Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday, July 13, 2007
Violence & The Roots of Aggression
Violence, Aggression and Evolutionary Psychology:
A Cross Discipline Analysis
By
Deborah Phelan
Introduction
This paper seeks to analyze the roots of aggression and violence through an evaluation of diverse theories, ranging from the biochemistry of violence, genetics, philosophy, and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. The work included is a sampling of research conducted in this cross-discipline analysis.
The Zaire River Valley
Let’s travel back to Africa some 2.5 million years. A devastating drought has driven the gorilla from its customary home on the southern banks of the Zaire River. The gorillas move north of the river, leaving their former home to a group of chimpanzees who, now with no competition, learn to sustain themselves by adapting to the gorilla diet of fibrous foods. When the drought ends, the gorillas remain in their new home, sharing this section of the valley with resident chimpanzees and leaving the southern forest free for the other chimpanzees to evolve. Enter the bonobo.
According to Wringham & Peterson (Demonic Males) “Bonobos can afford to live in larger, more stable parties than chimpanzees because they live in a world without gorillas. They have evolved to take advantage of the more digestible parts of the gorilla diet -- not the tough low-quality stems that occur in patches around swamps, but the juicy, protein-rich growth buds and stem bases of young herbs. … Bonobos have evolved in a forest that is friendlier in its food supply and that allows them to be kindlier too.”
Consider these findings. Bonobos form groups and travel together in ‘family-like’ parties. They develop more sophisticated methods of communication. Bonds develop between females, violence between males declines as females evolve to masque their fertile periods. (In fact, bonobos exhibit no scent to differentiate when they are fertile.) Bonds between females and their sons become the strongest bonds in the group. Females band together to protect each other’s offspring. Because the males cannot determine if the offspring are theirs, infanticide disappears.
Not only do bonobos interact well within their group, they also form friendly relationships with other groups of bonobos. There is no raiding of each other’s territories, no border patrols, no killing. Unlike their relatives, the chimpanzee, the bonobo do not kill monkeys. The stability of the group enables the female to dominate. And while, like the chimpanzee, the female migrates to another group upon maturity, it is through being accepted by an elder female that she establishes herself as part of her new family. Sex between bonobos is between and among sexes. Sex, in a sense, replaces aggression.
It is at this period in history, in the Zaire River Valley, as bonobos first appear in the woodlands, that the first humans evolve in the savannah. There are no foods in the savannah to enable the woodland apes (human ancestors) to hunt as a group. They, like the chimpanzee, are constantly splitting up to find meats, honey, nuts and fruit. Females, significantly smaller and overtly exhibiting signs of fertile periods, are not able to effectively restrain males, resulting in imbalances of power and aggression. Once again, the male dominates. The strongest male emerges as the leader of the group, controlling the most significant aspects of life, from the dispensation of food to the permission to procreate. Most important to the male chimp is that his offspring survive
Flash forward to late twentieth century Africa where researchers have discovered that man is not the only animal that kills its own kind. Tracking a group of chimpanzees they observe males banding together to attack other solitary chimps who have ventured near or into their territory. And, perhaps more shockingly, the animals being attacked are recognized as having once been included in the same group of chimpanzees being studied.
Geneticists, scientists and anthropologists observe the following characteristics as being inherent in the chimpanzee and, by extraction, the human behavior pool:
•Risk taking is an essentially male behavior, influenced by culture, individuality, and technology
• Risk adverse males may live longer but do not have more children
•Female genes assure she will act in a way to select the best genes for her offspring: she will choose the winner.
Is it possible, then, that along with other traits and genetic pathways we share with chimpanzees, our proclivity as a species for violence against each other is genetically based? In our need for power and control over our ‘boundaries’, our possessions, our rights, and those things which form the core elements of our sustenance, are we re-enacting the same behavior exhibited some 2.5 million years ago in the African savannah? As the world grows more populated and its natural resources more scarce, are we engaging in preemptive strikes to ensure the survival of our ‘group’ by gaining access to fossil fuel, water, arable land?’ Is it possible that in the societies where the survival of young males is most threatened, females are retaliating with the only weapon available to them? In desperation, igniting their bodies with bombs? Taking with them to their death non-combatants, all of whom collectively are calculated as acceptable losses? Is this maternal instinct pushed to a perceived insanity?
Chimps Bonobos
Patrol Borders
Male dominant Female dominant
Little group cohesion Strong group cohesion
Sex for procreation, leads to aggression Sex for pleasure ; inhibits aggression, sex among females
Attack other chimps Coexist with group members
Raid other territories Get along with other bonobo groups
Aggression over food
Pinker and Hobbes
"The first maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, Reputation. The first use Violence to make themselves Masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name."
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
In his most recent book, The Blank Slate ,Stephen Pinker writes extensively on violence, relying heavily on the theories of Hobbes in framing his argument. Pinker suggests that human aggression and war are most readily understood by analysis of genetic ‘traits’ that have evolved because they continue to serve a purpose in human’s inherent need to assure the survival of its species. Drawing from Leviathan, he suggests that competition, distrust, and honor are the three catalysts for war and acts of aggression.
Competition: According to Pinker, humans are akin to survival machines, wired to do whatever ensures their survival and reproduction. Accordingly, natural selection has favored those genes that control the survival machine in a manner that most effectively uses the environment in which the machine exists. Any obstacle to survival has to be eliminated. An obstacle can be an individual, a group, or a tribe that is controlling desired land or food sources. Pinker concludes that raw self interest is a major motive for war. Both the radical Islamists and the West are competing in a global battle to determine the type of governments that will rule in key strategic areas of the world. For Islam, there is no situation which allows them to accept a western culture and politic in an Arabic country. For the US, the existence of Islamic republics is in direct opposition to their perception of the form of political structure suitable to control both Arabic and non-Arabic nation states. (Interestingly, the west continues to rely for its survival on fossil fuels predominantly buried beneath the lands that constitute the cradle of civilization. In its competition to control the world, the West is attempting to reshape cultures that have long survived without converting ancient substance into power sources that destroy the very ecosystems from which they sprung.)
Distrust: As Group A grows, forming new alliances with neighbors or tribes, Group B's fear of a potential attack grows, resulting in their building up a network of supporters and resources
YOU strike first to protect self and group.
This situation is referred to as the Hobbesian trap, a situation characterized by a) concern with security; b) alliances with other groups against a perceived enemy; and c) arms races. Some examples of Hobbesian traps are street gangs, the Mafia, World War I, the Six Day War, and the Cold War.
Pinker details how the ‘bluff” and self deception are symptomatic in situations where Group B is vastly overpowered by Group A’s resources and other strengths. These characteristics are evident in the behavior of Sadaam Hussein whose strategy with UN inspectors and inability (or unwillingness) to account for large amounts of weapons constituted a bluff. His assertions both after the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War that Iraq had emerged the winner exemplify the self deception characteristic of a leader who knows he is powerless in the face of a insurmuintably more powerful opponent. In point of fact, the US ‘’War on Terrorism can also fit into this category as the US struggles to assemble a coalition to rival the perceived existence of terrorist cells around the world. The US concern with the security of its ‘homeland’ has led to the expansion of its weapons program and sending groups to outposts throughout the world. From the Islamic perspective, it is necessary to keep the US paranoid about the depth and breadth of the terrorist network. The secrecy and necessitated seclusion of Islamic leaders makes it nearly impossible for the US to determine if the speeches we hear from these leaders are actually bravado, coupled with a quasi-narcissistic self deception. For Al Qaeda, this means striking furtively yet always with the incipient threat of WMD …. Do they have them or don’t they? If they do, where will they use them. The US, on the other hand, strikes at will, armed with billions of dollars worth of the latest technologically enhanced weaponry and a highly trained military.
HONOR: In this situation, Group A seeks revenge from Group B for a perceived or real violation. Examples include blood feuds, border clashes, Mafia hits, the Middle East, the US war on terrorism, the terrorist attacks against the US and its allies, the Chechynian rebels, suicide bombers in Russian, the Middle East, and Iraq, etc. As President Bush but it most succinctly, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” As bin Laden put it -- If you are a Muslim, you must be prepared to sacrifice your life for jihad.
Outside the Group
Natural selection, according to Matt Ridley, has equipped us with desires and dispositions that worked well in ancestral environments. In today’s world, he says, our cultural milieu taps into these adaptations “to produce behaviors that have absolutely nothing to do with what they were originally evolved for.
“Genes themselves are implacable little determinists, churning out utterly predictable messages,” according to Ridley. “But because of the way their promoters switch on and off in response to external instruction, genes are very far from being fixed in their actions. Instead, they are devices for extracting information from the environment. “
Theories espoused by evolutionary psychologists, such as Ridley, suggest that expressed human behavior is not necessarily related to genes but rather to underlying psychological mechanisms that have evolved through natural selection.
Harvard scientists Tooby and Cosmides, recognized as the founders of evolutionary psychology, posited in 1995 that what actually evolves is the entire developmental program, which includes the program for creating an eye or the heart or the brain’s language organ. Each program, they suggest, “requires the successful integration of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of genes (many of them used in other systems as well) and the presence of expected environmental cues.”
It is this psychological mechanism (akin to Pinker’s survival machine) that ‘predisposes’ most humans to react to certain circumstances with warlike tendencies.
Culture, therefore, is viewed as a “manipulation of innate desires,” (Ridley) perhaps the most powerful of which is the instinctive cooperation among kin, the theory of relatedness. Since ancestral times, organisms existing outside the circle of kin (as defined by the group) have been viewed as being no more alive than a rock or a tree stump. Aggression or violence against outsiders or invaders just might be an instinctive behavior.
And while the ‘group’ or ‘us’ has expanded over time through advances in technology, travel, art and the evolution and expansion of culture, severe stress or threat (whether perceived or real) can ‘switch off’ relatedness, once again dehumanizing those outside the group.
The Mind of the Suicide Bomber
In his article “Suicide Bombers Made, Not Born” (Science magazine,) investigative journalist Scott Atran suggests that suicide terrorism emerges “when an ideologically devoted people find they cannot possibly win in a fair fight; they know they are in such a weak position they have to use extreme methods.”
When suicide bombing first emerged as a military tactic in the 1980s, the bombers were typically ‘blackmailed’ by terrorists with threats of extortion, death to family members, or murder. There are several stories about early bombers desperately trying to talk others into taking their place en route to a target and even jumping out of the car to save their own lives just before reaching the destination.
But, says Atran, contrary to popularly held theory at the onset of the current wave of suicide bombings (particularly those in the Middle East and the attacks of 9/11), today’s typical suicide bomber possesses the following characteristics:
• Middle or higher- middle class background
• educated
* not crazy
* smart, quiet patient, willing to sacrifice
* civil liberties have been taken away or threatened
Interestingly enough, the methods used to ‘create’ a suicide bomber reveal undeniable parallels to the theory of relatedness or the idea that the concept of kinship has evolved as an inherent component of our genetic coding.
The first step in the process involves creating a fictive family. A ‘cell’ is best defined as a small group of intimately involved ‘brothers and sisters” molded to create kinship. Members of the cell will do anything for each other. The depth of this bond is similar to that existing between a mother and a child, between siblings or other close members of the extended nuclear family. This ‘cell” or group is isolated (at times for up to 18 months) from the general population and is subjected to intense propaganda. The effectiveness of this strategy is equally discernable in training conducted by terrorist organizations and in the tactics used by the US military to create cohesion among battalions.
The brainwashing aims to create group cohesion and consciousness that dehumanizes the ‘other.’
Modern history abounds with examples of combat which exemplify the philosophy of ‘totalism,” the concept that one side is completely bad while the other (your side) is completely good:
• Genocides Kosovo and Bosnia, Darfur
• Attempted extermination of the Kulak peasant class in Russia
• Actions of the Khmer Rouge in
• Attempted extermination of the Intelligentsia in Communist China
• Hutus vs. the Tutsies in the Congo
• Turk’s genocidal massacre of the Armenians
• Holocaust of European Jews
• Civil War Iraq
• The Israeli/Palestinian conflict
• The War on Terrorism
Totalism is characterized, therefore, by a mindset that characterizes members of the other group as inherently evil, and, by extension, not human. This dehumanization of the opponent is the means by which atrocities of any magnitude can be justified. Dehumanization equally explains US illegal and inhumane treatment of identified ‘enemy combatants’ and the assassination over 3000 Americans on 911.
The Biology of Aggression
Serotonin. The brain’s impulse moderator. Originating in the neocortex, it connects 500,000 cells in every part of the brain. A vital neurotransmitter, serotonin enables an individual to live in harmony with the environment. No small thing.
Among the numerous behaviors under serotonin’s control are mood, appetite, sleep/arousal, pain/aggression, suicidal behavior, and impulsive aggression.
Now consider the following:
• Serotonin levels are 20-30% higher in females.
•Serotonin levels are lowest in males in late adolescence; levels elevate as they mature
• Serotonin levels lower as an adaptation to a threatening environment. Individuals can be born with a genetic susceptibility to low serotonin but early life experiences determine how the gene will be expressed.
• Serotonin levels lower in abused children, individuals under the influence of drugs or alcohol, depressed individuals, and individuals living in a highly stressful environment
• Serotonin levels also impacted by damage to outer brain, disturbed thinking, or bad learning experiences.
A connection has been found between low serotonin levels and violent suicides: High levels of noradrenaline and low levels of serotonin result in impulsive aggression, but low noradrenaline and low serotonin cause aggression to be aimed inward.
While neurotransmitters, including acetylcholine, dopamine, and gamma aminobutyric acid,have been studied for their impact on impulsive aggression, data on norepinephrine and serotonin conclude that these two chemicals act reciprocally with regard to impulsive aggression. Serotonin inhibits, norepinephrine facilitates. The association between low levels of serotonin, also known as the "low serotonin syndrome," and impulsive aggression, has been substantiated by scientific research.
Furthermore, scientists have postulated that extraordinarily stressful or violent environmental events (including the collapse of the family, persistent poverty, and chronic drug abuse) as well as sensory deprivation can cause molecular changes to the brain resulting in impulsive aggression. These extreme situations can actually change the architecture of the brain.
Research suggests leaders with high serotonin levels lead by diplomacy, leaders with low serotonin levels lead by force
Biochemical burnout from long -term exposure to stressful events results in antisocial aggressive disorders, emotionlessness, and lack of remorse, resulting in antisocial behaviors. This is characterized by a dip in noradrenaline.
Noradrenalilne deficiency is characteristic of an individual (and, by extrapolation, a ‘cell’ or group, even an entire culture) no longer able to perceive the abuser, the dictator, the oppressor, occupier or the violator as possessing any human qualities. This condition can as much explain the racial profiling characterizing the US opinon after 9/ll (a citizenry’s silence over the illegal imprisonment of thousands of non-Western individuals as ‘enemy combatants, subsequent torture and stripping of legal recourse) as it can the emergence of the suicide bomber exploding a café in as a powerful military force.
***
Ripped from the Headlines:
Excerpts from an interview with EYAD EL SARRAJ, a psychiatrist,and the founder and director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) in Gaza, whose clinics have treated, without payment, one in ten residents in the Strip. He is also secretary-general of the Independent Palestinian Commission for Citizens' Rights and the recipient of the Physicians for Human Rights Award in 1997 and the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights in 1998.
Dignity, Despair and the Need for Hope
Sarraj: “Let me tell you first that the people who are committing the suicide bombings in this intifada are the children of the first intifada--people who witnessed so much trauma as children. So as they grew up, their own identity merged with the national identity of humiliation and defeat, and they avenge that defeat at both the personal and national levels.”
“The hopelessness that comes from a situation that keeps getting worse, a despair where living becomes no different from dying. Desperation is a very powerful force--it's not only negative. It propels people to actions or solutions that previously would have been unthinkable. What is unthinkable today becomes accepted tomorrow. Whoever would have imagined suicide bombings in Palestine ten years ago? There is no precedent in our society. This is what I mean when I say that if this continues, there will be new methods of escalation of the violence too horrific even to imagine today.”
“Listen. In the last uprising, children used to play a game called "intifada." It was a cowboys-and-indians-type game--more specifically, Israeli soldier versus Palestinian stone thrower, with the kids trading off between the role of the soldiers armed with sticks to represent guns and the Palestinians with kufiyyahs and stones. Many of the children at the time preferred to play the Jew, basically because the Jew with the guns represented power. This game has entirely disappeared. Today, the symbol of power is the martyr. If you ask a child in Gaza today what he wants to be when he grows up, he doesn't say that he wants to be a doctor or a soldier or an engineer. He says he wants to be a martyr.”
“During the first intifada, studies showed that 55 percent of the children had witnessed their fathers being humiliated or beaten by Israeli soldiers. The psychological impact of this is stunning. The father, normally the authority figure, comes to be seen as somebody who is helpless, who can't even protect himself--let alone his children. So children became more militant, more violent. People are the products of their environment. Children who have seen so much inhumanity--basically the Israeli occupation policies--inevitably come out with inhuman responses. That's really how to understand the suicide bombings.”
“…they wouldn't turn their bodies into bombs if they had F-16s, Apache helicopters, tanks, or a tiny fraction of the weapons Israel gets from the United States. They say that if you want to attack an Israeli soldier--who is absolutely invulnerable in his bunker or tank--how else can you do it? To their minds, the Israelis have the power of the F-16s, while we have the power to die. So we have reached this deeply paranoid position.”
A Female Touch
Palestine's First Female Suicide Bomber
Despite claims by the pro-Israel lobby of brainwashing by Muslim extremist groups, behind many suicide bombers lie real stories of despair, such as that of Wafa Idris, a secular Palestinian with no links to resistance groups.
Living in the Amari refugee camp - her family was expelled from their home in Ramle by Jewish forces in 1948 and forbidden to return - she witnessed daily scenes of horror as a paramedic with the Red Crescent, during which she was beaten and shot by Israeli troops several times. Her sister-in-law told the BBC how Wafa had been particularly angered by seeing children shot and killed.
“She used to come (home) every day frustrated,” Wafa’s brother Khalil told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He added that she would tell him about treating people whose brains were on the ground, whose intestines were hanging out, whose limbs were chopped off, and who would die at checkpoints because Israeli troops would forbid their travel to hospitals.
Her story only made the news because she happened to be the first female Palestinian suicide.
Lipstick Martyrs
‘Lipstick Martyrs’: A New Breed of Palestinian Terrorist
By Sarah Pollak
CBN News Reporter
May 28, 2003
The phenomenon of Palestinian women strapping explosives to their bodies and becoming martyrs is a relatively new one.CBN.com – They are a major roadblock on the "road map." They are young and angry. They are Palestinian suicide bombers, and for the first time, they are women.
Hiba Daraghmeh is the latest to join the growing new list of female suicide bombers. She blew herself up at a mall in Israel, killing three and injuring many others.
She is the fifth young Palestinian woman to launch attacks like their male counterparts.
Most of the female suicide bombers were well-educated and going to university, they all lived in the Palestinian territories, and they are what the Canadian National Post called "lipstick martyrs."
Guide to Making a Female Suicide Bomber
Hiba Daraghmeh - May 19 suicide bombing
Four (Bahira aged six, Osama aged 12, Yazid aged 17 and Rafat aged 28) were killed by Israeli helicopter missile fire in their home village of Tubas on August 31, 2002.
Less than two weeks earlier, on August 18, 19-year-old Nidal Daraghmeh was killed when Israeli troops used him as a human shield, sparking indignation from human rights organisations worldwide and major news agencies in Israel.
He "lost his life because he has the misfortune to live next door to a wanted man's hide-out and because the Israel Defense Forces used a ruthless, unnecessary method called ‘neighbor practice,’ which is nothing more than turning the youth into a ‘human shield’ for soldiers," wrote defence analyst Zeev Schiff in the influential daily Haaretz. "Neighbor practice is a method that is a disgrace to the army." It is also a grave violation of humanitarian and international law.
Palestinian sources said Muannad Daraghmeh, 22, was killed by Israeli troops near Jenin on July 10, 2002.
Moussa Daraghmeh was killed by Israeli soldiers on May 22 last year, on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Palestinian labourers told reporters that Moussa was with a group of about 20 people who were trying to get around a checkpoint on their way to work.
Amjad Daraghmeh, 22, was killed on September 30, 2000.
Taxi driver Mahmoud Daraghmeh, 40, was seriously injured by four gunshots in the chest on June 13 last year, when Israeli troops, tanks and helicopters besieged and attacked Tubas.
***
Moscow. October 2002. A band of Chechynian terrorists take over a theater, threatening to blow it up if the Russians do not agree to retreat from Chechynia. Scattered throughout the audience are about twenty Chechynian woman, dressed in black, their mid-sections wired with explosives guaranteed to ignite the auditorium at the command of the group’s leader. These women have survived ten years of horrific war; they have lost brothers, husbands, fathers. They are called the “Black Widows.” In certain shots from a movie taken inside the theater during the takeover, many of them can be seen wiping away tears. Is it the loss of their own lives they are fearing, or the hundreds of innocents -- children, mothers, families, performers -- they will take to their death with them?
In interviews with other Black Widows, who continue to operate in and around Chechnya, the story that emerges paints a picture of women who believe they have nothing left to live for. One such woman, recently interviewed on KQED, said she had lost her brother and her husband. Now she was turning over her young son to be raised by her former husband’s family and had volunteered for a suicide mission. It was the only way she could think to avenge the deaths of her loved ones. There was no brainwashing here. No isolation. The culture in which she had existed for so long was so excessively brutal that the thought of a violent death became an obsession.
Interesting,the parallel between the intifada in the Middle East and the situation in Checnya. Palestinian children whose only home has been a refuge camp. Palestinian women who watch as the men in the community are assassinated, belittled, disempowered. Excessive poverty. Few human rights. And now we have Iraq…
The biological model for impulsive violence and violent suicide … A community of people whose brain architecture has been radically altered by long- term exposure to violence, to broken families, to oppression, to isolation.
Evolutionary psychology theory, proposing that under extreme circumstances, individuals or a group can actually ‘switch off’ the mechanism which connects them with others of their species, explains how combatants view the innocents who inadvertently die as a result of suicide bombings, cluster bombs, exposure to white phosphorous are acceptable losses. They are no more human than the fences that hold Palestinians captive, the buses that transport the Israeli citizens, the plastic tenting of a refuge home.
Is it inconceivable for Americans to comprehend such absolute futility? Of being so overwhelmed by military might, so disenfranchised from all that was once meaningful , so powerless, so hopeless. The only recourse left is to avenge the oppressor, with what you have left.
And if this notion that a psychological ‘program’ has evolved which predisposed humans to possessing an inherent sense of kin, perhaps these female suicide bombers are reacting with a maternal instinct. From an evolutionary standpoint, the sacrifice of the one is the only possible option to ensure the continued existence of kin. The body becomes the weapon. The enemy has become depersonalized. The 'innocent victims' are not seen as people because they are members of the outer group. The bomber is powerful in the moment of sacrifice. The refuge camp, the neighborhood , the terrorist cell has become the nuclear family.
Conclusion
Traveling back again to The Zaire River Valley 2.5 million years ago … does it all comes down to water and fruit trees? What would have happened with the chimps north of the Zaire if the drought hadn’t forced the gorilla to migrate, if they hadn’t shared the savannah with the gorilla? And why did humans evolve from chimps in the savannah and not from bonobos in the woodlands? What would the world be like today if we evolved from a female dominated society, characterized by strong social cohesion and the ability to peacefully coexist with other groups? Natural selection, the survival of the fittest. Darwin never intimated that the fittest would be the best.
I like to imagine that the bonobo is somehow evolving among us. A groundswell of humans, who have learned through history and experience that violence is an ineffective reaction to conflict. They are meeting and marching in protest around the world. They are connecting digitally to form a global community. “Make Love, not War,” that famous saying of the Sixties. Perhaps it was a premonition, a glimmer of a new evolving paradigm. Somehow in our collective unconscious, we know the drought is coming. We are staying put on our side of the Zaire.
Bibliography
Books:
Marks,Jonathan, what if means to be 98% chimpanzee, University of California Press 2002
Niehoff, Debra, Phd, The Biology of Violence, Free Press, 1999
Pinker, Steven, The Blank Slate, Penguin, 2002
Ridley, Matt, Nature via Nurture, Harper Collins, 2003
Wilson, E.O., Consilience, Vintage, 1998
Wrangham, Richard and Peterson, Dale, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Harper, 1996
Websites:
For Links to the numerous websites accessed for this paper, visit
FluidArts
http://www.fluidarts.org/bomber.html
Film:
Terror in Moscow, HBO documentary, October 2003.
A Cross Discipline Analysis
By
Deborah Phelan
Introduction
This paper seeks to analyze the roots of aggression and violence through an evaluation of diverse theories, ranging from the biochemistry of violence, genetics, philosophy, and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. The work included is a sampling of research conducted in this cross-discipline analysis.
The Zaire River Valley
Let’s travel back to Africa some 2.5 million years. A devastating drought has driven the gorilla from its customary home on the southern banks of the Zaire River. The gorillas move north of the river, leaving their former home to a group of chimpanzees who, now with no competition, learn to sustain themselves by adapting to the gorilla diet of fibrous foods. When the drought ends, the gorillas remain in their new home, sharing this section of the valley with resident chimpanzees and leaving the southern forest free for the other chimpanzees to evolve. Enter the bonobo.
According to Wringham & Peterson (Demonic Males) “Bonobos can afford to live in larger, more stable parties than chimpanzees because they live in a world without gorillas. They have evolved to take advantage of the more digestible parts of the gorilla diet -- not the tough low-quality stems that occur in patches around swamps, but the juicy, protein-rich growth buds and stem bases of young herbs. … Bonobos have evolved in a forest that is friendlier in its food supply and that allows them to be kindlier too.”
Consider these findings. Bonobos form groups and travel together in ‘family-like’ parties. They develop more sophisticated methods of communication. Bonds develop between females, violence between males declines as females evolve to masque their fertile periods. (In fact, bonobos exhibit no scent to differentiate when they are fertile.) Bonds between females and their sons become the strongest bonds in the group. Females band together to protect each other’s offspring. Because the males cannot determine if the offspring are theirs, infanticide disappears.
Not only do bonobos interact well within their group, they also form friendly relationships with other groups of bonobos. There is no raiding of each other’s territories, no border patrols, no killing. Unlike their relatives, the chimpanzee, the bonobo do not kill monkeys. The stability of the group enables the female to dominate. And while, like the chimpanzee, the female migrates to another group upon maturity, it is through being accepted by an elder female that she establishes herself as part of her new family. Sex between bonobos is between and among sexes. Sex, in a sense, replaces aggression.
It is at this period in history, in the Zaire River Valley, as bonobos first appear in the woodlands, that the first humans evolve in the savannah. There are no foods in the savannah to enable the woodland apes (human ancestors) to hunt as a group. They, like the chimpanzee, are constantly splitting up to find meats, honey, nuts and fruit. Females, significantly smaller and overtly exhibiting signs of fertile periods, are not able to effectively restrain males, resulting in imbalances of power and aggression. Once again, the male dominates. The strongest male emerges as the leader of the group, controlling the most significant aspects of life, from the dispensation of food to the permission to procreate. Most important to the male chimp is that his offspring survive
Flash forward to late twentieth century Africa where researchers have discovered that man is not the only animal that kills its own kind. Tracking a group of chimpanzees they observe males banding together to attack other solitary chimps who have ventured near or into their territory. And, perhaps more shockingly, the animals being attacked are recognized as having once been included in the same group of chimpanzees being studied.
Geneticists, scientists and anthropologists observe the following characteristics as being inherent in the chimpanzee and, by extraction, the human behavior pool:
•Risk taking is an essentially male behavior, influenced by culture, individuality, and technology
• Risk adverse males may live longer but do not have more children
•Female genes assure she will act in a way to select the best genes for her offspring: she will choose the winner.
Is it possible, then, that along with other traits and genetic pathways we share with chimpanzees, our proclivity as a species for violence against each other is genetically based? In our need for power and control over our ‘boundaries’, our possessions, our rights, and those things which form the core elements of our sustenance, are we re-enacting the same behavior exhibited some 2.5 million years ago in the African savannah? As the world grows more populated and its natural resources more scarce, are we engaging in preemptive strikes to ensure the survival of our ‘group’ by gaining access to fossil fuel, water, arable land?’ Is it possible that in the societies where the survival of young males is most threatened, females are retaliating with the only weapon available to them? In desperation, igniting their bodies with bombs? Taking with them to their death non-combatants, all of whom collectively are calculated as acceptable losses? Is this maternal instinct pushed to a perceived insanity?
Chimps Bonobos
Patrol Borders
Male dominant Female dominant
Little group cohesion Strong group cohesion
Sex for procreation, leads to aggression Sex for pleasure ; inhibits aggression, sex among females
Attack other chimps Coexist with group members
Raid other territories Get along with other bonobo groups
Aggression over food
Pinker and Hobbes
"The first maketh men invade for Gain; the second, for Safety; and the third, Reputation. The first use Violence to make themselves Masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflexion in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name."
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
In his most recent book, The Blank Slate ,Stephen Pinker writes extensively on violence, relying heavily on the theories of Hobbes in framing his argument. Pinker suggests that human aggression and war are most readily understood by analysis of genetic ‘traits’ that have evolved because they continue to serve a purpose in human’s inherent need to assure the survival of its species. Drawing from Leviathan, he suggests that competition, distrust, and honor are the three catalysts for war and acts of aggression.
Competition: According to Pinker, humans are akin to survival machines, wired to do whatever ensures their survival and reproduction. Accordingly, natural selection has favored those genes that control the survival machine in a manner that most effectively uses the environment in which the machine exists. Any obstacle to survival has to be eliminated. An obstacle can be an individual, a group, or a tribe that is controlling desired land or food sources. Pinker concludes that raw self interest is a major motive for war. Both the radical Islamists and the West are competing in a global battle to determine the type of governments that will rule in key strategic areas of the world. For Islam, there is no situation which allows them to accept a western culture and politic in an Arabic country. For the US, the existence of Islamic republics is in direct opposition to their perception of the form of political structure suitable to control both Arabic and non-Arabic nation states. (Interestingly, the west continues to rely for its survival on fossil fuels predominantly buried beneath the lands that constitute the cradle of civilization. In its competition to control the world, the West is attempting to reshape cultures that have long survived without converting ancient substance into power sources that destroy the very ecosystems from which they sprung.)
Distrust: As Group A grows, forming new alliances with neighbors or tribes, Group B's fear of a potential attack grows, resulting in their building up a network of supporters and resources
YOU strike first to protect self and group.
This situation is referred to as the Hobbesian trap, a situation characterized by a) concern with security; b) alliances with other groups against a perceived enemy; and c) arms races. Some examples of Hobbesian traps are street gangs, the Mafia, World War I, the Six Day War, and the Cold War.
Pinker details how the ‘bluff” and self deception are symptomatic in situations where Group B is vastly overpowered by Group A’s resources and other strengths. These characteristics are evident in the behavior of Sadaam Hussein whose strategy with UN inspectors and inability (or unwillingness) to account for large amounts of weapons constituted a bluff. His assertions both after the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War that Iraq had emerged the winner exemplify the self deception characteristic of a leader who knows he is powerless in the face of a insurmuintably more powerful opponent. In point of fact, the US ‘’War on Terrorism can also fit into this category as the US struggles to assemble a coalition to rival the perceived existence of terrorist cells around the world. The US concern with the security of its ‘homeland’ has led to the expansion of its weapons program and sending groups to outposts throughout the world. From the Islamic perspective, it is necessary to keep the US paranoid about the depth and breadth of the terrorist network. The secrecy and necessitated seclusion of Islamic leaders makes it nearly impossible for the US to determine if the speeches we hear from these leaders are actually bravado, coupled with a quasi-narcissistic self deception. For Al Qaeda, this means striking furtively yet always with the incipient threat of WMD …. Do they have them or don’t they? If they do, where will they use them. The US, on the other hand, strikes at will, armed with billions of dollars worth of the latest technologically enhanced weaponry and a highly trained military.
HONOR: In this situation, Group A seeks revenge from Group B for a perceived or real violation. Examples include blood feuds, border clashes, Mafia hits, the Middle East, the US war on terrorism, the terrorist attacks against the US and its allies, the Chechynian rebels, suicide bombers in Russian, the Middle East, and Iraq, etc. As President Bush but it most succinctly, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” As bin Laden put it -- If you are a Muslim, you must be prepared to sacrifice your life for jihad.
Outside the Group
Natural selection, according to Matt Ridley, has equipped us with desires and dispositions that worked well in ancestral environments. In today’s world, he says, our cultural milieu taps into these adaptations “to produce behaviors that have absolutely nothing to do with what they were originally evolved for.
“Genes themselves are implacable little determinists, churning out utterly predictable messages,” according to Ridley. “But because of the way their promoters switch on and off in response to external instruction, genes are very far from being fixed in their actions. Instead, they are devices for extracting information from the environment. “
Theories espoused by evolutionary psychologists, such as Ridley, suggest that expressed human behavior is not necessarily related to genes but rather to underlying psychological mechanisms that have evolved through natural selection.
Harvard scientists Tooby and Cosmides, recognized as the founders of evolutionary psychology, posited in 1995 that what actually evolves is the entire developmental program, which includes the program for creating an eye or the heart or the brain’s language organ. Each program, they suggest, “requires the successful integration of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of genes (many of them used in other systems as well) and the presence of expected environmental cues.”
It is this psychological mechanism (akin to Pinker’s survival machine) that ‘predisposes’ most humans to react to certain circumstances with warlike tendencies.
Culture, therefore, is viewed as a “manipulation of innate desires,” (Ridley) perhaps the most powerful of which is the instinctive cooperation among kin, the theory of relatedness. Since ancestral times, organisms existing outside the circle of kin (as defined by the group) have been viewed as being no more alive than a rock or a tree stump. Aggression or violence against outsiders or invaders just might be an instinctive behavior.
And while the ‘group’ or ‘us’ has expanded over time through advances in technology, travel, art and the evolution and expansion of culture, severe stress or threat (whether perceived or real) can ‘switch off’ relatedness, once again dehumanizing those outside the group.
The Mind of the Suicide Bomber
In his article “Suicide Bombers Made, Not Born” (Science magazine,) investigative journalist Scott Atran suggests that suicide terrorism emerges “when an ideologically devoted people find they cannot possibly win in a fair fight; they know they are in such a weak position they have to use extreme methods.”
When suicide bombing first emerged as a military tactic in the 1980s, the bombers were typically ‘blackmailed’ by terrorists with threats of extortion, death to family members, or murder. There are several stories about early bombers desperately trying to talk others into taking their place en route to a target and even jumping out of the car to save their own lives just before reaching the destination.
But, says Atran, contrary to popularly held theory at the onset of the current wave of suicide bombings (particularly those in the Middle East and the attacks of 9/11), today’s typical suicide bomber possesses the following characteristics:
• Middle or higher- middle class background
• educated
* not crazy
* smart, quiet patient, willing to sacrifice
* civil liberties have been taken away or threatened
Interestingly enough, the methods used to ‘create’ a suicide bomber reveal undeniable parallels to the theory of relatedness or the idea that the concept of kinship has evolved as an inherent component of our genetic coding.
The first step in the process involves creating a fictive family. A ‘cell’ is best defined as a small group of intimately involved ‘brothers and sisters” molded to create kinship. Members of the cell will do anything for each other. The depth of this bond is similar to that existing between a mother and a child, between siblings or other close members of the extended nuclear family. This ‘cell” or group is isolated (at times for up to 18 months) from the general population and is subjected to intense propaganda. The effectiveness of this strategy is equally discernable in training conducted by terrorist organizations and in the tactics used by the US military to create cohesion among battalions.
The brainwashing aims to create group cohesion and consciousness that dehumanizes the ‘other.’
Modern history abounds with examples of combat which exemplify the philosophy of ‘totalism,” the concept that one side is completely bad while the other (your side) is completely good:
• Genocides Kosovo and Bosnia, Darfur
• Attempted extermination of the Kulak peasant class in Russia
• Actions of the Khmer Rouge in
• Attempted extermination of the Intelligentsia in Communist China
• Hutus vs. the Tutsies in the Congo
• Turk’s genocidal massacre of the Armenians
• Holocaust of European Jews
• Civil War Iraq
• The Israeli/Palestinian conflict
• The War on Terrorism
Totalism is characterized, therefore, by a mindset that characterizes members of the other group as inherently evil, and, by extension, not human. This dehumanization of the opponent is the means by which atrocities of any magnitude can be justified. Dehumanization equally explains US illegal and inhumane treatment of identified ‘enemy combatants’ and the assassination over 3000 Americans on 911.
The Biology of Aggression
Serotonin. The brain’s impulse moderator. Originating in the neocortex, it connects 500,000 cells in every part of the brain. A vital neurotransmitter, serotonin enables an individual to live in harmony with the environment. No small thing.
Among the numerous behaviors under serotonin’s control are mood, appetite, sleep/arousal, pain/aggression, suicidal behavior, and impulsive aggression.
Now consider the following:
• Serotonin levels are 20-30% higher in females.
•Serotonin levels are lowest in males in late adolescence; levels elevate as they mature
• Serotonin levels lower as an adaptation to a threatening environment. Individuals can be born with a genetic susceptibility to low serotonin but early life experiences determine how the gene will be expressed.
• Serotonin levels lower in abused children, individuals under the influence of drugs or alcohol, depressed individuals, and individuals living in a highly stressful environment
• Serotonin levels also impacted by damage to outer brain, disturbed thinking, or bad learning experiences.
A connection has been found between low serotonin levels and violent suicides: High levels of noradrenaline and low levels of serotonin result in impulsive aggression, but low noradrenaline and low serotonin cause aggression to be aimed inward.
While neurotransmitters, including acetylcholine, dopamine, and gamma aminobutyric acid,have been studied for their impact on impulsive aggression, data on norepinephrine and serotonin conclude that these two chemicals act reciprocally with regard to impulsive aggression. Serotonin inhibits, norepinephrine facilitates. The association between low levels of serotonin, also known as the "low serotonin syndrome," and impulsive aggression, has been substantiated by scientific research.
Furthermore, scientists have postulated that extraordinarily stressful or violent environmental events (including the collapse of the family, persistent poverty, and chronic drug abuse) as well as sensory deprivation can cause molecular changes to the brain resulting in impulsive aggression. These extreme situations can actually change the architecture of the brain.
Research suggests leaders with high serotonin levels lead by diplomacy, leaders with low serotonin levels lead by force
Biochemical burnout from long -term exposure to stressful events results in antisocial aggressive disorders, emotionlessness, and lack of remorse, resulting in antisocial behaviors. This is characterized by a dip in noradrenaline.
Noradrenalilne deficiency is characteristic of an individual (and, by extrapolation, a ‘cell’ or group, even an entire culture) no longer able to perceive the abuser, the dictator, the oppressor, occupier or the violator as possessing any human qualities. This condition can as much explain the racial profiling characterizing the US opinon after 9/ll (a citizenry’s silence over the illegal imprisonment of thousands of non-Western individuals as ‘enemy combatants, subsequent torture and stripping of legal recourse) as it can the emergence of the suicide bomber exploding a café in as a powerful military force.
***
Ripped from the Headlines:
Excerpts from an interview with EYAD EL SARRAJ, a psychiatrist,and the founder and director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) in Gaza, whose clinics have treated, without payment, one in ten residents in the Strip. He is also secretary-general of the Independent Palestinian Commission for Citizens' Rights and the recipient of the Physicians for Human Rights Award in 1997 and the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights in 1998.
Dignity, Despair and the Need for Hope
Sarraj: “Let me tell you first that the people who are committing the suicide bombings in this intifada are the children of the first intifada--people who witnessed so much trauma as children. So as they grew up, their own identity merged with the national identity of humiliation and defeat, and they avenge that defeat at both the personal and national levels.”
“The hopelessness that comes from a situation that keeps getting worse, a despair where living becomes no different from dying. Desperation is a very powerful force--it's not only negative. It propels people to actions or solutions that previously would have been unthinkable. What is unthinkable today becomes accepted tomorrow. Whoever would have imagined suicide bombings in Palestine ten years ago? There is no precedent in our society. This is what I mean when I say that if this continues, there will be new methods of escalation of the violence too horrific even to imagine today.”
“Listen. In the last uprising, children used to play a game called "intifada." It was a cowboys-and-indians-type game--more specifically, Israeli soldier versus Palestinian stone thrower, with the kids trading off between the role of the soldiers armed with sticks to represent guns and the Palestinians with kufiyyahs and stones. Many of the children at the time preferred to play the Jew, basically because the Jew with the guns represented power. This game has entirely disappeared. Today, the symbol of power is the martyr. If you ask a child in Gaza today what he wants to be when he grows up, he doesn't say that he wants to be a doctor or a soldier or an engineer. He says he wants to be a martyr.”
“During the first intifada, studies showed that 55 percent of the children had witnessed their fathers being humiliated or beaten by Israeli soldiers. The psychological impact of this is stunning. The father, normally the authority figure, comes to be seen as somebody who is helpless, who can't even protect himself--let alone his children. So children became more militant, more violent. People are the products of their environment. Children who have seen so much inhumanity--basically the Israeli occupation policies--inevitably come out with inhuman responses. That's really how to understand the suicide bombings.”
“…they wouldn't turn their bodies into bombs if they had F-16s, Apache helicopters, tanks, or a tiny fraction of the weapons Israel gets from the United States. They say that if you want to attack an Israeli soldier--who is absolutely invulnerable in his bunker or tank--how else can you do it? To their minds, the Israelis have the power of the F-16s, while we have the power to die. So we have reached this deeply paranoid position.”
A Female Touch
Palestine's First Female Suicide Bomber
Despite claims by the pro-Israel lobby of brainwashing by Muslim extremist groups, behind many suicide bombers lie real stories of despair, such as that of Wafa Idris, a secular Palestinian with no links to resistance groups.
Living in the Amari refugee camp - her family was expelled from their home in Ramle by Jewish forces in 1948 and forbidden to return - she witnessed daily scenes of horror as a paramedic with the Red Crescent, during which she was beaten and shot by Israeli troops several times. Her sister-in-law told the BBC how Wafa had been particularly angered by seeing children shot and killed.
“She used to come (home) every day frustrated,” Wafa’s brother Khalil told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He added that she would tell him about treating people whose brains were on the ground, whose intestines were hanging out, whose limbs were chopped off, and who would die at checkpoints because Israeli troops would forbid their travel to hospitals.
Her story only made the news because she happened to be the first female Palestinian suicide.
Lipstick Martyrs
‘Lipstick Martyrs’: A New Breed of Palestinian Terrorist
By Sarah Pollak
CBN News Reporter
May 28, 2003
The phenomenon of Palestinian women strapping explosives to their bodies and becoming martyrs is a relatively new one.CBN.com – They are a major roadblock on the "road map." They are young and angry. They are Palestinian suicide bombers, and for the first time, they are women.
Hiba Daraghmeh is the latest to join the growing new list of female suicide bombers. She blew herself up at a mall in Israel, killing three and injuring many others.
She is the fifth young Palestinian woman to launch attacks like their male counterparts.
Most of the female suicide bombers were well-educated and going to university, they all lived in the Palestinian territories, and they are what the Canadian National Post called "lipstick martyrs."
Guide to Making a Female Suicide Bomber
Hiba Daraghmeh - May 19 suicide bombing
Four (Bahira aged six, Osama aged 12, Yazid aged 17 and Rafat aged 28) were killed by Israeli helicopter missile fire in their home village of Tubas on August 31, 2002.
Less than two weeks earlier, on August 18, 19-year-old Nidal Daraghmeh was killed when Israeli troops used him as a human shield, sparking indignation from human rights organisations worldwide and major news agencies in Israel.
He "lost his life because he has the misfortune to live next door to a wanted man's hide-out and because the Israel Defense Forces used a ruthless, unnecessary method called ‘neighbor practice,’ which is nothing more than turning the youth into a ‘human shield’ for soldiers," wrote defence analyst Zeev Schiff in the influential daily Haaretz. "Neighbor practice is a method that is a disgrace to the army." It is also a grave violation of humanitarian and international law.
Palestinian sources said Muannad Daraghmeh, 22, was killed by Israeli troops near Jenin on July 10, 2002.
Moussa Daraghmeh was killed by Israeli soldiers on May 22 last year, on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Palestinian labourers told reporters that Moussa was with a group of about 20 people who were trying to get around a checkpoint on their way to work.
Amjad Daraghmeh, 22, was killed on September 30, 2000.
Taxi driver Mahmoud Daraghmeh, 40, was seriously injured by four gunshots in the chest on June 13 last year, when Israeli troops, tanks and helicopters besieged and attacked Tubas.
***
Moscow. October 2002. A band of Chechynian terrorists take over a theater, threatening to blow it up if the Russians do not agree to retreat from Chechynia. Scattered throughout the audience are about twenty Chechynian woman, dressed in black, their mid-sections wired with explosives guaranteed to ignite the auditorium at the command of the group’s leader. These women have survived ten years of horrific war; they have lost brothers, husbands, fathers. They are called the “Black Widows.” In certain shots from a movie taken inside the theater during the takeover, many of them can be seen wiping away tears. Is it the loss of their own lives they are fearing, or the hundreds of innocents -- children, mothers, families, performers -- they will take to their death with them?
In interviews with other Black Widows, who continue to operate in and around Chechnya, the story that emerges paints a picture of women who believe they have nothing left to live for. One such woman, recently interviewed on KQED, said she had lost her brother and her husband. Now she was turning over her young son to be raised by her former husband’s family and had volunteered for a suicide mission. It was the only way she could think to avenge the deaths of her loved ones. There was no brainwashing here. No isolation. The culture in which she had existed for so long was so excessively brutal that the thought of a violent death became an obsession.
Interesting,the parallel between the intifada in the Middle East and the situation in Checnya. Palestinian children whose only home has been a refuge camp. Palestinian women who watch as the men in the community are assassinated, belittled, disempowered. Excessive poverty. Few human rights. And now we have Iraq…
The biological model for impulsive violence and violent suicide … A community of people whose brain architecture has been radically altered by long- term exposure to violence, to broken families, to oppression, to isolation.
Evolutionary psychology theory, proposing that under extreme circumstances, individuals or a group can actually ‘switch off’ the mechanism which connects them with others of their species, explains how combatants view the innocents who inadvertently die as a result of suicide bombings, cluster bombs, exposure to white phosphorous are acceptable losses. They are no more human than the fences that hold Palestinians captive, the buses that transport the Israeli citizens, the plastic tenting of a refuge home.
Is it inconceivable for Americans to comprehend such absolute futility? Of being so overwhelmed by military might, so disenfranchised from all that was once meaningful , so powerless, so hopeless. The only recourse left is to avenge the oppressor, with what you have left.
And if this notion that a psychological ‘program’ has evolved which predisposed humans to possessing an inherent sense of kin, perhaps these female suicide bombers are reacting with a maternal instinct. From an evolutionary standpoint, the sacrifice of the one is the only possible option to ensure the continued existence of kin. The body becomes the weapon. The enemy has become depersonalized. The 'innocent victims' are not seen as people because they are members of the outer group. The bomber is powerful in the moment of sacrifice. The refuge camp, the neighborhood , the terrorist cell has become the nuclear family.
Conclusion
Traveling back again to The Zaire River Valley 2.5 million years ago … does it all comes down to water and fruit trees? What would have happened with the chimps north of the Zaire if the drought hadn’t forced the gorilla to migrate, if they hadn’t shared the savannah with the gorilla? And why did humans evolve from chimps in the savannah and not from bonobos in the woodlands? What would the world be like today if we evolved from a female dominated society, characterized by strong social cohesion and the ability to peacefully coexist with other groups? Natural selection, the survival of the fittest. Darwin never intimated that the fittest would be the best.
I like to imagine that the bonobo is somehow evolving among us. A groundswell of humans, who have learned through history and experience that violence is an ineffective reaction to conflict. They are meeting and marching in protest around the world. They are connecting digitally to form a global community. “Make Love, not War,” that famous saying of the Sixties. Perhaps it was a premonition, a glimmer of a new evolving paradigm. Somehow in our collective unconscious, we know the drought is coming. We are staying put on our side of the Zaire.
Bibliography
Books:
Marks,Jonathan, what if means to be 98% chimpanzee, University of California Press 2002
Niehoff, Debra, Phd, The Biology of Violence, Free Press, 1999
Pinker, Steven, The Blank Slate, Penguin, 2002
Ridley, Matt, Nature via Nurture, Harper Collins, 2003
Wilson, E.O., Consilience, Vintage, 1998
Wrangham, Richard and Peterson, Dale, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, Harper, 1996
Websites:
For Links to the numerous websites accessed for this paper, visit
FluidArts
http://www.fluidarts.org/bomber.html
Film:
Terror in Moscow, HBO documentary, October 2003.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Kou Tree California: 2007
Oh, the world you would have known, Shrey Mom. There are still times now, thirty years after you left us, when I look up from whatever I am doing and search for some sign from your spirit. Is that you, that slight soothing pressure on my face? Are you hiding in the clear fresh water I use to clean my client’s feet? Did you slip into that little girl’s giggle? For just a minute, she sounds so much like you.
So many times I ask my husband, “Where are the spirits of all the children who starved to death during the Khmer Rouge? Are they still waiting in Cambodia for their families to come home? Do they know we are here in America?”
He says he does not know. I never tell him how I wait for you. How I worry.
The women who come into my salon, Shrey Mom, carry huge leather satchels that probably cost more money than all the rice we harvested during five years at Pou Chrey. Sometimes they bring their children with them, pale little children in fancy soccer uniforms and hundred dollar sneakers. They will never know the joy of playing a simple game of Leak Kanseng in their dirty bare feet. The dogs that wait for them in cars much grander than the Anghar tanks go to special shops for shampoos. Akmow would not be welcome here, with his dusty black coat and half an ear.
What stories I could tell you about this strange world of America, daughter. But there are no words in the Khmer language to describe such things. It is like a story I once heard about a very old tribe who had never seen a boat before. And so, when they looked out over the ocean, where many, many enemy boats were arriving, they only saw the water. What did they know of something besides a bird that could float?
As much as I want to tell you about my life in America, things are so very different here that there is no space in your little mind for you to even imagine their existence. I can tell you that I own a small shop in a very, very rich town in America, that I clean people’s hands and feet and paint their nails different colors. Sometimes I grind fake nails for them and paste them on their fingers. Every day fancy women come here and I put rich creams on their faces to make them look younger or use hot wax to strip hair from their body. Not sexy in America to have hair on your body.
I do these things to make them happy but they are not happy, Shrey Mom. Always they have problems. I am sorry with them. I remember to ask them how things are when they return. But deep inside, as I bend over their hands, I am saying to myself: “You think your life is a sad story? You have everything. A home. Food. A job. Education. Why you so sad?”
Sometimes I think, “If only you knew my story. You would understand what sorrow really is.” But I say nothing. They are my customers and I have bills to pay.
I will tell you what their lives remind me of, though. It is another story. Some Buddhist monks came to the largest city in America, a city bigger than twenty Phnom Phen's with buildings that rise so high into the sky you cannot see where they end. The monks went every day to a famous building where very important paintings and other art is kept, and they carved a very, very big and beautiful sculpture. It took them weeks and weeks to finish. The sculpture was so big it was the size of a small rice field. When they were done they just left it there, and pretty soon this beautiful piece of art started to melt. The days were too hot. But the monks had known all the time that what they had worked so hard to create would not last. They had done it this way on purpose. They had made the sculpture out of butter.
This is what America is like, Shrey Mom. It is not a real place. What they call beauty here is just what they use to cover up what is real. It will not last.
But the story of our lives? Ah, this will never melt, this will last forever. Yes, this is the story I will tell you
So many times I ask my husband, “Where are the spirits of all the children who starved to death during the Khmer Rouge? Are they still waiting in Cambodia for their families to come home? Do they know we are here in America?”
He says he does not know. I never tell him how I wait for you. How I worry.
The women who come into my salon, Shrey Mom, carry huge leather satchels that probably cost more money than all the rice we harvested during five years at Pou Chrey. Sometimes they bring their children with them, pale little children in fancy soccer uniforms and hundred dollar sneakers. They will never know the joy of playing a simple game of Leak Kanseng in their dirty bare feet. The dogs that wait for them in cars much grander than the Anghar tanks go to special shops for shampoos. Akmow would not be welcome here, with his dusty black coat and half an ear.
What stories I could tell you about this strange world of America, daughter. But there are no words in the Khmer language to describe such things. It is like a story I once heard about a very old tribe who had never seen a boat before. And so, when they looked out over the ocean, where many, many enemy boats were arriving, they only saw the water. What did they know of something besides a bird that could float?
As much as I want to tell you about my life in America, things are so very different here that there is no space in your little mind for you to even imagine their existence. I can tell you that I own a small shop in a very, very rich town in America, that I clean people’s hands and feet and paint their nails different colors. Sometimes I grind fake nails for them and paste them on their fingers. Every day fancy women come here and I put rich creams on their faces to make them look younger or use hot wax to strip hair from their body. Not sexy in America to have hair on your body.
I do these things to make them happy but they are not happy, Shrey Mom. Always they have problems. I am sorry with them. I remember to ask them how things are when they return. But deep inside, as I bend over their hands, I am saying to myself: “You think your life is a sad story? You have everything. A home. Food. A job. Education. Why you so sad?”
Sometimes I think, “If only you knew my story. You would understand what sorrow really is.” But I say nothing. They are my customers and I have bills to pay.
I will tell you what their lives remind me of, though. It is another story. Some Buddhist monks came to the largest city in America, a city bigger than twenty Phnom Phen's with buildings that rise so high into the sky you cannot see where they end. The monks went every day to a famous building where very important paintings and other art is kept, and they carved a very, very big and beautiful sculpture. It took them weeks and weeks to finish. The sculpture was so big it was the size of a small rice field. When they were done they just left it there, and pretty soon this beautiful piece of art started to melt. The days were too hot. But the monks had known all the time that what they had worked so hard to create would not last. They had done it this way on purpose. They had made the sculpture out of butter.
This is what America is like, Shrey Mom. It is not a real place. What they call beauty here is just what they use to cover up what is real. It will not last.
But the story of our lives? Ah, this will never melt, this will last forever. Yes, this is the story I will tell you
Takmau, April 1975
First, I tell you story about day our lives change forever. Hot, dusty day, a month before the rains swell Tonle Sap, fill all Cambodia rivers. Perhaps you remember?
Midday outside our house. Mae sleeping in hammock and you laughing, running circles with Amonk. So so hot I cook clams on ground; they just blister in sun.
“You hungry?” I ask Mae. She shake her head no. Too hot to eat.
I always hungry. I watch you play, eat rice and clams. But oh I ache, miss my husband. Kuan not coming home. Two days ago his friend stop by to tell me.
“Something terrible about to happen,” he say. “Kuan want me give you this.” He hands me $20 and Kuan’s army uniform. “Not safe for him here, he leave country.”
What I thinking anyway. Not like no signs. Every night, Kuan and I lie beside each other in bed, listening to battle sounds under covers.
My world so small. Kuan all I think about. I so crazy in love with him. What could be more terrible than this? I scheming how to meet in City. Yesterday, we heard that airport close. Maybe he still here. Maybe not too late.
I jump to my feet, hear bombs and gunfire. Noise too close.
“Gee, what’s going on?”
Across lake see smoke and people running. Mae sit up in hammock. You stop playing, grab at my skirt. More gunshots, bombs. In seconds, Highway just beyond front yard is crowded with people rushing towards Phnom Phen.
Everywhere stench of gunpowder. Things happening so fast, camera going snap, snap, snap, only each picture frozen in slow motion like trapped in nightmare where you scream and no sound.
Gunfire, explosions, smoke closer and closer. Friends and neighbors speed past on motorcycles and trucks.
“Leave, leave!”.
Ba arrive on his bicycle.
“Get in house,” he yell. “Khmer Rouge attack. Hide, hide.”
I grab you and we run upstairs.
“We go to Phnom Phen,” I say. “Why we stay here? Everyone leaving.”
Ba not listen. “We safe here. Enough food for three months.”
I so angry. Want to go with everyone else to City. Maybe Kuan still there. We stay with his family.
But Ba in charge and so we stay.
We lock all doors, close windows. People running by just outside, pounding on the door “Get out! Get out!” Instead, we hide under the bed in the back room.
We here for long time. You want your favorite toy. I run toward front room to fetch it, suddenly hear loud noise. Scramble back under bed. Knock on door downstairs, friend of Ba’s calling up: “Are you still there? A bomb has fallen on your house. Is anyone in there?”
Sun setting. We still under bed when we hear someone kicking open downstairs door. We so quiet, even Amonk know no make noise. We hear people knocking things off shelves, throwing things around rooms. Now they climb stairs. Three pair shoes enter. Rubber shoes made from tires. Khmer Rouge. We so quiet as they move through room, throwing open cabinets, scattering everything on floor.
But Ba too tall. One of soldiers see his feet.
“Get out, get out from under there,” he order. We crawl out. We so frightened. I hold you in my arms so tight.
Three rifles point at us.
“Do you have guns here? Any army hiding in house?”
You sit on floor, playing with roll toilet paper while Bad talks.
"No, no, we not army. Just let us stay here. No problem."
Soldiers say we have to leave. No time to take anything with us. We not safe here. Americans going to bomb city. We leave now. In three days things safe, we return.
Out. Out. So quick we wrap clothing in sarongs, Ba stuffs big suitcase. We pushed at gunpoint out onto street. Soldiers everywhere. Now everyone rush away from Phnom Phen – cars, trucks, tuk-tuks overflowing with people, bicycles and motos carry whole family. Gunshots. Small boys in big black clothing scarves wrapped around heads carry guns as big as they are. Their eyes crazy with power. Bombs explode, gun battles rage. Fear so heavy you can smell it.
“Go, go, go.” Armed soldiers alongside road urge us onward, only allowing us to stop to drink from large buckets of water sitting along road.
We walk all night. Hundreds seeking shelter under trees when bullets come too close.
Ba, Mae and I take turn carrying you, your little feet tire so quickly. I so angry at Ba. Why he not see this? Why he not take us away sooner?
Finally, morning. Rest in small farm. Farmer come over with food for you. Banana leaf wrapped around brown rice and tiny dried fish.
Do you remember that morning, Shrey Mom, that tiny offering food? It meal for four of us.
I still haunted by way that farmer look at us. He know what in store for us. He sorry. Oh, how I hate that man because when I look at him I know. I know old life over. Life never again be normal. I know this, but I no idea three days really mean four years.
In that moment it just like they say happen before you die. My whole life flash fast before my eyes, like star shoot across sky. Like that for you, Shrey Mom? When you die, your star not have long to travel. Only five year. In my death moment, path 24 year long. My life slip away in second, not enough time even for me to reach out and capture even tiniest picture. It all gone before I finish one breath.
Takmau, 1957
Spirit is everything in Cambodia. Our parents tell us that on the day we are born, our spirit is flying above, summoned to land in that split second of time when our body slips into this world. They choose us; they are our first taste of the air.
We are sewing mosquito nets in the cool outdoor corridor in the middle of our two-story house. I smell magnolias and drying fish.
We are so poor. Pa rides his bike to work in the fields, a few hours journey each way. Sometimes he disappears for days at a time. There is never enough food, and when we are not at school we are working for Mae, endlessly stitching new nets to sell in the local market or in Phnom Phen. We are always waiting for holiday, once a year noodle soup and two new sets of clothes
I am maybe five or six. Already, I am angry at my spirit.
“Why you have to stop here, why this poor family?” I ask. “Why you do this to me? If you had flown a little slower, you would have landed just next door. Look how many things you would have had -- a TV, a car, lots of food.”
Then I look out in the other direction.
“Why you not fly a little slower? Even on the other side, still things would have been a little better. Why you have to land here?”
The sun is setting over the Mekong, the evening chills. The cicadas chat with birds, a dog howls. I can hear my stomach clenching with hunger, so empty it is hard to pay attention to my stitching. The babies begin to cry and Big Brother tries to distract them. Our well-seasoned ears easily weed out the sound of Ba’s bike as he turns into the alley beside our home. Now we can eat.
Everyone loves Ba. He is an artist. “Oh, your father, he so wise,” they say. Our neighbors and everyone in our family come to him for advice. He knows everything. And oh, how he loves to tell stories about Grandpa’s life in China. These are my favorite times. After dinner, I am so tired, still hungry, our sewing is folded away, the babies sleep. Only the crickets chatter as Ba begins to talk. Akmow, our black lab, curls at his feet.
Ba enchants me with bigger-than-life, true fairytales, so rich and humming with life that time and space disappear.
I am no longer just one little girl in a large poor Cambodian family. I am traveling inside Ba’s memories. I am in China, crouching outside a school with other hushed children, secretly listening to lessons only meant for rich young ears. I am dancing in the dark swollen fields, chasing down fireflies, capturing hundreds in a clear glass jar. I poke holes in the lids and read very big schoolbooks by the light of my firefly lantern. My night sky is too rich with stars and moonlight. I sleep.
My eyes snap open as Ba settles me down in the long bamboo bed with my sisters.
“It’s okay. You were dreaming,” he whispers. I stare for a moment into his deep black eyes. I sigh and turn away into sleep. We, four sisters, side by side every night, tiny sardines packed tight in a poreless tin can. So safe.
Midday outside our house. Mae sleeping in hammock and you laughing, running circles with Amonk. So so hot I cook clams on ground; they just blister in sun.
“You hungry?” I ask Mae. She shake her head no. Too hot to eat.
I always hungry. I watch you play, eat rice and clams. But oh I ache, miss my husband. Kuan not coming home. Two days ago his friend stop by to tell me.
“Something terrible about to happen,” he say. “Kuan want me give you this.” He hands me $20 and Kuan’s army uniform. “Not safe for him here, he leave country.”
What I thinking anyway. Not like no signs. Every night, Kuan and I lie beside each other in bed, listening to battle sounds under covers.
My world so small. Kuan all I think about. I so crazy in love with him. What could be more terrible than this? I scheming how to meet in City. Yesterday, we heard that airport close. Maybe he still here. Maybe not too late.
I jump to my feet, hear bombs and gunfire. Noise too close.
“Gee, what’s going on?”
Across lake see smoke and people running. Mae sit up in hammock. You stop playing, grab at my skirt. More gunshots, bombs. In seconds, Highway just beyond front yard is crowded with people rushing towards Phnom Phen.
Everywhere stench of gunpowder. Things happening so fast, camera going snap, snap, snap, only each picture frozen in slow motion like trapped in nightmare where you scream and no sound.
Gunfire, explosions, smoke closer and closer. Friends and neighbors speed past on motorcycles and trucks.
“Leave, leave!”.
Ba arrive on his bicycle.
“Get in house,” he yell. “Khmer Rouge attack. Hide, hide.”
I grab you and we run upstairs.
“We go to Phnom Phen,” I say. “Why we stay here? Everyone leaving.”
Ba not listen. “We safe here. Enough food for three months.”
I so angry. Want to go with everyone else to City. Maybe Kuan still there. We stay with his family.
But Ba in charge and so we stay.
We lock all doors, close windows. People running by just outside, pounding on the door “Get out! Get out!” Instead, we hide under the bed in the back room.
We here for long time. You want your favorite toy. I run toward front room to fetch it, suddenly hear loud noise. Scramble back under bed. Knock on door downstairs, friend of Ba’s calling up: “Are you still there? A bomb has fallen on your house. Is anyone in there?”
Sun setting. We still under bed when we hear someone kicking open downstairs door. We so quiet, even Amonk know no make noise. We hear people knocking things off shelves, throwing things around rooms. Now they climb stairs. Three pair shoes enter. Rubber shoes made from tires. Khmer Rouge. We so quiet as they move through room, throwing open cabinets, scattering everything on floor.
But Ba too tall. One of soldiers see his feet.
“Get out, get out from under there,” he order. We crawl out. We so frightened. I hold you in my arms so tight.
Three rifles point at us.
“Do you have guns here? Any army hiding in house?”
You sit on floor, playing with roll toilet paper while Bad talks.
"No, no, we not army. Just let us stay here. No problem."
Soldiers say we have to leave. No time to take anything with us. We not safe here. Americans going to bomb city. We leave now. In three days things safe, we return.
Out. Out. So quick we wrap clothing in sarongs, Ba stuffs big suitcase. We pushed at gunpoint out onto street. Soldiers everywhere. Now everyone rush away from Phnom Phen – cars, trucks, tuk-tuks overflowing with people, bicycles and motos carry whole family. Gunshots. Small boys in big black clothing scarves wrapped around heads carry guns as big as they are. Their eyes crazy with power. Bombs explode, gun battles rage. Fear so heavy you can smell it.
“Go, go, go.” Armed soldiers alongside road urge us onward, only allowing us to stop to drink from large buckets of water sitting along road.
We walk all night. Hundreds seeking shelter under trees when bullets come too close.
Ba, Mae and I take turn carrying you, your little feet tire so quickly. I so angry at Ba. Why he not see this? Why he not take us away sooner?
Finally, morning. Rest in small farm. Farmer come over with food for you. Banana leaf wrapped around brown rice and tiny dried fish.
Do you remember that morning, Shrey Mom, that tiny offering food? It meal for four of us.
I still haunted by way that farmer look at us. He know what in store for us. He sorry. Oh, how I hate that man because when I look at him I know. I know old life over. Life never again be normal. I know this, but I no idea three days really mean four years.
In that moment it just like they say happen before you die. My whole life flash fast before my eyes, like star shoot across sky. Like that for you, Shrey Mom? When you die, your star not have long to travel. Only five year. In my death moment, path 24 year long. My life slip away in second, not enough time even for me to reach out and capture even tiniest picture. It all gone before I finish one breath.
Takmau, 1957
Spirit is everything in Cambodia. Our parents tell us that on the day we are born, our spirit is flying above, summoned to land in that split second of time when our body slips into this world. They choose us; they are our first taste of the air.
We are sewing mosquito nets in the cool outdoor corridor in the middle of our two-story house. I smell magnolias and drying fish.
We are so poor. Pa rides his bike to work in the fields, a few hours journey each way. Sometimes he disappears for days at a time. There is never enough food, and when we are not at school we are working for Mae, endlessly stitching new nets to sell in the local market or in Phnom Phen. We are always waiting for holiday, once a year noodle soup and two new sets of clothes
I am maybe five or six. Already, I am angry at my spirit.
“Why you have to stop here, why this poor family?” I ask. “Why you do this to me? If you had flown a little slower, you would have landed just next door. Look how many things you would have had -- a TV, a car, lots of food.”
Then I look out in the other direction.
“Why you not fly a little slower? Even on the other side, still things would have been a little better. Why you have to land here?”
The sun is setting over the Mekong, the evening chills. The cicadas chat with birds, a dog howls. I can hear my stomach clenching with hunger, so empty it is hard to pay attention to my stitching. The babies begin to cry and Big Brother tries to distract them. Our well-seasoned ears easily weed out the sound of Ba’s bike as he turns into the alley beside our home. Now we can eat.
Everyone loves Ba. He is an artist. “Oh, your father, he so wise,” they say. Our neighbors and everyone in our family come to him for advice. He knows everything. And oh, how he loves to tell stories about Grandpa’s life in China. These are my favorite times. After dinner, I am so tired, still hungry, our sewing is folded away, the babies sleep. Only the crickets chatter as Ba begins to talk. Akmow, our black lab, curls at his feet.
Ba enchants me with bigger-than-life, true fairytales, so rich and humming with life that time and space disappear.
I am no longer just one little girl in a large poor Cambodian family. I am traveling inside Ba’s memories. I am in China, crouching outside a school with other hushed children, secretly listening to lessons only meant for rich young ears. I am dancing in the dark swollen fields, chasing down fireflies, capturing hundreds in a clear glass jar. I poke holes in the lids and read very big schoolbooks by the light of my firefly lantern. My night sky is too rich with stars and moonlight. I sleep.
My eyes snap open as Ba settles me down in the long bamboo bed with my sisters.
“It’s okay. You were dreaming,” he whispers. I stare for a moment into his deep black eyes. I sigh and turn away into sleep. We, four sisters, side by side every night, tiny sardines packed tight in a poreless tin can. So safe.
Takmou: 1950s
Today is an important day. Ba is taking me to get my birth certificate so I can go to big children’s school. I ride on the handlebars of his bike to the government building in the center of town.
Downtown Takmou is always crowded, so much to see. The outside market full of merchants selling colorful silks and threads, shiny jewelry, books and clothing. So many things to eat here. Fruit stands overflow with pineapple and papaya. Plump ducks and chicken hang from long string from top canopy many stands. Smell of cooking meats and fish. Rows of tuks tuks and motobikes, bicycles.
Cars and buses with windows wide open cross bridge over Mekong, some pass by Takmou on way to Vietnam.
There are many people in line by the time we arrive, some friends from the Buddhist school. But everyone is quiet inside, the children stand still beside their parents; we all turn to look each time someone joins the line to see if it is someone we know.
I still don’t understand why this day so important. Why I need a paper to show I was born when I have been here for 8 years already?
When we reach the front desk, Ba tells the woman the date and place of my birth. Lots of other information about our family. It takes a long time before she finally hands him a fancy piece of thick white paper. He immediately folds it into his sac. Hands her a pocketful of coins.
“Let me see, Ba, let me see!” I grab onto my father’s sleeve as soon as we are outside.
“Wait, Kim. Wait.”
Ba says he is going to buy me a treat to celebrate. We stop at a fancy food stand beside the Mekong River. I choose fried bananas and coconut ice cream.
“Big treat for big girl,” he says.” Almost like your birthday.”
We sit on the lawn alongside the River, shaded by a small grove of cypress trees. The Cambodian flag snaps in a cool afternoon breeze. We watch fisherman as they work on their nets. Dirty-faced bare-chested little boys rush back and forth from the boats carrying buckets of fish to the market. A group of old men sit on wooden boxes with dominoes spread out before them on top of a rusted lobster crate.
A young man is sitting in the grass playing a guitar. I think maybe he is an American. He has yellow hair and little brown spots on his face and the music is like nothing I have ever heard before. He looks so strange here, so unexpected, like finding a pink pearl inside a cracked clam shell. I just stare in disbelief as I eat my ice cream. My father glances at me and, for just a second, looks out to see what I am staring at before turning his attention back to his own thoughts.
Finally, Ba reaches into his sac and hands me my birth certificate. The paper is heavy with a raised seal in the bottom corner marked with the date. I trace the letters of my name with my fingers. This is the first time I have seen my name printed anywhere. I feel so proud and special, maybe now everything will be different. I am important now.
When I look up again the American is gone. We ride home on the bicycle. I am so excited to show Mae my special paper. But when I run into the house she is lying quietly on her bed. Big sister lifts her fingers to her mouth to signal me no talking. I walk outside and join my other sisters. They don’t even look up when I sit down beside them. Nothing is different. Mosquito nets are always the most important thing.
***
I am daughter number three in family of five girls, one boy. We live alongside Highway 2 just outside Phnom Phen. The Highway is always so busy - bicycles, cars, motos, ox carts drawn by water buffalo. Even sometimes elephants walk by. A big park and a lake are just across the road, and in the distance the small village of Takau, across the Mekong River.
Ba’s brother and his family live next door. We are in and out of each other’s homes all day, like no walls. Our houses are the same; small, concrete, two stories, three walls front to back, a large middle room open to the sky.
We live behind grandmother’s old house which sits set back from the highway behind tall stalks of lemongrass, vines of purple passion flowers, banana plants, palm and banyan trees. An ancient kou tree is just outside her front door. Sign of good luck.
Our families cook outside –ocre, shellfish, plantain, hot peppers - while we chase the cats and chickens in the tiny alleys between the houses. The Buddhist Temple is just one house away. In the morning, the little kids study Khmer and Buddhism. Everybody visits Temple when they have a problem. Bring roast pig, fruit, pork rolls, flowers. Gifts for the monk when you have a problem.
My family doesn’t have many problems until Mae becomes ill. Every three years, she and my father have another child. But something goes wrong with the last baby. One day Mae is pregnant. Then one day baby is gone. Nobody says anything. Nobody even thinks to ask. But suddenly it seems like Mae is always frightened. Her heart beats fast under her shirt. Her throat pulses like frog. She cannot sleep. I lie next to her every night now, massaging her to help her sleep.
Many times my family comes to temple to ask monk what to do.
He shakes fortune sticks, lets them fall, says “pick one.”
Then he tells you what he sees. Sticks show different answers every time, but we always do what monk says. Otherwise, bad luck.
But after Mae become sick, our family never finds luck again. Whatever that spirit that come into her body, it just settle right in.
At night I dream about the purple ghost. Always the same dream. It tiptoes out from under my bed, huge thorned horns first, and sits right on top of my head, terrifying with its sharp bloody nails and long forked tongue.
“I have caught you,” it snears. “Now you will never get away.”
I know better than to tell anyone about my dream. They will all think I am haunted, too. Better to stay quiet at night when I wake up frozen with fear.
***
One of the big problems always in my family is that grandma does not like Mae. She is not good enough for Ba, even though she comes from a wealthy Kandal family. Maybe my mother does not know how to read and write, but she knows so many other things. She runs her own business, she works so hard so her children can stay in school. She is very successful, makes more money than Ba to support the family. She never complains.
“She so dumb,” Grandma always say.
I just don’t understand. Why Grandma travel so far to ask permission for Ba to marry Mae if she not want her as a daughter? Sometimes I think maybe grandma is jealous because Mae’s family is rich. They own a big fish company in the south. Every year when the fish come in, we visit. Grandma never comes and she always seems to be even meaner when we come home.
Everyone thinks an evil spirit is inside Mae, but it is Grandma who says Mae is evil, that she did something very bad to bring shame on our family. She talks to Ba at night. I hear them outside the window as I lie next to my mother, waiting for her to sleep.
“You should leave her, she bad woman,” I hear her say. “Let brother’s wife take care of kids.”
I feel such fear clutch at my heart but I know that my mother is even more afraid. I know she is only pretending to be asleep because those frogs just start croaking silently beneath the soft skin of her throat. They always give her away.
“The neighbor put a curse on her,” Grandma says. “She told me nothing will make her remove it. She hates our family.”
The frogs croak even louder.
But why we worry? Ba is such a good man. No way he is going to leave his wife. We listen as he tells his mother his decision. He is too busy to take care of Mae and he knows Grandma is too old. Big sister will leave school She will run the family. All of the children will help more with my mother’s business. Big brother must stay in school and when he comes home each day he will handle all the big decisions for the family. And my job? I will go with Mae to every healer we can find. Maybe I will have to leave school, too.
***
***
The sun is traveling up, up towards roof sky when the little bus stop at Dram-Ka.
“Staight ahead, three mile,” driver say. “You see vat. Big Buddha statue. Only one arm. Turn there. Follow nose. Incense. Very strong.”
Mae and I stop at very, very old coconut juice stand, Big holes in red canvas roof. Owner asleep on bicyle.
“Uncle, wake up. We need some drink.”
Old man so slow getting to his feet. His soiled krama is wet with sweat. Cracked lenses in glasses.
He hack off head of two baby green coconuts, slips straw inside each. I pay him rire. We walk. Now we get energy from cold white juice. Tastes so good.
Mae walk so slow. She not understand where we go.
“Why we here, Pom? Where we going? Want to go home.”
So many times I grab her arm, stop her from turning back.
“Mae, No. We go see doctor. He make you better.”
Mae’s eyes so scared. What she doing out here with little daughter? Her hands shaking so bad.
“It’s okay, Mae. I take care of you. Not too far.”
We walk in mid day heat. Dirt path between brave green rice fields. Water buffalo walk so slow. No people look up from their work. No faces, only big straw circle hats. Rice paddies stretch way back to where hazy blue sky touches field.
I wish so bad big sister here. I too little to do this. So frightened to be boss. Afraid to be with Mae. I try not to worry, link arms. Start to hum song to calm her down. So afraid I loose her. What if she just pull away and run? What I do then?
Now we in small forest. Much cooler. Noisy monkeys play high in deep green branches. Many birds talk. Walk faster, Mae. Walk faster. Maybe big tiger here. Not feel so safe. Mae so scared now, she pull away from me, try to run back.
Grab her arm, pull her with me. She crying now. Crying and screaming.
“Just walk, Mae. Just walk. You feel much better. You see.”
Very hard work, almost carrying Mae. Maybe she sick but she still strong. We fall couple times and everytime I rush to stand up before her. Pull her up. Big big bump in my throat, heart beaingt so fast, hard to breath. How I get her there?
Forest clears for a few small houses. Three, maybe four young monks sitting outside vat. Sun so hot their bright yellow robes blinding like sun.
Mae wants to sit down outside temple.
“We almost there, Mae. Just two minutes.”
We sit next to one-armed Buddha. Two children play Bay Khoum. So long since I play this game. Big board with eight small holes in front, two in back. First child drops beads one by one into eight holes until only six beads left. Then pick up all beads in hole next to empty hole. Pick all beads up. They confused about game. They not know how to play. Start yelling at each other.
I too tired to tell them. It not my place anyway. Tall monk come over to stop fighting. Lead them back into vat.
I urge Mae onto feet again. Overgrown path, sticky berry plants scratch white lines on legs and arms. Families of cats sleep under young cherry blossom trees, huge banana plants. Sandalwood smell very strong. Small hut. Old black dog stretched out in sun, Dirty white horse. No door. I push aside heavy strings of bandar beads. Look inside.
Altars, everywhere candles, little smoke pods from incense, fruit, flowers. Wrinkled old man wearning loincloth look up.
“Kru khmae? Bad spirit make my mother so sick. You help her?”
Pull fist of coins from pocket. Mae crying so hard she fall on ground. I put coins on huge altar.
Kru Khame stand, walk over to Mae, bend down. Lift her face in wrinkled brown hand. He so gentle. She stop crying like that.
“You wait outside,” he say. “No children here.”
Rain come so strong … white flower from plum tree fall on ground, some in my hair. World smell so pretty. Sit under big banyan tree, still get wet. Not know how many hours Mae inside. When she finally come out she look very calm. I take her hand and we walk across little white flowers layer ground like snowflakes. Rain stop, big clouds separate. Sky dark blue just before nightfall.
Mae sits in an old wooden chair inside a circle during a healing ceremony. People dance and sing around her. The healer plays a Cambodian drum. When the ghost comes into his body, he shakes all over and dances around like he is crazy. One day put something black in her mouth. She chews it, then they open her mouth and drop some liquid in.
Sometimes she is better for awhile.
***
I like being 16. When I comb my hair in the morning …., INow i 16 and Maenot better. Nurse soldier visit our house few days week give her medication.
He a lot older than me but soon he start coming to see me every night. So romantic. We whisper to each other in dark, he stand below my window. I don’t know if anyone hear us. We no care. One night we meet secretly outside house, hold hands and kiss and talk. He want to marry me. I know he married with a couple kids, but he tell me he not love his wife. I so young. I believe him. So exciting, being in love, having someone so handsome love me.
Nothing free in this life. One day his wife and kids comestay with him – he live only few houses away from us – and I think "I cannot do this anymore." I tell Mi he say he want to marry me.
"Why you want to marry married man?” she ask. I say not know,maybe love him.
Then soldier send someone to ask my mom if he can marry me and my mom say “No, you already married.” Even though okay in Cambodia for man to have old and young wife, Mae not want this for me. He warn them they not give me to him he going to come and kidnap me.
My parents so afraid. Make arrangements to send me to live in Phnom Phen with family Ba knows. I only 17 and Mae has to send me away.
Oh my poor mom, she never have fun. Mother in law hate her. She has lot of kids and and then she is sick. Now I leaving her.
Doctor Friend In Phnom Phen
His parents and mine have the same last name, and in Cambodia that makes you like family. When he was young he came to our house and stayed while he went to high school and college. I am four years younger than him. His family is middle class, richer than us.
Chapter 3
Takmou: 1967
• The majority of the Khmer live in rural villages either as rice farmers or fishermen and life revolves around the vat (temple) and the various Buddhist ceremonies throughout the year. However, if a Khmer becomes ill, they will frequently see a kru khmae (shaman/healer) whom they believe can diagnose which of the many spirits (neak ta) has caused the illness and recommend a course of action to propitiate the offended spirit, thereby curing the illness.
Rubbing is usually in the same areas as pinching and involves firmly rubbing of lubricated skin with a spoon or a coin in order to bring toxic "air" to the body surface. In the hot-cold theory, illness is caused by an alteration in
Unmistakable emotional disturbance is usually attributed to possession by malicious spirits; to bad karma accumulated by misdeeds in past lives; or to the bad luck of familial inheritance. Partially due to its attribution to immoral causes, mental illness is commonly denied and feared. The disturbed individuals are protected by their family and if outsiders become aware of the mental illness, great shame is brought to the family.
Downtown Takmou is always crowded, so much to see. The outside market full of merchants selling colorful silks and threads, shiny jewelry, books and clothing. So many things to eat here. Fruit stands overflow with pineapple and papaya. Plump ducks and chicken hang from long string from top canopy many stands. Smell of cooking meats and fish. Rows of tuks tuks and motobikes, bicycles.
Cars and buses with windows wide open cross bridge over Mekong, some pass by Takmou on way to Vietnam.
There are many people in line by the time we arrive, some friends from the Buddhist school. But everyone is quiet inside, the children stand still beside their parents; we all turn to look each time someone joins the line to see if it is someone we know.
I still don’t understand why this day so important. Why I need a paper to show I was born when I have been here for 8 years already?
When we reach the front desk, Ba tells the woman the date and place of my birth. Lots of other information about our family. It takes a long time before she finally hands him a fancy piece of thick white paper. He immediately folds it into his sac. Hands her a pocketful of coins.
“Let me see, Ba, let me see!” I grab onto my father’s sleeve as soon as we are outside.
“Wait, Kim. Wait.”
Ba says he is going to buy me a treat to celebrate. We stop at a fancy food stand beside the Mekong River. I choose fried bananas and coconut ice cream.
“Big treat for big girl,” he says.” Almost like your birthday.”
We sit on the lawn alongside the River, shaded by a small grove of cypress trees. The Cambodian flag snaps in a cool afternoon breeze. We watch fisherman as they work on their nets. Dirty-faced bare-chested little boys rush back and forth from the boats carrying buckets of fish to the market. A group of old men sit on wooden boxes with dominoes spread out before them on top of a rusted lobster crate.
A young man is sitting in the grass playing a guitar. I think maybe he is an American. He has yellow hair and little brown spots on his face and the music is like nothing I have ever heard before. He looks so strange here, so unexpected, like finding a pink pearl inside a cracked clam shell. I just stare in disbelief as I eat my ice cream. My father glances at me and, for just a second, looks out to see what I am staring at before turning his attention back to his own thoughts.
Finally, Ba reaches into his sac and hands me my birth certificate. The paper is heavy with a raised seal in the bottom corner marked with the date. I trace the letters of my name with my fingers. This is the first time I have seen my name printed anywhere. I feel so proud and special, maybe now everything will be different. I am important now.
When I look up again the American is gone. We ride home on the bicycle. I am so excited to show Mae my special paper. But when I run into the house she is lying quietly on her bed. Big sister lifts her fingers to her mouth to signal me no talking. I walk outside and join my other sisters. They don’t even look up when I sit down beside them. Nothing is different. Mosquito nets are always the most important thing.
***
I am daughter number three in family of five girls, one boy. We live alongside Highway 2 just outside Phnom Phen. The Highway is always so busy - bicycles, cars, motos, ox carts drawn by water buffalo. Even sometimes elephants walk by. A big park and a lake are just across the road, and in the distance the small village of Takau, across the Mekong River.
Ba’s brother and his family live next door. We are in and out of each other’s homes all day, like no walls. Our houses are the same; small, concrete, two stories, three walls front to back, a large middle room open to the sky.
We live behind grandmother’s old house which sits set back from the highway behind tall stalks of lemongrass, vines of purple passion flowers, banana plants, palm and banyan trees. An ancient kou tree is just outside her front door. Sign of good luck.
Our families cook outside –ocre, shellfish, plantain, hot peppers - while we chase the cats and chickens in the tiny alleys between the houses. The Buddhist Temple is just one house away. In the morning, the little kids study Khmer and Buddhism. Everybody visits Temple when they have a problem. Bring roast pig, fruit, pork rolls, flowers. Gifts for the monk when you have a problem.
My family doesn’t have many problems until Mae becomes ill. Every three years, she and my father have another child. But something goes wrong with the last baby. One day Mae is pregnant. Then one day baby is gone. Nobody says anything. Nobody even thinks to ask. But suddenly it seems like Mae is always frightened. Her heart beats fast under her shirt. Her throat pulses like frog. She cannot sleep. I lie next to her every night now, massaging her to help her sleep.
Many times my family comes to temple to ask monk what to do.
He shakes fortune sticks, lets them fall, says “pick one.”
Then he tells you what he sees. Sticks show different answers every time, but we always do what monk says. Otherwise, bad luck.
But after Mae become sick, our family never finds luck again. Whatever that spirit that come into her body, it just settle right in.
At night I dream about the purple ghost. Always the same dream. It tiptoes out from under my bed, huge thorned horns first, and sits right on top of my head, terrifying with its sharp bloody nails and long forked tongue.
“I have caught you,” it snears. “Now you will never get away.”
I know better than to tell anyone about my dream. They will all think I am haunted, too. Better to stay quiet at night when I wake up frozen with fear.
***
One of the big problems always in my family is that grandma does not like Mae. She is not good enough for Ba, even though she comes from a wealthy Kandal family. Maybe my mother does not know how to read and write, but she knows so many other things. She runs her own business, she works so hard so her children can stay in school. She is very successful, makes more money than Ba to support the family. She never complains.
“She so dumb,” Grandma always say.
I just don’t understand. Why Grandma travel so far to ask permission for Ba to marry Mae if she not want her as a daughter? Sometimes I think maybe grandma is jealous because Mae’s family is rich. They own a big fish company in the south. Every year when the fish come in, we visit. Grandma never comes and she always seems to be even meaner when we come home.
Everyone thinks an evil spirit is inside Mae, but it is Grandma who says Mae is evil, that she did something very bad to bring shame on our family. She talks to Ba at night. I hear them outside the window as I lie next to my mother, waiting for her to sleep.
“You should leave her, she bad woman,” I hear her say. “Let brother’s wife take care of kids.”
I feel such fear clutch at my heart but I know that my mother is even more afraid. I know she is only pretending to be asleep because those frogs just start croaking silently beneath the soft skin of her throat. They always give her away.
“The neighbor put a curse on her,” Grandma says. “She told me nothing will make her remove it. She hates our family.”
The frogs croak even louder.
But why we worry? Ba is such a good man. No way he is going to leave his wife. We listen as he tells his mother his decision. He is too busy to take care of Mae and he knows Grandma is too old. Big sister will leave school She will run the family. All of the children will help more with my mother’s business. Big brother must stay in school and when he comes home each day he will handle all the big decisions for the family. And my job? I will go with Mae to every healer we can find. Maybe I will have to leave school, too.
***
***
The sun is traveling up, up towards roof sky when the little bus stop at Dram-Ka.
“Staight ahead, three mile,” driver say. “You see vat. Big Buddha statue. Only one arm. Turn there. Follow nose. Incense. Very strong.”
Mae and I stop at very, very old coconut juice stand, Big holes in red canvas roof. Owner asleep on bicyle.
“Uncle, wake up. We need some drink.”
Old man so slow getting to his feet. His soiled krama is wet with sweat. Cracked lenses in glasses.
He hack off head of two baby green coconuts, slips straw inside each. I pay him rire. We walk. Now we get energy from cold white juice. Tastes so good.
Mae walk so slow. She not understand where we go.
“Why we here, Pom? Where we going? Want to go home.”
So many times I grab her arm, stop her from turning back.
“Mae, No. We go see doctor. He make you better.”
Mae’s eyes so scared. What she doing out here with little daughter? Her hands shaking so bad.
“It’s okay, Mae. I take care of you. Not too far.”
We walk in mid day heat. Dirt path between brave green rice fields. Water buffalo walk so slow. No people look up from their work. No faces, only big straw circle hats. Rice paddies stretch way back to where hazy blue sky touches field.
I wish so bad big sister here. I too little to do this. So frightened to be boss. Afraid to be with Mae. I try not to worry, link arms. Start to hum song to calm her down. So afraid I loose her. What if she just pull away and run? What I do then?
Now we in small forest. Much cooler. Noisy monkeys play high in deep green branches. Many birds talk. Walk faster, Mae. Walk faster. Maybe big tiger here. Not feel so safe. Mae so scared now, she pull away from me, try to run back.
Grab her arm, pull her with me. She crying now. Crying and screaming.
“Just walk, Mae. Just walk. You feel much better. You see.”
Very hard work, almost carrying Mae. Maybe she sick but she still strong. We fall couple times and everytime I rush to stand up before her. Pull her up. Big big bump in my throat, heart beaingt so fast, hard to breath. How I get her there?
Forest clears for a few small houses. Three, maybe four young monks sitting outside vat. Sun so hot their bright yellow robes blinding like sun.
Mae wants to sit down outside temple.
“We almost there, Mae. Just two minutes.”
We sit next to one-armed Buddha. Two children play Bay Khoum. So long since I play this game. Big board with eight small holes in front, two in back. First child drops beads one by one into eight holes until only six beads left. Then pick up all beads in hole next to empty hole. Pick all beads up. They confused about game. They not know how to play. Start yelling at each other.
I too tired to tell them. It not my place anyway. Tall monk come over to stop fighting. Lead them back into vat.
I urge Mae onto feet again. Overgrown path, sticky berry plants scratch white lines on legs and arms. Families of cats sleep under young cherry blossom trees, huge banana plants. Sandalwood smell very strong. Small hut. Old black dog stretched out in sun, Dirty white horse. No door. I push aside heavy strings of bandar beads. Look inside.
Altars, everywhere candles, little smoke pods from incense, fruit, flowers. Wrinkled old man wearning loincloth look up.
“Kru khmae? Bad spirit make my mother so sick. You help her?”
Pull fist of coins from pocket. Mae crying so hard she fall on ground. I put coins on huge altar.
Kru Khame stand, walk over to Mae, bend down. Lift her face in wrinkled brown hand. He so gentle. She stop crying like that.
“You wait outside,” he say. “No children here.”
Rain come so strong … white flower from plum tree fall on ground, some in my hair. World smell so pretty. Sit under big banyan tree, still get wet. Not know how many hours Mae inside. When she finally come out she look very calm. I take her hand and we walk across little white flowers layer ground like snowflakes. Rain stop, big clouds separate. Sky dark blue just before nightfall.
Mae sits in an old wooden chair inside a circle during a healing ceremony. People dance and sing around her. The healer plays a Cambodian drum. When the ghost comes into his body, he shakes all over and dances around like he is crazy. One day put something black in her mouth. She chews it, then they open her mouth and drop some liquid in.
Sometimes she is better for awhile.
***
I like being 16. When I comb my hair in the morning …., INow i 16 and Maenot better. Nurse soldier visit our house few days week give her medication.
He a lot older than me but soon he start coming to see me every night. So romantic. We whisper to each other in dark, he stand below my window. I don’t know if anyone hear us. We no care. One night we meet secretly outside house, hold hands and kiss and talk. He want to marry me. I know he married with a couple kids, but he tell me he not love his wife. I so young. I believe him. So exciting, being in love, having someone so handsome love me.
Nothing free in this life. One day his wife and kids comestay with him – he live only few houses away from us – and I think "I cannot do this anymore." I tell Mi he say he want to marry me.
"Why you want to marry married man?” she ask. I say not know,maybe love him.
Then soldier send someone to ask my mom if he can marry me and my mom say “No, you already married.” Even though okay in Cambodia for man to have old and young wife, Mae not want this for me. He warn them they not give me to him he going to come and kidnap me.
My parents so afraid. Make arrangements to send me to live in Phnom Phen with family Ba knows. I only 17 and Mae has to send me away.
Oh my poor mom, she never have fun. Mother in law hate her. She has lot of kids and and then she is sick. Now I leaving her.
Doctor Friend In Phnom Phen
His parents and mine have the same last name, and in Cambodia that makes you like family. When he was young he came to our house and stayed while he went to high school and college. I am four years younger than him. His family is middle class, richer than us.
Chapter 3
Takmou: 1967
• The majority of the Khmer live in rural villages either as rice farmers or fishermen and life revolves around the vat (temple) and the various Buddhist ceremonies throughout the year. However, if a Khmer becomes ill, they will frequently see a kru khmae (shaman/healer) whom they believe can diagnose which of the many spirits (neak ta) has caused the illness and recommend a course of action to propitiate the offended spirit, thereby curing the illness.
Rubbing is usually in the same areas as pinching and involves firmly rubbing of lubricated skin with a spoon or a coin in order to bring toxic "air" to the body surface. In the hot-cold theory, illness is caused by an alteration in
Unmistakable emotional disturbance is usually attributed to possession by malicious spirits; to bad karma accumulated by misdeeds in past lives; or to the bad luck of familial inheritance. Partially due to its attribution to immoral causes, mental illness is commonly denied and feared. The disturbed individuals are protected by their family and if outsiders become aware of the mental illness, great shame is brought to the family.
Phnom Phen: 1960s
Phnom Penh: 1960s, early 1970s
My father has a friend who is a general in the army. He makes arrangements for me to live with his family in Phnom Phen. They are my new aunt and uncle.They have six or seven kids and they are wealthy, they have a sofa and so many cars. I have never seen such a beautiful home, so much luxury.
I am treated like a member of the family. I sleep with the daughter and the baby this is the aunt?>. They give me nice clothes and I eat wonderful meals with them; spicy noodle soups and all kinds of fish, Such wonderful food. I go everywhere with them, to buy food and shop. When I go home to visit my family, I travel in a chauffered car. I never spend the night, we are all too afraid of the soldier.
Nights in Phnom Phen are magic. The family has three sons in high school and every night the older son drives us around the city. The city parks are so full of life, young people like us eating ice cream and hanging out together in the park beside the Mekong.
“Meet my cousin,” they say when friends ask about me. This is just how things are in Cambodia. You can go to live with family or
I live friends. Everyone is so close.
I am a new person in a different world. I have escaped poverty and illness and the small joyless home where there is only struggle and hard work. Illness and meager meals. This is the life that was waiting for me. My spirit chose well, afterall.
My father has a friend who is a general in the army. He makes arrangements for me to live with his family in Phnom Phen. They are my new aunt and uncle.They have six or seven kids and they are wealthy, they have a sofa and so many cars. I have never seen such a beautiful home, so much luxury.
I am treated like a member of the family. I sleep with the daughter and the baby this is the aunt?>. They give me nice clothes and I eat wonderful meals with them; spicy noodle soups and all kinds of fish, Such wonderful food. I go everywhere with them, to buy food and shop. When I go home to visit my family, I travel in a chauffered car. I never spend the night, we are all too afraid of the soldier.
Nights in Phnom Phen are magic. The family has three sons in high school and every night the older son drives us around the city. The city parks are so full of life, young people like us eating ice cream and hanging out together in the park beside the Mekong.
“Meet my cousin,” they say when friends ask about me. This is just how things are in Cambodia. You can go to live with family or
I live friends. Everyone is so close.
I am a new person in a different world. I have escaped poverty and illness and the small joyless home where there is only struggle and hard work. Illness and meager meals. This is the life that was waiting for me. My spirit chose well, afterall.
PhnomPhen: Restaurant
The country is at war and the restaurant is always full of soldiers. They all flirt with me. All of the soldiers want me to serve them.
I make my own clothes, long cambodian skirts and sexy shirts. Long hair, high heels, a lot of makeup. I am so famous, so pretty.
And now I am rich. I make so much money on tips. So many of the soldiers are married but they are in PP alone and they come to the restaurant at night to flirt. Some of them come three times a day. My brother’s wife is a waitress and she is so pretty too. They flirt with her.
The soldiers drink a lot, white and red wine with a lion lable. They have guns and sometimes the begin fighting each other at the tables. There are too many men but I want jewelry, clothing and they are sometimes so generous.
My best childhood friend Thea is in Phnom Phen in medical school
His parents and mine have the same last name, and in Cambodia that makes you like family. When he was young he came to our house and stayed while he went to high school and college. I am four years younger than him. His family is middle class, richer than us.
In Phnom Phen, Thea spoils me so bad. He takes me out all the time. One time I go to the bathroom in the restaurant and I have a worm from eating too much raw meat. I don’t know what is wrong and I come out of the bathroom and say “Gee, I have something” and he says “Oh, you have a worm” and he brings me medicine and stays with me for 24 hours, follows me around to make sure I am okay. He kisses my forehead, touches my hand.
On one of my visits home, mom tells me that Thea’s parents want him to marry a girl who is in medical school with him. Her parents are very wealthy and they are going to buy their son a house and a car when they marry. I remember that Thea’s father once told me “I don’t care who my son marries so long as he is happy.” But I get a funny feeling.
Thea keeps coming to see me at the restaurant. One night we go out to dinner. He has a blue Vespa and I sit behind him as we drive through the city.
“Do you see that house,” he asks. “That is where the girl my parents want me to marry lives. I don’t want to marry her. When you and I get married, we won’t have a big wedding.”
But he never asks and now I am 21 and mom is worried I will get pregnant. She is afraid I am going to do something stupid. I am always telling her “Don’t worry, mom. I am going to get married. You will see.”
A lot of soldiers want to marry me and three of them begin fighting over me. “Go ask my mom,” I tell them. “I will marry the man who goes to see my mother.”
Why did I do that? A couple of months later, one of the soldiers, he is an important man, but much older than me, not at all handsome, takes me up on it. He visits my mother. He has been married before and has a son. He is not in the active army. He works in the city.
We marry in my mother’s house. We close the restaurant and have a big party with a security guard outside because we are still very much in danger from the old married soldier who threatened to kidnap me.
I am married to the man who won me in a contest. We move into a small house near my second sister. It is 1973. I sit in this house day after day, waiting for him to come home. Sometimes he doesn’t come for days and days. I get pregnant without planning to I had only had sex a couple of times.
I spend a lot of time with my sister next door and her kids.
The kidnapping begins. During the night, the Khmer Rouge come. Neighbors just disappear. They are gone in the morning. No one knows. No one says anything.
I make my own clothes, long cambodian skirts and sexy shirts. Long hair, high heels, a lot of makeup. I am so famous, so pretty.
And now I am rich. I make so much money on tips. So many of the soldiers are married but they are in PP alone and they come to the restaurant at night to flirt. Some of them come three times a day. My brother’s wife is a waitress and she is so pretty too. They flirt with her.
The soldiers drink a lot, white and red wine with a lion lable. They have guns and sometimes the begin fighting each other at the tables. There are too many men but I want jewelry, clothing and they are sometimes so generous.
My best childhood friend Thea is in Phnom Phen in medical school
His parents and mine have the same last name, and in Cambodia that makes you like family. When he was young he came to our house and stayed while he went to high school and college. I am four years younger than him. His family is middle class, richer than us.
In Phnom Phen, Thea spoils me so bad. He takes me out all the time. One time I go to the bathroom in the restaurant and I have a worm from eating too much raw meat. I don’t know what is wrong and I come out of the bathroom and say “Gee, I have something” and he says “Oh, you have a worm” and he brings me medicine and stays with me for 24 hours, follows me around to make sure I am okay. He kisses my forehead, touches my hand.
On one of my visits home, mom tells me that Thea’s parents want him to marry a girl who is in medical school with him. Her parents are very wealthy and they are going to buy their son a house and a car when they marry. I remember that Thea’s father once told me “I don’t care who my son marries so long as he is happy.” But I get a funny feeling.
Thea keeps coming to see me at the restaurant. One night we go out to dinner. He has a blue Vespa and I sit behind him as we drive through the city.
“Do you see that house,” he asks. “That is where the girl my parents want me to marry lives. I don’t want to marry her. When you and I get married, we won’t have a big wedding.”
But he never asks and now I am 21 and mom is worried I will get pregnant. She is afraid I am going to do something stupid. I am always telling her “Don’t worry, mom. I am going to get married. You will see.”
A lot of soldiers want to marry me and three of them begin fighting over me. “Go ask my mom,” I tell them. “I will marry the man who goes to see my mother.”
Why did I do that? A couple of months later, one of the soldiers, he is an important man, but much older than me, not at all handsome, takes me up on it. He visits my mother. He has been married before and has a son. He is not in the active army. He works in the city.
We marry in my mother’s house. We close the restaurant and have a big party with a security guard outside because we are still very much in danger from the old married soldier who threatened to kidnap me.
I am married to the man who won me in a contest. We move into a small house near my second sister. It is 1973. I sit in this house day after day, waiting for him to come home. Sometimes he doesn’t come for days and days. I get pregnant without planning to I had only had sex a couple of times.
I spend a lot of time with my sister next door and her kids.
The kidnapping begins. During the night, the Khmer Rouge come. Neighbors just disappear. They are gone in the morning. No one knows. No one says anything.
Phnom Phen: 1973
Kou: Phnom Phen: 1973
Phnom Phen. 1973
The room is dark, like a big black sac. My breath, clutched high in my chest, is the only sound. It comes faster and faster in gasps. My hands fly to my throat.
“Oh, Mae, now it’s time for you to help me. I just can’t stay here anymore.”
Husband and I live in a small house. He never comes home. One week he’s here, the next week he doesn’t come. A lot of overtime these days, he says. And we don’t have a telephone. How is he supposed to tell me these things?
I no longer work in the restaurant with big sister. No more tips, fancy clothes, handsome flirting soldiers. Now I am seven months pregnant. Don’t know how this happened.
I feel like a little fly. Stop fighting! Trapped too deep in spider web. Now it is too late. Only 22. My life is over.
I have sucked all the oxygen from the room. I lie down on the floor and close my eyes. I pray to my spirit, “Just go away. Find another body.”
Suddenly, there are steps on the stair. Thae calls my name. Quick like that he is leaning over me. Holds my head in his hands. Maybe now everything is okay. Thae always takes care of me.
“Kim. Wake up, You okay? Wake up!”
I cry like a baby in Thae’s arms. No shame.
My sister comes with her children. They talk about me as if I am not there. Thae is worried that I am all alone. Sister has no time to take care of me.
“Kim can come stay with my family,” he says. “We will watch over her until baby comes.”
Sister helps me pack things in a small bag. I move in with Thae and his parents; I live upstairs and he lives downstairs. He is still in medical school. His parents and sister take care of me. Things are so much better now. I am not so alone.
I am by myself when the first birth pains begin. It is just before midnight. Don’t want to wake anyone. I remember Mae saying “When you are going to have your baby, clean yourself.” I take a shower.
The pain gets too bad. I go downstairs, wake ThaE. He takes me to the hospital and waits beside me until I go into the labor room.
My daughter is born early in the morning
.
“You have a daughter,” the nurse tells Thae.
“No,” he says. “Not my daughter. She is just a friend.”
Thae stays until the afternoon. My husband does not come. Mae brings dinner and Tae’s mom and sister come to check on me. Two days pass before my husband comes.
“Where were you?” I am so angry now, so ashamed. “I have your baby for two days. Why didn’t you come?”
Such disrespect for one's husband is not allowed. He moves his hand to his pocket. I know he has gun. He pretends he is going to draw it out and shoot me. His eyes glare at me with threat. But he turns and leaves.
I stay in the hospital for seven days. Only then does my husband return to take me to Takmou. We are moving in with Mae. Three of my sisters still live with her. The house is crowded but my husband is hardly ever there, he just comes and goes when he wants. Mae does not like him.
Finally, one day I am just too angry. Don’t want to be a thing he won in a contest anymore. Now I am mother. Deserve respect. He makes everything worse for everyone here.
“Why don’t you just not come anymore?” I say. “I don’t need you. When I needed you, you weren’t there.”
Now Ba is the only man in our home. Much better this way. Shrey-mom is everybody’s baby. A new joy for my family.
***
Takmou. 1974.
The old Chinese temple near our house is now a military base. The Army is drafting everyone. Soldiers are all over town. Older Brother doesn’t want to fight. He is the first to escape to Thailand. Soon after, older sister sells the restaurant in Phnom Phen and moves her family to Thailand.
My sisters and I decide to start a business. We set up a small stand alongside Highway 2. Sell cigarettes, herbs, wine to soldiers.
Shrey-mom is almost a year old when Kuan first comes to our stand. He hangs around longer than his friends. Plays with Shrey-mom and Akmow. He has such big, happy eyes. Soon he is stopping by every day.
Kuan has been in the army for two years. He flies planes. Came to Takmou six months ago. He lives in the old temple. Many of the soldiers don’t want to fight anymore, he tells me.
He talks about the US planes killing many, many Cambodians. They fight with Communists on Cambodian land. This is not our war. Lon Nil is not our leader. The US put him in there. He is just a puppet.
Kuan knows all this. Maybe the Khmer soldiers are right, he thinks. Maybe they are really freedom fighters. Afterall, Shianook is with them.
Now I don't know what to think. This is big news to me.
"What about the disappeared?" I ask.
Kuan does not know. Maybe they just leave to join Khmer, he says, maybe they don't really disappear. Maybe they are just afraid to tell anyone what they know.
“Soon it will not be safe to wear this uniform. Not safe for you to talk to me.”
It’s too late for that. Already I am in love with Kuan. He is everything I ever hoped for. Strong. Gentle. So much fun. So good to Shrey-mom and me. He treats her like his own child.
There is no fancy ceremony when I marry Kuan. Not at all like my first marriage. Just a small party. But so different from then because I am so happy.
My family loves Kuan, too. Ba says he is like another son, almost as good as having own son home again.
Now Kuan and I sleep tight together. Now we are the little fish safe in a tin. Close cover at night. Nobody bothers us.
Almost nine months in heaven. So romantic. Crazy in love. We are like the pages of an open book, tossing back and forth in a frenzy of wind, never touching down. So free, flying out here. Then the book finally slams shut. We can’t find our place. The world around us has changed so drastically. There is no return.
Maybe Kuan tries to warn me but I am still not listening. Like when I was a little girl and I thought, “Just close eyes, no one see you. You safe.”
Phnom Phen. 1973
The room is dark, like a big black sac. My breath, clutched high in my chest, is the only sound. It comes faster and faster in gasps. My hands fly to my throat.
“Oh, Mae, now it’s time for you to help me. I just can’t stay here anymore.”
Husband and I live in a small house. He never comes home. One week he’s here, the next week he doesn’t come. A lot of overtime these days, he says. And we don’t have a telephone. How is he supposed to tell me these things?
I no longer work in the restaurant with big sister. No more tips, fancy clothes, handsome flirting soldiers. Now I am seven months pregnant. Don’t know how this happened.
I feel like a little fly. Stop fighting! Trapped too deep in spider web. Now it is too late. Only 22. My life is over.
I have sucked all the oxygen from the room. I lie down on the floor and close my eyes. I pray to my spirit, “Just go away. Find another body.”
Suddenly, there are steps on the stair. Thae calls my name. Quick like that he is leaning over me. Holds my head in his hands. Maybe now everything is okay. Thae always takes care of me.
“Kim. Wake up, You okay? Wake up!”
I cry like a baby in Thae’s arms. No shame.
My sister comes with her children. They talk about me as if I am not there. Thae is worried that I am all alone. Sister has no time to take care of me.
“Kim can come stay with my family,” he says. “We will watch over her until baby comes.”
Sister helps me pack things in a small bag. I move in with Thae and his parents; I live upstairs and he lives downstairs. He is still in medical school. His parents and sister take care of me. Things are so much better now. I am not so alone.
I am by myself when the first birth pains begin. It is just before midnight. Don’t want to wake anyone. I remember Mae saying “When you are going to have your baby, clean yourself.” I take a shower.
The pain gets too bad. I go downstairs, wake ThaE. He takes me to the hospital and waits beside me until I go into the labor room.
My daughter is born early in the morning
.
“You have a daughter,” the nurse tells Thae.
“No,” he says. “Not my daughter. She is just a friend.”
Thae stays until the afternoon. My husband does not come. Mae brings dinner and Tae’s mom and sister come to check on me. Two days pass before my husband comes.
“Where were you?” I am so angry now, so ashamed. “I have your baby for two days. Why didn’t you come?”
Such disrespect for one's husband is not allowed. He moves his hand to his pocket. I know he has gun. He pretends he is going to draw it out and shoot me. His eyes glare at me with threat. But he turns and leaves.
I stay in the hospital for seven days. Only then does my husband return to take me to Takmou. We are moving in with Mae. Three of my sisters still live with her. The house is crowded but my husband is hardly ever there, he just comes and goes when he wants. Mae does not like him.
Finally, one day I am just too angry. Don’t want to be a thing he won in a contest anymore. Now I am mother. Deserve respect. He makes everything worse for everyone here.
“Why don’t you just not come anymore?” I say. “I don’t need you. When I needed you, you weren’t there.”
Now Ba is the only man in our home. Much better this way. Shrey-mom is everybody’s baby. A new joy for my family.
***
Takmou. 1974.
The old Chinese temple near our house is now a military base. The Army is drafting everyone. Soldiers are all over town. Older Brother doesn’t want to fight. He is the first to escape to Thailand. Soon after, older sister sells the restaurant in Phnom Phen and moves her family to Thailand.
My sisters and I decide to start a business. We set up a small stand alongside Highway 2. Sell cigarettes, herbs, wine to soldiers.
Shrey-mom is almost a year old when Kuan first comes to our stand. He hangs around longer than his friends. Plays with Shrey-mom and Akmow. He has such big, happy eyes. Soon he is stopping by every day.
Kuan has been in the army for two years. He flies planes. Came to Takmou six months ago. He lives in the old temple. Many of the soldiers don’t want to fight anymore, he tells me.
He talks about the US planes killing many, many Cambodians. They fight with Communists on Cambodian land. This is not our war. Lon Nil is not our leader. The US put him in there. He is just a puppet.
Kuan knows all this. Maybe the Khmer soldiers are right, he thinks. Maybe they are really freedom fighters. Afterall, Shianook is with them.
Now I don't know what to think. This is big news to me.
"What about the disappeared?" I ask.
Kuan does not know. Maybe they just leave to join Khmer, he says, maybe they don't really disappear. Maybe they are just afraid to tell anyone what they know.
“Soon it will not be safe to wear this uniform. Not safe for you to talk to me.”
It’s too late for that. Already I am in love with Kuan. He is everything I ever hoped for. Strong. Gentle. So much fun. So good to Shrey-mom and me. He treats her like his own child.
There is no fancy ceremony when I marry Kuan. Not at all like my first marriage. Just a small party. But so different from then because I am so happy.
My family loves Kuan, too. Ba says he is like another son, almost as good as having own son home again.
Now Kuan and I sleep tight together. Now we are the little fish safe in a tin. Close cover at night. Nobody bothers us.
Almost nine months in heaven. So romantic. Crazy in love. We are like the pages of an open book, tossing back and forth in a frenzy of wind, never touching down. So free, flying out here. Then the book finally slams shut. We can’t find our place. The world around us has changed so drastically. There is no return.
Maybe Kuan tries to warn me but I am still not listening. Like when I was a little girl and I thought, “Just close eyes, no one see you. You safe.”
Kandal: 1975
Kou: Kandal, 1975
Thousands and thousands of people everywhere around big temple. Lots of food. Maybe soldiers take good care of us after all. Family find place to rest in crowd. See many people we know.
Everybody think Khmer Rouge ‘freedom fighters’ now. Couple days radio says Lon Nal defeated in Phnom Phen. Everybody cheer. Good news. Now we go home!
Almost right away, big trucks drive around. Young soldiers talk through megaphones. “Not safe yet,” they tell us. “Nobody go home yet. Plenty food here. We wait.”
Young Khmer soldier know from childhood. He nothing to me.
One day he come hit me on side head say “You be good.”
“Ohhhh, now you big KR,” I pretend fear. He know he nobody. He not hurt me.
Everybody still hope but wake up one morning see KR trucks taking people away. Every city family go to host family in country. A Khmer family.
We so lucky Mae’s family so near. Only one week and Mae’s brother come to pick us up. Not everybody fit in small boat. My uncle’s son take Akmow. That night just across lake hear dog howling. Oh, Akmow. You okay. We come get you.
Next day soldier-friend come ask if he can take Akmou. Donate him to KR.
“You crazy? Never give Akmou away. He my daughter’s dog. He with us since puppy. Go away.”
Uncle warn me be careful with KR but I no care. He not frighten me.
One of children get measles. Oh that boy so very sick. He need blood from magic black dog. Ba mix herbs to cure, cut Akmou’s ear, just little cut to get magic black dog blood.
Akmou never same after this. He just sleep a lot. He such a good dog, just a wild dog. He never like girls. Sometimes I see females for him, he not interested.
Akmou die at uncles.
We go to live with Mae’s brother. Host family live short walk away, Mae, Shrey-mom and I live under house in chicken coop. Ba not sleep with us.
Things fine, start to see many people I know before. But there such sense of dread. Worst yet to come.
Uncle’s wife tell me one day, “You be careful what you talk about. Don’t say anything about your past. Don’t complain.”
Be dam kou.
I work in field playing scarecrow scare birds away. Cousin come by on bicycle.
“Quick, he say, “take you to see sister-in-law
Everyone follow him. Family so rich, Know so many people. Cook big meal for us. Give us back suitcase of Ba’s things. Tell us Pol Pot turn calendar back to Year O. Cambodia new country, separate from world, cut out everything old for blank slate. No yesterday. Never go home. Forget it. Even money not buy way home.
***
Happy day. Shrey-Mom playing in lake. Many people there, laughing having fun. First time joy.
Come home, little aunt call me.
“What wrong with you? Why you not listen to me?”
She grab scissors and cut off all my hair. I crying. “This not party. You can’t go around looking pretty. Your life going to change.”
How can life change more? What does she know she not telling me?
Every night around sunset I put Shrey-mom to bed, watch the sunset and cry. Feel so sick everyday. Know I having baby. Can’t imagine bring new baby into this world. Decide must kill baby.
Start to climb tall trees, jump off land on stomach, dive into lake so stomach hit bottom. No luck, baby continue to grow in me.
Then two of my sisters arrive; one pregnant, other with new baby maybe one month old. This make it harder. I embarassed that none of us has husband for our children.
So many of my friends from past; I wonder what has become of them.
Every morning someone else missing. Hear dogs barking at night, next day someone, maybe whole family, disappear. I know they say too much. Not follow rules. Here not possible to know who your enemy. Everyone out for themselves.
One family she without husband, just like me, one daugher. She so beautiful, husband so rich. Her mom take care of her.
She come get me every night, she talk.
“You be careful about this,” I say. “Don’t ever talk about your past. Remember, the walls have ears. Don’t ever say anything.”
She not listen. Then one day she gone. Look everywhere. Mae's friends, walk to uncle’s house. No one see her. In afternoon her mom come outside with little girl. I rush up to her; She crying, not want anyone to see.
“Where Donc?”
“Anghar come last night,” she say. “Take her away to school. Maybe she back soon.”
Oh, beautiful friend, why you not listen? Now you gone forever. No one come home from school. Everybody know that.
“Maybe they think she CIA,” sister say.
“What CIA?”
“Worst thing to be CIA. Bad people. US. That why they kill you.”
My stomach get bigger and bigger but never feel baby move. I so worried, never tell Mae I pregnant.
Then maybe 7 months pass when pains begin. Call out to Mae to tell her. She sends Ba for boiling water.
There under house where animals live baby boy born, look very healthy. Start fire under bed to keep child warm. Just like with Shrey-Mom, just like with me, Just like with Mae. Old Cambodian tradition make me feel so safe. Hold my baby, fire underneath us. No worry tonight.
***
Sky color of peacock eggs remind me of home. Oh such a mess now, no time to clean before leaving. Papers, dishes, pans, pictures, clothing, everything on floor, spilling out of cabinets. Squish nose. Musty. Dense blanket dust.
Open windows. Lotus blossom smell enters with river breeze. Maybe not so bad. Maybe half day everything clean, back in order. Like nothing happen.
Every day dream about home. Not tell anyone. Not safe to talk about past. Angkar make you disappear they hear you. Cambodia gone. Now Democratic Kampuchea. We build new country. Take five year.
I not believe them. They scare me before. Now I know they not so bad. Just no talk. No complain. Get food to eat. Stay with family. Some things okay here. Mae with her family. She happy. Not mind sleeping under house with chickens. She very strong, brave. Not blame Ba like me. Shrey-Mom play with cousins just like before. Love baby brother.
Still, I worry, what about Kuan? How he ever find me now? He not know where to look, never visit Mi family. Uniform still at house. He know something bad happen. He not know we still alive. Not even know he daddy.
Shrey-mom waking up dust with long skinny reed, drawing little pictures in dry ground as we walk towards Grandma’s house. Gentle baby songs soothe her brother to sleep; his body sags against my chest with deep sigh of release. As we round corner, see house. Two big dirty white KR trucks parked outside, small group child-sized soldiers talking to my parents. Long before see Mae's face smell her fear. Silent but all around her like halo beaming out across fields like parallel bolts of earthbound lightening. So powerful I stop walking, pull Shey-mom to my side.
“Sssssh….”
Ba calm her terror. He reach out grasp Mae's arm steady her, as he talks with soldiers. Voices so quiet. I see Ba nod his head, he bow slightly to soldiers. they return to trucks and drive away.
Mae and Ba already inside when I arrive.
“What happen? Everything okay?”
Ba is one to tell me. “Soldiers say we leave tomorrow. Go much better place. Lots of food, work for everyone. Many friends already there. You see, much better.”
“I don’t want to go,” I cry. “We happy here. Why we need to leave?”
“Okay, Kim, we okay. Much better. You see. No worry.”
Mae says nothing. Her face very still but in her throat that frog hopping around again.
Open eyes before sun. Shrey-Mom still sleeping, her head under blanket.
“Oh, little girl,” I think. “Why they not keep you here? You too little for all this trouble. How I take care of you?”
Uncle come downstairs and hand Ba a sac of rice and bundle of pickled fish. He happy for us. Still no idea where we go, but no problem, he say. Remember last time. We find you. Things go wrong, find you again.
Mae's little sister stands outside waiting. She see me and come over with small bag of rice.
“You need more food for family,” she say. “I give you this for your gold chain.”
I don’t even think about it, just unclasp chain, hand to her and turn away to join group of people walking to river. I know I never see her again. Never see any of Mae's family again.
Five or six boats waiting for us on riverbank. Ferry group after group of people to other side. Order us into big cattle trucks, no windows, a couple family each truck. One guard black uniform in back of truck with us. Not so long to train station, he tell us.
Why I the only one who sad? I watch out back of truck as we move out. See family’s house. Oh, they so rich, they no have problem. Why they stay and we go? Why they not take care of us?
At train station everyone know we going to Battambang. Stand by side of track for hour or so. People laughing, talking. Battambang such good idea, they saying. That where the Khmer Rouge first begin with big rice fields before Cambodia collapse. Battambang good place to begin new life. So lucky. Things much better there.
Seats enough for everyone on train. Late afternoon and sun still so hot. Too hot to eat. Dream about swimming now in lake near Grandma’s house. Just yesterday, we swim there. Now already so far away. Where we sleep tonight? Lean against side of traincar, try to sleep, but Po always hungry. He cry so much until I feed him. Every time think he sleep he cry again. So tired, hard to keep eyes open. At least Shrey-Mom sleeps, her head on my lap underneath her blanket. She must be so hot under there. I lift away from her face but she snatches it back without opening her eyes.
This is nighmare again, same nightmare like night we leave Phnom Phen.
Ba gets up, walks to front of traincar and fills bowl with water. Stops beside me to offer some. Just turn face away, maybe better he not see hate in my eyes. I not remember and reach towards throat to touch gold necklace. Why I do that? Why I give to little aunt? She not need it. Only thing I have left. Look out window, but don’t see anything.
Late afternoon. The train stop. Guard order us out. Only couple train cars of people, one hundred maybe, on platform. Very very old and small train station. Sign read Moum Rhoussey. By now everyone so tired, so hungry, no more laughing. One family we know but too weary to talk. Everyone sit alongside track. Waiting but not know what we waiting for.
Day finally getting cooler when next ride arrives. Small wooden wagons each drawn by two cows pull up at station. One wagon for every family. My family lucky, we get ride right away.
Man driving wagon look very mean. He tall and skinny, big scar on cheek. Horse eyes on side of head, maybe he see behind him. We all very quiet. We big family. Very crowded. Children bounce around on our laps. No complain at bumps in road.
Cart stop in front of two houses. Old couple come out from each house to great us as we arrive. Sleep tonight under houses, they say.. Even I so tired, I want to keep going. Why we have to stay here fornight? It not even dark yet, too early for bed. Why we not just keep going until we get to new home? Not understand.
No chance to ask questions. Two more carts arrive and drop off families, old people turn back into their houses. Mi cooks rice for us and we eat outside. Just as stars first start to appear, we quietly file under house, lie down in row to sleep on the ground. Everyone too tired to care. Just hoping to sleep quick through night to begin journey again.
We just close eyes when man calls out loudly from outside. So early even sun not quite awake, under house cannot yet see one another through darkness. Sisters and I remain still beside our children, but Mi rises and walks out with Ba and their sons-in-law. Hear her preparing food, fall back to sleep. Quick as that she calling us to eat. We slow getting up, leave children sleeping.
More rice and pickled fish. No talking anywhere until man who wake us comes over.
“Enough eating,” he says. “You in my group now. This your new home. Everybody go out and cut down things to make your cottage. No time to waste.”
Frog is jumping around like crazy in Mae's throat. I reach out and put my hand over, calm down. My own hand shaking so hard Mae grab and hold against her heart. Feel my head move violently back and forth, back and forth. Big sobs jerk body. Mae pull me closer into arms. So many years since she hold me. She whispering into and stroking my hair, like I baby. I fold against her reed thin body. Feel explosions of her heartbeat. It pulses throughout her body like hummingbird trapped in deadly gauze of mosquito net.
A few minutes she gently pushes me away. Grabs chin, looks into my eyes.
“Have to go help men, Kim,” she says. “You must be strong. You and your sisters stay here, take care children.”
She smiles into my eyes, she strokes my face.
“We together, Kim. We still together. No difference. Family everything, everything we need right here.”
She stands up and walks away with men. Sun rising behind them distorts their shape in new light, they much taller yet very very much like ghosts. You just reach your hand in and through the other side.
Then suddenly they disappear into morning’s shades.
Thousands and thousands of people everywhere around big temple. Lots of food. Maybe soldiers take good care of us after all. Family find place to rest in crowd. See many people we know.
Everybody think Khmer Rouge ‘freedom fighters’ now. Couple days radio says Lon Nal defeated in Phnom Phen. Everybody cheer. Good news. Now we go home!
Almost right away, big trucks drive around. Young soldiers talk through megaphones. “Not safe yet,” they tell us. “Nobody go home yet. Plenty food here. We wait.”
Young Khmer soldier know from childhood. He nothing to me.
One day he come hit me on side head say “You be good.”
“Ohhhh, now you big KR,” I pretend fear. He know he nobody. He not hurt me.
Everybody still hope but wake up one morning see KR trucks taking people away. Every city family go to host family in country. A Khmer family.
We so lucky Mae’s family so near. Only one week and Mae’s brother come to pick us up. Not everybody fit in small boat. My uncle’s son take Akmow. That night just across lake hear dog howling. Oh, Akmow. You okay. We come get you.
Next day soldier-friend come ask if he can take Akmou. Donate him to KR.
“You crazy? Never give Akmou away. He my daughter’s dog. He with us since puppy. Go away.”
Uncle warn me be careful with KR but I no care. He not frighten me.
One of children get measles. Oh that boy so very sick. He need blood from magic black dog. Ba mix herbs to cure, cut Akmou’s ear, just little cut to get magic black dog blood.
Akmou never same after this. He just sleep a lot. He such a good dog, just a wild dog. He never like girls. Sometimes I see females for him, he not interested.
Akmou die at uncles.
We go to live with Mae’s brother. Host family live short walk away, Mae, Shrey-mom and I live under house in chicken coop. Ba not sleep with us.
Things fine, start to see many people I know before. But there such sense of dread. Worst yet to come.
Uncle’s wife tell me one day, “You be careful what you talk about. Don’t say anything about your past. Don’t complain.”
Be dam kou.
I work in field playing scarecrow scare birds away. Cousin come by on bicycle.
“Quick, he say, “take you to see sister-in-law
Everyone follow him. Family so rich, Know so many people. Cook big meal for us. Give us back suitcase of Ba’s things. Tell us Pol Pot turn calendar back to Year O. Cambodia new country, separate from world, cut out everything old for blank slate. No yesterday. Never go home. Forget it. Even money not buy way home.
***
Happy day. Shrey-Mom playing in lake. Many people there, laughing having fun. First time joy.
Come home, little aunt call me.
“What wrong with you? Why you not listen to me?”
She grab scissors and cut off all my hair. I crying. “This not party. You can’t go around looking pretty. Your life going to change.”
How can life change more? What does she know she not telling me?
Every night around sunset I put Shrey-mom to bed, watch the sunset and cry. Feel so sick everyday. Know I having baby. Can’t imagine bring new baby into this world. Decide must kill baby.
Start to climb tall trees, jump off land on stomach, dive into lake so stomach hit bottom. No luck, baby continue to grow in me.
Then two of my sisters arrive; one pregnant, other with new baby maybe one month old. This make it harder. I embarassed that none of us has husband for our children.
So many of my friends from past; I wonder what has become of them.
Every morning someone else missing. Hear dogs barking at night, next day someone, maybe whole family, disappear. I know they say too much. Not follow rules. Here not possible to know who your enemy. Everyone out for themselves.
One family she without husband, just like me, one daugher. She so beautiful, husband so rich. Her mom take care of her.
She come get me every night, she talk.
“You be careful about this,” I say. “Don’t ever talk about your past. Remember, the walls have ears. Don’t ever say anything.”
She not listen. Then one day she gone. Look everywhere. Mae's friends, walk to uncle’s house. No one see her. In afternoon her mom come outside with little girl. I rush up to her; She crying, not want anyone to see.
“Where Donc?”
“Anghar come last night,” she say. “Take her away to school. Maybe she back soon.”
Oh, beautiful friend, why you not listen? Now you gone forever. No one come home from school. Everybody know that.
“Maybe they think she CIA,” sister say.
“What CIA?”
“Worst thing to be CIA. Bad people. US. That why they kill you.”
My stomach get bigger and bigger but never feel baby move. I so worried, never tell Mae I pregnant.
Then maybe 7 months pass when pains begin. Call out to Mae to tell her. She sends Ba for boiling water.
There under house where animals live baby boy born, look very healthy. Start fire under bed to keep child warm. Just like with Shrey-Mom, just like with me, Just like with Mae. Old Cambodian tradition make me feel so safe. Hold my baby, fire underneath us. No worry tonight.
***
Sky color of peacock eggs remind me of home. Oh such a mess now, no time to clean before leaving. Papers, dishes, pans, pictures, clothing, everything on floor, spilling out of cabinets. Squish nose. Musty. Dense blanket dust.
Open windows. Lotus blossom smell enters with river breeze. Maybe not so bad. Maybe half day everything clean, back in order. Like nothing happen.
Every day dream about home. Not tell anyone. Not safe to talk about past. Angkar make you disappear they hear you. Cambodia gone. Now Democratic Kampuchea. We build new country. Take five year.
I not believe them. They scare me before. Now I know they not so bad. Just no talk. No complain. Get food to eat. Stay with family. Some things okay here. Mae with her family. She happy. Not mind sleeping under house with chickens. She very strong, brave. Not blame Ba like me. Shrey-Mom play with cousins just like before. Love baby brother.
Still, I worry, what about Kuan? How he ever find me now? He not know where to look, never visit Mi family. Uniform still at house. He know something bad happen. He not know we still alive. Not even know he daddy.
Shrey-mom waking up dust with long skinny reed, drawing little pictures in dry ground as we walk towards Grandma’s house. Gentle baby songs soothe her brother to sleep; his body sags against my chest with deep sigh of release. As we round corner, see house. Two big dirty white KR trucks parked outside, small group child-sized soldiers talking to my parents. Long before see Mae's face smell her fear. Silent but all around her like halo beaming out across fields like parallel bolts of earthbound lightening. So powerful I stop walking, pull Shey-mom to my side.
“Sssssh….”
Ba calm her terror. He reach out grasp Mae's arm steady her, as he talks with soldiers. Voices so quiet. I see Ba nod his head, he bow slightly to soldiers. they return to trucks and drive away.
Mae and Ba already inside when I arrive.
“What happen? Everything okay?”
Ba is one to tell me. “Soldiers say we leave tomorrow. Go much better place. Lots of food, work for everyone. Many friends already there. You see, much better.”
“I don’t want to go,” I cry. “We happy here. Why we need to leave?”
“Okay, Kim, we okay. Much better. You see. No worry.”
Mae says nothing. Her face very still but in her throat that frog hopping around again.
Open eyes before sun. Shrey-Mom still sleeping, her head under blanket.
“Oh, little girl,” I think. “Why they not keep you here? You too little for all this trouble. How I take care of you?”
Uncle come downstairs and hand Ba a sac of rice and bundle of pickled fish. He happy for us. Still no idea where we go, but no problem, he say. Remember last time. We find you. Things go wrong, find you again.
Mae's little sister stands outside waiting. She see me and come over with small bag of rice.
“You need more food for family,” she say. “I give you this for your gold chain.”
I don’t even think about it, just unclasp chain, hand to her and turn away to join group of people walking to river. I know I never see her again. Never see any of Mae's family again.
Five or six boats waiting for us on riverbank. Ferry group after group of people to other side. Order us into big cattle trucks, no windows, a couple family each truck. One guard black uniform in back of truck with us. Not so long to train station, he tell us.
Why I the only one who sad? I watch out back of truck as we move out. See family’s house. Oh, they so rich, they no have problem. Why they stay and we go? Why they not take care of us?
At train station everyone know we going to Battambang. Stand by side of track for hour or so. People laughing, talking. Battambang such good idea, they saying. That where the Khmer Rouge first begin with big rice fields before Cambodia collapse. Battambang good place to begin new life. So lucky. Things much better there.
Seats enough for everyone on train. Late afternoon and sun still so hot. Too hot to eat. Dream about swimming now in lake near Grandma’s house. Just yesterday, we swim there. Now already so far away. Where we sleep tonight? Lean against side of traincar, try to sleep, but Po always hungry. He cry so much until I feed him. Every time think he sleep he cry again. So tired, hard to keep eyes open. At least Shrey-Mom sleeps, her head on my lap underneath her blanket. She must be so hot under there. I lift away from her face but she snatches it back without opening her eyes.
This is nighmare again, same nightmare like night we leave Phnom Phen.
Ba gets up, walks to front of traincar and fills bowl with water. Stops beside me to offer some. Just turn face away, maybe better he not see hate in my eyes. I not remember and reach towards throat to touch gold necklace. Why I do that? Why I give to little aunt? She not need it. Only thing I have left. Look out window, but don’t see anything.
Late afternoon. The train stop. Guard order us out. Only couple train cars of people, one hundred maybe, on platform. Very very old and small train station. Sign read Moum Rhoussey. By now everyone so tired, so hungry, no more laughing. One family we know but too weary to talk. Everyone sit alongside track. Waiting but not know what we waiting for.
Day finally getting cooler when next ride arrives. Small wooden wagons each drawn by two cows pull up at station. One wagon for every family. My family lucky, we get ride right away.
Man driving wagon look very mean. He tall and skinny, big scar on cheek. Horse eyes on side of head, maybe he see behind him. We all very quiet. We big family. Very crowded. Children bounce around on our laps. No complain at bumps in road.
Cart stop in front of two houses. Old couple come out from each house to great us as we arrive. Sleep tonight under houses, they say.. Even I so tired, I want to keep going. Why we have to stay here fornight? It not even dark yet, too early for bed. Why we not just keep going until we get to new home? Not understand.
No chance to ask questions. Two more carts arrive and drop off families, old people turn back into their houses. Mi cooks rice for us and we eat outside. Just as stars first start to appear, we quietly file under house, lie down in row to sleep on the ground. Everyone too tired to care. Just hoping to sleep quick through night to begin journey again.
We just close eyes when man calls out loudly from outside. So early even sun not quite awake, under house cannot yet see one another through darkness. Sisters and I remain still beside our children, but Mi rises and walks out with Ba and their sons-in-law. Hear her preparing food, fall back to sleep. Quick as that she calling us to eat. We slow getting up, leave children sleeping.
More rice and pickled fish. No talking anywhere until man who wake us comes over.
“Enough eating,” he says. “You in my group now. This your new home. Everybody go out and cut down things to make your cottage. No time to waste.”
Frog is jumping around like crazy in Mae's throat. I reach out and put my hand over, calm down. My own hand shaking so hard Mae grab and hold against her heart. Feel my head move violently back and forth, back and forth. Big sobs jerk body. Mae pull me closer into arms. So many years since she hold me. She whispering into and stroking my hair, like I baby. I fold against her reed thin body. Feel explosions of her heartbeat. It pulses throughout her body like hummingbird trapped in deadly gauze of mosquito net.
A few minutes she gently pushes me away. Grabs chin, looks into my eyes.
“Have to go help men, Kim,” she says. “You must be strong. You and your sisters stay here, take care children.”
She smiles into my eyes, she strokes my face.
“We together, Kim. We still together. No difference. Family everything, everything we need right here.”
She stands up and walks away with men. Sun rising behind them distorts their shape in new light, they much taller yet very very much like ghosts. You just reach your hand in and through the other side.
Then suddenly they disappear into morning’s shades.
Death
Shrey-mom singing as she pus baby in the hammock. She look up when Ba walk inside. She so young. I know she worry about Ba. She know he weak and sick because we have so little food.
‘Oh, grandpa!” So excited to see him, she has good news. “You know, last night I dream about food. All night plates and plates of food. I wake up not hungry. Maybe we have a lot of food later.”
Ba stop beside her and gently pat her on the head.
“Oh Shrey-mom. You are only a little girl. Already you know that dreaming about food is about eating a lot of food. Such a wise girl.”
We look each other know so well power of dreams, you can wake up feeling as if you eating all night, even though you starving. Until now, we did not know how close my daughter to death.
Dream food not last long though. just mind tricks. Body big empty cavern.
Now I can feel energy from water. Under rain I feel a lot of energy. Water keep me alive.
Everyone starving. Most of all we worry about Mae and Ba. They both so weak.
One day I hatch plan. Number Two sister has chicken for eggs. No way she part with that chicken. Like pet to her. So late in night when everyone sleeping. younger sister and I tiptoe outside to find chicken. We know exactly where that chicken is, underneath the house. I grab it and wring its neck.
Early next morning, I boil chicken and give to my parents and daughter to eat. It last couple days. Sister never figure out what happen to her chicken.
Shrey-mom always cover her face when she sleep. When she born she always cover her eyes. One day when I getting ready to go to work she beg me stay home.
“You know what happen when you leave, Mae? Uncle come into our room, he look everywhere for food. They think I sleep, but I see them.
I tell them what she say. She tell truth.
“We thought you sleeping,” her Uncle say.
***
Ba’s body swelling. Every day I come home from work and he worse. Mae too weak to take care of him.
We so frightened. Only hope to save Ba is to send him to hospital where they have thick rice soup.
“If I go, I don’t think I don’t think I will see any of you again.”
We know this true; other people go, no one ever come home
I have no choice. I have to convince him. I have to worry about Mae, too.
“We bring you back later,” I say. “I promise. Only way.”
The trip to hospital take half day. I walk there and tell person in charge that Ba very sick. Cart come take him away.
Mae go see him after one week. Second time she go she cannot find him there.
They don’t come to tell you when someone die. They just bury them.
We know Ba gone.
Wonder why we get up with sun. Why we bother? Why we not just give up, lie down and wait to die?
Mae lie down beside me. She so small now bones rub against mine. Her skin dry like lizard. She stroke my hand. Hear her breathe, still soft, so comforting when she so close.
“You must stay strong, Donc,” she say. “Babies to take care of.”
Son crying on my chest. Beside me Shrey-mom asleep, her head hidden underneath small blanket.
Why I have these babies? If I not have babies I free to die.
Mae know what I thinking. My sisters and I still her babies. That why she still here.
She reach across me, take my son onto her breast. Rock and sing to him. He fall asleep and still she sing. I rest my head on her shoulder. Can still smell flowers in her hair.
***
Just a couple day ago I begin worry about my daughter.
Shrey-mom start to swell.
"Nothing really wrong," I say to myself. "She just getting fat."
Already two of my nieces starve to death. But not Shrey-Mom. I not see how weak she is.
Every day I come home from fields and she still lying in bed. One day she just no get up. That day it rain so hard.
“Get up, Shrey-Mom. Get up. You have to eat. Get up.” I pull her out of the bed. Her body so limp.
“No, no.”
My daughter not say anything else, she know she dying. I hold her up try feed her. She refuse food.
Whole family gather around us. They sit quiet as I hold her through night. She just sleep, open eyes one or two times to say “Oh, Mae.”
Mae come to sit beside me.
“She leaving us, daughter. You know that just before you die you see your real mom. Say good-bye to her, let her go.”
We just sit together crying. Outside rain so hard like the whole world cry too.
I think about day when we first arrive here. Anghar soldier come talk to me. Shrey-mom playing with her cousins. She so pretty, still healthy, still strong. Her laughter still full of joy
"You want to give daughter to me?” he ask. “She grow up healthy in my family. Lots of food. Go to school. A good life.”
How I know how bad life become? Never think day come I not able care for my daughter.
"Is he crazy?" I think. "Why he even think such a thing?"
But now tonight I so angry at myself.
“Oh, if only I had given Shrey-Mom to that man. She still be alive today.”
Morning come. I find Anghar officer. Tell him what happen.
“Go to work,” he say. “We get her body and bury her.”
I wrap Shrey-mom in blanket and leave her on bed. I go to work. No choice. No time off to grieve. Hundreds of people die every day.
Walk home with my group. Why even go home, my little girl’s body gone, tossed into big hole with other dead bodies. No one she know. No one know where hole is. Shovel after shovel of earth cover her. Never find.
“We have to take care of boy,” Mae say that night.
All night long, night after night, I breast feed my son. I so skinny can no longer sit on bed, my bones need cushion, many pillows. I cannot make milk, my son so little, just shrinking away.
He die so soon after Shrey- Mom. Now only 3 children in family – older sister’s children.
Mae
Every night after dinner, Mae and I sit in front of our house and watch people walk by. I can always tell by their faces if they are going to die soon. I always tell Mae.
“Why you say that?” she ask. “How you know this?”
“I can see face of death,” I say.
One day I come home Mae lying down spread out. Arms outstretched. I see that face again. That face is awful face.
“Mae! Wake up! Wake up! Why your face like that?”
She open her eyes. “What face?”
“The face like I always tell you. The face just before you die.”
“I don’t try to do that kind of face.”
I can only cry. Too late now to escape with Mae. Too late to keep promise to take her with me.
Only a few days and already little sister and I can no longer care for her. No choice but to put her in hospital. We walk by hospital every morning on way to work and every night on way home from.
Always we so tired and so hungry. One night we not stop to see how she is.
Next morning we pick some cucumbers from vines growing near our house and begin walking toward hospital. Little sister so much faster than me, always stronger and faster, always complaining about how slow I walk. Now she race ahead to hospital. When I get there, she outside. Face very frightened. She scream when she see me.
“Hurry, hurry. I think Mae dead.”
We race into her room. Mae dying. Grab spoon and start scraping off sickness. She start to get color again. Open her eyes. She better.
“You have to stay alive, Mae. You cannot die. Just a little longer. Things will change. You must be strong.”
Everybody crying. But we have to leave. If we do not work, no food.
That night again we so tired not stop at hospital. Next morning, same, sister run off ahead. Now she sobbing.
“Mae dead.” She say this like it my fault, like Mae maybe live if I not so slow.
Mae’s gown pulled up over face. Bottom of body naked. Feces between legs. All these people around her. How could they leave her so exposed, for everyone to see? Why they not cover her?
Sister and I clean her body. We leave her there in bed and go to fields. Never see her again.
‘Oh, grandpa!” So excited to see him, she has good news. “You know, last night I dream about food. All night plates and plates of food. I wake up not hungry. Maybe we have a lot of food later.”
Ba stop beside her and gently pat her on the head.
“Oh Shrey-mom. You are only a little girl. Already you know that dreaming about food is about eating a lot of food. Such a wise girl.”
We look each other know so well power of dreams, you can wake up feeling as if you eating all night, even though you starving. Until now, we did not know how close my daughter to death.
Dream food not last long though. just mind tricks. Body big empty cavern.
Now I can feel energy from water. Under rain I feel a lot of energy. Water keep me alive.
Everyone starving. Most of all we worry about Mae and Ba. They both so weak.
One day I hatch plan. Number Two sister has chicken for eggs. No way she part with that chicken. Like pet to her. So late in night when everyone sleeping. younger sister and I tiptoe outside to find chicken. We know exactly where that chicken is, underneath the house. I grab it and wring its neck.
Early next morning, I boil chicken and give to my parents and daughter to eat. It last couple days. Sister never figure out what happen to her chicken.
Shrey-mom always cover her face when she sleep. When she born she always cover her eyes. One day when I getting ready to go to work she beg me stay home.
“You know what happen when you leave, Mae? Uncle come into our room, he look everywhere for food. They think I sleep, but I see them.
I tell them what she say. She tell truth.
“We thought you sleeping,” her Uncle say.
***
Ba’s body swelling. Every day I come home from work and he worse. Mae too weak to take care of him.
We so frightened. Only hope to save Ba is to send him to hospital where they have thick rice soup.
“If I go, I don’t think I don’t think I will see any of you again.”
We know this true; other people go, no one ever come home
I have no choice. I have to convince him. I have to worry about Mae, too.
“We bring you back later,” I say. “I promise. Only way.”
The trip to hospital take half day. I walk there and tell person in charge that Ba very sick. Cart come take him away.
Mae go see him after one week. Second time she go she cannot find him there.
They don’t come to tell you when someone die. They just bury them.
We know Ba gone.
Wonder why we get up with sun. Why we bother? Why we not just give up, lie down and wait to die?
Mae lie down beside me. She so small now bones rub against mine. Her skin dry like lizard. She stroke my hand. Hear her breathe, still soft, so comforting when she so close.
“You must stay strong, Donc,” she say. “Babies to take care of.”
Son crying on my chest. Beside me Shrey-mom asleep, her head hidden underneath small blanket.
Why I have these babies? If I not have babies I free to die.
Mae know what I thinking. My sisters and I still her babies. That why she still here.
She reach across me, take my son onto her breast. Rock and sing to him. He fall asleep and still she sing. I rest my head on her shoulder. Can still smell flowers in her hair.
***
Just a couple day ago I begin worry about my daughter.
Shrey-mom start to swell.
"Nothing really wrong," I say to myself. "She just getting fat."
Already two of my nieces starve to death. But not Shrey-Mom. I not see how weak she is.
Every day I come home from fields and she still lying in bed. One day she just no get up. That day it rain so hard.
“Get up, Shrey-Mom. Get up. You have to eat. Get up.” I pull her out of the bed. Her body so limp.
“No, no.”
My daughter not say anything else, she know she dying. I hold her up try feed her. She refuse food.
Whole family gather around us. They sit quiet as I hold her through night. She just sleep, open eyes one or two times to say “Oh, Mae.”
Mae come to sit beside me.
“She leaving us, daughter. You know that just before you die you see your real mom. Say good-bye to her, let her go.”
We just sit together crying. Outside rain so hard like the whole world cry too.
I think about day when we first arrive here. Anghar soldier come talk to me. Shrey-mom playing with her cousins. She so pretty, still healthy, still strong. Her laughter still full of joy
"You want to give daughter to me?” he ask. “She grow up healthy in my family. Lots of food. Go to school. A good life.”
How I know how bad life become? Never think day come I not able care for my daughter.
"Is he crazy?" I think. "Why he even think such a thing?"
But now tonight I so angry at myself.
“Oh, if only I had given Shrey-Mom to that man. She still be alive today.”
Morning come. I find Anghar officer. Tell him what happen.
“Go to work,” he say. “We get her body and bury her.”
I wrap Shrey-mom in blanket and leave her on bed. I go to work. No choice. No time off to grieve. Hundreds of people die every day.
Walk home with my group. Why even go home, my little girl’s body gone, tossed into big hole with other dead bodies. No one she know. No one know where hole is. Shovel after shovel of earth cover her. Never find.
“We have to take care of boy,” Mae say that night.
All night long, night after night, I breast feed my son. I so skinny can no longer sit on bed, my bones need cushion, many pillows. I cannot make milk, my son so little, just shrinking away.
He die so soon after Shrey- Mom. Now only 3 children in family – older sister’s children.
Mae
Every night after dinner, Mae and I sit in front of our house and watch people walk by. I can always tell by their faces if they are going to die soon. I always tell Mae.
“Why you say that?” she ask. “How you know this?”
“I can see face of death,” I say.
One day I come home Mae lying down spread out. Arms outstretched. I see that face again. That face is awful face.
“Mae! Wake up! Wake up! Why your face like that?”
She open her eyes. “What face?”
“The face like I always tell you. The face just before you die.”
“I don’t try to do that kind of face.”
I can only cry. Too late now to escape with Mae. Too late to keep promise to take her with me.
Only a few days and already little sister and I can no longer care for her. No choice but to put her in hospital. We walk by hospital every morning on way to work and every night on way home from.
Always we so tired and so hungry. One night we not stop to see how she is.
Next morning we pick some cucumbers from vines growing near our house and begin walking toward hospital. Little sister so much faster than me, always stronger and faster, always complaining about how slow I walk. Now she race ahead to hospital. When I get there, she outside. Face very frightened. She scream when she see me.
“Hurry, hurry. I think Mae dead.”
We race into her room. Mae dying. Grab spoon and start scraping off sickness. She start to get color again. Open her eyes. She better.
“You have to stay alive, Mae. You cannot die. Just a little longer. Things will change. You must be strong.”
Everybody crying. But we have to leave. If we do not work, no food.
That night again we so tired not stop at hospital. Next morning, same, sister run off ahead. Now she sobbing.
“Mae dead.” She say this like it my fault, like Mae maybe live if I not so slow.
Mae’s gown pulled up over face. Bottom of body naked. Feces between legs. All these people around her. How could they leave her so exposed, for everyone to see? Why they not cover her?
Sister and I clean her body. We leave her there in bed and go to fields. Never see her again.
Another Death
Brother-in-law stay in bed this morning. His eyes very bright
“Oh, Kim, such a beutfiul dream. Do you remember Thom? He in my dream. Just down road, he say, so much food you not believe. I follow him down into village, big market all kinds of food, sardines, bananas, pineapples, noodle soup. Free. We eat everything.”
Everybody love share these dreams, feel so good, so happy this morning I no patience to listen, too hungry. Rush out to join my group. Angry at him, why he not get up to work? He need real food, not dream food.
Only corn to eat now. Over a month. Brother-in-law always so clever. He never stop finding new things to eat. He catches ginkos crawling on the walls, under the trees. Takes off skin look like chicken, he cook them. He not find anything for week now.
Lunch time. Brother-in-law sleeping. He wake up when my niece return from dining room with bowl of food. He sits up and grabs her, tries to take her food.
“Give me food, give me food,” he yell at his daughter.
She scream back, “No, no, don’t take my food.”
I rush between them, slap his arm away.
“Gee, why you do this?” I ask, placing the bowl firmly in my niece’s hands, shooing her away to eat. “ You always do this.”
“You know I so hungry.”
“Why don’t you just wait? I hungry, too.”
When the bell rings for our food, brother-in-law asks me:
“Can you get my food, too? Too weak to get up. cannot go.”
I go to dining area and fill our bowls and rush back with food. I hand bowl to him. He still lying in bed.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “Just leave bowl on my chest.”
I place bowl there and begin eating my meal. He folds his arms around the bowl. Not try to eat anything.
I finish my meal and walk over to wake him. He is dead.
Sister, children and I cry next to his body. This death is my fault. Why I not realize how sick he was? Why I not realize he going to die when he tell me dream this morning? Why I get so angry at him?.
“I am so sorry,” I cry. “I didn’t know that you were that starving”
The KR come to take his body away. A few months later his wife is also dead. They take her away, too.
“Oh, Kim, such a beutfiul dream. Do you remember Thom? He in my dream. Just down road, he say, so much food you not believe. I follow him down into village, big market all kinds of food, sardines, bananas, pineapples, noodle soup. Free. We eat everything.”
Everybody love share these dreams, feel so good, so happy this morning I no patience to listen, too hungry. Rush out to join my group. Angry at him, why he not get up to work? He need real food, not dream food.
Only corn to eat now. Over a month. Brother-in-law always so clever. He never stop finding new things to eat. He catches ginkos crawling on the walls, under the trees. Takes off skin look like chicken, he cook them. He not find anything for week now.
Lunch time. Brother-in-law sleeping. He wake up when my niece return from dining room with bowl of food. He sits up and grabs her, tries to take her food.
“Give me food, give me food,” he yell at his daughter.
She scream back, “No, no, don’t take my food.”
I rush between them, slap his arm away.
“Gee, why you do this?” I ask, placing the bowl firmly in my niece’s hands, shooing her away to eat. “ You always do this.”
“You know I so hungry.”
“Why don’t you just wait? I hungry, too.”
When the bell rings for our food, brother-in-law asks me:
“Can you get my food, too? Too weak to get up. cannot go.”
I go to dining area and fill our bowls and rush back with food. I hand bowl to him. He still lying in bed.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “Just leave bowl on my chest.”
I place bowl there and begin eating my meal. He folds his arms around the bowl. Not try to eat anything.
I finish my meal and walk over to wake him. He is dead.
Sister, children and I cry next to his body. This death is my fault. Why I not realize how sick he was? Why I not realize he going to die when he tell me dream this morning? Why I get so angry at him?.
“I am so sorry,” I cry. “I didn’t know that you were that starving”
The KR come to take his body away. A few months later his wife is also dead. They take her away, too.
Time Passing
Time just goes by, nothing changes. Now I only have two sarongs, a few shirts to wear. No shoes. I make myself a hat from palm tree leaves. Brush my teeth with sand.
Every day we wake in the dark. The bell rings calling us to eat. We sit together in our work groups on long tables, there is one bowl of soup for four people. A small bowl of salt. If you are lucky, you sometimes find a snail on the walk to work, hide it in your pocket to eat when noone is looking.
Pick rice, replant field. Pick rice. Replant field. Pick rice. A day, a week, a month Work on one row, dig, finish, move to next row. Walk home to eat. Rest one or two hours. Back to fields.
The Khmer Rouge knows we need more energy to work and a nurse comes to give everyone vitamin shots.
But I am one of the unlucky ones. My body soon turns feverish and my arms swells and reddens. It quickly becomes so painful I cannot work.
“Just cut off my arm," I scream at the hospital. "I cannot sleep.”
A nurse cuts a big hole in my arm to get out infection, puts a bandage over it and send me back to the fields. I am not strong enough to work in the fields yet so Iwork picking up cow dung around the camp.
Every week we go to the Angkar meeting. We sit on haystacks. Everyone has to go unless you are too sick to walk. Group leader talks about who is lazy, who is bad. Always talks about crops, how to make more food to eat.
"Work harder," they say. "No difference if you used to be a doctor lady. Get that out of your head. Now you are Angkar. Everybody is the same. Work hard or you will die."
Now our job is even more difficult. We are working to get three rice crops a year.
It never matters how hard we work. There is never enough food and the harder we work the less food we get. The soup is now water and a scoop of corn.
Then the chicken pox come, kills everybody’s children, even Khmer Rouge. Not matter to me anymore. All my children have already starved to death. What do I care?
When all the children die, they put me to work with the old people. My old friend Tha tries to work on the row next to me so he can help me finish.
“Oh my good friend,” he says. “I remember you when you first came. You were so beautiful.”
Tha is always a friend to me. He teaches me how to collect water to make palm milk from leaves. He always hides food in his pocket for me. Even though his son is a general in Khmer Rouge, still he work in fields. Gets few favors.
Every day we wake in the dark. The bell rings calling us to eat. We sit together in our work groups on long tables, there is one bowl of soup for four people. A small bowl of salt. If you are lucky, you sometimes find a snail on the walk to work, hide it in your pocket to eat when noone is looking.
Pick rice, replant field. Pick rice. Replant field. Pick rice. A day, a week, a month Work on one row, dig, finish, move to next row. Walk home to eat. Rest one or two hours. Back to fields.
The Khmer Rouge knows we need more energy to work and a nurse comes to give everyone vitamin shots.
But I am one of the unlucky ones. My body soon turns feverish and my arms swells and reddens. It quickly becomes so painful I cannot work.
“Just cut off my arm," I scream at the hospital. "I cannot sleep.”
A nurse cuts a big hole in my arm to get out infection, puts a bandage over it and send me back to the fields. I am not strong enough to work in the fields yet so Iwork picking up cow dung around the camp.
Every week we go to the Angkar meeting. We sit on haystacks. Everyone has to go unless you are too sick to walk. Group leader talks about who is lazy, who is bad. Always talks about crops, how to make more food to eat.
"Work harder," they say. "No difference if you used to be a doctor lady. Get that out of your head. Now you are Angkar. Everybody is the same. Work hard or you will die."
Now our job is even more difficult. We are working to get three rice crops a year.
It never matters how hard we work. There is never enough food and the harder we work the less food we get. The soup is now water and a scoop of corn.
Then the chicken pox come, kills everybody’s children, even Khmer Rouge. Not matter to me anymore. All my children have already starved to death. What do I care?
When all the children die, they put me to work with the old people. My old friend Tha tries to work on the row next to me so he can help me finish.
“Oh my good friend,” he says. “I remember you when you first came. You were so beautiful.”
Tha is always a friend to me. He teaches me how to collect water to make palm milk from leaves. He always hides food in his pocket for me. Even though his son is a general in Khmer Rouge, still he work in fields. Gets few favors.
I am swallowed by a huge chunk of coal, devoured in the very act of awakening. I breath like a mummy in endless black silence.
Familiar sounds filter through; my spirit has left my body and gazes into this thick cocoon. I surrender into peacefulness, maybe this at last is my death.
A tiny lavendar butterfly brushes lightly against the dark cocoon. Her near transparent wings whish as she lightly lands atop the darkness, just off center to the right. Her wings flitter in miniscule movements up and down. I imagine that she must have a bee’s stinger because it appears as if she is driving a thin sharp drill into the darkness.
Behind my eyes a brilliant yellow disk, with rivets like the margins of songs on a vinyl record. Strands and small pebbles of black
“Kim, Wake up!”
I open my eyes. Sister is sitting beside me on the bamboosl slats. Her face appears distorted, as if I am viewing her through asilly waved mirror. It expands, shrinks, stretches taut, bends ... impossibly grotesque.
“I thought I was dead,” I whisper. “Everything was black.”
“Chicken blindness,” she says. Night blindness.”
Her voice is total fear. What is it, I wonder. She worries that now she has to take care of me? She worries that I am getting too sick and won’t be able to work? But I see no worry in her eyes. Only frustration, maybe anger.
I sit up quickly and try to stand. I have to show her I can take care of myself.
The room spins around me like I am caught inside a small tornado. I reach for the wall to support me. Even before I feel the earth settle still beneath my feet, she is already out the door.
“Don’t be late,” she calls back. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Chicken blindness soon becomes almost comforting. Most days, my vision clears with the growing sunlight as we walk to the fields. I begin looking forward to these sightless hours; it feels safe inside my black cocoon, far away from the horrors of life around me. Even my memories are lost. I feel free. Everyone acts as if I am not even there.
My chicken eyes have not been with me long as I rush one evening back from the pond, so angry that there is not enough water left to even wash myself. The sun is setting, already darkness swells behind my eyes. Maybe I have a fever, maybe I am possessed by some wicked spirit. Because when I see my neighbor with his two children, I loose my head.
“They say they make our country better,” I say, as I approach them. “The country is not better! Now we have no water to take a bath. How can they do this?”
Right away, I know this is a mistake, their silence is so loud. My neighbor turns away as if he doesn't recognize me. Then I notice the young man standing with them. Some stranger. Whatever, I think. Just someone new to the camp.
Two weeks go by. I am sitting in front of my house. Two Khmer officers walk from the dining tent.
“Oh, somebody is in trouble,” I think. “Somebody else will disappear today.”
The Army officers are getting closer. Hut by hut, everyone looks so happy as they pass by, realizing they are safe. But now they are right in front of my home. My blood turns to ice. Big grasshoppers bounce in heart. My teeth click click click.
Two big shadows stop in front of me. I can feel my eyes roll back in my head in horror.
“You come to Kamatoo right now,” one of them says. I look up. He is so ugly, a big broken nose, a face pocked like plucked chicken.A big, big belly.
“Nothing is wrong.” The other solder is tall and skinny, not like me, more normal skinny and he smiles as he reaches down and grabs my arm.
“Major just wants to talk to you about school.”
I dig my feet into the brittle soil. Struggle against this man so hard. Where does this energy come from?
“No school for me. I do not want to die.” I scream and my sisters run outside and grab onto each other. I fight these horrible men. Fight for my life. All this time, I think I do not want to go on, I want to leave this body, I pray that my eyes do not open. Why do I want to live so bad now? So strange, I think. So strange that you fight so hard. What for? You are only going to die anyway.
“You don’t want me, Big mistake. Please. Who will take care of my little sister?”
“Go with them,” big sister cries. “Just a couple of days and you'll come home. You have to go.”
I know she doesn't believe this. She is trying to comfort me, to comfort herself.
***
We walk, rice field after rice field, single file, one in front, one in back. The sun sinks in the sky. Oh, how I want Mae. Where is she now? I m so tired, my legs are so weak. I stumble, fall to the ground. Need rest.
“Go, go.” The soldier behind me is very impatient. He wants me to walk faster.
I fall again and grab onto weeds but he rip me up and pushes me forward with the butt of his rifle.
Now finally my tears, too, are frightened away.
“Don’t hurt me, please. Don’t hurt me.”
We walk maybe half a day before arriving at a giant temple. A rush of hope, of happy childhood days enlivens me. Maybe it is not so bad, I think. Maybe it is some kind of school after all.
They push me up the steps and through the large door. All I can think about is water.
The smell of stale rotten air gags me as we enter. Nothing in my life could have prepared me for this.
Line after line of college students sit on the floor, legs in front of them. Long chains stretch from one end of the temple to the other, binding their cuffed feet together, like small dried fish rotting in a can, packed tight against each other.
Death faces. Hundreds and hundreds of death faces.
Tortured screams cut through the air from behind a huge Buddha near the back of the temple. The death faces do no change as behind them a man is dragged outside still screaming.
The soldiers push me down at the end of a row near the middle of the room. They do not chain my feet.
Oh, I do not know how I can sit here with this terror, just waiting for death. I pray. I call out to Mae, "Take me away, Come back for me, Mae."
This is a mistake. When mayor sees me he will know. He will be angry with the guardds for wasting his time. He'll send me home. Oh, my sisters will be so happy. They will teat me the best. Share more of their food with me. Everyone in the camp will be so happy.
It is night when the guards finally bring us rice and dried fish. I fall asleep and wake up later when something hits me in the back. I sit up and feel around in the darkness until my fingers curl aroud the familiar shape of a mango.
In the morning I eat mango with rice. No one else eating, though. They are all too sick. Close to dying. Do I have death face, too? How would I know this? I have not seen my face in years.
When they finally come for me, I know where they are taking me; back behind the Buddha, into the torture room. A big man stands in front of me.
“Uncle, please don’t hurt me. Please.” I place my hands under my chin. “Whatever I said, I didn't mean anything. I am just so hungry, so starving.”
He doesn't care what I say. He only wants to ask me about my life before the camps.
“My husband was a rhickshaw man.” I just repeat and repeat this, time after time as e tries to trip me up in my story.
‘I sold fruit, sometimes clothes.”
They ask so many questions. I know they want to hit me. But they know I am going to die soon. Why bother?
Finally, the big man waves me away.
We leave the torture room and the guards let me go outside to the bathroom. I see two naked men whose arms and legs are chained to the temple wall. And then I see that man, that man from the camp who had been with my neighbor. He smiles at me. He is a spy. He told them about me. Oh, I am so stupid.
Next day the guards take me again behind the Buddha.
“Mut,” the mayor says. “You are going to tell us the truth or you will die like the others.”
“No truth to tell, uncle. This is a big mistake. Please, don’t hurt me.”
They wrap my head in plastic bag and stretch it tight across my face, "Tell the truth or you die."
My hands tear at the plastic. My breath sucks the fabric deep into my throat.
I look out behind mask, everything is so slow. Why are they screaming at me? Why are they twisting my fingers, kicking my legs with their filthy feet? Suddenly I feel so peaceful inside. I Just want to sleep now. No pain. My eyes are closing.
I dream about Mae. She is right beside me. My finger hurts so bad and she comes and blows on it.
I hear someone calling me and open my eyes. I am back among the death faces in the temple.
“I thought you were dead.” A ghost-girl is sitting beside me. Where is Mae? I look down at my finger, feel her breath. Then I close my eyes again, go home to my mother.
They come for me one more time. Ask the same questions but they don't use the plastic bag again. The Mayor tell me to take buckets of shit and dump them outside. Two buckets, but I am so weak I need two hands for each bucket.
The big man is gone when I return. A guard yells “Wash your hands. Come with me.”
We are on a bicycle now.
“Where are you taking me? Where are we going?” He doesn't answer, just keeps pedaling.
“Where you think you going?” he finally ask. I look and look around me. I am so frightened I have no idea where I am. Time goes by and I just flop back and forth on the back of that bike, like an old rag doll.
“Oh, look at that tree there. It looks like we are near my house. Are we near my camp?”
The guard thinks I am crazy because we are right next to my house and I don't even recognize things.
the guard takes me to the leader's house. I lam ucky, he say. From now on be careful. Next time I will not be so lucky.
I walk home. Oh so many people are happy to see me, so many tears and hugs. I didn't realize how many people even know me.
I pull away from these strangers, They scare me. They look like monkeys. They turned into monkeys while I was gone. What happened? Maybe I do not belong here anymore.
“You don't know me, Dong? I am your sister.”
One of the monkeys takes my arm, she is crying so hard. “We thought we'd never see you again.”
I am so confused.
“Where's Mae? I want to see Mae.”
“Mae is dead. Don't you remember?"
What does she know, my sister? How could she know that Mae visited me? I will just keep my secret. Pretend I am really coming home. I remember this place but it is from so long ago, almost as far away as Takmou. Rememebering is as difficult as using a tiny thread to pull a huge fish from a bottomless river.
Familiar sounds filter through; my spirit has left my body and gazes into this thick cocoon. I surrender into peacefulness, maybe this at last is my death.
A tiny lavendar butterfly brushes lightly against the dark cocoon. Her near transparent wings whish as she lightly lands atop the darkness, just off center to the right. Her wings flitter in miniscule movements up and down. I imagine that she must have a bee’s stinger because it appears as if she is driving a thin sharp drill into the darkness.
Behind my eyes a brilliant yellow disk, with rivets like the margins of songs on a vinyl record. Strands and small pebbles of black
“Kim, Wake up!”
I open my eyes. Sister is sitting beside me on the bamboosl slats. Her face appears distorted, as if I am viewing her through asilly waved mirror. It expands, shrinks, stretches taut, bends ... impossibly grotesque.
“I thought I was dead,” I whisper. “Everything was black.”
“Chicken blindness,” she says. Night blindness.”
Her voice is total fear. What is it, I wonder. She worries that now she has to take care of me? She worries that I am getting too sick and won’t be able to work? But I see no worry in her eyes. Only frustration, maybe anger.
I sit up quickly and try to stand. I have to show her I can take care of myself.
The room spins around me like I am caught inside a small tornado. I reach for the wall to support me. Even before I feel the earth settle still beneath my feet, she is already out the door.
“Don’t be late,” she calls back. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Chicken blindness soon becomes almost comforting. Most days, my vision clears with the growing sunlight as we walk to the fields. I begin looking forward to these sightless hours; it feels safe inside my black cocoon, far away from the horrors of life around me. Even my memories are lost. I feel free. Everyone acts as if I am not even there.
My chicken eyes have not been with me long as I rush one evening back from the pond, so angry that there is not enough water left to even wash myself. The sun is setting, already darkness swells behind my eyes. Maybe I have a fever, maybe I am possessed by some wicked spirit. Because when I see my neighbor with his two children, I loose my head.
“They say they make our country better,” I say, as I approach them. “The country is not better! Now we have no water to take a bath. How can they do this?”
Right away, I know this is a mistake, their silence is so loud. My neighbor turns away as if he doesn't recognize me. Then I notice the young man standing with them. Some stranger. Whatever, I think. Just someone new to the camp.
Two weeks go by. I am sitting in front of my house. Two Khmer officers walk from the dining tent.
“Oh, somebody is in trouble,” I think. “Somebody else will disappear today.”
The Army officers are getting closer. Hut by hut, everyone looks so happy as they pass by, realizing they are safe. But now they are right in front of my home. My blood turns to ice. Big grasshoppers bounce in heart. My teeth click click click.
Two big shadows stop in front of me. I can feel my eyes roll back in my head in horror.
“You come to Kamatoo right now,” one of them says. I look up. He is so ugly, a big broken nose, a face pocked like plucked chicken.A big, big belly.
“Nothing is wrong.” The other solder is tall and skinny, not like me, more normal skinny and he smiles as he reaches down and grabs my arm.
“Major just wants to talk to you about school.”
I dig my feet into the brittle soil. Struggle against this man so hard. Where does this energy come from?
“No school for me. I do not want to die.” I scream and my sisters run outside and grab onto each other. I fight these horrible men. Fight for my life. All this time, I think I do not want to go on, I want to leave this body, I pray that my eyes do not open. Why do I want to live so bad now? So strange, I think. So strange that you fight so hard. What for? You are only going to die anyway.
“You don’t want me, Big mistake. Please. Who will take care of my little sister?”
“Go with them,” big sister cries. “Just a couple of days and you'll come home. You have to go.”
I know she doesn't believe this. She is trying to comfort me, to comfort herself.
***
We walk, rice field after rice field, single file, one in front, one in back. The sun sinks in the sky. Oh, how I want Mae. Where is she now? I m so tired, my legs are so weak. I stumble, fall to the ground. Need rest.
“Go, go.” The soldier behind me is very impatient. He wants me to walk faster.
I fall again and grab onto weeds but he rip me up and pushes me forward with the butt of his rifle.
Now finally my tears, too, are frightened away.
“Don’t hurt me, please. Don’t hurt me.”
We walk maybe half a day before arriving at a giant temple. A rush of hope, of happy childhood days enlivens me. Maybe it is not so bad, I think. Maybe it is some kind of school after all.
They push me up the steps and through the large door. All I can think about is water.
The smell of stale rotten air gags me as we enter. Nothing in my life could have prepared me for this.
Line after line of college students sit on the floor, legs in front of them. Long chains stretch from one end of the temple to the other, binding their cuffed feet together, like small dried fish rotting in a can, packed tight against each other.
Death faces. Hundreds and hundreds of death faces.
Tortured screams cut through the air from behind a huge Buddha near the back of the temple. The death faces do no change as behind them a man is dragged outside still screaming.
The soldiers push me down at the end of a row near the middle of the room. They do not chain my feet.
Oh, I do not know how I can sit here with this terror, just waiting for death. I pray. I call out to Mae, "Take me away, Come back for me, Mae."
This is a mistake. When mayor sees me he will know. He will be angry with the guardds for wasting his time. He'll send me home. Oh, my sisters will be so happy. They will teat me the best. Share more of their food with me. Everyone in the camp will be so happy.
It is night when the guards finally bring us rice and dried fish. I fall asleep and wake up later when something hits me in the back. I sit up and feel around in the darkness until my fingers curl aroud the familiar shape of a mango.
In the morning I eat mango with rice. No one else eating, though. They are all too sick. Close to dying. Do I have death face, too? How would I know this? I have not seen my face in years.
When they finally come for me, I know where they are taking me; back behind the Buddha, into the torture room. A big man stands in front of me.
“Uncle, please don’t hurt me. Please.” I place my hands under my chin. “Whatever I said, I didn't mean anything. I am just so hungry, so starving.”
He doesn't care what I say. He only wants to ask me about my life before the camps.
“My husband was a rhickshaw man.” I just repeat and repeat this, time after time as e tries to trip me up in my story.
‘I sold fruit, sometimes clothes.”
They ask so many questions. I know they want to hit me. But they know I am going to die soon. Why bother?
Finally, the big man waves me away.
We leave the torture room and the guards let me go outside to the bathroom. I see two naked men whose arms and legs are chained to the temple wall. And then I see that man, that man from the camp who had been with my neighbor. He smiles at me. He is a spy. He told them about me. Oh, I am so stupid.
Next day the guards take me again behind the Buddha.
“Mut,” the mayor says. “You are going to tell us the truth or you will die like the others.”
“No truth to tell, uncle. This is a big mistake. Please, don’t hurt me.”
They wrap my head in plastic bag and stretch it tight across my face, "Tell the truth or you die."
My hands tear at the plastic. My breath sucks the fabric deep into my throat.
I look out behind mask, everything is so slow. Why are they screaming at me? Why are they twisting my fingers, kicking my legs with their filthy feet? Suddenly I feel so peaceful inside. I Just want to sleep now. No pain. My eyes are closing.
I dream about Mae. She is right beside me. My finger hurts so bad and she comes and blows on it.
I hear someone calling me and open my eyes. I am back among the death faces in the temple.
“I thought you were dead.” A ghost-girl is sitting beside me. Where is Mae? I look down at my finger, feel her breath. Then I close my eyes again, go home to my mother.
They come for me one more time. Ask the same questions but they don't use the plastic bag again. The Mayor tell me to take buckets of shit and dump them outside. Two buckets, but I am so weak I need two hands for each bucket.
The big man is gone when I return. A guard yells “Wash your hands. Come with me.”
We are on a bicycle now.
“Where are you taking me? Where are we going?” He doesn't answer, just keeps pedaling.
“Where you think you going?” he finally ask. I look and look around me. I am so frightened I have no idea where I am. Time goes by and I just flop back and forth on the back of that bike, like an old rag doll.
“Oh, look at that tree there. It looks like we are near my house. Are we near my camp?”
The guard thinks I am crazy because we are right next to my house and I don't even recognize things.
the guard takes me to the leader's house. I lam ucky, he say. From now on be careful. Next time I will not be so lucky.
I walk home. Oh so many people are happy to see me, so many tears and hugs. I didn't realize how many people even know me.
I pull away from these strangers, They scare me. They look like monkeys. They turned into monkeys while I was gone. What happened? Maybe I do not belong here anymore.
“You don't know me, Dong? I am your sister.”
One of the monkeys takes my arm, she is crying so hard. “We thought we'd never see you again.”
I am so confused.
“Where's Mae? I want to see Mae.”
“Mae is dead. Don't you remember?"
What does she know, my sister? How could she know that Mae visited me? I will just keep my secret. Pretend I am really coming home. I remember this place but it is from so long ago, almost as far away as Takmou. Rememebering is as difficult as using a tiny thread to pull a huge fish from a bottomless river.
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