Why No Goodbye? Read online

  Also by the author

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  Leapfrog Press

  Fredonia, New York

  Why No Goodbye? © 2019 by Pamela Laskin

  All rights reserved under International and

  Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a data base or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in 2019 in the United States by

  Leapfrog Press LLC

  PO Box 505

  Fredonia, NY 14063

  www.leapfrogpress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Distributed in the United States by

  Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

  St. Paul, Minnesota 55114

  www.cbsd.com

  Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to

  Fortify Rights

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Laskin, Pamela L., author.

  Title: Why no goodbye : why no bhine / Pamela Laskin.

  Description: First edition. | Fredonia, NY : Leapfrog Press LLC ; St. Paul, Minnesota : Distributed in the United States by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, 2019. | Summary: When his mother escapes Myanmar with his siblings during the Rohingya crisis, thirteen-year-old Jubair expresses anger over the abandonment and struggles to find forgiveness, in a series of letters.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019021546 | ISBN 9781948585064 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Rohingya (Burmese people)--Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Novels in verse. | Rohingya (Burmese people)--Fiction. | Abandoned chilldren--Fiction. | Separation (Psychology)--Fiction. | Refugees--Fiction. | Letters--Fiction. | Burma--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.5.L37 Wh 2019 | DDC [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021546

  To the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar

  Acknowledgements

  The cover photo is of Rafiqul, a boy from Myanmar. He has been living with his father in a refugee camp in Bangladesh since September 2017, and is waiting for his mother to join them. The photo was taken by the riverside in Shaporir Dip, Bangladesh, a popular place for refugees to cross from neighboring Myanmar. Rafiqul is currently studying in high school grade 8, and would like to continue his education in the future.

  Photograph © 2018 Lewis Inman, lewisinman.com.

  Special thanks to Matthew and Amy Smith, Fortify Rights.

  Thank you RF CUNY, Grant cycle 49, for financial support of the book.

  And to my agent, Myrsini Stephanides, Carol Mann Agency, and finally to Samantha Reiser, who consistently fights for human rights all over the world!

  Escape to Malaysia

  New York Times, June 6th, 2015

  How could you leave

  your first born,

  how could you tell him

  his father is dead,

  when you are crossing the sea

  to Malaysia

  with the babies

  where he might be.

  True

  it was full fare

  to pay the smugglers

  to take Jubair, too,

  but you never

  even told him

  or even

  said good-bye.

  Part I: Letters to May-may*

  *Mother

  Why did you leave, May-may?

  You know I cannot write,

  so why are you writing me?

  I gaze at the long, dirt road

  which leads to more dirt.

  Keh-bah! *

  *Help

  Why didn’t you teach me to read or write?

  You know how to.

  It was another gift you kept from me!

  Where is my Pay-pay? *

  Did he die on the ferry

  on the boat

  in the air?

  *Father

  Something terrible happened.

  I can still hear your screams

  and men

  with mean smiles

  on their faces,

  guns that were arms

  arms that were guns

  thought nothing

  of firing their rage

  wildly in our village

  and May-may

  children

  were never spared.

  You never taught me to read or write.

  Ha Jia is teaching me. He wants to read me your letters.

  You can keep your letters

  same way you keep my two brothers and sister with you.

  Why didn’t you say bhine? *

  *Goodbye

  I may learn how to read and write,

  but I still sleep on the soil.

  Last night was a monsoon.

  Ha Jia let me sleep inside,

  “but just one time”

  he has told me.

  Everyone in Thayet Oak

  knows me,

  so sometimes

  there are bamboo houses

  where I can sleep

  for the night.

  Yaq! *

  Your letters should stop!

  *Stop

  One night

  they barged into the hut

  military men

  and you told us

  to pretend

  to sleep,

  but I heard

  the shrieking

  the crying

  saw the pools of red

  bleeding on the floor,

  “Please stop.

  Yaq.*

  Stop.”

  And the men,

  they laughed,

  and when my sister,

  just a baby cried

  they laughed

  even harder.

  *Stop

  Ha-Jia says seven is the magical number.

  There are five children in his hut.

  Hia-Jia and Len-Wen make it seven

  and I am the eighth

  I am the other child.

  What is magic, Mama?

  I do not think I have some.

  Did you not have enough money

  to take me?

  I never cursed you before.

  I never thought I would.

  I would never do this to your face

  like street kids do,

  but now I am one of them.

  Gway Htoot *

  to you!

  *Gway Htoot: Burmese profanity

  I want to stamp you

  in the soil

  and stamp my feet

  till you are crushed like the snake

  I step on.

  You will drown in the rain.

  You will cough

  when the soil is dry,

  and my ears

  will not moisten you.

  Thayet Oak means mango orchard

  in our language.

  Where are they?

  Qui Ma.*

  *Qui Ma: Burmese profanity

  Where do words come from?

  You are like the rat who eats the garbage

  leaving us so little food.

  Ha-Jia does not understand why I write

  I hate you.

  I will not read your letters.

  Your last words to me?

  “Don’t cry.

  Don’t be sad.

  Stay well.”

  Lee Gon *
r />   to you

  *Lee Gon: Burmese Profanity

  Your screams:

  Yaq.

  Yaq.

  Yaq.

  Your pleas:

  my babies.

  Please protect

  my babies,

  and their laughter

  rings in my ears

  like a nightmare typhoon

  that gets bigger

  and uglier

  with each monster laugh.

  How do you get these letters to me?

  Why do you write them?

  They are like garbage.

  Why did you take my older brother

  and leave me tired

  and hungry?

  How did my father die?

  At night, when it is raining

  just rain, not storms

  I cry for my brother, especially my younger one

  I cry for my sister

  I cry while the sky

  cries with me.

  I will write longer letters

  when I can do it on my own.

  For now I sleep on the soil

  and wonder if you feel sad for me

  or mad

  like I am.

  I am like the mandrake in the soil.

  I fester

  I rot.

  And there are ants,

  mountains of them

  sleeping next to me.

  I learned this today.

  I can write it, too.

  I am a hard worker.

  I am an ox.

  I am a whale.

  This is what Ha-Jia says.

  I am dependable.

  I like that sound of this:

  dependable.

  It sounds

  like I am someone important.

  Why do other Muslims

  hate us so?

  We are Rohingyas.

  We are Muslims, too.

  Even the monkeys who roam freely

  laugh at me

  and they are free.

  They laugh like the monsters

  who hurt you

  and drank blood

  for fun.

  I had a dream.

  I always knew about dreams

  even when I could not read

  or write.

  We are all together

  even Papa

  who you say

  is dead.

  My insides do not feel dead

  because we are laughing

  and Jaynu acts like a clown.

  Our little girl,

  the princess

  she laughs so loud

  it makes the sky thunder

  in happiness,

  and Papa brings back meat

  and our stomachs

  are full.

  Now I know more words,

  so I can tell you,

  my back is broken from the water pails

  I must carry every day

  and from the little sleep I get

  with a blanket of angry stars above me.

  There are dead dogs

  in the water,

  but Ha Jia

  says he boils the water

  so I will not get sick.

  The air smells

  of rot.

  I am thirteen soon, I think.

  I do not remember my birthday.

  Do you?

  Do my brothers and sister

  remember me?

  Why did you take my older brother?

  Here is my day:

  I wake up tired.

  I wake up hungry.

  I want to cry.

  There is no time for this.

  I eat some rice.

  I drink some water.

  Then I go fetch water

  and fetch

  and fetch

  and fetch

  till my arms collapse at my sides

  like two dead trunks

  of broken wood.

  Ha Jia told me you were once beautiful

  he told me you dreamed of going to school

  of writing poetry.

  He said you loved books

  and language.

  Words were a gift

  you kept to yourself

  Why didn’t you share them, May-may?

  Were you that greedy?

  I like them, too.

  Why did you write

  to tell me this?

  This is the first letter you wrote that I am reading.

  I will not read the letters in order

  if I read them at all.

  But telling me

  you are in a refugee camp

  and what you ate for breakfast.

  I want to strangle the rope from the bucket

  around your dirty neck.

  Here is what I ate for breakfast today.

  Nothing.

  There was not enough food

  for all the children.

  Two kernels of rice

  nothing

  for a crying stomach,

  and the monkeys ran around

  with bananas.

  We had a hut

  it was bamboo

  and sometimes it felt moist

  since the river was inside,

  but it was our hut.

  We had a hut

  with four children,

  sometimes there was laughter

  sometimes there was mohinga for dinner,

  but always

  there was a warm body

  to feel next to you,

  and someone

  to share stories with.

  We had a hut

  a mat to sleep on

  we never walked under the clothesline,

  we had a hut

  and I had a hug

  even though I had to share it.

  This is what I think

  one day I had a father

  he farmed, he made some money

  sometimes we ate laphet

  sometimes we could not,

  but we were a family.

  He left

  for safety

  for the family,

  but he didn’t take the family.

  This is what I know

  that is some cruel joke

  since you are gone, too.

  You said he died

  you do not know how,

  but now you are alone.

  You are not alone.

  You have three other children.

  I am alone.

  And there are water rats

  to keep me company.

  You have died for me.

  And the nightmares

  of the military men

  laughing in the wind

  keep me scared

  every sleeping moment.

  Did he really die?

  How?

  This does not seem real,

  nor do the bush fires.

  Nor do the bullets I hear all around.

  Sometimes, at night, the bullets dance

  they weave in and out of stars

  like a bad nightmare.

  Why didn’t he come home

  when he knew the men

  had hurt you?

  You couldn’t even rise

  from the floor.

  This is what I think

  (and this is what Ha Jia told me)

  we have no citizenship

  no jobs

  no benefits,

  no education

  our mosques were destroyed

  monuments and cemeteries

  destroyed;

  this is what I know

  Pay-pay was smart to die

  (if he really died)

  because we have no future.

  Why did you name me Jubair?

  it is an odd name

  an uncomfortable name,

  no one else has it.

  I want what everyone else has

  a normal name

  a mat to sleep on

  the indoors

  a h
ome.

  Last night

  a monkey shrieked in my face

  and I screamed at him

  till my voice

  was gone;

  I saw that his face

  was filled with terror.

  This is what I think

  I used to play

  I used to clap

  my sister jumped rope,

  sometimes I skipped around

  with nowhere to go.

  I helped with chores,

  but I was not the only one.

  Once I saw a balloon,

  and this is what I know

  it was colorful and bright

  but it disappeared

  in the sky.

  This is what I know

  the sky at night

  is filled with monster sounds-

  hissing,

  screeching

  sometimes girls

  plead

  no

  no

  no,

  and there are guns

  going off

  cries

  no

  no

  no,

  the monkeys wail

  for their Mamas;

  yes,

  I want to get out of here,

  but how?

  This is what I think

  tomorrow

  when I wake up

  may be the last day.