First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [75]
Then a hand grabs the rifle from me while another slaps my face. With my eyes open wide, I put my arms up to shield against another assault.
“Wake up!” Met Bong screams at me. “There’s nothing out there! We have no bullets to waste!” I flinch as she raises her hand again but then decides against hitting me.
“But Met Bong, you said—” I plead in a small voice.
“I said shoot when you see something real, not ghosts,” Met Bong interrupts me as laughter erupts from the girls.
“Don’t forget about the bodiless witches,” a voice calls out to me as they all head back to sleep.
Many claim she’s only a myth—the bodiless witch, an ordinary person by daytime and a witch at night. The only way to tell if someone is a bodiless witch is by the deep wrinkle lines around her neck. At night when these witches go to sleep their heads separate from their bodies. Dragging their intestines along, they fly around to places where there’s blood and death. The heads fly so fast that no one has ever seen the faces, only their shiny red eyes and sometimes the shadow of their heads and entrails. Once she finds a dead body, the bodiless witch nestles against the corpse all night. Their tongues lick blood and eat flesh while their innards writhe around them.
That night I clutch the gun tight to my chest, my finger resting on the trigger, alternately aiming at the sight of the Youns and up in the sky for the witches.
gold for chicken
November 1977
Seven months have passed since I left Ro Leap. My fingers tremble as I button my new black shirt. I want to impress Ma with my new clothes. I wish I had a mirror, but there isn’t one around. Since there are no hairbrushes or combs, I run my fingers through my greasy hair to smooth it out. Nervously, I walk out of the compound of the camp; in a couple of hours, I will be with Ma.
The Youn scare is over for now and all is quiet again at the camp. Every few months, Met Bong allows all the children to have a day of rest. Many take the opportunity to visit their families. My breath quickens as my feet take me closer and closer to Ro Leap. Since Met Bong believes I am an orphan, I say I am visiting Chou but instead will go see Ma. Ma does not know I am coming; she might not even be home. She told me not to come back. What if she doesn’t want to see me or won’t see me?
Following the same path Chou and I took out of Ro Leap, I march crisply toward the village. The surroundings seem to have changed very little since I last saw them. The red dirt trail winds and dips behind small foothills, shaded by tall teak trees. When I left I was a scared kid who cried and begged Ma to let me stay with her. Though I tried to be strong, I was weak and did not know how I could fend for myself without Ma’s protection. But I am no longer that scared child. My only fear now is that Ma will not be happy to see me. The memory of her hand swatting my behind to make me leave Ro Leap still burns in me. On today’s journey, the trees look smaller and less haunted, and the path has an end—a destination.
Finally I see the village. It looks familiar yet it’s changed. The town square is deserted and quiet as I cross it to face the rows of huts. My lungs expand and contract rapidly as I remember Pa lifting me off the truck when we first arrived. I freeze his face in my mind, his warm eyes beckoning me to him, his arms holding me, protecting me while a base person spits at him. Inhaling deeply, I force myself closer to our hut. Like entering a ghost town, images of Keav telling Pa she will survive, Kim’s swollen cheeks, my hand reaching into the rice container, earthworms writhing in a bowl float before my eyes. The memories haunt and follow me like my shadow as I climb slowly up the steps to our hut. Ma is not there. My knees ache as I force my feet to move to the village’s garden.
There I see them. Their backs are to me. Ma’s squatting in the garden, pulling out weeds. Her black pajama clothes are gray and faded. The noon sun burns down on her, but she keeps