The Eaves of Heaven by Andrew X. Pham Page A

exceptionally appetizing when first pit-roasted and then slow-cooked in clay crocks with wild mushrooms, lotus seeds, rice wine, soy sauce, and the tender noodle-like baby bamboo shoots grown in inverted pots. It was served only at special occasions because storks were graceful creatures. The claypot stork, as it was called, became the famed heirloom dish reserved for honored guests.
    After the feast, Mother and Aunties went into the kitchen to supervise the cooks in the massive task of wrapping hundreds of quartered sections of pork, meat cakes, fruits, and sweet rice in banana leaves. Every guest would receive a proper share of the feast at the end of the night. The most important guests would receive a whole piglet head, a tail, and slices of the neck meat. The next group would receive half a pig’s head and half a tail. The middle tier would have a slice of the piglet’s neck meat, and so on down the hierarchy. The list would be checked and re-checked. A mix-up with the bamboo baskets would be disastrous. People bought titles and positions mainly for these honors and privileges, so the gifts were tokens of a person’s public stature.
    In the courtyard, Aunt Thao, my father’s younger sister, who was in her twenties and unmarried, gathered us children to watch the theater troupe perform the dragon dance. Above, the sun was slipping behind the bamboo hedge, leaving a pink moon to climb a honeyed sky. In the evening glow, the courtyard looked reddish and warm like freshly baked bricks. A breeze sighed from the wetland. A thicket of sparrows swooped, whipping, and diving dizzily in the lowering dusk. The gardeners began lighting the estate’s vast array of shadow lanterns, each the size of a barrel. As if by a silent agreement, guests took flames from the incense braziers and began lighting the hundreds of lanterns strung throughout the grounds. The glow spread outward from the main courtyard like a breath, illuminating the buildings, the rosebushes, the hedges, the picnic lawn, the pond, the swimming pier, the winding footpaths leading to the four corners of the estate.
    At once little boys and girls scattered like fireflies, each carrying a special paper lantern shaped like a star, sailing ship, snail, globe, horse, deer, or rabbit. There were fat carps with gaping mouths, eagles with flapping wings, and stars with spinning arms. We ran, skipped, and paraded our gorgeous, glowing ornaments until the candles burned out. Then, suddenly, over the pond by the rose garden, fireworks exploded, drawing multicolored blooms of sizzling sparks. Curly tails, starbursts, and poppy comets zipped, screamed, and buzzed across the night sky, and then mushroomed into pure rainbow light, blotting out the stars.
    Honored guests gathered on divans and gazed at the moon. Servants brought out hot jasmine tea and trays of moon cakes. There were two types: chewy lotus cakes and flaky-crust cakes, both palm-size squares stuffed with a marvelous variety of fillings. People cut them into small morsels for sharing and spent the evening sipping tea and sampling the medley of fillings: sweetmeats, salted eggs, nuts, lotus seed paste, red bean, mung bean pudding, and candied fruits.
    Mother gathered her three boys around her on the divan and let us eat our fill. We gorged ourselves until our bellies hurt. Two-year-old Hong and four-year-old Hung groaned and fell asleep in her lap. She smiled at me. My mother had the full round face of the alluvial-plain women. When she smiled, her whole face beamed. I liked the way she coiled her long black hair around the crown of her head. I leaned my head against her arm, in my belly a fat, warm, bright feeling. I was so very happy that Father had decided not to come home for the festival. I looked up at Cuoi, the mythological boy in the moon. He showed himself clearly tonight, fishing and playing his flute beneath the
da
tree.
    A gentle calm settled over the garden. People sat on straw mats and watched the silver