? Big Brother Thuan has to take his gun and guards into the villages to chase off the robbers. Some days, he gets so exhausted he has to cancel half the arbitration cases.”

  “He should teach the villagers how to fight for themselves.”

  “They’re farmers. They’re peaceful people. It’s not in them to fight, and Big Brother Thuan can’t hold off all the bad elements alone. It would be good to have you here to assist him.”

  “Why should I? He always treats me as though I’m incompetent.”

  “He’s ten years older than you. You shouldn’t feel offended about it.”

  “I don’t like working under him.”

  “You could stay home and help me manage our own estate.”

  “What will I do here? You’re managing very well, and everybody likes you. You don’t need my help.”

  “Just having a husband at home makes all the difference,” she said softly. “It’s very hard seeing you only once every other month. The highway is getting more dangerous too. I get very worried thinking about you traveling back and forth like this.”

  “As you said, this is a time of turmoil. I think it’s better if I stayed in the city where I can blend in with the crowd. Here I stand out like a big fish in a small pond. If things turn bad, the big fish will be the first target. Besides, it’s not good to leave our villa in Hanoi empty in this unsettled time.”

  “Cousin Chinh is there; he can look after our villa for us.”

  “I can’t trust that playboy to manage anything.”

  “Then the children and I will come live with you in the city. We had some good times there, didn’t we? Remember our dinner parties?”

  “Yes, yes, but it’s not a good idea now. You’re the manager of our estate. Your sisters-in-law need you.”

  “Not as much as I need you.”

  “Let’s not talk about this anymore. I want to look into some businesses in Hanoi in case things become too unstable in the countryside. There are many opportunities in Hanoi now that the Germans control the French in Europe, and the Japanese control the French here.”

  “You prefer the city. There’s nothing at home to amuse you.”

  Father did not reply. He left the following day. There were rumors, of course, that he had a mistress in Hanoi.

  THE SOUTH

  1959

  5. DALAT DAYS

  Morning mist smothered the trees. The sky was overcast, threatening rain. I came t
o bid her farewell at the Dalat train station. It was perched on a wooded hillside at the edge of town—a two-room brick cottage with a concrete platform. Higher up the slope, the stationmaster’s shack listed to one side like a doting guard. At the far end of the landing, a pair of traders unloaded burlap sacks from an oxen-drawn wagon. The train was nowhere in sight, its empty track stretching off into the still, white haze.

  Anh waited for me at the long bench under the eaves of the station house. In her hands, the ticket that would take her back to school in Saigon. She sat on a handkerchief, the rear hem of her lavender ao dai folded over her lap. When I stepped onto the platform, she rose and extended both her hands. Anh was slender, quite tall for a Vietnamese girl, and had sharp cat-eyes. She didn’t say hello, or ask how I was—she never did. Instead, Anh took my hands in greeting, dipped a little curtsy, and smiled the smile that won me from the first moment. It was the sort of smile that glittered as if she had something precious to share, that coming upon me was a well-anticipated encounter, the most pleasant part of her day. It was entirely unguarded. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a smile like that. Perhaps, I thought, it was because I was a northerner, and I knew northerners were incapable of such unrestrained expressions.

  “Your dress fits you beautifully,” I said, careful not to compliment her directly. That would have been too forward. I didn’t know how she managed to wear a different dress every time we met.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And you look good in your uniform.”

  Last year, after my summer in Phan Thiet, I had returned to Saigon and enrolled in the Institute of Administration. Students who passed their freshman exams were sent to the military academy in Dalat for basic training. It was a simple summer program aimed at providing future graduates of the Institute of Administration an excuse from military service.