Jane put on her bathrobe and work boots. Downstairs wasstill and yellow with sunshine; she was surprised to see a stack of dishes inthe sink. Three plates, no silverware, no cups, blood glistening on the rim ofeach dish. She lifted her eyes to the window and then could only stare. Thebarn cat’s grave had been dug up. A pile of dirt lay mounded beside the hole,the wet mangled remains of the cardboard box on the ground nearby. Devon’stoys. She didn’t have to look to know that the grave was empty, the cat wasgone. Three plates, not two, she thought.
Her voice went hoarse screaming for Rosemarie, but Janealready knew where she’d gone. Their old clunking truck, practically unusedsince Walter died, would hold up long enough to reach the school, and shedidn’t care about the way back.
Jane could see into the playground from the school parkinglot, but at first she didn’t see Rosemarie. The number of children at playoverwhelmed her, so many small bodies wrapped in colorful new clothes. Shecould not remember at what point the un-Paley world had begun to feel so loudand big and chaotic to her. At last her gaze landed on Rosemarie, dressed inher too-small best dress, her hair maneuvered into lopsided ponytails. If Janelooked hard, she knew, she’d see blood on Rosemarie’s mouth, unless Ainsley hadremembered to wash her sister’s face as well as her own before getting on thebus.
She’d come to the school intending to drag the children outof class. Rosemarie first, then Devon. She’d retrieve Ainsley last. She’d haulthe three of them partway home, then stop on the side of the road and make themstand in a row until the mammalian features melted from their faces and intheir hideous natural forms they repented, for their Paleyness, for everything.
But Rosemarie was standing at the top of the playground,looking unbelievably human. Screaming in delight, shoving a boy down the slide:joyful, exultant, savage. Jane sat for a moment, watching her, then turned thekey in the ignition and guided the truck back onto the road. She only had a fewhours before the children came home, just enough time to ensure that somethingfound its way into the snares or succumbed to age and disease. They would beneeding three animals each day now. That was twenty-one per week, eighty-fourper month. How many per year, Jane didn’t want to guess, but she was theirmother and she would take care of them.
The Lights We Carried Home
From our house onstilts, I could see rice fields, swampland, and the spires of a power plantrising high into the clouds. My sister Sopha could see all that and somethingelse. “Listen to the ap scream,” our ming would say, and Sopha would push thecurtain aside so we could peek out. She’d describe how the ghost’s face was awide white moon with a bright red mouth, how its inside-strings tangled withthe mist. I could see the glow that the ap cast, but not the intestines or theliver that shone before Sopha’s eyes.
Ming called Sopha a haunted child. The monks at the villagewat looped red strings around her wrists to keep her spirit from being carriedoff, but we always knew she only half belonged to us. We used to burn duck meatand paper money so she wouldn’t be poor if her soul and body came apart. “We’repoor now,” I said once, scowling down on the fire that ate my hard-earned riel;across the street, they were selling candy and salted mangoes. Ming said, “Ifwe are poor here, we eat grass roots and do without batteries for a month. IfSopha is poor there, they eat her flesh and torture her soul.”
“Why?” said five-year-old Sopha, frowning into the flames.
“Lay your head down,” Ming said. “Don’t let the ghosts seeyou disobey.” Sopha laid down. The fire burnt out and darkness congealed aroundus.
We lived in Psaodung, which the news would later call theoil lamp village. Before I went to school, I thought everyone lived in akerosene haze and listened at night to the screams of the dead. We wereterrified of anything that pierced the darkness. But Sopha loved the ghosts whoshowed their faces for her and only her, and the spirit world was where sheescaped when Psaodung became intolerable for her.
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I was twenty-seven when filmmakers came to Psaodung. Wherethey came from, no one knew for sure. I heard they were British, then French,then American. They spoke English but not TV English, so I knew they weren’tHollywood people. They spoke no Khmer, but their translator Kao told me theywere filming a documentary on life in our village. I asked him why. He said,“The province authorities are under scrutiny now, for running power-lines rightover your heads and telling everyone that you had power when you didn’t.”
Over the roar of the foreigners’ generators, I caught that Iwas supposed to describe my life here. The filmmakers had already talked to ourneighbors; they knew my sister was a local legend. What she left behind, whatlived in her wreckage, they wanted to show the world.
The foreigners weren’t officially paying anyone forinterviews, but unofficially they’d brought sacks of rice big enough to feed afamily for months. I don’t know who told them about Sopha, but whoever it was,they traded my family’s shame for their family’s stomachs. Words cost nothing,and pride has always been too precious for anyone in Psaodung to afford.
I talked for the same reason everyone did: I knew I’d earnmore from a fifteen-minute interview than I did from a month selling phonecards on the roadside. But my reluctance must have showed on camera. I couldn’tmake myself look directly at the lens. The camera was an eye I didn’t want toface, too much like the ghosts who glowed when our fires died.
“Did you realize that town just to the east of yours wasfully wired?” Kao said while one man fiddled with
