In their partnership, Pheng makes the deals, but it is Chou who holds the money and pays all the workers and vendors. As their business grows, Chou also walks tall and proud because she discovers that even without schooling, she understands numbers and can quickly work them out in her head. In her hands money grows, and after a season people have come to respect her not as Pheng’s wife, but as an excellent accountant.
As Pheng steers their truck around large holes and mounds of dirt in the road, Chou watches the rice fields and green ponds. The sun beats hot rays onto the roof of their truck and warms the children into drowsiness. Soon Hok is asleep against Chou, and Chang breathes softly in her arms. Pheng lowers Eng onto a bag of towels in the middle seat and lifts the child’s legs onto his lap. As Chou’s arms grow tired and the children’s hot bodies make her shirt stick to her sweaty back, she dreams about their new home.
When they arrive at their new wooden house, Aunt Keang, Khouy, and his family are standing in front of it to greet them.
“Second Brother, Sister-in-Law, Aunt Keang,” Chou says.
“Chou.” Morm takes her hand. “Your house is beautiful!”
“Sister-in-Law, come, let’s look at it together.” Chou passes Chang to her husband and walks through the double door into a big room. In the corner, a big dark wood plank bed hovers high off the dirt floor, leaving plenty of room for the children to run around. Next, Chou checks out the smooth wood that makes up the wall of her and Pheng’s private room. She enters the room to sit on her bed, and then gets up to push open the two windows. When she leaves, she closes her door and giggles.
“Chou, you have another big room up there!” Morm gushes.
Chou quickly climbs the stairs to her open attic. As she stands, she reaches up and touches its walls. “I can put a lot of things up here,” she hollers to Morm.
When she comes back down, Chou passes another door and walks into her kitchen, which is covered only by a tin rolling roof. A round fold-up table stands next to another small plank bed. When she walks into the hut’s backyard, Chou squeals at the sight of a well pump sticking out of the ground. While the men unload the truck, the women fill the hut with smells of cooked rice, roasted garlic, and fried fish. Then the adults sit down on white plastic chairs for dinner while the children eat next to them on the plank bed. After he eats, Chou’s son Hourt wanders over to crawl on Khouy’s lap. Hourt stares at the many strange black markings and dots on Khouy’s arm and tries to rub them off. Khouy also has them all over his back and chest.
“Silly boy,” Khouy laughs. “They’re tattoos. They don’t come off.”
“Why?”
“The ink was put in there by very sharp needles.”
The boy grimaces. “What for?”
“To protect me from the Khmer Rouge’s bullets,” Khouy says.
“Do you still go fight the Khmer Rouge?” Chou’s daughter Eng asks, squirming at the memories of the Khmer Rouge raids.
“Not anymore. In my village I am now the deputy army chief. I have one hundred and twenty men to watch over.” Khouy puffs on his cigarette. “But in my years as a foot soldier, I fought many times with Khmer Rouge.”
“Tell us about how you fought the Khmer Rouge, Papa!” Khouy’s son urges him.
It pains Chou to hear about Khouy’s travel to fight the Khmer Rouge soldiers. When he first joined the army, she knew Khouy told his family little of his battlefield experience because he did not want them to worry. But worry they did. Each time he left, Chou feared he might die in the jungle, alone, and without his family to ease him in his journey from this world into the next. It caused her much anguish to think how Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak had died alone, their bodies lost so that she could not give them a proper burial. She prays this will not happen to Khouy. And though Chou left Krang Truop to escape the Khmer Rouge, she also came to Bat Deng to be with her brother. With Meng, Loung, and Kim gone, she cannot bear the thought of losing Khouy, too. Even though she is a woman, wife, and mother of three, the small girl in her still wonders what would happen to her if Khouy died.
“Do you really want to hear?” Khouy asks.
“Yes, tell us, tell us,” the children plead.
As he speaks, Khouy’s voice carries him back into his past. “From 1987 to 1989, when the fighting was at its fiercest, I was often away. One time, I was given barely any notice at all before I was asked to leave.”
The army chief ranked higher than Khouy, though their friendship kept them at the same level outside the battlefields. But neither friendship nor Morm’s pregnancy prevented the chief from sending Khouy into battles to stop the Khmer Rouge incursions into the surrounding villages.
At twenty-eight, he was already a veteran fighter. He knew he could refuse, but he also knew he would go. As much as he hated leaving, he recognized that someone had to fight to rid the country of Khmer Rouge. And as much as he feared being killed or maimed, as a young father he feared the Khmer Rouge returning to power even more.
The next morning, he packed his hammock, water canteen, small tin pot, spoon, ration of rice and dried fish, and an extra uniform in his green military backpack. Then he strapped his pistol to his belt holster. Before he left, he put a smile on his hard face while he hugged his children and said good-bye to his wife.
Five days later, Khouy found himself crawling in the mud of a rice paddy as Khmer Rouge soldiers’ bullets whizzed over his head. He stopped and flattened his cheek into the twigs and dirt. Somewhere ahead of him, a loud explosion tore through the earth and shook the leaves in the trees.
“Damn land mines,” Khouy cussed. He gripped his rifle and pushed himself with his forearms and thighs, crawling on his stomach like a lizard to a big termite mound. With a mud pile for protection, Khouy snuck his head out and counted seven Khmer Rouge soldiers trying to hide in the field. His soldiers outnumbered the Khmer Rouge three to one. They know they’re outnumbered. They’re only a minute’s run to the jungle. They’ll make a run for it, Khouy thought. He made eye contact with his soldiers lying on the ground and signaled them to wait for his command.
Suddenly he heard water splash as the Khmer Rouge soldiers leapt up and ran.
“Shoot them!” Khouy screamed to his troops and jumped out from behind the mud pile, his rifle going off like a Chinese firecracker. “Kill them!” Khouy’s bullet hit a Khmer Rouge in the back. His knees instantly buckled and he fell down face flat into the water. The other Khmer Rouge soldiers tried to fight back, but Khouy’s troop charged; seconds later, it was over. Seven Khmer Rouge soldiers lay dead in the fields.
“Brother Khouy,” a young soldier called, handing Khouy a dry cigarette. “They shot at you but no bullets could touch you. You are protected.” Khouy’s eyes landed on the protection tattoos on his arms. He lit his cigarette and for a moment felt invincible.
Back in Chou’s kitchen, Khouy cups his hand over his match and lights his cigarette. In the flickering yellow flames, Chou sees that his face is taut and unmoving. Around him, the children’s mouths gape open with awe as Chou and Morm sit stiffly, their hearts pounding with fear and gratefulness that Khouy is still with them.
That night, Chou falls asleep for the first time in her new house and dreams of Pa. They are sitting together under a tree, and Pa looks at her with gentle eyes and smiles. Next to him, she is once again a small child, weak, powerless, and full of fear.
“Pa, come live with me,” she says in a child’s voice. “I have a big house now.”
“Chou, you don’t need me to,” he answers. “I have helped you make a good business and enough money. You now have a good life.”
“I don’t want money,” she pleads. “I just want my family safe.”
“They are safe,” he assures her, and disappears.
For the first time, Chou dreams that she stops crying and does not run after him. When she looks down, she is a woman again—a woman who is a mother and wife, a provider and protector.
“I miss you,” she tells him, but wakes u
p knowing that whatever happens, she will be able to care for her family.
27 ma’s daughters
May 1995
It’s a long drive home to Maine from Vermont, and my 1982 Nissan Stanza makes it seem like forever. My Nissan, which I named Little Red for her color, was a gift from Meng for my college graduation. With her hot temper, Little Red won’t go over sixty miles per hour without letting me know I’m hurting her. When I push her, she complains noisily with her creaks and squeaks. In the backseat, my laundry basket full of newly cleaned clothes and Tupperware containers full of Eang’s delicious homemade egg rolls, fried wontons, and steamed dumplings rattle against one another as Little Red shakes as if to warn me she will implode and take me with her if I don’t slow down.
I heed her warning and ease up. I think back to the time when she became mine. My college graduation. I remembered the thrill of walking into the auditorium to the loud beat of “Pomp and Circumstance” as the brass band played. When the students entered, the crowd of five thousand stood up, clapped, and roared to a fevered crescendo, and somewhere in the mass, I knew Meng, Eang, and the girls were beaming proudly at me for being the first Ung to graduate from college. I looked up into the bleachers and tried to find them, smiling widely at my own accomplishment, when suddenly I realized that among all the parents assembled, mine were missing. Just as quickly, I also knew that wherever they were, Pa and Ma were filled with pride.
After college, I wanted to work with programs that dealt with issues of war, child soldiers, and genocide. However, as I began my research to find such agencies, the nightmares returned. I realized then that my soul needed more time to heal and yet I felt compelled to be involved in anti-violence work. I found a job as a community educator for an abused women’s shelter in Lewiston, Maine. Since this is only a four-hour drive from Vermont, I return every few months to see Meng, Eang, Maria, and Tori in Essex Junction.
When Little Red pulled out of their driveway this time, I did something that I knew I shouldn’t have—I looked back. Through the rearview mirror, I saw them standing there until I made my left turn onto another road and out of their sight. The image of Meng with his arms around his two daughters, watching me leave, snapped some heartstrings in my chest. As Little Red speeds on U.S. Route 2 into New Hampshire, Mount Washington juts majestically into the sky in front of me. In the clear blue sky, a few wispy clouds cling around the peak of the mountain. Suddenly, the beauty of it all makes my chest heave and my hands tremble.
“Ma, Pa,” I call out, “I miss you.”
Driving back and forth from Maine to Vermont through the mountainous roads, I’ve taken to talking out loud to Ma and Pa. Though I don’t know for certain that they can hear me, the sound of my voice telling them about my life usually gives me great comfort. Today, however, it seems to make me sadder.
As a child, I used to look forward to a time in adulthood when it would all hurt less. But it doesn’t. I still see the faces of Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak. Alone and safe in Little Red, unseen by anyone except for the red eyes of passersby.
“Ma, Pa, I still miss you so much.” As the words tumble out, everything converges: Meng waving in his driveway, the heartbreaking beauty of the mountains, the solitude of my long trip. I feel myself pulled under the currents of dark water, and I don’t know if I have the energy to fight my way out. For a brief moment, I think I might not fight, but instead of surrendering, I reach out for Ma and Pa’s hands.
“Pa, Ma,” I call out to them. My voice is halting and small against the loud rushing wind pushing at Little Red. “I need your help. Please let me know there are angels out there looking after me. Please show me that I’m not alone,” I whimper, feeling lost and lonely. After fifteen years of living in America and four years of Catholic college, I believe in angels. But because of their Buddhist beliefs, I cannot think of Pa and Ma as angels. Instead, I imagine them as spirits that watch over me. “Please, show me others who’ve gone through what we have and are living happy lives.”
For the next hour, Little Red rolls quietly along the road while I compose myself and tell Ma and Pa about my work and friends.
“And Pa, Eldest Brother is planning another trip to Cambodia in a few months,” I tell him, as if he doesn’t already know.
For a year now, Meng has been planning a trip to Cambodia with Eang, Maria, and Tori. And every time he calls me, he asks me the same question.
“Why don’t you come also?”
“I don’t have enough vacation days,” I always reply. “If I go, I might not have a job to come back to.” That’s a lie. I don’t want to go because when I think about being back in Cambodia, I am filled with fear.
“Well, think about it anyway,” Meng says before he hangs up the phone.
It’s a conversation we’ve had weekly, and every time my response is always the same.
By the time Little Red stops in front of my apartment complex, my head is finally clear. I grab my bag and head for the front door. At the bottom of the stairs, I open my mailbox and feel my spirit float off the ground when I see a catalog on angels stuffed inside. Granted, it’s a mail-order catalog selling all varieties of angel plates, bells, dolls, pendants, charms, and wings. Still, I bounce upstairs to my apartment, smiling at my sign.
My small one-bedroom apartment is just as I had left it a few days before. My home is decorated with paintings of sunflowers on the walls, tables, and chairs but not a single picture of Ma, Pa, or my family in Cambodia. I plunk down on my couch and turn on the TV, eager to unwind after the long drive. When the picture comes through, Oprah is talking to a Holocaust survivor who escaped from a concentration camp, then married her American rescuer and lived happily ever after. I walk through my glass sliding doors and out onto my balcony. When I close my eyes, I imagine Pa standing next to me. In my mind, I am five years old again. Pa picks me up and puts me on his lap. As he hugs me to his chest I know that he doesn’t just love me, he adores me. I know also that Pa loved Cambodia and would never leave it. And somewhere in Cambodia, he is there waiting for me.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you for letting me know you’re there.” Then I head back in, curl myself into a ball, and nap in the sunlight on the floor.
When the sunlight moves past me, the phone’s ring wakes me up. Groggily, I walk to the desk and pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Loung.” Meng’s voice flows through the line. “You make it home all right?” he asks in Khmer.
“Yep, no problem. Good driving weather.”
“Loung, you forgot to take the videotape,” Meng says, referring to the footage he took of his Cambodia trip. I flash to the hours and hours of scenes of splattering rain, swaying palm trees, bustling markets, temples, monks, rice paddies, and Chou, Khouy, and the family eating, walking, sitting, drinking, sleeping, and playing with their kids. Whenever I am home, I can count on the video being in the machine and Meng urging me to watch it with him. This time, I didn’t have the patience for it, so I told Meng I’d take the videotape with me and watch it back in Maine.
“You want me to send it to you?” he asks.
“No. That’s okay. I’ll pick it up next time.”
“In September we’ll have new videos,” he chuckles.
“Yes, we will,” I say, and take a deep breath. “I’m going with you.”
As the date for my trip to Cambodia approaches, my anxiety increases. My last images of my home country are of garbage-filled broken roads, decrepit charred buildings riddled with bullet holes. Before I fall asleep each night, I see the Khmer Rouge soldiers parading around the villages and guarding the vegetable gardens while my stomach balloons from hunger. In my dreams, I board the plane in America as an independent, self-sufficient, adult woman, only to step off as a child. The child is alone and lost in Cambodia and desperately calls out to her family, for Pa, Ma, and Chou to come find her. But each morning my panic leaves me when I remember Pa and Ma’s signs to me. And I know I am not alone.
&n
bsp; For many weeks I pack and repack my big backpack in anticipation of my trip. On the day of my departure, my panic finally transforms into excitement. I’m really going to see Chou! When we did not reunite after five years like Meng promised, I had put all thoughts of seeing Chou out of my mind. And through the years, as I became busy with school and life, I left Chou farther and farther behind until, in my mind, the oceans and twelve thousand miles between us seemed impossible to cross.
I strap myself into my airplane seat. Because I could not get time off work, Meng, Eang, Maria, and Tori went to Cambodia ahead of me, leaving me to travel by myself. I lean my head against the window and fantasize about returning to a country where I belong, a place where everyone speaks my language, looks like me, and shares the same history. I can now envision getting off the plane and walking into the open arms of my family, forming a protective cocoon around me, keeping me safe.
Twenty-five hours later, the plane screeches against the tarmac of the short runway. I brace myself for my first meeting with Chou in fifteen years. The stewardess announces for all to remain seated until the plane comes to a complete stop. I grip my armrest in my seat like a revved-up race car, resting in neutral but ready to take off. When I finally exit the plane, the heat and humidity hit me like a blast from the past and reawaken memories of a childhood spent shedding my clothes and playing in the rain.
I slowly inch my way through customs, and it feels like hours before I emerge from the airport. With my backpack strapped on tight, I spot my family in the crowd. Instantly, my hands are hot and sweaty. In front of me, twenty or thirty of them are positioned elbow to elbow, pushing at one another for their first glimpse of me. In the middle is Meng standing next to Eang, Maria, and Tori and looking happier and more peaceful than I’ve ever seen him look in America. Beside them, Khouy smiles at me from the same face as the one from my memory, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with I LOVE VERMONT on it. Then I see Chou and my throat tightens. Though she is older, I am still taller and bigger than she. I take in the details of her loose-fitting dark purple shirt, her unwrinkled black pants, and a pair of beige pumps that cover her toes. I fix my eyes on her long black hair, her smooth skin, and her full lips and face made up with pink powder and red rouge. When she smiles, her mouth opens wide to expose her teeth and gums, reminding me of Ma. She is beautiful. I gaze in amazement at how much my sister had changed.