“Americans will never know what it was truly like,” I think.
They won’t remember the smell, the sound, or the heat. For two hours, they’ll sit in the dark and watch but they’ll never know what it was like to be there for three years, eight months, and twenty-one days. What it was like thinking everyday that I was going to die and not knowing if the war would ever end. When the credits roll after two hours, the lights will come back on, and they’ll leave the war. But I can’t. Behind me, Eang and Meng sit still, each lost in thought. I shift my eyes to the corner of the living room without moving my head. I don’t want Meng and Eang to see how upset I am and worry that I still feel and remember. I have to be strong because if I let myself cry, I’m afraid I’ll never stop. So I force my body to be still while the actors dressed in black cry and scream. I tell myself that the actors are too fat to play starving Cambodians. Together, we wait silently for the movie trailer to end so that we can return to our show.
Before The A-Team comes on, Mr. and Mrs. Lee are on-screen to sell us something called Calgon. Though we’ve seen this commercial many times, Meng and Eang always watch it because the actors are Chinese. And they’re really Chinese, not some white people with their eyes taped and bad accents playing Chinese people, like in the old black-and-white movies.
In the commercial, when Mr. Lee tells a customer his laundry is so clean because of an “ancient Chinese secret,” Eang and Meng laugh out loud. Then Mrs. Lee puts Mr. Lee down by calling him a big shot and confesses that his secret is Calgon.
“Calgon’s two water softeners soften water so detergents clean better. In the hardest water, Calgon helps detergents get laundry up to thirty percent cleaner,” she pitches perkily.
“Ancient Chinese secret! That’s funny!” I slap my knees a little too eagerly.
The Killing Fields moment has passed.
When The A-Team finally comes back to rescue our night, our moods have already been lifted by Calgon.
“Show’s over. Time to sleep.” Meng yawns and stretches his arms. Eang picks up Maria and carries her into the bedroom, with Meng following behind.
I take their place on the couch and sit alone to watch the news. I sink deeper into the cushions when a reporter shows footage of starving Ethiopian children. The long drought in Ethiopia is destroying the crops and forcing many families to go hungry. The camera then zeroes in on a skeletal woman with big, liquid eyes. A brown cloth covers her head and drapes past her shoulders to protect her from the scorching sun. Peeking out of her sleeves, her skin hangs like wrinkled, black, unpolished leather on her thin arms. The camera slowly pulls away from her unflinching stare to reveal a small starving child gasping against her chest. As the child lies in between this world and the next, the woman fans her hand in front of the child’s face to chase away the flies already feasting on her flesh.
I cannot watch anymore and turn off the TV. After I change into my sleep clothes, I crawl into my bed, lie on my chest, and half bury my face in my arms. Pushing against the mattress, my stomach is a hard ball and aches from too much food. When I close my eyes, I see the child from the news and watch as her skin turns pale, her black hair straightens, and her face turns Asian. Instantly, the mother also disappears and in her place, Ma now holds Geak. Ma gazes at Geak; her hand smooths her hair and caresses her face, but Geak’s body is limp and shows no signs of life.
“I’m going crazy,” I whisper and pull the covers over my head. Under the blankets, my breathing rings loudly in the confined space. I think I hear the Ethiopian child struggling to take in a lungful of air, a sound not even picked up by the reporter’s microphone. I picture her fighting and fighting to get enough oxygen into her body, her dry mouth opening and closing, her chest heaving painfully.
I toss and turn, but my thoughts float to Keav and her last moments of life. And though I wasn’t physically there with her, my mind makes up images that my eyes did not see. Ma’s voice weeps as she tells us about her visit with a sick Keav. “Her last wish is to see her family and be near us even after she’s gone. She knows she will die but she will wait for Pa… . She will wait for him to bring her home.” But Pa didn’t get to bring her home and Keav died alone, scared and away from us all. On that day, Pa and the rest of us also died with her.
“Get out of my head!” I plead, but the ghosts, the killing fields, and the Ethiopian girl do not leave me. My lids twitch and flutter from too many images, and I know sleep will not come easily tonight. I give up and get out of bed. I walk into my closet and force myself to think about something else. My fingers run through my rack of old clothes from the Salvation Army. I fantasize of someday walking into a big expensive department store like JCPenney and buying clothes that don’t have armpit stains on them.
“Armpit stains,” I say in disgust, fingering the tassels on the red-and-white checkered cowgirl shirt hanging on the rack. I put a cowboy hat on my head and turn to the mirror. The girl looking back at me has long black wavy hair that hangs past her shoulders. As I lean closer into the mirror, she stares back at me with her almond-shaped eyes and a face so round that she looks fat. When I stand sideways, the girl looks skinny all over except for her big, protruding stomach. I spread my palms over my taut belly ball and frown at the mirror. Eang says it’s still bloated from years of malnutrition. Meng tells me not to worry and to think of it as my Buddha belly. Finally the darkness lifts and I crawl back into bed praying that the Lord Buddha will keep the war away and out of my head.
15 living their last wind
April 1985
April is the hottest month of the year, with temperatures that often climb above one hundred degrees. Today, the sun god shows no signs of mercy as it turns the ground below Chou’s feet into hard, dry clay and the once green fields into brown dead land. On her way to the village market, Chou adjusts the krama on her head and wipes her dripping forehead with her sleeves. When she arrives, she scans the area to see only a dozen or so vendors selling their goods in the open field.
Chou has come to buy palm fruits and baby crabs seasoned with spices and deep fried to a crimson red. The few dozens vendors call out to Chou and the handful of other early buyers.
“Buy from me, sister,” a boy calls, bringing over his basket of slippery black eels.
“You bought from him last week.” A small girl shows Chou her bucket of live fish, splashing in an inch of water. “Buy from me this week, sister.”
Chou is staring at the girl’s fish when, suddenly, the earth shakes with a loud explosion that chases the birds into the sky. Instantly Chou’s feet burn and her toes sting as if they’ve been pierced by dry, splintered wood. Next to her, the girl ducks, hugging her bucket to her chest. Around Chou, many villagers scream and run into their homes. For a moment, Chou closes her eyes tightly and crouches low to the ground. When she opens them, she is crawling on her knees toward a nearby tree, hoping to find shelter.
“Another mine exploded!” a villager shouts.
“The man on the trail! He’s hurt!” a woman yells as she runs back to the market.
From her tree, Chou sees the man lying on the ground in a storm of red dust. With a dazed look, he props himself on his knees, tentatively stands on one leg, and lifts up his bike. Slowly, he pushes his bicycle forward and hops the rest of the way into the village market. A chill runs down Chou’s spine when the man passes, his face smeared with blood, his eyes big like crabs, and his dark shirt wet with brushes and twigs stuck all over it. As he passes Chou, his left leg pushes him on while his right leg drags in the dirt, dripping thick streams of blood as it goes. Chou suppresses a scream when she sees that his right leg is shredded and hanging by the skin to its stump, his foot only bits of charred skin and melting flesh. When he passes the crowd, his face is ashen but calm. Then abruptly, he falls to the ground; his body convulses for a few minutes and then is still.
“Does anyone know his family?” a man shouts, approaching.
“He’s from another village!” another person ye
lls.
“Someone has to tell his family he’s dead,” the first man says quietly.
“He looks as if he didn’t know what had happened,” a girl whispers sympathetically.
“He was living his last wind,” an old woman tells her, referring to the moment when his life flashed before his eyes.
When blood returns to warm her face, Chou walks away from the crowd. In a daze, she continues her shopping for the family’s eggs, chicken, and potatoes with her eyes opened wide.
The hot season comes to a close as April reaches its end. The humidity rises, the fine dust in the road settles, and soon the rain will come to drench the red land and make everything green once again. But that time is still a few weeks away. It is early morning and Chou is again on her way to the village market. Chou raises her hands to the sky to air the wetness in her armpits. By the time she lowers her arms a few paces later, tiny droplets of sweat have already collected above her lips.
When Chou enters the market, a village girl sitting on a low stool in the hot sun greets her. Chou stops to look at the eggs she is selling and by chance glances up to see a friend’s husband approaching the village on a trail Chou has traveled on many times. From a short distance away, Chou sees him pick up what looks to be a round green disk the size of a small cup. In the instant it takes for Chou to blink, the mine explodes and knocks the man to the ground. As if in slow motion, Chou feels the blast reverberate in her ribs and weaken her knees. Throughout the market, villagers gasp and stop in terror. In the distant fields, a cow moos and dogs bark in protest.
In the rising dust cloud, the man holds his bloodied hands in front of him and pushes himself off the ground with his elbows. He manages to get on his feet and run toward the village. As he nears, Chou sees that his face is dripping blood and is all scratched up as if he’s just lost a fierce cockfight. On his jet black hair are bits of twigs, grass, flesh, and skin that shake loose as he staggers forward. In front of his chest, where his hands once were, are two shredded stumps that look as if they’ve been in a grinder, skin flailing, nails pulled off, knuckles and bones crushed, sticking out for all to see. As the man runs into the market, Chou sees only the whites of his eyes and then he begins to lick, bite, and gnaw at his bones as the blood spurts out, soaking his shirt and pants. The villagers move out of his way, covering their mouths, many gagging and dry-heaving in response to the spectacle.
Chou watches wide-eyed but feels herself close to fainting. In the middle of the crowd, the man stops. His face is eerily calm as he raises his mutilated hands to his eyes with a look of detached recognition. While his body staggers and sways like a drunk, his pupils roll back. The villagers watch in silence, as if paying respect while the man goes through his last wind of life.
When his wife finally arrives, the man is lying on the ground. Staring into his eyes, she kneels down, her pants soaking up the blood around him. She wipes the blood off his face. A loud wail ruptures out of her small frame with such agony that it breaks through the stone faces of the surrounding crowd. When the man goes into shock, his skin turns pale and cold. His lids slowly flutter and he stares at his wife. With her face inches from his, Chou’s friend tells her husband she loves him; then he is gone. His wife screams and howls sounds of sadness, pain, and anger while her hands smooth down his shirt and pants. But there is nothing anyone can do for he is a ghost now. All around him, the crowd slowly moves away to allow the widow’s family room to console her. Chou leaves her friend and returns to the hut. Her body is drenched in sweat but her hands and feet are cold.
Before the rain comes, the water is at its brownest and murkiest. It is now May and still the rain gods have not turned the white clouds into black thunderstorms. Above Chou, the sun continues to burn and dry up the small water holes. Chou now has to travel an hour out of the village to a deep pond to gather the family’s water. When she arrives, she climbs out of the cart, unties the cows, and leads them to the muddy water. When the cows have their fill, Chou ties the wagon yokes back around their sturdy necks. Chou takes her pail and walks over to the grassy bank of the pond where the water is clear and her movements will not dirty it. Even on the short walk from the road to the pond, Chou is careful to step only on well-used paths and avoids crossing over thick shrubs and rice paddies. For as beautiful as the countryside is, Chou knows that beneath the wildflowers, green grass, red dirt, and the wetlands are land mines, grenades, bombs, and other tangible remnants of war awaiting her every step.
Everywhere she looks, Chou sees ghosts roaming around the villages—so many ghosts, in fact, that she has lost count. Sometimes at night, she thinks she can still hear them weeping in the forest, calling out to the villagers for help. When the moans grow too strong, Chou closes her eyes and shuts them out of her mind. She knows she cannot allow herself to think too much about death; such a path will lead her to wonder about how Pa, Ma, and Geak died. Chou knows only that the soldiers came and took them away. When she is consumed too deeply by thoughts of their deaths, she becomes like all the other ghosts who wander the world not knowing if they are dead or alive. She remembers stories Khouy tells of The Lon Nol soldiers decapitating the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge soldiers so they will not be reborn to invade Cambodia in their next lives. The Lon Nol soldiers said the Viet Cong and KR soldiers believe that if the head is not buried with the body, the soul is doomed to wander the earth forever.
But today she is too busy for the ghosts to haunt her. Quickly, she scoops up pails of water and pours them into the big round containers on her wagon. With each pail, her arms grow more tired and her back stiffens. In the warm water, the grass scrapes her feet clean, leaving her skin soft and smooth but vulnerable to the cuts and nicks of the sharp small stones and pebbles in the road. Still, she works without stopping to rest. When the two containers are filled, Chou breaks off a handful of green, leafy lotus leaves from the edge of the pond. She rinses them of dirt and debris and covers the surface of the water in the container with the leaves. The leaves will prevent the water from splashing and spilling too much on the bumpy ride home. Satisfied with her work, Chou walks around in the water and quickly immerses her body and head, washes her krama, climbs in the wagon, and leads the cows toward home.
Shortly after she arrives at the hut, Khouy rides his motorcycle up to their door, the wheels tearing up the grass and kicking up dirt.
“Chou! Second Uncle!” Khouy calls urgently. The sun is already low in the sky and the mosquitoes are waking in swarms.
“Second Brother, what is the matter?” Chou asks, rushing to meet him, her mind full of fear that something is wrong. Why else would Khouy travel alone to the countryside this late in the day?
In the past year, Chou has seen little of Khouy, but it’s been enough for her to know that he has at last settled down with a new wife. Khouy met Morm, a beautiful Cambodian, at the policemen’s headquarters where she was working as an administrator. Morm comes from a small farming family in a nearby village and Khouy was charmed by her immediately. As the days turned into weeks and then months, Khouy pursued Morm with his sweet talk, small gifts, and funny stories. Eventually, Morm returned his feelings and Khouy rushed home to ask Uncle Leang and Aunt Keang to approach her parents for Morm’s hand in marriage.
Chou and Kim were ecstatic for Khouy, as they’d both had to watch his distress when he was forced to marry his first wife, Laine. He did not love her, but married her in order to escape conscription in the Khmer Rouge army and also from being sent to work in the front lines, far away from the family. After the war, he and Laine went their separate ways; because they had no children together, they left each other’s lives completely. Now twenty-three years old, Khouy has found love with Morm, and Chou hasn’t seen him so happy in a very long time.
“Second Uncle,” Khouy says, running up to Uncle Leang. “I need Chou to come help Morm.”
“Khouy, how is the baby?” Aunt Keang asks, and presses her hands together as if ready to pray.
“She was bor
n yesterday and she is fine and healthy.” For a moment, Khouy breaks into a broad smile, but then worries return and pull his face down. “But Morm, she’s burned badly.”
Khouy tells them about Morm’s difficult labor. While Khouy had waited outside the hut, the inexperienced midwife built a fire under their wooden plank bed to keep Morm warm and to loosen her back muscles. As the labor dragged into the night, the fire grew hotter and hotter, charring the wood beneath Morm’s body. But it was Morm’s first birth, so her whole body was in pain. She did not realize how badly she was burned until later, when her burns started to blister and boil. Chou and the rest of the girls in the family gasp as Khouy talks. When he finishes, Chou glances at their big cooking pot and remembers Kung’s pain with her burns.
“Chou, I need you to come live at my house and help care for your niece,” Khouy tells her. Chou nods quickly and, with Uncle Leang’s permission, she hastily packs her clothes and leaves with Khouy.
When Chou arrives at Khouy’s one-room wooden home, the sky is already dark. Inside, the house still smells of smoke and strong rubbing alcohol and body odor. While Chou goes to pick up the crying baby lying next to its mother, Khouy leaves the house to buy rice soup for his wife. Chou rocks the baby back and forth but the newborn continues to wail until Chou sticks a finger into her mouth. On the bed, Morm lies on her stomach, facedown in her pillow. She breathes deeply, as if asleep. For a moment, Chou is terrified that Morm has died while Khouy was gone. But then Morm stirs and opens her eyes, just as Khouy returns.
“Morm, I’ve brought Chou to help,” Khouy tells her, and bends down to look at her face. Even in the soft dusk light, Chou can see Morm is pale. Her lips are cracked and perspiration glistens on her skin.