The Language Inside (15 page)

and Sam says
yeah, it can be

some days I help them with English

things they don’t know how to say to aides or nurses

most days Lok Ta Chea can’t get out of bed

he can barely see and his feet are swollen

Lok Ta Leap is the one I work with more

and it’s mostly his memories

of his village and his parents

and the temple he lived at

and the work he did later

and how he made it through Pol Pot times

and stories of his grandparents

and sometimes ghosts who do things

like break someone’s neck

because the person did something bad

Sam is then silent

ghosts, I’m thinking from the backseat

and I’m reminded of a story that Shin once told

on a school trip to Kyoto

the story Shin told us in the dark when he and Kenji
snuck into our room

was about students sleeping on the second floor of the inn

where our class was staying and how one student woke up

and saw a figure walking back and forth

past the room’s window

at first the student didn’t think anything of it
and fell back asleep

but he woke again and saw the figure still going back and forth

so he thought someone was on the path outside the window

but then he remembered there was no path outside the window

so he thought someone was on the balcony outside the window

but then he remembered there was no balcony outside the window

and they were on the second floor

the student woke the others

who didn’t see any figure

so the next night when it appeared again

he went outside to check

but never came back

now at the inn they say that sometimes guests

see the shadowy forms of two figures

walking back and forth

outside the windows

and if you go outside to check, who knows

maybe soon, there’ll be three

I remember Shin sitting near me

and I start to think about him

and what he said on the seawall

and how I shouldn’t have

called him
baka

then to stop myself from thinking of Shin

I tell that ghost story

to Sam and Chris

Sam and Chris laugh when I finish

Chris says
good one!

and suddenly we’re at YiaYia’s house

much sooner than I expected

and I feel like a fool for babbling

not asking more about Leap Sok and Chea Pen

at least I remember

to ask for Sam’s cell-phone number

before getting out of the car

they back down the driveway

Sam rolls down his window

you sleep up there?

pointing to YiaYia’s second story

I nod

he says
watch out!

and I laugh

the next day after school

I recall the bit Sam said

about the refugee camp in Thailand

and something about Cambodia and Vietnam

so I search on the Web

and read about

the killing fields

and how over a million Cambodians were killed

from 1975 to 1979

by execution and torture

by Cambodians led by Pol Pot

and how a million more died

of starvation and malnutrition

brought on by policies of forced labor

families uprooted

separated

moved around the country

digging ditches, building roads

cultivating crops with crude tools

made to toil and grow food

as they starved

educated city dwellers

teachers

doctors

artists

dancers

were all targets

you had to pretend to be a peasant

to have always been a farmer

to act illiterate

to keep silent

to hope

to survive

I learn that the Vietnamese invaded

and drove Pol Pot out of power

but there was famine and still more fighting

I learn that people fled to Thailand

lived in border camps

and eventually the lucky ones

were sent on to third countries

like the U.S.

I learn that Massachusetts took in refugees

I learn that Lowell is nearly

one-third Cambodian

I learn that Cambodians speak Khmer

and Khmer is pronounced
Khmai

when it means the language

and I realize that Sam Nang must be

at least part Cambodian

and now I have a hundred questions

I want to ask him

a couple days later my mother borrows the DVD

The Killing Fields
from the library

and one night after Toby and YiaYia

have gone to bed we keep the volume low

and she and I stay up and watch

the harrowing true story of Dith Pran

how he wasn’t allowed to leave

how he tried to escape

and then was made a slave

laboring in the mud

how he survived by a mix

of luck and sharp wits

I almost wish we hadn’t watched

it’s so grim

and long past the end

and the haunting music

even after we have ejected the DVD

we sit there stunned

finally Mom says

well, I guess I can’t feel sorry for myself

can I?