by Loung Ung
“Yes,” seventeen-year-old cousin Cheung chimed in. “Your top lip points up like two mountains like your ma.”
“And when you laugh, you can see all your teeth and gum!” eight-year-old Hoa agreed.
“Your ma,” Aunt Keang added, “she was such a talker! She could talk about anything. Her lips were so big she could never keep them properly closed.”
“Stop pursing your lips together,” the cousins ordered and broke into laughter. Chou hadn’t even noticed that she was trying to pull her lips over all her teeth.
Back in her bed, Chou is about to fall asleep again when her ankle begins to burn and itch. At first, she senses invisible ghosts scratching at her feet. Kim has told her that ghosts are very mischievous and like to scare people for fun. Not wanting to see them, she covers her lids with her hands, too scared to even peek through her fingers. But as conscious thoughts return to her, Chou realizes her foot has escaped the net and is now being feasted on by mosquitoes. Quickly, she pulls it back into the net and out of reach of the hordes of hungry bugs. Fully awake now, she is suddenly aware of her throbbing full bladder. She wants to wake up one of the cousins to accompany her to the outhouse but she knows better. The last time she did that, they almost pushed her off the bed.
Reluctantly, Chou sits up, quickly throws the mosquito net over her to prevent any bugs from entering, and drops her bare feet to the dirt floor. Guided by the moonlight shining through the slits of the wooden walls, Chou makes her way to the back door. Beneath her, small pebbles dig and grind into her soles but her callused feet do not feel them. The last time she owned shoes was before the war.
At the door, she lifts the thick wooden board off its hinges, unlocks it, and pushes one panel open enough to squeeze her body through. The door whines and creaks but it lets her through. Outside, the air is cool and fresh but she knows that by midmorning, the June sun will burn hot and humid. Thirty feet away, the wooden outhouse sits, dank, dark, and partially hidden by thick bushes. Too scared to venture that far, Chou walks a few feet away from the door to a low brush area. There, she hitches her thumbs at her pant waist and swiftly pulls them down. As she squats to release her bladder, her urine splatters on the grass, bounces onto her leg, and warms the grass beneath her feet. With her eyes half closed, her hands automatically fan her bottom to scare away mosquitoes. Once she is finished, she walks over to the large round water jug and reaches for the plastic container floating on top. She scoops a bowl of water, and pours it on her hands and feet before walking inside.
Back in her bed, Chou tries to return to sleep but finds herself staring at the top of the mosquito net. Her gaze passes through the porous net, the wooden house frame, and then the layers of palm leaves to the big outside world. Out there beyond the village and Cambodia, she pictures America, a place filled with rich white people and big buildings. Though she has never seen pictures of it, Kim once told her they have buildings that are fifty, sixty, and even seventy stories high!
“Seventy stories!” she’d exclaimed then with disbelief. “People must look smaller than ants from that height!” To this, Kim could not answer.
She tries now to imagine what it must feel like to live that high above the earth, to be able to open a window and reach out to touch the clouds. For a moment, her thoughts shift to Loung and her heart squeezes tightly in her chest.
Chou closes her eyes and laces her fingers on her stomach. She wonders if Eldest Brother and Loung live in one of these homes in the sky. She hopes Eldest Brother doesn’t let Loung lean on the railings the way Pa let her climb them in their home in Phnom Penh. Chou knows her sister can be bad and reckless sometimes but she still loves her. Loung doesn’t know how much time Chou has spent worrying about her and all her antics. Like the time she went to see the public execution of the Khmer Rouge soldier in Pursat Province. Chou cried and screamed for her not to go and even threatened to tell their brothers about it, but Loung didn’t listen. Chou worries about her now and hopes she’s not making trouble for Eldest Brother and Eldest Sister-in-Law, wherever they are.
Since the day they left, Chou’s heard so many stories of other refugees who were kidnapped by Khmer Rouge combatants, captured by Thai pirates, and injured by land mines in their attempts to escape Cambodia. Chou’s dark thoughts spiral like a tornado, sucking all the light out of her eyes. Quietly, she repeats her constant prayers to the gods to protect her family.
A few days before they’d left, surrounded by the uncles, aunts, and family, Eldest Brother explained that they had only enough gold to buy two seats on a boat to take them to Thailand. The family reacted to this news with nods. Hidden behind the cousins, Chou held her breath in her stomach. She knew she would be separated from one of her siblings. She turned and stared at Second Brother Khouy, Kim, and Loung. When Eldest Brother told the family he would take Loung, Chou’s breath turned to ice that sent shivers through her veins. Eldest Brother then went on to describe the dangers of the journey, his feeling that Loung’s fearlessness would allow her to adapt better in a foreign country, and, more important, that her young age would allow her to get a better education. Chou didn’t hear many more words after that. She did not feel angry at not being picked. She simply accepted his decision no matter how heavy her heart felt. She never second-guessed Eldest Brother and believed that Khouy and Kim felt the same way. But on the day they left, she did not remember Eldest Brother’s talk. She wanted to run after them and beg Eldest Brother to take her also. As she stood there with the family and watched Eldest Brother and Loung leave, her body felt like an old dead tree, her insides hollow, and her toes dug into the dirt like roots. While she cried silent tears, Kim stood beside her with his shoulders folded inward and his stomach concaved into his body. But when she leaned against him, his slim frame was steady and strong.
That was nine months ago and they have been as silent as the dead. Again, her throat aches at the thought that something bad might have happened to them. A lot has changed in nine months. She’s thirteen years old now. But her frame is still small, her stomach protrudes from lack of food, and her limbs are short and thin. She turns to her side and stares at the men’s plank bed where Kim sleeps soundly.
At fifteen, Kim is a gentle old man in a child’s body. A head taller than Chou, Kim’s wiry body is muscular and strong from hard work. To the aunts, Kim is like a willow tree that can sit in dirty water and still grow beautiful and provide shade for the family. But to Chou, he’ll always be Ma’s little monkey who stole food and endured beatings to feed them all. On the other hand, Second Brother Khouy will always be the family’s tiger. At twenty-one, Khouy walks with the graceful stride of a cat but will quickly pounce on his prey if he has to protect his territory and family. Even when he is relaxed, he is full of lightning and thunder, especially when he’s had too much to drink. When he is drunk, he’s like fire, temperamental and burning everything in his path. In the morning after all the alcohol has left him, he claims that it took away his memories of the night before. No one dares to question him; the war and lack of food did not take away Khouy’s intimidating black belt karate—trained body. When he is not angry, Khouy can tell funny stories that keep everyone laughing for hours and everywhere he goes, family, friends, and girls are drawn to him.
Still, once during the monsoon season, Chou saw Khouy standing in the rain, a lone figure in the midst of the swaying palm trees. The warm rain had soaked his clothes to his body, and his bangs flopped over in his face as small children played around him. Every once in a while, a few children grabbed his hands and kicked up mud around him. He didn’t seem to mind them and stood quietly. Chou wondered if he was thinking of Geak. But they don’t talk about her. They don’t talk about Pa, Ma, and Keav either. They also don’t talk about Phnom Penh, the markets, the movie theater in front of their house in the city, the noodle shops they used to go to with Pa and Ma, Geak’s red cheeks, their home in the city, and so many other things Chou remembers vividly.
She cherishes all these m
emories, even the ones in which Kim and Khouy teased her with stories that Pa had found her in a trash can. They said she was so dark and ugly that Pa felt sorry for her and adopted her. They said that was why she has the darkest skin of them all. While the others laughed, tears flooded her eyes and slid easily off her cheeks. Since then, her tears always flow easily when she is sad, angry, sleepy, hungry, or scared. They flow especially freely when she is missing her family. And after the war, there were so many people to miss that her face was rarely dry. In the beginning, the family was wary because they never knew when the tears would start or stop. They looked at her with fleeting glances when she pulled the corners of her sarong to wipe her eyes. She wiped so hard and so often that her eyes became itchy and infected, and instead of tears, yellow mucus came out of her ducts. But as the days turned to months, the busy task of surviving stopped her eyes from leaking and slowly she began to heal.
As Chou’s thoughts drift and float in her head, the moon disappears and the sun climbs above the horizon, painting the sky pink, red, and orange. As if on cue, the neighbors’ roosters crow loudly and the dogs bark everyone awake. Tied to a tree beside the hut, the pigs snort in annoyance at having to wake so early. Inside the hut, the family answers the animals’ calls with yawns, coughs, and cries as they slowly come to life inside their mosquito nets. One by one, the cousins wake and saunter to the water jar. While the boys take turns washing their faces, Chou and the girls take down the mosquito nets, roll them into small balls, and stuff them in wooden crates under the bed. Then Chou walks to the front door, removes the wooden bar, and pushes the door open.
In front of the family’s hut, a small, red, dusty wagon trail passes their home and serves as the only road in and out of Chou’s village. Over forty families have built their homes in the thick forest of this remote town. Half a day’s walk to the east is Ou-dong, a thriving village of over three hundred families. Although Ou-dong has more people and a large market, the uncles feel it isn’t a safe place to be if the Khmer Rouge return to power. The uncles continue to believe that the Khmer Rouge would kill and target city people and leave the farming peasants alone. After Meng and Loung left, the uncles packed everyone up and moved them into the woods, hoping to be left alone by the continuing civil war.
Chou steps out of the hut to feel the sunshine. Across the trail, her neighbors are already up and putting a heavy wooden yoke on a pair of cows. The cows moo at the burden but stand fairly still, only swishing their tails at the hovering bugs. A few feet away in another hut, a young woman balances her naked baby on her forearm and with her other hand pours water on the child’s butt. The child screams and cries as the mother gently washes her cheeks and legs. When the baby is clean, the woman unfolds a black-and-white checkered scarf from her neck and wraps it around the wet baby. Beside them, a young child sits on the steps, rubbing her eyes awake as her mother places the baby in her arms. In their small town, everyone knows one another.
During the day, the neighbors’ conversations are easy, friendly, and full of superstitious tales and outrageous gossip as they collect water and work together. At night, the voices are quiet and the villagers quarantine themselves in their homes, afraid to go out for fear of being kidnapped by Khmer Rouge. Every once in a while, even though they are not in power, the soldiers still come down from their hideouts to raid a village, and take women, men, bicycles, cows, pigs, ponies, and rice.
For even though it has been almost two years since the Khmer Rouge’s Angkar government was defeated by the Vietnamese troops, Chou is not sure who rules Cambodia in their place. Outside their small village, there is much talk about the Vietnamese intentions and whether they invaded or liberated Cambodia and are now refusing to leave. But here in the village, Chou revolves her life around the family, farming, fishing, collecting water and firewood, and running from bullets during raids—whether the gun-bearers are government soldiers or Khmer Rouge. Sometimes, while she serves the men their dinners, Chou listens to them discuss the ever-changing Cambodian government. Their faces snarl like rabid dogs when their talks turn to the Khmer Rouge still daring to leave their mountain hideouts to raid the surrounding villages and towns.
Back inside the hut, the other family members prepare their food for another day in the field. Chou reaches over the bed and retrieves two large metal pails and a thin, flat wooden board. She carries the wood on her shoulders, holds the pails in her hands, and leaves to collect water from the pond. On the short walk, her eyes search for thick brushes and bushes where she can hide in case of an attack. She wonders why Ma ever named her Chou. In Chinese, Chou means a beautiful gem or precious stones. Chou feels neither beautiful nor precious. Every day, she wakes up with her heart pounding and wonders if this will be the day she’ll see a Khmer Rouge gun in her face.
3 minnie mouse and gunfire
July 1980
Last night I dreamt I was in the middle of gunfire. There were people running after me, trying to kill me. I ran and ran but they were always nipping at my heel. I woke up sweating and full of fear. But in my closet, I am not afraid. The day after we moved in, Meng put up a curtain, gave me a chair, and turned the three-by-four-foot space into my own private world. Here, I am the creator, taker, and giver of life. My sun, the one lightbulb above my head, shines brightly at the flick of my wrist. At my command, it illuminates my box and bestows life to the shadow creatures on my floor. Like mischievous ghosts, they beg me to play with them. But I ignore them and bend my head closer to my sketchpad, my hand busily drawing away.
Outside my sanctuary, Eang clangs our pots and pans as she scrubs them spotlessly clean in the sink. I suppose I should be a good girl and go see if she needs my help, but for now the bad girl wins and I stay put. I tug my curtain to close it tighter and focus on my paper. In my closet, I know things and things are known to me. Outside of it, the world is big and bright and so full of things I need to learn that sometimes my brain feels like the cream-filled doughnuts Meng sometimes brings home, all crammed up and mushy. I envision that if I squish the side of my head with my hands, the overstuffed filling will shoot out of my nose. But inside my closet, my world is controlled and my brain pulses firmly and gently under my skull.
I lean back on my chair and stare at my creation. My brows furrow with frustration and my teeth gnaw at a thumbnail. Under my blue pajama pants, the gray metal pull-out chair cools my butt, sending a chill up my spine. Involuntarily, I shake out my shoulders to let loose the energy before returning to my task. My left arm cradling my small pad, I finish the mouse by adding its circle ears. Once I finish, I place the pencil behind my ear and observe my drawing at arm’s length.
My feet start their rhythmic tapping on the hardwood floor. Normally, if Eang is within visible distance, I stop my feet by resting my hands on my knees. When my legs are still, my thighs and calves tingle as if hundreds of millipedes and their thousands of legs are crawling on my skin. Their friction creates static electricity, making the hair on my body stand up. From my knees, the millipedes’ microscopic legs travel down my feet until their electrical current becomes a tickle in my toes. At this point, I imagine if I don’t twitch to release the energy, the voltage will explode like ten tiny rockets out of my toes.
But Eang cannot see me in my closet so I let my knees knock and my feet tap to their content. I take my No. 2 pencil and shade in the pants, shirt, ears, and nose. My pencil presses down on the shape, darkening the circle ears, taking care to shade within the lines. Then I place the tip of the pencil in my mouth and wet the lead with my spit. With the wet tip, I blacken my figure’s eyes until they stare back at me like two black coals. Sitting back on my chair, I observe my drawing with a smile of satisfaction.
“Minnie Mouse,” I roll the name off my tongue. The name floats in the air like a catchy song.
“Minnie Mouse,” I repeat. Minnie does not answer me. Staring at her, I daydream about how fun it must be to look like a cartoon character and make people smile. I wish people would like me th
e way they like Minnie. When people look at Minnie, they are happy. I wonder what people see when they look at me. Eang says I look like an street kid, all dark and thin with my spindly arms and legs and bloated belly. Meng is afraid my growth may have been stunted because of the years of starvation and malnutrition. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see the girl they see. Instead, my hands pinch and pull at my features to bring forth Ma’s nose, Pa’s eyes, Keav’s smile, and Chou’s lips. I crave to hold their image in my hand and stare at their faces until their imprints are permanent in my brain. But we do not have a single picture of them and my face is now the only image I have to remember them by.
From the white sheet, Minnie stares up at me with her wet eyes and pleads for friends. As I begin to draw her some friends, Eang’s voice booms above me. I lift my head to see her standing in my closet’s doorway, my tan cotton curtain all bunched up in her hand.
“What are you doing?” she demands, sounding irritated.
“Drawing,” I reply nonchalantly.
“I’ve been calling you for the past fifteen minutes. Didn’t you hear me?”
I want to scream out, Of course I heard you! No amount of banging pots and pans can mute the shrill sound of your voice! But instead, I cast my eyes down and say, “I’m sorry.”
“All right,” she sighs. “Come help me clean the house. The McNultys will be here soon to pick us up for a barbeque at their house. We don’t want them to think we live in a messy house.”
“Can I have fifteen minutes? I want to pick up my closet first.”
“Oh, all right.” With another resigned sigh, she exits my space.
I drag the curtain across the copper rod and shut myself in again. I close my sketch pad and lay it on the floor, then fold up the metal chair and lean it against the wall. Picking up a clothes hanger from the ground, I hang it on a wooden rod stretched across the back of the closet. Next to the other skeletal hangers, my one white shirt, now wrinkled and slightly stained, looks lonely and sad. I pull out a drawer where I store my few sets of clothes and gently place my drawing in among them. Above the drawers, on one shelf, I adjust my small rectangular standing mirror, straightening out my comb, brush, and pencil box so that they line up evenly next to one another, careful not to knock over the glass of water nearby. On another shelf, I pick up stray bobby pins, rubber bands, and safety pins and put them in a wooden bowl already filled with colorful ribbons for my hair.