Lucky Child (6 page)

From a few feet away, Joe waves for us to look into the viewfinder and asks for a smile as the camera flashes and commits our image on film for all to see. In the picture, Lisa looks light and happy. Next to her, my face is dark with a frown, my eyes squint, but I’m all dolled up in my floral pink tube dress with white spaghetti straps, blue-and-white striped socks, and green sneakers.

After a yummy barbeque of burgers, hot dogs, and Eang’s special Cambodian chicken, we all walk the short path from the McNultys’ house to the fairground. The sky has turned pink and orange and the air blows cool breezes that chase the bugs away. All around us, the mass of people stroll together, their voices a low hum broken by an occasional shrill call for their kids to slow down. As we march along, my skin picks up the excitement, a charge of electricity.

The mass is all heading in the same direction, to a field of grass and shrubs used to host the fair every summer, and an occasional concert or monster truck show in the fall. Soon the mass grows too large for the sidewalk and overflows onto the street, slowing down traffic as people stop to greet, talk to, and gossip with their neighbors. Looking around, I’m surprised to see the normally drab white people dressed in festive red, white, and blue colors. A man in front of me adds another foot to his frame with a blue-and-white striped top hat. Next to him, white stars bounce on the back of a woman’s shirt as she jogs to grab a child’s hand. The young child breaks free of the woman’s grasp, her voice raised to its highest pitch, her arms out like the wings of a plane, as she runs to meet another friend her age. Once together, they wrap their arms over each other’s shoulders and lean their heads together, whispering secrets into each other’s ears.

Watching them, my palm feels empty and cool until Ahn sprints to my side and takes my hand. With her black hair and Asian features, Ahn is the only other girl who looks similar to me in the crowd, and she makes me feel accepted. Her acceptance warms me. Hand in hand, we edge along with the crowd toward the fairground. Ahn drags me along and talks excitedly about the exploding lights that cover up the sky like shooting stars. Behind us, Joe and Lisa explain to Meng the importance of the Fourth of July.

After a few moments of searching, Joe finds a bench in the first row with room enough for all of us. All around, children scream with joy; their arms shoot out sparklers and flap around like dragonflies. Somewhere in the distance, a band plays songs I’ve never heard. The drums and symbols roll and clash thunderously, lifting me into the air before the tuba drags me back down to the ground. Above us, the stars twinkle like the eyes of the gods, blinking in and out, as if they’re spying on our festivities.

“It’s almost time, it’s almost time,” the crowd whispers.

The crowd huddles in the dark, forming bumps on the field resembling burial mounds.

“It’s almost time,” the mass exhales.

My skin moistens from the sound of crackling gunshots from afar.

“Any moment now,” the swarm murmurs as the excitement grows. Perspiration forms above my lip. I wrap my arms around myself, my hands rubbing my skin to warm my arms.

Suddenly, a cannonball shoots into the air; the whiz of its flight and brilliant explosion hovers above me. My hands clasp over my ears, my eyes shut, and my jaw clenches so tightly I feel the muscles of my cheeks cramp up. In the sky, the rocket explodes, and its deafening sound vibrates in my heart. Then another cannon hurls another weapon above the crowd and is followed by many more as I brace myself for the oncoming war. The smell of burnt powder, the brightness of the bombs, and the haze of smoke are so terrifying that even the stars leave us and disappear into their black holes. Somewhere in the crowd, a baby screams; its cries jump into my head and are trapped in my skull, flooding my senses. Another explosion sends me trying to scurry under the bench but Meng grabs my arms and holds me in my seat. I want to be a good, strong girl so I press my body against the back wall as more flares shoot into the night and burst into fire
showers. I flatten my body into the bench and try to disappear into the wood.

In my seat, my throat closes as I gasp for air. Suddenly, I am outside of time and space and in a world where Cambodia and America collide, with me stuck somewhere in the middle. A baby screams as the soldiers reach into the bomb shelter and pull out a woman. Her clothes are black and dirty and her face is muddy. She clutches her baby to her breast and begs for mercy, taking me back to the death of Ma and Geak. All of a sudden, my world goes red and I am back in America, disoriented and terrified. As the sky continues to explode, I count quietly under my breath, inhaling the falling ashes and damp earth through my nose and mouth.

“One … Two … Three,” I breathe as pictures of Cambodia and America are superimposed one on top of the other. My eyes shut, I pray the bombs will not hit my shelter and bury me alive.

In the night sky, the gods battle their grand finale. In the bomb shelter, the Cambodians get on their knees, their palms together and pressed against their chest, and their lips singing incantations and prayers for the war to stop. Not caring, the gods throw firestorm and lightning, tearing the sky apart, while the souls of its people hide deep within the earth.

In my mind’s eyes I see my friend Pithy crouching next to me, her mother and brother huddled together beside her. Another explosion splits open so loudly that even the gods desert us and leave us to the enemies. In my head, a mother screams and I turn to see Pithy, her head cracked like a coconut, her blood oozing out of her wound.

“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.