Lucky Child (7 page)

“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.”

After so many years of war, Cheung did not trust any soldiers, whether they were Khmer Rouge or the government. She saw only that the soldiers wore dark uniforms. As the soldiers moved closer, she finally pulled out her feet and ran through the water.

“Stop!” the soldiers yelled. Cheung kept running and dove into the knee-deep brook as bullets whizzed by her. Cheung held her breath and tried to swim, but the water was too shallow. Despite the warmth of the water, her skin went cold. When her lungs were about to burst, she raised her head out of the water and froze as another bullet flew by the top of her scalp.

“Please don’t kill me,” Cheung begged, her voice hoarse. Twelve soldiers surrounded her, their guns pointed at her chest.

“Put your hands behind your head!”

“Please don’t kill me.” Tears slid out of her eyes and nose now.

“You are Khmer Rouge!”

“Please, good lords, I am not with Pol Pot. I am just a village peasant.” The soldiers would not listen and ordered her on her knees. They grabbed her arms and tied them behind her back and jerked her off the ground.

“Please, good lords,” Cheung pleaded.

“Stop talking!” A soldier pushed at her back with the barrel of his gun. “Walk!” Still sobbing, Cheung obeyed in silence as they led her away from the village. In her mind, she saw them shoot her dead and dump her body in a rice field. With each step, her hands became more swollen and her feet heavier. Under her breath, Cheung thanked the gods for stopping the bullet from hitting her and prayed to them to help her get home. Suddenly, the group saw an old man approaching them on the road.

“Please help me!” Cheung yelled when she recognized the villager. “They think I am Khmer Rouge. Please tell them I am not!”

“Good lords,” the man pleaded with the soldiers. “Cheung is not a Khmer Rouge. She is from my village.”

“No!” the head soldier exclaimed. “We were chasing after a group of Khmer Rouge who raided a village this afternoon. They ran in her direction. We told her group to stop but her friends ran away. If they are not Khmer Rouge, why did they run?”

“Good soldiers, I can swear that this girl is no Khmer Rouge. Her name is Cheung and she is the daughter of old man Leang and his wife,
Keang. I know them well. They are good farmers and kind people. She is their daughter. I beg you to let her go. I beg you to return her to her family.” The man raised his hands to his chest in respect. The head soldier hesitated and stared at the man and then back to Cheung.

“Will you swear? And if she is a Khmer Rouge and you are hiding her, we will come find you and make trouble.”

“Yes, I swear.”

Listening to all this, Cheung’s heart beat so rapidly she thought it would explode out of her ribs. When the soldiers untied her hands and told her she could go, she ran away so fast she never even thanked the kind man for his help.

When Cheung finishes her story, the women are all in tears. The men return later to find them laughing and smiling, with their arms still encircling Cheung. Chou smiles with relief when she sees Kim’s silhouette walking through the doorway.

5 “hungry, hungry hippos”

September 1980

On the TV screen, the girls sit in a circle around a table and laugh out loud. The laughs leave their mouths like light air bubbles, and their gleaming white teeth shine like pearls. In the background, a joyous chorus repeatedly sings the words “Hungry, hungry hippos.” On the table, four fat plastic hippos crouch on a red plate, their funny eyes staring dumbly at one another. Each hippo wears either a pink, yellow, green, or orange skin and waits patiently for the girls to feed them the white marble balls. As the music rises and the singers urgently repeat “Hungry, hungry hippos,” the girls release the balls and all mayhem ensues as each girl furiously pounds on the hippo’s tail to open its big mouth and make it swallow marbles.

“The hippos are too tame!” I think smugly, imagining the hippos growing larger, their bodies ripping out of the colorful plastic casings to reveal shiny leathery black skin. Their eyes are bulging and bloodshot, and their teeth are sharp and jagged like fangs. The hippos’ thick legs trample the red plate beneath them and chomp at everything in their path. Their noses flare, and they charge at the girls.

When the commercial is over, I remain transfixed on my couch. The “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” song is still swirling in my head, bouncing in my skull like a Ping-Pong ball, picking up momentum wherever it hits.

“Hungry, hungry hippos,” echoes my mind.

“Growl, growl,” my stomach sings back.

“Hungry, hungry Luanne,” I whisper to myself, using the name so many of the sponsors seem to think is mine.