“I’m so sorry, Pithy,” I whisper. Pithy’s nine-year-old body lies unmoving, slowly sinking into the earth.
“I’m so sorry, Pithy!” I want to scream, but my mouth is dry, my spit caked around my lips. I clamp my hands over my ears and press my eyes closed, trying to squeeze Pithy out.
Then all is quiet. The bombs stop, the soldiers retreat, and the baby sleeps in its mother’s arms knowing the war will never scar its mind or stay in its soul. The world shifts back into place and slowly Cambodia recedes from my focus, leaving me again in America. In the dark, Meng’s voice calls out to me, his hand reaching into my shelter to pull me out. The mass departs; everyone is smiling and laughing.
“That was exciting! What a wonderful show!”
4 war in peace
August 1980
Crack, crack, crack. Chou jumps out of her heat-induced stupor at the noise, her hands trembling so hard that she drops her ax. Beside her, cousin Cheung does not notice Chou’s nervous reaction and gathers another handful of dead twigs. With her expert hands, Cheung shaves off the branches with her sharp knife. She then snaps them in half, creating a sound that reminds Chou of crackling gunfire. Chastising herself for being too jumpy, Chou hurries on with her work.
“Keav.” Her name bursts out like a crab from a mud hole. It seems that as Chou approaches her fourteenth birthday, Keav is on her mind so much that she seems to follow Chou wherever she goes. Chou shakes her head and forces herself to leave the shaded spot under the tree to walk into the sun. The minute she is out from under the shade, the sun burns her skin and eyelids, and the bright glare makes the fields shimmer and sparkle like a mirage. Chou almost half expects Keav to walk out of the hazy world into hers. Sometimes Chou hears Keav in a stranger’s laugh and almost turns her head around to look. Other times, the smell of mud and rotten compost brings Keav to mind. But Chou does not like to think about those times. Chou does not like to remember Keav sick and dying in her mess, smelling of feces and mold. Her eyes begin to sting again but she does not rub them. Instead, she runs her hand over her arms to wipe the chill off her skin.
“Chou! Are you working or dreaming?” Cheung yells out.
Chou turns to look at Cheung, who stares back at her with dark eyes. Cheung and Keav were great friends, but whereas Chou’s sister was known for her beauty, her cousin is known for her ability to work hard. At seventeen, Cheung is slender and pretty, but the war, their poverty, and their busy lives do not allow her the free time to think about romance. Chou wonders how Keav would have adjusted to a life like this. In Phnom Penh, Keav was always dreaming of falling in love with a handsome boy who would treat her like a princess. Kim and Khouy thought her brain was uselessly muddled by romance.
“Keav,” Khouy would call out to her as she sat in front of the mirror, pinning yet another new colorful barrette in her hair. “Don’t primp so much. You know you’re only going to grow up to marry a cyclo driver.”
“Do you think so?” Keav scrunched her face with worry. Khouy and Kim would laugh at her readiness to believe them.
Chou often wonders if Khouy ever thinks about Keav and their sad times under the Khmer Rouge. Whenever Chou hears him talk about the war, he entertains his audience with gory details and humor. As he acts out his stories, his voice booms with drama and bravado but never sadness. When she listens to him, sometimes she forgets her sadness and laughs along. But when his stories are over, she is left with her memories of Geak’s hunger and Keav’s death.
If she were alive, thinks Chou, Keav would be seventeen years old. And without doubt she would be the most beautiful girl in the village. Chou does not know which one makes her drop more tears, the dream of Keav’s life or the nightmare of her death. Shaking her head, Chou walks to the edge of the forest and picks up a dead branch from the thick brush. The brush holds on to the branch with its webs of vines and shoots, but they are no match for Chou’s rusty ax as it crashes down on them, chopping off their hold. For the next few hours, Chou pulls, chops, and shaves as her woodpile grows. Her arms, which were like pliant, strong bamboo in the morning, are now stiff and weak like deadwood. Under her dark blue clothes, her body aches and burns, but Chou stops only to wipe the sweat off her face, her calloused hand dragging dirt and grime from her forehead to her cheeks. Her old shirt sticks to her skin and smells of sweat.
In the sky, the sun passes over her head, changing her shadows from short and stout to long and lean. The sun grows weaker, but the humidity doesn’t lose any of its strength. By the time they have collected enough wood, Chou’s hair is damp and oily and Cheung’s is plastered to her skull. Together, the cousins wrap their ropes around their piles. Then they sit on the ground facing each other, with a pile of wood in between them. They push their bare feet against the wood and, while pulling at the rope, they rock the pile back and forth until the rope is taut before Chou double-knots it. As they rise, they plant their axes and more branches in their bundles of wood and are ready to go. Chou then takes her tattered black-and-white checkered krama scarf off her shoulders, pulls both ends tightly, and rolls it into a spiral circle. She places the scarf on top of her head and bends her knees for Cheung to put the woodpile gingerly on her krama. After she’s helped Chou, Cheung heaves her own pile onto her shoulder. Then with another push she lifts it off her shoulder and onto her head. With heavy woodpiles on their steady heads, the cousins look forward and march in single file back to the village.
As they approach their village and then their home, Chou’s neck throbs painfully, her lower back burns, and her calves are tight from the long journey. But she does not complain. She knows that the life of a poor villager is always filled with aches and pain from hard labor. With no doctors or access to medicine, a villager will seek an herbalist for a specific potion or concoction only when the pain becomes unbearable. Often, the herbalist does not know if the potion will help the pain but charges for the service anyway. And with rice—the country’s currency—so scarce, Chou decides to ignore her pain.
When she finally arrives at the hut, the sun is low in the horizon. Their wooded home is cool, as the trees take in much of the dampness in the air. Chou stiffens her neck muscles and gently lowers her chin toward her chest, allowing the pile of wood to fall off her head. As the wood crashes to the ground, Chou hurries her body, feet, and toes out the way. She picks the krama off the ground, shakes off the splinters and dirt, and wipes her face and neck with it. Then letting loose her thick curly hair, she runs her fingers through it and digs them into her scalp, giving it a good, long hard scratch. Without shampoo or soap, dirty hair, lice, and dandruff are also facts of village life. Chou twists her long hair into a bun again, secures it with a rubber band, and sighs. Because they did not have time to collect water from the pond today, she will have to wait until tomorrow for a shower.
Coming up behind her, Cheung drops her wood and walks to the water jug. Quickly, she splashes a handful of water on her face and hurries off to meet her friends to catch fish for their dinner. In a rare moment of tranquillity, Chou stands quietly and watches Cheung’s figure walking briskly away. The image of her faded black pants and shirt walking away reopens the scars in Chou’s heart. But before her thoughts can drift to find the reason for her sadness, three-year-old Kung wraps her dirty, tiny hands around Chou’s legs.
“Che Chou,” Kung calls her, using the Chinese title meaning big sister Chou.
“Let go of my legs. I’m not going anywhere,” Chou laughs, her voice high and hoarse.
“Che Chou, play with me,” Kung implores, her eyes round and smiling, her hands gripping tight onto Chou’s legs.
“I have no time to play. Go play with your sister.”
“Play, play, play!” Kung pleads, jumping up and down, her hands extending up to Chou.
“If you don’t stop I’m going to get mad.” Chou pretends to glare at Kung and walks toward Mouy, who sits on the ground, happily gurgling to herself. Chou scoops one-year-old Mouy up in her arms and hugs her to her
chest. Then she leans her face in, presses her nose against the child’s cheek, and rapidly sucks in air through her nostrils to give Mouy a Cambodia kiss.
“I want kiss her!” Kung reaches out to Mouy.
“Your nose is flowing with mucus. You can’t kiss her,” Chou tells Kung as she gently puts Mouy down. Seeing her chance, Kung dashes to Mouy, wraps her arms around her, and shoves her nose in Mouy’s cheek. When she is done, Chou looks at her with disgust before turning her attention to the green mucus streaking across Mouy’s cheek.
“Chou,” Aunt Keang calls out. “Watch the kids and make dinner. I’m going to help with the planting.”
“Yes, Aunt.” Chou knows that with farming, there’s always a lot of work to do and the family needs every available hand to work. And thus, before Aunt Keang leaves the hut, Chou is already busy stocking wood into a neat pile. As she works, Chou feels grateful to be part of their large family and takes great care not to get into fights or cause Uncle Leang and Aunt Keang to be angry with her. When they speak to her, she listens and honors their words as if they were from Ma and Pa. During meals, she serves them and their children first, before herself. In return, Uncle Leang and Aunt Keang treat her with kindness and tell her often that they love her as if she is one of their own. Yet even with all their kindness and love, Chou cannot forget that she is merely their niece and not their daughter.
“Che Chou, play!” Kung is holding her sister’s hand and staring up at Chou.
“No, I have a lot of work to do. You watch after Mouy while I go make our food.” Kung leads Mouy and together they toddle away to sit on the straw mat under the tree.
Leaving them to play with the fallen leaves and old sarongs, Chou goes a few feet from the hut, to where three large stones are placed around a small hole in the ground. She breaks a few handfuls of dry branches, crumples some leaves, and places them inside the hole. She lights a match and burns the dry leaves and branches into a fire before adding the bigger pieces of wood. She then places a pot of water on top of the stones to boil. While the water heats up, Chou walks into the hut and reaches under their plank bed to measure three twelve-ounce cans of barley into a plastic container. She fills the container with water and stirs it with her hands, forcing all the ants and bugs to float to the top. She pours out the water and bugs before taking the barley back to the fire, and then dumps the barley in the pot. Because barley takes longer to cook, Chou waits for thirty minutes before going through the same process with the rice.
When the rice and barley have turned into a thick gruel, Chou takes the pot off the fire to cool down. She places another big pot of water to boil while she chops stocks of bok choy, turnips, mushrooms, and other vegetables and tosses them into the pot. She then adds a few spoonfuls of salt and sugar, and a pinch of MSG to bring more flavor to their soup. In all, six cans of grains, some vegetables, and hopefully a few fish Cheung will bring home are all Chou has to feed their family of thirteen. It is getting harder and harder to grow the vegetables and to harvest rice, so she has to carefully ration their meals. While she adds more wood to the fire, her eyes shift constantly between the pot and the children. Gazing at Kung, Chou is reminded of Geak, whose laughter and giggles seem to echo from the mouths of these new babies.
“Please gods,” Chou prays under her breath, “wherever Geak is, do not let her suffer.” Chou still believes in the gods’ and spirits’ ability to help and watch over people. She also prays because everyone she knows prays. And although Pa was a monk as a child, and the family is Buddhist, Chou does not know what sect of Buddhism she was born to, and she has never read any Buddhist texts. And yet, throughout the year, she will pray to the god of harvest, full moon, river, sun, fields, land, and protection. She does not know the differences between each god but prays to them all and hopes that they will grant her good karma for her next reincarnation. She also feels closer to Pa when she prays.
“She was a good sister and daughter. Please gods, let her be reincarnated as a beautiful, rich girl in another country,” Chou pleads with the gods. “And, please gods, protect my eldest brother, Meng, and Loung, wherever they are, and keep Khouy and Kim safe from harm.”
With Loung gone, Chou is now closest to Kim. Even though Loung is no longer there, when Chou talks about the war, it is always with stories of the three of them together. During the Khmer Rouge time, they were together when the soldiers sent Meng, Khouy, and Keav to work camps, and when soldiers came for Pa. When the Vietnamese invaded the country, they were together and helped one another survive. And now that there are only the two of them, Chou and Kim look out for each other.
When the soup is cooked, Chou pokes at the red embers and hopes that cousin Cheung will be home with fish before they completely burn out. Chou piles the wood neatly beside the house, washes the pots and pans left by the others, takes the laundry off the line, and sweeps the floor. As time creeps slowly forward, making her shadow grow longer and longer, Chou begins to worry about Cheung. Inside the house, the toddlers have fallen asleep together in a hammock, their bodies nestled warmly in the pouch. Chou walks over to the hammock and gives it a push, lulling her cousins into deeper their dreams.
When she hears scuffling feet, she exits the hut and sees Aunt Keang approaching. “Where’s Cheung?” Aunt Keang asks, washing her hands beside the water container. Behind her, the rest of the family drags their feet slowly home.
“She went fishing and hasn’t returned,” Chou answers, her voice shaky and quiet. Then, suddenly, Kim is standing near and her voice grows stronger. “She left this afternoon and hasn’t returned.”
“It’s very late. Where can she be?” Aunt Keang’s round face wrinkles in fear.
“Second Aunt, it’s not dark yet. We’ll go find her,” Kim says reassuringly as Chou takes Aunt Keang by the arm. “Chou, take Aunt Keang inside. I’ll go and tell the news to Uncle Leang.” Chou looks gratefully at him.
Outside, Kim speaks quickly with Uncle Leang and Khouy. While Uncle barks out orders, Khouy hangs an ax on his belt and leads the men in search of Cheung. The girls sit around Aunt Keang. The heat suddenly becomes even heavier and more oppressive, making it difficult for them to breathe. In the growing darkness, the mosquitoes and bugs come out and buzz around the circle of women. Quickly, Chou goes to light a green mosquito coil and places it on the floor beneath the women’s plank. Then she picks up a round palm leaf and fans Aunt Keang. Still silent, Aunt Keang crosses and uncrosses her arms and legs in agitation.
“It’s going to be night soon,” Aunt Keang laments and sighs.
In the hammock, Mouy wakes up screaming. Chou leaves Aunt Keang to pick Mouy up and holds her tightly against her chest. Chou gently rocks the baby to sleep, and as her body moves from side to side, in her mind she is back in the Khmer Rouge time, sitting on the steps of their hut in the village of Ro Leap waiting for Kim to return. With Pa taken by the soldiers, and Khouy and Meng away at their work camps, Kim was the only man in their house. And when he saw that the family was slowly starving, Kim went to the cornfields to steal food for them but was caught by the guards who beat him with the butt of their rifles. Her eyes blink as she remembers the blood pouring out of Kim’s skull. Her lips begin to quiver but she forces herself to smile and play with Mouy to push away the tears while continuing to stare at the door.
Before the sky turns black, the women hear Cheung’s voice.
“Ma,” she calls out in a child’s voice.
“My daughter, my daughter.” Aunt Keang leaps off the plank, runs outside, and wraps her arms around her daughter. “My daughter, we have been very scared. What happened?” Aunt Keang puts her arm protectively around Cheung’s shoulders and guides her into the house. Once inside, Aunt Keang runs her hands over Cheung’s arms and takes her into another embrace.
“Ma, there was another Khmer Rouge attack!” After she utters the dreaded Khmer Rouge’s name, Cheung cannot stop her tears from spilling.
Alone with the women, Cheung sits in the middle of the
circle as they gather around, their hands brushing her hair, touching her back, rubbing her arms, and holding her hands. Feeling safe, she recounts her story.
“My friends and I were fishing in a muddy brook,” she begins.
When she arrived at the big pond, she saw that the sun had dried up much of the water, but along the edge she could see fresh crab holes. Before reaching her hand in, she poked a long stick into the hole to make sure no snake lived there. The memory of how blue that poor village boy turned when he was bitten by a snake still scared her to death! When the crab crawled out, Cheung grabbed it by its shell and plunked it into her basket.
Then she looked around and saw many bubbles rising from the mud. She knew the fish must be so hot that they were trying to cool down in the mud. She probed with her feet and found there were so many fish that she stepped on them just by walking around! Some were able to slither away but others she trapped, putting all her weight on them. She then quickly dragged the area beneath her feet with her wicker basket. She was rewarded with two wriggly fish, and she tossed them onto the grassy bank.
Cheung and her friends were so busy talking and rejoicing with each catch that they did not hear a group of soldiers running toward them.
“Stop and stand still!” the soldiers commanded. Cheung and her friends dropped their baskets and froze in fear. Suddenly, her friends sprinted into the forests like frightened animals and disappeared. A few of the soldiers took off after them, their AK-47s aimed in the direction of the fleeing teens. Cheung tried to run, but her feet had sunken deeply in the mud, and she couldn’t move them quickly.
“You are Khmer Rouge. Stop and be still!” The soldiers’ words sounded like a pronouncement of death to Cheung’s ears. “We are the government’s soldiers.”