Never Fall Down

by Patricia McCormick

  When she finish she gives me a lump of sugar. Like treasure, this sugar, like gold, like sapphire.

  I take it and sneak over to the building where Mek sleep. I hold this sugar in the air and drop it on his chest. When he wake up, I tell him that the spirit, the one with the sugar, finally has come. We break this treasure in two and eat it very, very slow, melting on our tongue. Then I lie down next to Mek. We sleep close, like father and son, until the morning, and I sneak back to my building.

  Tonight I’m lucky. Again I’m cook. I can sneak some extra rice. And this time, save it for myself.

  A Khmer Rouge, he comes to the kitchen with something sticking on the end of his bayonet. He puts it on the plate and says, “Here, fry this for me.”

  I know what this is. It’s liver. Human liver. From someone just killed. Still bouncing on the plate.

  I do what he says. I do this. I cook it. I fry this human flesh.

  We live here a very long time now, more than one year, on only rice soup. No meat, no fish, no spice. A body with no meat for one year has a big belly full of nothing, skin like lizard, gums all black. And this thing in the frying pan, it smell good. So good I want to eat it. I want to eat this meat. I want to. I am so hungry and it smell so good.

  But I don’t do it. Because maybe next time another kitchen boy, he will be eating me.

  I sneak to Mek’s building that night to tell him about this thing that happen in the kitchen, but I hurry so much, I crack the branch in the wood. A Khmer Rouge guarding the rice, he yells stop. “Traitor,” he says. “Come out and show your face.”

  This is death. To be out alone at night is death. To run, that’s also death. So I raise my hands and come out of the wood.

  The Khmer Rouge, he click his gun, ready to fire. “You the khim player?”

  I nod.

  He put the gun away. “Go back to bed,” he says.

  The big dancer with the flag, his name is Siv. Since I been sneaking him food, he tries very hard to remember about not covering my face, but still sometime he forget. Always he says next time he will remember. This guy, he smile a little, like embarrass. A long time since I see someone smile, and I think maybe I should warn him: Khmer Rouge see you smile, they can kill you. But this guy, so kind, so simple, I think he can’t hide his feeling.

  He’s a big guy, but each day I see him getting smaller from all this hard work and not enough food. One time at practice, he falls down and also the flag goes down. The Khmer Rouge guarding us, he gets very angry, says Siv has to come with him to talk about his bad character.

  You can see in Siv’s face fear, because now we all know, from the boy with malaria, what will happen. We never will see Siv again.

  I tell the guard it was my fault. I say, “I trip him, I guess.” I don’t know why I say this, but I don’t feel afraid. I feel like I have to protect this big clumsy guy who trip on his feet, this kid who always try not to cover my face with the flag.

  The guard, he doesn’t like this. I think he knows that maybe I’m not telling the truth. He makes a mad face, but he says, “Okay, get back to work.”

  And I know then I have power. Power from playing the khim and leading the other singer. Power from also being a dancer. Power from being a little bit a star in the show. I feel big with this power—tall, not like little kid—like right now I just stop Siv from probably dying. No one here talks back to the Khmer Rouge, no one challenge them. But maybe I can now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BAD HARVEST THIS TIME. THE SOIL, IT’S WORKING TOO HARD, planted too many times with no time to rest, and so the rice crop is small. But Khmer Rouge say it’s because of lazy workers. So our food now is even less. The rice soup, it’s like water, only gray, grit and little stone sometimes at the bottom. Some day no soup at all.

  These kid working here, I know them now for almost two year. In two year they not growing bigger, taller. They only growing old.

  All have bellies swole up, like balloon. All have knee and elbow big like melon. Some with hair turned yellow. Some with hair falling out. Some with fingernails scooped out like spoon. All these kid so hungry, but sometime they not able even to eat. No craving for food anymore, no energy for it.

  I only can steal chaff now. It’s not real food. It’s the skin of the rice, what left behind after threshing. Humans can’t eat this stuff. Only pigs. For humans it’s too hard. Makes your shit turn to rock. But at least you shit something.

  New schedule announced at meeting tonight. Work from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m., 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Now, day and night, the same thing.

  Also the word sleep, it’s not allowed anymore. Okay to say rest, but not sleep. Forget this word.

  Many night, the kitchen girl, she come for me and make me sleep in her building. I say we both can be kill if anyone finds out. She just says she can kill me herself if she want to.

  When she finish with me, she gives me sugar ball or sometimes rice, but it in my mouth it’s like dust. Always I save the rice for Siv or Kha. I give it when they’re sleeping, put it on the mat near their head. I push them a little to wake up, then hide where they can’t see. They see this food and eat it like in a dream. But never do they look around to see where it come from. Because they know that if I’m the one who give it, then maybe one night at confession meeting they have to tell.

  The sugar I give always to Mek. Sometime I save it. Save it for some night when I can’t sleep, so much kid moaning and crying and smelling like diarrhea. That night I get up, go see Mek. Now that I’m a little bit famous, the guards see me, they don’t say anything.

  If Mek sleeping, I drop this bit of sugar on his head, or maybe on his chest, so he will wake up with this good surprise. Always he think it’s a stone falling down. Then he bite it and smile. Those night, we sleep together, like father and son, very safe. Only good thing in this camp, those nights I go see him.

  One night, so much misery in my building, I go see Mek, but I have no treat to give. No corn, no sugar. Small stone instead, I drop it on his chest. He wake up; now he’s expecting sugar and he bite it. He can’t believe it, this trick! He give me fake spanking, smiling very big, then he says, this time, he has a treat for me.

  We lie down; and very, very quiet he hum me old song, song illegal now in Year Zero. Old Cambodian love song, but also the Beatle, also American song. No word, this small humming in his throat, like purr, like Mek is giant cat. And me, I burrow to his side like I am the small cat.

  Music practice now three time a day. And sometime even in the middle of the night. We know all the song now, very good. So every time they say practice, we know it’s time for killing. We play fast, no stopping, to cover the sound of the killing, but you hear it anyhow. Sickening sound. Skull cracking. You hear it every day. Death is every day.

  Real audience tonight. Not just microphone. Some high-ranking Khmer Rouge watching. Their faces orange from firelight. Like gourd. Fat and round face. Not skull face like kids. Face fat from eating good foods, like meat, like fish, like sugar.

  One face I see in the crowd is tiny, like mouse. And eyes that seem like they know me. When the show is over, the little mouse girl, she comes to me. “Arn,” she says. She has the voice of my little sister, but like ghost. “Arn, it’s me, Sophea.”

  This girl, the sister could climb a tree and swear, now she’s like old woman—thin hair, skin hanging off, teeth missing.

  “Back at the old camp, we hear about you singing,” she says. “So our aunt tells me, ‘Go see Arn; maybe he has some food for us.’”

  The old camp is very far. Two days walking. And the Khmer Rouge have patrol all over. I don’t know how my sister can do this walk. I tell her to wait and I go see the Khmer Rouge girl who like me. I beg for food, tell her she can do anything to me if I can have some food.

  My sister asleep on the grass when I get back. Asleep like almost dead. I give her three corncob—one for her, one for my aunt, one for my little brother.

  She giv
e one corn back to me. “He dead,” she says. “He die after you leave. He keep calling out for you. Asking for you to bring him palm sugar.”

  One boy who sleep near me, five-year-old boy, little kid, like my brother, he disappear at night. I don’t know where, maybe looking for food. If the Khmer Rouge find out, they can kill him. Kill me, too, for not stopping him. I know this, but I’m too tire to look for him.

  In the morning at 5 a.m. the wandering boy is back. He sleep like dead, like not even breathing. The Khmer Rouge say to me, “Wake him up.” This boy is so little, he not even have front teeth, so I lie for him. “This boy too sick to work,” I say.

  The next night he disappear again. I sneak out and I find him eating grass.

  “Don’t do this,” I tell him. “They will kill you.”

  He smile like he crazy, his mouth green like grass. I bring him back to bed.

  The next morning, again, he sleep like dead, like ghost. I say he is sick again.

  “He not sick,” says the Khmer Rouge. “He lazy. Kill him.”

  I beg him. “No, please don’t.” I don’t know why. You can’t say “please” to the Khmer Rouge, but I do.

  The next night I can’t sleep. Too much kid screaming, too much kid crying and moaning. And I don’t know if this is my dream or this is real. I look around for the wandering boy and he’s gone.

  I look for him everywhere. By the side of the hut, in the kitchen. I see a light, a small light, in the mango grove. A bad smell there, and sometimes the bodies get bloat and blow up and pop out of the ground. I’m scared of that place, scared of ghost, but I go anyway.

  And I see the wandering boy. I see him crouching, holding arm of a dead guy, chewing. I don’t know how long he been doing that, eating the flesh, the human flesh; but now I know why he always asleep in the morning.

  The next day, the Khmer Rouge say rice is missing in the kitchen, and they accuse this boy. Today I am too tire to say please.

  They tie him and hit him. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t cry because he have no feelings now. He a ghost already.

  I let him die. Because now I’m a ghost myself.

  New job for me. Not cook. Now I go with one other kid each night to the mango grove. We walk with the prisoner. At the mango grove, me and one other boy, we take the clothes off prisoner before the killing. I don’t know why we take the clothes. Maybe to use again.

  The prisoner, mostly men, but sometimes also women and also children, sometime they yell at me. Sometime they beg. Most time they stay quiet.

  They kneel down, and the leader in the white shorts, he hit them with the ax. Then me and the other boy, we push them into the grave.

  Sometime he hit a person once and they not die, but he says, “Bury them anyway.” Sometime the people swear at me from the ground.

  After, I hear them in my head. I hear them all the time.

  Sometime I practice music with my eyes closed. I go away then, like to heaven, it’s so quiet. In that moment I escape. Like floating above the earth, like cloud. Like not even having a body, only being a sound myself. I ride the wind up and down, sunshine sparkle on me, wind tickle me, lift me higher, higher, till no thought in my head, only music.

  Then I open my eyes and come back. To smell of shit. And blood. And dead bodies. And fear. Always fear.

  So much pain in my stomach tonight, I can’t make it all the way to the latrine. I have to stop next to the pond. I sit on my heels and wait for the shit to come, but nothing. Not water. Just pain.

  I hear running now and a guy coming close, saying, “Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.” This guy is coming toward me, closer and closer, running away from the Khmer Rouge. The soldier chasing this guy, they shoot at him; they shoot everywhere. It’s dark and everyone wearing black, and I think maybe they can’t see me. They will shoot me if they think I’m the running-away guy. They will shoot me if they can’t see me. They will shoot me for no reason.

  I expect it now. I expect to be kill. It’s all dark, but I can see the gunshot flash white. They shoot everywhere—bang!—like crazy. I see the water close to me blowing up. I hear a soft sound now, a wet sound, bullet stopping in flesh. The guy run straight to me and falls down. Right on top of me.

  So this dead guy, this guy on top of me, he save me.

  The Khmer Rouge, they kill whatever they hate. Sometime, even, they hate each other. They suspect always that someone is no good, and so they test, they ask questions, like trick. “Do you love Angka? More than your brother? Then tell us if your brother is bad. Tell us if you see him be lazy or steal food.” You say no, they kill you. They say yes, they kill your brother. Then they kill you, too.

  Always, with a kind voice, they say to each other, comrade this, comrade that. One day you are comrade. The next day corpse.

  New prisoner coming to the camp all the time. No hiding them anymore. Now the Khmer Rouge take them right through the square. Tie together, head low. They beat them in front of us so we can see what happen to people with bad character. Always the Khmer Rouge watch us, all the time. They watch to see if you show any emotion to the victim. You do, they kill you.

  One time, a boy in my group, he see his sister come to the square. The sister see him, too. But she look away. Pretend not to know him. Because she understand he can be kill just for being her relative.

  The Khmer Rouge, they hit the prisoner, one by one, with the stick while they make us watch. Now it’s time for the boy sister. I hold his hand very tight, squeeze it hard. They hit her with a stick, hit the head, the shoulder, the leg, and each time I squeeze his hand so he can’t cry out. She hold her head high, then quick she go down, no more life in her, and very slow, very quiet, I lead him away.

  A new soldier is guarding the band now. The old one, he fell asleep one time during practice and the head guy saw. We never see that guard again.

  The new guard, we all afraid of him. Even Mek. He turn pale as soon as this guy come to our building. This new guy, he’s big, tall, his eyes little, like shark. And all the time watching me. Watching everyone, but looking specially at me, like he know something bad I did.

  One day after practice, he tell me to wait behind. The other boy, they so scare, they can’t even look at me. Siv, he look maybe like he’s gonna vomit. These boy I steal food for, these boy I protect, they want to cry but can’t show it. I tell them it’s okay. I say, “See you later,” even though we don’t know if maybe we never will see each other again.

  When the kid are gone, Mek, he beg this soldier, “Kill me, I’m old. But leave this boy alone.” But the soldier, he just tell Mek to scram. And me, I tell Mek scram also, using almost angry voice. “Remember what I tell you,” I say to him. “If you don’t live, the kid in the band can’t live.” Then the soldier push Mek out the door.

  “Kneel on the floor,” he tell me. Then he tie his red-and-white-check scarf over my eyes. It’s all dark now and quiet, very quiet inside this scarf where I wait to die.

  “You think you pretty good, don’t you?” he says. “You think you’re a good musician, right?”

  No answer is the right answer for this question.

  “So play,” he says.

  I can’t see anything inside this scarf, but this guy, he hand me the bamboo stick. “Play,” he says. “Let’s see you play now.”

  I think again of the old man who taught me to play. I think of all this practice, three times a day, every day, and I know I can do this. I let the stick fall, and one ping sound, then one more, then many, many more, so fast it’s like this instrument, it’s playing itself.

  When I finish, he pull the scarf away and tell me to go. No look on his face. He just keep watching me all the way back to the temple.

  When I come to Mek building that night he look afraid, like he see a ghost. He pinch me, pull my hair to make sure I’m real boy. Then he grab me and hold me close. We go to sleep like before, like father and son; but I think in his nightmare, Mek is crying.

  The next day, the other kid, they lo
ok at me like maybe I have magic. They touch my arm like maybe this magic will rub onto them; and Siv, the big, simple guy, he drop the flag and pick me up in his arm, almost crushing my bone.

  Next day, I flirt a little with the kitchen girl and take one handful of rice, not even cooked, from the sack. I do this all the time now, so not even too sneaky this time, just put it in my pocket.

  I see this new guard watching me across the way, very suspicious. But I make a blank face like always.

  I walk past this guy, after, on the way to meeting, my hand in front so no one can see that my pocket, it’s a little fat. This guy see, though. He look at me so hard with his little shark eye, I know he can see inside my pocket. He look so hard at me I think maybe just his eye can kill me. But he don’t do a thing. Only watch me go by.

  This new guard, his name Sombo. I ask the kitchen girl about him. She says he’s the bodyguard to one of the top guy. Very fierce, two gun, one on each side, and always making a frown face. Everyone very afraid of this guy, she says. Too quiet. And always staring.

  This guy, Sombo, he catch me again. This time by the tamarind tree. Not even near the music building, not near the kitchen. Wherever I go, this guy, he show up. No one else around. But this guy, he come every time. This time he see me eating the tamarind. His little shark eyes exactly on me when I chew it.

  I walk right to him. “Why you not hit me?” I say. “Why you not tell the Khmer Rouge I steal the food?”