When Heaven Fell (12 page)

As in her village, Binh saw piles of burning trash, the smoke thickening the air. Men and women squatted by the side of the road next to huge piles of fruits and vegetables, stacked baskets, turquoise sacks of rice, and tall stalks of bright flowers.

Midmorning, the bus stopped at a roadside restaurant with one wall open to the highway. When the bus door opened, a gang of children holding bundles of postcards pressed close.

They began to call out to Di: “Madame! Madame!”

Di examined a display of cards carried by a small boy with a dirty bandanna around his head.

The boy winked at his friend and gave a thumbs-up sign.

“I’ll take three, please,” Di finally said in Vietnamese, giving the boy a bill. She lifted her camera and snapped a picture of him.

He held out his hand.

“He wants more money because you took his picture,” Binh explained.

“For just that?” Di protested, while laying another bill in the boy’s open palm.

The other children moved in. “Madame! Madame!” They posed with big smiles and the girls flirted.

“You’re so pretty. You’re so handsome,” Di exclaimed as she photographed them.

But to Binh, they looked dirty and greedy. Worse, they pretended to like Di Thao, when all they wanted was her money.

Di took pictures of every one of them, then showed them the pictures on the camera screen. She handed out many small bills.

Binh pulled Di into the restaurant, calling out to the children, “Don’t follow us!”

As she and Di sat down at a table, Binh said, “Those kids are overcharging you.”

Di raised her eyebrows so high they rose over the top of her sunglasses.

Inside the open air restaurant, the driver and passengers bent over bowls of
pho bo.

Di and Binh ate the baguettes Ma had sent — French bread stuffed with bean curd and greens — while the children watched from the edge of the restaurant.

“Madame, Madame,” they called in soft voices.

Di bought flat round sheets of sesame candy and a box of candied ginger.

As they made their way back to the bus, the children once again crowded around, shoving postcards toward Di Hai.

Di gave them the ginger, and the boy with the bandanna made a face.

“Go away,” Binh said to the boy. “You’ve gotten enough out of her already.”

Once back in the bus, Di waved at the children, then looked at the postcards. “My students will love seeing these.” She took out her sketchbook and did quick drawings of the children until the bus pulled away.

Binh leaned close, even though she wished Di would draw something else.

Di put away her pencil and unwrapped the sesame candy. “I remember this candy from when I was a child. I’d forgotten it. I loved the way it stuck in my teeth, the tiny seeds . . .”

The towns came to an end and the bus passed into the jungle of bamboo, vines, and big-leafed trees.

The air whistling through the crack in the window smelled salty.

After they passed a gigantic Buddha perched serenely on a boulder, the bus climbed over one last rise and the ocean lay at the base of the hills.

Binh pressed her face against the window. As the bus drew closer, she drew herself up, straining to comprehend the blue line of the horizon.

T
he bus stopped. The doors fanned open to let Binh and Di Thao climb out into the salty, damp air.

There were no buildings, no street vendors — not even children selling postcards — in this deserted spot.

A small, dusty road lined with palm trees led to the ocean. As they walked, Di took many pictures and Binh heard an unfamiliar, restless roar. “What’s that noise?”

Di stopped and listened. “It’s the ocean.”

The ocean sounded like the breathing of a giant monster, yet Di didn’t seem worried.

They walked on down the road, the waves growing louder.

“Let’s take off our sandals,” Di said when the road ended at a mound of white sand.

Binh wiggled her feet as she walked, the sand warm and slippery between her toes. The sun shone like a huge, bare bulb in the sky. How nice it would be to plunge into the water!

Yet when she saw the ocean, it moved not in one direction like the river, but every which way. It pulled back in on itself and lunged forward. This was the huge, gobbling monster she’d imagined down the road, worse than any ghost.

Binh wasn’t sure she wanted to go in after all. She might get lost in so much water.

Di took her dress off, revealing a red bathing suit underneath.

Binh didn’t have on a suit. When she bathed in the river and no one was around, she wore her underwear. She hadn’t thought of needing a bathing suit. If she didn’t have one, would she not be able to swim? She poked her big toe into the hard, wet sand.

She pretended to be interested in the boys and older women who pulled nets through the shallow water, collecting tiny butterfly shells.

Di asked gently, “You didn’t bring a change of clothes, did you, Binh?”

Binh studied her bare feet.

Di looked around. “I don’t see any shops here. Just swim in your dress and it’ll dry.”

Binh dropped her sandals and the plastic bag of their things onto the sand. Di expected her to go in the water. If she didn’t, her auntie would be disappointed.

They waded into the warm water beside a man maneuvering a boat woven like a round basket. The ocean moved against Binh, pulling her one way, then another. She gripped Di’s hand harder. The ocean might carry her to the horizon, which was a faraway, clear line — unlike the uneven horizon of the valley where she lived.

“Don’t be afraid, Binh. This water is shallow. The waves aren’t strong enough to hurt us.”

Binh could see the bottom, crisscrossed by ripples of light.

Di took Binh’s hand and led her in deeper, past the point where the man had climbed into his round boat, past where the waves pushed and pulled. Here the water rose gently, taking Binh up and down.

Di let go of her hand. “You’re on your own now.” She lay flat on her back, her suit very red in the turquoise water.

“I can’t swim,” Binh called out.

“You don’t need to swim here. The water isn’t deep,” said Di, righting herself.

The round boat was small now, the man rowing out to sea using a palm leaf as an oar.

“Lie down, Binh. I’ll hold you up.”

Binh lay with Di supporting her. Her dress billowed around her and salty water splashed into her mouth. She coughed.

Di withdrew her hands and Binh continued to float. She rode on the surface of the ocean, the sun hot on her face, the outlines of her body disappearing.

After a while, Binh stood up. “Let me carry
you
in the water, Di.”

Di threw herself back and allowed Binh to move her this way and that. Di weighed nothing!

If only Cuc were here,
she suddenly thought. She thought of her now, perhaps flattening cardboard boxes for the recycler to collect.

Suddenly, Di stood up. “It’s time to go.”

“Oh, can’t we stay longer? We just got here.”

“I feel bad. Everyone was hoping to go to America.” Di said, the blue-green of the ocean reflecting onto her face. “I’d like to make it up to them. I’d like to do some shopping.”

Shopping!
Binh’s eyes grew wide.

Yet as she followed Di out of the water, Binh sighed and caressed the smooth waves. She might never be here again. Reluctantly, she stepped out of the white foam and onto the hard sand once again.

Di pulled her dress on over her wet bathing suit. “Your clothes will dry by the time we get to the main road.”

As they walked across the mounds of warm sand, Binh kept looking over her shoulder at the ocean. A wind had come up, flecking the blue water with white.

Binh leaned down and picked up a small pink shell. She put it in her pocket. The shell hadn’t cost a thing. It wasn’t American. But it was nonetheless beautiful.

T
he highway led into a town unlike any that Binh had seen. No one squatted by the side of the road selling flat baskets of fruit or vegetables. No shops sold car parts or machinery. No chickens meandered.

Instead, shop after shop sold tourist items:
non la
s with fancy paintings, paper fans with cut designs, carved animals, bowls made of coconut shells.

People with round eyes and all colors of hair — light brown, yellow, and even orange — strolled in and out of the shops. None spoke Vietnamese.

Binh stared at these people, who looked like the children in the photographs of Di Thao’s school.

“Lots of foreigners here,” Di merely commented.

Binh noticed that both Vietnamese and foreigners stared at Di.

Di stopped in front of a restaurant with a patio. Each table was sheltered by a brightly colored umbrella. “This looks like fun. Italian food will be a nice change from rice and vegetables.”

The umbrellas were lit with strings of lanterns. Cheerful music played from the loudspeakers.

“Madame,” a Vietnamese man said, then uttered some words in English.

Di spoke Vietnamese. “I am here with my niece for dinner.”

The man raised his eyebrows and looked at Di more closely. He led them to a table and pulled out chairs for each of them.

Di read the menu, which was not in Vietnamese. “How about spaghetti, Binh? That’s noodles — surely you’d like those — with red tomato sauce.”

When the waiter came, a small white towel over his forearm, Di pointed to the menu. “Two of these dinners, please.”

As they waited for food, Di took out her camera and they looked through the photos of the day: taking off in the bus, the photos of the street children (“I’d rather not look at
them
!” Binh protested), the road to the beach, the ocean.

Then Di took a photo of Binh drinking limeade there in the Italian restaurant.

The spaghetti arrived. The waiter also brought bread in a basket and small plates of salad.

When Binh tried to lift the slippery noodles with her spoon, they slid off. The waiter hadn’t brought chopsticks.

“Like this,” Di said. “Use this to move the noodles onto the spoon.” She held up a silver tool that looked like what Ma used to turn the soil in the garden.

Binh picked up the unfamiliar tool and copied Di. But the strong-smelling cheese made her stomach queasy. The red sauce tasted sour and harsh. “Do they have food like this in America?” she asked.