When Heaven Fell (10 page)

“Do you want me to go away, then?” Binh’s voice trembled.

“Don’t be upset.” Di put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m still close by.”

“You won’t be afraid of the ghosts?” Binh asked.

Di threw back her head and laughed.

“Isn’t our house good enough for her?” Ma asked after Di had retired to her little hut, her
leu.

“Doesn’t she like us?” asked Anh Hai.

“In the photographs, you can see she has a lot more rooms in America,” said Ba Ngoai.

“Enough for all of us,” said Ma.

“Enough for the whole village,” said Ba.

The four voices wound in and out of each other.

“She thinks she is too good for us.”

“But she is sleeping on the
dirt.
”

“She doesn’t like us.” Ma pulled the
non la
frame close to her and prepared to work.

“Let me sew a little, Ma,” Binh said.

Ma made room for Binh. As Binh plunged the sharp needle over and over into the soft straw, she thought of the morning when she’d first laid out Di Thao’s sleeping mat next to her own. She thought of how now, instead of being closer to her auntie, she was farther away.

Why didn’t Di Hai want to be close to them? Binh poked the needle hard and accidentally pricked her finger.

Binh was sweeping the yard, raising small clouds of dust, scooting aside the ducks with the broom.

Anh Hai sat on a bench, digging out the white meat from a coconut shell. “Aren’t you and Cuc close anymore?” he asked.

Binh shrugged and kept on sweeping.

“You’re always chasing her away from Di Hai.”

Binh sent a flurry of dust in Anh Hai’s direction.

“It’s not like there’s much to be jealous of,” Anh Hai continued, ignoring the dust, scooping deeper into the coconut. “If only she’d take us to America. There’s nicer motorcycles there.”

“She still might,” Binh protested. How could Anh Hai give up so easily?

“Don’t count on it. Our auntie didn’t give us much of anything.”

“She still might,” Binh repeated.

“She won’t. She doesn’t understand us.”

Binh leaned on the handle of the broom. “Maybe she’s saving something for later. In her suitcase. That’s why she moved to the
leu
. So we wouldn’t see.”

“I dare you to look then,” Anh Hai said. He tossed a bite of coconut to a duck.

“In her
suitcase
?”

“If that’s where you think the treasure lies.”

“But that’s . . .”

“You’re not brave enough.”

“Fine,” said Binh, flicking the tail of a duck with the broom. She glanced toward the kitchen. The smell of
pho bo,
traditional Vietnamese noodle soup, drifted from the doorway. Ba Ngoai and Di were cooking together, chopping and talking of the past. Right now, nothing else existed for them.

With Anh Hai on the bench keeping watch, Binh crawled into the
leu
. The light inside was blue and dim. She knelt in front of the suitcase and lifted the lid.

She heard a noise and listened, her heart hammering. But the sound was that of Anh Hai whistling to himself. There were no footsteps.

She found clothes, a bag. She touched the bag and discovered the outline of a pair of shoes.

She stuck her hand in the side pockets. A comb. A book. Di’s photo book. Four pairs of socks.

Binh sat back on her heels. Was this all there was to her auntie? Was she really so simple? Was she nothing like what Binh had seen in the movies?

Where
was
the jewelry? The small, precious items? Was Anh Hai right?

Binh closed the suitcase.

Finding nothing was like watching the morning mist disappear when the sun rose.

As Binh crawled out, Anh Hai called, “I see your pockets are heavy with treasure.”

Binh picked up the broom and swatted him on the shins.

“Ouch,” Anh Hai cried, throwing down the empty coconut.

Binh swatted him again, this time pretending he was Di Hai.

Then she dropped the broom and walked out of the yard. She marched down the highway along its narrow shoulder, as cars and trucks honked.

It took her an hour to reach Third Aunt’s tourist shop.

The shop was a small hut where the highway intersected the road to the beach. Each day, a few cars stopped with customers. If Third Aunt was lucky, a tour bus would pull in, leaving the engine roaring, the fumes filling the shop.

Binh found Cuc kneeling to unpack a small box.

As she stepped close, Cuc’s hands grew still, but she didn’t look up. “Your auntie go home?”

“Not yet.”

“Then why are you here?”

Binh squatted down, the box with its loose newspaper between them. She glimpsed ashtrays made of coconut shells in the wrapping. “I searched Di Hai’s suitcase.”

Cuc let her hands rest on the edge of the box. “And?” she asked.

“There was nothing in it except her clothes and a few other things.”

“Isn’t that what you expected?”

Binh straightened a piece of newspaper. What
had
she expected? The ink from the newsprint smudged her fingers. She’d searched a guest’s suitcase all for nothing. Now she felt smudged inside, too.

“I’m not sure,” she finally said.

Cuc continued the unpacking, setting the ashtrays on a low shelf behind her.

“Do you want help?” Binh asked.

“I can do it,” Cuc replied. Then, a round ashtray in her hands, she said casually, “Even though Di Hai isn’t such a close relative to me as she is to you, I think she means to take me to America.”

Binh crumpled the bit of newspaper, fingernails biting into her palm. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a year older than you. It would be easier for her to take just me.” She pulled herself up. “I’m old enough to go without my family.”

Binh threw the wad of paper back into the box. She’d never imagined . . . This couldn’t be! “Has Di Hai said anything?”

Cuc cocked her head to the side. “Not in words. But I can tell.”

B
inh ran all the way home from Third Aunt’s shop, stopping only once to splash her face with river water.

She found Di in the yard, washing her hair. She stood with her feet wide over a red basin, her head a mass of white foam.

That red basin was for washing vegetables, not hair. Di should be using the
green
one. If Ma came along, she’d be upset.

Binh pretended not to see the color of the basin. “Di, Di Hai.” She sank down, breathless from her run.

Di scooped water with a cup, rinsing out the soap.

It wasn’t a good moment to bring up anything important, but Binh couldn’t wait. She had to act before Di and Cuc made plans. “We would like to go to America with you, Di Hai,” she said loudly so that Di could hear over the washing. “Just my close family. Just four of us. Ba Ngoai doesn’t want to go.”
Or Cuc, either,
she felt like adding.

Di kept rinsing.

Binh leaned down, trying to see the expression on Di’s face.

“Oh, darn, now I have soap in my eyes,” Di said. “Binh, do me a favor and throw out this soapy water. Get me some fresh.”

Binh threw the soapy water across the yard. In the bathroom, she dipped clean water into the red basin. Why wouldn’t Di answer her?

Di finished rinsing her hair and wrapped it up in a towel. With the cone of towel on top of her head, she looked taller than ever. “Now, what’s this you’re asking?”

“We’d like to go with you to America,” Binh repeated.

“
What?
” Di asked again. Water ran down the sides of her face.

“We want to live with you.”

Di slapped her hand to her forehead. “You’ve been thinking about that all this time? That I’d wave a wand and you’d all be in Kentucky?”

“Oh, no. You would make arrangements,” Binh said, remembering Ba Ngoai’s explanation.

“You must think I’m magic.” The towel came loose and fell around Di’s shoulders. “I am a small, unimportant person. I have not much money, no power . . . I never dreamed you expected such a thing.”

Once Binh had been running and had fallen onto her chest, knocking the breath out of her. Now, too, she could scarcely breathe.

“You don’t understand what it would mean to go to America,” Di went on. “You don’t know what you’d be leaving behind.” She rubbed her red eyes — irritated by the soap — with the corner of the towel.

“But you said it was a good thing to go,” Binh persisted. “That your new mother gave you a better life.”

Di squeezed her eyes shut. “That soap was so strong.” She sat down on the bench.

Binh felt as though she’d gotten soap in her own eyes.

After a while, Di said, “Binh . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t know. . . . Sit here.” She patted a spot beside her on the bench.

Binh sat, but not as close as Di indicated.

Di sighed. “My situation wasn’t the same as yours. When I left, this country was at war. Children like me were being killed. You’re not in danger.” She began to dry her hair, rubbing it with quick, circular movements.

Suddenly, Binh stood up. “You shouldn’t have used that red basin. You should put it back on the shelf.”

Di paused, one hand holding the towel to her head.

Binh picked up the basin and waved it, startling the ducks. “We can never use this to wash vegetables again.”

The towel dropped onto Di’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll buy you another. Don’t worry. I’ll . . . I’ll buy you several.”

Binh slapped the empty basin against the side of the big table. The table creaked and the last suds flew out. “You didn’t come here to buy us plastic basins. That’s not what we expected of you.”

Di started to stand, then sat back down.

Binh put her hands on her hips and asked, “Are you going to take Cuc to America?”

Di sighed again and laid the towel on the bench. “Of course not.”

Just then, Binh saw Ma standing under the arch of pink and white bougainvillea, Ba Ngoai behind her like a small shadow. They’d overheard everything.

Binh didn’t know whether to hold the red basin out to Ma as evidence, or whether to hide it behind her back. She threw it onto the ground behind her, where it rolled under the table.

Di’s eyes followed Binh’s gaze to the archway. She managed to stand. “It takes a lot of money to bring relatives to America.” She held out her empty hands. “I’m not rich.” She closed her hands, hiding her lack.

Ma and Ba Ngoai just stared, their faces unchanged.

When Binh looked at the two framed by the arch, she couldn’t imagine them anyplace but there, poised between the bustle of the highway and the sleepy flow of the river.

Ba Ngoai didn’t want to go to America anyway, Binh recalled. And Ma? Ma only wanted money for this and that.

Binh took a step backward. Had she been the only one with such hopes?

“My little niece,” Di continued, “has many distorted ideas about the United States. It is not a place where everyone is rich and happy. Not at all. Binh is better off here.”

Ba Ngoai stepped in front of Ma. A bougainvillea flower dropped onto her shoulder as she left the safety of the arch. She crossed the yard quickly and laid a hand on Di’s arm. “You, my daughter, are here as our guest. We expect nothing of you.”

Ma leaned against the frame of the arch, just watching, her eyes narrowed.