When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Page 5

  But in this year, 1975, there’s no New Year spirit. Fear, not angels, is in the air. The Khmer Rouge have grown big and dangerous. They have seized most of the outer provinces. Inch by inch, they close in on Phnom Penh. They shell the city. The bombing hasn’t touched our lives, but sometimes we hear the shrill whizzing of artillery overhead. Families dig up the earth, create makeshift bunkers and bomb shelters in their yards, using whatever space they can find. Schools close pending further notice. My own school has become a field hospital, a ragtag home for hundreds of soldiers, many of whom are wounded. We must stay close to home, no bike-riding to market. In the meantime, we pray for the safety of loved ones.

  Even though I am only nine, my mind constantly chants the Buddhist wish, something only adults usually do. But I’ve watched, listened to them, and learned. While the crowded population of Phnom Penh braces for the impact of artillery, I chant the wish again and again:

  —Sadtrow mok pe mook ay romlong. Sadtrow mok pe croay ay rarliey. “If the enemy comes before you, make it pass over. If it comes behind, make it vanish.”

  4

  When Broken Glass Begins to Float

  The New York Times

  May 6, 1975

  “Victors Emptying Cambodia Cities, U.S. Now Believes”

  Washington, May 5—State Department officials said today they believed the Cambodian Communists had forcibly evacuated virtually the entire population of Phnom Penh soon after they took power in the capital early last month.

  Two days after the New Year, April 15, 1975, Uncle Seng comes home, brusquely shoving the gate open. Without a word he scurries into the house. He rushes to his bedroom, dropping a camouflage bag onto his bed, and crams clothes inside it. I dash to the kitchen, where Mak is.

  “Mak, Poo* Seng is acting strange. Just came in and shoved his clothes in his bag. Mak, go and look at him.”

  Mak frowns. She pauses, then bends toward me and says, “Go tell your father. Go, koon!”

  I tell Pa exactly what I told Mak, except this time I speak at a rate twice the speed of my pulse. Pa gets up quickly and strides through the house to see Uncle Seng. He’s already on his way out. Pa and I intercept him near the gate.

  “Seng! Where are you going?” Pa demands.

  “I’m leaving Cambodia,” Uncle Seng replies. He avoids Pa’s eyes, and stares at the ground as if there’s no need for discussion.

  “Aren’t you going to see Yom?”* Pa sputters, indignant that he would leave without consulting an elder.

  Uncle Seng sadly replies, “Lok bang!† The Khmer Rouge are my first enemy. I won’t stay to see their faces.” His words tumble out like flat stones. He speaks decisively. “I’ll fly to Kampong Chhnarng and meet my friends, then fly with them to Thailand. Lok bang, I’m going.”

  Uncle Seng walks out. Pa is speechless. He looks at me, and in his eyes I see tears. It is hard for the oldest brother to lose control, and yet in the face of war he has none.

  Like many families whose houses are built close together, we don’t have any space for a bomb shelter. We count on Aunt Nakry, Mak’s younger sister, who has a bomb shelter about two houses down. In the stark moment after bombs have fallen elsewhere in the city, children, men, and women run outside their homes, craning their necks to watch the danger. We do the same, including my siblings, my parents, and Uncle Surg, Pa’s younger brother (who is older than Uncle Seng), whose family has been staying with us for a few months. Where is the danger? Our eyes survey the surroundings. Little is said. Glancing at our neighbors, we wonder where the bombs will hit. Will there be more? Which part of the city will the Khmer Rouge bomb? No one knows. For now, I’m relieved that the bombs have missed us.

  The next morning, April 16, 1975, Pa goes to his office. It is a desperate bid to be normal. Although he doesn’t think many of his subordinates will come to work, and there will be no ships coming to the port, he feels compelled to oversee the facility. While Pa’s at work, everyone else stays home. There’s been no school for a month now.

  When night shadows stretch between the houses and spill onto the streets, Pa still isn’t home. Then it’s completely dark, and still he’s not home. Suddenly a hollow boom explodes behind our home. A chatter of artillery shakes the foundation of our home, sending shrapnel almost simultaneously onto the roof, as if rocks are showering down on us like rain. Mak comes running from the kitchen with my baby brothers, “Koon, hide somewhere! Hide! Under your uncle’s bed. Take your brothers!” Mak screams to Ry and Than.

  We hide under Uncle Seng’s mattresses, sliding under it swiftly. Another boom and I bump my head, jerking against the bedsprings. Then another, and it sends me into a cramped huddle with Ry, Than, Avy, Vin, and Map. The sounds are deafeningly loud. I am too scared to pray even the Buddhist wish.

  The shelling stops. A while later Mak tells us it’s okay to come out. I’m relieved and feel I can breathe normally again. Mak, Chea, and Ra peek in at us, and reach out their hands to help us unfold our stiff bodies, which are clenched into tight little balls.

  The next morning, April 17, 1975, I awake to a voice. The radio blasts. My legs involuntarily slap against the mattress. For a second I feel as if I’m awakening from death, for my body has never felt this exhausted before.

  An unusual male voice comes on the air. It doesn’t speak, it shouts. “Surrender! Phnom Penh has been taken over!” I leap out of bed to find everyone. Mak, Chea, Ra, Ry, and Than are crowding onto the couch listening to the radio. Threatening words shoot from the radio: “If you don’t give up your weapons and display a white flag, our comrades will consider this an act of rebellion against us,” the voice intones.

  “Chea, all of you, Ra koon, make a flag! Hurry!”

  Chea, Ra, and Ry disperse as soon as Mak’s words leave her mouth. Ra looks in one closet and Chea runs to another with Ry. For a second I panic, burning with the need to do something. But then I see Ra fumbling through the closet. Mak dashes into her bedroom. Than runs out the door, and I follow. Than unlashes the gate and I zip through it to the road.

  The morning is overcast as I make my way up the road. I don’t see any flags, but I notice some women running to other neighbors. They seem as frantic as my mother. With shrill voices, they alert people to put up white flags, warn each other to listen to the news on the radio.

  More people are out of their houses, and the road fills with them. Men and women ask about others, wondering what will happen next. No one knows how this sudden change will affect them. Thankfully, I spot Pa approaching on his light blue scooter. He stops abruptly in the middle of the road, planting his feet on the ground to secure the scooter near a few men. Pa says something while keeping his grip on the scooter’s handles. One of the men says something back, and Pa nods his head. As quickly as they’ve come together, they scatter, scurrying. As Pa is about to take off, more people approach him, anxious for news.

  “Pa!” I keep running, overjoyed that he’s all right.

  When I reach the crowd surrounding him, I call out again. Pa stops his conversation. He turns and is surprised to see me. Pa quickly says, “Athy, why aren’t you at home? Go back home, koon. Go.”

  I obey. I can’t help noticing how weary and rumpled Pa looks. His eyes are bloodshot, cloudy with a web of pink little veins, and more sunken than usual. I realize that he’s not wearing his inspector’s uniform. Instead, he wears an ivory-colored shirt and dark brown slacks.

  As I’m running home, I hear Pa’s voice shout: “Put a white flag in front of the house! They won, and we lost.”

  A woman shouts from her balcony, “Lok!* We don’t have a white flag. Where can we get a white flag?”

  Pa diverts his attention from the crowd. He looks up. “It doesn’t have to be a nice white flag. A white pillowcase or a white piece of bedsheet will work. Anything white will show them we surrender!”

  I’m anxious to let Mak know that Pa is coming. Through the open gate I fly, shouting: “Mak! Pa’s coming home. I saw Pa tell people to put out
white flags. Pa’s almost home.”

  Everybody anxiously rushes out of the house. We swarm around Pa like bees around honey as soon as he walks inside the gate. After a deep breath, he exclaims, “The Khmer Rouge got the country. We’re in trouble.”

  A powerful admission for everyone. Pa shakes his head and slowly walks into the house. Everyone is anxious to hear what he has to say about the Khmer Rouge. He sits on the couch and sighs. Without a word, we take our places.

  Pa speaks, choosing each word with precision: “Srok Khmer [Cambodia] has fallen into the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Our lives will not be the same. They have ordered Lon Nol’s soldiers to put down weapons and surrender. If people refuse to give up their weapons, they will be shot.”

  Pa sighs deeply, his face pale. He continues, “They caught Lon Non* and his relatives. I don’t think they will let these people live. They have no mercy for civilians. They threaten people who still hide in bomb shelters. They shout a few times for them to come out. They don’t give those scared people a chance to get out. Then they throw hand grenades into those bomb shelters. No one can survive that, not even an ant.”

  “Why didn’t you come home last night?” asks Mak. “I thought something terrible had happened to you. Our children were frightened and kept asking for you.”

  “I wanted to come home as soon as our bureau realized the Khmer Rouge were just across the river from Phnom Penh, but we were not allowed to leave. The Khmer Rouge shelled everywhere in the city. We were absolutely forbidden to leave.” He jerks back to the moment. “Did we put a white flag in front of the house?”

  “Not yet, Pa,” Chea replies. “I ran out to see you and didn’t get to finish making the flag.” She looks apologetic—a strange expression for my bold big sister. But the bad news tames everyone.

  “It doesn’t have to be nice, koon. Get a white pillowcase, hang it up somewhere where it can be seen. Hurry! It’s important to show the Khmer Rouge our cooperation.”

  Pa gets up from the couch, and so does everyone else, almost in unison. He turns to Mak. “I’ll go see if our neighbors have put up their flags. If we don’t help each other out, the Khmer Rouge will think we don’t want to surrender. They’ll harm us all. I’ll be back.”

  I run behind my father. I call out, “Pa, I want to go, too.” I reach out and cling to his right hand.

  He stops and says, “Athy, stay home with your mother! I’ll be back.”

  “But I want to go with you!” I look at the ground.

  “All right, come!” He holds on to my hand.

  I’m relieved, feeling secure simply by being in his presence. Pa and I stop at houses that post no flag. He stresses its importance. I feel proud that my father takes the initiative to care for strangers as if they’re family.

  The next morning I leave my home right after breakfast. Now that Pa is all right, school has been on my mind. I run to my friend Thavy’s house, about seven houses down. I’m anxious to find out if our school was destroyed since the Khmer Rouge bombed around it several times.

  Thavy brings her six-year-old brother along as if we’re going to the grocery store to buy candy or gum. As we walk, each of us holds her brother’s hands. We share frightening experiences of the bombing night. It’s like telling ghost stories. Before we know it, we’re on the sidewalk of our school, or what is left of it.

  We freeze. Like small statues, we go chalky in shock. Our eyes are drawn to the raw, gaping crater formed by one of the bombs, where the left side of the fence had been. We slowly begin to walk through the torn fence. Pieces of broken fence and tree branches are littered in crazy disarray. A breeze fans my face, and with it comes a potent, reeky smell. “Something stinks,” I announce.

  The destruction of something so familiar draws us closer. We dash toward the crumbled buildings, and the stench grows stronger. On the ground along the way, we see a soldier’s camouflage hat and burnt pieces of wood from the classrooms. As we move even closer, the smell gets stronger and buzzing flies swarm.

  Before our eyes lie piles of dead soldiers in destroyed bomb shelters that had been constructed in rectangular spaces where flower beds used to bloom, between the steps to each classroom. Big flies with greenish heads and eyes swarm the gaping wounds in the soldiers’ decaying bodies. One blown-away leg lies beside the step to the first classroom, lonely and morbidly out of place. One soldier’s crooked body lies on top of other soldiers’, his mouth frozen open in excruciating pain.

  I am nine years old.

  Never have I seen so much death. For a moment I am hypnotized, spellbound by the ways these soldiers have been killed. I’m oblivious to Thavy or her brother’s hand, which is still caught in my ever-tightening grip. I cover my mouth and stare at the heap: piles of blood-encrusted, decaying body parts, and green swarms of hungry flies gorging on open wounds. My stomach begins to move. The breakfast I ate makes its way up my throat, followed by dizziness. Only then do I get hold of myself and feel the repeated tug, the persistent pull of Thavy’s brother’s hand.

  “Thy, let’s go,” Thavy cries out, a voice that seems to drone on like a slow echo. When the words reach my ears, it is as if they reach me from some place dense and distant. They snap me out of my trance.

  We run toward the hole in the fence where we entered. I run, then behind me I hear a boy crying in a sudden burst at the top of his lungs—Thavy’s brother trips and falls when they reach the fence. I’ve forgotten why I’m no longer holding his hand and somehow have run past them both. Thavy’s shriek pierces the air as she lifts her brother, yanking up a little boy dressed in blue shorts and sandals as if he has taken a routine spill on the playground, as if it were a normal day. I run back to help. I look toward the school buildings, almost expecting to see a shadow, the ghost of that suffering soldier coming after me.

  We grab her brother’s small hands and run. We methodically clean dirt off Thavy’s brother, brushing off his hands and knees to erase evidence that would lead to any suspicious questions from adults. We try to calm him and bribe him with promises of candy, gum, crackers—anything that comes to mind. Anything to get his terrified mind off the school and the decaying corpses, to return him to a normal state of mind as we near our separate homes.

  As they leave me at my home, I watch Thavy walk away, an arm snaking around her little brother as she murmurs reassurances. I see their small backs moving up the street. It is a rare parting. The last time I will ever visit my school. Perhaps the last time I will ever see Thavy.

  Once home, I try to be as normal as I can, acting like I’ve just come back from a typical visit at a friend’s house. No one suspects my spying, nor the horror that has visited our playgrounds. I keep it to myself and it seems to eat me up, devouring me from the inside out.

  The next day the news reaches us—the Khmer Rouge are ordering everyone out of the capital city. The Americans will bomb us, we are told. We have to be three kilometers (about two miles) away from Phnom Penh to avoid the bombing. Since we are not going far from the capital, we are told we shouldn’t take too many belongings, just enough to last until we are allowed to return.

  Upon hearing of the imminent evacuation, Pa asks Uncle Surg and Than to get his mother, Yiey Khmeng, and his sisters’ families near Olympic Market. His plan is to leave the city together. If we are not allowed to return, we’ll head to his birthplace in Year Piar village, the Khmer Rouge’s “long-liberated” area where my grandfather, Kong Houng, lives. The trip to pick up his mother shouldn’t take long, only about ten minutes to reach the families’ houses. Maybe an hour or two to pack belongings. But two hours turn into three, daylight turns to cool night, and still we don’t see or hear the car or voices of Than or Uncle Surg. Nothing.

  Everyone is worried, especially Pa and Uncle Surg’s wife, Aunt Heak. Mak worries about Than, but feels he’ll be okay since he’s with Uncle Surg. Pa decides to go after them. Mak insists he wait until morning. Pa doesn’t say anything to Mak, but gets ready, tugging on his shirt and pants. He
retrieves his keys and asks me to unlatch the gate. The scooter starts up with a pop and growl, then headlight and taillights wink on and in a few seconds Pa disappears up the dark road.

  In a short while, he’s back. “These Khmer Rouge are difficult to deal with. They pointed rifles at me and made me turn around.”

  The following morning, April 19, Pa walks to a nearby street. After a few hours Pa returns to tell us more Khmer Rouge are pouring into Phnom Penh. Their skins are dark from being in the sun, their appearance crude, as if they need a good bath. Their heads are wrapped with scarves like a farmer’s turban. Sitting defiantly atop tanks, military jeeps, and trucks, they form a strange victory parade. Renegade floats decorated with ragtag humans. Their uniforms look like black pajamas. Many wear red-and-white-checked scarves wrapped around their necks like mufflers. Their sandals are odd, with soles fashioned of car tires and pieces of inner tube strapping them into place. It fits with their bare-fisted philosophy of combat.

  That doesn’t really concern my father. What catches his eye is their physical condition, their malnourished bodies. They act tough with guns and rifles strapped onto their shoulders, but their sallow complexions betray their suffering. Pa sees not only with his eyes but with his heart. In the evening Pa takes a bottle of multivitamins to these malnourished Khmer Rouge. To them, he looks like a Chinese merchant.

  A man with good intentions holds a bottle of medicine and a flashlight. He is not fearful of the ones he seeks to help. Aware only that their newly seized turf is being trespassed upon, the soldiers roar and growl like hyenas, puffed up with false bravado to intimidate Pa. They stab their rifles at my father as they close in on him.

  Pa shines the light on the white vitamin bottle and explains his intention. But an explanation will not suffice. They don’t trust him, they accuse him of trying to poison them. One snatches the bottle away. To ease their suspicions, Pa pops two red-coated vitamins into his mouth, chewing them like candy. Only then do the Khmer Rouge put their hands out, and Pa feels like a child sharing his goodies with bully kids.