Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir

An old woman lies on her sofa with greasy hair, staring at her phone. She spends all her time looking at and editing pictures of flowers online. She has 11,000 pictures of flowers saved to her phone. When she’s not looking at her phone, she sometimes sees disturbing visions, like black apparitions the size of cats running around the living room. At other times, she has dreams of handsome men on horses trying to rescue her, but her body feels heavy and she can never climb onto the horses. She can’t sleep at night without medication, but feels tired and lethargic with medication. Sometimes the woman cries for her dead father, imagining him waiting for her on the horizon, and encouraging her to join him.

The woman has no energy to cook or clean. In the past, no matter how tired she was, she would always cook healthy, traditional food for her family. In refugee camps and housing projects, she always took pride in keeping her bedroom clean and washing her husband’s clothes. Now, their bedroom is chaotic, and they sleep on a blanket on the floor because of all the laundry on their bed. Her husband does not offer to clean or help with laundry.

Whenever the woman seeks help, her doctors increase the dosage of her medication. They doctors prescribe her a variety of anti-depressants and anxiety medication, but nothing works. One pill makes her feel like she’s dying, and she tells her family to plan for her death. She denies feeling suicidal, but says that she feels useless. She feels isolated from her family and community. Her doctor refers her to a center called Natalis, which is in the same building as a food pantry the woman used to visit with her children. When she arrives, she is given an interpreter. The narrative voice shifts to the first person. The woman is grateful for the interpreter. The interpreter says that many women her age struggle with depression: They internalize grief while raising families, and it hits them once their children age and become self-sufficient. The narrator agrees. She tells the doctor about her dreams and her family, but notices him looking at his watch, so stops before talking about her experiences in war. The doctor increases the dosage of her current medication and leaves. As the woman walks to the car, she takes out her phone and starts looking at pictures of flowers.

Fong Lee and his family are preparing to cross the Mekong River from Laos into Thailand. At the age of 16, Fong had been drafted into the army. From 1960 to 1975, Fong worked as an interrogator for the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency. He was trained by CIA agents as a soldier and encouraged to fight Laotian communists as a part of American efforts to stamp out communism in Northern Vietnam. His work provided a regular salary which allowed Fong to marry and start a family. In 1975, the CIA and American soldiers left Vietnam suddenly, creating a power vacuum that was quickly filled by communist leadership. Within three years, most of the other soldiers Fong trained with had been killed, and Fong decided that his family must leave Laos.

On the night of the crossing there is a full moon, and many families have gathered to cross the river. A pair of young girls is walking down the riverbank talking to the other families, and Fong prays that they don’t come to him. The older of the two girls is six or seven; she is carrying her sister on her back. The oldest tells Fong that their entire family was killed in the jungle, and offers him a bowl of rice to take her sister across the river. Fong explains that there is no room on the raft. The girl begs Fong to take the younger girl, saying that she will stay behind and die happy knowing her sister is saved. Fong remembers his own young daughter, who accidentally drowned in a river at the age of three. He tells the girls to hide in the jungle, and says that he will come back for them after taking his family across. Fong loads his family into the raft and begins to cross the river, promising the girls that he will return. At the halfway point, he looks back and sees that soldiers have come to the riverbank. He hears gunshots and prays for the girls. When they arrive in Thailand, he cannot see any sign of the girls.

After two years in a refugee camp, Fong’s family settles in France and then the United States. In Minnesota, Fong opens a grocery store, and is widely seen as a success in his community. He remains haunted by the memory of the two sisters, and prays that he will become the kind of man who would return to save them.