* * *
—
Mu Naw could not really explain the fact that she was still pregnant to herself—she did not want to bring another child into the world, another mouth to feed, more bills to pay, the spiking nausea that only grew worse. She did not want to give birth in this new country. And yet she could not bring herself to call the number the nurse at the health care clinic had given her. She knew that waiting only made things more complicated. It was a conundrum she endured only by withdrawing further into herself.
The inescapable isolation that she had worried about now seemed inviting, the cold emptiness of it comforting. Alone, she did not have to wonder what the women around her would think if they knew she wanted to end her pregnancy. She could return to what had been familiar to her for most of her life—shameful daughter of a shameful mother, somehow marked by choice or birth or skin color or place in the world as less than the others around her. She could accept that; in fact, as her feelings seemed more and more out of her control, she embraced that shame and the release of detachment. She had no control of the world around her, of the inexorable forces of apartment managers and bureaucratic papers and language differences. She couldn’t even control her own body. She couldn’t help anyone. She couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t help her children. Who was she to think she could? Better to drift alone, lost, empty. It was the fate she had been moving toward since the minute her mother let go of her at the age of eleven.
* * *
—
After she returned with her great-grandmother and great-aunt to her parents’ home village in Myanmar, she lived there for a year; her great-grandmother died not long after the journey. Word came from another relative—Mu Naw’s father had a cousin in a village a few hours away willing to take Mu Naw; her sister and brother were shipped off somewhere else. No one mentioned Mu Naw’s mother.
Mu Naw went to live with her father’s cousin—also called “grandmother” in Karen—in a rural part of northern Karen state. From the first day, she was cruel to Mu Naw. Mu Naw was beaten with a bamboo branch for the smallest infraction. The years she spent in the home of this grandmother were hopeless, full of grueling work and endless repetitions of her worthlessness.
All around them was the grinding tension of war. People fled like furtive deer past Mu Naw while she was working in the fields. One woman told Mu Naw that she hid underneath the bushes and watched soldiers rape all of the women from her village. Mu Naw picked out hiding spots in every place she went; she held herself tensely every time she saw soldiers—Karen or Burmese, militia or military, they all frightened her.
One day, about three years after she arrived there, Mu Naw unexpectedly ran into a friend of her mother’s in the tiny village near this grandmother’s home. They greeted each other the way that many Karen people did in those days—surprise at finding each other here, relief that they remained alive. As they were catching up, the friend mentioned that her mother was living in Mae La camp.
After years of wondering, Mu Naw’s face flushed with an intense relief. She was glad, later, that she had felt that way; it was evidence to her in the years to come that she had loved her mother underneath it all. There were rumors that the war was coming to this region of the country again and those rumors had been reliable in the past—many of the people around her were beginning to pack up their things. Her mother’s friend told Mu Naw she was crossing the border into Thailand and Mu Naw asked to go along.
Mu Naw sold the gold earring her mother had given her to cover her part of the expenses. She left without telling the cruel grandmother; she showed up at the appointed time with her mother’s friend, reveling in the knowledge that the grandmother no longer had the power to control her movements.
The drive across the country was very different from the two journeys Mu Naw had made on foot through the jungle. Her mother’s friend was warm and nurturing, confident Mu Naw’s mother would be glad to see her. She was solicitous of Mu Naw’s emotional state, the difficult years she had spent with the grandmother, the way she had worked so hard only to receive regular beatings, the separation from her entire family. It was a relief to share the things she had endured with an older woman who cared to listen. The car, an ancient Volkswagen bug, drove jerkily over potholed roads, but the sun turned the leaves jade green and the open windows let in a breeze that smelled of growing things. When they arrived at the border, they abandoned the car and snuck across a broken-down bridge, making a shadowed midnight approach to the camp.
And then they were there. The friend knocked on the door of a hut. Her mother answered. She started when Mu Naw stepped behind the friend into the dim hut, lit only by a bare bulb. But then her mother uttered a hoarse cry and clutched at Mu Naw, her hands clawing at Mu Naw’s arms and hair, moving all over her as if to see that she was whole, that she was real. Mu Naw laughed and her mother kissed her cheeks.
It was only the next morning that Mu Naw and her mother examined each other in the daylight. The four years of their separation had not changed her mother at all. She seemed smaller to Mu Naw, but her face was the same. They grinned at each other when Mu Naw woke up, but they did not hug again.
A baby cried in the hut and Mu Naw’s mother went to console her and a man Mu Naw had never met emerged from behind the mosquito netting on the shadowed sleeping platform. It was only then that Mu Naw realized what living with her mother would mean. The friend had mentioned that her mother had remarried and had a child, but she had not focused on that fact. Had she intentionally not wanted to think about it? Her mother had been living in a new hut with a new family while Mu Naw worked and was beaten by a distant relative who did not care about her, who housed her because her father paid a fee. Her brother and sister were off with other relatives in the war zone of Myanmar. Mu Naw’s mother whispered to the new baby as it suckled at her breast and her husband dropped a kiss on her head as he tightened the longyi around his waist to go bathe in the community bathhouse and Mu Naw felt rage dry up her relief like dew in the hot sun.
That rage would be the lens through which she would view her mother and this adulterous and disgraceful new life—in which her mother had the audacity to be happy—for years. Her mother’s husband was never unkind to Mu Naw, did not seem to resent her coming into their new home. He never beat her mother or even threatened Mu Naw. But she hated him from the beginning, hated his chin and his thin arms, so different from her father’s bulky build. She hated his quiet voice, the way he asked her mother what she thought, not man enough to make decisions. Only her little half sister was not a source of rancor for her. The baby was sweet and dimpled and looked most like Mu Naw. She cared for her sister whenever her mother asked, but she could barely bring herself to look at her mother’s husband.
At the cruel grandmother’s house in the Karen state, Mu Naw’s actions had revolved around a desire to avoid beatings. Now her life took a new turn. She wanted to love her mother, to be a good daughter. But she found herself unable to overcome her anger, resentment, and shame. Eventually she sank into her rage. She yelled and screamed and talked back. She criticized her mother’s hygiene, the often-dirty dishes, the subpar cooking. Outside the hut, she spoke demurely, eyes down, clothes neat, hair washed, desperate to communicate to everyone around her how different she was from her mother, that she was an unwilling by-product of her mother’s home.
Gossip was the lifeblood of the camp. Perceived slights, social snubs, revealed secrets, repeated insults—they were the only new fodder of conversation for people in a deeply stagnant life. To change the gossip about her became one of the few goals of Mu Naw’s life. She spent most of the day out of her mother’s hut. When school started, she went early and stayed late. She spent hours lounging with her friends under trees at the edge of camp. She received Saw Ku’s note and dated him for a year in secret. It never occurred to her to confide in her mother about their relationship.
* * *
�
��
In the apartment in Austin, these were the things Mu Naw could still control: Every day, Pah Poe made it to and from school. There was food on their table, even if it came from packages or cans. The apartment was clean. Their bed was made. Their shoes were organized by the front door. Their hair was clean and combed. Their teeth were brushed.
The apartment manager’s note belonged in the category of things she could not control. Mu Naw had gone over the figures several times. They had paid in full; she had asked Bob to help her look at the bills and he agreed with her.
The day she saw the note on her door after school, she walked over to the office again, a low building near the main parking lot. She held Naw Wah’s hand with one hand; the other gripped the note from the apartment manager and a copy of her bank statement to prove that she was not late on the rent. Pah Poe trailed along behind them.
The apartment manager took off her glasses, which Mu Naw suspected were fake, and tapped the bills with long fuchsia fingernails to emphasize her points: Mu Naw owed money from last month and this month, as well as some indeterminate fine that she threatened but did not clarify. She scarcely glanced at Mu Naw’s bank statement, only barked at her, looked distastefully at the children, and returned to her computer to clatter away at the keyboard.
Mu Naw planted herself, chin jutting out, in the cheap particle-board chair covered with pilling gray fabric. Five minutes passed and then ten and Mu Naw still sat, arms crossed, while the children stared at the manager with curious eyes. Finally, she caved and told Mu Naw to come back in Monday and she would see if there was anything she had missed in their records. It was not what Mu Naw wanted—she had not been told they did not have to pay—but it was a concession that might lead the woman to change her mind, a small victory. Mu Naw left without saying a word, resolving to be in the office first thing Monday morning and to track down a willing English-speaking volunteer to stand with her.
Mu Naw knocked on Meh Bu’s door, barely giving Meh Bu a chance to greet her as the door swung open before launching into her frustrations with the apartment manager. At the end of her story, Mu Naw put her hand on Meh Bu’s door frame, assuming her friend would move so she could walk inside as she had so many times before.
“Can you go with me?”
“Right now?” Meh Bu glanced behind her in the apartment as if looking for something that she needed to do.
“No, Monday morning.”
“No, not on Monday.”
“But I need help!”
Something shuttered in Meh Bu’s expression. “Everyone needs help. Do you know that? Everyone needs something all the time. I can’t go Monday and I can’t go Tuesday.”
Mu Naw felt the tears that she was trying so hard to hold at bay rising up. “Please! Saw Ku is coming home and I need to tell him we have a plan to make sure we don’t have to pay this fine!”
“Then go tell the manager yourself!”
“I tried but she’s not listening and I don’t speak English.”
“That’s your fault. You don’t go to English class. I see you every day, sitting at home in your apartment while the rest of us go to class. You think we want to go? You think we like the bus? You’re lazy. You’ve been here longer than anyone and your English is no better than it was when you arrived. It’s time for you to figure out what to do by yourself. Go tell her yourself or go home, I don’t care, but I’m not helping you.”
She shut the door firmly on Mu Naw. Mu Naw stood there for a long time, breathing. Finally, she picked up Naw Wah’s hand, put her other hand on Pah Poe’s shoulder, and went around the corner to her front door.
Saw Ku arrived home that night to a dark apartment; the television illuminating the children’s upturned faces was the only light. Rice simmered in the rice cooker and a covered pot of vegetables and meat sat on the back of the stove. It took him a minute to locate Mu Naw, huddled under the blankets in the bedroom, her racking sobs silent except for an occasional gasping breath.
“What happened?” His hand on her arm was gentle. He turned on the lamp beside the bed, then knelt down beside her. His eyebrows beetled with concern. She cried harder for several minutes and he stroked her arm, then her hair, brushing it behind her ear with his thumb.
She told him what Meh Bu had said, her voice choking on the word “lazy.” She told him about the apartment manager, about paying double rent, about the fine she knew they did not owe, about her inability to end the pregnancy. His hand still on her arm, he waited until she was done, until her breathing had become calm. Then he went to get her some toilet paper from the bathroom to dry her eyes. Coming back in, he moved to sit beside her on the other side of the bed.
“Well, first of all, I think Meh Bu is right.”
“What?” Mu Naw pulled herself onto her elbow. Saw Ku handed her the tissues.
“Not about your being lazy. Not at all. But that no one can help us but us. Remember when we sold food at Mae La camp?”
“Yes.” She sat up, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. They had decided their first year of marriage that they could use her ability to cook well to make some extra money, going door to door selling rice and bamboo.
“Honestly, I never told you this, but I didn’t really think we could make any money, even though your food was delicious. I sold it to our friends and neighbors, but you took yours further, to the houses of people we didn’t know. You are so good at talking to people. You are stubborn. And you made us money that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. You did that. I can go to work, but there are things you can do, even if . . .” he gestured to her belly and swallowed. “Even if we’re going to have another baby. You are good with people, good at learning things. You can learn English, even without classes. You will figure out a way around this apartment manager. You can do this.”
It was a long speech for Saw Ku. He was not shy with Mu Naw, as he was with other people, but he still often spoke in short sentences. But his eyes bored into hers while he spoke and he gestured with his hands and it felt like a revelation to Mu Naw. He was right and Meh Bu was wrong.
She washed her face while Saw Ku went into the living room. When she came out of the bathroom, the lights were on and the table was set. Saw Ku told her to sit down and he scooped rice and steamed vegetables onto her plate. They ate dinner around the table together. She brought out a box of Pocky she had been saving for dessert and the children happily snapped the chocolate-dipped cookie sticks. Mu Naw nibbled hers to make it last longer. She let herself, for the first time, imagine a third child at their table. She realized that without speaking of it, she and Saw Ku had acknowledged the decision they had already made: She would be keeping this baby. She was surprised that her only emotion was joy.
* * *
—
On Monday morning, after walking Pah Poe to school, Mu Naw took Naw Wah back to the apartment manager’s office. She sat in the chair, pulling the stroller tightly up against the wall so it would not take up too much room. She kept her eyes down, a smile on her face. The apartment manager told her she did not have time to meet with Mu Naw that day. She said, “Okay, no problem.” Then she sat there. An hour later, the manager came out again and said something with an exasperated air. Mu Naw replied, “Okay. It’s Okay! No problem!” But she did not move. For three hours, she and Naw Wah waited. They played finger games. She told Naw Wah stories. Naw Wah took a nap in the stroller. Finally, the apartment manager opened the door. “Fine, what do you need?”
Mu Naw pushed the stroller into the office. She pulled the bills out of her bag, pointing to Bob’s careful notes, and informed the apartment manager that it was all paid, that there was nothing more. The manager turned to the computer and typed for several minutes with her lacquered fingernails, looking closely, taking her glasses off and putting them back on again. Finally, she turned back to Mu Naw. “Okay. It is all paid. No more.”
Mu Naw hid her tr
iumphant grin. Lowering her eyes respectfully, she murmured, “Thank you.” When the door closed behind her, she lifted her face to the sun, then meandered behind Naw Wah as the toddler pushed the empty stroller all the way back to the apartment.
Chapter 13
HASNA
DARAA, SYRIA/RAMTHA, JORDAN, APRIL–JULY 2011
Malek and Laila moved to Jordan first. They left a few days after Malek was released to find an apartment in Ramtha, the small city right across the border from Daraa, that would be large enough for Laila’s whole family. Malek’s parents and his larger family did not want to leave, but they began scouting anyway for locations if his parents and siblings changed their minds. What had once been just a few minutes’ drive to Ramtha now took Laila and Malek several hours with the new infusion of soldiers.
One of their neighbors had a van rental service and he took Malek, Laila, Hamad, and their few suitcases. They had to pack lightly so their story of going to visit Malek’s uncle seemed reasonable to the border patrol officers. The van driver was one of the few people whose businesses prospered in the next few weeks as relatives and neighbors kept him busy between the al-Salam neighborhood and Ramtha. He reported back to Hasna that he had delivered Malek and Laila safely to Ramtha a day after they left. She breathed a sigh of relief—one child out, four left.
After the Last Border Page 14
