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Hm…Regret, regret, a body that is like a blossoming flower

Now the bee has taken the sweetness, then he flies away

If he really leaves me, my heart will hurt

And there will be only tears

So, this is love, that I’ve known for the first night

Please be kind, kind to me

Honey, honey, a virgin would only be once,

Not twice.

We arrived in Khao I Dang three months ago, in November 1979. Now a private classroom has been set up to teach us English. I have to find a way to pay the monthly fee, which is 150 bahts.* It is a lot of money for me since I don’t have any salary, or any allowance except food rations. I decide to use the remaining gold I brought from Sala Krao and hadn’t turned over to bang Vantha. I will trade this gold for my education, I tell myself. I’m going to sell it, and it’s better that I keep the matter to myself.

Ra is alarmed that she has stopped menstruating. Lately she has been very ill, and so she stops going to the English class. Our women neighbors tell her that she’s pregnant. When a woman is pregnant, they say, she usually has morning sickness. She throws up, feels ill, and has wild cravings for certain foods like pickled green mangoes or tamarinds.

When you don’t get the things you want to eat, our next-door neighbor says, it is like a pain nagging at you. And Ra has these symptoms of a pregnant woman. Eagerly, she tells our neighbors what she craves, and the women laugh. Ry and I join them, and Ra smiles weakly.

Soon everyone is talking about a movie that will be shown. It’s about Christianity, our neighbor says, and Jesus Christ. I’d heard about Jesus Christ before from Chea when she learned about him back in Phnom Penh and had sung songs to Ry, Ra, and me. Now I want to know about him. How is he different from Buddha? When the day comes, I go with my family to an open field where there are already many people standing in front of a big screen secured on a mound.

After the movie starts, it begins to rain. First it drizzles, then it pours. A few people have umbrellas, but most of us stand, getting soaked in the rain. Men use their shirts to shield them from the raindrops. Most of the shivering children and adults leave, including my brothers and sisters. I shudder, chattering, hugging myself, crying as Jesus Christ’s hands and feet are being hammered to the cross. Though I don’t understand all that is being said, I’m deeply sad and feel connected to the movie, to Jesus Christ, and to the sorrow of those men and women who miss him.

I think of Pa and his execution.

Ra comes from the market, smiling exuberantly as she sets down the groceries she has bought. Her stomach is round, protruding like a small watermelon under her blouse. Ry and I are eager to find out what’s on her mind. What is making her this happy and silly?

Ra smiles, rubbing her hands together to display her excitement, then walks away to the cooking area. Tired of being in suspense, I demand excitedly, “Ra! What is it? What are you smiling about?”

“Do you want to know who I saw in the market today?”

“Who?” Ry and I speak at the same time.

“I saw Aunt Eng [Pa’s cousin]. When I saw her, I thought, Who is that? I’ve seen her before. Then I knew. Do you want to know what she told me?”

“What?” I ask.

Aunt Eng, Ra says, has found out that Uncle Seng, who left Cambodia two days before the Khmer Rouge’s takeover, is now living in America. She has written a letter to a friend of hers who lives in California, asking her if she knows him. Apparently, her friend wrote back and said that she indeed knows of a Leng Seng, who lives in Oregon. Aunt Eng has asked him to sponsor her family in America, and now he’s working on the paperwork from there. And we, Ra is eager to add, can also go to America.

I jump up and down like I’m on a spring. I smile, taking in this wonderful, unbelievable news hungrily. After all these years of loss and hardship, I reflect, we receive this news—Uncle Seng, Pa’s only brother, is alive, and he will bring us to America. Oh, God, thank you. I jump, humming and laughing.

After