First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [112]
Uncle Leang puts his hand on Meng’s shoulder. “Your Pa is gone, Meng, so you are now the head of our family. Your life is not your own anymore. You have a family to take care of,” he says quietly.
“Uncle, I am doing this for the family. I will take Loung with me. She is still young enough to go to school, get an education, and make something of herself.” Though the younger children studied French in Phnom Penh, Pa made Meng and Khouy study English. As a result Meng is already fluent in English. Once in America, Meng’s plan is to work hard and send money to the family. He will save and build a home, and in five years send for the rest of the family. Uncle Leang still has his doubts, but it is decided that Meng and I will leave at the end of the week.
At the rooster’s cry, our family gathers outside the hut to say good-bye to us. While Meng says farewell to our relatives, I stand with Chou, holding on to her hand. One by one, our aunts and cousins come up to me and touch my hair, my arms, and my back. Meng ties our bags onto the backseat of his bicycle and lifts me up onto it. I straddle our bags, finally as tall as the adults, and look down at Chou. She stares up at me and cries, her lips quivering and her face crumpled. Our hands reach for one another and we hold on a few seconds more. I do not know how to say good-bye, so I say nothing. No matter what, I am determined not to cry. Chou has this luxury; everyone expects her to. I am strong, so I cannot cry. I will never understand how Chou ever survived the war.
Meng gets on his bike and slowly begins to peddle, breaking Chou’s hold on my hand. They are all in tears now as they wave good-bye to us. I do not turn around. I know they will not leave until we are out of their sight. I grit my teeth and fight back the tears. “Five years,” I think as we ride away. “In five years I will see them again.”
from cambodia to Vietnam
October 1979
I return to Phnom Penh on the back of Meng’s bike, my heart beating wildly as I absorb the sights and sounds of the city. Nothing looks the way I remember it. The buildings are charred from fires and their walls riddled with bullet holes. The streets are covered with litter and filled with cavernous potholes. There are many bicycles and cyclos but few trucks. Gone are the tall, leafy, lustrous flowered trees that lined the wide boulevards. Instead, tall brown palms and coconut trees provide little shade for the dry, crumbling city. Though the palm trees are heavy with fruit, I see no people climbing to get it. People say the Khmer Rouge buried corpses next to them and now the palm milk is pink like thin blood and the fruit tastes like human flesh. Makeshift tents, no longer confined to the poor areas, sprout all over the city. There are people living everywhere, in alleys, in streets, in crumbling buildings and tents. Many are farmers and rural villagers. They moved to the city to look for work because their land is littered with landmines. They come to Phnom Penh to escape the Khmer Rouge, who still control parts of the countryside. They arrive and take up residence in the deserted homes. The memory of our life here comes flooding back to me.
“Eldest brother,” I call out to Meng. In the Chinese culture, young children never call their elder siblings by name as it is considered improper and disrespectful. “Eldest brother, will you show me our old house?”
“It’s not what it used to be. It is broken down with bullet holes everywhere, but we will go there,” he answers and continues peddling. He tells me he went to see it when he came through the city with Eang and her sister on their way to Vietnam. He says someone is living in our apartment now. There are no documents kept on people