The Eaves of Heaven by Andrew X. Pham Page B

number of plantation families who had prospered under French rule. The Viet Minh redistributed the land to sharecroppers and small-plot farmers. The French could not control the countryside, so the reform went smoothly. For nearly ten years until the French’s surrender, the peasants owned, tilled, and invested in their land. Following the conditions of the Geneva Accord, the Communist forces, including Viet Minh soldiers from South Vietnam, were regrouped to the North and left the South to a government newly formed and backed by the Americans. In 1955, the South Vietnam government invalidated the Viet Minh’s land reform and restored the land to the original owners. The peasants staged violent protests and refused to vacate their homes. The rich landlords reclaimed their properties with the help of the government, the newly formed Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN), and the police. In the chaos that ensued, there were accusations of land grabbing and abuse of power. Farmers were killed during the riots. Others were murdered in their homes. Tens of thousands of peasants were branded as Communists, jailed, or sent to reeducation camps.
             
    A FTER Khoa left, Anh came out and sat down next to me. Dinner was ready, laid out on a mat in the front room. I could smell the claypot catfish and sour cabbage soup with pork short ribs. Under our neighbor’s tutelage, Anh was developing into a marvelous cook. She could make a feast from market scraps.
    Anh put her head on my shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “You’re scowling at the air.”
    I chuckled, adoring her in every way. At times like this, when she knew me so well, I didn’t care one bit that my father did not approve of her or of our living together. He had said having a girlfriend would distract me from my studies. I was still young enough to fool myself that it was possible to hold two jobs and still pursue my degree at Saigon University.
    Anh said, “If you don’t join the Nhan Vi party, you might not have your job next term. And you can’t avoid the Communist recruiters for long. This is Ben Tre. You can’t straddle the fence. If one side doesn’t shoot you, the other will.”
    “It is never wise to choose the lesser of two evils.”
    Suddenly, I felt very sad. I thought of my friend Hoi, my cousin Quyen, Uncle Uc, and so many people from my childhood. We had gone nowhere. These were the same choices my friends had had to make a decade ago between the Resistance and the French.
    Anh said, “Then we must find a new home.”
    I looked at her to see if she understood the import of that decision. After two years of moving from one hovel to another, this was the first apartment where we had our own toilet. Our home sat beside a lake. We had enough money to live. We were happy here. We had been saving prodigiously so that someday we could afford a proper wedding. Anh was pregnant. Moving house would use up everything we had.
    “Are you sure?”
    Anh smiled, placed my hand on her belly, and said, “I think it’s a girl. We’re going to be a family. I’ll follow you wherever.”

THE NORTH
JUNE 1944
    11. H OI AND I
    H oi whispered, “Look! A
muong
grasshopper to your left.”
    It was a big one, light green, the exact shade of young rice leaves, with black sesame seed eyes. Clinging to the underside of the leaf, it had its wings folded back, hind legs cranked high, poised to spring.
    I hushed him and tiptoed around the plant.
Muong
grasshoppers were very skittish. You had to come at them from their blind side. I cupped my palms and clapped my hands over the grasshopper.
    It jumped.
    Hoi wailed, “Oh, you let it escape!”
    “I didn’t let it escape! It’s just too fast.” I was as disappointed as he was.
Muong
were the prettiest and the tastiest of all grasshoppers. They were also the hardest to catch.
    It fluttered a short way on white wings and settled back into the field. Hoi slunk past me, eyes