Children of the River

by Linda Crew

The band started playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Sundara stood with the others. Behind her, a boy began singing in a silly falsetto. Sundara turned and eyed him coolly. So disrespectful. Naro would be outraged at this. He always became emotional during the national anthem, especially the part about the land of the free and the home of the brave.

  Soon the players were smashing into each other, the men in the striped shirts were blowing whistles and tossing handkerchiefs. Unfortunately, the strange game didn't seem any clearer to Sundara here than it did on television. There must be more to it than she understood. Otherwise, why would the Americans get so excited? At school the crowds parted in respect when two or three of the players in their letter jackets came swaggering down the middle of the hall. But why were football players such heroes?

  And Cathy Gates Sundara found herself staring at the girl. She was fascinated with her face, which looked as if it turned on and off with a switch. One instant she'd be standing there with her hip cocked, one elbow cradled in her other hand as she bit her thumb, watching the players on the field. Then something would happen in the game and—click—her face would light up with a big smile as she whirled to face the crowd, clapping and prancing, her brown hair bouncing. Her skin was dark, Sundara noticed, but it was light skin tanned dark, which seemed to make all the difference to the Americans.

  Most of all, Sundara envied Cathy's mystifying knack for knowing when Jonathan and his teammates had done something worth cheering about. She always knew whether to chant “Go! Go! Go” or “Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, waaaay back!”

  When Sundara tried to get Kelly to explain about these things, Kelly just said the main idea was trying to get the ball to one end of the field or the other. This wasn't much help. Sundara could hardly ever see where the ball was! So frustrating, hearing Jonathan's name over the loudspeaker, yet never being able to tell him from the others.

  But finally there came a moment when she did see thč football. It was arcing high, and the crowd rose as one in a long, tense moan of anticipation. “Aaaahhh ” She saw the orange figure running, arms outstretched.

  “Come on, McKinnon” Kelly yelled.

  The ball spiraled downward. Jonathan McKinnon leapt, plucked it in midair, and hit the ground running. A deafening cheer rose as he dashed between the white posts.

  Sundara found herself on her feet, jumping and clapping with the crowd. She did not understand the game, but she understood speed, she understood grace. She understood why everyone thought Jonathan McKinnon was wonderful.

  CHAPTER 5

  Standing in the hall after international relations Sundara's heart pounded so hard she feared Jonathan would hear it. “I don't know much about the politic,” she said. “Only what I hear my family say.”

  “You've gotta know more than I do, though. Come on, let me interview you for my project. It won't take long.”

  Why did she feel so quivery? Wasn't this just the sort of thing she'd hoped would happen? And it did seem innocent enough. After all, he was studying the situation in her homeland for his report; he had the news magazines right there on top of his notebook to prove it.

  “Well,” she said, “okay. If I can help you.” By the time she realized they were going to be conducting this discussion over lunch trays, alone together out on the patio, it was too late to demur. Couples sat together under every tree, on each likely bench; how could she explain, without giving offense, that for her this was wrong?

  As he started in on his sloppy joe, she smiled shyly, not meeting his eyes. “Before you tell me your question, can I ask one to you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ever since I hear your name, I'm wondering. Is your father a doctor?”

  “Yeah, a pediatrician.”

  “Ahh I'm glad.” Even though Jonathan looked as though he could be the son of the Dr. McKinnon she remembered, she had thought it unlikely. Would the son of a well-to-do doctor wear such faded jeans, sweatshirts with ragged cut sleeves? In America—yes. “Your father the one take care my cousin when we first come here.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “Little Pon so sick. Only fifteen pound he weigh at almost two year old!”

  “Fifteen pounds.” He poked a straw in his milk carton. “Are you sure? My mom says I weighed almost ten when I was born.”

  “But true. All his meat is gone. Nothing but bone left. We are scared because he is so bad and we cannot understand any English. But your father, he is a very kind man, so tender to all the little one. He make our Pon well again. My aunt say, Oh, if the people here are like Dr. McKinnon, maybe America gonna be a good place after all!’ This why I'm wondering if you are the son. You see, it is because of your father I am inspired to be a doctor myself.”

  “You've already made up your mind?”

  She nodded. “Before, I think I just take care my children when I grow up, cook and like that. But now everything so different. My family want me to be a doctor so I can go back someday and help my people. They will need more doctor, because the Khmer Rouge kill all the old one.”

  “Oh. Well, I'm impressed.”

  She was talking too much, she realized suddenly, embarrassed. She should encourage him to speak instead. “What do you plan to be?”

  He shrugged. “I don't really know.”

  “My cousin Ravy—the one you see at the market?—he is asking me do you plan to be a professional football player?”

  “Don't think so.”

  “But you are the big star. I see you win the game.”

  He looked up. “You were there?”

  She nodded, glad that at least she'd understood he'd done something remarkable. “I think football is the most important American game, right?”

  “Well, maybe. But I don't take it as seriously as they want me to. Mostly I just like to run.”

  “You very fast.”

  “Who wouldn't be? You notice the size of some of those meats chasing me?”

  Sundara's hand went to cover her smile. “You all look big in those funny suits!”

  “Yeah, well, those gays fiel big, too, when they land on you. Someday I'll probably get clobbered.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, I hope not.” Then she glanced away. She had no business making it sound as if it mattered so much to her. Even if it did. She cleared her throat and folded her hands in her lap. “What you want me to tell you about my country?”

  A slow smile spread over his face, a smile that made her go warm all over.

  “Right,” he said. “This ir supposed to be business, isn't it? Well let's see ” He opened his notebook, flipped through the pages to some jotted questions. “Okay what was it like, living in the middle of a war?”

  “Oohh Hard to say. I cannot remember my country without a war. But when I'm small in Phnom Penh, it seem far away. The grown-up keep talking how something bad gonna happen, but I don't pay any attention. By the end, though, no one can ignore. My school close down because of the bombing just when I supposed to take my examination for the lycée, and—”

  “Lycée?”

  “Oh, that French. It mean like a high school. Anyway, I study so hard for the test. In my country, you not pass this, no more school for you unless you are a high-up person and your father can pay for private school. My father cannot pay, but he want me to get a good education, so I study hard. Then they shoot the rockets and I don't get to take my test! I get so mad! After that is the long vacation. But all the road into Phnom Penh are blocked so we cannot go down to the sea at Ream. Cannot go anywhere. Cannot even go to the cinema. Just stay home and listen to my mother complaining how the food cost more every time she go to the market. It's like crazy inflation, you know?”

  “But you never really saw any fighting?”

  She smiled grimly. “Only in our house.” She touched her fingers to her lips. “But I shouldn't tell about that.” She took a small bite of her sandwich. Surprising, the way the words were pouring out. English words. This American boy had done nothing but smile at her encouragingly and here she was, putting into English things she'd never spoken of before in any la
nguage.

  “Why shouldn't you talk about it?” Jonathan persisted.

  She frowned. “Not right to tell our family trouble ” He seemed to be waiting for her to go on. She hesitated, then recklessly plunged ahead. “Just that everybody get so cranky, you know? My father a teacher at another lycée, so he home all the time. This the hot season. Everybody kind of pick on each other I'm sorry now. I feel bad when I think how I talk to them.”

  Jonathan smiled. “Somehow it's hard for me to picture you as a rotten kid.”

  “It is true. My mother say I'm sassy.” She tilted her head. “I'm a different person now, though. Like I already die and now I am reborn.”

  Jonathan gave her a startled look. She flushed.

  Perhaps this was the danger, she thought, in talking to Americans. You constantly risked stepping over some invisible boundary, saying something they'd find odd. As she turned away, she noticed a group of boys lounging around the picnic tables, gawking at them.

  “They think it funny, you talking to me.”

  Jonathan turned. “Oh, that's just a bunch of guys from the team. They like to give me a hard time.”

  Most of them were much bigger than Jonathan, Sundara noticed. Wider. They looked mean, with their tight T-shirts and muscles.

  “Hey, McKinnon” one yelled. “We vote nine!”

  Jonathan tried to wave them off.

  “What does that mean?” Sundara asked. “‘We vote nine’?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It's stupid.”

  “Please? I want to know.”

  “Oh, it's just this dumb thing they're into lately—rating girls. You know that movie 10?”

  Sundara shook her head. “We never go to movie here.”

  One of the boys yelled, “Ten if she wears a grass skirt”

  Jonathan's face turned red. He shook his head. “Just ignore them.” He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the cement bench, stretching out his legs. “They're right about one thing, though. You would look great in a grass skirt.”

  “A grass skirt?”

  “You know, like one of those South Sea Island girls. Tahitians or whatever. That's what I thought the first time I saw you.”

  She glanced away, flustered. He was flirting. Unless she was absolutely hopeless at interpreting American boys . But no—somehow she felt sure the look on his face was the same in any language.

  “Khmer women don't wear grass skirts,” she said, thinking even as she spoke what a stupid remark this was. But how could she be clever when he was making her so nervous?

  He shrugged, gave her that slow smile again. “You look great in jeans too.”

  Absolutely shameless, that's what he was! She cocked her head at him. “This is part of the interview?”

  “Oops. Sorry.” He sat up straight. “I'll try to be good.”

  While he made a show of studying his questions, she was thinking about her jeans. Soka always complained they were too tight. Maybe they were. She smiled to herself.

  “Okay ” Jonathan looked up. “Do you think it's possible that people watching war coverage on TV see more bombing and stuff than the people actually there do?”

  She blinked at the change of subject. “I don't know. We don't have a TV in Cambodia. Do they show a lot of bomb?”

  “Here, they did,” Jonathan said. “Every night.”

  “What I see,” she told him, “is what the war does to the people. Before, Phnom Penh is a beautiful city, but by the end it's crowded with refugees from the countryside. You know, they make a tent on all the sidewalk ” She trailed off. Sitting here in the peaceful autumn sunshine, all that seemed so long ago and far away. Did she really want to bring it back? The wretched women fanning clouds of flies from their sick-looking children. The stench of overflowing garbage rotting in the late dry-season heat. You couldn't get that from television. The cratered streets, the rubbled buildings, the people with limbs missing, wounds bound in filthy bandages, crusty with rust-red blood

  “The main thing I remember about the Vietnam War,” Jonathan said, “is my mother's antiwar petitions. She and my dad got in a big fight because one time she took them to a party for people from the clinic. My dad had just started working there and he was afraid people would get upset.”

  “And did they?”

  “It upset my dad, that's for sure.” Jonathan shrugged. “So that's my memory of the war. I didn't really understand what it was all about; I just knew it was something so horrible, Mom had to keep turning the TV off so I wouldn't see it on the news.”

  Sundara sighed. “My mother doesn't want me to see it either. That's why they keep me home. I never know how bad everything is until I leave.”

  “I’ll bet you're glad you got out when you did, huh?”

  She felt the corners of her mouth twitch. Jonathan saw this.

  “Look, we don't have to talk about Cambodia, if it's going to make you feel bad.”

  “I don't mind, if it help you for your report.”

  “Well, if you're sure.” He tapped the Newsweek on the top of his stack. “I've already read some about it. Enough to know I'm really glad you got out of there. I mean, I know you miss your home, but from what I've read about the Khmer Rouge being so down on intellectuals, it would have been terrible if you'd stayed. Your dad a teacher ” He shook his head. “Just lucky he got out in time.”

  “But Jonatan ” She laid down her fork carefully. “He doesn't get out.”

  Jonathan's sloppy joe stopped halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean? I thought—”

  “I leave my whole family in Phnom Penh.”

  He dropped the sandwich onto the tray. “Oh, God, Sundara. I'm sorry. I didn't know. When you talked about your family I just assumed ”

  “No, I come with my aunt and uncle because I'm with them in Ream when Phnom Penh fall down. Maybe I don't explain right before.”

  He swallowed hard. “So what happened to your parents?”

  “I don't know. I hear nothing.”

  “In all this time?”

  She shook her head. “The last day I see my father is when he take me to the airport.”

  “But that's awful.”

  She nodded. “My parent send me on the plane to Ream only a couple week before the Khmer Rouge take over. Plane is the only way out because all the road blocked. That's when I see the city all falling apart. The boulevard jam full of bicycle, oxcart, motorcycle, big green soldier truck—everything. All the big, pretty house pile up with sandbag to protect. I just hang on to my father in the pedicab and stare. I never know until now how bad the war is making everything. I remember the driver drop us at the taxi station, says, ‘Twenty riel.’ My father say, ‘You crazy! That four time the regular.’ He go, ‘This war. You not the only one in a hurry to get someplace.’ The airport a mess too. Everybody pushing, worried to get out. Then the shell come screaming.”

  “Right when you were there?”

  “Yes! My father throw me on the pavement. My chest burn, I'm so scared. I feel the hot ground shake my face. Then he yank me up, drag me to the plane step. By now I don't want to go at all, just want to stay with my family. I'm crying, but he doesn't listen. I tell him, look, my elbow bleeding and his glasses have a crack, but he just shove me up with the people.”

  “And you haven't heard anything since then?”

  “No. Only the rumor about what happen when the Khmer Rouge take Phnom Penh. A few who escape say the Communist make everyone march into the country to work and many die. Sometime I say to myself, ‘Sundara, you may already be kamprea.’ That mean orphan. A couple day ago we have a holiday, All Soul Day. We pray for everyone who already die. But I don't know who to pray for, because—well, who die and who doesn't?”

  After a moment Jonathan shook his head as if he couldn't believe her story. “Leaving without your parents ” he said.

  “And my brother and little sister.” She sighed. “And Chamroeun.”

  “Chamroeun?”

  “He a boy I know.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  She studied her hands. “Kind of like that.” She looked up at him again
. “Maybe I shouldn't make you sad about this.”

  For a long time they said nothing. They had both stopped eating. Finally she said, “How many brother and sister do you have?”

  “None. I'm it.”

  “Ah! That too bad!”

  He blinked. “There are certain advantages to being an only child, you know.”

  “Oh, forgive? I don't meaning to offend.”

  “No, that's okay.” He laughed. “I guess I'm just not used to people feeling sorry for me. Everybody always acts like I'm the kid with everything.”

  “But no brother or sister ”

  He shrugged. “I'm used to it.”

  “Oh.” She glanced away. “In Cambodia we like to have many children. Five is good. If you can support a lot of children and they healthy, you feel rich.”

  Jonathan frowned. “Actually, I think my parents did want more kids. I didn't understand what was going on at the time, but I'm pretty sure my mom had a bunch of miscarriages.”

  “Miscarriage?”

  “You know, babies that didn't make it. Babies that were never born.”

  “Oh. Very sad.”

  They were quiet for a moment, then she spoke again.

  “I have a lot of fun with my brother and sister, even if I act mad with them sometime. Samet have more freedom because he's a boy, and Mayoury, she the little one, so naturally she kind of get spoiled. But I'm just the middle daughter. So when my mother say she sending me to Ream, I say, ‘Good, I be glad to get away.’ But then I get homesick. You see how foolish? I have to go away before I see how I love my family.”

  “I guess that's the way it is with a lot of people. You know: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  “Yes! That exactly how it is. The American understand this too, then” She repeated it. “Absent make the heart grow fonder.” She sighed. “That so true!”

  “Look,” he said, “if it's bothering you to talk about all this ”

  She laughed shortly. “I say we shouldn't talk about, then I start again.”

  “You don't have to. Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up at all.”

  “No, that's okay. You know, I never talk about this before. Not to an American.”