The Eaves of Heaven (10 page)

THE NORTH
1945

14. F
AMINE

From that dark swath of sun-drunken days, I remembered the naked trees by the dried ponds, their barks eaten; the roadside cadavers with blackened mouths; and the Walkers, those wind-withered women, breasts like empty sacs, those beaten men, their shame-rotted eyes, and the spider children of bloated bellies and spindly limbs. The moans of hunger, the wails of grief besieging our walls that the decades could not drown.

I remembered kicking a skull. There were many. My friends and I picked one that was detached from a body. It was round enough to roll like the grapefruits we once used. Bouncing across the dirt, it had no human feature. Ravens had picked the eye sockets clean.

Shouts and shrieks of laughter. We played barefoot soccer in the cracked, dusty paddies among the dancing flies and the cawing crows as the sky spun round a hot dangling sun.

This was a bone yard, here to the horizon. There was nothing to fear. Death was not found on a corpse—nothing left but a shell. Its reflection came to the faces of the doomed. Death had a sour spoor. It had a vibration. It revealed itself during the crossover.

How many grains of rice separated us from the dying?

These were the bitter seeds of indignity.

THE NORTH
1945

15. T
HE
F
AMINE
S
OUP

T
here were roughly a dozen mouthfuls of rice in a bowl of famine soup, give or take a spoon. The broth was watery and faintly seasoned with salt. At the best of times, it contained a few beans or peanuts.

Before things became truly scarce, the estate cooks added yam to the soup, making it more nutritious. Eventually, when the supply of yam ran short, they substituted manioc, which made people dizzy; some vomited. And then they used bran, the livestock feed, to supplement the soup. Though at the very end when the number of refugees had grown tenfold, when the soup could no longer be given twice a day, there was nothing left to go into the pot but rice, water, and salt.

A single bowl a day. Who could be sustained by so little?

When Tet came that year, there was no celebration. The harvest had been poor for several seasons. Still, the Japanese army forced farmers to grow jute on fertile land for its war efforts, and then requisitioned what little rice the fields yielded. People resorted to eating their seed stock and so had nothing to sow for the next planting. Many abandoned their homes in search of food, but by mid-spring it was too late. Word came that starvation had also descended upon the cities. Refugees lost hope and stopped walking. There was no point in walking to more hunger; nor were there rewards in scouring the fields and streams for food. No amount of work, scavenging, or begging could fill their bellies.

Everything had suddenly become scarce. It was the famine’s strangest phenomenon. Fruits, vegetables, edible roots, and critters simply vanished. Refugees razed the land, eating grass, vines, wild fungi, leaves, and tree bark. Any creature they caught, they devoured: insects, reptiles, rodents, and birds. People dragged the creeks and ponds with fine nets, straining the waterways of even tiny fish, frogs, crabs, and snails. The populace’s hunger disrupted the food chain at every level. Without the small creatures, the larger creatures starved. Save the carrion eaters, nearly every animal under the heavens went hungry.

The village market mirrored what was happening in the fields and streams. Vendors had fewer and fewer things to sell. Fresh fish and meat disappeared first, followed by staples, such as salted fish, pickled goods, and rice. Half a year after the initial signs of famine, there was nothing left to sell. The market was deserted. Villagers hoarded food. They had become infected with the fear of hunger.

So, poor as it was, our rice soup still drew so many from distant domains that all available hands at the estate were required to manage the throng during feeding time. When the crowd grew too large and uncontrollable, Uncle Thuan devised a way to feed them in three separate groups. The strongest and most aggressive always pushed themselves to the front to form the first group to be allowed into the outer courtyard where the soup cauldron was kept. They yelled and bickered, men shoving aside women and children to get ahead. Thin and filthy from weeks without bathing, they came as a thick, roiling mass of jostling bodies and arms, mobbing the cauldron. The cooks could merely ladle soup into the bowls thrust at them as fast as they could. Fights broke out, and the guards had to cane the brawlers as though they were animals.

Once this group received their food, the guards ushered them into the next courtyard, where they were allowed to eat. The second group entered and was fed in the outer courtyard. These two groups were not allowed outside until the last group was fed, because they were strong enough to take food from those too weak to defend themselves.

While the men of our estate watched the Walkers in the courtyards and made sure none sneaked into another part of the estate, the women and the older children went outside to feed the ones too weak to go inside for the soup. There were dozens. Many were probably beyond help, but no one could bear to see them go without food. They lay on the ground with only a small basket or earthen bowl. They were too weak to carry their luggage, having dropped their last belongings somewhere along their journeys. They were ghastly thin and many had open sores on their bodies. Their limbs had atrophied to the point where they could no longer stand or even hold on to a bowl of soup. Their breathing was shallow and irregular. They shivered in the hot afternoon.

They had a terrifying scent. It wasn’t the smell of putrefying living flesh or that of a decomposing cadaver one might find on the side of the road. It was a very distinct odor, one I had found only on those caught deep in the long course of starvation. This was the very scent of death. It emanated dampness and decay, and it was everywhere.

U
NCLE
Thuan summoned our relatives and the rich families in the domain to assist him in feeding the refugees. Many responded. Those who could not donate food sent men to help with the soup kitchen, and those who could not afford either came themselves. The most dedicated among these were Uncle Uc and my cousin Quyen.

Uncle Uc was one of my father’s second cousins. He was thirty-eight years old, thin, and athletic, and had been the headmaster at our school for as long as I could remember. Uncle Uc lived with his wife, two daughters, and parents in the next village. Gregarious, humorous, and kind, he was usually the favorite guest at my mother’s Friday afternoon tea parties. It was fun to be around him because he knew how to talk to children. He owned a French bicycle. It was black and had big wheels with thin rubber tires, mudguards, chrome-plated handlebars, and a little bell.

Cousin Quyen came by the estate twice a week after he had made the rounds to our relatives to collect food donations for the soup kitchen. He was twenty-four, tall, and—according to the servant girls in our estate—very handsome. A competitive tennis player and college graduate, Quyen was one of those idealistic young men who thought they could change the world. He was like an older brother to Tan and me.

I was very close to both of them and learned a great deal from their conversations. They brought news about the world beyond our little village. They said that the South was, in fact, largely untouched by the famine. It seemed incredible to me that there was a surplus of food in the South, but somehow through ineptitude, cruelty, or apathy, the Japanese army did not provide their Vietnamese puppet government the means to transport rice to the starving north and central regions. It also did not allow the Red Cross to help. Quyen talked about railroads being put under the exclusive use of the Japanese army and filled granaries rotting away while our people were dying throughout the northern countryside.

During one of his visits, Quyen brought a man from our village to help with the soup kitchen. His name was Trung. He was a part-time teacher and colleague of Uncle Uc. As usual, being Quyen’s favorite cousin, I was allowed to eat lunch with them in the garden after closing the soup kitchen. I remembered it because this was the very last time I saw Quyen.

After the meal, Uncle Uc mentioned that he was surprised to see his colleague helping at the soup kitchen.

Quyen hesitated and looked at me, but then he made a little shrug and replied to Uncle Uc, “I asked him to come. Trung is a new member of Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang.”

Uncle Uc was clearly not pleased with what he heard. He said, “First of all, I don’t think it’s right to have this kind of meeting here at Brother Thuan’s estate without his permission.”

“Oh, no, we wouldn’t want to put Uncle Thuan in a difficult position of having to approve or disapprove of our meeting. It’s better if he doesn’t know about it. And even if he does, he would pretend he doesn’t because he wants to appear neutral.”

Trung said, “Besides, this is more like a casual conversation between acquaintances who happen to meet at the soup kitchen.”

Uncle Uc shook his head. “Well, people won’t see it that way.”

“This is just between the three of us,” Trung said.

“Uncle, we’re not asking you to recruit people. We’re only asking you to say a few good words about our cause whenever you talk with the local folks. Maybe you can share our ideas with your students and their parents. You’re the headmaster. People respect your views.”

“I like your Nationalist party, but I am sorry. You know I have a family. The Communists have eyes and ears in every village. Both of you must be very careful.”

“Don’t worry. I’m always very careful.” Trung seemed irritated.

“Can’t you do anything in your class to help?” Quyen insisted.

Uncle Uc shook his head. “The Communists probably have children reporting on us. Most of the students in my class are from poor families. Their parents are more likely to listen to Communist propaganda than to your Nationalist ideology.”

“We need a way to convince them. We have a strong base in the cities, but we need to create a movement here in the countryside,” Quyen said.

“Well, then you have a very difficult task ahead of you.”

“Once people know what communism is, they won’t be interested,” Quyen said.

“It’s impossible to get the message out in the middle of this disaster. At the beginning of the famine, you might have had a chance to recruit and train the young Walkers who came looking for work. Now, people are starving; all they can think about is food. If I were you, I wouldn’t try to recruit the ones who came for the soup. You don’t know how many of them are already hardcore Communists.”

“You’re being very pessimistic,” Trung grumbled.

Ignoring his younger colleague, Uncle Uc said to Quyen, “I’m trying to keep you from endangering the whole clan.”

But it was already too late. The political parties had begun aggressively maneuvering against each other. It was common knowledge that many groups, including the Nationalists and the Communists, were using kidnapping, torture, and murder to eliminate their political rivals. We were not aware of it then, but Quyen was already targeted for assassination. It was the last time we saw him. Days later, he vanished on his way to Hanoi. The police found his body among several other Nationalists floating in Seven Hectare Lake on the outskirts of Hanoi.

THE NORTH
1945

16. T
HE
F
LOOD

The cries of hunger outside our walls had fallen silent. The soil reclaimed the weakest by the thousands. Those who had not found refuge had perished. The surviving hearts hardened. From the close of that long year of slow death, I remembered the Heavens grieving.

The black clouds of retribution boiled up from the horizon, billowing mountains impossibly high over the plains. A penance of darkness pressed down upon the land. In the paddies, peasants cowered. Lightning lashed the earth and released that infinite well of sky.

In the village, monks sounded the temple gong. Peasants, young and old, rushed to repair the dikes. All through the night, drums alarmed the length of the river. Rocks and sand flowed like loose detritus. The ground melted beneath their feet. The impenetrable night had turned liquid. The rain did not relent. The river overran its bank, crashing over the levees in torrents. In the murky light of dawn, they fled before the floodwater, racing to salvage their food stores.

The creek beside our estate poured into the hedge, then into the courtyards. Water rose waist-high. It filled the Ancestral Temple. We abandoned the first floor of our house for the second, water lapping at our heels up the stairs.

One by one, the gardens, the shacks, the low houses, the silkworm hatchery, the granaries, the barns, the orchards were swallowed. Livestock drowned. Rodents sought refuge in the tree branches. The carp, the catfish, the trout were liberated from their ponds. The rain turned cold, the light steely.

At last, when there was so little left, the Heavens took yet more, as if to remind us of something essential we had forgotten. The deluge lasted three days.

We were washed innocent, naked beneath the open sky.

A long-drawn sigh, and the wind quieted with the coming dawn. From our rooftop perch, the new day brought an iridescent world of blue firmament and silver water. Not a strand of breeze or a whisper of memory. Our realm had become borderless, an inland sea.

There was more hunger to come, but every flood carried with it a promise of life; a rich alluvium-nourished harvest would follow in the next season.

All rebirths were brutal. Every loss must be mourned, every tragedy cleansed for a new beginning.