I got permission from several World Literature students to publish their memoirs here. Each memoir combines a story about an adult's influence on the student's life with a story about the adult's own experiences, based on an interview. I found them an intriguing glimpse into my students' lives and histories - I hope you enjoy them too.
Jenny is a Cambodian junior; her mother, Bora, is a Khmer Rouge survivor.
My Brother’s Keeper
Jenny
“I don’t understand
you,” her forehead bunches together, showing her disapproving lines. “You don’t
like your uncle.”
“What are you
talking about, Ma? Of course I do.”
“You think you can
judge him, because he isn’t normal. You think you can disrespect him, because
he is ill-minded.”
Finally I burst out
in vindictive anger at this wrong accusation. “I don’t disrespect him because
he’s mentally ill; I pity him. And
I’m sorry if you’re mistaking that for disrespect.”
Ma’s face contorts
in rage, but I continue. “And honestly, I don’t understand why you’re putting
all of this on the family. Ever since he came to live here, he’s been a
complete nuisance. And don’t you pretend for one instant that this is easy for
you either.”
She gives me a look
that silences me. “Life is full of sacrifices,” she replies softly, her voice
shaking. “And sacrifices are not easy.”
After this, Ma’s jaw clenches shut--her
infamous countenance that signifies the end of conversations--but I know that
there are still streams of thought coursing through her mind.
*************************
Bora
Forty years ago when I was barely past my late
teens--the Khmer Rouge came and took everything away from me. Pol Pot targeted
the educated, the literate, the intelligent. They were annihilated without
mercy because anybody who had a mind of their own meant they had the capacity
to rebel. My father was a policeman, so he was killed. That left me alone with
my five siblings, for my mother had already died when I was just a little kid.
We were then split into age groups. Apart from my youngest brother, I never saw
any of my siblings again.
I remember one particular night when I was
lying down in my designated spot in the small hut, feverish and stupefied with
hunger. Whispers wrenched me out of my dreams and I woke up with a start,
drenching with sweat.
“Sister...sister,
wake up,” whispered a voice. I peered out into the pitch black darkness.
The luminescent
moon gleamed against the dark hue of the night sky, producing the silhouette of
a ten year old boy, shaking in the cold of the night.
“Rith?” I gasped at my brother. “What are you
doing here? They will kill you if they find you!” My malnutrition had depleted
all the energy left in my arms and legs, but I managed to inch my way towards
the shadow.
Instead of replying, my brother brought forth a
raw potato barely the size of his fist. “Take it. Eat it.” He said in a low
tone.
I stuttered. “But--”
My brother’s eyes darted anxiously, then
pleaded me with his eyes for me to eat. Quietly, I submitted.
To admit to hunger was like walking into that
infamous abyss yourself. Too often did I hear the phrase “If you are hungry,
the Angkar will take you and stuff you with food,” from the authorities that
followed Big Brother--the nameless omnipotent power in charge of the
organization. To be stuffed with food meant that you would become a corpse that
would fertilize the rice fields. That might be an improvement, because we spent
more than twelve hours a day on that same field, toiling till there was no more
breath in us.
After I was done eating my half, I handed the
remaining portion to my brother.
“No, I have already eaten,” he explained,
shaking his head, and that was when I noticed the wet liquid, trickling from
the side of my brother’s head. Tentatively, I reached my hands and touched the
blood.
“You shouldn’t have...You shouldn’t...” I shook
in silent tears. Stealing was an unforgivable crime. It expressed
dissatisfaction to the way things were run, and proved you to be a breacher of
trust, a betrayer to the gracious Benefactor.
“And watch you die?” There was a slight edge to
his tone, but it disappeared just as fast as it came. “I’ve seen too much of
that.” He stepped off from the platform and landed with a soft thud on the
soil.
“What hit you?” I whispered.
“It doesn’t matter. I got away.”
I insisted, my voice weak and scorched.
He turned around to face me. “A hatchet.”
I watched his retreating form, then he rounded
the corner, and I could see no more of him.
*************************
“I’m sure he probably just crashed at a
friend’s house or something,” I suggest, not even bothering to keep the
exasperation out of my tone. “You’re too paranoid, Ma.”
My uncle, Rith is missing again, and my mother is freaking out again. There have been way too many scenarios the past few months,
especially ever since my uncle came to live with us, so I had learnt to dismiss
her fears. After all, it is easy to disregard my uncle’s disappearances as it
is a norm. Despite our constant reassurance, my mother believes that my uncle
is in mortal peril.
“Something’s wrong,” she keeps repeating. “I
can feel it in my bones.”
Finally at 8 o’clock, she declares to no one in
particular that she is going out to find my uncle. Knowing the way my mom’s
mind functions, I should have seen it coming; there is neither an element of
surprise nor desire to restrain when a persistent woman like your mother
decides to lead a search party at the dead of night.
*************************
I had to find him.
The memories of our past lingered in the depths of my minds, leaving me shaking
in anticipation and fear. When my life hung precariously on a single strand of
thread that night during the war, Rith had taken all the loose strands and
weaved life into them. He had not left me to my dreary fate then, and now I was
more than compelled to do the same: to find him again and grasp him with my
fingers in gratitude and solace.
It was pouring rain
outside, and the sky seemed to be displaying the wrath of an omnipotent being.
The dark expanse was split by thin cracks of a purple hue, and my heart pounded
at every strike of lightning, every monstrous ringing of thunder that
threatened to swallow me whole. I shuddered at the darkness encapsulating me,
limiting my abilities to see all the lurking shadows that spoke of imminent
danger. I kept telling myself that there was nothing to fear, that I’ve gone
through the worst, and yet...
There he was, lying
half on the street, his shirt ripped carelessly from his thin bony frame, his
bent head wasted and slack. The evidence left on that ominous sidewalk was
enough to prove the scene to be a hit and run. Blood was pouring down his face
and limbs, and for a fleeting second I closed my eyes and tried to imagine them
to be merely the raindrops that hit the pavement and gave everything a
glistening effect, as if all was well in the world.
But reality gripped me, transporting me back to
the moment when he had saved my life, and now it was my turn to act.
“Rith!”
He raised his head, revealing dark sunken eyes.
“Sister,” he whispered.
And there I took him, a fragile bird with
broken wings, with all the potential to fly, but was limited by
nearsightedness, quenched by a hopeless desire to be found by a higher being
that could restore and set free. I knew I was not to be that person; I hadn’t
the power. But I had to try to save him, even if my efforts proved futile. He
was well locked away in his own deteriorating mind, but I needed to reach out
as far as my strength would let me, reach out and grab whatever piece of him I
could, before it disappeared back into the fictional world in which his mind
lived.
*************************
Jenny
My mother and I are sitting quite far from each
other. She is facing the clock that tells us the time; it is two o’clock in the
afternoon. I watch as she sits, stiff; her eyes are transfixed by the hand of
the clock that is ticking away the seconds and minutes. Her mannerism towards
the clock is perplexing: it is as if she is expecting the clock to give out
some sort of confirmation or closure.
My mother caved in to my uncle Rith’s plea to
go back to his village four months prior. It took a lot for my mother to give
her consent: she possesses an innate nature to care and protect, to never let
anyone escape from her watchful gaze. But now she has been told that her
brother is missing.
The phone my mother had put by her side starts
to ring. For a second we look at each other; the same phone delivered terrible
news three hours earlier and we are thinking one thing only: it could only get
worse.
“Did you find him?” I hear my mother ask. There
is a pause as my mother listens. I am having difficulty piecing together the
conversation.
Finally, my mother replies, “How did they find him?”
So they found
him, I think, as relief flows through me, but the
next thing my mother says knocks the breath out of me.
“Where was the body?”
I turn to stare at her in shocked disbelief. Although
my worst fears have been confirmed, it is her calm tone that unravels me.
I watch her as she hangs up the phone. Then she
turns to me, and in that moment, I recognize pain in its purest forms,
disguised as the creases on her face.
I search my brain to say something, but in the
end resort to a shaky exhale.
My mom merely turns to face the clock again,
although there is no reason to; there is no need for waiting, only accepting.
