When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Read online

  Now he has their trust, he asks them if Hou Yuon and Hu Nim,* high-ranking Khmer Rouge members, are already in Phnom Penh. My father knew these men when he was a young boy, long before they became Communists. Perhaps they could pull some strings for him, allow a passage to Olympic Market to retrieve Uncle Surg, Than, his mother, and his sisters’ families before we evacuate. But none of these Khmer Rouge men know of them. Pa finds out later from other Khmer Rouge coming through the street that Hou Yuon and Hu Nim won’t be coming to Phnom Penh. Pa’s heart sinks.

  The next morning brings more hopelessness and we brace for the unknown. The Khmer Rouge come by to remind us to leave. They ask if Pa has weapons. He turns over his pistols, requisitioned to him long ago for work. Pa gives his word that we’ll leave tomorrow, the twenty-first of April, holding out as long as he can in the hope that Uncle Surg and Than will return. For now, we must pack. Everyone has a chore, and we dully follow our duties: prepare meals for the road, hide money and any valuables: watches, jewelry, house title, birth certificates, etc.

  Ra hastily assembles cloth belts with compartments where bundles of money will be hidden. Some of us fold clothes and pack them. Others cook rice, cut vegetables, boil a pan full of eggs, which have been incubated by the hens we raised. Pa has to kill the hens for us to eat, ten of them.

  Tonight is a night of togetherness, the last wisp of freedom. The night presses on. Fatigue creeps up on me. I fall into a deep sleep, drifting off to the sound of chopping.

  Day has come. The morning steals upon us with a heavy, overcast pallor. It is as if nature is in mourning. The weather has been dreadful since the Khmer Rouge took over the country. Black clouds have covered the sky above Phnom Penh.

  Leaving our home this morning are Pa; Mak; Chea; Ra; Ry; myself; Avy, seven; Vin, three; Map, one; Aunt Heak, Uncle Surg’s wife; Ateek, their two-year-old son; their baby son, who is not yet one; and our dog, Akie. We are one of the last families to leave, setting out on foot. We lock our gate behind us and begin to walk.

  I am struck by how slowly we move, held back by the weight of our sorrow. Suddenly Pa stops walking the scooter as if tugged back by it. He scurries back to the house without saying a word to anyone. I follow him while everyone else stands on the road, waiting.

  Pa unlocks the gate. Dashes to the door, unlocks it. The door swings open.

  “Where do we keep chalk?” Pa murmurs to himself. “Where is it?”

  “Pa…”

  I want to tell him where the chalk is, but he disappears into the house. We’ve only left it for a few minutes and already it feels abandoned.

  Pa reappears wearing wrinkles on his forehead. He leaps onto the deck and begins to scrawl Uncle Surg’s name in huge strokes on the wall of the house. Then Than’s name is marked in place, followed by a message for them to meet us in Year Piar. In the wall note he tells Uncle Surg not to worry about his wife and two children—that he’s caring for them, taking them with us to Year Piar. They’ll be fine and he’ll see them soon.

  “Let’s go, koon,” Pa says softly as he steps off the deck.

  The exodus resumes. Main streets are closed, patrolled by the Khmer Rouge. Our family walks in a tight cluster, joining a slow trickle of people that becomes a tide. Around me, people move sluggishly, as if slogging through thick mud. Everybody carries something, except the littlest children. Pa walks the scooter, its tires squashed under the weight of suitcases and bags strapped to the backseat. Map and Vin stand at the front of the scooter, on the footrail. Chea and Ra walk bicycles with cooking ware and blankets strapped to them. Underneath Chea’s, Ra’s, and Ry’s blouses are three cloth belts containing our money. Mak and Ry carry cooked foodstuffs. Aunt Heak carries a handbag of baby clothes on her shoulder, her infant son in one arm, her older son’s hand with the other. She frowns as she stares into space, transfixed by the invisible.

  Out of the heart of the city, along the roads and streets, everywhere there are Khmer Rouge. They police everyone, tell us where to go. Merging onto a main thoroughfare, my family joins a chaotic mass of humanity. More people than I have ever seen, stuffed onto a paved street never meant to absorb these numbers. We are among a throng of about 2 million Cambodians who are forced from the city in a matter of days. Lines collect at the Sturng Mean Chey Bridge like solid matter jamming the neck of a bottle. From the mouth of the bridge stretches a massive river of humans with their belongings strapped to motorcycles, bikes, pedicabs, cars, carts, anything they’ve got. It is too crowded to drive. Anything motorized must be pushed. The human river flows on, as far as the eye can see. Around me I see city people, country people, recent refugees. Outsiders who fled here only weeks ago have little. Those who don’t have vehicles to transport their belongings carry them, baskets and bundles of possessions tied to both ends of a long stick and balanced on their shoulders. To me the scene seems like a page out of history, though schoolbooks and lessons seem worlds away right now.

  Intermingled with the humans are a group of frenzied pigs, dogs, and chickens. I can hear the fear in the incessant squeals of pigs, the protest of chickens carried under arms and tied into baskets. Stationed on shoulders of the street, and on military trucks along the route, are young Khmer Rouge soldiers, mostly men. All dressed in black uniforms with dark blue-checked scarves tied on their heads or wrapped around their necks. Around their waists are loose belts of grenades and bullets. And in their hands and on their shoulders are machine guns. They point them at us, ordering us to move forward, to keep on moving, toward the bridge, not back into the city. There is only out, no in.

  Amid this mass of people is a little boy, about three, in gray shorts and a shirt. He cries at the top of his lungs. He is being moved along by the crowd while his little hands are raised in the air, shielding himself from the people passing. As we move forward, I no longer see him. But his cry still pierces the air, and I think of him and his little bare feet.

  I notice a sobbing couple fighting against the crowd, trying to wrestle their way back into the city. They look dressed up, as if they’ve just come from an office. But they’re stopped short by Khmer Rouge soldiers on the street. Rifles point toward them like accusing fingers. The couple quickly press the palms of their hands against each other, a gesture of respect and supplication. Pleading for mercy, they implore the soldiers to grant them passage to their home to retrieve their children.

  “You can’t go, comrades,” a Khmer Rouge barks, “It’s not allowed. Go!”

  Comrade. The word sounds strange to me. I do not understand it. And these young soldiers, younger than the couple they’re ordering about, don’t use the proper courtesies in addressing elders, don’t call them “aunt” or “uncle.” The way they speak to the couple suggests they consider themselves their equal. That’s not the way we greet our elders, especially in a time of crisis. The lack of respect shocks me. Authority is reversed. Guns now mean more than age and wisdom.

  “Athy, Athy!” Mak calls out to me. “Keep walking.”

  My feet move faster, propelled by the tone of Mak’s voice.

  “Walk by your father. Stop looking back, koon.”

  Mak frowns as she gestures with her head. I notice her stealing a glance at the distraught couple. She walks behind me as if trying to shield me.

  Finally we reach the bridge, but still the mass barely moves. My family is mashed against the metal railing of the bridge. I can’t see ahead beyond the wall of people, so I look down at the river. It is low, slow-flowing this time of year. Many things float in it, including corpses.

  “Pa, look.” I tug Pa’s shirt gently.

  “Athy, come here.” Pa gestures with his head.

  We now look ahead, only ahead. As the human river flows out of Phnom Penh, the water carries away the garbage of war. It is as if everything is being washed away.

  Then I hear the continuous barking of a dog. It sounds like a cry of frustration, a cry for help. The familiar sound jolts me back to reality.

  “Pa, where’s Akie
?” I blurt out. “I don’t see him.” I bend down, searching for him among the moving feet. Then I see him whimpering, trying to pass through the moving feet. His head tries to forge an opening among them.

  “Pa, Mak, Akie’s behind us!”

  “Athy, stop thinking about him. Keep walking,” says Pa softly. He looks straight ahead. Akie has been a part of our family, and I don’t want to lose him again, like during the Viet Cong invasion.

  “Mak, Akie doesn’t walk behind us anymore,” I whisper to my mother, eyes teary.

  “He’s probably lost, koon! Stop worrying about him. Keep walking.” Mak sounds concerned. Her motherly voice soothes me, and I obey.

  We make it across the river onto a stretch of paved highway, which is covered with lines of people—thousands and thousands, marching out like a giant flock of birds in forced migration, hurrying to beat the arrival of a storm. Now that we’re out of the city, the sky is blue and the sun is shining, and little children cry. Wails of misery and confusion form the background noise to moving feet.

  The Khmer Rouge are everywhere. We pass an open field and see them loading people into trucks. On the shoulders of the highway the Khmer Rouge soldiers stand sentry, holding rifles upright. They survey the moving crowd suspiciously, eyes darting among our faces.

  In the distance, I can see what seem to be military trucks and people in different uniforms moving in a field off the right side of the highway. When we get close, almost everyone is curious.

  “Pa, the Khmer Rouge tie Lon Nol’s soldiers up,” Chea announces.

  “Pa knows,” says Pa softly, as if he’s afraid someone will hear.

  His voice makes my heart hammer. What does this tying-up mean? What will happen to these men? There are about one hundred of Lon Nol’s soldiers in green camouflage. They are tied up, hands behind their backs. Walking behind them are lines of more tied-up men, including a few in civilian clothes. But among them are also those with their hands behind their heads, as the black-uniformed Khmer Rouge point rifles at them.

  Pa quickly walks the scooter into a thicker mass of moving people, trying to blend in with the crowd. Among them, he’s the tallest. He hunches his shoulders and spine, eyes studying the speedometer of the scooter. Mak notices this and so does everyone in the family. The worry passes through us all like a sudden chill.

  We pass the field, the checkpoint, and I’m relieved. Pa is, too. He walks the scooter normally again, his back straight, his eyes looking ahead. Ateek, Aunt Heak’s two-year-old son, sobs in misery. Pa puts him with Vin and Map on the scooter foot railing, and it’s enough. He’s quiet.

  Ahead of us, people slow down. From a distance, I see Khmer Rouge cadres stop every family. Pa stops the scooter. He murmurs something, tells me to stay still, then slips two watches above my wrist under the sleeve of my blouse. Mak gazes at him with a sour face. He assures her, “They won’t search children.”

  “Don’t say anything,” warns Pa softly. “Achea, Ara, hide your watches…. I’ll talk with them.”

  “Comrade, do you have a watch?” a Khmer Rouge soldier shouts at a man ahead of us. “If you have, give it to me! Have it or not?” The man before us fumbles through his cloth parcel, trying to show the angry soldier he doesn’t have any watch. With irritation the Khmer Rouge shoves the man forward, and his family nervously follows behind like dutiful slaves.

  Then it’s our turn to pass through the checkpoint, which consists of five Khmer Rouge soldiers with machine guns. Pa walks ahead, as if he’s stepping up to a ticket window for movie passes.

  “I have a watch, you can have it,” Pa exclaims. He stops walking the scooter and secures it nearby. He removes the watch from his wrist and hands it over. Pa knows the game. He’s cooperating.

  “Does comrade have more?” the soldier asks him fiercely as he hands Pa’s watch to a younger cadre standing behind him, who looks at my father’s watch with interest. His wrists are already decked out with many different watches. He grins shamelessly, like a greedy child who can’t have enough.

  I stand behind Pa and look down, trying to be calm.

  Pa politely says, “I have only one watch, no more.”

  The soldier waves for us to pass through.

  Ahead of us, on the shoulder of the highway, are farmers, five of them, standing, holding chunks of pork, still fresh, all bloody. They shout to us to buy their meat, “fresh pork,” they bid. Mak and Pa give an okay to buy some pork. They are relieved, and surprised, to know there’s a makeshift market in a time of need—we’ll need more food for the days ahead, maybe a week, as we journey to Year Piar village.

  At Sturng Krartort Lake, our resting place for the night, we find that hundreds of people have arrived before us. The spires of smoke from campfires rise everywhere. As late arrivals, we have to camp about half a mile away from the lake. After our meal, my parents, Aunt Heak, and some adults who camp near us, sit together talking about the future. Unlike my sisters and brothers, I mingle with these adults. Much is speculation, best guesses. Having some insight into the living conditions in Red China, Pa shares it with the group. “In China under Mao Tse-tung, when you want to eat your own chicken, you have to ask permission. Your property is under the government’s control. You have to have their permission to do things. Come to think of it, it’s better to be an American ‘servant’ [ally] than to be Chinese—because there’s freedom. Russian Communism, I think, is better than the Red Chinese because they use currency.”

  “How about the tied-up soldiers?” Mak interrupts Pa. “Those we saw on the road. What will happen to them?”

  “I don’t know what they’ll do to them. But I think the Khmer Rouge won’t just take the country. I think a government fights for its nation to liberate its people,” Pa philosophizes. He wants to believe the Khmer Rouge can be forgiving, that it can become the Cambodian people’s government.

  After that evening at Sturng Krartort Lake, we journey through many villages and make several stops. Our routine is simple. We walk most of the day and sleep during the night. The sky has become the roof of our home, and the distant stars replace our fluorescent lights. As we crowd together on blankets and plastic ground coverings, the loose tent of mosquito netting around us does little good. Mosquitoes feast on our blood, leave itchy red welts on our hands and legs.

  Within a week we approach Yiey* Narg’s house, Pa’s aunt, in Srey Va, a small rural village set amid dry, sandy fields on our way to Year Piar. I’m thirsty and hungry, eagerly expecting good food and comfortable rest on a soft bed like the one I left behind.

  But it is just a dream. Yiey Narg and her husband are modest farmers who have already lived under the Khmer Rouge for five years. Their wooden house is small and crowded. There are no chairs, only a hard platform and a bamboo counter near it. Instead of lush greenery, the overwhelming color here is drab brown. I stare at a few banana and papaya trees thriving in a dry, sandy backyard. The soil is as worn-out as the expression on Yiey Narg’s and her husband’s faces.

  Yiey Narg informs us how restricted her family’s freedom has been since the Khmer Rouge arrived. They had touted a promise of equality. And yet, her family can’t fish or trade with other people as they used to. They can’t travel outside the confines of their own rural neighborhood. As a result, there are deprivations. It seems they have little salt for cooking. And so they’ve learned to improvise, using ashes from the cooking fire to preserve the fish they’ve caught.

  After we have a simple rural meal, Pa wants to head to Year Piar immediately. But Yiey Narg insists we all rest overnight at her house. Pa is polite but adamant about going to see his father.

  “Then your wife and children stay. And Heak and her children. All right, you stay, rest.” She makes up her mind for all of us, which is almost always the way it is with Cambodian elders. “Tidsim,” Yiey Narg continues, “be careful. I’ve heard rumors. Some families have had to go elsewhere, beyond their home provinces, because the Khmer Rouge are not trustworthy. They’ll question you a
bout your past profession. Who knows what they’ll do to you…. Be careful, don’t trust them,” she warns Pa.

  Be careful, don’t trust them. The words sound ominous yet abstract—an open-ended warning. But my fear is more realistic now, especially when I hear this admonition from a relative who has lived under the Khmer Rouge for five years.

  Pa takes me with him to Year Piar. I’m very tired, but relieved to be leaving. Like Pa, who believes in human goodness, I still believe that life could return to what it used to be. Already, as we are about to leave for Year Piar, I look forward to something less grim.

  “Athy, koon, don’t sleep, do you hear?”

  Even as I close my eyes, cheek pressed against Pa’s warm back, I feel the fog of exhaustion settle over me. But I must leave this place. And I’m happy to be here, clinging to Pa like a weary little monkey.

  The labored strains of the scooter engine propel the wheels along a dried-mud path while my tired eyes struggle to stay open.

  “Pa, are we almost there yet?”

  “We’re almost there, koon. Don’t sleep now.”

  “No,” I say softly.

  I lie. My eyes are barely open. My hands are losing their grip on Pa’s waist. Already I’m beginning to doze off. Now and then I feel Pa’s hand shaking my back repeatedly. I hear him say, “Don’t sleep, koon. We’re almost there.” I open my eyes, then close them once again.

  Soon I hear children’s voices. Gradually the chorus becomes louder, “Look, those things spin!” The chatter of joyous laughter follows. A wave of young children run toward us as if we were a traveling novelty act.

  Pa slows down, then suddenly comes to a stop, causing our bodies to jerk forward. Children swarm around us out of nowhere, hovering the way flies cluster around raw flesh. They chase us, pointing and giggling like fools at the wheels. Some reach out to touch the rubber scooter tires, which hold a strange, hypnotic allure for them.