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It was in this home that I first heard the word “war.” The year was 1968, and I was three years old. It was a clear night and the sky was adorned with stars. Mak came into our living room and asked my siblings and me if we wanted to see a comet. Mak said it had a long, bright tail.

I remember our excitement. I hurried along with five of my brothers and sisters. They were Chea, eleven, whose intelligence and thoughtfulness earned her the respect an oldest child demands; Ra, ten, my shy sister who liked to help Mak cook and clean—her tidy, domestic ways pleased our mother. At nine, Tha was my oldest brother. He was good in math and mischievous. Tha’s way of finding out if the corn was sweet was to take a bite out of every cob on the platter. Ry, seven, was my easily amused sister, who liked to baby-sit me and Avy, our one-year-old sister. Than, five, was the second-oldest brother, whose tree-climbing sense of adventure often invited my own curiosity. He was my rival.

As we followed our mother, we scurried close behind her like six chicks following a hen. Mak lifted me up and I saw the heavenly body with a starlike nucleus and a long, luminous tail. Its radiance was intensified by the dark sky and the surrounding stars. We were all in awe, crowded near our mother, leaning against the railing.

A moment later my mother’s joy seemed to fade—even a child could feel it. She told us of an old folk superstition: When the tail of the comet pointed to a particular place, Cambodia would be drawn into war with that country. The word “war” diluted the aura of excitement, even with me, a child who didn’t have the slightest idea what the word meant. I sensed the fear in my mother and older siblings. I wondered what the word “country” meant, and what country the tail of the comet was pointing to.

In 1969 war comes, and I am only four.

Loud rumbling noises wake me. I fumble in the dark, trying to open the mosquito netting around my bed. I run in the dark toward the living room, searching for my mother and father. “Mak! Pa!” I scream with all my might, trying to compete with the raucous sounds.

From the living room, I hear my oldest sister, twelve-year-old Chea, screaming: “Mak! Pa! Yeakong chol srok Khmer! Yeakong chol srok Khmer!” The Viet Cong are invading Cambodia! Her voice is itself a blast of terror.

Chea’s hysterical warning makes me realize that the raging noise outside could be related to the word I had been wondering about: war. More than anything, I want to see my parents. Suddenly the light flips on, revealing my frightened sisters and brothers running around frantically, randomly—as disoriented as ants whose hill has been plowed under.

I see my mother clutching my baby sister, Avy, and my father standing at the wall where he has just turned on the light. I run to stand beside Mak. My father reaches out to hold Chea’s shoulders. He looks into her eyes and carefully says: “Achea, koon, take your brothers and sisters with you and hide in the bunker by the pond. Hunch and walk low, so you won’t get hit by bullets. Hurry, koon Pa [father’s child]!”

My brothers and sisters rush out the doorway, a small, traumatized herd of cattle. I clench my mother’s hand, and my body rattles with each echo of gunfire. Carrying Avy and holding on to me, Mak hurries toward the door. She can’t move quickly, for she is six months pregnant. Artillery explodes outside, and I scream and burst into tears. Mak shakes off my hand, then grabs onto it tightly.

“Pa vea!”* She shouts to my father, who is running from one window to the next, sticking his head out and listening. “What are you doing? You’ll get shot! Why aren’t you careful? Help me with the children!” Mak is scared, and her tone frightens me even more than the artillery roaring in the night air.

Pa shouts back, “I just want to know where the gunfire is coming from.”

Mak bends toward me. Her words come as hard and fast as an auctioneer’s: “Athy,* koon, wait for your father here. Mak takes Avy downstairs.” My heart races when