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.”