The Eaves of Heaven Read Online Free PDF

in
Moby-Dick
and we were deeply impressed.
    “There is much ugliness, but there is also much beauty in this world,” my mother had once said, she who spent most of her days in her garden reading poetry written worlds away.
    Mother had taught me that the eaves of heaven had a way of turning in cycles, of dealing both blows and recompenses. For every devastating flood, there followed a bountiful crop. For every long stretch of flawless days, there waited a mighty storm just below the horizon. For every great sorrow, there was a great happiness to come.
    I stripped down to my shorts and walked into the tickling surf. Floating in the calm sea, a vast blue above me, I was filled with a cozy, billowy warmth. It was the same sensation I had as a boy whenever Mother looked at me. She had smiling eyes; it was a pleasure to be within her sight. It seemed like only last week. It had been seven years since she passed away after childbirth.
    She was still watching over me. This I knew. I had the feeling that I hadn’t stumbled upon this place and this peace at all, but rather it was something Mother had guided me to, something good to help me hold the course against what would come; like giving a traveler a drink of water before a long, difficult passage.

THE NORTH
1942
    4. M OTHER
    M y mother was born one province over to the west. She came from a more prestigious and even wealthier line than my father. Her uncle was a county chief. Her cousin was a senator, and her parents were both scholars. She had a mandarin upbringing, but she was uniquely modern in a time when most girls were limited to a primary education. She was fluent in French and the classic Vietnamese Nom script. Her passions were Vietnamese and French literature, poetry, and theater. When she came of age, her parents were certain that she needed to marry a modern, educated nobleman who wasn’t a political fanatic—it could have meant disaster and death in even that relatively peaceful colonial period.
    In his early dashing days, Father was very much a man of the city, fluent in French and passionate about French poetry, French cuisine, French wine, Western theaters, Charlie Chaplin movies, and motorcycles. He was a devoted enthusiast of various European pleasures the colonial French made accessible to their supporters and the rich Vietnamese ruling class. His parents hoped that a wife and family would force their youngest son into maturity and wean him from the city’s seductive pleasures. When they told him firmly that it was time for him to marry or have his allowance curtailed, he yielded, but vowed that he would never marry a girl with blackened teeth. It was the one modicum of modernity he required of a wife. His father looked to his mother, who, like most women of her generation, had lacquered her teeth at fifteen with calcium oxide—black onyx-like teeth had long been a vanity of the local women. His mother simply nodded and said, “If he prefers a white rotting smile, so be it.”
    They were introduced by a professional matchmaker and blessed by monks. The initial contacts between the families went well, and when they actually met, neither found the other repulsive. In fact, they found each other to be intelligent and pleasant. They weren’t in love, but as the popular wisdom said, love would come in time. After a few auspicious meetings, they wedded. A year later, I was born. My two brothers followed a few years behind. Having fulfilled his filial obligations of marriage and siring male heirs, Father strayed back to Hanoi and the high life he had enjoyed as a bachelor. Mother was left to raise three boys and manage the estate alone.
    For years, Father divided his time between Hanoi and the country estate. Every time he left, Mother was very sad. His return was always an occasion to celebrate. Father always brought gifts for everyone, Mother, aunts, and cousins included. There were French biscuits, cloth, chocolates, and magazines for the women. Father