Across the Mekong River by Elaine Russell

I left the children with Auntie Nhia and walked with Pao on the well-worn path to town. I studied the smallest details of the forest--the ferns and climbing vines, and sweet-scented orchids. Starlings and jays with bright blue feathers sang to us in the branches. Big black beetles and yellow centipedes scurried through the dirt and under the humus of leaves and pine needles. The ebony trees dripped purple and white flowers that sometimes floated onto our path. So much beauty to leave behind.
    The sun had passed over the middle of the sky by the time we left the fores t and crossed the wide valley. We passed a field of newly sprouted corn, but not a single farmer was in sight. The heat was great. Dust rose from the ground with the slightest movement, filling my nose and coating my hair. Wispy clouds wavered across the sky with the unfulfilled promise of rain. At the edge of town a strange quiet blanketed the afternoon. The road, usually filled with children and villagers, remained empty. We came upon an abandoned suitcase, half-full with clothes. Farther on two blankets. A photograph of a young couple. Three spoons. A tin plate. All scattered along the roadside. Rows of wooden houses sat deserted. Gardens were picked bare and chicken cages left open. A loose pig wandered into a yard. A rooster crowed somewhere in the trees up the hill.
    It was a ghost village. Everyone had run away. I wanted to run as well. If only we had. But at that moment, a young Vietnamese soldier emerged from behind a hibiscus tree. He called out for us to stop.
    “ Ku Thi ,” he said, referring to Pao as little brother. He had a narrow, bird-like face. A rifle hung off his shoulder. “Do you live in Muang Cha?” He spoke in Lao with a heavy accent I could barely understand.
    “We walked from our village. Over there.” Pao pointed in the opposite direction from our home. “We are going to the market.”
    The soldier nodd ed. “You can join your comrades for a talk. I will walk with you.”
    “This is very interesting, I’m sure,” Pao said. “But we must get home to our children. It is a half-day walk.”
    The muscles ar ound the soldier’s eyes tensed. “No worry. You can stay a few hours and then return. Tomorrow bring the others from your village with you. Everyone must turn in their guns. We are all brothers now. No need to fight any more.”
    I thought at that moment we had no hope.
    The man led us down the deserted, dusty road into the town center. Maybe fifty people filled the main square and spilled into the side roads. Everyone was Hmong except for the three Chinese couples who owned stalls in the market. I recognized families we had known in Long Chieng and then Muang Cha. My cousin Bla and her husband squatted on the ground a short distance from us. The crowd remained silent. In every direction Pathet Lao and Vietnamese soldiers stood alert with their guns. Fear floated over the hot, stagnant air.
    A Hmong Pathet Lao soldier stepped up on a platform fashioned from wood crates turned upside down. His uniform showed no sign of rank. He was a short, skinny man with weathered skin the color of betel nuts, a farmer turned communist leader. He stood before a microphone and stuck his lower lip out as if thinking carefully of what to say.
    “Comrades,” he yelled into the microphone, setting off a screech that pierced my ears. “We are here to celebrate the great national democratic revolution, a new era of equality, peace, and freedom. You have been liberated from the yoke of American neocolonialism. The capitalist exploiters tried to steal the gold and silver off your backs, the poor workers. They are devils, I tell you, devils!” He took a deep breath. “Those who followed Vang Pao and the American blood-suckers were wrong. How could you be so stupid?” His voice vibrated over the loud speaker. Sweat dripped from his face and stained his shirt under the arms and down the front. The speech went on this way for more than an hour,