Tiger Girl (14 page)

Paul froze, standing at attention. He stared out the glass door, watching as Uncle stepped out of his car and made his way across the lot. He opened and shut his mouth without saying anything.

Uncle rushed in the front door, his eyes wide. He stood before Paul. I scanned their faces. Both men looked startled, as though they had caught their reflections in a fun-house mirror and weren't sure what they were looking at.

Paul stepped forward, standing before Uncle, then stopped, suddenly panicking, and searched his pockets frantically. He
unfolded the newspaper clipping and held it out to Uncle as though Uncle might not have seen it. “I saw this picture. I recognized you. They don't have your real name, but I knew it was you.” He stopped. He swallowed and straightened his shoulders. He ran a hand over his hair. Then he said quickly, reciting from memory the same speech he'd said before, “I am looking for my father. His Khmer name is Chhouen Suoheng. I am the oldest son, Chhouen Ponleu.”

Uncle let out a low moan.

“He married my mother, Chhang Sopheam, in Phnom Penh—.”

Uncle's mouth dropped open as though he were going to howl, or maybe as though he were already howling silently. His eyes filled with tears. He stepped forward and grabbed Paul, clutched him to his chest. “My son! My son! It's you!”

Paul closed his eyes and held Uncle's shoulders.

Uncle was crying openly now. “Your mother—all these years she looked for you. She refused to give up. She wrote to the Red Cross. She wrote to Refugee Services. She wrote to churches and schools. We drove up and down the state . . .”

Uncle couldn't continue. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

Paul's face crumpled like a child's, folded in upon itself as though he were made of paper. He folded his broad shoulders inward and put his arm up around the side of his head, a child's gesture, as though he could make himself suddenly invisible, as though he could hide himself from all our eyes while we stared at him and watched him cry.

Then, at last, I had to turn away. It felt obscene to be watching a scene so intimate. To see two men crying, their tears running down their faces. I fell against the counter top, hid my face on my arm, and cried despite myself, felt the hot tears pouring from my eyes against my skin. I should have been happy,
I should have been relieved, but I suddenly felt overwhelming grief that Auntie had not lived to see this moment, this homecoming. It would have meant the world to her. A sign that some god had finally taken pity on her after all her suffering. Surely it would have been enough to keep her alive. But this homecoming had come too late.

Uncle insisted we close up the shop immediately. He said we should celebrate, although we were all crying. I washed my face in the bathroom sink and tried to smooth down my hair. We drove over to a Chinese restaurant that Uncle liked, where he said he knew the owners, and when we walked in, the waitress stared and turned, then stared again. I knew we all looked like we'd just been in some kind of car wreck. Anita and I were in our work clothes, I had flour on my T-shirt, Anita's nose was red from blowing it, and Uncle and Paul's eyes were swollen. Uncle was smiling now, but in an eerie, detached kind of way, as though he'd just walked out of a rollover and was in shock, surprised to be alive and able to move all his limbs.

It was an old-fashioned diner. The menu still offered chop suey and egg foo young, as well as hamburgers and something called “Oriental Fries.”

“This place is a dinosaur,” Anita said, “Only the old-timers come around anymore. And they're one of the few places that still allow smoking.” She pulled out her pack.

I wasn't hungry, but it didn't matter. We weren't here for the food, but to have someplace to celebrate, though I didn't feel like celebrating either. I felt numb.

Uncle smiled and ordered for everyone, picking dishes as though choosing from an elaborate banquet menu.

As we waited for the food, Uncle gradually grew more animated, as though he were awakening from a long sleep. He beamed and touched Paul's arm as though to make sure he was solid, not a dream. They spoke rapidly in Khmer, too fast for me to join in, describing things I couldn't imagine.

“Do you remember the Chinese restaurant we used to go to when you were young?”

“Every Sunday we had a banquet. I never knew how many people you'd invite—”

“You always had a friend or two from school.” Uncle laughed.

“We had fresh steamed crab, stir-fried eels with black-bean sauce, clay-pot chicken with fungus. The rice was so soft and white, like pearls. And you always ordered a fish. You'd fight with your friends, turning it back and forth—”

“The head must point to the most honored guest—”

“You plucked the eyes out with your chopsticks and gave them away. It was a sign of respect, giving away the best parts of the fish.”

“What a good memory you have! I'd forgotten that.”

“After dinner on the drive home, you once took me and my friends to a French café just to have ice cream. Chocolate. With a long, round, crisp biscuit with a hole in the center.”

“You can remember all that?” Uncle was delighted. At last, someone to share his nostalgia, someone who could remember the prosperous life he'd left behind and lost forever.

“But I don't remember my cousin.” Paul pointed his chin at me. “I don't remember your real name,” he said to me, unapologetically. “But I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw you. You look like my mother.”

Uncle shook his head then, hard. He wiped his hands over his eyes. “I have something to tell you.”

I waited. My whole body tense. The smells from the kitchen too strong, too oily, making me want to choke. Anita's
cigarette smoke curdled in the air around us. The hairs on my arms stood up, the skin on the back of my neck goosepimpled.

“Your mother was waiting for you. She was very ill, but she was trying to stay alive for you. She wanted to see you again so very much.”

Paul nodded, listening intensely.

“She tried to find you everywhere. But no use. The Red Cross couldn't find you, we didn't know where you might be. She was very brave, but she'd been injured in a minefield. Some of her wounds never healed.” Uncle's voice cracked, and he looked away, wiping his eyes, and we all pretended he wasn't crying in front of us. “I made sure she was buried properly. She no longer believed in such things, but I paid monks to pray for her soul. I paid for the temple to hold the ceremony to guide her soul to the other side. I didn't want people to think I did not respect my wife.” Uncle bowed his head and looked away. “If I had known what Pol Pot was planning, if I had known that leaving would cause my family harm, I would not have left you. But after Lon Nol took over, everyone grew paranoid. There was a civil war in the country. You were too young to know about this, but I was accused of being a spy. I didn't even know who I was supposed to be spying for. Some people said I was a spy for Sihanouk. Some people said I was a spy for the CIA. A man came to the house and threatened to do something terrible if I didn't turn myself in. In the beginning, I thought it was ridiculous. Just empty threats to intimidate me.

“One day some of Lon Nol's soldiers came to the house and put a gun to my head. Your mother was very brave. She shouted at the soldiers, ‘Go ahead! Shoot him! If he's a spy, I want nothing to do with him!' And they let me go. Maybe it was only a game to intimidate me. Maybe they only wanted money. But other men were killed that day. Colleagues. Everyone was very paranoid. There were real spies in the government, some for the CIA, some for Sihanouk, some for the Vietnamese, maybe
even some for Pol Pot. No one knew whom to trust. Even our allies, the Americans, had bombed us. Fourteen months under Sihanouk. Maybe you remember the refugees from the villages pouring into Phnom Penh. Shanty towns sprang up. There were beggars, children and women, so poor and pitiful. Gangs of thieves roamed the streets. Soldiers from rival factions hid among the survivors and fought each other, throwing hand grenades at cyclo drivers, into theaters, in front of restaurants.

“I tried to keep you safe. I hired a driver to take you to elementary school. It was no longer safe for ordinary people to walk or ride in
tuk-tuk
s or cyclos. Your mother was ill. She couldn't watch you, a growing boy. You were so clever—you didn't want to stay inside all day. You found ways to escape the house. I used to beat you, I was so afraid you'd be hurt, but it was no use. What does a little boy know?

“When the Americans' ally, Lon Nol, overthrew Sihanouk and proclaimed himself head of state, we thought the bombings would stop. Lon Nol was Sino-Khmer. He reached out to the Chinese business community. He said he wanted to stop the war, make Cambodia strong and prosperous again. That's why I agreed to work for him. I didn't like him, but we were all looking for a solution. But the American bombings didn't stop. The Americans sent ground troops. Lon Nol did not object. We thought he must be mad. But what did he know? The Americans were fighting the Communists in Vietnam, but they accused Cambodia of harboring the Viet Cong. They bombed the border, trying to keep the Vietnamese out. The Americans sent troops into the mountains. But the Communists were strong, too. The Soviet Union and China gave them weapons and money. The Americans said Lon Nol was corrupt. He took their aid money and didn't pay his troops. It's true. He didn't. But we were a small country, and we were like grass trapped beneath warring elephants.

“After the soldiers came to the house and threatened to shoot me in front of your mother, I realized I was putting the whole family in danger. If I didn't leave, they would come again and again. What if they shot the children? I thought. Your mother agreed. I would leave, and she would denounce me publicly as a coward who had abandoned the family. Then, after I had established myself abroad, I would send for you all. Your youngest brother was only a year old. We didn't think it was safe for the family to travel. Not with so young an infant. I thought it would be safer for your mother to stay in Phnom Penh. Her family could help her with the children. I would leave all the money with her. I figured no matter how bad things got in the countryside, Phnom Penh would be safe. The Americans would not let the capital fall. That's how we all thought in those days.

“First I went to Malaysia and worked for a Chinese businessman. My father's family had made its fortune in the pepper trade, and I thought I could be a liaison for him with foreign trading companies that we had worked with. I went in the fall of 1974 and tried to establish myself in business. I sent letters to your mother. Not directly, in case she was being watched. But I sent them to friends to let her know I was okay, and that I would call for her soon. She wrote to me, sending the letters through a third party. But then, in April 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took the capital, suddenly there was no word from Phnom Penh. It was like the whole country had disappeared off the earth. I could not send a telegram. I could not call. I could not reach your mother. From the few accounts from Western journalists still in the capital, I knew something terrible was happening. I tried to buy a ticket to return immediately, but I could not find a flight going in. Then my bank accounts were frozen. I had no money. I wrote to friends in Thailand, in Hong Kong, but no one knew how to reach you.

“When it became clear to the world that something had gone terribly wrong in Cambodia, I was able to come as a refugee to America. I still had some business ties. But for four years, I heard nothing. I could not find my family. I could not find you. Then, after the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1978, more information began to pour out into the world. I found your mother through the Red Cross. I was living in Texas by this time. I was able to sponsor her to America. But it was too late! She told me what she had had to endure. She told me how she had to watch our children die.

“She should have hated me. She should have blamed me. What kind of man am I? A man who cannot protect his family! A man who leaves his family! But she blamed herself!”

Uncle was crying without tears. His face was contorted by grief, a mask of his former face. His body shook and he put his hands in front of his eyes.

Anita touched his arm, and eventually his breathing steadied.

“I wish I could have seen
Mai
again,” Paul said simply. His voice was quiet, seemingly calm, but I could see the veins on his neck throbbing from the beat of his heart.

The food on the table congealed on the platters around us. None of us had any appetite at all.

After Uncle regained his composure and was able to drink a full cup of hot tea, Paul decided to tell us a story. I thought he'd start with how he came to be in America, his sponsors, how he'd been living all these years, but no, he wanted to tell us about something he remembered from back when he was a rich kid with too much time on his hands.

“Do you remember I captured a baby white crocodile? Everyone was talking about the ghost crocodile in those days. It was a bad sign, a magic beast. The servants were so afraid,
but you told them not to worry. It was just a superstition, just a story. It couldn't really hurt us.”

“I'd forgotten. You caught something. Some kind of animal. Your mother was upset about some animal. I don't remember.”

“It was a baby white crocodile. Just like the story,” Paul insisted.

He described how he and his friends had overheard the servants talking about the rumors of this giant beast swimming into the city via the Mekong, escaping the river and climbing the banks near a rubber factory. It was living in the slums around Phnom Penh, hiding in the shanties that had sprung up after the peasants started moving from the countryside, trying to escape the Americans' bombing raids on the northeastern border. Entire villages were being built from the bits and pieces of garbage that the city people had thrown away, the scraps of tin and the bricks they could steal here and there. The boys had been warned to stay away from the shanties; it was dangerous, there were soldiers hiding there, spies, thieves. But my brother had heard about the crocodile and now he wanted to see for himself.