World and Town (18 page)

Now Sophy’s dad and mom have Sarun and three girls and a baby too, he is so cute! But Sophy’s dad is, like, ashamed he had children with Sophy’s mom, and that’s why he’s so strict, besides the fact that Cambodians are just strict. So that if anyone does anything wrong, he doesn’t just say you were wrong. Instead he says,
You should be ashamed to have been born. You should be ashamed. Why were you born? Why?
And then they’ll say it too.
We’re sorry we were born. There’s no reason for us to live. We’re sorry we were born. We’re sorry
. Especially Sarun will say it, but Sophy will say it too sometimes, and Sopheap, and Sophan.
We’re sorry. There is no reason for us to live. We’re sorry
. And mostly that’s that, though every once in a while he’ll look at them and say,
To destroy you is no loss
, the way they did in Pol Pot time. Because that’s the way he talks when he’s drunk. It’s, like,
destroy
this and
destroy
that. Like if he wanted to kill somebody, he wouldn’t say that, he wouldn’t say, I want to kill you. He’d say,
I want to destroy you
, and he’d mean it.

W
hich sounds pretty bad but the funny thing is that, back in their old town, Sophy’s sisters and her were happy. Like they all slept together, the three of them in two beds pushed together, and even though there was a crack in the middle, they didn’t care. They had an agreement that whoever slept on the crack could have the biggest poster to put up, and so it was always Sophan who slept there, because she just loved that
Titanic
movie! Sophy liked Britney Spears and Sopheap liked Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, but Sophan’s thing for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was different, because she thought Jack and Rose were, like, perfect! And Sophy knew what she meant in a way, because Sophy could hear their voices too sometimes. Like she could hear Jack say,
Never let go
, and she could hear Rose say,
Put your hands on me, Jack
, and she could hear him say,
Make every day count
. She could. She wasn’t as bad as Sophan, though, who so wanted Jack and Rose to get together in their next life that she was, like, burning incense for them all the time. She didn’t care that she had to do it at home, on their chest of drawers, because of the monks all fighting at the temple, some of them controlling the upstairs and some of them controlling the downstairs, you couldn’t walk in the door without being on one side or the other. Pretty soon the whole top of the bureau was basically an altar to Jack and Rose, with oranges and incense and plastic flowers and swans and stuff, sort of like what their mom liked to put all over the TV, only with this giant
Titanic
poster above it. Sophy had just this little Britney Spears poster and Sopheap’s poster of Tiffani-Amber Thiessen was even smaller, but that was okay. They actually all liked the Jack and Rose altar, arranged so neat and beautiful, not like their room in general, which was a mess! It really was. Not that they cared, in fact they loved the whole mixed-up scene, and would take pictures of themselves wearing their own clothes and each other’s clothes and write down what people said about their outfits and how much it messed them up, though even without the clothes people would probably have mixed them up anyway. Because all three of them had, like, long hair, and they were almost the same height and almost the same age and their names were so much the same too. Like Sophy’s name is Sophy, and her younger sister is Sopheap, and of course, the youngest is Sophan the
Titanic
fan. It’s hard to explain to people, but that’s just what Cambodian families do, and their names all have meanings like “hardworking” and “polite” and “beautiful,” but that’s even harder to explain. Like your name means “beautiful”? Sophan always used to imitate the look on the black girls’ faces when she told them that. They were, like, “Whoa! Put down yo’ cell phone, and listen to this!” A lot of Cambodian kids have English names now like Linda and May, but their dad is old-fashioned because he wasn’t young when he came, he wasn’t like some kids’ parents, who were, like, twenty. He was, like, fifty or something and a lot more Cambodian. So Sophy and Sopheap and Sophan use their Khmer names unless somebody makes a mistake. Like if someone calls Sophy “Sophie” or “Sophia” instead of So-PEE, she just lets them, so what. She figures a lot of Cambodians don’t speak Khmer, why should they?

Anyway, the beds took up the whole room. You could not get into bed except by climbing in at the foot, and Sophy remembers how one day their social worker Carla said something about that to, like, this visitor. “They’re used to it,” she said, and Sophy remembers that because she had never heard Carla call them
they
before. And
used to
was what they were supposed to say about America and American food even though they were born here, the beds didn’t seem like a thing they were used to or not. It wasn’t until a lot later that she realized that what Carla meant was that it was something her friend would have to get used to, if she were to end up in their lives, somehow. That it was, like, Cambodian. But so what, Carla was still all right. Like when she called, she’d say, “Hey, my love,” like she was a kid instead of a grown-up, and she took them shopping and ate with them and corrected their grammar, and back when they were listening to all that hip-hop and rap, Carla was the one who told them it was bad to be ghetto and hooked them on TV shows like
Dawson’s Creek
and
Beverly Hills 90210
instead. Like she made them change their style. And the sad fact is, if Carla hadn’t gotten sick, they would probably still be in their bedroom singing “Wannabe.” If Carla hadn’t gotten sick, they would probably never have gotten in trouble the way they did. If Carla hadn’t gotten sick, they would probably still be doing the moves like Britney Spears and talking about how Sopheap could be a TV star like Tiffani-Amber Thiessen!

Even Sarun said it was too bad when Carla got sick, and Ronnie said it too. Like it was just some bad shit, he said.

B
ack when Sophy’s dad became a big deal engineer, he changed his name to Ratanak, which was fancier than his old name, which was Souen. He kept his family name, which of course in Cambodia goes first instead of last. That was Chhung. But he needed a first name that went with living in the city, and so he changed it, and only went back to being Souen when he went to go live in the village with his brother after the Khmer Rouge came and made everyone leave Phnom Penh. And then it was lucky he had changed his name and changed it back, because it helped hide him. But even now Sophy’s mom calls him Souen instead of Ratanak sometimes, and that makes him mad. She doesn’t want to make him mad, but she can’t make city names come out of her mouth—they’re, like, too long. Country names are easier to say, like her own name, Mum.

Sophy’s mom wasn’t good with her mouth, but she was good with her hands. Like in Cambodia, she was good at everything from planting seedlings to scraping off leeches to picking out head lice to sewing, and here she was good too, no one could put eyes on a stuffed animal faster than she could. But she wasn’t loud like some of the other women, full of talk and opinions. She was quiet even in Khmer, and could not learn English, because that was something you did with your mouth. Or that’s what she said. Sophy’s dad said she just liked to act
ting moung
, like she did during Pol Pot time, like she couldn’t hear or think anything, like she was some kind of dummy. He would sing her this song they used to sing in Cambodia that went “
You know you must plant trees / To do well you must plant l’ngo and kor,
” which was kind of a trick song because
l’ngo
means “sesame” but sounds like “stupid,” and
kor
means “kapok tree” but sounds like “mute,” so that the song used to mean you’d better be stupid and mute if you want to keep out of trouble with
Angka
. Now it was just a way of making fun of Sophy’s mom.

But back in their old town, her mom said if she was
ting moung
it was thanks to that woman living next door who went around with barely any clothes on, because guess who looked. And that was bad. But the funny thing was that the lace bra didn’t even bother Sophy’s mom as much as the fact that that woman could read and write and speak English. She had a job in the high school that kept her away some of the time, but she had all these holidays Sophy’s mom didn’t have, and when her mom was away, the woman was busy not only making eyes at Sophy’s dad but trying to steal Gift. Like she was always giving him sweets and stuff.

“
She thinks Gift recognizes her,
” Sophy’s mom said. “
And she thinks she knows him, too. She thinks she’s his
m’day daem.”

M’day daem
meant his former mother, from another life.

“
Do you think she maybe is?
” Sophy asked.

“
No!
” her mom said.

But she worried anyway. She worried the neighbor might get a
kru
to do voodoo on Gift, and she worried in general about losing her kids, because she’d lost her sons before, and because that was just what Sophy’s mom worried about. Like she worried the kids would leave, like they weren’t really hers, but just borrowed or something. Sophan always joked that there was no one with an easier life than the old women hanging around the temple, because people like their mom gave them so much food and money. “
I give because that woman has no one to take care of her,
” their mom would say. “
Look at her. All alone. No one to take care of her in her old age. No children. Look at her.
”

And once Sophan said, “
Look at her. Look at her,
” too, imitating their mom.

But Sopheap who thought more about stuff, like she’d been a teacher in her former life or something, said, “It’s the ghosts of our brothers that make her like that,” and then Sophan stopped and felt bad.

B
efore the monks started fighting, Sophy’s mom went to the temple all the time. And her mom is still Buddhist now, like she doesn’t believe in killing bugs or going fishing or anything, Buddhism is very strict. But instead of giving oranges and rice and
amok
to the fighting monks, now she sends money to this other monk, who sends it to Cambodia, or at least that’s what he says. Of course, being American, Sophy and her sisters don’t care about karma that much, which their mom wishes they would but says is okay. Because while she thinks it is better to die than to give up the teachings of the Buddha, she also thinks kids don’t have deep thoughts yet—like they don’t know themselves yet. Knowing yourself—
dung khluon aeng
—being this big deal to her. She thinks that they’ll turn more Buddhist when they are, like, thirty or fifty, and know what life is. And in the meantime she’s trying to build up her own karma, because in her next life, she definitely does not want to live when pretty much everybody else in her family is dead, in her next life she wants to die with them or, better yet, be one of the first ones to go. Because how lucky her father was, that he got killed right away and didn’t have to watch a single other person get killed or beaten or starved, while here she’s still seeing it and hearing it in her dreams. Like it never ends. “
Kit ch’ran,
” Sophy’s dad says—she thinks too much. As if he doesn’t? In their old town, Sophie’s mom went to the
kru
sometimes and got medicine, but it didn’t help. She still dreamed about having to drink cow piss, or walk over dead bodies, or sleep with dead bodies. Or about being covered with flies, or suffocating in the mud, or about ghosts.
K’maoch
who promise her food to eat, when actually they’re going to eat her.
K’maoch
who want to be buried, but then pull her into the grave with them. Or baby
k’maoch
who want her to feed them but then grow up into giants that crush her. She had three children before, in Cambodia, by Sophy’s uncle, but they all starved.

That was bad.

Now Sophy’s mom has a new baby she is so happy about. She named him Gift because he is like her boys come back to her, a gift. But she still sits up at night a lot, afraid to go to sleep, because of the
k’maoch
and because she thinks Gift’s mother from his last life really might come get him, that’s why she puts scissors under his pillow, to scare that other mother away. How does she know Gift’s
m’day daem
is afraid of being cut, Sophy says, but her mom says she just knows. She tries to make sure he never cries, because that might worry his
m’day daem
and make her come, and she keeps a light on too, because his
m’day daem
doesn’t like light. And who knows if she’s right or wrong, all Sophy knows is, it’s not like sleeping with her sisters. There are two bedrooms in the trailer, so Sarun and her dad sleep in one, and her mom and Gift and Sophy sleep in the other. And Sarun and her dad have their own mattresses, but her mom and Gift and Sophy have one big mattress that they use sideways, which is okay because they’re all small and fit fine. Mostly, though, Sophy lies down while her mom sits propped up against her wall, holding Gift all night, which he really likes and is fine with Sophy, except when her mom does finally fall asleep herself. Because then Gift rolls off her lap and starts crying, and that wakes everyone up. Sophy tries to sleep facing her wall, because noise coming from in back of you isn’t as loud as noise coming from in front, and she blindfolds her eyes with a knee sock to block out the light, but lets her mom put her feet under her, if she wants, because her mom’s feet get so cold. Her mom’s hands get cold too, if she’s not holding Gift, and sometimes she sweats and shakes and gets dizzy or
pibak chet nah
—like, just gets really, deeply sad. Her sadness is hidden inside, so you can’t really see it, except that it kind of shrinks her up and sucks her into it, kind of like a
k’maoch
, which is messed up, seeing as how she’s so tiny and skinny to begin with, like the kids are all two sizes bigger than her at least. Not that they’re so tall, but they’re definitely full-size people, while their mom looks like maybe she is or maybe she isn’t.