When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Page 14

  “This is what will happen to you if you don’t follow Angka Leu.” The dark, ugly mekorg jabs at Cheng and me with a stick. “Observe, comrades….”

  The night is here. The food ration is served. The children are asleep. But we stand through the night, without being given food or water.

  The night turns to morning. The children pass us, escorted by the mekorg to the work site. With shallow breaths, my ribs fight against the ropes around my chest. My body slumps against the stump. I’m on the verge of death, I think, and the very words terrify me. I breathe slowly. Every breath I take is for the deadened weight in my arms, wrists, and legs—they’re hungry for air.

  It’s so quiet. Cheng is already dead. She must be. She has made no sound since the children passed by on their way to the fields. I call out her name. Every part of my body braces for an answer. Finally a faint groan. I’m relieved, but my body feels strange, numb. It can no longer hold itself up, and I fear that the lack of circulation in my limbs will kill me.

  When night comes, the same chhlop releases us. He warns us of tougher punishment if we repeat our offense. After he leaves, a shadow appears. It’s Larg. She brings us rice rations, placing them by the stump. Slowly my legs and arms awaken, burning, as blood and oxygen find their way back. Cheng and I go to our shelter. In the dark, we devour our food. I thought I would never again know the taste of rice. Or salt.

  We are now watched closely. Working conditions get worse. Every day we are awakened long before sunrise and return only after the sun surrenders its light. Their goals, our leaders stress in mandatory meetings, are for us to beat the “set date.” To exceed the quota. To compete with other brigades digging irrigation ditches that will join ours. I measure our progress in inches. The few feet of the elevated roadway and the depth of the canal in which I work every day. Almost around the clock, dirt is my landscape.

  The long days of forced labor have taken its toll on us. Many children grow ill. Some come down with malaria. Others with fever or diarrhea. At night I hear the sounds of pain, of sickness. Near the shelters are signs of diarrhea covered with flies. Soon I too have diarrhea, then it gets worse. I have what Vin had, amoebic dysentery. Every day I lie in the empty shelter, which is built close to the open field near the work site. I’m drained, weak from days of losing fluid. I constantly soil my pants. Two pairs, that’s all I’ve got. Every night I think of Mak, Map, and Avy. I close my eyes and imagine lying in the hut beside Mak. The longing is a physical ache, competing with the pain in my own belly. I try to console myself, I’m lucky to have Cheng. She takes care of me.

  At mealtimes I wait for Cheng to bring me my ration. At our shelter, she kneels down, reaching out to help me up. Pointing at a plastic cup, she reminds me that she’s also brought water, cloudy like a light milk-chocolate drink. In a short time, a chhlop’s voice roars, ordering children to return to work. Cheng obeys, but I know she will be back—the one thing I’ve come to count on. In the evening she washes my soiled pants, then covers me with her only scarf. She leaves her own head bare, working in the hot sun. Never once has Cheng complained. Her silent sacrifice fills me with a deeper gratitude than I have ever known.

  The follow night Cheng wakes me. Her footsteps storm out of the shelter. In a few minutes she returns with stomach cramps. She curls up behind me, groaning. Her body feels unusually warm, a sign of illness. I’m scared for Cheng, scared for both of us. How will we survive if both of us are sick? Who will get us rations? Certainly not the mekorg, even though she’s in charge of us. She is indifferent, only interested in us when we have strength. If you are weak, you are useless. I know we can’t rely on Larg. Since our punishment, we’ve seen less and less of her.

  The next morning, as always, the mekorg wakes everyone. She peeks into our shelter and orders Cheng to work, not me, since she knows I’ve been sick. Cheng tells her that she has diarrhea. But she says Cheng has to work.

  Cheng obeys. Quietly, she gets up, then disappears among the shelters. At lunch, her face drawn and pale, she appears with my ration. At night she has to get up several times with diarrhea, the next symptom of amoebic dysentery. The next afternoon Cheng brings my ration and explains to me what she has been plotting since last night.

  “Athy, we’ve got to escape from this place,” she begins softly. “You’re very sick, and I’m getting sick like you. If we stay here, we’ll die. We need rest and medicine.”

  Cheng speaks like an adult, the kind of strong, comforting tone I would hear Pa or Mak use when I came down with a fever or an asthma attack. “If you don’t escape with me, you’ll never see your mom again.” Cheng looks into my eyes. She knows. And so do I.

  The Khmer Rouge have never given me medicine. Now they simply glance at me—I’m not worth their breath. But as harsh as their indifference is, it’s better than being beaten to death, I reason, recalling their warnings about what happens to those who attempt to run away. As much as I want to see Mak, I fear this more. But the odds are grim. I face the chance of dying here in camp of an illness I can’t control, or risk the punishment of death if I’m caught escaping. Back and forth I work the choices in my mind, but nothing becomes clear. How odd to be wrestling with the question of how I might die.

  “I must escape. If I stay here, I’ll die. I might not die if I escape,” Cheng states. I’ll help you tomorrow if you want to go with me, but, Athy, I won’t stay here.” She looks sad but determined.

  “But I don’t have the energy to walk. I can’t walk fast enough, Cheng. And so they will see us. They’ll see us walking across the open field. There aren’t enough trees to block us.” I imagine us running away. My mind is willing to go with her, but I don’t know if I can trust my legs to carry me, to keep up.

  “I’ll help you walk. I’ll come and get you, and we’ll escape tomorrow while they’re eating lunch. I have to go back to work.” Cheng hurries out, returning to work as the shrill voice of a chhlop rings out in the distance.

  Our day to escape comes. I get ready for Cheng, readying both my mind and my body. Sitting in the shelter, I rehearse our escape in my mind, visualizing Cheng and me running, or rather walking, for I can’t run. The cool morning turns into another warm day. Without watches, we must observe the sky. When the sun is bright above the shelter, Cheng comes looking anxious. She frowns, squinting from the harsh sunlight.

  “Athy, are you ready? They are lining up for food. We must go now.”

  “Ready,” I quickly answer. Inside I’m scared, trembling. I want to tell Cheng, but something holds my words back. I must not tell her now, not now.

  Cheng whispers, asking me for my plate. Together with her own, she slips my plate under her jacket, securing a drawstring at the bottom. I watch her with wonder. Why take plates when we must run? Shouldn’t we travel light? But Cheng has thought this through. We carry out her plan. Silently, Cheng motions her head, signaling to me to crawl out of the shelter. She holds my right hand and we walk slowly, cautious as we pass other children’s shelters. Cheng slips an arm around my shoulders, helping to steady me as I struggle to walk on my weakened legs. On her own shoulder Cheng carries a hoe, making it appear as if she is helping me to go defecate in the open field. In the distance, about a mile away, is a row of trees—our first goal. We hope to make it at least that far, a natural screen to cloak our escape. At any moment I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder, or hear the shuffle of another pair of feet behind us in the grassy field. We try not to look behind, only ahead. With every step, the trees seem further away. I imagine the chhlops or our mekorg chasing after us, almost expect it. This time, I think, I’ll never survive any kind of physical punishment, being as ill as I am. The more I think about it, the more fear moves me—a rush of energy surges through my body, propelling me forward with a force I didn’t know I had.

  Now we are too far from the shelters for anyone to believe that we’re going to defecate. If the chhlops see us now, surely they’ll know. I walk even faster. Cheng grips my hand tighter. We walk, the
n we run—an awkward, hobbled hopping, but in my mind I want to move the trees closer to us. As soon as we reach them, Cheng drops the hoe to the ground and commands: “Athy, walk faster. We must walk faster.” She begins to run, pulling me forward.

  Cheng drags me, and I let her. I drift behind her like an anchor as the pull of her hand tows my frail body. Through the fear, I somehow feel free. I no longer think only about the chhlops or the mekorg coming after us. Nor the dry grass that licks our ankles or my own weak muscles. I think about what I’m running toward, not what I’m leaving behind. I think of Mak. And the thought pulses through my veins like a newfound power. With each step, something loosens in my soul.

  I am free.

  Even though we’ve passed the trees, our first obstacle, the horizon seems so far. Not a sound passes between Cheng and me, only soft, labored breathing. She pulls, I follow. We keep on walking fast, using the clump of trees we’ve passed as a visual block.

  We’ve covered quite a distance already—a few miles, I think. Over the sound of our shuffling footsteps, we hear voices approaching. We pause, crouch down, looking at each other, horrified. Spontaneously, we both sprawl flat on the ground, like soldiers listening to enemy voices.

  Cheng grabs my hand. We run, stoop, hunker down. By the time we reach the bushes, we have to stifle our gasping breaths. The voices are men’s, coming closer. Already I know the terrible torment that will befall us. As they near, I’m surprised to hear them talking about fishing, not about us. I feel reassured enough to peek: one man carries a fishing net on his shoulder, and the other an old bucket. Cheng and I look at each other, relieved.

  Without a map, we let the landscape guide us, looking for clumps of trees, letting memory lead the way. As Cheng and I figure how to get to Daakpo village in the twilight, my emotions run high, mixed with fear, nervousness, and excitement. We pass two villages. Then the path begins to look familiar. Fearing informants, we keep to back pathways, zigzagging, trying to stay invisible. Somehow, in the darkness, Cheng and I find our way back to Daakpo village. But the discovery brings uncertainty. What if we don’t find our mothers? Before we go our separate ways, Cheng makes one last request: “In case they catch me, if you see my mother, tell her that I escaped with you.” Cheng’s shadow turns once again, as if to study me, then begins to fade. I run through layers of darkness to find her, to make the same request: “Tell my mother, too, if I don’t see her.”

  Alone, I’m again on guard. I’m nervous, but I’m also eager to see Mak. I swallow the urge to run back into my mother’s arms. Instead, I walk to the hut, cautious. Like an adult, I’ve learned to anticipate obstacles, to avoid drawing attention to myself. When I see the tall trees near our hut, my personal landmark, I’m exhilarated. The cooking fire in the corner casts a dim glow around the entrance. At last, I see her. Mak sits beside the fire—so typical, so ordinary, as if I never left. Her gaze transfixed, she is studying the contents of her cooking pot like a fortune-teller, as if something will be revealed in the tangle of leaves that swim within it. For a moment I’m frozen, stilled by my own joy. Then, the impossible. I walk up to her, reaching out to embrace her.

  “Mak, I’m back!” Just to speak those words fills me with pride and jubilation, a swell of feeling I haven’t known since they took me away. To be so near her. To smell her familiar scent. In an instant, I realize the depth of my love for her. I know exactly how much I need my mother. How much my family means to me. To my survival.

  Mak turns, startled. She jumps to her feet and her voice explodes with delight, “Koon, they let you come back! You’re finished….” Mak gropes for words.

  “Mak!” I whisper. “Don’t speak so loudly.” I glance around the hut, and so does she. At that moment I notice Map and Avy gazing at Mak and me nervously. I lean closer to Mak and whisper into her ear, “I escaped from the labor camp.”

  Mak pulls away, horror-stricken. Her expression scares me. Freezes me. I look at Avy and Map. Their silence triggers more fear in me. Hunger has wrung out their spirits. My heart races as I realize the repercussions of my escape. Now I fear what my homecoming could mean to my family. At the Phnom Kambour labor camp, Chea had warned me that I should have stayed with Mak, Avy, and Map and looked after them. At the time her words made me feel guilty and fearful, like a bad omen. Now that I’m here, I hope to stay, to make right what should never have happened. After a dinner of boiled leaves and salt with Mak, Avy, and Map, I lie down beside Mak’s warm back, just as I envisioned. Silently, I pray to Buddha and Pa’s spirit that the chhlops or the mekorg will never come take me back to Oh Runtabage.

  To avoid my being spotted by the chhlops, Mak warns me not to leave the hut while she’s at work with Avy and Map. I’m to stay in the hut at all times. She leaves me boiled leaves so I don’t have to go outside to cook. Even so, the chhlops can check the hut whenever they want to. Knowing this, I brace myself when I hear footsteps, flattening myself against the palm-thatch wall, afraid even to breathe for fear that my slightest movement will rustle the dry palm leaves. Only when the footsteps subside do I relax, lying down again, cherishing every moment of my rest time. In the evening, as the sun drags into twilight, I look forward to Mak’s return.

  In my self-imposed isolation, news travels slowly. Though I don’t dare ask around—I’m too caught up in my need to stay hidden—I assume that Cheng must surely be finding the rest and comforts that I am. But I am wrong. Within weeks I learn through her younger sister that Cheng has died from edema. How? The strong girl who pulled me through grass and woods, who helped me escape? How could she go so fast? Was it the amoebic dysentery that had so scared her back in the camp? My heart cries out to her as grief rises in me. Pictures of how she took care of me return in my mind, of the days when I was groaning and delirious with fever and Cheng had lain beside me, patting my arm. She saved me from the death camp.

  There is no modern medicine, but Mak tries to cure me with folk remedies. She boils guava bark to extract a bitter juice for me to drink, to help stop the diarrhea. I am the good patient, diligently drinking the concentrated fluid, so strong that my brain seizes up. Gradually, Mak nurses me back to health. Soon a chhlop discovers me. His young, splotchy face peeks into our hut, spotting me. Mysteriously, I’m neither tortured nor sent back to Oh Runtabage. Instead, they send me to work in a rice field close to the village. Perhaps the Khmer Rouge’s disregard for the individual works in my favor—they have simply forgotten who I am and where I’m supposed to be.

  8

  When the Owl Cries

  I’m more than willing to plant rice. When the chhlop leader, Srouch, orders me to work with Mak and other women from Daakpo, I’m deeply relieved. Every morning I rise early with Mak to report to the rice field while Avy stays home with Map. I’ve learned to accept what cannot be changed. Living on scanty rice rations in the village—less than at the labor camp—is still better than the alternative. I trade food and cruelty for some sense of family.

  With Mak, I head to the dark, flooded rice fields each morning. There are no rest days, no holidays, no breaks, unless we are forced to attend a required meeting. I comply, even when my body is weak. Thoughts of food push me, and I pin my hopes on the promise of shade and a scanty lunch of leaves and rice. In the fields, I go hunting. Tiny field crabs, a slender snake, a crawling snail—any living tidbit can make me scramble after it.

  Like the older women, I step into the muddy field, heading for the tender green rice seedlings, spears poking out of the water like young grass. By now I know the routine, unlike my first time planting rice in Year Piar. I help with work that doesn’t need to be explained—scattering rice seedlings, transplanting them alongside Mak and the rest of the women until we’re finished. Then the next field, drenched with black, muddy water mixed with cow dung. I walk along the elevated pathway between rice paddies. My mind is elsewhere, dreaming about food, but my feet carry me to the next field. One foot sinks into the soft mud and onto a sharp point. Pain slices across the top of m
y left foot.

  I know I’m in trouble—a cut in contaminated field water and no medicine. In a second I want to undo my last steps, to remove the injury that is already spilling warm blood over my foot. Reaching down into the mud, I fumble to find what hurt me, a tree branch hidden in the mud. I want to take it to dry land so no one else will step on it. I struggle to crawl out of the rice field. I wipe the gray-black mud off my injured foot, a steady red river breaking loose. With an open, bleeding gash, I’m afraid to go back into the paddy. I know this will invite infection. But as an escapee, I have no choice. To stay invisible, I must transplant the rice. Everyone is working. I can’t risk another punishment. I don’t want to be taken away from Mak again. And I can’t let Mak see my foot. I know she’ll worry. I swallow my thoughts and wade back in.

  Infection develops quickly. It gets worse every day, from the long walk through the woods to the field and back to the hut. Sand, soil, mud. From standing in the manure-soaked rice field, transplanting rice seedlings all day. The infection ignites like a flame. At night I can’t sleep. It becomes itchy and painful. So painful that I scream out at night. Over and over, I call out to Pa. To ease this pain. To stop my tears. To be my doctor. Or just to be here with me. In my mind, he is so close, almost within my grasp. I yearn for his strength.

  Soon the pain becomes unbearable, erasing everything else. I cry out, begging, “Mak, help me, please help me.” Her shadow comes to me. Softly, she scratches around the wound. Her gentle touch soothes me to sleep, but the pain wakes me again, as if a large fierce bird is tearing at my foot, pinched tight in its claws. My throat hurts, raw from my own cries. I bang on the wall made of bamboo and palm. For one week, I cry every night. I’m used up, and Mak’s getting ill from lack of sleep and fatigue. I can’t help it. I keep calling for her, begging her to rub around my wound; she helps me many times, but when she is exhausted, she goes back to sleep, leaving me to scream alone.