I open the door to my dreams
and see the face
of the one I love
gazing back at me
in fear
and adoration
and wonder
then I know
this is the face
of the one who is
my daughter
and I’m surprised by her last line
expecting something instead about her
s-e-x-y m-a-n
I ask if we’ve finished the poem
but Zena doesn’t look up
and I realize it’s my turn
so I think
then add the line
to be
Zena looks up
when I add that
but doesn’t look up
when I ask
if she wants to keep going
Sam tells me
to read the whole thing
again
and I do
nice he says
and Zena looks up
by then it’s nearly dark outside
so I tell Zena I’ll see her next week
and I’ll type this one up
for her notebook
Zena spells t-h-a-n-k u
and I say there’s a short way to do that
and show her how to spell
39 for sankyu—
san for three
kyu for nine
which is how thank you sounds
with a Japanese accent
I put on my sweatshirt
tell her I’ll bring poems
and we’ll write
more masterpieces
and Zena
looks up again
it’s after five when we sign out at the nurses’ station
tell them to tell Lin that we’re leaving
head down the corridors
to the elevator
sign out in the lobby
and step outside
to the slap
of cold autumn air
Sam says that Chris is coming
they can give me a ride
and Chris already called YiaYia
to tell her she doesn’t have to come
since my grandmother’s house is
sort of on the way
we can wait over there Sam says
so we cross the bridge
over the darkened river
which we can’t see
so much as smell
and which Sam says is
not a river
but a canal
from the mill days
and we stand in the red and green light
of a pizza sign
you live with your uncle—Chris? I say
and aunt he says
is that good? I ask living with them?
yeah, it’s good
and I wonder if he’s adopted
even though he calls them “uncle” and “aunt”
but before I can ask he says
how about you?
how’s living with your grandmother?
and I say
it’s okay
for now
that’s all
because I just don’t want to go into everything
and he says
I hear you
we’re standing there
angled toward each other
with the neon pizza sign
splashing red and green swaths across his face
the smell of pizza reminding me I’m starved
and right now I don’t want to go home yet
to my same old music
and my grandmother and brother
and my mother and her upcoming surgery
I just want to go inside this pizza place
and talk with this guy Sam
and pretend even briefly
that everything is normal
but Chris pulls up in the car
and Sam gets in the front
and I get in the back
and that’s that
in the car we talk about Zena and how she called me a dodo
and when I tell them she spelled s-e-x-y m-a-n
they both crack up and Sam says he bets he knows who it is—
her sexy man
who? another patient? I ask
no he says a poet guy
I ask about Mr. Sok and Mr. Pen and
and Sam says that Leap Sok, who he calls
Lok Ta Leap—Grandfather Leap
is writing a memoir
but his hand doesn’t work now
because of a stroke
and Lok Ta Chea is writing some letters
for his grandchildren and a little bit
about the refugee camp
but he hasn’t been well lately
refugee camp? I ask
Sam says yeah, in Thailand
after he escaped Cambodia
when the Vietnamese
drove out Pol Pot
and from that one sentence
I realize that even though I’m good at geography
and even though I know those countries’ capitals
I know hardly any Southeast Asian history
which seems unforgivable
having grown up in Japan
but I nod when Sam turns to look at me
nod thoughtfully as if I get it
and I promise myself
to learn something
before I see him next
to figure out
what is this language Khmer
that he and Mr. Sok and Mr. Pen speak
for now I say
that sounds tough
and Sam says yeah, it can be
some days I help them with English
things they don’t know how to say to aides or nurses
most days Lok Ta Chea can’t get out of bed
he can barely see and his feet are swollen
Lok Ta Leap is the one I work with more
and it’s mostly his memories
of his village and his parents
and the temple he lived at
and the work he did later
and how he made it through Pol Pot times
and stories of his grandparents
and sometimes ghosts who do things
like break someone’s neck
because the person did something bad
Sam is then silent
ghosts, I’m thinking from the backseat
and I’m reminded of a story that Shin once told
on a school trip to Kyoto
the story Shin told us in the dark when he and Kenji
snuck into our room
was about students sleeping on the second floor of the inn
where our class was staying and how one student woke up
and saw a figure walking back and forth
past the room’s window
at first the student didn’t think anything of it
and fell back asleep
but he woke again and saw the figure still going back and forth
so he thought someone was on the path outside the window
but then he remembered there was no path outside the window
so he thought someone was on the balcony outside the window
but then he remembered there was no balcony outside the window
and they were on the second floor
the student woke the others
who didn’t see any figure
so the next night when it appeared again
he went outside to check
but never came back
now at the inn they say that sometimes guests
see the shadowy forms of two figures
walking back and forth
outside the windows
and if you go outside to check, who knows
maybe soon, there’ll be three
I remember Shin sitting near me
and I start to think about him
and what he said on the seawall
and how I shouldn’t have
called him baka
then to stop myself from thinking of Shin
I tell that ghost story
to Sam and Chris
Sam and Chris laugh when I finish
Chris says good one!
and suddenly we’re at YiaYia’s house
much sooner than I expected
and I feel like a fool for babbling
not asking more about Leap Sok and Chea Pen
at least I remember
to ask for Sam’s cell-phone number
before getting out of the car
they back down the driveway
Sam rolls down his window
you sleep up there?
pointing to YiaYia’s second story
I nod
he says watch out!
and I laugh
the next day after school
I recall the bit Sam said
about the refugee camp in Thailand
and something about Cambodia and Vietnam
so I search on the Web
and read about
the killing fields
and how over a million Cambodians were killed
from 1975 to 1979
by execution and torture
by Cambodians led by Pol Pot
and how a million more died
of starvation and malnutrition
brought on by policies of forced labor
families uprooted
separated
moved around the country
digging ditches, building roads
cultivating crops with crude tools
made to toil and grow food
as they starved
educated city dwellers
teachers
doctors
artists
dancers
were all targets
you had to pretend to be a peasant
to have always been a farmer
to act illiterate
to keep silent
to hope
to survive
I learn that the Vietnamese invaded
and drove Pol Pot out of power
but there was famine and still more fighting
I learn that people fled to Thailand
lived in border camps
and eventually the lucky ones
were sent on to third countries
like the U.S.
I learn that Massachusetts took in refugees
I learn that Lowell is nearly
one-third Cambodian
I learn that Cambodians speak Khmer
and Khmer is pronounced Khmai
when it means the language
and I realize that Sam Nang must be
at least part Cambodian
and now I have a hundred questions
I want to ask him
a couple days later my mother borrows the DVD
The Killing Fields from the library
and one night after Toby and YiaYia
have gone to bed we keep the volume low
and she and I stay up and watch
the harrowing true story of Dith Pran
how he wasn’t allowed to leave
how he tried to escape
and then was made a slave
laboring in the mud
how he survived by a mix
of luck and sharp wits
I almost wish we hadn’t watched
it’s so grim
and long past the end
and the haunting music
even after we have ejected the DVD
we sit there stunned
finally Mom says
well, I guess I can’t feel sorry for myself
can I?
we tiptoe into the kitchen
to make yuzu citrus tea
from a big jar of preserves Mom bought
at a Korean market in New York
over the tangy aroma
as the tea is cooling
she whispers
we’re lucky, Em—
even now
with my lousy breast
I know I’m losing my Japanese—
words aren’t there
when I reach for them
and I have to check the dictionary
when I write letters to Madoka
even though I practice kanji
in the workbooks she sent me
I’m already behind Madoka
because I switched to international school
where the native-level Japanese classes
are a year behind the national curriculum
ninth grade was a review year for me
tenth was supposed to be new material at last
my goal was always just to keep up with her
now my goal is just to keep myself
from going backward
but without seeing kanji all around me
without hearing Japanese each day
without writing Japanese in class
I know I’m slipping
in YiaYia’s kitchen
my mother’s stirring soup
and telling me to stop worrying—
my foundation in the language is solid
we’ll return eventually and
I can study it again in university
you don’t have to rely on Madoka or her mother she says
you can hire a tutor and take the proficiency tests
you can pick up and continue the language anytime
here or there
but I’m so on the verge I say
the verge of what? she asks
complete fluency I say
what I’d need to enter a Japanese university
I didn’t know that’s what you were thinking she says
I’m not necessarily
I don’t know yet
but I want that option
then study she says
don’t lose it
like it’s as simple as that
Mom’s not as fluent as I am
she doesn’t know how hard it is
to hold on to those kanji you learn
and use in high school
if you’re not surrounded by them
I sigh
loud
and that sigh seems to set her off
I don’t have a magic wand, Em
to make everything just right
so here—
you stir
and she storms out
I apologize to her back
and to YiaYia
who’s looking at me like
what was I thinking
and I stir the soup
until YiaYia turns it off
and tells me I can stop
she’s so sensitive
I complain
I’ll say Toby adds
she explodes at anything
well, of course she’s sensitive!
YiaYia snaps
scowling at us both
so give her space
and hold your tongues
upstairs after sulking
about holding my tongue
and tiptoeing around Mom
I think some more
on what’s strange
about being here
and I realize
it’s not just losing
Japanese words
it’s as if I’ve lost
half of myself here
but no one knows
because I’m a white girl
here
I don’t look like I belong in Japan
here
I don’t look out of place
here
everyone thinks I must be glad
to be “back” in Massachusetts
as if this were home
but it’s not
I think of all the cleanup in Tohoku
the endless stretches of mangled homes
the tangled mountains of debris
and all the broken towns and families
that’s where I should be, I think
that’s where I’d be of more use
not here with Mom who doesn’t need
me or Toby making her days harder
with our back talk
YiaYia is gentle
she’s experienced
able to comfort her
better than us
but I hold my tongue
and don’t say a word
on my bed Toby and I lean back against the headboard
and watch a Ghibli movie on Mom’s computer
as the movie ends I try to discuss it in Japanese
but lately when I ask Toby something in Japanese
he answers in English like he’s happy
to shed the language as if it were an extra coat
The Language Inside Page 5