Lucky Child by Loung Ung Page B

their kindness and love, Chou cannot forget that she is merely their niece and not their daughter.
    “Che Chou, play!” Kung is holding her sister’s hand and staring up at Chou.
    “No, I have a lot of work to do. You watch after Mouy while I go make our food.” Kung leads Mouy and together they toddle away to sit on the straw mat under the tree.
    Leaving them to play with the fallen leaves and old sarongs, Chou goes a few feet from the hut, to where three large stones are placed around a small hole in the ground. She breaks a few handfuls of dry branches, crumples some leaves, and places them inside the hole. She lights a match and burns the dry leaves and branches into a fire before adding the bigger pieces of wood. She then places a pot of water on top of the stones to boil. While the water heats up, Chou walks into the hut and reaches under their plank bed to measure three twelve-ounce cans of barley into a plastic container. She fills the container with water and stirs it with her hands, forcing all the ants and bugs to float to the top. She pours out the water and bugs before taking the barley back to the fire, and then dumps the barley in the pot. Because barley takes longer to cook, Chou waits for thirty minutes before going through the same process with the rice.
    When the rice and barley have turned into a thick gruel, Chou takes the pot off the fire to cool down. She places another big pot of water to boil while she chops stocks of bok choy, turnips, mushrooms, and other vegetables and tosses them into the pot. She then adds a few spoonfuls of salt and sugar, and a pinch of MSG to bring more flavor to their soup. In all, six cans of grains, some vegetables, and hopefully a few fish Cheung will bring home are all Chou has to feed their family of thirteen. It is getting harder and harder to grow the vegetables and to harvest rice, so she has to carefully ration their meals. While she adds more wood to the fire, her eyes shift constantly between the pot and the children. Gazing atKung, Chou is reminded of Geak, whose laughter and giggles seem to echo from the mouths of these new babies.
    “Please gods,” Chou prays under her breath, “wherever Geak is, do not let her suffer.” Chou still believes in the gods’ and spirits’ ability to help and watch over people. She also prays because everyone she knows prays. And although Pa was a monk as a child, and the family is Buddhist, Chou does not know what sect of Buddhism she was born to, and she has never read any Buddhist texts. And yet, throughout the year, she will pray to the god of harvest, full moon, river, sun, fields, land, and protection. She does not know the differences between each god but prays to them all and hopes that they will grant her good karma for her next reincarnation. She also feels closer to Pa when she prays.
    “She was a good sister and daughter. Please gods, let her be reincarnated as a beautiful, rich girl in another country,” Chou pleads with the gods. “And, please gods, protect my eldest brother, Meng, and Loung, wherever they are, and keep Khouy and Kim safe from harm.”
    With Loung gone, Chou is now closest to Kim. Even though Loung is no longer there, when Chou talks about the war, it is always with stories of the three of them together. During the Khmer Rouge time, they were together when the soldiers sent Meng, Khouy, and Keav to work camps, and when soldiers came for Pa. When the Vietnamese invaded the country, they were together and helped one another survive. And now that there are only the two of them, Chou and Kim look out for each other.
    When the soup is cooked, Chou pokes at the red embers and hopes that cousin Cheung will be home with fish before they completely burn out. Chou piles the wood neatly beside the house, washes the pots and pans left by the others, takes the laundry off the line, and sweeps the floor. As time creeps slowly forward, making her shadow grow longer and longer, Chou begins to worry about