The Language Inside (14 page)

Zena looks up

when I add that

but doesn’t look up

when I ask

if she wants to keep going

Sam tells me

to read the whole thing

again

and I do

nice
he says

and Zena looks up

by then it’s nearly dark outside

so I tell Zena I’ll see her next week

and I’ll type this one up

for her notebook

Zena spells
t-h-a-n-k u

and I say
there’s a short way to do that

and show her how to spell

39
for
sankyu
—

               
san
for three

               
kyu
for nine

which is how
thank you
sounds

with a Japanese accent

I put on my sweatshirt

tell her I’ll bring poems

and we’ll write

more masterpieces

and Zena

looks up again

it’s after five when we sign out at the nurses’ station

tell them to tell Lin that we’re leaving

head down the corridors

to the elevator

sign out in the lobby

and step outside

                         to the slap

of cold autumn air

Sam says that Chris is coming

they can give me a ride

and Chris already called YiaYia

to tell her she doesn’t have to come

since my grandmother’s house is

sort of on the way

we can wait over there
Sam says

so we cross the bridge

over the darkened river

which we can’t see

so much as smell

and which Sam says is

not a river

but a canal

from the mill days

and we stand in the red and green light

of a pizza sign

you live with your uncle—Chris?
I say

and aunt
he says

is that good?
I ask
living with them?

yeah, it’s good

               and I wonder if he’s adopted

               even though he calls them “uncle” and “aunt”

but before I can ask he says

how about you?

how’s living with your grandmother?

and I say

it’s okay

for now

that’s all

because I just don’t want to go into everything

and he says

I hear you

we’re standing there

angled toward each other

with the neon pizza sign

splashing red and green swaths across his face

the smell of pizza reminding me I’m starved

and right now I don’t want to go home yet

to my same old music

and my grandmother and brother

and my mother and her upcoming surgery

I just want to go inside this pizza place

and talk with this guy Sam

and pretend even briefly

that everything is normal

but Chris pulls up in the car

and Sam gets in the front

and I get in the back

and that’s that

in the car we talk about Zena and how she called me a dodo

and when I tell them she spelled
s-e-x-y m-a-n

they both crack up and Sam says he bets he knows who it is—

her sexy man

who? another patient?
I ask

no
he says
a poet guy

I ask about Mr. Sok and Mr. Pen and

and Sam says that Leap Sok, who he calls

Lok Ta Leap—Grandfather Leap

is writing a memoir

but his hand doesn’t work now

because of a stroke

and Lok Ta Chea is writing some letters

for his grandchildren and a little bit

about the refugee camp

but he hasn’t been well lately

refugee camp?
I ask

Sam says
yeah, in Thailand

after he escaped Cambodia

when the Vietnamese

drove out Pol Pot

and from that one sentence

I realize that even though I’m good at geography

and even though I know those countries’ capitals

I know hardly any Southeast Asian history

which seems unforgivable

having grown up in Japan

but I nod when Sam turns to look at me

nod thoughtfully as if I get it

and I promise myself

to learn something

before I see him next

to figure out

               what is this language Khmer

               that he and Mr. Sok and Mr. Pen speak

for now I say

that sounds tough