The Eaves of Heaven

by Andrew X. Pham

  He was very frightened and couldn’t finish his dinner. He must have sensed that it was a lie, but he didn’t say anything. He looked more hopeful when we gave him back his khaki pants and white shirt. Near midnight, we led him outside for the first time in over a month since we captured him. We didn’t blindfold him, and it helped him settle down a bit.

  In the training course, my instructor said bodies of water had a calming effect on the condemned; a creek or a lake would do, but a river was best. They normally become more relaxed sitting by the river. And it was a good place to dispose of bodies. My leader said it was a kind way to kill someone. The prisoner didn’t know that he was going to die, so he didn’t suffer.

  Although the moon was empty, the starlight was bright enough for us to see by. It was a balmy night. You could hear the toads and crickets for many acres. At the river, my task force leader called for a rest stop, and we sat down on the grassy bank. The water was very dark and didn’t reflect the stars. I sat on your teacher’s right side, and one of my comrades sat on his left. Another holding a pistol stood two steps behind him. My leader watched us from farther away. This was only my second execution, but he allowed me to do it without blindfolding the prisoner.

  I gave your teacher a cigarette and lit one for myself. I asked him, If we let you go home tonight, are you going to tell anyone about us?

  No. Never. I’ll never tell your Aunties about this. You…

  Never mind that.

  Your teacher was tensing up, so my comrade started asking questions about his wife and kids. That took his mind off the situation. We chatted and finished our smoke.

  I pointed to a star in the sky in front of him. You see that star—the bright one that looks like it’s shifting colors a little bit around the edges?

  Yes, the bright one.

  Concentrate on it and make a wish.

  Yes…

  I stabbed his chest only once. He sprang backward without a cry. Even before I looked, I knew I did it right. I felt the blade go clean through. I pulled my knife out and wiped it on his shirt. His eyes were open, looking up at the sky. Blood gurgled out of his mouth. His body jerked. It took some time for him to die, but he didn’t make a sound the whole time. It was a good strike. I was happy that I performed my second execution even better than my first. I could have stabbed him again and ended it quickly, but that would have made another hole in his body. It would be messy. We watched him until he went still. My comrade checked his pulse and told us he was dead. We tossed his body into the river and went back to our cottage.

  I slept well that night, as I did after my first execution. I never had any problem sleeping. They were all guilty and they deserved to die.

  There was no God. We must be ready to judge.

  THE SOUTH

  MARCH 1968

  25. OLD FRIENDS

  In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, Saigon was silent, convalescing beneath a blanket of unseasonably cool air. It had been a harrowing escape. Downtown, the gunfire had quieted, though the occasional pitched whine of Cobra helicopters swooping low over rooftops could be heard. On the outskirts, there was still fighting, but at the city center, the streets looked almost tranquil. The normal hustle and bustle of morning traffic was absent. Very little trade traveled on the interprovincial roads. Merchants and farmers hadn’t started bringing their produce into the city yet. Shops stayed shuttered; the sidewalks were devoid of the omnipresent vendors. The shock of bloodshed was still fresh.

  I spent the morning mingling with a hundred other recalled officers in a cavernous waiting room at the army headquarters. We paced and milled about in various states of dejection and nervous dishevelment. One by one, our freshly pressed uniforms wilted with streaks of perspiration, despite the cool weather outside. The creaky ceiling fan mixed the odor of our fear-soured bodies with cigarette smoke and made one dispiriting cocktail.

  For the past two weeks, since the first night of the Tet Offensive, I had reported to headquarters and waited for my name to be posted on one of the bulletin boards. Some officers received their assignments earlier than others, but most, like myself, had the pleasure of sulking here for several weeks. The first few days saw a couple of comics trade jokes, but as dangerous posts began appearing on the board, we stopped laughing. A sense of doom straddled the backs of our necks. We chain-smoked, read newspapers, struck up gloomy conversations about the war, and jumped like startled rabbits at every announcement. It was a magnificent and utterly demoralizing waste of time. In the face of such sheer inept organization and bureaucracy, we had little hope our side would win.

  If I had had the money to buy an exemption from the first draft, I would have. If I could have avoided this second tour, I certainly would have. Six years of service had shown me too many foolish decisions made by corrupt politicians and inept brass. Good men followed orders and died. Inept men made lousy choices and got promoted. The honest suffered; the corrupt got rich. Putting your life in the hands of brave and intelligent commanders was one thing, but standing up to be cannon fodder for greedy fools was plain stupid. I had no faith in President Thieu, his generals, or even the seemingly well-intentioned Americans—the only people in this whole bloody mess who seemed to believe the South could actually win this war.

  After forcing down a plate of fried fish and rice for lunch at the cafeteria, I went outside to wait for an old schoolmate to pick me up. Thu was one of many friends and acquaintances I had contacted in hopes of finding the right connection to keep me from being sent to the front line.

  Thu pulled up to the main gate in a brand-new white Toyota Corona. Leaning over, he pushed the passenger door open, grinning as if we had a big night on the town in store. And he was dressed for it, too: a beige silk shirt, black pleated slacks, European leather shoes, a beautiful gold Omega watch, and a heavy gold necklace to match.

  “Where do you want to go?” I asked, worried that I couldn’t afford the places he frequented.

  “Not many places have reopened yet. You want to go to my house?”

  “Let’s go for ice cream on Le Loi. My treat.” It was difficult enough asking for help; I had no desire to beg in front of his wife.

  Thu sped down the road, bubbling with cheerful chitchat. We fell into the rhythm of old chums. I had always liked Thu. Jovial and accommodating, he was one of my closest school friends. We studied together during high school and the first two years of college. Unlike most of our old friends, he was posted in Saigon the whole time and knew all the gossip: who got married, who had the lucrative posts, and who was killed in battle.

  He stepped hard on the gas pedal, showing off the car’s acceleration. We zigzagged easily through the maze of avenues. Thu honked his horn and blew through the intersections without slowing down. The deserted boulevards were such a joy to drive on, we forgot what unsettling sights they were.

  Nguyen Hue and Le Loi Boulevards were built for commerce, laid out in the manner of famed French boulevards with dividing islands of grass and trees lining their entire length. When I first came to Saigon, the boulevards had a park-like atmosphere, their strips of greenery and flowery roundabouts as well tended as gardens. These days, the helter-skelter of unregulated development had taken over much of the city. The former jewel city of the French colonial empire was now a jumbled mess. It made me smile to think that in the French civil engineers’ wildest imaginations, they never conceived that their precious garden islands would be paved over and used as parking areas for motorbikes and bicycles. Drive down any major Saigon street and it was the same story, as if the moment the masters had left, the newly freed denizens seized the opportunity to assert their own imprints on the greater design.

  One aspect of Le Loi Boulevard remained the same: It was still the heart of Saigon, the favorite street for strolling. The stretch between Ben Thanh Market and the plaza was busy all day. Shady trees kept the extra-wide sidewalks pleasantly cool even in the summer. Restaurants, bars, and cafés spilled tables and chairs onto the sidewalk
. The stores sold luxury items, and the kiosks lined against the curbs carried cheap knockoffs and trinkets. Among the dealers, vendors, and agents, shoppers could find household appliances, furniture, motorbikes, European fashions, Vietnamese silk, army surplus items, exotic herbal potions, electronics, and just about everything else.

  High school and college students swarmed the shops and eateries. Couples window-shopped. American GIs paraded their young Vietnamese girlfriends decked out in outrageously sexy outfits. It was a peculiar sight. The French never did that in Hanoi or Saigon. They kept their association with Vietnamese girls behind closed doors—even with proper girls from good families. Few Frenchmen wanted to be seen in public holding hands with those from the servant class. It was refreshing and rather sweet to see the GIs and their girlfriends enjoying the city like everyone else.

  Normally, it was near impossible to find parking on Le Loi. Today, we could have parked a bus anywhere. Without a single fruit vendor on the sidewalks, it felt like a ghost town. Three or four cafés gamely opened their doors in a futile attempt to lure patrons from their homes. In the absence of its usual exuberance, the boulevard had an air of remorse. I picked the ice cream parlor at the corner of Le Loi and Pasteur because the Hanoian owner had a good collection of music. The sidewalk tables looked vulnerable on the deserted street, so we sat just inside the open shop front.

  “How are things going at the Customs Office?”

  Thu waved a negligent hand. “Same as always—as if nothing happened. My boss, the minister, believes life will be back to normal soon, since the attack clearly failed.”

  “Did he say anything about the war in general?”

  “He doesn’t know if we’ll win the war, but he said we will never lose unless the Americans let us lose.”

  “It could go on like this forever.”

  “Well, the Americans will put more responsibilities on our shoulders. They’ll still finance the war. They can’t stop until it’s over, and he thinks that will be a very, very long time from now. But they will try to cut down the number of body bags they send home.”

  “That’s my problem! I don’t want to be in the army for another six years. My luck won’t last. If I get sent to the front, they’ll be sending me home in a body bag within a few months.”

  “I understand. I’ll try to help you, old friend.”

  “I know there is no way I could get back into the Rural Development Program. Is there any chance you could get me a place in personnel or logistics?”

  “I don’t know anyone in army personnel, but several of the big brass owe me favors. You can afford to pay, right?”

  “My wife has a laundry business in Phan Thiet. If it’s not an outrageous amount, we’ll find a way to manage.”

  “It’s hard to find a good post right now. There are so many recalled guys trying to avoid combat units, you may have to take a mediocre post for now, and then change later.”

  It was true, but I could not help feeling disappointed. “I understand. Thanks. Just do the best you can.”

  “Sure, I’ll try. I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for me. I couldn’t have gotten through the first year at NIA if it hadn’t been for you.”

  I almost blurted out that I wished I had continued my studies at the National Institute of Administration with him. Thu had pleaded with me to stay. After two years of attending two universities concurrently, I left the school in 1958 to complete the more challenging degree in pedagogy. Pure pride. It was the worst decision in my life. Thu stayed on and graduated to become a department head at the Saigon Customs Office. With plenty of opportunities for dealings and kickbacks—common practices for civil servants in South Vietnam—he became very wealthy.

  The waitress brought Thu his three scoops of vanilla ice cream, his favorite since high school. I had a crème fraîche, which was whipped milk served with a preserved strawberry in a wide-mouth goblet. Creamy and mildly sweet, it never fails to bring back Hanoi memories, the cool afternoons I spent rowing alone on West Lake. Good old Johnny Mathis was crooning “A Certain Smile” over the speakers. Those adolescent days before the end of the French colonial era were, perhaps, some of my most peaceful moments. I remembered that I knew it then, even though I didn’t know what the future would bring.

  Thu noticed a man wearing sunglasses sitting at the rear corner of the shop. “Hey, that’s Dung.”

  “He’s too fat to be Dung,” I said.

  “It’s what happens when life’s good to you.” Thu chuckled and waved the man over to join us.

  Dung came, carrying his soda float. He was pale and paunchy like someone averse to physical exertions. He wore a sky blue pullover and dark navy slacks in the current hip style of Saigon, looking every bit the part of a savvy urban professional. Forty extra pounds lent him a sense of respectability. The double chin diminished his pronounced underbite. Faint, striated scars radiated from beneath the dark glasses.

  “Dung, remember Thong?” Thu asked, pulling out a chair for Dung.

  He sat down before extending his hand to me, as one might to a subordinate. He said, “Thong, you haven’t changed much.”

  “You changed a lot, Dung. I didn’t recognize you. You look like a very successful man.”

  “He’s a manager at the Department of Information and Propaganda,” Thu chimed in a tone that implied that they were equals.

  “That’s great. You’ve really made it big,” I said, trying to catch his eye behind the glasses.

  “Hmm.” He grinned. “You don’t look too bad yourself, Thong. You look very handsome in your uniform.” Dung chuckled loudly. The waitress and other patrons turned. Thu grimaced, but didn’t comment.

  I was taken aback. I hadn’t said anything to insult him. The backhanded joke caught me off guard. We all knew it was appalling luck for a college graduate to be drafted into the army. He must have known that I was fully aware of my underdog status, sitting in my crumpled army khakis next to two guys sporting fancy garb. More than ever, I loathed the way the uniform felt on me. It branded me as a member of the unprivileged class. I was one who could not avoid the army draft.

  Dung smirked. “All that studying didn’t pay off as well as you expected, did it?”

  I held my tongue, blood rising to my face.

  We were good friends once. I wondered how a person could change so much. What I saw before me clashed with my heroic image of him. For years, whenever I thought of him, I remembered a daring Dung wrapped in the red and gold of the South Viet Nam flag leading a charge into a fray of demonstrators, just moments before the bomb exploded and robbed him of his right eye.

  THE Nguyen Van Dung I knew was a colorful, charismatic figure, the most popular student in high school, central to the student body as well as the faculty. This was a monumental achievement considering the fact that he was short, bony, and dark skinned—an unflattering combination of attributes that would have relegated anyone else to the bottom rung of the social ladder. He had a thin face and a pugnacious underbite, the sort of tractor jaw that you wouldn’t want to crack your knuckles against.

  Dung was a single child in a devout Catholic family from the North. Before their migration south, they had a comfortable lower-middle-class life in Hai Phong, the primary seaport city for Hanoi. His father had been a warehouse clerk, his mother a produce seller at an open-sky farmers’ market. In Saigon, their livelihood was reduced to a tiny food stall at the neighborhood market. His father, like many northern or southern Vietnamese, could not find employment in Saigon’s trading, shipping, or warehousing industries, which were largely closed to non–ethnic Chinese Vietnamese.

  During the summer of 1955, Diem’s faction was preparing a referendum to overthrow Bao Dai and establish Diem, a Catholic, as head of state, in a campaign openly endorsed by the church. Dung’s father worked as a paid grassroots organizer in Diem’s political machine and later recruited his son into the group. Dung quickly became a Diem fanatic and star promoter who brought politics into our high schoo
l even though most students weren’t old enough to vote.

  During the first two months of our senior year, Dung rarely attended a full day of class. He was shuttled in and out of school like an important courier, picked up and dropped off by adult drivers in shiny cars. The teachers frowned, but dared not reprimand him. The rest of us sat miserable in our stifling classroom and thought how sweet it would be to thumb our noses at the teachers the way Dung did. There wasn’t a single one of us who wouldn’t trade places with him.

  He was a natural leader with a talent for winning key figures over to his side. It wasn’t difficult since Chu Van An was the most prestigious of the high schools set up for refugee boys. If some of the students and teachers weren’t pro-Diem, most of them, being northerners, were certainly anti-Communists. Dung had plenty of money, food, drinks, and even girls—party members from the girls’ schools. He made political activism hip, and we scrambled to volunteer in the campaign, march at rallies, and scuffle with Communist sympathizers at every opportunity.

  In Saigon, Election Day for an interim government came like a festival. Diem swept up 98 percent of the votes amidst charges of widespread fraud and intimidation. At our school, Dung threw a lavish party at the teachers’ lounge one evening and invited the faculty, girls from our sister school, and fifty of us who had contributed the most to the campaign. In spite of the school’s strict ban on alcohol, Dung made sure there was plenty of 33 beer. The schoolmaster had no choice but to turn a blind eye. Many teachers drank and mingled with the students at the swell back-patting event with Dung as the star.

  During the celebration, Dung took me aside. We went out and stood in the courtyard to sip our beers, thumbs hooked on our belts like adults. It was a splendid feeling to be on the winning side for once.

  “Thong, I wanted to thank you for helping us with the speeches. They were fantastic.”